Monte Vista Village, Toxic Soup (The Survivor Diaries) Read Free Page B

for you?”
    Before Jill had a chance to admonish him, I started to defend myself. “Like I said, I thought I could get a chance to find out what you might...”
    He interrupted, “Sure you are.”
    Jill stood up and looked him in the eye with anger. “Shut up, Joe. This instance! This thoughtful lady came here to help and all you are doing is yelling. ”
    Jill turned from her husband and continued. “Laura, why don’t I go around with you and see if I can help, too. This is really a great idea. We need to come together more than ever now.”
    Jill grabbed her sweater, and blasted a dirty look at her husband who now bo wed his head. I wasn’t sure if it was shame or just worry that he had angered his wife, but he turned and rolled away.
    I was glad she had put an end to the conversation. My heart was beating hard. I have always cowered at confrontation.
    We walked up the ramp to the street and Jill gestured at the bench in front of the house. “Now, let’s try again. What types of questions were you going to ask?

“Like I said, I thought first to ask about occupations, or maybe even hobbies people might have.”
    “As you know, we are both architects. We built this very house.”
    I looked at it admiringly and smiled. I continued, “Also, what types of things would you be willing to contribute to a community pool. I thought that, if enough of us survive,” I paused, waiting to see how she reacted. She nodded her head for me to go on. She knew the truth. I continued, “We could bring our resources together, at least at first.”
    For the second time today, this woman who I barely knew pulled me into to a heartfelt hug. This time I submitted, with relief. I knew that we were no longer going to be strangers after today. It was a reassuring feeling.
    We spoke for the next half hour. She threw out ideas and we brainstormed together. With the morning almost gone, I invited her to dinner tonight. I apologized that we had no way to get Joseph down the stairs to my house. “No bother. He has been in such a mood, since…” she stopped as if lost in thought.
    It hadn’t occurred to me that Joseph’s surly attitude might be connected to his concern over his daughter. I felt badly for my first impression of him earlier. I couldn’t abandon my compassion for others at this time, either.
    “Well, we will see you tonight and tomorrow we will hopefully have enough of a plan to continue with this neighborhood poll,” said Jill as we parted.
    I walked Hershey down the street with the first real smile I have had since we had heard about the attacks.
     

July 14, 4:05 PM
     
    When I got home, I told my mother and husband that I had invited Jill to dinner.
    “Don’t you think that we should be saving as much of our food as we can, and not giving it out to strangers,” my mother asked.
    Mark’s expression was of anger. Having been raised in Africa, one of 16 children and the son of a road side fruit vendor, he had been taught to give ; no matter how little one had. He turned and began hammering the wood we had purchased during one of our supply trips on to the window frame, but I could practically feel the steam coming from his ears.
    After the last week and a half of this ordeal, we had begun to ready ourselves for whatever might come our way.  Since the first day they began, as a matter of fact. There have been several types of attacks, so we just were not sure what to be ready for.
    Okay, now it’s time to confess. I am an apocalypse book junkie. I have read every free e- book out there. From novel to survival guide, if it was free, I downloaded. Even with this in mind, and my small emergency stash, I had not readied us nearly enough.
    This made me think of Bri and Ammie. Are they ready, do they have enough food and water? Will they have enough gas to make it here to their childhood home? I need to stop writing for a minute. My tears are rolling so hard that I can’t see and I am making my “diary” pages