Susan Pfeffer - This World We Live In

We’re all still alive.

And none of us have yet eaten our four ounces of rice.

My food buddy and I ate a bite of spinach this morning. I don’t like spinach and I’m not at all sure I like Alex.

It’s Sunday, so after breakfast Alex and Julie went off to the dining room and prayed there while Dad, Lisa, Charlie, Syl, and Matt prayed in the sunroom.

Jon looked conflicted about which group to join but ended up in the dining room with Alex and Julie. I guess he figured since he sleeps in the dining room, it was okay to be there.

I’m not feeling real religious these days and Mom never has, so we chose to organize our fabulous food supply, one cabinet for food that hasn’t killed us and another for food we’re going to try next and another for food we get from town. We also separated all the food with expiration dates from over a year ago. We didn’t throw it out, because who knows how desperate we might get when we run out of rice, but we tucked it away where it wouldn’t tempt us.

All this while Charlie and Lisa and Syl and Dad sang hymns. Matt kind of hummed along.

Eventually Gabriel decided to blow his horn, which broke up the sunroom revival meeting. The dining room Catholics (and potential convert) lasted a little longer.

While Mom and I flattened the cartons, we gave thanks, in our own way, for the merciful bounty that’s come our way.

Jon and Julie biked into town to get our Monday food. Julie offered to drive the van, and Mom nearly had a fit.

When they got back, they were loaded with a dozen bags of food.

“One bag for each of us,” Julie said. “Including Gabriel. And an extra bag for Lisa.”

There was less in each bag than we used to get, but it was still very nice of them to include extra for Lisa and to throw in a bag for Gabriel. With all the food in the house and none of it poisoning us so far, the food from town is pretty much a supplement.

Amazing. Enough food for all of us.

“I don’t know how we’re going to do it,” Mom said. “But let’s have a feast tonight.”

“Like a party?” Julie asked.

“Exactly like a party,” Mom said. “Lisa, is it all right with you if we have a party in the sunroom?”

“It’s a wonderful idea,” Lisa said. “Why don’t we move our mattresses into the dining room and spread blankets out, like a picnic.”

“Miranda, go tell the guys they need to come in early tonight,” Mom said. “Alex, too, of course. Julie, you go upstairs and tell Syl.”

“A party,” Dad said when I told him. “Great idea. We have a lot to celebrate. Matt’s marriage, and our homecoming, and the food, and our move to Mrs. Nesbitt’s.”

Matt didn’t look all that excited, and Alex looked uncomfortable, but Dad didn’t notice. Dad always liked parties.

Charlie, Syl, and I lugged Dad and Lisa’s mattresses into the dining room. Lisa took Gabriel into the kitchen with her while I gave the sunroom floor a good mopping. Julie and Charlie went to Mrs. Nesbitt’s to get her silverware and glasses. We’ve been eating in shifts, so we never needed service for ten.

Since we’ve gone three days without food poisoning, we had a lot of opened cans to eat from. Plus rice and shad.

The electricity cooperated by staying on almost all evening, so in addition to cooking on the woodstove, we used the microwave. There was no way we could cook enough for ten people at one time. So first we had a few sips of vegetable soup, and then we shared bites of spinach and mushrooms, and then the main course of rice, shad, and green beans. We each had two dried figs for dessert.

Then the party began. We’re used to spending the evenings together in the sunroom, Bible studies in one corner, chess and card games in another, but the whole idea of a party is to play the same games together. Charlie suggested charades.

“What’s charades?” Julie asked.

I had the feeling Alex didn’t know, either, but to be fair about it, I doubt Jon does and it’s not like I’ve ever played. Charlie explained about acting out names of songs or movies or books, and we divided into boys vs. girls. The boys went into the kitchen to come up with their titles, and we girls stayed in the sunroom to work out ours. Gabriel was an honorary girl. Mom sacrificed a piece of typing paper for us to write our titles on, and Jon donated the use of his Phillies cap for the girls’ slips of paper and his Yankees cap for the boys’. Then Charlie coached all of us on how to divide words into syllables and to cup your ear for “sounds like.”

It turned out to be hard coming up with names of things. You want something that’s perfect to stump the other team, but it’s not like I’ve seen a lot of movies lately or read a lot of books. And all the songs seemed too obvious. But we each came up with two names, put them in the cap, and played.

Alex went first, and he pulled out Mom’s choice of Little Women, which was much too easy. Lisa went next, and she got Matt’s title, Finnegans Wake, which was impossible, even though Mom said she had tried to read it once.

But it didn’t matter, because whether we did well (Dad and Syl were the best at acting things out, and Mom was the best at guessing) or miserably (Jon, with me a close second), it was a lot of fun. It feels like such a long time since I’ve done anything silly. At least intentionally silly.

We played until the electricity went off, but we were still enjoying ourselves, so Syl ran upstairs and got Matt’s old guitar.

“I’ve been teaching myself,” Syl said. “I’m not very good yet.”

She had to be better than Matt, though. He got the guitar for his fourteenth birthday, played it nonstop for three days, and never looked at it again.

Syl strummed chords and Charlie sang, and then we all sang. Julie, it turns out, has a pretty voice, and with candles and the woodstove for light, you could see Alex’s face glowing with pride. Which made me kind of like him again, at least for a minute or two.

After we’d finished massacring every Beatles song we could remember any of the words to, Charlie said to Syl, “I’d like to learn how to play the guitar. My fingers were always too fat before. Would you mind if I learned with you?”

“Not at all,” Syl said. “That would be fun.”

“I’d like to learn, too,” Julie said. “Could we start tomorrow?”

“There’s no point,” Alex said. “We’ll be leaving in a day or two.”

“I don’t want to go,” Julie said. “I want to stay with Hal and Lisa and Gabriel.” She paused for a moment. “And Charlie, too,” she said. “And Jon.”

“We’ve stayed too long as it is,” Alex said. “You know what the plan is, Julie. It’s not open for discussion.”

“It’s not fair!” Julie yelled. “No one asked me what I want to do!”

I’d write what Alex yelled back at her, but he switched to Spanish. I didn’t understand what they were saying, but there was no doubting the tone.

Matt and I have had our fights, but we never sounded that bad. The fights we had were over hogging the computer or getting in each other’s way. He was mean. I was a pest. We had fights like that with Jon, too.

But this, whatever it was they were saying, was much deeper, much angrier. I guess it was the fight brothers and sisters have when they don’t have parents to stop them.

For a moment I was afraid Alex might hit Julie, but that was just in my head, since he didn’t step any closer to her. But he must have said something really bad and Julie must have said something even worse because she ran outside, slamming the door behind her.

“She’ll freeze out there,” Lisa said.