Mrs. Snodgrass turned to her husband. "Take care of it, Ted," she said in tones that brooked no argument. "Tell 'em you're Irma's husband."
He didn't look thrilled about getting drafted—or maybe about the idea of being Irma's husband. "And what'U I tell 'em when they ask how come I'm not there with her?" he asked.
Mrs. Snodgrass had all the answers. "Tell 'em you weren't with her when she came down sick. Tell 'em you're hoping you don't catch it yourself. Heaven knows that's true."
"I don't reckon they'll talk to me," Mr. Snodgrass said dolefully. But he looked up the number and called the hospital. The longer he talked, the less happy he looked. He clicked off the phone with more force than he really needed. "They said I'm the fifth different husband she's had, by the phone numbers from incoming calls. She's had two mothers, three sisters, and five daughters, too—oh, and two sons."
"Okay, you tried," his wife said, unabashed. "So they wouldn't tell you anything, then?"
"Oh, I didn't say that," Mr. Snodgrass answered.
"Well?" Mrs. Snodgrass and Gran and even Beckie all said the same thing at the same time.
By the way Mr. Snodgrass shook his head, it wasn't well or okay or anything like that. "She died last night, a little before midnight."
The diner had a sign on the door: SORRY, WE'RE CLOSED. PLEASE COME BACK SOON. Justin and Mr. Brooks eyed it in identical dismay. "Is there any other place to eat in Elizabeth?" Justin asked.
"If there is, they've hidden it someplace where I haven't found it," the coin and stamp dealer answered. "And I don't reckon this town is big enough to have any places like that."
Justin didn't think so, either. "What are we going to do?" he asked.
"We could go down to Palestine." As soon as the words were out of Mr. Brooks' mouth, he shook his head. "No, by now they'll have heard Irma's sick. Anybody from Elizabeth will be as welcome as ants at a picnic. I think we'll have to go to the grocery store and pick up whatever we can find that we don't have to cook much."
"Oh, boy," Justin said in a hollow voice. "Junk food and sandwiches and frozen dinners. Yum, yum." Some of what this alternate's Virginia used for junk food grossed him out. Mr. Brooks had had to explain where pork rinds came from. Once Justin knew, he didn't want to eat them any more, even if he didn't think they were bad before. Mr. Brooks said people in the home timeline ate them once upon a time. People in the home timeline had done all kinds of disgusting things once upon a time. They'd kept slaves. They'd worn furs. Pork rinds probably weren't that bad, but they weren't good, either.
Mr. Brooks understood his expression perfectly. "If you see something in the deli section called 'head cheese,' chances are you don't want that, either," he said.
Even the name was enough to make Justin gulp. "You're so helpful," he said.
The grocery was a mom-and-pop. Even in Charleston, there weren't many chain stores here. Because this North America was split up into so many states, corporations couldn't get enormous the way they did in the home timeline. Things were more expensive than in the home timeline, but there was more variety here.
"Mornin'," the grocer said when they walked in. He knew who they were. Everybody in Elizabeth knew who they were by now.
"Mornin'," Justin and Mr. Brooks answered together.
"You'll have heard Irma passed on day before yesterday?" The man's voice held a certain amount of doubt. They were strangers, so who could say for sure what they'd heard?
"Yes," Mr. Brooks said. "We heard that." Justin nodded. You didn't just walk in and buy what you wanted in a place like this, the way you would in the home timeline. Oh, you could, but that would mark you as not just a stranger but a foreigner. People from states like Ohio and Pennsylvania and New York did abrupt, rude things like that. If you were a Virginian, you chatted with the storekeeper for a while.
"Hope you gents are doing all right," the grocer said.
"Well, now that you mention it, so do we," Mr. Brooks said dryly.
"Just a little, yeah," Justin added.
"I believe it," the grocer said, chuckling. "I ate over at the diner a couple of times myself the last two weeks, and Irma's been in and out of here, too."
Why was he laughing, then? Justin had trouble understanding it. The only thing that occurred to him was that laughing at fear was better than giving in to it. Not needing to fear would have been better still.
"You know what's worst about the whole thing?" Mr. Brooks said. "What with the travel ban and the worry about getting crowds together, there are no games on TV. If you're stuck in a motel the way we are, they help make the time go by."
"Or even if you're not stuck in a room," said the man behind the counter. "I was a pretty fair rounders player in the old days, if I say so myself." Justin judged that would have been forty years, thirty kilos, and three chins ago. The grocer went on, "I know how the game's supposed to be played, and I like watching it when it's played right."
"Sometimes, I bet, you like watching it when it's played wrong," Mr. Brooks said. "Then you can tell them what a bunch of fools they are, and how they don't deserve to wear the uniform."
The grocer laughed again. "There is that. Yes, sir, there is that."
Now that the social rituals were satisfied, Justin and Mr. Brooks could go on into the store and get what they wanted. They had an old microwave oven, a gift from the Snodgrasses, in their room so they could nuke frozen dinners. (Here, though, it was a radio range, and you zapped things instead of nuking them.) Frozen dinners in this alternate were even less exciting than they were in the home timeline, but they did give the illusion of sitting down to something cooked instead of eating sandwiches all the time.
Mr. Brooks was buying some bread and Justin was getting some canned chicken and canned fruit when another customer walked into the store. "Mornin', Charlie," the grocer said.
"Mornin', Mr. Kerfeld," answered the janitor who was, as far as Justin knew, the head of the one and only black family in Elizabeth.
"How are you today?" the grocer said.
"Not too bad, sir. Not too bad," the black man answered.
"Wife and kids doing well?"
"Yes, sir. Thank you. Terrible thing, this sickness, isn't it?"
"It really and truly is, Charlie. You heard Miss Davis died?"
"I did. It's a shame, Mr. Kerfeld, and that's the truth. She was a nice lady, a mighty nice lady."
"That's a fact."
Their chat was almost the same as the chitchat Justin and Mr. Brooks had had with the grocer—almost, but not quite. Yes, there was the ritual of gabbing a while before getting down to business. But Mr. Kerf eld had spoken with Mr. Brooks and Justin as equals. They were whites, the same as he was. The janitor, by contrast, called him mister and sir, while the grocer used the African American's first name. The waitress was Irma to whites, but Miss Davis to Charlie.
In the home timeline, racism lingered even after more than two centuries had passed since the Civil War. It didn't just linger here—it was alive and well. In most of the Southern states, whites still oppressed blacks, even if blacks were legally free. In Mississippi, where the black majority had risen in revolt, it was the other way around. And most of the states that had only a few Negroes didn't want any more. It seemed sad and scary to someone who'd grown up knowing better.
Charlie seemed to accept things. But what else could he do? If he fussed, the law would land on him like a ton of bricks. Under his politeness, though, what was he thinking? In his shoes, Justin would have hated Mr. Kerfeld and every other white person he saw. If the janitor didn't, why not?
If he did, on the other hand, what could he do about it? Blacks had rebelled in several states besides Mississippi, and got crushed every time. If they tried it again in Virginia, weren't they bound to fail again? Of course they were . . . unless, perhaps, Ohio gave them a hand. Ohio wouldn't do that from the goodness of its heart—oh, no. But Ohio might do it to give an enemy a hard time.