To Becca’s mind the produce aisle at Homeland is the best barometer of the times. The moment she glides through the pneumatic sliding doors—whooosh!—her troubles are obliterated by the refrigerated veneer of eternal spring. In this future the temperature never rises above sixty-four degrees, the flowers are always in bloom, and the white noise of faintly familiar show tunes is occasionally amplified by someone named Suzie at register three.
“Cole, this is Suzie on three. I’ve got a code blue for you up front,” Suzie says. “Cole, code blue please.”
If you step back from it all, give a little tilt to the neck and allow your eyes to trail along the failing depth of field, the displays cartwheel into a cubist kind of inconsistency, Plasticolored islands overspilled with manna. Vine-swollen tomatoes bleed into citrine speckles of lemon-lime. Pastel pyramids of honeydew melon are undercut by collard or some other species of greenery.
“Wendy, I need a price check on Mom-to-Mom Kiddie-Ups,” Suzie says. “Wendy, price check at three please.”
Becca rights herself and rolls her shopping cart toward the shiitake mushrooms, marveling at the bioengineered bounty surrounding her. Sweet potpourri of apple and onion and mint, with a bitter bit of earth mixed in for good measure.
“Cole, cancel the code blue and send a mop to aisle fourteen. I need a cleanup on aisle fourteen, please.”
A red-aproned young man pushing a mop bucket wheels by Becca in the dry-goods aisle. Cole is on the case, apparently.
She is reaching for a box of oat bran when the hollow shock of a slamming door sounds somewhere back of the store, ker-whoooomp!
A gooseflesh tremor prickles her in place.
. . . starving but the pantry shelves are nearly bare. She sees something up top. Climbs tippy-toe up the chair back trying for, what is it? Cornflakes, if she’s lucky. Just . . . a little . . . higher. But it’s no good, like trying to walk a seesaw, so she chickens out . . .
Becca trips witless down the aisle and past the cash registers, fleeing the market. The heat hits her like a fist out here but at least she’s in motion, breathless yes but moving, driving now and crying too in the slamming-down sun.
. . . they went away too long this time . . .
She steers quickly through a lazy-daisy snarl of streets, aimless, imagining she can outrun the waking dream that has managed to stalk her here from the house.
. . . worried. Something’s gone wrong . . .
She comes to her senses waiting on the stoplight at some unfamiliar intersection. A steeple creeps skyward just ahead. She is downtown, somewhere near First Church. She turns left, drives by the dark-mirrored Murrah Building, impenetrable as a frontier fort there beside the YWCA, turns onto Tenth Street and into the Passages Women’s Shelter parking lot.
There is some confusion at the reception desk. Becca can’t seem to summon the words necessary to explain why she has come.
Becca is holding a clipboard stuffed with intake forms and saying, “. . . help.”
“. . . the help you need,” the girl behind the counter says. “Just fill these papers out and we can get started.”
“Don’t understand.”
“I do,” the girl says. “I know you’re feeling alone right now. But it will pass. We’re here for you. Only for you. Our counselors have years of experience helping women through these troubles.”
“I am . . .”
“He can’t hurt you here.”
“I want . . .”
“Don’t worry . . .”
“. . . to help.”
“. . . everything will be fine.”
Becca closes her eyes.
“I need to see someone named Joanne Perry.”
With each beat of her heart the light needles across her lids.
She opens her eyes. “I’m here to volunteer.”