SOMEWHERE OVER THE RAINBOW

That day could very well have been my last at the Mackenzie's.

My last anywhere.

Why?

I'd got up early knowing that a mountain of linen and sundry laundry awaited. Not to mention the mopping and vacuuming. How can that much work be in a place when The Commander is rarely there, and the budding teenager of house, she is off wearing purple at a senior Preparatory School for budding Wives?

It's just me and the Wife, 'Wife' with a capital 'W'! And there's STILL a pile of laundry. Fuck it.

Was I doing anything about that day's Martha work which awaited? No I wasn't. Somewhere between being arrested in Boston and sent to The Colonies for unwomen, somewhere between finding out that June was still in New Gilead in sexual slavery with her husband (Luke) sipping Canadian lattes in Toronto, somewhere between learning about 86 of Gilead's children - children stolen initially by Gilead - and my June purloining a cargojet (!) and getting them out to Canada…..

… somewhere between June herself getting out to Canada through a mechanism unknown and my own unimaginably-unlikely cancer surgery, somewhere between watching my granddaughter grow up, only to see her foster-mother, Tabitha, die - and her Commander father Kyle Mackenzie unimaginably-quickly remarry Paula Saunders, a woman who the martha-network was convinced poisoned her own Commander Saunders….

Somewhere between all that, I stopped giving a shit.

So there I was sitting in the dining room, leaving the laundry to do itself.

I knew I did not have the whole morning to sit at the Commander's place at his ornate dining-table, in that palatial dining room that I had otherwise served within. In which I'd only stood, never sat.

The new Mrs. Mackenzie, she was eventually going to notice that I had not brought up to her bedroom, her 'Earl Grey hot,' as she liked to call it.

As entitled as she was, as much as she knew how to throw around her weight-of-privilege, she'd still probably sit in bed NOT pressing the buzzer that lit the light in the kitchen, which demanded that I make an appearance upstairs.

She much preferred sitting in bed reading - yes, reading - while thinking about what fresh hell she'd inflict on me for my oversight.

When I once brought 'Earl Grey lukewarm' to her, she tasted it. When I asked if she wanted me to bring up another, instead of commenting on my lack of Martha skills, she said, "no, this is fine. I'll poison you later."

Considering the now deceased Commander Saunders…..

So there I was at Commander Mackenzie's privileged place, at that ornate dining table with the breakfast I had made - made for me! - I had also made myself some of that bootleg Hawai'ian Kona coffee that the Mackenzies were saving for a rainy day.

That's right, I even made the Kona for me. You can't screw up Kona! Given the reputation I had rightly earned as the worst Martha EVER, or as Paula had quipped, 'the worst one not to end up on the Wall…..', me, on my presumed last day, I was going to enjoy a pot of Hawai'i's volcanic best.

If I was taken out to the street and shot for this, please just let me have 'just one last kiss, gimme one last kiss'…. of Hawai'ian Kona.

Today was probably, then, going to be my last. I had, for the record, thrown in the towel. I'd made my own damned last meal. And I would eat it in the finest dining room west of Boston.

Then I heard her. There she was in her housecoat, Mrs. Kyle Mackenzie, aka. Paula Mackenzie. She was standing in the doorway in her silken housecoat with her arms crossed. No cattle prod to tase me with, no pony-whip to whip me with - it was worse than that.

Her stare. Her, 'you have a lot of nerve, bitch' stare, that she'd practised on other Wives at tea parties. Or Prayvaganzas. She never even bothered to vary up her 'bitch' stares at Prayvaganzas.

Me? I remained seated, but turned to half face her. I lifted a second empty coffee cup so that she could see it, and asked…..

"Kona? I've brewed some."

SITTING TO MY LEFT, AT THE GUEST'S PLACE AT THE TABLE

There we were sitting, sipping Kona, like a couple of old girlfriends do.

I think I had twenty years on the bitch, but I never had her instinct for walking between the raindrops. I mean, if this was my last morning, I was dying to know her back story. Was she born into privilege in the old USA? How had she survived the transition, esp. the violent one when even elite women had been rounded up, and screened for their fertility?

I wanted to know it all.

I mean, she knew exactly what this morning was about, seeing me in Kyle's place, Kona being offered by me, me making it for myself. And only offering her some on the off chance she showed up. I mean, I sure as hell was not going to take this upstairs for her in bed, not today.

She knew exactly why, too.

Paula Mackenzie: When was your last day off, Holly?

Holly Maddox: - choking on Kona at the question, then recovering - Excuse me, Mrs. Mackenzie?

PMac: Marthas aren't exactly working union rules, are they, Holly? So, tell me - when was your last day off?

HM: -pushing the plate away, pushing the chair back, holding the coffee up at the ready and sitting back in Kyle's chair - Okay, lessee. There was my surgery back at Bootheel, where Dr. Yates had stopped the radiation related stuff…. then I was brought here…. as a Martha. Okay, not since coming here. Tabitha, she wasn't big on her help getting time off.

PMac: Look, call me 'Paula' okay? I mean, if a Guardian walks in right now, that will make no difference in your disposition. May as well be in for a mile than an inch.

HM: Way ahead of you, Paula, way ahead of you. You obviously know what's going on.

PMac: Unwomen like you, it was a mistake for Gilead to put professional women into service. Okay, that's class-ist, as you Boston feminists would say. Even blue-collar women, they eventually tell us Wives to go fuck ourselves. They tell us that on their last days, too. You wouldn't believe the times…..

HM: No, no, I believe it.

