"This is nutty," I say to Peeta.
I don't know exactly what I was expecting, but it wasn't a drunk in an unkempt house. I thought my uncle was a businessman who needed a secretary. If so, why isn't he at his place of work?
Peeta searches the cupboards and locates a tin of coffee.
"You know Katniss, I'd like to get to Mount Hood today if possible so I have a place to spend the night." He hands me the tin. "Will you be all right staying here with your uncle?"
Where else can I go? I only have a nickel to my name.
I fill the coffee pot with water, add coffee to the basket on top and put it onto the stove to boil before I turn to look at him. "I'll be fine, Peeta."
"You're sure."
"I was robbed, harassed by hoboes, rode in a boxcar, hitchhiked, and pawned my engagement ring. I think I can manage my uncle."
"I think you can do anything you put your mind to." He grins at me, but his smile fades as he notices the serious look on my face.
I've been dreading this moment for days.
"I'll miss you." There is a catch in my voice that I'm sure Peeta hears because he comes close and wraps his arms around me in a tight hug, resting his chin on the top of my head.
"I'll miss you too, Katniss. You made this trip a hundred times easier than I ever thought it would be."
"Will I see you again?" I sound pitiful in my own ears.
He squeezes me tighter. "Of course. I'll visit you when I get a chance."
He steps back, dropping his arms. He puts a hand under my chin and tilts my head upward. He gently presses his lips to mine. It is a tender kiss, with far more feeling than the pecks he bestowed upon me when we were traveling with the Browns, but still it's not enough. After ten days of travel together I want something to remember Peeta by until I see him again.
So when he pulls away, I reach my hands up to cup his cheeks and pull him back toward me. The stubble on his chin scratches my face, but I don't care. I open my mouth slightly hoping to elicit that same sensation that occurred when he kissed me in front of my house in Dandelion.
But this kiss far exceeds that one. It's as if a dam of pent-up emotion has been unleashed. At some point, Peeta picks me up by the waist and twists me around so that he is pressing me against the back of the counter. His mouth leaves mine and falls to my neck.
I feel the weight of his body against me, hard and firm. The coffee bubbles loudly in the glass dome at the top of the pot and the smell of it wafts through the air. I know I should turn off the stove before it burns, but I can't find it in me to push Peeta away.
"What the hell is going on here?" My uncle's voice startles us and our connection breaks. We fly apart.
Peeta's hands fall from my waist and he turns toward my uncle. "I was just going, sir."
He gives me a dazed smile. "I'll be in touch."
And then he's out the door, leaving me weak in the knees, and mentally cursing my uncle.
I glance out the kitchen window at the truck that is parked outside. If my uncle were a decent sort, I'd ask him to drive Peeta to Mount Hood, so he wouldn't have to hitchhike.
But he seems to dislike Peeta without knowing him so I don't suggest it. Instead, I pick up a dirty mug from the sink, wash it, and pour him a cup of coffee.
My uncle takes the cup, and I follow him out of the kitchen, suitcase in hand. We walk through the dining room with its massive table that is littered with papers and a large cabinet filled with dusty fine china and crystal glasses, and into the living room where more mess awaits.
Tabletops are covered with notepads and even more dirty dishes. Piles of clothing, no doubt dirty, sit on the two armchairs that face the sofa. Dust lies on the uncovered surfaces and bits of lint and other flotsam lie on the large carpet that covers the wooden floors.
I push aside a pile of clothing and perch on the edge of one armchair.
"Why aren't you at work today, Uncle Haymitch?"
It had crossed my mind that the reason he was drunk and at home in the middle of the week was because he'd lost his job.
Where would that leave me?
He reclines on the sofa, which he's turned into a nest with a blanket, pillow, and a nearby table filled with notepads and several pencils. He waved his arm that holds the coffee, causing some of it to spill onto the carpet.
"Why would I need an office when I have my house?"
"I don't understand. What do you do here and why would you require the services of a secretary?"
He points to the stack of notepads on the table. "I need you to type these up for me."
