Rhubarb (17 page)

Martin stood, staring a million miles through Doris.

“Restroom’s that way,” she said.

“No,” said Martin. “Book.”

“Book?”

“Black book,” said Martin. He found it on the table with the
Walmart bags.

“What’s gotten into you?”

He leafed through its pages, and managed to speak. “Did you
ever…?”

“Out with it already, before they publish my obituary,” said
Doris.

“Smoke?” asked Martin.

“I told you. I never smoked a coffin nail in my life,” said
Doris.

“But don’t you see? They did. You said they always smoked.
They smoked while they baked the pies.”

“You don’t think…?”

“What else could it be?” asked Martin.

“Now, why didn’t I ever think of that?” asked Doris.

Gary didn’t look up from his
Soldier of Fortune
magazine until Martin cleared his throat. “You? Out harassing truckers again?”
Gary asked from his stool.

“I need to buy some cigarettes,” said Martin.

“You don’t smoke,” said Gary.

“I’m looking to start,” said Martin.

“Start? People don’t start smoking. Is this another phase of
your spiral into complete lunacy?”

“Look, Gary, are you going to help me or not?” Martin
checked over his shoulder for Eileen.

Gary tossed his magazine on the back counter with a sigh and
slid off his stool. He bellied up to the counter, framing himself in front of a
hundred choices on the back wall. Red, green, blue, white, brown, yellow,
black, lites, menthols, 100s, naturals, filterless, slims. Stacked like a wall
of Lego bricks. Martin wondered how he’d choose if he really had wanted to start
smoking. One pack of each to find his favorite? Did taste actually matter, or
something else? Should he pick the brand least likely to get him beaten up in
the nearest bar? Should he pick the one with the advertising model that best
fit his demographic? Was he Kool? Did he belong in Marlboro Country? Did he
have American Spirit? Or—why a Camel, exactly?

“Okay, first-timer, what kind do you want?”

Martin held out one of the pictures from Doris’s photo
albums and pointed to Linda’s face. “This kind,” said Martin.

Gary snatched the picture. “Who’s that?” he asked.

“She’s dead,” said Martin. “The cigarette.”

“Just ’cause I sell them, I’m supposed to be some kind of
expert?”

“Come on,” said Martin.

“Fine,” said Gary. He tossed the picture on the counter.
“It’s your funeral. Those would be Pall Mall. You can tell because the filters
aren’t tinted; there’s the stripe and logo.”

“You’re sure?” asked Martin. “It’s an old picture. You think
they looked like that in the eighties?” Gary glared under his brow. “Fine, a
pack of Pall Malls. The most normal kind.”

Without looking, Gary reached back, selected a pack, and
dropped it on the counter. Under the shiny wrapper, it glittered as red and
gold as Christmas. “Anything else? And before you ask, no, I do not know any crystal
meth dealers.”

“Just that,” said Martin.

Gary plucked a little blue tube with a chrome top from a
flimsy cardboard rack in front of the till and set it on the pack. “I assume
you’ll need one of these,” he said.

“Is there anything else I need?” asked Martin. “Never done
this before.”

“Cigarettes. Over eighteen. Lighter. Death wish. I think
you’re good to go,” said Gary.

Martin slapped a bill on the counter. Gary handed him the
change. Martin dropped the coins in the take-a-penny bowl.

“Oh, thanks,” said Gary.

“Any way I could ask you not to mention this to Eileen?”
asked Martin. Gary smiled, but not in any kind of pleasant way. Martin put
another bill on the counter, but kept his hand on it. “Please.”

Gary smirked at the paltry bribe. Martin retracted the
offer.

The Pall Malls somehow seemed no more deadly than all the
candy, gum, snacks, beer, energy drinks, and packaged foods peddled in front of
the counter—and definitely more honest. Instead of “Nutrition Facts,” the pack
displayed an easy-to-read label warning him of his imminent demise. Twisted,
government-mandated candor—the clause that refreshes.

“You have a good night now,” called Gary.

~ * * * ~

“So how would this work?” Martin asked.

“You tell me. This is your harebrained scheme,” said Doris.

“I think one of us should smoke the whole time, very near
the whole process,” said Martin.

