It's a truth universally acknowledged that if a man the size of water buffalo is preparing for the end of the world, he's probably stockpiled snacks somewhere. Well, perhaps it's not universally acknowledged, but I assumed that a man like Mr. Elliot wouldn't have hesitated to hide some Twinkies or Dorritos somewhere. After half a day of tearing apart the walls in the little gas station on Bronte and Main that he had owned, I eventually found three packages of Hostess cupcakes hiding in a hole punched through the drywall. Despite being almost three years past expiration, their orange-plastic frosting looked remarkably well preserved, and I said a silent thank you to my portly benefactor of junk food. Wherever he was. If he still was.
As I adjusted my bulky pack on my shoulder, I contemplated how reassuring the heavy weight of it felt. It had been a very good haul, the majority of which was coiled up into extra tight rolls- twenty feet of musty smelling fiberglass insulation. Though it had badly scratched up my hands as I tore sheets of it out of the wall, it was a small price to pay for extra warmth in the winter. Or extra income. I used it as padding for the cupcakes and my two other outstanding acquisitions: a torn up gossip magazine, and a half empty travel sized bottle of shampoo.
There was still a fair amount of insulation left in the walls, which I knew would prove to be extremely valuable at the Meryton marketplace if my family couldn't use it. I'd have to come back to collect the rest soon, perhaps with my older sister Jane. Though she'd be happy for the insulation, she'd be more thrilled to be able to wash her pretty blonde hair with something other than the animal fat soaps we'd been forced to use since our small supply of commercially manufactured personal hygiene products ran out. Not that anyone had complained. It's far better to have soap made by a farmer than nothing at all. Especially in a house of six people.
You know how everyone thinks that they have enough smarts and determination that they can get through anything life throws at them? Well ask them again after the grocery stores run out of food, their electric has been off for a month, and people are getting into fist fights over toilet paper and the tiny remaining amounts of gasoline for their generators. Even with two thirds of the population dead, stores still only had enough food for three weeks. And that was only if someone hadn't stolen it all first. We were lucky it was spring and there was enough time to plant and harvest crops and vegetables.
Stripping the building materials out of the gas station had been one of my better ideas since there weren't many stores left nearby that hadn't been completely ransacked over the past couple of years. The station had certainly seen some activity, considering that the shelves were all but bare, and the fuel was long gone. When everything was getting really crazy, I saw three guys haul out the frozen drink machine with their bare hands. They must have been really pissed when the electric finally went out.
There was still a winter chill in the damp New England air, and thin sheets of ice blanketed the roads despite it being mid March. As I walked up the long driveway to my family's house, I could see smoke gently wafting from the brick chimney of our white raised ranch. It was starting to look a bit shabby on the outside, but it still served its purpose of keeping us warm and dry no matter what the weather was. Even the people living in the center of Meryton couldn't all say that. I winced as I heard my two youngest sisters shrieking at each other before I even reached the house and debated turning around and walking for a little longer. As tempting as it was, the sharp cold gnawing at my fingers was enough persuasion for me to endure the auditory torture and get inside the house before I froze to death.
Dropping my bag off at the door, I took off my dirty boots and coat, smoothing several disobedient dark curls of hair out of my face. I entered our small but cheery dining room and held my hands over the blazing fire in the fireplace, letting the normal temperature creep back into them. Breakfast was already laid out- a saucepan of oatmeal smattered with bits of dried apple to add some flavor to an otherwise bland meal. My father was sitting at the head of the table, reading a letter and blatantly ignoring the conversation my mother was trying to have with him. I suppressed a smile and kissed the top of his head before sitting down at the butcher block table.
"Lizzie! Back so soon? I thought you were headed to the market?" my father asked without looking up. My dad's pretty great, but sometimes it feels like he's on autopilot. I don't think he'd know what to do with himself if he didn't have letters to read over breakfast.
"I will be tomorrow. I got a really good-" I began.
"Frank! Don't change the subject! This is a wonderful opportunity for our girls, you must go and introduce yourself!" My mother smacked the top of the table with her hand for emphasis.
And let me introduce my mother, Mrs. Allison Bennet. Former middle school art teacher and hypochondriac. She'd give any drama queen a run for their money. Or whatever they're using for currency nowadays.
I raised an eyebrow. "What have I missed?"
My younger sisters Lydia and Kitty giggled, and Lydia conspiratorially whispered, "Mom heard from Mrs. Long that there's some guy named Charles Bingley moving into that giant house with all the land a few miles from here. Apparently he's got an enormous amount of corn and wheat that he wants to plant in the spring. He's bringing a bunch of people to help farm and the best part... he's single!"
I groaned and rubbed my eyes with the heels of my hands. This should be good. If the definition of good was: adjective, meaning frustrating or irritating.
"How on earth does this affect the girls Allison?" my father asked, still fixated on his letter. Watching his eyes for a moment, I realized that they weren't even moving on the page, the big faker. I made a mental note to find myself an enthusiastic penpal and get myself some reading material for family meal times.
"Don't be ridiculous. He's well off, he's single, so MAYBE he'll end up marrying one of them."
I smirked and tilted my head lecherously towards Lydia. "Because it's the 1800's all over again, so if he's wealthy and single, he must be looking for a wife."
Kitty and Lydia snickered, and even Jane bit back a smile under the curve of her fingers. Only my mother didn't find it particularly amusing.
