But when she listened to the Snodgrasses going back and forth, she had all she could do to keep from breaking into a great big grin. They reminded her of her own mom and dad. People who lived together for a long time and made it work found ways to talk about things. They could tease each other without wounding, and they had a pretty good notion of when to let up.
No wonder Gran doesn't get it, Beckie thought sadly. Her grandmother wounded people almost every time she opened her mouth. Had she been the same way with her husband the sailor? Beckie wouldn't have been surprised. No wonder he drank. That hadn't crossed her mind before. She wished she weren't thinking it now.
Five
"Mornin', gents," said the waitress in Elizabeth's one and only diner, across the street from the one and only motel. "What'll it be?" By now, she was used to them coming in for breakfast every day.
"Ham and eggs today, I think, Irma," Mr. Brooks answered.
"Sausage and eggs for me," Justin said.
"Potatoes or grits?" Irma asked.
"Potatoes," they said together. Mr. Brooks added, "See? We sing in hominy."
The waitress started to nod, then stopped, did a double take good enough to go on TV, and sent him a dirty look. Justin gave him another one. "Did you have to do that, Uncle Randy?"
"No," Mr. Brooks admitted. "But I enjoyed it."
"That makes one of us," Justin said. This time, Irma did nod.
She set coffee in front of Mr. Brooks and ice water in front of Justin. He still couldn't get stoked about coffee, and it was too early in the day for a soda. A fizz, he reminded himself. I've got to think of them as fizzes, or I'll call 'em by the wrong name one of these days. That wouldn't be so good.
A local came in and sat down at the counter a few stools away from Justin and Mr. Brooks. He gave them a polite nod and spent a couple of minutes chatting with Irma before he ordered ham and eggs for himself. He chose grits to go with them. Chances were he'd been eating them all his life. If you got used to something when you were little, you'd go on liking it once you grew up.
Justin hadn't eaten grits when he was little. He feared he would never get used to them. In states like Georgia and Alabama, potatoes were hard to come by. There, most of the time, it was grits or nothing. That made Justin glad he at least had a choice.
"Terrible thing about Parkersburg," the local remarked when Irma gave him his coffee.
"Good Lord, wasn't it!" she exclaimed. "The front window rattled when that boom got near. I was afraid it'd break to pieces. Don't know what we would've done if it did. That's a big old piece of plate glass."
"Mighty dear," the man said, by which he meant expensive.
"Isn't it just?" Irma said. "Isn't everything nowadays? I had to have a tooth filled last week, and it cost me twenty pounds. Twenty pounds, can you believe it?" She paused and looked startled. "I had to go to Parkersburg to do it. I hope my dentist's office is still there. I hope my dentist is still there."
"How did you get them to let you into town with the travel ban on?" Justin asked.
"Sweetheart, I told the cops at the checkpoint I was from Elizabeth, and they let me by," Irma answered. "Nothing ever happens here, so they knew I wasn't carrying any stupid disease."
"Have there been any cases in Parkersburg?" Mr. Brooks didn't say any more than that. He didn't want to come right out and ask if the waitress had brought the sickness back with her.
And she didn't seem to catch the drift of the question. "My dentist didn't talk about any," she said. Then she went back to the tall counter between the kitchen and the outer part of the diner. She plucked two plates off it and set one in front of Justin and the other in front of Mr. Brooks. "Here you go. Enjoy your breakfasts, now."
Justin dug in. The diner would never win any prizes, but it wasn't bad, either. Irma went on shooting the breeze with the other customer till his food was ready. After she gave him his plate, she came over and refilled Justin's water and Mr. Brooks' coffee. Justin felt her breath on the hairs of his arm. After the question Mr. Brooks asked, he wished he didn't.
The older man was thinking along with him. "Well, we'll find out, won't we?" Mr. Brooks murmured. "Find out how good our shots really are too."
"I'm afraid we will." As soon as Justin heard what he'd said, he wished he hadn't put it like that. He didn't believe in omens and bad luck—not in the top part of his head he didn't. Believe or not, he knocked wood. He hoped it was wood, anyhow, not some synthetic. He didn't knock loudly, but Mr. Brooks noticed. "It can't hurt," Justin whispered. The older man nodded.
They both left the little diner as soon as they finished. Would that do any good? Justin had his doubts. By Mr. Brooks' somber expression, so did he. Again, though, it couldn't hurt.
"What now?" Justin asked.
"Now we hope," the coin and stamp dealer answered. "Hope we have some immunity. And Irma's not sick, so chances are we'll be all right. Of course, who knows how long the virus takes to incubate?"
"Yeah," Justin said, and then, "That isn't really what I meant. What are we going to do today?"
"Oh. That." The way Mr. Brooks said it, it didn't sound very important. He had a point, too. He had to think for a moment before he went on, "Well, laundry would probably be a good idea."
"Yeah," Justin said, more happily. They were washing their clothes at the Snodgrasses'. Elizabeth didn't boast a washeteria, which was what they called laundromats here. They'd also had to go down to Palestine to buy more for themselves after they got stuck here. Now they had three or four days' worth of outfits, not just what they'd worn when they got here.
Mr. Brooks smiled at him. "You won't be sorry to see Beckie again, will you?"
"Why should I be?" Justin answered. "She's nice. I'm not going to bring her back to the home timeline or anything, but she's nice." He suddenly wondered when—and if—he'd be able to get back to the home timeline himself. Crosstime Traffic wouldn't be eager to let people who might have been exposed to a genetically engineered disease bring it back with them. Diseases from other alternates had ripped through the home timeline more than once. People were a lot more careful now.
"Okay." Mr. Brooks set a hand on his shoulder. "Why not? Let's go deal with the laundry, then."
Beckie listened to Justin with rising horror. The more she tried to fight it down, the more it rose. Even the waitress' name somehow fueled it. Irma? Nobody in California would carry such an old-fashioned handle. "She came back from Parkersburg, and there's sickness there?" she said.
"She came back from there, anyhow," Justin told her. "She said her dentist didn't talk about any cases. That proves nothing one way or the other. But Parkersburg's a fair-sized town, and it's close to the Ohio border, and it's on a main road, so. ..."
"Yeah. So," Beckie echoed unhappily. "Well, I don't think I'll get a whole lot of sleep tonight. Thanks a lot."
"I'm sorry. Would you rather I didn't tell you?" Justin sounded unhappy, too.
"I don't know." Beckie had to think about that. She finally shook her head. "No, I guess not. I'd rather be up on what's going on. Then I know what to worry about, anyhow."
"Good. I didn't think you'd want to be a mushroom," Justin said.
"A mushroom?" Beckie frowned. "What do you mean?"
"Sure. You know—they keep you in the dark and they feed you, uh, horse manure."
"Oh." The more she thought about it, the wider she grinned. "I like that. I really like it. Did you make it up yourself?"