"What are they?"
"It's my book."
"You wrote a book?"
"I've written almost three dozen." He points to a bookcase against the wall.
My jaw drops. My uncle is a published author. I had no idea. I stand up and walk closer. The shelves are filled with paperbacks.
I glance at the titles.
The Baby in the Basket, The Woman Behind the Wall, The Fiery Furnace of Love, Beauty and the King, The Good Neighbor, It Happened in a Garden.
Suddenly a title jumps out at me, causing me to gasp.
The Rich Man's Pearl.
My eyes fly to my uncle. "You're H.A. McDonald?"
At the mention of his pen name, his face erupts into a smile. "That's me. McDonald was my mother's, your grandmother's maiden name."
"I had no idea."
He scowls. "Didn't my sister tell you anything about our people?"
Not enough apparently. "Did my mother know that you wrote books?"
He snorts loudly. "I sent her the very first one I ever wrote, but I never heard back from her. Guess she didn't think too highly of The Fiery Furnace of Love."
With a title like that, it doesn't surprise me. Still it was wrong of my mother to refuse to acknowledge her brother's success.
"The Rich Man's Pearl, is the most popular book on my old library route in Dandelion. Women were begging me to save it for them."
My uncle beams. It seems I discovered how to get on his good side – flatter him.
"Did you like it?'
"I never read it." I almost tell him about how that book changed my life only the week before, but I decide to save that story for another day.
He sets down his coffee and walks to the bookshelf. "Well you might as well read it now that you've got the chance."
I take the book from him and set it atop my suitcase.
His mood changed for the better, Uncle Haymitch takes me on a tour of the ground floor of the house, which includes a sunroom with large windows and a bathroom with a shower.
The mess seems to be contained downstairs fortunately. Upstairs are four bedrooms and a second, much larger bathroom that has a claw-footed bathtub in it.
"This is a big residence for one person."
"Well I didn't expect to be living here alone when I had it built." My uncle's voice is gruff.
He points out a bedroom that has a canopied bed. "Think this would work for you?"
The room faces the front of the house.
"So you mean for me to live here, then?"
"That was my idea."
"And you'll be paying me, as well as providing board."
My uncle frowns. "I suppose you'll be wanting some kind of allowance."
"Not an allowance. A salary. You said you needed a secretary."
"I'll pay you $1 for every day you work for me."
It's less than the WPA paid me as a librarian, but if my uncle provides for my meals and board, it seems reasonable.
"All right then. We have a deal."
"Good. Why don't you get settled? Then you can come downstairs and get to work. I'm already late getting this manuscript to the publisher."
I set my suitcase on the bed and unpack. All of my dresses need a washing, but I hang them in the wardrobe anyway. I haven't bathed in a couple of days and look longingly at the claw foot tub in the bathroom.
But dirty as I am, that tub looks even dirtier. It will need a scrubbing before I bathe in it.
When I go downstairs my uncle hands me a stack of notepads that are numbered.
He's moved the typewriter from the kitchen table to the dining table, clearing an area around it and putting a stack of white paper next to it. I put a piece of paper into the typewriter and turn the roller until the paper appears in front of the keys.
Looking at the first page of notepad number one, I begin to type.
The Prodigal Daughter.
My uncle's handwriting is difficult to read, but I do my best to figure it out.
"What's this word?" I call to him.
He lies on the couch, licking the end of his pencil and staring at a notepad.
Groaning, he gets off the couch and comes over to me.
"It's `beleaguered'." He glances at the page I've partially typed.
"No, no, no. You've done it all wrong. It needs to be double-spaced, not single-spaced."
I put my hand on the end of the paper to rip it out of the typewriter, but he puts his hand atop mine to stop me.
"Just double-space from this point on. This isn't the final draft, I have to edit it first."
I type for a couple of hours, but stop when my hands begin to ache. Fifteen pages are completed beside me.
"Can I take a break?"
My uncle lifts his head from the notepad, and frowns at me.
