Autumn in the City of Angels (8 page)

The fires burned for three months.  When the wind wasn’t too strong, we kept one of the umbrellas up on the terrace to keep the ash from falling on us while we maintained surveillance.  Sometimes we had to sweep a path, and other times, we had to shovel it so we wouldn’t have to wade through the drifts.

On the days the Santa Ana’s blew hot and strong, we didn’t go up to the terrace at all.  The swirling bits of ash burned our eyes and made breathing difficult.  On the days we spent indoors, we played games with Rissi.  Her favorite ones usually involved imagination.  I often thought if I were her age, I’d imagine myself out of here as often as possible, too.  Maybe that’s why Ben and I played along so often without complaint.

I’d moved the lemon tree inside to sit beside the kitchen windows, safe from the ash-filled air on the other side of the glass.  The clouds lying like a blanket over the Los Angeles basin had made the daylight feeble anyway.  The months were difficult for us to get through, but we had each other, even if mine and Ben’s relationship was somewhat altered.

Since that night when I rejected his kiss, Ben no longer seemed to follow me around.  The movie nights were a thing of the past, something that died with the summer.  He seemed to have double the amount of projects to work on.  He’d started stocking a spare room with extra supplies we didn’t use every day, or things he thought might become useful like sleeping bags, tents, batteries, blankets and canned food.  He spent an excessive amount of time in there, organizing and categorizing items.  We hadn’t spoken another word about what’d happened that night on the terrace.  So on the morning of December 31, I was unnerved when Ben asked if I would come into his storeroom to talk.  On edge, I followed him.

Pretending not to be fazed, I wandered over to a stack of magazines and started flipping through them, searching for something to keep my hands and eyes busy.  I looked up at him and found him staring at me, eyebrows slightly raised over his thick glasses, his eyes sad.  My eyes flicked back down to the magazine.  I was startled to see my mother’s holly green eyes staring back at me from the glossy pages.  Red, curly hair and her characteristic half smile.  She was wearing a dress the shade of emeralds in sunlight and was carrying an Oscar.  I could practically smell her.

Without closing the magazine, I dropped it back into the box.  My mother’s green eyes still glowed at me from the darkness.  I looked up at Ben.  “What’s up?”

“I wanted to talk to you away from Rissi.  I didn’t want to scare her.”

My stomach jumped.  “What’s wrong?”

“We’re almost out of water.  Drinking water.  The Sparkletts water jugs have been great, but even with it being rationed, we’re going to be running low very soon.  And I think we need to do something about it sooner rather than later.  We can’t keep waiting on the rainy season.  It’s almost January and it hasn’t started yet.  We should make a decision.”

We finished clearing apartments a month ago and were going back to look for things we might have missed the first time, but so far our second sweep had proven mostly unsuccessful.

“We’re going to have to go out then,” I said.

Ben nodded slowly.  “I’m not going to tell you not to go, because I know you’ll just argue with me.”

Anger flashed in my eyes, and I pursed my lips.  “You know, I’m quite capable –”

Ben interrupted me, annoyed. “Yeah, I know.  But would you believe me if I told you that’s not why I want you to stay here?  The Front won’t hesitate to hurt us if they catch us.  We’ve seen it.  We’re all Rissi has.”

I looked away from him.  “But you said they weren’t in this area anymore.”

“I said I hadn’t seen them
lately
.  But they’re still out there.  Their radio broadcasts are proof of that.  And they still use the warehouse as one of their bases.”

For the first time, I noticed the radio in the corner was broadcasting The Front’s propaganda.  Ben thought it was necessary to monitor the recorded feeds, saying it was important to know one’s enemy.  The messages were monotonous, but the looping broadcasts were occasionally broken up with a live transmission from Karl.  It chilled my blood to hear his smooth voice.

I couldn’t stand to listen to it.  After getting an up-close and personal tour of who The Front truly was, it gave me the creeps to listen.  It was all talk, no music.  They were still trying to persuade people to come out of hiding and join their group.  Even though we knew it was mostly lies, Ben listened for any new information.  We learned they’d grown much bigger since my encounter.  They occupied several warehouses throughout the city now.  I imagined they were all like the one I’d been in, stuffed to the gills with supplies.

I sighed and said, “Well, I’m still coming.  We can cover each other’s backs, and Rissi will be safe by herself here for a few hours.”

