He had a point there. “Fine,” I said. “But if this dinner goes sideways, it’s your responsibility to turn it around again.”
He made a gallant bow. “At your service, ma’am,” he said, and disappeared into the stairwell.
? ? ?
I got dressed. Today’s ensemble was ankle boots, a short skirt, and a flowy button-down shirt, all of them in taupe. Gunnar’s opinion aside, it was about blending. Especially now, when blending seemed like the best course.
I walked downstairs, flipped on the lights in the kitchenette . . . and nothing happened. I rolled my eyes, checked my watch, made a mental note to try again in ten or fifteen minutes. Power outages usually didn’t last very long. It was the frequency that was irritating. There were members of Congress who’d suggesting moving everyone out of the Zone, bulldozing the area, and layering on new soil from consecrated grounds. That, they assured us, would fix the problem, and we could all get back to normal.
The idea was stupid. And I guess, in a way, we’d gotten used to it. I’d been a normal teenager before the war, and I’d had my own share of gadgets. And yeah, they’d been a crutch, a way for me to tune in or zone out instead of thinking about whatever high school angst I’d been dealing with. In the beginning, it was weird not to have them anymore. But you learned to adjust. And you certainly learned to focus on the stuff in front of you.
I found my usual delivery guy, Trey, outside the back door in his fatigues, fanning himself with his clipboard in the heat. He worked for Containment, distributing across the Quarter the goods that had arrived in the Containment convoy. He stood beside the old mail truck Containment had refashioned into a delivery vehicle that could easily maneuver through the Quarter’s narrow alleys.
“Already a scorcher today,” he said.
“Extra hot this year,” I agreed. “You get to take War Night off?”
“Whole city took the night off. Wife and I had a great time. A little too much Drink, not enough water yet this morning to shake it off.”
“I always forget you’re married,” I said with a grin.
“Fourteen years of bliss. Ida hates me today as much as she hated me the day we were married.”
The truck’s back door was open. He looked over the boxes and their Containment seals, counted them, filled in something on his clipboard.
“What have you got for me today?”
“MREs, big surprise. Nutrition bars. Water. Powdered milk. Soap. Nylon cord. Batteries. Duct tape.” He looked up at me. “You know what they say.”
I grinned at him. “The French built New Orleans; duct tape rebuilt it.”
“That’s it,” he said, nodding. “Looks like also some oatmeal, dried potatoes. Oh, and a treat.”
My eyes lit up. “A treat?”
He handed me the clipboard, climbed into the truck. I signed my name on the line at the bottom, promising to pay Containment for the goods within thirty days.
A minute later, he emerged with a small foam cooler.
That meant something cold. And that meant something perishable.
I squealed when I exchanged the clipboard for the cooler. It was heavy. Cold, perishable, heavy. These were good signs.
“Give me one more box,” I said. “I can carry two, and I want to get this inside.”
Trey set another box on top of the first, grabbed his own, and followed me into the store. I put them both on a library table near the door, slipped the tape on the foam with a fingernail. I lifted the lid, felt the cool rush of ice.
“What is it?” Trey asked, almost reverentially. Containment, being military and feds, had access to plenty of food and supplies. But treats were rare—and that much more awesome.
I pulled out the frozen gel pack, felt around for the contents, and grinned. I pulled out eight boxes of unsalted butter.
“It’s a War Night miracle,” I said, nearly tearing up with excitement.
“Damn,” Trey said. “I haven’t seen that much butter in a long time.”
A memory tickled, of my father baking cookies in our small kitchen for some holiday or other. There were mounds of pale yellow butter in a wide crockery bowl, and he was stirring it with a wooden spoon. If we had butter, life was almost normal. And these days, almost normal was pretty exceptional.
In the silence that had fallen across the store, I put the butter back in the box, stuffed in the gel packs.
“More reliable than the fridge,” Trey said quietly.
“Sad, but true.” I glanced at him, took in the dark skin, round face, brow now furrowed with regret. Trey was in his forties, so he’d seen even more of prewar life than I had. He’d had more to lose.
“I can put aside a stick or two for you if you want to grab it when you get off shift.”
Something crossed his face, like he was trying to shake off the melancholy, and he smiled a little. “Too rich for my blood. The taste,” he clarified before I could make him a better offer. “Don’t want to get used to something like that these days. I nearly prefer not to have it than for it to be taken away.”