"Okay. Why don't you make us something to eat?"
The clock in the kitchen announces that it's nearly 6 p.m. It seems unbelievable that only this morning I was sleeping in a hobo camp in Portland with Peeta. It's as if I've stepped into another world altogether.
As I stand in front of my uncle's refrigerator looking for something to make for dinner, my mind wanders to Peeta.
Has he made it to the lodge yet? Is he already at work too?
Peeta said he would be in touch; but when will I see him again? My tongue has been running over my swollen lower lip all afternoon, my mind drifting back to our kisses.
I sigh. After spending the past few hours typing up a romance story, I've gone moony with the idea of love.
It takes me almost an hour to fix a meal for us because I wash the dishes too. I carry a tray into the dining room that has two bowls of canned soup and two grilled cheese sandwiches on it.
My uncle clears more of the table, shoving his paperwork aside. He wolfs down his sandwich, and slurps up his soup.
When he has finished, I ask, "How did you ever become a writer of romance books?"
He pulls a cigar from his pocket, and lights it before he speaks. "I wrote my first one because I had to get it all down."
"Get down what?"
"The story of my life."
He puts the cigar in his mouth and holds it there for a few minutes. Then he removes it, slowly breathing out puffs of smoke.
My eyes water.
"I was engaged. I built this house for my fiancée and the large family we planned to have. But Maysilee died in 1919 from the flu."
My uncle refers to the Spanish influenza that spread across the world around the time of The Great War. I was only a child, but I remember my parents talking in hushed voices about it.
"Her death nearly killed me. Afterwards, I decided to write down the story of our time together, thinking that if I could see the words on paper it would give me peace because nothing seemed to make sense any more. But once I got it all down and read through it, I was even more depressed.
"One day though after reading what I'd written for the fiftieth time, torturing myself yet again, a thought occurred that ultimately changed my life."
My uncle puts the cigar back to his lips. He seems lost in his thoughts. Curious, I set down my spoon and lean forward in my chair waiting for him to continue his tale.
After a few minutes, he goes on. "I realized that I could re-write the ending. Instead of Maysilee dying, she could live. We could even have five children, like she wanted.
A stray memory nags at me. Someone else who talked about re-writing the ending to a sad story.
"Writing that new ending made me happier than I'd been in a long while. It changed my life."
"But how could it change anything?" My uncle startles from my interruption, immediately taking a puff from the cigar. "No offense, Uncle Haymitch, but your fiancée was still gone."
He glares at me, like I'm stupid. "You're right. It didn't bring Maysilee back. But the act of removing myself from my pain and imagining happiness, even if it was only for a moment, changed my perspective. It may sound crazy, but it gave me hope to continue living.
"To make a long story short, I showed my story to a friend who showed it to another friend that worked for a publishing house.
"I sold The Fiery Furnace of Love and became a published author. I've been writing romance books ever since."
I suddenly remember that it was Delly who talked of changing the ending to Romeo and Juliet. Heaven knew how much pain she suffered living in poverty with a husband who spent time in jail because of his work as a moonshiner. Maybe that's why she liked my uncle's book.
"Do all your books end happily then?"
"Of course. That's what my readers want. It's what they need."
"But isn't that unrealistic." I think back to the lives of the people I met on my journey west. "I've seen a lot of suffering over the past week. Real life doesn't always end well."
My uncle taps the end of his cigar on the rim of the empty soup bowl and the ashes fall into it. "Bingo. The real world isn't like some damn Shirley Temple movie where everyone sings and dances at the end.
"But the way this country is going these past few years, we all need some reason to hope. I'm just doing my part to prevent an uprising.
"Are you finished eating?" His voice turns strangely gruff, as if he's angry about revealing himself.
He sets his cigar into the bowl and clears the table after I nod.
I open and close my hands a few times to stretch my fingers before I begin to type again.
My uncle returns with the bottle of Jim Beam that Peeta had found in the kitchen. He lifts it directly to his mouth to drink. He sits down on the sofa and picks up his notepad, flipping back the pages to re-read what he's already written.
