Bread!

[dog_eat_dog]

WHO: Tess and youuuu.
WHERE: A grocery store in Heropa.
WHEN: Afternoon.
WHAT: Getting a little bit emotional about fresh bread.
WARNINGS: None yet.

A few days after arriving in Heropa, on her first run for groceries, Tess finds herself utterly lost in thought in the bakery section. Everything feels off.

She can remember herself last doing this some twenty years ago, when she was complaining about it, wondering why she had to help get groceries when she could just help her parents unload them once they got home. Did her mom and dad really need her running across the store to get this and that just to make the trip faster? So what if going with them meant she could maybe pick out a few things her parents wouldn’t get otherwise? She had a part-time job. She could buy whatever snacks she wanted.

That was a long time ago.

Now, Tess is just standing in front of the bread racks in a sort of fascination. There’s baguettes and ciabatta and pumpernickel, and a half-dozen different flavors of bagel, and cheese sticks and croissants and all those things. Tess can’t even fathom turning down an opportunity to get groceries, now. It’s something like pornography, now, where she can just stand there in front of the shelves like some slack-jawed idiot, getting strange looks from people who just want to get to the sesame-seed buns but can’t as long as she’s in the way.

She feels like a fucking idiot for wanting to cry. It takes every ounce of her being not to grab things by the armload and run, run, run with them. Jesus christ, she can still taste bread from the Quarantine Zone in her mouth if she thinks about it, with that awful heaviness and coarse texture, and that sour aftertaste. Good bread was expensive for the military to produce, and not hearty or filling enough to bother with in any significant quantity at that. Even with her relatively "comfortable" lifestyle in the Quarantine Zone, Tess hadn’t tasted good, fresh bread in decades.

Tess allows herself to reach, to touch –– she puts her hands against the waxed paper bag to feel that the bread inside is still warm, as it’d only come out of the oven hours ago. That does get her eyes a little misty, and her heartbeat picks up.

Jesus christ, it’s stupid to be so sentimental about bread, but these people don’t know what they’re missing.

Have at, fine people of Heropa –– there’s a woman getting emotional in the bakery section.

Comments

[hostage]

Yeah... That's how I feel about pizza.

[Jesse's standing a couple feet away, a box of cheap glazed doughnuts in his hand. He's been kind of watching her for the past half-minute. One of the new ones, he can tell. He's not really making fun of her, just trying to lighten the mood a little. Otherwise he's scared she might cry or something right there in the store.]

[dog_eat_dog]

[Tess turns, taken only slightly off guard. Amazing, how proximity to the things you want can lower your defenses. But facing Jesse, she pulls herself together a little more –– chin lifting a bit, hand moving off the bag. Everything about this situation is strange to her, including being spoken to by strangers. Normally people in the QZ keep to themselves, and if they don't, they know they need an introduction.

Pizza, though... that's a whole other thought process for Tess. She denies herself the thought of it and instead finds her voice again.]

What the hell are you talking about?

[As if she hadn't been getting misty-eyed over the goddamn bakery section.]

[hostage]

The... Nevermind.

[He's not looking to embarrass her, and she's on the defensive already. These doughnuts sure are fascinating all of the sudden. He turns the box in his hands, fidgeting with it.]

I like the one with the seeds on it. Just, you know, if you were having trouble picking one. That's a good one.

[dog_eat_dog]

[He backs down, and Tess takes a second to remind herself to breathe. This guy is probably just like everyone else she's watched since arriving here: painfully normal, blissfully ignorant. She doesn't need to rip him a new one.]

Poppy seeds?

[She still says it like she's surprised it exists. What are some others? Sesame? Caraway? Is that a thing on bread? Remembering each one feels like weight she's missing off her body mass.]

Do you always give strangers grocery advice?

[hostage]

Not always. Just sometimes.

[He holds up the box in his hands with a sheepish little grin.]

Maybe I oughta shut up. The crap I eat, right? Two-for-one. They can't give this stuff away.

[112ounces]

It just feels so surreal. He thought fresh bread would be long behind him. Bread is one of the first that's taken when walkers first took over. He assumed because it is there, but also because people knew bread won't last as long as canned beans. It's so weird to be in a city filled with people. To see electricity running through every building. To see running water.

