'Considering how little we know about the Dome, how can you or any of us be sure? How can we be sure it won't blow the Dome up and leave nothing but a mile-deep crater where Chester's Mill used to be?'
She looked at him in dismay. Hands in the small of her back, rubbing and kneading at the place where the pain lived.
'Well, that's in God's hands,' he said. 'And you're right, Andrea - it may work. But if it doesn't, we're on our own, and a commander in chief who can't help his citizens isn't worth a squirt of warm pee in a cold chamberpot, as far as I'm concerned. If it doesn't work, and if they don't blow all of us to Glory, somebody is going to have to take hold in this town. Is it going to be some drifter the President taps with his magic wand, or is it going to be the elected officials already in place? Do you see where I'm going with this?'
'Colonel Barbara seemed very capable to me,' she whispered.
"Stop calling him that!' Big Jim shouted. Andy dropped a file, and Andrea took a step backward, uttering a squeak of fear as she did so.
Then she straightened, momentarily recovering some of the Yankee steel that had given her the courage to run for Selectman in the first place. 'Don't you yell at me, Jim Rennie. I've known you since you were cutting out Sears catalogue pictures in the first grade and pasting them on construction paper, so don't you yell.
'Oh gosh, she's offended' The fierce smile now spread from ear to ear, lifting his upper face into an unsettling mask of jollity. 'Isn't that too cotton-picking bad. But it's late and I'm tired and I've handed out about all the sweet syrup I can manage for one day. So you listen to me now, and don't make me repeat myself.' He glanced at his watch. 'It's eleven thirty-five, and I want to be home by midnight.'
'I don't understand what you want of me!'
He rolled his eyes as if he couldn't believe her stupidity. 'In a nutshell? I want to know you're going to be on my side - mine and Andy's - if this harebrained missile idea doesn't work. Not with some dishwashing johnny-come-lately.'
She squared up her shoulders and let go of her back. She managed to meet his eyes, but her lips were trembling. 'And if I think Colonel Barbara - Mr Barbara, if you prefer - is better qualified to manage things in a crisis situation?'
'Well, I have to go with Jiminey Cricket on that one,' Big Jim said. 'Let your conscience be your guide.' His voice had dropped to a murmur that was more frightening than his shout had been. 'But there's those pills you take. Those OxyContins.'
Andrea felt her skin go cold. 'What about them?'
'Andy's got a pretty good supply put aside for you, but if you were to back the wrong horse in this-here race, those pills just might disappear. Isn't that right, Andy?'
Andy had begun washing out the coffeemaker. He looked unhappy and he wouldn't meet Andrea's brimming eyes, but there was no hesitation in his reply. 'Yes,' he said. 'In a case like that, I might have to turn them down the pharmacist's toilet. Dangerous to have drugs like that around with the town cut off and all.'
'You can't do that!' she cried. 'I have a prescription!'
Big Jim said kindly, 'The only prescription you need is sticking with the people who know this town best, Andrea. For the present, it's the only kind of prescription that will do you any good.'
'Jim, I need my pills.' She heard the whine in her voice - so much like her mother's during the last: bad years when she'd been bedridden - and hated it. 'I need them!'
'I know,' Big Jim said. 'God has burdened you with a great deal of pain.' Not to mention a big old monkey on your back, he thought.
'Just do the right thing,' Andy said. His dark-circled eyes were sad and earnest. 'Jim knows what's best for the town; always has. We don't need some outsider telling us our business.'
'If I do, will I keep getting my pain pills?'
Andy's face lit in a smile. 'You betcha! I might even take it on myself to up the dosage a little. Say a hundred milligrams more a day? Couldn't you use it? You look awfully uncomfortable.'
'I suppose I could use a little more,'Andrea said dully. She lowered her head. She hadn't taken a drink, not even a glass of wine, since the night of the Senior Prom when she'd gotten so sick, had never smoked a joint, had never even seen cocaine except on TV. She was a good person. A very good person. So how had she gotten into a box like this? By falling while she was going to get the mail? Was that ill it took to turn someone into a drug addict? If so, how unfair. How horrible. 'But only forty milligrams. Forty more would be enough, I think.'
'Are you sure?' Big Jim asked.
She didn't feel sure at all. That was the devil of it.
'Maybe eighty,' she said, and wiped the tears from her face. And, in a whisper: 'You're blackmailing me.'
The whisper was low, but Big Jim heard it. He reached for her. Andrea flinched, but Big Jim only took her hand. Gently.
'No,' he said. 'That would be a sin. We're helping you. And all we want in return is for you to help us.'
10