I scuffed as the boy nodded happily.
“Edgar. You forgot the cranberries. Edgar?”
“Huh?” I looked at the elderly woman beside me as she held the grocery bag open.
“The cranberries.” She pointed to the array of food in front of me, utterly annoyed at my presence—or lack of presence.
“Right,” I said, putting the can into the bag for her.
She shook her head before taking the bag to the donation table. There was no Thanksgiving in Ersovia, but I’d seen the holiday in movies. So, when Odette had invited me to her family’s place to spend Thanksgiving with her, I thought I knew what to expect. But then she gave me a hairnet, gloves, a face mask, and to add to my disguise, Iskandar once again brought out fake glasses for me.
I didn’t argue. I was looking forward to my first Thanksgiving. However, this was nothing at all like the movies portrayed. There were hundreds of people here instead of a large table full of an overstuffed turkey. I was shocked to see how many of them were single women with children, or, worse, children with no parents at all.
Hundreds of canned and frozen foods were donated, and my current job was filling a bag, handing it to a volunteer, and then filling another bag. It should have been easy enough, but apparently, Thanksgiving meal bags were a bit more complicated than I thought. I was always forgetting a can of something, a box of something else, or putting all the somethings wrong in the bag, causing it to rip.
Rippppp.
Bloody hell. And there went another paper bag!
“Sorry,” I said to the volunteers who probably wished I would stop helping right now.
Bending down, I picked up all the cans and stacked them onto the table.
“Having trouble there?” Odette asked from above me, grinning.
“Yes, and I have no idea why! These bags must be defective!”
“Really, is that why you’re the only one with the issue?” she asked me.
“Hmm.”
“Don’t pout.” She giggled, poking my cheek before bending down to help me.
“Careful, Ms. Wyntor, you wouldn’t want anyone to think I’m your boyfriend or something,” I shot back at her as I rose to my feet.
“Jeremy has a little crush on me. I can’t go breaking a kid’s heart.”
“Ah, but my heart is okay?”
“I didn’t even scratch it. You’re fine, you big baby.” She put the cans onto the table. “Come on, let me show you. You have to make sure there is even weight on both sides, or you will rip one of the handles.”
“Does your family do this every year?” I asked her.
She nodded, putting the stuffing box down gently. “Since I can remember. Why? Are you not having fun?”
“Are we supposed to be having fun?” I asked, nodding over to the pregnant woman who was on her knee with two other children, crying over being given groceries. “These people—”
“Are the working poor,” she finished before I could speak. “Why are you so shocked? Don’t ro...doesn’t your family do charity work, too?”
“Not like this.”
“Like how, then?”
“Charity balls or garden parties. A few hospitals or veteran visits. We’re on a lot of boards, too. My mother goes for a woman’s mental health society meeting or something every year with my sister, as well.”
She just looked at me.
“What?”
“So other than the sick, you’ve never spent actual time with your people?” Her eyebrow rose, and even though she hadn’t said anything, a tone of disapproval was deep-seated in her voice and that raised eyebrow.
“Do give me that look. I am a spare. It’s not my job to do any more than what I already do.”
“Oh, it’s not your job to help...hmm.”
I truly did not like this conversation. “Well, tell me then, Mother Teresa, how often are you among the people?” I shot back.
“I volunteer at the Wyntor foodbank every weekend from Thanksgiving to Christmas. That’s how I know Jeremy.” She nodded to the boy, who was still giving me a death stare from his table with other children. “His foster mother brings him and the rest of the kids to stock up.”
“They let her be a foster mother in this country?” The woman looked like she needed more care than the children did. She had to be at least seventy, with gray, wispy hair and a breathing tube going into her nostrils.
“Yeah,” she muttered, filling the next bag. “It’s easier just not to think about it. My father used to say we are here to help, not to judge. It’s not like we are adopting or fostering anyone, so what can we say.”
“True,” I muttered, wondering for the first time what it was like for orphan children in Ersovia. I had no idea how that system worked or if it was any different from here. Well, it would be different from here. Americans were weird almost by necessity. Why they had to do everything differently was beyond me. Even the imperial system here was still confusing me, and I’d been here for weeks.
Rippppp.
“Are you kidding me?” I looked down at the ripped bag again.
“I think it’s you.” She laughed. “Your mind wanders off, and all of a sudden, you don’t realize you are overstuffing or pulling too hard.”
“It is honestly starting to feel demoralizing—”
“Odette?”
At the woman’s voice, she froze, her whole face dropping as she faced the blonde-haired, blue-eyed, skinny woman before us, dressed in a Wyntor Foundation T-shirt.
“Yvonne.” Odette nodded to her.
Where did I know that name?
“I wasn’t expecting to see you here after the women’s—”
“And yet, here I am.” Odette forced a smile, struggling. “I wasn’t expecting you to be here, either, on account of...well, your aversion to this side of town.”
Both women stared each other down, and for some reason, I heard the sound of two lions about to attack, even though it was silent. After far too long a silence, she turned to me. “And who is your friend?”
“Edgar—”
“He’s a volunteer I met here,” Odette lied, cutting me off before I could speak. Turning to me, she said, “Edgar, this is Yvonne. My half-sister’s mother.”
“Yes, stepmother, how do you do?” She outstretched her hand to me.
I wasn’t sure what to make of this situation, so I just nodded and shook her hand. “Well, thank you.”
“Where are you from? I pick up a slight accent?”
“Yvonne, we’re sort of busy here...you know, volunteering. If you’d like to help, there are hairnets and gloves in the back.”
I picked up another bag and began to pack.
“Right, keep up the good work,” she said, and before she stepped forward, she paused and looked back at Odette. “Odette, please answer Augusta’s call. You’re her big sister, so you should take the high road. You wouldn’t want her miserable because of a little misunderstanding.”
Now I was starting to see why this woman was clearly an enemy in Odette’s eyes. Odette inhaled deeply, glaring into the back of the woman before yanking up the bag.
Rippppp.
I snorted, trying to hold back my laugh.