Kat Meads
What Happens Happens
Fina Martin had been reading her all-novels-in-one volume of Jane Austen on the deck when the neighborhood militia trooped by on its Tuesday practice drill, heading downhill. Drill leader Harvey Sams waved congenially and Fina reciprocated in kind. Saluting was reserved for acknowledging the like-minded during a real emergency as opposed to emergency prep.
Like every house in the neighborhood, the Martin house was two quarters living space and two quarters storage. The kids had helped with the shelf building after Larry, Fina’s husband, had reconfigured the interior walls of the storage area to achieve optimal stacking space. Larry had also rewired the house to accommodate the largest generator available by trade, an item he’d driven across state lines to retrieve. To be on the register of a big box store for such a purchase was madness, Larry believed; Fina, less so. But Larry had enjoyed the drive and the one-night camping that enabled him to test out the wind-worthiness of the family tent. He had also brought home cowboy hats and remarkably authentic looking toy guns for the kids that had kept them entertained and out of her hair for days, so, as Fina had to concede, the trip had served multiple purposes. As a backup to the generator, Larry had procured five camping stoves—two added last week—along with the propane to fuel them. Just now he was in search of a larger, more powerful chainsaw and more durable chainsaw blades.
Fina’s responsibilities included freeze-drying a year’s worth of pasta and other nourishing meals, stocking up on flashlights, backpacks, sleeping bags, gloves, masks, water-purification tablets, solar-powered lamps, blankets, scissors, waterproof matches and jigsaw puzzles. She was also responsible for keeping the family’s checklists and first-aid kits up-to-date and browsing beyond the community’s Facebook page for supply suggestions. Just yesterday Fina had come upon a posting arguing the absolute necessity of owning a hand-crank radio in the event of. If she shared that information with Larry, he’d expect her to (snap! snap!) haunt the swap.com sites until she found and secured the highest rated hand-crank radio.
It was a lot of work. And although Larry seemed energized by the extra tasks and extra communications and constant vigilance, and although the kids were still young enough to treat playing alongside blackout curtains as a lark, Fina needed her deck time and her Jane A. indulgence to remain chipper during the preparation. As she was only too aware, should the event render them homeless, there would be no space in her backpack for a hefty Jane A. omnibus. As Fanny Price regretted in advance her cousin Edmund’s absence from Mansfield Park, Fina regretted in advance her separation from Jane.
She had just embarked on one of her favorite passages—“Miss Bennet, there seemed to be a prettyish kind of a little wilderness on one side of your lawn. I should be glad to take a turn in it, if you will favour me with your company”—when a thrashing near the hedge at the bottom of the yard heralded the emergence of Harvey Sams’s barrel chest and thereafter the whole of Harvey, preventing Fina from getting to “I am not to be intimidated into anything so wholly unreasonable,” and “Neither duty, nor honour, nor gratitude has any possible claim on me in the present instance” before Harvey mounted the deck steps and Fina was obliged to close her book.
With his fat neck and sweaty knees, his khaki shorts and gym socks, militia leader Harvey Sams would not have been welcomed in dashing militia officer George Wickham’s dashing regiment.
“Smashing day!” Harvey enthused, an enthusiast in general, even for hot-air marching. Despite preferring to spend her smashing day with just Jane, Fina mustered agreement. Larry thought pissing off neighbors who might be willing to barter a portion of firewood or some other prize commodity in the event of, madness.
Because a half full glass of lemonade sat on the table between her chair and the chair Harvey had made himself at home in, she offered refreshment.
“Don’t mind if I do,” Harvey said, despite the fact that it was Fina doing the doing, returning inside for his glass and pour. While at it, Fina replenished her own drink, deliberately overfilling her glass with ice.
She would miss ice. She really would.
Upon return, Fina inquired about the militia’s stamina as evidenced by the day’s trek and Harvey’s recent machete acquisition, which exhausted her repertoire of Harvey inquiries. The new couple down the street had not, thus far, responded to the coalition invitations left in their mailbox, Harvey reported. As a gossip, Harvey was not half as entertaining as ear-to-the-ground Mrs. Jennings of Berkeley Street, London. Fina fervently hoped that, in the event of, she and her family would not find themselves garrisoned with Harvey Sams.
“Speaking of which,” Harvey said. “We missed Larry at the quarterly.”
“Oh?”
There were so many meetings—weekly, monthly, quarterly—Fina never bothered to keep straight which was which.
“Can’t afford to go slack,” Harvey intoned.
Fina’s slack interest in anything Harvey Sams said or might say allowed her the leisure to daydream, joining the Dashwood sisters for a stroll around the Longbourn gardens, accompanying Mr. Knightley on one of his pilgrimages, Donwell Abby to Hartfield. When, out of the corner of her eye, Fina saw her younger son tiptoeing toward Harvey Sams, bow and rubber arrow at the ready, she did nothing to discourage or interfere with the plot at hand. If accused of favoritism, she could always impersonate Mrs. John Dashwood, who would rather think her son a pigeon than wrong in anything the heir-in-waiting wished or attempted.
The rubber arrow harmlessly dinged Harvey Sams and afterwards dropped to the deck boards. Rubbing his uninjured shoulder, Harvey pretended to be amused and failed to match even the low bar of fake sincerity Mrs. Norris practiced, wheedling about in Lady Bertram’s affairs. At the next coalition meeting Harvey would likely push for an expansion of the children’s disciplinary code and, while at it, propose stricter penalties for inattentive mothering.
Fina’s son recovered the arrow and drew back his bow.
“Son! I’m not the enemy!” Harvey shouted, twisting in the chair.
“Intruders are enemies,” Fina’s son coolly replied.
Since children identifying intruders was part of the neighborhood brief, Harvey Sams could hardly object to Fina’s son’s interpretation or vigilance. No one had invited Harvey Sams onto the deck.
“Well, then,” Harvey said.
After draining his glass of lemonade, Harvey made as if to rise. Neither Fina nor her son urged him to stay, not even for the purpose of target practice.
“Tell Larry I’ll see him at next week’s council, if not before.”
Fina mumbled into her lemonade. Maybe she’d pass on the message to Larry, maybe she’d follow the closemouthed, secret-keeping example of Elinor Dashwood.
“Our little visit has given me an idea,” Harvey declared. “Powdered lemonade should be part of our stock. I’ll get Sally crackin’ as soon as I’m home.”
Powdered lemonade was to fresh lemonade as Sophia Grey was to Marianne Dashwood—a sad and sorry substitute, as John Willoughby discovered. However, if Harvey shared the powdered lemonade idea with Larry, Larry would probably decide they should stock up on powdered lemonade, too. Just in case. In the event of.
Harvey exited as he had entered, through the hedge. The street route would have been shorter, faster but less clandestine. As soon as the intruder vaporized, Fina’s sentry son took himself elsewhere and the sun began to do the same. Fina returned to her Jane.
“Obstinate, headstrong girl! I am ashamed of you! Is this your gratitude for my attention to you last spring?”
If Larry found her thus occupied, supper not started, kids who knew where, she would say it was a training exercise. She would explain—in enthusiastic and convincing detail—that she was teaching herself to read in low light should the solar-powered lamps in storage fail to live up to the hype. She would remind Larry of the importance of expecting the unexpected, of preparing for every eventuality. She would quote Larry to Larry: to not prepare, to not train, would be nothing short of madness. She would repeat Larry’s word, “madness,” until he agreed. And the moment he did, she would return to her Jane.
Kat Meads's most recent title is the novelette While Visiting Babette. She lives in California. katmeads.com
