Aurora(12)

“And if you’re completely fucked, you’re living with Aubrey.”

The urge to slap him was overwhelming. She even pictured herself doing it, in the surge of adrenaline that ran through her body. She saw her arm recoiling, right hand back over her left biceps, and then slicing outwards in an arc, her backhand catching him fully on the right side of his face. She saw his head snap to the side and the angry red patch grow on his cheek. She saw him turn back to her, shock in his eyes, his fingertips going to his inflamed skin, and she saw the expression on his face that said, “Wow, I have completely misjudged this lady and I better pull my shit together right this fucking second.” Somehow, seeing that scene play out in her mind was enough, and she didn’t need to live it.

Instead, she spoke in a level voice. “I’m sorry your parents dumped you, Scott. I’m what you’ve got. Get in the car.”

She turned and walked out.

In the car, she slammed the door, started it up, and waited. She’d made a strong, unkind play for control and now just had to hope she’d commanded enough of his respect to get through the next few hours. Her eye caught movement and she looked up, into the rearview mirror. They weren’t the only ones in the neighborhood who’d heard the news, and everybody was headed somewhere, doing what needed to be done while it was still possible to do anything at all.

Norman Levy, the eighty-eight-year-old former college professor who lived at the near end of the block, was standing in his front yard, holding a boxlike contraption in front of his eyes and staring directly into the late-afternoon sun. Aubrey half smiled for the first time that day. Of course Norman was informed and interested. He was never anything but that.

She turned and looked back at her house. Impatient, she pressed the flat of her hand on the center of the wheel and let out a long, fat horn blast. Scott came out a minute later, the screen door slamming behind him, shoving something thick in his front pocket. He left the front door hanging half open behind him. Jesus Christ, this is one hell of a disaster sidekick I ended up with.

Scott got in the car, shut his door, and stared straight ahead. Aubrey put it in reverse and pulled out, faster than she meant to, the front end bottoming out on the uneven sidewalk.



The bank had closed an hour early, and the line for the ATM cubicle snaked out the door and halfway down the block. Scott and Aubrey sat in the car for a moment, just staring at it.

“That line’s at least a half-hour,” Aubrey said. “Puts us behind at the supermarket. Do it or not?”

Scott had his phone out and was tapping away. She rolled her eyes. “Can whoever you’re texting please wait until we—”

He cut her off, reading from the phone. “It says the average ATM can hold as much as two hundred thousand dollars, but almost none of them do. In off-hours, it’s more like ten thousand.”

Aubrey’s eyes skimmed the line in front of the bank, counting fast. “That’s gotta be thirty people. Closer to forty.”

“What’s the most you can take out at once?” he asked.

“Six hundred dollars.”

He shook his head, firmly. “Even if we waited, that thing’s gonna be empty by the time we get there.”

“I have a hundred and twelve dollars on me,” she said. “That’s it.”

Scott looked straight ahead. “I have twenty-two hundred in cash.”

“What?”

He kept staring through the windshield, refusing to meet her eye. “In my pocket.”

She looked at him, incredulous. “Where did you get it?”

“Would you please just drive the fucking car?”

She stared a moment longer, dropped the car in gear, started to ease her foot off the brake, then abruptly changed her mind and put it back in park. She turned her body, facing him fully with an I-can-wait-all-day expression on her face.

“What the fuck is the matter with you?!” he said. “There will be nothing left at the store, just drive the car, you fucking—” He stopped himself before he went too far and turned, looking out the windshield again.

He waited. So did she. He had no intention of speaking.

Aubrey backed down. Wordlessly, she put the car in gear and drove.



The line outside the supermarket was even longer. There were two men in bright yellow vests with long guns in front, one a shotgun and the other looking like an AR-15. The crowd waiting to go inside was peaceful aside from some quiet jockeying and the odd muttered complaint about the permissibility of space-saving. But for the most part people were orderly, if only because of the presence of the armed guards. What caught Aubrey’s attention, though, was the quiet. No one was speaking any more than was absolutely necessary, and with all the movement, both of pedestrians and cars, it created a strange, unnatural mood. They were all on the move, but there was an eerie absence of sound, apart from the crunch of tires on asphalt and tired, frightened feet scuffling forward in line, a few steps at a time.

They’d all been here before. This was disaster prep as wordless, depressing reflex.

Aubrey reached in the back, grabbed the two big empty Fresh Direct bags she’d brought from under the kitchen sink, and turned to Scott. “You coming?”

He looked at her, and she could see he was on the verge of tears. His voice was barely a whisper. “I can’t go through it again.”