May 2016 - Two Nights After The Explosion“You okay?”
“Huh? Oh yeah, just, stairs, ugh. Too many.” She didn’t call him on his complaint, though he’d been walking up the stairs almost every day since they moved in. Exercise, he’d said then; pain in the ass, he thought now. Andrew smirked at Janelle from his slumped position on their couch as she dragged things out of the fridge and frowned at the slowly growing pile. She’d been at it when he came in, and he’d been sitting there lamenting the lack of working elevators for at least ten minutes. How much stuff did they have in their fridge?
“There a supermarket in there behind the back panel or what?” He hauled himself up with reluctance when she just snorted and gingerly lifted out the tub of ice cream they kept around for those just in case emergencies of someone bringing home brownies. The face she made meant it was definitely not frozen anymore. “Good riddance anyway.” She raised an eyebrow and he sighed, grimacing. Okay, not good riddance, ice cream was expensive. But at least most of this other stuff was still salvageable, or at the very least still edible. Though it might not last long. “If you’re thinking what I’m thinking, we can’t eat all this before it goes bad. You don’t even like salad.”
There was a lot of already wilting greens. Not to mention the carrots, which had been accidentally frozen in the vegetable drawer, would probably turn into unappetizing mush overnight. But there was definitely no cold air in the fridge or the freezer anymore. And they still weren’t sure when the power was coming back on. He picked the tub up from where she’d set it and dumped it in the sink, wrinkling his nose in disappointment. There was a box of brownie mix in the cupboard they’d been saving for the weekend. Well, at least that wouldn’t be going bad in a hurry.
“I know. But we have neighbours. Some of them like us. We can do a barbecue potluck thing or whatever until the power comes back on. Try uhhh, those people… the ones we helped move in. Ask if they like hamburgers, or grilled chicken. And if they have barbecue sauce.” Andrew rinsed out the sink while he tried to remember their names himself, one started with an ‘A’, he was pretty sure. Alice? Alison? Alex? Maybe… “Alex?”
“Alexis! That’s it, and maybe Laura, don’t quote me on that one. Go, shoo! Before they start making their own plans.”
He went. Passing the elevators on his way and scowling at them for their betrayal. Not working when he needed them to, hah, horrible things. As much as he’d been making fun of himself about the stairs, they’d taken more out of him than he wanted to admit. He’d stood up too quickly, too, made his head spin, and he didn’t think that was a good sign, but deep breaths and taking it slow until he could confirm the problem would just have to do. Still, it would have been nice if he’d made it back home to working elevators after spending most of the day turning over the last of the empty flowerbeds and mixing in manure to get them ready for planting. He’d left his bike in the front hall, because he was not carrying it up, too. And yeah, someone was probably going to be annoyed about that, but he’d get it after he invited Alexis and them over.
At least no one had been in the elevators when the power went out. He’d checked, because that was not a situation he could imagine anyone wanting to be in. He wasn’t claustrophobic, but still, just no. Not fun. Thankfully, there’d been no need to improvise a rescue. He wasn’t even sure what they’d have been able to do if someone had been in them, so, yeah, lucky. Very lucky. Good thing the explosion happened at night, right? Would have been a lot more disasters if it had been during rush hour or something.
Shaking his head at his inability to stop thinking about it, because every time he tried he’d start thinking about it more, Andrew knocked on the door and sincerely hoped he had at least one of their names right and that they might remember him and Alexis was the one who answered. His big grin when it was her who opened the door was small compared with his internal cheer, but even so, he decided maybe not to risk it. “Uh, hi. So, we were wondering, uh, me and Janelle,” he pointed down the hall towards their place even if no one else was visible, “if you had barbecue sauce? Cuz someone – it was me, I’m horrible – forgot to grab it last week. Also, if you like grilled chicken or hamburgers, cheeseburgers maybe? We’ve got options. Kinda. And salad. Please like salad, there’s tons of it. We need hungry people, our fridge makes food multiply, I swear.”
That would actually be pretty useful. But not when it was making soured milk or off meat clones.
“Oh, I don’t know about drinks though… We might have some warm pink lemonade still.” He was totally selling this venture, wasn’t he? Had he even remembered to say what he’d come here for? Well, maybe not with perfect clarity, he’d have to work on that. “I mean, if you don’t already have dinner plans, want to come save our food from going to waste?”
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