“It was a dream,” she said, blinking. “Everyone was being cut into bits and raped and killed and-”
“It was a dream.”
She put her hand between her little breasts. “How it pounds! I cannot catch my breath.”
“Are you all right?”
“I think so. What is that, Evan?”
She was pointing to my cup. “Oh,” I said. “Well, it’s vodka.”
“Vodka? In a mission?”
I explained that I had made it out of alcohol and water, a process at least as praiseworthy in her eyes as the transmutation of water to wine. She asked if she could have some, and I told her she couldn’t.
“But why?”
“You’re too young,” I said.
“I am old enough to be slept with but too young to have a drink?”
I considered this carefully. “You’re too young to sleep with, too,” I said. I spoke carefully, too, because my tongue seemed thicker than usual. “But, you see, it’s a case of the smaller boll weevil.”
“The smaller-”
“The lesser of two weevils,” I said triumphantly.
“Evan?”
“Hmmm?”
“What is the matter with you?”
“I’m a pillar of the community.”
“Are you drunk?”
“I suppose I am.”
“You’re talking so funny.”
“Er.”
She reached for the cup. I drew it away from her. A pillar of the community would not serve alcoholic beverages to minors, I told myself.
She said, “Have you been drinking all night? And you did not get to sleep at all, did you?”
“Well, I had a few hours sleep-”
“Oh, Evan, you must be tired!”
I poured out the cup of vodka, capped the two jugs, got to my feet. This last process was by far the most difficult of the three but I managed it, swaying rhythmically to and fro. I wasn’t all that drunk, I decided. I was somewhere in that good gray area of insobriety, neither as sober as a judge nor as drunk as a lord. A full meal and a chance to walk off some of the alcohol would clear away the cobwebs.
“Evan, we ought to go now.”
“Breakfast,” I said.
“I am not hungry. The sky is light, it is morning, and I think-”
“Hungry,” I said. “Eat first, then we’ll talk.”
“You said last night that it was dangerous to stay here.”
“It is. A person could get drunk around here.”
“Evan-”
“There’s nothing to worry about, Plum.”
“But you said-”
“Never mind what I said. What do I know?” She blinked at this. “Come on,” I went on. “I’ll cook us something and then we can get started.”
“Where?”
“There’s a kitchen in the far building.”
“I do not want to go.”
“Suit yourself.”
“What will we eat?”
“Oh, I’ll find something,” I said lightly. “With all those bodies out there-”
“Evan!”
She had turned green again. I assured her that I was joking and she looked up at me, glaring balefully. I left her there and went to the kitchen, or, more precisely, the cooking area in the far building. I stepped over bodies and parts of bodies without reacting to them at all. I don’t know whether this was a result of the alcohol or if I was simply becoming accustomed to their presence, as one learns not to notice the wallpaper in a rented room.
Sheena’s men had found the kitchen before me, and had done what they could to kill it. The food they hadn’t carried off was now decorating the walls and floors. A great many eggs and melons had been smashed almost beyond recognition. I ignored all this, whistled a happy approximation of a tune, and found a couple of eggs and a frying pan in which to scramble them. I couldn’t find any salt or pepper or milk or cooking oil or, indeed, anything but the eggs, and the result was nothing James Beard would have wanted to hear about, but then he wouldn’t have been too happy with anything we had eaten since leaving Griggstown. Neither, as far as that goes, were we. The eggs were better than starvation, I decided. The smaller boll weevil.
I dished them out on two presumably clean plates, scared up a pair of forks, and went off in search of Plum. She was where I’d left her but she wasn’t how I’d left her. Her eyes were glassy and she had a stupid grin on her face.
“Whee,” she said. “Shmells like eggs.”
“They’re eggs, all right. Hey-”
She ignored the fork, took a handful of egg, stuffed it into her mouth. “Ughhh,” she said.
“I’m sorry if you don’t-”
“Yummy,” she said. She scooped up another handful of egg and pushed it in my face. “Eat, eat,” she said. “Later we’ll talk.”
“You’ve been drinking,” I said.
“Jusht a little tashte.”
“You’ve been drinking alcohol.”
“I’ve been drinking alcohol,” she agreed owlishly. “Fourteen yearsh old and I’m depraved. Drinking alcohol and running around in the jungle-”
“How much did you have?”
“-and fucking. Theshe eggsh are terrible. Are you shtill drunk?”
“I think sho. Damn it to hell. I think so. They aren’t that bad.”
“Dry and no tashte. I shouldn’t have had that drink, I shupposhe. It’sh bad for both of ush to be drunk, ishn’t it?”
“I guess so.”
She put the plate down. “But I really feel great,” she said. “Niche and looshe and everything.”
“Alcohol has that effect sometimes.”
“It’sh really great.” She extended her arms, beaming. “I’ve got a really wonderful idea.”
“Oh?”
“Let’sh shcrew.”
“No.”
“No?”
I tried explaining it to her. I don’t suppose I did a very good job of it, being still half in the bag myself, but I tried to make her understand about my need for a well-ordered life, my plans to marry and settle down and acquire a power mower and a mortgage. What I said may or may not have made perfect sense, but in any case Plum couldn’t make head or tail out of it, a cliché which, now that I think about it, has particular relevance under the circumstances. Her reply was nonverbal; she took off her clothes and unbuttoned my shirt and rubbed up against me.
“And besides that,” I said, shifting verbal gears, “we don’t have the time. It’s not safe to stick around here, and we should have left a long time ago.”
“You’re right,” she said.
“I’m glad you realize that. So-”
“We should have left lasht night, and we should have left when the shun came up this morning, and we shouldn’t have shtopped to have breakfast, and you shouldn’t have gotten drunk lasht night, and I shouldn’t have gotten drunk this morning. But we did all thoshe things wrong, and we’re shtill here, and it would be fun to make love, and I have all my clothes off, and you have most of your clothes off, and, oh, Evan, put your hand right here for a minute-”
And what I thought, since the human mind is well-equipped for letting ego figure out reasons to give id its way, was that this could serve as a line of demarcation between the old and the new. A final fling with Plum now at the apex of our adventure, and then we could head back the way we came just as I headed back to the life of the new Evan Tanner, the upright suburban Evan Tanner. One final taste of Plum Pudding and tomorrow the diet would begin.
It seemed like a good idea at the time.
“Evan?”
I sighed a long and lazy sigh and rolled over onto my side. I closed my eyes and listened to the sounds of morning – the wind in the tall grasses, the flies swarming in the other buildings.
“I think I am not drunk any longer.”
“Neither am I.”
“That was very nice, Evan. Does it always make one sober to make love?”
“Not always.”
“We should dress now.”