As I type I ponder his words. It's obvious that he believes he is helping others with his books, but if so, why does he drink so much?
I push the thought from my mind, but an hour later, I call it quits and tell my uncle I am headed up for bed.
I consider bathing, but I'm too exhausted to scrub out the tub. Instead I strip down to my slip and climb under the blankets. The Rich Man's Pearl sits on my nightstand, but I'm too tired to read and my eyes fall shut.
In the middle of the night, I startle awake from the sound of an owl hooting. My arm reaches out automatically for Peeta, and a chest-crushing panic comes over me when I realize he is gone.
Is he missing me as well?
I think of my uncle's story about his fiancée dying and find a morbid comfort in it. At least Peeta is alive. With that thought, I doze off.
Sunlight flits through dirty windows as I come awake. Sitting up in bed, I have a sneezing fit. I climb out of bed and put on the dress I wore yesterday.
My uncle lies on the couch downstairs, snoring loudly. Does he sleep in his bed or only on the sofa?
I find a rag and some cleaning powder I used in the kitchen yesterday. I scrub out the bathtub and fill it with water, undress, and climb inside.
Scrubbing my body and my hair energizes me. I take all of my clothing that I put away yesterday and wash it in the washing machine I noticed in a utility room off the kitchen.
I hang everything on a clothesline I improvise by tying a rope between two trees when a dark-skinned man with one arm appears from behind the shed carrying a basket.
My nerves rattled, I scream. "Who are you?"
He guffaws at my reaction. "Chaff Milburn, the gardener. And I guessing you're Katniss?"
My eyes narrow. "Yes, but how did you know?"
"Haymitch told me you'd be coming after Effie left."
"Was Effie my uncle's secretary?"
He chuckles, "A lot more than that I'd say."
I suspect Effie also did the housekeeping for my uncle. It would certainly explain the filthy state of the house in contrast to the manicured exterior.
"It's nice to meet you Mr. Milburn."You've done a wonderful jobwiththe yard."
"Thank-you."
He walks off in the direction of the front of the house. I go inside and make a meal - scrambled eggs and toast with jam, along with some coffee.
When the food is done, I portion it out onto two plates and carry it into the dining room.
"Wake up Uncle Haymitch. I've made you something to eat."
He snorts a couple of times before he sits up. "Did you finish typing everything?"
"No, I did my laundry this morning and I met your gardener."
The man who bared his heart to me the night before is gone. Judging from the scowl on his face, I'm guessing Uncle Haymitch is suffering a fierce hangover. "You're supposed to be working."
"I've been working ever since I got here. I cleaned up your kitchen, your bathtub, and made a few meals in addition to typing many pages of your manuscript. You offered me a job as a secretary, not a housekeeper."
He grimaces, but doesn't reply.
After eating, I type. I am soon caught up again in my uncle's story. Abigail is a rich girl who falls in love with Samuel, who is poor. In my mind I have cast myself as Abigail and Peeta as Samuel. For some reason it makes the typing go faster.
I stop at six o'clock to cook dinner for us. There is little food left in the kitchen and we settle for egg sandwiches on toast.
"We'll go shopping tomorrow," my uncle promises.
I spend the evening dusting my bedroom, and ironing my freshly washed clothing. I even pen a short letter to Primmie to let her know I've arrived safely in Oregon, although I leave out the part about my robbery and my circuitous journey west. Why worry her?
The next morning, my uncle drives us into town. "Do you know how to drive?" he asks, as I sit beside him.
"I never had the chance to learn." My father had a car when I was young, but my mother sold it after his death.
"Well, you can drive home and I'll give you a lesson."
My head spins. Does he expect me to be his chauffeur too?
We drop off my letter at the post office and my uncle collects his mail, before we going shopping.
The grocery reminds me of the one in Dandelion because both serve as hubs to exchange news for the community. A large bulletin board hangs by the front door with notices about events in town. A flyer on orange paper publicizes a community dance held on the last Saturday of every month.
