“He was just leaving,” she said to Scott, trying to keep her voice even.
Scott blinked and looked around, noticing the lamp at the top of the stairs was turned on. “The power’s back?” he asked, incredulous.
“It is so long as I’m here,” Rusty said.
Scott looked down at Aubrey. “What is he talking about?”
Aubrey came forward and looked up at him. “He hooked up a generator. So we could charge a few things and have some power for a bit.”
“I thought we had rules about him coming here. Like, call first.”
“The phones don’t work, numbnuts,” Rusty said. “How am I supposed to call?”
“OK, so there are no rules anymore,” Scott said, his tone flat and declarative. He turned, disgusted, and went back to his room, closing the door behind him.
Rusty turned back to Aubrey. “I’ll leave it to run for about an hour. Should give you time to charge your stuff, cook something if you want. Then I’ll pack it up and take it. I can bring it back day after tomorrow.”
“I thought you said you were leaving it.”
“I changed my mind. I don’t trust shithead to get it in the basement every night, and you’re not strong enough.”
Aubrey shook her head. That was enough. “Could you wait outside while things charge, please?”
“Suit yourself.” He headed for the door but stopped, thinking. “So, with the gas and my time and everything, two hundred seems fair.”
Oh, for Christ’s sake, how could she not have seen this coming? How could she possibly have thought this trip to supposedly check on his son and ex-wife could have been rooted in anything other than a scheme to squeeze more cash out of them? With a liar, it didn’t matter how many times you made the vow never to fall for their act again; they kept coming up with new ways.
“Two hundred dollars?” she asked. “For a couple gallons of gas?”
“For a couple gallons of gas when there’s about to not be any gas, yeah. And for the trip over, and the wear and tear on the generator, and my expertise in hooking it up. Fuck, Aubrey, are you actually negotiating with me, the guy who brought you power? When you didn’t even have to ask? What is wrong with you? Seriously, you’ve changed.”
Aubrey refused to engage. “Wait here,” she said and went upstairs. Rusty waited, listening, and heard her go into her room, or what had been his room, he thought. If she hadn’t closed the door, he might have even been able to tell which dresser drawer she opened to get the cash out. But the location was good enough. It was a start.
A few moments later she came back down the stairs and held out a hand with two hundreds in it. He took them from her without making eye contact.
“I’ll be in the truck.” He left the house and stalked across the front walk, the victim of a great offense. She watched as he ripped open the door of his truck, got inside, and slammed the door.
Exactly fifty-four minutes later, he shut off the generator without warning, packed it up, and roared away with it.
As soon as his truck turned the corner on the block, Aubrey went into the kitchen, yanked her useless cell phone out of the charger, powered it down, and threw it in a drawer, pissed at herself. The goddamn thing wouldn’t even have worked with the towers down.
She went upstairs and found a new hiding place for their thinning stack of cash.
A few minutes later, Scott thundered down the stairs, cleaned up and dressed.
“Can I take the car?” he asked, without looking at her.
“Where are you going?”
“I have to check on someone.”
It was only mid-morning, and she was already tired of fighting. “We only have half a tank. Is it less than a couple miles?”
“Yep,” Scott said, with the patient air of one summoning every bit of noblesse oblige they had inside in order to deal with the idiot in front of them.
She handed him the car keys, graciously declining to mention that he only had a learner’s permit, and he left without saying thanks. Aubrey was still in day-to-day mode, she told herself, and the idea of Scott feeling a sliver of freedom and possibly containing his geyser of resentment for a little bit seemed like a price worth paying in gasoline.
She went back out front and sat down on the steps again. She kicked herself for allowing Rusty’s distraction. She needed to get serious. She needed to plan for a future, a long future that did not include electric power.
Counting everything she and Scott had bought, they had maybe seven days’ worth of food. If they ate sparingly. And if they didn’t? Well, if they didn’t, they’d go hungry, and if they went hungry long enough, they’d die.