INFECtIOUS (8 page)

A Total Waste
Of
Milk

I am
laying
on my bed when she knocks on my door. I'm still hurt
and still angry. I know she's in charge of me but we take care of each other.
We run things by each other when something as big as this comes up. Then, today
of all days, she pulls rank and doesn't care at all for me or what I've been
through. I have every right to be mad.
Every right to be
afraid.
They are wicked and dangerous. How dare she insist that I plump
his pillows and clean his bathroom when he's probably here to hurt me? I hate
him.
 

"Ivy?"

I still don't
answer,
still don't offer her to come in. She can open the
door if she wants to boss me around some more, it's not locked.

"Honey, I
know you've had such a hard day. I love you and I'm praying for you. The Lord
is good and just as I know He'll care for us, I know we need to care for this
boy. I don't mean to make you sad, but I'm really sure about this. I brought
you some tea.
      
I'll set it here by
the door for you. When you are done resting, please come help me cook dinner.
Okay?"
 

I don't say
anything. I'm crying quietly now. Her sweet tone has broken through my anger. I
hear her walk away towards the kitchen and unwanted tears plummet down my
cheeks. I'd rather be angry. Sad and hurt feels worse.

And
guilty.

Why should I
feel guilty!

But I do. I know
it's because she's right. We are supposed to love. We are supposed to be the
opposite of them and all they are is hate. They even hate each other. I'm
supposed to care less about my own fears and my own preservation, but
it's
human nature to value myself over him. I feel—ashamed.
And I'm mad about it. I don't want to be forced to feel something I don't want
to feel. I should devote myself right now and seek help for this, but I can't
bring myself to do it. Maybe I'll get to that later.

Ugh.

Worst
day ever.

I crack open the
door and draw in the hot cup of tea and then quickly re-shut myself in. Sitting
on the side of my bed, I sip at the soothing brew and try to feel positive. I
look down at my new clothes and my mood only darkens. A glance at my new shoes,
that I kicked off next to the bed, makes me feel ridiculous and embarrassed and
I stuff them in the back of my closet. I'm so mad at myself for that stupid
girly moment. I left that wonderful pair of comfy new tennis shoes on the floor
of Rue 21. This day has been a total failure.
A disaster.
At least I had the common sense to put my old tennis shoes in one of the bags.
They are dirty and uncomfortable and they leak when it's wet out, but they are
better than wearing my only other pair of shoes—summer sandals. I'd look
horrendous wearing those around with socks under them.
 

Standing at the
sink in my bathroom, I stare at my ugly face in the mirror. The cuteness I felt
in Commerce is gone. I feel gross. My eyes are bulgy and pink from crying. A
purple bruise has bloomed on my neck, framing brown spots of dried blood around
the swollen scrape. Untangling the lump of mismatched necklaces, I gingerly
pull each one off. Running the water until it's
warm,
I wash my face and then gently wash off the dried blood on my neck. A closer
look at the scrape in the mirror shows a raised, swollen mark where it looks
like something punctured me. I guess I should count myself lucky that I came
away from the attack with just a scrape. It could've been so much worse.

I hope Matt
left. Surely we won't see him until tomorrow. It's obvious he hates me as much
as I wish I was allowed to hate him. I decide to make an appearance in the
kitchen because I'm starving. We never ate the lunches we had packed to eat in
the car and all I had for breakfast was a Gov bar. An entire day's vitamins and
protein—and more fiber than a person needs in a month—all packed into one stale
tasting cereal bar. It's one of the few things that come in the government
shipments that we actually do use.
The main reason being that
they are free.

I inhale deeply
and I smell venison cooking as I'm walking to the kitchen. My stomach growls in
anticipation. She must feel bad about what happened. She's cooking what we had
saved for a special occasion to cheer me up. I am so hungry and it smells
amazing. A small smile starts curling at the corner of my lips.

There aren't any
grocery stores anymore and there isn't any meat shipped to
Toccoa
.
Unless you count the freeze dried government "meat loaf" meals in
their "just add water" mystery sauce. We only have fresh meat because
I traded a wedding cake for it a month ago.

In our
self-sufficient community, everyone has something to trade. We all have
everything in common—everyone works hard and everyone has their needs met by
each other. We garden and share food and clothes and it's a real self
sufficient body.
Utopian even.

Aunty
knits and crotchets, keeping people warm in the winter with her sweaters, hats,
mittens and scarves.
She also runs the Inn, offering a room for anyone who needs it
and food while they are here. In her "spare" time, she does some
house cleaning for different families in the community. Seriously, it brings
her great joy to clean things. It's disturbing.

The
people
who owned the Inn before us, vanished with the rest
of the millions who disappeared 6 years ago. They ran the Inn and they also had
a bakery here. We inherited a room full of pans, dried goods, cookie cutters,
and everything you could possibly need to make special cakes. I love being
creative; so, by trial and error, I taught myself to bake and decorate.

Community
members come to me for special events and we trade. Mostly I just do small
cakes. Birthday cakes and cupcakes for the kids at the U.R., stuff like that.
But, a few weeks ago, we celebrated the wedding of a sweet older couple, Frank
and Jean. Frank is one of the newly elected Elders and a native of
Toccoa
. I outdid all my previous wedding cakes with a
six-tiered ivory tower decorated with tiny lines of piped lace and delicate
purple roses made from sugar dough. The huge confection fed all one hundred and
ninety-three attendees in the bride's favorite flavor, Hummingbird Cake. I even
made a small Groom's cake, an old Southern tradition, that looked like Frank's
dog, Chip.