I wonder if any of the WPA workers ever come down from the mountain to go to the dance?
As we wander up and down the aisles of the grocery store gathering foodstuffs, my uncle introduces me to everyone we meet.
"This is my niece Katniss. She's traveled all the way from Kentucky to help me with my writing."
Heads nod and faces smile at me, but I sense something is awry.
While my uncle pays and then helps the clerk box up the purchases, someone hisses at me from behind. I turn to find a pretty, middle-aged woman, with bright red lipstick who wears a straw hat with a large flower. She motions me to join her in the canned goods section where she hides.
Curious, I walk over to her. "Can I…."
"Be careful," she whispers.
My eyebrows rise at her warning. "What do you mean?"
"Haymitch is a thief."
My uncle calls out. "Shake a leg, Katniss. I haven't got all day."
I turn my head toward him. "All right."
From behind me I feel my arm being squeezed. "Don't forget what I said. Take care dear."
I help my uncle carry out the boxed purchases. We put them in the back of the truck. Hoping he's forgotten about our driving lesson, I walk toward the passenger door. I want to figure out what that woman was talking about.
"Get in on the other side, Katniss."
I frown and climb into the driver's seat. I listen as my uncle explains how the gears shift and the pedals work.
He directs me to start the motor. It takes several attempts, until the motor is humming. The stick is in neutral, and my uncle is already red-faced from shouting at me.
All the while I am listening to his directions, my mind repeats the woman's words. He is a thief. What does she mean? And who is she?
Eventually, I get the car turned around and slowly drive toward home.
As we leave town, my eyes fly toward a group of men dressed alike who are picking up large rocks from the ground and loading them into a truck parked on the side of the road.
A slender woman with shoulder-length brown hair holds a clipboard. She stands facing a man whose back is turned to me, but I recognize him immediately.
It's Peeta. Why is he doing manual labor? He's supposed to be painting murals on the wall of the lodge.
I think to call to him through the open window of the cab, but I catch sight of the smile on the woman's face and how her hand reaches for a piece of her hair, twirling it around her finger.
A memory surfaces. Madge Undersee and Gale.
Peeta is not my fiancé I remind myself. He is my …friend, traveling companion, pretend spouse, the man that was kissing me in my uncle's kitchen two days ago.
In my anger, my foot automatically presses down onto the gas pedal. The truck's motor grows louder.
Above it, my uncle shouts. "Shift to a higher gear, damn it, shift up."
I attempt to do so, but the vehicle stalls out, coming to a lurching halt.
Embarrassed, I look in the rear view mirror to see whether or not Peeta looks in my direction. But he has joined the others to gather stones. None from that work party appears to have noticed my poor driving.
I restart the motor and we continue down the road.
"Was that your traveling companion I saw back there?" Uncle Haymitch asks.
"I'm not sure. It looked like him."
"You're pale. Let's get home and eat some lunch and you can tell me all about him."
Author's Note: There was no minimum wage in 1936. It wasn't until 1938 that President Roosevelt signed the Fair Labor Standards Act into law that a mandatory federal minimum wage of 25 cents per hour was established.
"The Great War" is the name people used for World War I prior to the start of World War II.
Beginning in 1918 (through 1920) the world suffered a horrific flu pandemic involving the H1N1 influenza virus. About one-third of the world's population was infected. It killed between 500,000 to 650,000 people in the United States, and from 50 to 100 million worldwide (three to five percent of the world's population at the time). An unusual aspect of this flu was that unlike previous influenzas that targeted the elderly and people in poor health, this illness killed healthy young adults. It was called the "Spanish flu" by newspapers, even though it did not originate in Spain. Spain was neutral during the war, thus newspapers focused on the effects of the influenza in that country in an attempt to maintain public morale during the war, and to minimize reports of illness and mortality that were occurring worldwide.
Sandy, Oregon, is a real town. Geographic information about the town is accurate in this story, but I have fictionalized everything else.