13
Dan’s post-lunch coat templates were even worse than his prelunch coat templates, and that was saying something. Now, though, he made them completely alone, on the floor, tucked away in a corner of the ballroom behind mountains of cloth like a drifter in an alley outside Jo-Ann Fabrics. His fingers hurt, his head hurt, his stomach gurgled. He should’ve eaten lunch. That was bravado, pushing away the meal like that. It’s the end of the world, Dan, you eat dog food if it’s served warm.
Just like at regular work, by midafternoon Dan coasted. He only cut fabric when Mrs. Betty was watching, otherwise he reclined into a completed pile of winter socks and dreamed of Domino’s pizza. God. Domino’s. That was his childhood pizza place—hey, there weren’t many options in Tennessee—and Dan could eat through the entire menu right about now. Consume all these feelings. Missing the sun? That’s a large four-cheese pizza. Worried about Alan? Buffalo wings. Regret snapping at Lenny? Spicy meatball, extra sauce.
Nervous your girlfriend realizes she’s wasted two years with a man that’s done nothing with his life and who will ultimately disappoint her at every conceivable opportunity for the foreseeable future?
Uh… Diet Coke.
Several excruciating hours later, the doors to the ballroom burst open, and in strolled Rico Flores with two lackeys, swaggering like they owned the place. They each held a stack of ration cards, and Rico shuffled through them as he walked, whistling. Dan hid behind one of the larger piles but kept an eye out. Rico wasn’t usually the one to distribute ration cards, the enviable task delegated to his men. What changed? And why did he keep looking at Mara?
“Bernie Rinehart!” Rico extended a card above his head.
On the right side of the room, a short man with a bald crown stood and said, “H-here!” like it was roll call. Rico, playfully exasperated, shook the card in his direction. The man waddled over to collect it.
“Nice job, Bernie!” Rico announced. “Three-quarter rations tomorrow. Pick up the pace, and you’ll earn yourself a full card next time.”
Groans flooded the ballroom, and the guards accompanying Rico instinctively clutched their pistols. Rage shot through Dan’s veins like hot marinara sauce. This was his fifth rationing ceremony, they should’ve been mundane by now, but each one still felt like a scab being picked.
Rico hollered over the crowd, his gold tooth catching the light of the ballroom chandelier. “Ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, don’t weep for Bernie! Three-fourths isn’t bad! A lot of you did a lot worse than that! Omar Williams, come on down!”
He was taking such pleasure in this. Omar received half rations, triggering even more of an uproar. Omar, incensed, rushed headfirst into Rico, who laughed and barely had to brace himself. The guard to Rico’s left cracked Omar over the head with the butt of his gun, and Omar collapsed, another pile of fabric on the floor.
Guests fell back in order after that, some weeping gently as they received their cards, others hugging their loved ones and promising we’ll share, we’ll share, it’s okay. Some took another approach completely: thanking Rico for their half rations, their quarter rations, gifts from a benevolent God. The sun may have gone out a week ago, but the last of the light was just now flickering.
“Dan Foster!” Rico called after a while, a trace of amusement in his voice, and Dan crawled from his corner and approached the front, everyone watching because he was megaphone guy, Mara watching, waiting, breath held. For the first time since the day Julio was killed, Dan felt their collective expectations atop his shoulders. I’m not Moses, he repeated to himself. Can’t be the Moses.
“ Quarter rations ,” Rico said, handing Dan the card and patting his face where he’d slapped it. Dan’s stomach somersaulted. His rations had never been cut before. Rico’s coffee-colored eyes bore into his, searching every crevice for a hint of fight, a spark of resistance. He found none. “Come on, Foster. You’ve been avoiding me all week. That all you got? You were such a big man at the hangar.”
Dan turned and sulked back toward his corner.
Rico cleared his throat. “ Mara. Nichols .”
Dan froze.
Mara stood from her seat and shuffled past him.
“One- tenth rations,” Rico announced.
A collective gasp.
Bullshit. That was total bullshit. No one else had received so few rations. And Mara—Mara had cut more templates than almost anyone. Four times what Dan did. And her templates were quality! Dan trembled with fury, crumpled his own ration card where he stood. He could feel Rico’s smirk burning into the back of his neck. He wanted to kick that gold tooth in, he wanted to put him in a headlock, wanted to twist him into a pretzel and ration off bits of him .
That’s what Rico wanted too. He was practically begging for it.
It’s what everyone wanted. Something to believe in, Mara had said. Dan stood there a moment, unable to move. He saw flashes of Julio in red, saw Charles weeping on Mara’s shoulder, saw the elderly couple she snuck food to. He saw Lenny’s hollowed cheeks, the inedible chicken, the broken ukulele, and the man eating off the gym floor. He heard Mara call him a miserable dick, heard her stomach grumbling, felt the rock with waves on it from their first date, which he’d thrown into the ocean in a fit of despair.
People are watching your next move, bro.
Dan spun and faced Rico. The bruise on his face throbbed again.
“Hell yeah, Foster,” Rico said, cracking his neck. “What’re you gonna do?”
Dan took an unsteady breath, the crowd inched closer. He couldn’t fight. He’d proven that at the hangar. Not against a rifle, not against Rico. He wasn’t that type of Moses.
