Free INFECtIOUS by Elizabeth Forkey Page A

moment. I left that wonderful pair of comfy new tennis shoes on the floor
of Rue 21. This day has been a total failure. A disaster. At least I had the common sense to put my old tennis shoes in one of the bags.
They are dirty and uncomfortable and they leak when it's wet out, but they are
better than wearing my only other pair of shoes—summer sandals. I'd look
horrendous wearing those around with socks under them.  

 
    Standing at the
sink in my bathroom, I stare at my ugly face in the mirror. The cuteness I felt
in Commerce is gone. I feel gross. My eyes are bulgy and pink from crying. A
purple bruise has bloomed on my neck, framing brown spots of dried blood around
the swollen scrape. Untangling the lump of mismatched necklaces, I gingerly
pull each one off. Running the water until it's warm, I wash my face and then gently wash off the dried blood on my neck. A closer
look at the scrape in the mirror shows a raised, swollen mark where it looks
like something punctured me. I guess I should count myself lucky that I came
away from the attack with just a scrape. It could've been so much worse.

 
    I hope Matt
left. Surely we won't see him until tomorrow. It's obvious he hates me as much
as I wish I was allowed to hate him. I decide to make an appearance in the
kitchen because I'm starving. We never ate the lunches we had packed to eat in
the car and all I had for breakfast was a Gov bar. An entire day's vitamins and
protein—and more fiber than a person needs in a month—all packed into one stale
tasting cereal bar. It's one of the few things that come in the government
shipments that we actually do use. The main reason being that
they are free.

 
    I inhale deeply
and I smell venison cooking as I'm walking to the kitchen. My stomach growls in
anticipation. She must feel bad about what happened. She's cooking what we had
saved for a special occasion to cheer me up. I am so hungry and it smells
amazing. A small smile starts curling at the corner of my lips.

 
    There aren't any
grocery stores anymore and there isn't any meat shipped to Toccoa .
Unless you count the freeze dried government "meat loaf" meals in
their "just add water" mystery sauce. We only have fresh meat because
I traded a wedding cake for it a month ago.

 
    In our
self-sufficient community, everyone has something to trade. We all have
everything in common—everyone works hard and everyone has their needs met by
each other. We garden and share food and clothes and it's a real self
sufficient body. Utopian even.

 
    Aunty
knits and crotchets, keeping people warm in the winter with her sweaters, hats,
mittens and scarves. She also runs the Inn, offering a room for anyone who needs it
and food while they are here. In her "spare" time, she does some
house cleaning for different families in the community. Seriously, it brings
her great joy to clean things. It's disturbing.

 
    The people who owned the Inn before us, vanished with the rest
of the millions who disappeared 6 years ago. They ran the Inn and they also had
a bakery here. We inherited a room full of pans, dried goods, cookie cutters,
and everything you could possibly need to make special cakes. I love being
creative; so, by trial and error, I taught myself to bake and decorate.

 
    Community
members come to me for special events and we trade. Mostly I just do small
cakes. Birthday cakes and cupcakes for the kids at the U.R., stuff like that.
But, a few weeks ago, we celebrated the wedding of a sweet older couple, Frank
and Jean. Frank is one of the newly elected Elders and a native of Toccoa . I outdid all my previous wedding cakes with a
six-tiered ivory tower decorated with tiny lines of piped lace and delicate
purple roses made from sugar dough. The huge confection fed all one hundred and
ninety-three attendees in the bride's favorite flavor, Hummingbird Cake. I even
made a small Groom's cake, an old Southern tradition, that looked like Frank's
dog, Chip.

 
    The bride and
groom