In some ways he's attracting more attention from other shoppers than Tess. He just arrived about several hours ago, and it shows. His blue shirt is grimy from sweat and dirt, his shoes caked in mud and blood, and his jeans equally dirty. He has a tactical holster, wrapped around his left leg, and in it an old Beretta pistol (empty of bullets, but nobody knows that except Carl). The only remotely clean thing he has on him is his hat, a sheriff deputy's hat. But like Tess, he's looking at the fresh bread in awe as well, like he's certain this is all a dream. Heck, he's still certain he's in a dream. This can't possibly be true, can it?

He reaches out to a loaf, one that is cheerily labeled as cinnamon and raisin bread. He notices another woman close by who looks just as awed as he is by the bread. Carl wonders if she's like him, another survivor of the walkers. She had the hard look, like many survivors do. Like he does, on dark days.

[dog_eat_dog]

[Tess glances at the box. Pre-packaged junk food. She looks appropriately disapproving, if not at his choice in foods than at his disregard for it. If she never has to eat that stuff again, it'll be too soon, but she can't claim she'd ever turn her nose up at it, either.]

Don't eat it if you don't have to, but don't snub it, either. Food is food.

[hostage]

I ain't snubbing it. I been eating this shit all week. The frosting literally tastes like plastic and I still can't get enough of it. So that's me, far as taste is concerned.

[dog_eat_dog]

Carl looks out of place in this particular grocery store, but definitely not in Tess's experience. She sees him and she sees every single other kid she's seen in the past couple decades, scuffed shoes and ratty clothes and smudged skin. Even the holster doesn't surprise her that much, though it certainly should in a place like this.

And even if she could dismiss all that, she knows the look of someone who hasn't seen good food in a dog's age, and that tells her everything she needs to know about this kid. She turns towards him. Far be it from her to suddenly become benevolent without something in return, but stranger things have happened in the past few days.

"Hey kid," she says. It's not meant to be intimidating, exactly, but certain things come naturally after twenty years. "Do you even have money for that?"

[dog_eat_dog]

[A small part of her wants to smack it out of his hands for eating that shit willingly, but this isn't her territory. It's not even her business. She knows every bit of emotion she feels about this guy and his stupid donuts is more about her problems than his, but it's difficult anyway.

Keep it together.]

You have all this –– [she gestures around them at the bakery section, the deli, the fresh produce, the cheeses] –– and you've been eating that crap for a week.

[hostage]

Not only this. There's been burgers and tacos in there. But the box fits right in my desk drawer at work, so... You know. Just pop 'em all day long.

[dog_eat_dog]

Unbelievable.

[Burgers. Tacos. The pizza's coming back to mind. Jesus Christ. She doesn't even have a memory of what tacos taste like.]

I haven't eaten like that since I was about your age.

[That much is true, or at least close to it.]

[hostage]

Which would be, like, last month? Two months ago?

[He's flattering her, this cute son of a bitch.]

[dog_eat_dog]

[That gets a little stab of a laugh.]

Please, I'm probably just old enough to be your mother.

[hostage]

Not even close.

[dog_eat_dog]

[She raises an eyebrow and gives him a once-over.]

You're what... early twenties?

[hostage]

Twenty-six.

[dog_eat_dog]

So I'm old enough to be your very young mother who made mistakes early in her life.

[hostage]

It's funny you say that. My middle name is actually Mistake.

[dog_eat_dog]

Ouch. Is that what I should call you?

[hostage]

You can call me Jesse. It sounds nicer.

[dog_eat_dog]

[Tess nods.]

Jesse it is. I'm Tess.

[hostage]

Pleasure meeting you, Tess. Sorry about interrupting your, um, bonding moment with the bread.

[112ounces]

He jerks in surprise when he realizes someone is talking to him. The hard woman, actually.

The question is so random yet it fits so well. It is so random in that he never thought he could hear a question like that again. He can't help himself but laugh. It's a disbelieving laugh, as though he can't really understand it himself.

"I just got here. I have no money."

He just lifted his arms slightly and shrugged, still with that stupid half-grin that basically says "I give up. Nothing makes sense anymore."

"I honestly did not think I had to worry about money again. I don't know why I'm here."

Here he meant the grocery store. He just couldn't believe that grocery stores exist.

[dog_eat_dog]

[She doesn't offer a hand or anything, but she does smile very slightly.]

Let's pretend you never saw any of that.