“Oh, honey.” Carol dried her hands and went to Olivia, put her arms around her. “That’s such a relief. How is he? Is he still on base?”
Olivia wiped her eyes and showed the text message to Carol.
“‘I’m good,’” Carol read aloud. “‘We’re prepared, have backup systems. I won’t be able 2’—he used the number two instead of the word to, I taught him better than that—‘get leave for a long time, so take care of yourself. Tell Gran I said hi, & love U both.’”
Carol wiped her own eyes. “What a load off my mind. I figured the military would be fine, but hearing him say it makes me feel better.” She gave Olivia another squeeze, then rejoined the food prep.
Sela glanced at the clock, did some calculations. “Olivia, if you’ll shell the last of those peas, we’ll have time to get them in the pressure cooker before time runs out.”
Olivia made a face, because she’d already discovered she hated shelling peas—and shucking corn—but she sat down without protest and picked up a pod. They didn’t have a lot of peas left, maybe enough to fill five or six pints. Barb had made some fresh bread in her bread-making machine, and Sela had baked a couple of dozen corn bread muffins. They’d get stale, but they’d last longer than soft bread.
They’d done what they could. They had just a few more hours before the CME hit. Sela wished someone could tell them the exact time, but a solar storm didn’t obey anyone’s schedule. Nature was awe-inspiring and powerful, and nothing on Earth was more powerful than the sun.
She was so proud of Olivia, who had pitched in with the food prep but gladly escaped when she could, and they’d let her because sometimes the kitchen got too crowded with all of them working their butts off. Olivia had taken the warning about unplugging everything to heart, not only seeing to the chore in their houses, but warning neighbors. The only things plugged in now were what they were actively using, which were all in the kitchen. Olivia had continued to text her friends, but the topic of conversation seemed to be all about the CME, and texts were already sporadic. At Sela’s suggestion, Olivia had also gone back and forth between Carol’s house and Sela’s, getting all the laundry done. Any crisis was better faced with clean clothes.
Carol’s satellite TV was already out, but she had a backup antenna that picked up the local channels from Knoxville, and the small TV in the kitchen was on. Though there was some interference, the occasional static or blip or both, they were able to watch the wall-to-wall local news coverage while they worked. News anchors were trained to inject all the drama they could into any news event, but now they all looked genuinely scared. It was definitely time to worry.
Sela kept an eye on the clock, and when she judged it was time she said, “Olivia, you should go take a shower and wash your hair while we still have hot water. All of us need to do that, so wash as fast as you can.”
Olivia raced up the stairs, and was back down in ten minutes with her long hair wet and slicked back. “You go next,” Carol firmly told Sela. “Your hair is longer than mine and Barb’s, and you’ll need time to dry it. We’re almost finished here, anyway.”
That wasn’t quite true; there was still cleaning to be done. But it was also true that Sela’s hair was thick and heavy, and wouldn’t dry before bedtime unless she used a blow-dryer on it. Something else to plan for, she thought as she climbed the stairs: with the power out, she’d have to wash her hair early enough in the day that it could dry. She’d seen movies and read books where the female character sat by a fire drying her hair, and never thought the practice anything more than romantic or picturesque. Suddenly she had a very different take on the situation. Every mundane thing would become more difficult, require more planning.
Like Olivia, she rushed through the showering process; she wanted to linger, to savor, knowing this might be the last hot shower she’d have in a long time, but this wasn’t a time for lingering. When she was dressed again she took the blow-dryer downstairs with her, to clear the way for the next one to shower.
By the time everyone had taken their turn in the bathroom and the kitchen was cleaned up, time was getting close, and they didn’t want to push their chances on destroying any of the kitchen appliances. The pressure cooker had finished with the peas, and the jars were sitting on the kitchen counter, cooling. The four of them ceremoniously unplugged everything except the little TV, which Carol had said she would sacrifice because it was old anyway and when the power came back on she’d get a new little flat screen for the kitchen.
“What do we do now?” Olivia asked, her eyes big.
Sela shrugged. “Wait.” She hugged Olivia—all of them seemed to be doing that, reassuring the kid as much as possible—then took a seat at the table where she could see the TV. One by one, the others did the same. Olivia squeezed in between Carol and Sela, as if she felt safer there.
There was a scroll at the bottom of the screen that held their attention. Several communities had done what Wears Valley residents had and set up meeting places for this afternoon or tomorrow morning. Anyone in the area who hadn’t been contacted might see the information on TV, if they still had access and if they were watching. At least three Knoxville radio stations had plans of their own. They’d scheduled ongoing updates at prearranged hours, though they also warned that for the first few days after the CME radio signals would be disrupted, so listeners shouldn’t be alarmed if they had no reception.
Shouldn’t be alarmed. Ha.
“Radio,” Olivia said in disbelief. “No one listens to radio.”
“Sure they do,” Barb countered. “And a lot more will now.”
Sela’s text alert sounded and they all jumped. She looked at the screen and said with relief, “It’s Kristina.” She’d texted her closest friends, Amy and Kristina, the night before. Amy had responded within an hour, assuring Sela that she was as prepared as she was going to get. She, her husband, Trace, and their two kids—both under five years old—had been visiting his parents when the alarm had gone out. Trace’s folks lived on a farm a couple of hours away, and they had decided to stay there. Not only was the farm set up for a long period of self-sufficiency, Trace’s parents were in their sixties and could use the help.
But she hadn’t heard from Kristina, and she’d worried. Kristina lived in Gatlinburg, close enough that Sela could have gone there if she hadn’t been so busy with all the food preparation. Kristina traveled a lot with her job, though, and when she thought about it Sela realized they hadn’t been in contact for a week or so.
In Mississippi with Nathan & his family. Staying here. You okay?
She read Kristina’s text aloud, then quickly tapped in a reply that they were good and Amy and Trace were with Trace’s parents. Part of her wished her friends were close by, but common sense said they were better off where they were: with family. Kristina’s parents had retired early and moved to Arizona, so she had no family close by. She’d been dating Nathan for about six months and things had been looking serious.
This would certainly be a compatibility test, Sela thought. They’d be living together, with Nathan’s parents, whom Kristina had evidently just met, for no one knew how long.