The bride and
groom paid me with a whole side of venison. We decided to keep the meat for
some time when it could be special. A pick-me-up of real steak on a tough day
like today is just what I need to feel better. My mouth is watering.

Opening the
kitchen door I stand rooted at the sight of him. My smile falls off of my face
in slow motion leaving me standing with my mouth open. If my eyes aren't lying,
he is sitting at the table drinking a glass of
my
milk. Aunty doesn't like milk but she gets it for me when she
cleans for the Brock family. They have the only cow in town and the milk is
precious to the whole community.

Why is this
happening to me? Am I being too dramatic about milk?

Matt raises his
eyebrows at me and, without breaking eye contact, he chugs the rest of the
glass—so fast that some milk dribbles down each side of his mouth.
 

I really hate
him.

What a horrible
waste of milk.

Aunty sees me
there, stalled in the door frame and staring, and she tries to ease the
tension. "Ivy, Matt is just six months older than you. He's 17."
 

Her lame attempt
only adds to the awkwardness. Matt and I stare at each other until I look away
from him and his uncomfortably blank expression.
 

Oh
my gosh
.

Call me slow,
but it is just dawning on me that she has invited him to eat with us! I am
furious again. I feel my face flush red with anger and my lips purse in an
attempt to hold in awful words. Aunty is shooting piercing eyes at me, her
frustrated face heavy with meaning. She's subliminally insisting that I behave
myself. I send angry brown eyes back at her with my own face-full of silent
communication—depressed
obstinance
.

"I thought
we'd share our venison with Matt," she says with too much pleasantry.
"Can you please make us some fruit salad, dear?" She brushes past me
to pull something from the refrigerator and surreptitiously squeezes my
hand.
 

Her love squeeze
is supposed to be encouragement. But all I can think is she made the venison
for him, not for me.
My venison.
Without
even asking me.
The conviction in my heart returns and I know I should
be gracious. Pretty sure I can't muster gracious right now. Hunger moves my
legs forward to the pantry where I numbly pick through the jars of fruit that
we canned over the summer. I open different sized glass jars with peaches,
pears, and blackberries and pour them into a pretty pink glass bowl.

Aunty has laid
out the good china for me to set the table with. We only use the china when we
have special guests for dinner. Not just everyone we feed warrants the use of
fancy dishes. Add "catering to a zombie" to our long list of weird
today. I think using the good china is definitely over the top! This jerk would
eat it right out of the pan with no problem. All this extra work is lost on
him. While setting the table already covered with our best table cloth, I
decide that she is starting to disgust me.

When we are
finished cooking, setting the table, and pouring the drinks, we sit down.
 
Not once during all of this has Matt offered
to help with anything. He spent his time staring into space and spinning his
empty milk glass on the table. Oh, and we also got to listen to him tap his
foot with rude impatience.

Nice.

Aunty manages
constant grace and cheerfulness and Matt and I manage to not look at each
other. The minute Aunty hands him his plate, Matt digs in. Aunty clears her
throat gently and he looks up from his plate like a
neanderthal
with his mouth open, full of food.
 

"We like to
thank God for our food before we eat," she explains. "Ivy, will you
pray please?"

Matt's looks
like a confused imbecile as he stares inquisitively at her, his mouth still
hanging open. I'm not in the mood to pray, but I don't say it. Aunty and I bow
our heads and close our eyes. Even without looking, I feel him staring at me
while he slowly chews at his food.

"Dear Lord,"
I croak because I haven't been speaking. I clear my throat and keep going,
"thank you for all of our blessings. Thank you for this food and for
protecting us today. Please give us wisdom. Amen".

"
and
love," Aunty adds her request onto the end of my prayer.
 

"Amen,"
we both say again in almost unison.
 

Matt is staring
at us, his eyebrows arching so high that they disappear beneath his shaggy
hair. The small smile playing at the corner of his food crusted lips says it
all—he thinks we are CRAZY.
 
I think he
would've laughed out loud at us if he wasn't already
back
to stuffing himself. I shouldn't care, don't care, what he thinks, but I feel
insecure anyway. I eat, but, despite my hunger, my food doesn't taste as good
as I thought it would. It sticks in my throat and lays heavy in my stomach.

I'm sure it's
from all the nerves.

The less than
pleasant smells wafting across the table from Matt aren't helping either.
 

If he has to
stay here, hopefully he'll shower before
laying
on our
clean guest bed. I'd bet a pint of blood I'm going to end up being the one who
cleans his room. He smells like death and cat stink.

Aunty visits
with Matt and gets occasional replies, usually while he's chewing with his
mouth open. I just pick at my venison and mashed potatoes with
gravy,
push my fruit salad around on my plate and nibble at
the homemade honey rolls.

Aunty startles
me by bringing up what happened to us today at the outlets. If I felt more
equal with her right now, I would argue that she shouldn't be talking about
this with him. I'm still feeling the effects of her chastisement, so I let her
tell the story while I fight the cramps that keep rippling through my stomach.
For some reason, at the end of her tale I'm blushing. She has left out how
terrified I was and somehow made me sound braver than I was.