Ben nodded.  “I figured I couldn’t talk you out of going.  Stubborn ass.”  He smiled at me in a way that let me know I hadn’t really upset him.  “So let’s prepare a strategy today and go tomorrow morning as soon as the sun’s up.”

A bright red color in the corner caught my eye.  I walked over to it and picked it up.  It was a Molly American Girl doll still inside its box.  I smiled and looked at Ben over my shoulder.

“Rissi’s birthday?”  I asked.

He nodded.  “I found it in an apartment a couple months ago.”

I admired the doll’s chestnut hair, which was so much like Rissi’s own curls, and smiled.  “She’ll love it,” I said, thinking of how loud Rissi would squeal when she saw the pristine new doll.  “Molly’s her favorite.”

We left the storage room and found Rissi watching a movie from inside a tent she’d made from couch cushions and tablecloths.  The tent had become a permanent fixture in the living room.  There were times when I envied her small, safe space.  Occasionally I’d squeeze in it with her to play and sometimes even fell asleep there.

As I stooped to pass a small not-so-hot mug of tea to Rissi, I heard a strange pattering noise, and Ben called my name suddenly.  My stomach flopped, and I quickly stood up.  Ben was standing by the window in the kitchen, looking out.  I peered through the windows myself but only saw the dull gray haze of ash and smoke clouds.  But then, my ears focused on the noise, and my eyes refocused on the clear liquid streaks appearing on the windows.

“It’s raining!”  I heard Rissi exclaim from beside me.  She scooted out of her tent to stand beside me.  I felt her small hand hook into the back pocket of my jeans, and she rested her head on my waist.  I brushed some of her whisper soft hair off her forehead with my fingers.

“Maybe it’ll rain enough to put out the fires,” I heard Ben say from the kitchen.  Maybe, I thought.  The Santa Ana winds blew themselves out earlier this month, and the heat finally broke, though the hills still smoldered and smoked.  I heard some banging noises from the kitchen, and Ben passed with a large pot.

“Maybe we won’t have to go tomorrow!  I’m going to see if I can catch any clean water,” he said.

Rissi resumed her movie, and I sat back down at the kitchen table and waited.  Transfixed, I watched the ash running down the windows in streams until I realized I was cold.  I went to my room and dug through a dresser until I found my dad’s old college sweater and tugged it over my head.  On my way back to the living room, I grabbed a sweatshirt for Rissi from her room.  I pretended to stalk her like a lion outside her tent, and she glanced nervously at me and tried to dodge my arms as I grabbed her.  She squealed as I bundled her into her sweatshirt.  Ben reappeared, his hair and glasses spattered with water and soot.

“Well, that’s it for the rain right now,” he said.

“It stopped already?” I asked, disappointed.

Ben grimaced. “Yeah.  Maybe we’ll get some more.  It’s gotten cooler though.”  He brushed the withering leaves of the lemon tree as he passed.  “It’s probably been too hot for this tree of yours to produce any fruit, but I swear I smell it sometimes.”  He smiled, shaking his head.  “If it stops raining ash, we can put it back up on the roof.  It could use the sunshine.”

I smiled at the thought of clean air and sunshine in the near future.  I loved what the rain did after a long period of dryness.  How it washed the air clean and made the hills sparkle.  After three months of gray clouds and ash, rain was a very welcome change for the New Year.

Ben sat down at the kitchen table across from me and began to clean his glasses meticulously.  I watched him until he was done and then tipped my mug to him.  “Happy New Year, Ben.”

He slowly smiled at me and clicked my mug with his.  “Happy New Year, Autumn.”

The next morning, the rising sun woke me early.  I looked out the window and was pleased to see patches of brilliant blue sky.  The air already looked clearer.  The hills to the north were black as tar from the fires, but I reveled in the fact that I could see them perfectly.

Ben set out pots and pans on the terrace, just in case a shower happened overnight, hoping we wouldn’t have to venture into the city.  We allowed a few more days to pass, waiting for more rain, but the air continued to be as dry as kindling.  The next day, we decided we had to go out and search for drinkable water.

I was nervous about going out again, and I saw fear in Rissi’s eyes as well.  I knew she was scared to be alone.  I made faces at her over my bowl of instant oatmeal until she started laughing and began to eat her breakfast.

Before we left, Ben threw a backpack over his shoulder and handed me a similar one.  “Just in case,” he said.  “There’s food, a change of clothes, a first aid kit and a Swiss Army knife.”