“Well, don’t look at me,” said Doris. “If anyone’s doing any
smokin’, it’s gonna be you.”

“You’re sure you’re okay with smoking in here?”

“Won’t be the first time,” said Doris. “Besides, I want to
be here if this works.”

“Okay, but I think you should do most of the baking. The pie
should be as authentic as possible.”

“Deal,” said Doris.

“Ready?” asked Martin.

“Quit your stallin’ and light up already.”

Martin tore away the cellophane. He tamped the pack against
his palm, sure he’d seen people do that before. He opened the hinged lid and
gave the pack a little shake. One cigarette put its head up a little higher
than the others. Martin sealed its fate and put it between his lips. One easy
strike on the lighter, and he got a flame. He touched the fire to the tip of
the cigarette, got a little flare, then smoke.

“Try again. You gotta suck in a little, give the tobacco
some air,” said Doris.

Martin lit it again, and this time got a mouthful of acrid
smoke. He coughed and his eyes watered.

“That’s it,” said Doris.

“Wonderful,” choked Martin, checking the smoldering tip.
“Are you going to start?”

“I’ll get started after you do. Come on. Obama’s in the
White House, not Clinton. I guarantee you that Linda and Margie both inhaled.”

Martin took a deep breath, exhaled, and then drew a lungful
through the cigarette. He expected nausea and barfing—the usual
after-school-special consequences—but the smoke arrived surprisingly easily. Martin
felt an instant sort of buzz, but he couldn’t call it pleasing. More like
oxygen deprivation.

“Bake fast,” he said. And a few minutes later, he found
himself cutting rhubarb in the dark, a cigarette dangling from his lips. Worst
Steinbeck novel ever.

~ * * * ~

The pie cooled on Doris’s counter as the first light of a
new day crept through the kitchen window.

“One more,” she said.

Martin groaned. He had already kicked his
eight-cigarette-a-pie habit after retching onto Doris’s driveway forty-five minutes
ago.

“You never know,” she said. “It could need to happen now,
blend with the steam, work its way into those bubbles in the vent…”

Martin lit one more. He sucked the smoke down his raw throat
into his swollen, resistant lungs, and then exhaled onto the pie, as he had
during every other step. His smoky breath had been stirred with the filling,
kneaded into the dough, even blown under the top crust before Doris crimped it
shut. He took a second puff, then a third. He couldn’t feel his face.

He stubbed the vile thing out among the ashes and wreckage
of its martyred brethren in a heavy amber glass ashtray. “That’s enough,” he
said. She chewed her lips for a moment, then agreed.

“You think we did it?” she asked.

“Are there any other variables we might have forgotten?”
asked Martin.

“I woulda said we should make it in the kitchen at the
Corner, but they took out the bakery back during the remodel.”

“The flour, the water? Maybe Crisco changed their formula?”

“They used all kinds of flours, different brands of sugar.
Herbert’d buy rhubarb from anyone. That’s why everyone’s still got it in their
gardens around here. There wasn’t nothin’ consistent about them.”

“What was consistent?” asked Martin.

“Margie and Linda. And I suppose the smoke,” said Doris. She
grabbed his upper arm with a hard grip. “Boy, you might just have saved Cheryl.
Except how’re we going to test it? You gonna chase down another trucker?
Highway Patrol been told to keep an eye out for you.”

“I don’t think we need to do that,” said Martin.

~ * * * ~

Martin offered Doris a hand up the front steps, but she
slapped it away.

“Don’t you drop them pies,” she said.

Martin knocked. After a long minute, Stewart answered the
door. “Martin. Doris,” he said. He glared at the objects, covered with kitchen
towels, in Martin’s arms. “What can I do for you?”

“Smells like you’re makin’ coffee,” said Doris.

“So what?” asked Stewart.

“Well, invite us in already, you old goat,” said Doris, and
pushed past Martin.

“By all means,” said Stewart, getting out of her way.

A few moments later, Doris cut into the first pie. She set a
slice on a paper plate and put it on the table in front of Stewart.

“I don’t know what this is all about,” said Stewart.

“Try the damned pie,” said Doris.

“You can drop the charade,” said Martin.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Stewart.
Doris handed him a fork.

After a quick, falsely thoughtful chew, Stewart said,
“Rhubarb pie.”