But Mara said he was a good talker.
Dan straightened. “I’m going to speak with your manager.”
Rico’s face scrunched. “What?”
There was a megaphone on the floor—Mrs. Betty had been using it because her voice hurt from shouting instructions—and Dan snatched it, rolled past the guards, and turned to the room, to all those bewildered faces watching him. “I’m going to talk to Lilyanna!” he shouted, which was overkill, because the megaphone worked fine. One of the guards lunged at him, but Dan sidestepped him, tugged the ration cards from his hand, and threw them in the air like confetti. “You guys,” he said, steadying himself, panting. “I think—I think you all should come with me!”
To Dan’s immense relief, folks cheered and immediately swarmed his position as if this was something they’d rehearsed. Wow, okay. That was easy. What next? Without thinking, he kicked open a ballroom door and rushed backward into the Main Building lobby, waving for everyone to keep up. Before Rico could process what was happening, he was engulfed in the huddled masses and Dan was carried forward as if caught in a riptide. “Let’s go talk to Lilyanna!” Dan hollered as they passed the fitness center, astonished he had made it this far, and there was a collective cry of defiance.
The energy from the ballroom flooded the building, guests filtered in from the gym, Tommy Bahama, the spa. Heavy doors slapped against walls like shutters in a storm. Rico bellowed from somewhere, threatened people’s lives, their rations, but Dan shouted over him and pushed on.
“They put my girlfriend on one-tenth rations!” he screamed as the growing assembly passed the gift shop. A guard snatched Dan’s collar, but it was a small guard, thankfully, and Dan shook free of him and darted between—and then atop—some furniture. He balanced himself on the arm of a sofa. “ One-tenth! Why should Building A have any say on how much we eat? We paid for an all-inclusive!”
He pumped his fist in the air and the lobby erupted. Some shouted, “Yeah,” and “Hell yeah,” and “Me too, brother, you said it.” Dan frantically searched for Mara in the tightening crowd, but it was impossible. Several sets of hands caught him as he hopped from the couch. He sprinted though the hallways, banging his fist against doors while others did the same. They exited the Main Building from the south, resort lights casting their shadows against the wall like a parade of phantoms.
Dan didn’t have a plan—the thought of Mara going hungry was an invisible force propelling him forward. He just knew he wanted to be loud, he wanted to be disruptive, and he wanted to talk to the lady in charge.
They passed the gardens behind Building B, walking now because there was no need to run. Dozens marched with him. More. He stumbled when his foot caught an in-ground sprinkler, but a woman steadied him. Dan’s heart fluttered as he pointed.
“This is where we buried Julio Martinez, the pool boy they murdered!”
Booing, now. Some tore their ration cards and threw them in the air, others yelled about fascism, hunger. Rico’s men paced along the outskirts of the crowd, waved their pistols, but they didn’t know what to do. One guard attempted to pull a man back, but the crowd insulated him. Dan cackled when the guard ended up on his ass.
“We have to work together,” Dan said. “We have to be smart! But does that mean we should accept table scraps from Lilyanna Collins and Building A?” They all screamed no. Dan pumped another fist, chills rolling up his spine. “Right! Then…let’s go tell her!”
As they stepped atop the pool deck, Dan felt a familiar hand in his. Mara. She looked proud, she looked impressed, she looked confused. “What are you doing ?” she asked, laughing.
“I’m Moses,” Dan said, and Mara squeezed.
They were one hundred strong now, at least, and people flipped tables and threw chairs into the pools. Tlaloc’s windows shattered. The tiki bar where Dan first spoke to Alan was raided, but the booze was all gone, so pint glasses ricocheted off buildings and the ground. A guard was tossed into one of the lazy rivers. Rico shot back into view, running and screaming, making a show of cocking his rifle. He rushed Dan, but even he couldn’t break through the horde, and Dan felt emboldened by the hand in his. Someone in the crowd began singing Rachel Platten’s “Fight Song,” perhaps the lamest song a group of rioters can collectively sing, but it felt good to take something back from Lilyanna. Dan didn’t know all the words, but he shouted the ones he did into the megaphone alongside Mara.
Building A was in sight. Rico must’ve radioed ahead because several of his men were lined up beneath it, shoulder to shoulder, guns raised. Dan shuffled Mara behind him. The crowd swayed in unison, one thunderous voice singing about the fire burning in their bones, about the fight left in them. And there she was, Lilyanna Collins, on a balcony of Building A, leaning over the railing and shouting into a radio. Pete was beside her, he looked frantic, and Dan stared at them both, singing loudest of all.
Then there was an explosion, as if their singing had broken the sound barrier, and the air shot from Dan’s lungs, and he was ripped from Mara’s hand, and he crashed onto the pool deck with a sickening thud. He squeezed the ground, gasped desperately for breath. Guests shrieked, scattered, stampeded. Mara screamed for Dan, screamed worse than when the sun exploded, and his hand was back in hers, and she said, “Look at me, baby, look at me, look at me, that was so good, it’s okay, you’re okay.” But he didn’t feel okay, he felt like he was dying, and before succumbing he thought maybe he was actually born to die here, and maybe he would just have to live with that.