Mom let out a long dramatic sigh. "Lizzie, don't be so difficult. You know that the area around our house is getting worse. We won't be able to live here forever, and we need to make sure that ALL of us are provided for. What would we do if something happened to your father?"
"I dunno, maybe find a job?" I couldn't resist.
"Are you planning my demise already?" My father looked up briefly to see my mother glaring at him, and he quickly went back to reading.
"Lizzie! You know I can't work, with my aches and pains, and the tendinitis in my elbow! And your younger sisters are too young to be working in the fields or doing salvage work like you. I won't have them galavanting around the towns with you and Jane, anything could happen!"
"You're right. They might happen to get some work ethic… exercise… fresh air… valuable real world experience…" I said, counting off each benefit with my fingers, pausing when my mother started gripping her napkin like a steering wheel. "Do you want me to go on?"
"It doesn't matter, Lizzie. Even if we all had work, you know as well as I that it might not be enough to support us in the future. We have to join ourselves with a well supplied and well connected family. It's the only way we can ensure our long term survival!"
"Wow, Mom, that sounds very similar to the speech you made when the Davis boys moved here."
"I didn't know that they were so young! And besides, they've grown a lot since they moved here," my mother sniffed, avoiding eye contact with me.
I smiled blithely, "Yeah, I think the oldest hit puberty a few months ago."
"Is this really an appropriate topic of conversation at meal time?" Jane asked, scraping at the last of her oatmeal.
"Has any topic ever been off limits at this table?" I countered.
As usual, my mother was determined to have her say. "Look, you may not like it, but it's the way it is now. I don't want to spend the rest of my life wondering where our next meal will come from or whether a snowstorm will do us in. Regardless of how you feel about it, it won't cost us anything to go introduce ourselves to this Charlie fellow."
Begrudgingly, I knew my she was right. A few years ago, I would have thought that all of my sisters and I would be able marry for love. Now I knew that at least one of us would have to marry someone who could keep our family fed and sheltered. We were lucky to have owned our house when everything collapsed; eventually the hundreds of unoccupied houses in town reverted ownership to the town government and now required a rent to live there. However, since we lived outside of the fortified area of Meryton, it made us easy pickings for robbers and scavengers. And it was getting worse every year.
"Mom, I know, believe me. But you don't have to make it sound like we're a pack of wolves about to take down a meal," I said, as nicely as I could manage. In all seriousness, we'd had enough conversations like this one to make my ears bleed. I'd had my fill of it years ago.
"I hardly think this is worth discussing. If you and the girls want to go and introduce yourselves, go right ahead, I don't see what you need me for," my father chimed in, finally putting his letter down.
"Moral support?" my mother pleaded. He rolled his eyes, and my mother crossed her arms and sank back in her chair like a sullen child. "Frank! It will look like we're throwing the girls at him if we all go!"
"Aren't you?" Dad winked at me.
"No! We just need to meet him before all the other girls in town worm their way in! Jane will be the one to catch him, won't you Janey?"
My oldest sister looked mildly disgusted, and my father patted her hand, "It's okay Jane. Rest assured that if you aren't the bait Bingley wants, your mother won't waste any time sticking your younger sisters on the hook for him."
"Is that supposed to make me feel better, Dad?" Jane asked, looking longingly at the door. I've been waiting for the day when she finally runs. I'll be right behind her.
"I'm only reminding you that there is no 'I' in 'TEAM'. This will have to be a group effort if we're to win the heart of Mr. Bingley. I do hope that one of you girls can secure him, because I'm not sure your mother or I will be his cup of tea."
The table cleared rather quickly after that.
At least my parents are getting along better, since they've gone from flat out yelling at each other to jokes and sarcasm as means of showing their discontentment. They had been on the verge of divorce five years ago, and it took half my family getting sick for them to put aside their differences and suck it up. To be fair, it was more my dad that had to suck it up because my mother was prostrate on the bed with chills, a fever, and coughing fits that could put a consumption patient to shame. My mother and Kitty got better within a few weeks. My sister Mary didn't.
I grabbed Jane's hand as she dumped her dirty bowl into our sink, "Don't listen to a word they say Jane. It's not your responsibility to seduce some guy just because mom wants you too."
"I know! I would never do that." She smiled as she poured a bucket of hot water over the dirty dishes in the sink. "I was just thinking that it would be nice to meet a new guy though. It's been a while."
"Amen to that! Get it? A MEN?" Lydia giggled at her own joke, a not uncommon occurrence. It's a shame they stopped making popsicles. She would've had so much material if she saved all the sticks from the kid's flavors.
"Well, if Jane can't "catch" Bingley with her sweetness and beauty, at least you've got a shot with your tremendous wit," I gave her a gentle shove out of the kitchen, "though don't get too excited because I don't believe anyone has ever not been interested in Jane. Oh, and because you're sixteen and have no business dating anyone old enough to know that Obama was a president and not a snack food."
She blushed, remembering the history lesson I gave her a week ago. It wasn't her fault that the schools had been shut down, but I'd be damned if I was going to let my younger sisters live in ignorance. "So you're saying I can only date people my own age? What a bunch of bull. Mom will let me date who I want."
"We'll see about that," I murmured as I watched her storm off. I sighed. If Charles Bingley coming to town had already caused this much strife before he'd even arrived, how bad would it get once he actually got here?
Turns out, really really bad...