PMac: There was one Martha, though, who didn't. She was one of the Children of Ham. What you'd call in Boston, 'African-American'. Martha Lori. Commander Saunders, he liked her. Liked her spirit. One day she just started cussing us out. Right in front of Guardians. Got a rifle butt for her effort. Her version of making herself Kona coffee - she lifted her cup in a salute - was to tell us off.

HM: What happened to her?

PMac: Well, I was going to ask you. Eventually. I mean you Marthas, you have your networks. - silence - Oh, c'mon Holly, I'm not dumb, neither is Kyle. The van, the one taking her to the Particicution grounds, it got hijacked. Right under the nose of the Eastern Colonies' finest. Kyle never could find out what happened to her.

HM: Did she work for the Resistance?

PMac: Ha! She WAS the resistance. I heard Commander Saunders bleat about her, about how she'd been part of the trafficking of those 86 Commanders' children from New Gilead. Okay, that was not true - that had been your daughter, Holly. June Osborne and her boyfriend had done that. But Commander Saunders, he had got it wrong. Word was that Martha Lori, in fact, almost axed that trafficking.

HM: I never knew any of that. - pause - Do you want a warm-up of coffee?

PMac: I'm fine for getting it myself. But thanks, this is your morning off. Kyle's not back for a week, and with Agnes at Preparatory, it gets really quiet around here.

HM: The quiet is like you like it, Paula.

PMac: Yes, I like it quiet. Gilead, it can be so damn exhausting!

HM: - laughing - Ya think!

WAIT, WHAT!?

HM: What? Waddid you say? 'June Osborne's boyfriend'?

PMac: Oooops, did I say that?

HM: You did, Paula.

PMac: So look at us, you and me, a couple of old girls gabbing like hens, gabbing about the kids.

HM: Speak for yourself. I'm a cancer survivor.

PMac: So that makes you confident that you will survive me? I'll tell you this, I'll do nothing on your day off.

HM: June Osborne's boyfriend?

PMac: New Gilead's now deceased High Commander Pryce, his mission was to 'clean up Gilead', clean it from the rot within. He almost succeeded, he'd taken down Commander Guthrie, the military hero of New York, the guy who'd delivered America's largest city to Gilead. But he was also the guy diddling his marthas and handmaids, as well as having his sticky fingers in the transportation budget's till.

HM: Focus, Paula, focus. I asked, 'boyfriend'?

- silence -

PMac: Oh hell, you may not be long for this world anyway. - pause - Newly minted Commander Nicolas Blaine. Your daughter's boyfriend. Ostensibly of New Gilead District, but he married into the D.C. Wharton's, took on their crippled daughter. Never did give up on June, though. Was so in the good graces of D.C.'s High Commander Wharton, that Nick was given the keys to the Chicago campaign. - pause - You know what happened next? June Osborne. Coincidentally in Chicago. Smuggled north by Canadian do gooders. From Chicago. Now here's a question, was all that just a coincidence?

HM: I am not following you.

PMac: Well she is your daughter, Holly.

HM: I need to ask you a question, Mrs. Mackenzie…..

PMac: Ooooooooo, 'Mrs. Mackenzie'! We're no longer a couple of girls, are we?

HM: Never were, Paula, never were…..

PMac: Okay, shoot. Ask your hardest question.

- silence -

HM: Which side is June on?

PMac: Wait, what?

HM: Is she with Gilead, Paula? Or is she Mayday? I need to know.

Even though Paula Mackenzie and I were 'just a couple of old girls' gabbing over coffee, I never did complete that thought. Neither did she.

I eventually left the dining room, went down to tackle the laundry, and Mrs. Paula Mackenzie and I resumed our roles, as if breakfast had never happened.

MARTHA LORI

I kept hearing of Martha Lori, the legendary leader of the Mayday resistance. Even though I was the farthest thing from the Martha network, you couldn't help but hear the whispers. Even Mrs. Mackenzie had talked of her.

All Marthas were sure of two things, that of them all, it would be Martha Lori who would survive until after-Gilead.

Secondly, that if there was ever any post-Gilead government to replace them, Martha Lori would be, like Nelson Mandela before her, acclaimed as Head of State.

Yet according to Paula Mackenzie, Martha Lori had turned her back on June. Had not approved of the plan to traffic (rescue?) 86 of Gilead's children. Martha Lori did not like other subversives going rogue. (Assuming that that was what June had gone to. The rogues.)

But….. did that mean that June was sweet on Gilead?

What if she was 'Gilead'? I mean, I'd been in the room. I'd been sitting beside Mackenzie on his side of the desk, me on a stool, he with the phone on speaker, and a pistol pointed at my head.

Where the Commander on the other end - I'm certain of it - was talking with June, my June.

Where she was giving away the side. About American Special Forces, headed to Colorado Springs!

So, the question stands. Is June now in with Gilead?

And who is Nick Blaine, this boyfriend? Who is he other than a full fledged Commander of Gilead, a Commander of the faithful - himself married into D.C. Gilead royalty?

Me, I just may divert from my next walk to Loaves and Fishes, and hang myself down at The Wall.

Except, I passed on the Wall, and made it to Loaves and Fishes, where I knew there would be other unwomen. Mainly Marthas themselves, but a smattering of red-clad Handmaids.

This time, other than groceries, I had a question for the other Marthas. When I asked the question to most, they scurried away from me - as if I was still irradiated.

But it was the one Martha, one I'd never seen before. When I asked her the question, she froze in her tracks. She was more than obvious in that room about me having asked her something dangerous.

"How do I get to meet Martha Lori?"

It's a simple enough request. (I'd had neither the time, nor the nerve to ask that about Commander Nick Blaine.)