“I’m working all weekend,” Clara said. She wasn’t working at the clothing store. She wasn’t scheduled. But she would be working. Working on devising a plan to live without electricity.
She knew her face was red. She also realized she hadn’t put on any make-up that morning. She and Beatrice stayed up late watching movies and eating the rest of the popcorn because they didn’t know when they would be able to pop it again. The electricity would be shut off in one day. They both woke up late and Beatrice barely caught the bus. Clara slunk into first period Spanish just before the late bell.
“Do you work a lot?” Evan asked.
“Yes,” Clara said. She hung her face, and Evan wanted so much to touch her cheek, lift her face to his, and make her look at his eyes. His fingers itched to touch her skin. It was flawless skin—smooth and fair with a tinge of pink playing on her cheeks. He wanted to believe he put the pink there.
“Will you be working all next weekend?” he asked softly.
“I have to go,” Clara said. “Excuse me.”
She left in a hurry not looking at him. She mumbled something inaudible over her shoulder once she reached the Media Center doors, and he thought she wished him a nice weekend.
“You too,” he said sullenly and followed behind her.
***
“Did you know this thing was back here?” Beatrice asked Clara. She swung the arm forward. “Option Number Two.” Beatrice beamed at her sister.
“Be careful with those hands, Bea,” Clara said. “Soot.”
Beatrice looked down at her dirty palms. “I’ll clean my hands and then I’ll clean this thing.”
“No need,” Clara said. “It’ll just keep getting dirty. But it’s great you found it. Now we can boil water in the fireplace.”
“And the wood stove for cooking,” Beatrice said. “This’ll be fun.”
Clara grinned. “If you say so,” she replied.
“Look at it like an adventure, Clara,” Beatrice said. “We’re pioneer women living back in the olden days. Baking our bread from scratch and all that romantic stuff.”
“Romantic, huh? And how do you know about pioneer women?” Clara asked walking with Beatrice to the kitchen. She watched as her sister washed the black marks from her pearly skin.
“I learned about them last year,” Beatrice explained. “Can we bake our own bread?”
“No. We’re perfectly capable of buying already baked bread at the store,” Clara said.
“Hmm,” Beatrice said thoughtfully. “Can we make our own candles?”
Clara didn’t think about that. After writing her list and going over it a dozen times, she forgot all about candles.
“No, Bea,” she said. “We’ll get them at the store.”
It was agony for Clara knowing that today the electricity would be shut off. She hoped they would give her a few more days like the gas company. But that had finally been cut off as well. No gas. Soon no electricity.
Clara didn’t know the water heater was gas powered. She jumped in the shower a few days back and noticed the water getting cooler the longer she stayed in. She kept turning the faucet knob to the left, but it did nothing to generate hot water. When Beatrice complained of a tepid shower later that night, Clara knew there was a problem.
She went to the laundry room to investigate. She scanned the large cylindrical heater for any signs or stamped instructions that could help her. Only when she got on her knees to check a square cut-out towards the bottom of the heater did she notice the words, “Caution! Hot Flame.” She squinted, trying to see inside the square, but there was no flame. She surveyed the gray tube running from the square cut-out. It didn’t look like a tube that conducted electricity.
She felt stupid, like she should have known the water in the house was heated by gas. She asked Beatrice if she could handle cool baths for a few days until they worked out their new system. Beatrice was agreeable inventing a ridiculous reason for why the girls shouldn’t take hot showers during the summer months anyway. It was scientifically unhealthy, she explained.
Clara walked throughout the house, switching lights on for no reason except to see them glow one last time. She turned the fans on, felt the cool rush of breeze, watched it play with the ends of her hair and turn up the pages of her homework sitting on the coffee table. She heated lunch in the microwave—bowls of soup—and turned on the oven because she could. Every time she turned a light off, her heart gave out. She was convinced it would be the last time she saw it, but then she would flip the switch and the light would burn yellow all over again. Why were they torturing her?
She and Beatrice worked all night and into the morning to develop a No Electricity System. They called it NES for short. They had no idea how to work the wood stove, but they started practicing that morning, Clara forbidding Beatrice to put anything in it. If someone’s hands got burned, they would be her own. The girls determined that the “window” on the door could be opened to check that the fire never went out.
They knew they would need plenty of firewood and paper. The wood they could find in their back yard. It was littered with tree branches and tiny saplings that Clara thought she could cut down. Once the wood ran out, she would have to set aside money to buy it. The paper was easier. None of her neighbors recycled, but she knew that many did a few streets down. A few streets over was a different world—bigger houses, well maintained with conscientious residents who mowed their lawns and weeded their flowerbeds. Clara decided that late on the nights they set out their recycling bins, she would go down Oak Tower Trail and collect the old newspapers.
“Bea, I need to talk to you about something,” Clara said after a time. She followed Beatrice into her room. She followed her sister around much more often these days, mostly to tell her unfortunate things, but sometimes just to watch her. She liked watching Beatrice. She was such an odd child. Particular. Smart as hell. Funny and quirky in the way she organized her room.