Supervolcano: All Fall Down

“Born in Los Angeles.” He shook his head in slow wonder.

“People are, you know,” Vanessa said with a touch of irritation. Outsiders often assumed anyone who lived in California came from somewhere else. It never failed to annoy the genuine natives.

“I am sure it must be so,” Bronislav Nedic said, shaking his head again. “It still seems very strange to me.”

Experimentally, Vanessa gave a light touch to the tattoo on the back of his hand. His flesh seemed half a degree hotter than hers. That was a good sign. She didn’t know where attraction came from, or why. She recognized it when it did, though. To cover what she was thinking, what she was feeling, she asked, “Does this mean something, or is it just a design?”

She got more than she’d bargained for. “That is the Ocilima, the four Ss with the cross,” Bronislav answered, his voice as solemn as if he were intoning prayers in church. “They look like Cs to you, I know, but the Serb alphabet is like the Russian-its C is S in yours. They stand for Samo sloga Srbina spasava: only unity will save the Serbs.” His mouth twisted into a sour, wistful smile, which made him look more like Nicolas Cage than ever. Since Vanessa liked Nicolas Cage, that wasn’t so bad. He added, “I was not born in Los Angeles, you will figure out. I was born in Yugoslavia, a country that is not a country any more.”

“Oh,” Vanessa said, and not another word. She supposed she could have found Yugoslavia on a map-back in the days when Yugoslavia was on the map-but that was as much as she knew or cared about it.

Bronislav didn’t notice her indifference. His eyes were far away from the New Mexico Denny’s. He was seeing other mountains than the ones here, other times. “I fought for the Serbs against the terrorist Bosnians and the Nazi Croats. I fought, but we did not win. And so. . I sit at this counter here, next to you, and my country is broken all in pieces.”

“Is that where you, uh, hurt your arm?” Vanessa didn’t want to touch the scar the way she’d touched the tat.

He nodded mournfully. “It is. And I was lucky, if you want to call it luck. The RPG caught the fellow standing beside me square. They never found enough of poor Vlade to bury.”

“Oh,” Vanessa said again, on a different note this time. Being her father’s daughter made her know from a very early age that human beings could do horrible things to one another. She’d seen more since the eruption. But. . “You were in a war.” That, she hadn’t seen.

“I was in a war, yes. And now I have that truck full of chicken pieces to take to California. Life does strange things.” Bronislav set money on the counter. Then he said, “If you have a number where I can call you when I am in Los Angeles. . Maybe we see what strange things life does to us.”

Or maybe I decide this was just a way to waste time in a nowhere Denny’s. But Vanessa gave him her cell number instead of making one up. He entered it in his own phone. And he gave her that number, which she took in turn-mating rituals of the twenty-first century.

She paid for her own lunch. Bronislav tipped better than she did. But then, chances were he would stop here again. She wouldn’t, not unless God had an even more twisted sense of humor than He’d already shown. Vanessa slid into her car. She half expected it to crap out right there, just to show her what kind of sense of humor God had. It started okay, though.

Back onto the Interstate. Into the fast lane. Past the trucks. Arizona ahead, then California. Home! Who woulda thunk it?

And if Bronislav called-no, when, because he would-she’d figure out what she wanted to do. Maybe she’d have other things that needed taking care of: shampooing her tortoise, or something. Maybe she wouldn’t, too. She hadn’t wanted anybody, even a little bit, for a long time. It made her feel more alive. She drove on toward L.A., happier than she remembered being since the eruption.

* * *

Louise Ferguson glumly studied her bank statement and her three credit-card bills, all of which had chosen the same day to arrive. If that didn’t prove misery loved company, she was damned if she knew what would.

She’d been robbing Peter to pay Paul ever since the ramen works let her go, and robbing James to pay Peter, and robbing Mark to pay James, and robbing Luke to pay Mark, too. She was running low on saints and apostles. Even more to the point, she was running low on money.

“Shit,” she said softly: the perfect one-word summary of the situation.

It wasn’t as if she hadn’t been looking for work since she got laid off. The California Employment Development Department had no possible complaints on that score. She sent out applications online whenever the condo had power. When it didn’t, she rode the bus all over the South Bay. She talked to personnel officers, cooks, pet-store owners. . anybody who’d listen to her and pay her more than unemployment doled out.

No one wanted to hire her. She was on the wrong side of fifty-not far on the wrong side, but she was. Only a few movie stars managed to stay hot-looking at her age. She wasn’t bad-she knew as much-but not bad didn’t cut it. She had some office skills, but she wasn’t a computer whiz, either.

And even if she were hot and a computer whiz, chances were it wouldn’t have mattered. Nobody was hiring anybody much. When a job did open up, it was guaranteed to have a zillion people clamoring for it. Somebody in that zillion would always be better qualified or cuter or younger or more male or whatever than Louise. Which meant. .

“Shit,” she muttered again.

She looked back over her shoulder at James Henry. Little pitchers had big ears. Big mouths, too. Whatever they heard, they came out with. But he was busy with Duplos and toy cars.

And so she fished her phone out of her purse. She wondered if she’d have to give it up. Landlines were cheaper. With power so spotty, they might even be more reliable, regardless of whether they were less convenient. For now, though, she called Colin’s cell.

She hoped she wouldn’t get his voice mail. That would be a pain. He would call her back. He was nothing if not reliable. Reliable to a fault, she’d thought back in the day. Even so, returning her call would give him one more edge. As if he didn’t have enough already. Yeah, as if!

But he answered after the second ring. “Hello, Louise. What’s up?” As usual, he didn’t waste time beating around the bush.

“Colin, I need to borrow five hundred dollars.” She wasn’t normally so direct herself. Desperation did terrible things to people.

A long pause on the other end of the line. Then he said, “You need me to give you five hundred dollars, you mean.”

Louise felt the blood mount to her cheeks and ears. It wasn’t quite so bad as a hot flash, but it came close. “I’ll pay you back as soon as I can,” she said, hating to beg and knowing she had no choice. “As soon as I get work.” That sounded better.

“This isn’t the first time,” he said heavily.

“I know. Believe me, I wouldn’t be doing it unless I had to,” Louise answered. “As long as I had a job, I didn’t.”

“Yeah.” In her mind, she saw him grudge a nod, admitting she was right about that much. But then he said, “It’s not so easy for me right now, either.”

“I know Kelly’s going to have the baby.” Louise didn’t quite gloat over the word. He wouldn’t have to work so hard playing dad to the little brat as she had being single mom with James Henry, but he was no youngster himself. He’d feel it. Oh, would he ever!

“It’s not just that,” Colin said. “Vanessa’s back in town-”

“Yes, I know,” Louise broke in. “She called me. We’re going to get together for lunch in a couple of days.” God only knew when she’d see Vanessa again after that. They’d got along spikily even before she divorced Colin. There weren’t too many people Vanessa didn’t get along with spikily.

“Let me finish,” Colin said in his I’m-holding-on-to-my-patience voice. “She’s staying here right now, till she finds her own place-and till she finds some way to pay for a place of her own.”

“Oh? How’s that working out?” Louise asked with more interest than she’d expected to show. It had so many. . intriguing possibilities.

“Well. .” Another longish pause from her ex. At last, he said, “I haven’t told her to take her show on the road,