“Thanks,” I said, surprised.  I hadn’t thought about the possibility of us being separated.

We took the elevator down to the parking level and packed our things into our small electric golf cart.  It had belonged to his dad for his janitorial duties, and Ben had hidden it between two Hummers, like a gnat between two elephants.  We’d be able to carry water in the small truck-like bed behind our two seats, and we’d cover ground quickly.  We decided to avoid the warehouse store to the north and start heading east.

When we exited the building, I realized I hadn’t been outside at street level for over half a year.  It was May when I foolishly encountered The Front and met the nameless boy in the alley, the boy who I continued to dream about at night.  A large part of me hoped I might run into him again today.  Not long after Ben and Rissi moved in with me, I told Ben about him, sparing the more embarrassing details I would have divulged to Sarah.  Ben had been very interested in this other group, his geeky side showing when he called them a “rebel alliance.”

The silence of the city was heavier at street level.  It pressed down on us as we made our way east on small roads that ran parallel to the larger Washington and Venice Boulevards.  Grass split the concrete and grew tall between the abandoned cars.

“Do you think it’s a good idea being out in the open like this?”  I asked, as I scanned the area nervously.

“Don’t see that we have much of a choice.  But I have noticed less foot traffic in general from the terrace, and they haven’t replaced the white flag that fell down across the street.  I used to see a Greeter or two every day or so, especially at that burned-out café across the street from us, but I guess they got busy somewhere else, ‘cause it’s been completely dead for the last week.”

I winced at Ben’s poor choice of words, and he grimaced apologetically as soon as he said it.  The café always reminded me of Everland Coffee Company, where Sarah worked, and where I’d gone to meet her the day of The Plague.  A familiar pain gripped my insides when I thought of all the time we’d spent hanging out at Everland's after school.  How we’d spread our books across the one low coffee table and study for tests, or how we’d gossiped about our classmates, particularly the boys.  I sighed and pushed the memories to the back of my mind and tried to focus on the task at hand.

There was a grocery store less than a mile from our building, so we made our way there first.  The going was slow.  Ben was careful to keep us hidden and slowed the cart to barely a crawl as he glanced about, especially when we saw a white flag, indicating The Front may be nearby.  Then he’d murmur that he thought he heard something before slowly picking up speed again.  I acted as a second lookout, but never saw the source of the strange noises he seemed to be hearing.

About a block from the grocery store, a flock of seagulls exploded from an empty storefront, making me jump.  I clutched at the neck of my jacket, trying to calm my breathing.

“It’s all right.  Just birds,” Ben said, smiling at me.

I glared at him in response.

When we pulled up in the parking lot of the grocery store, we stopped to stare.  It looked more like a meadow, with waist-high grass bending in the light breeze.  Ben picked a particularly high part of the grass to park the cart in for cover, and then we picked our way to the entrance of the grocery store.  The glass storefront was shattered, and it was dark inside, but the morning sun was bright.  We stepped inside, glass and leaves crunching beneath our sneakers.

Once my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I gasped.  The store was completely cleared out, as if it had gone out of business.  There was nothing left.  Absolutely nothing.

When we came back out into the bright sunshine, I said, “There’s an Albertsons grocery store another mile or so east.  We could try that.”

We continued our journey, passing gas stations that were missing the heavy round lids accessing the giant underground gasoline storage containers.  We paused so Ben could peek down into one.  He nudged a small rock over the edge with his shoe.  We heard it clatter on the ground below.  “Empty,” he said.  “Bet The Front’s been siphoning all the gas they can.  Gonna be a hot commodity when the electricity goes out and we’re all on generators.”

The sun was soon halfway across the January sky and beat down on the small cart as we passed store after store.  I subconsciously pointed Ben toward Hollywood as our fruitless journey continued.  The closer we got to Hollywood High School, the more I yearned to see the boy from my dreams.  I wondered, as I had countless times, why he still hadn’t come for me?  Was it still unsafe after all this time?  But as I looked around, while we traveled in our small cart, I had my answer.  With every collapsed, blackened structure piled where giant stores should have been, I knew the city was more unsafe now than when we’d parted.  Despair flooded my stomach.  How in the world were we all supposed to survive when everything had either been ruined or stolen?  Would there ever be a safe time for him to return to me?  Did he still want to?