Doris cut a piece from the other pie, slid it onto a fresh
plate, and handed him a fresh fork.

Stewart took the next bite just as skeptically, but before
he swallowed, Martin thought he detected a tiny tremor, the slightest tilt of
the man’s head. Stewart cleared his mouth with his tongue and said, “They taste
the same.”

Doris checked Martin and then pursed her lips at Stewart.
“Thought we had it,” she said. “Or maybe the boy’s wrong about you.”

“Or maybe both,” said Stewart. “You remember when I was
born, Doris Solberg. Now you think I’m like Herbert?”

Doris shook her head. “He had me convinced,” she said.

“You knew Herbert was an alien?” asked Martin.

“’Course,” said Stewart. “Most everyone knew. Though some
chose to pretend otherwise. Why did you think I was?”

“The sunglasses you wore in my apartment the other night.
Herbert Stamper wore a pair just like them to identify aliens,” said Martin.

“Don’t know why that’d make me one,” said Stewart. He
waggled his prescription glasses over his nose. “Sensitive eyes.”

“Well, this is a bust. And it’s way past my bedtime.” Doris
grabbed Martin’s forearm in another bony vulture grip. “Take me home, young
man.”

“Take your pies with you,” said Stewart.

“You keep ’em,” said Doris. “Doctor’s doing a poor job of
keeping me off sugar as it is.”

“You know I don’t care for it much. Not since Linda passed,”
said Stewart. “I guess they’re yours,” he said to Martin.

~ * * * ~

The day had more than officially begun as Martin rolled
through Brixton below the speed limit. Doris had been dropped off at home, and
the pies and the pack of cigarettes sat in the passenger seat in her stead. One
pie was as normal as a rhubarb pie could be. The other could be Cheryl’s
salvation. He may have been wrong about Stewart, but the jury was still out on
the cigarettes. Martin coughed, and phlegm scraped at his trachea. His lungs
felt like a hippo with a bottlebrush had sat on his chest for an hour.

He put on his blinker as he neared the junction. He should
have left Billings an hour ago to get to his day’s calls. Another day of
binning screws, sorting nails, assuaging complaints from assistant managers,
and driving. More driving. Over roads he’d traveled a hundred times. Probably
more.

From the FastNCo. procedural manual for area
representatives who find their lives, beliefs, purpose, and health in utter
shambles and haven’t had anything to eat in the past twelve hours but ice cream
and cigarettes:

1.
“Hi, Rick…yeah, I know. Not
feeling very good. Bad cold or flu or something. Felt it coming on yesterday,
but thought I was going to be able to shake it. I was up all night. Won’t go
into the details. But I don’t think I’m going to be able to make my
appointments today…Yeah. I’m calling them right after I talk to you…Hopefully
tomorrow…Send a revised schedule, check. Writing it down…Thanks, Rick.”

He hung a U-turn in front of Herbert’s Corner. The Brixton
Inn was three minutes away. If he checked in now, maybe he could get a waffle
before crashing.

They arrived in two identical black cars.

The tires rolled silently across gravel. The engines’ hum
blended with the breeze and the insects. They traveled dark, no headlights, no
brake lights, no glow from the dashboards. The cars braked in unison, and three
figures emerged. As they gathered on the road, wind and moonlight passed right
through them and continued on their way across the prairie.

A dog barked in the distance.

Though silent as shadows, they strode awkwardly, as if
unaccustomed to the ground beneath their feet. After they wobbled across the
cattle guard, one tapped at a device on his wrist, compelling the only
potential witness to fall asleep in front of a late-night movie. A half-drunk
beer fell to the floor and dribbled onto the carpet. The others nearby, already
asleep, moved into a dreamless state.

The three beings turned into the third driveway on the left,
mounted a little porch, and entered a trailer. One located a set of keys on the
kitchen counter, acknowledged the others, and left. He backed the Ford Pinto
out of the driveway and drove away. The night fell quiet again.

They found her in bed. One being set an object on her
forehead. After a moment, it melted, sending insectile tendrils trickling
around her ears and through her hair. Her body stiffened as if in pain, and her
breath shortened. Her mouth opened in silent terror, and then she relaxed.