Bea’s heart started to race, she couldn’t find her keys and she was going to be late for work. She couldn’t afford that. She had spent her overnight shift, last night at the gas station kiosk, figuring out the cost of her heart beat – 0.02 cents every single time. Her heart beating cost her $20 a day, which was just under two hours of work. Her last cost of living increase didn’t cover that. She needed her keys and they just weren’t here. 

The television in the sitting room snapped on and a crowd cheered. The burst of skin-slapping applause made Bea flinch as she picked up a pile of coupons, looking for her keys. “You all know who you are, come on down!” The voice boomed from the speakers, nasal and metallic. It sounded out of time, from before radio was invented.

“Dot, turn off the television,” Bea yelled, as she looked under a pile of clean laundry she’d left on the kitchen counter. Still no keys. “You need to get ready for Shawna’s.”

She hugged the towels to her chest, her heart stuttering, as her daughter rounded the corner from her bedroom, tugging the straps of her patched, purple backpack, packed for an overnight. “I didn’t turn it on,” Dot said, looking at the television, her eyebrows furrowed.     

“Get your shoes on,” Bea said, waving toward the apartment door as she walked into the small sitting room. Her steps slowed as she set the towels on the worn sofa. The television had been acting up, turning off in the middle of shows or not turning on at all when Bea used the remote. This was the first time it had turned on by itself. She sighed. There was no way she could afford another one. Not right now. Not when there were winter boots and coats to pay for, not with Christmas only three months away, not with the cost of groceries breaking the bank every week.

Bea reached for the power button on the television. On the screen, the announcer caught her eye. “Are you ready to play?” he asked. The TV speakers strained against the force of the crowd’s applause.

Her skin tingled, like she’d been shocked. He looked at her, her, through the screen. She was certain.

She shook her head, even though she knew he couldn’t possibly see her.

“You will be soon,” he said with a smile, his white teeth glinting in the studio lights as the camera panned to the three contestants now on the stage, their smiles forced under the focus of the camera and the scrutiny of the audience.

It had lasted no more than a fraction of a second, that connection. No more time than was required for the filming of the show. Like it didn’t happen. It couldn’t happen. It wasn’t real. Her hand darted forward, and she pressed the power button hard. The television rocked on its cracked plastic base. Bea rubbed her arms to force away the goose-flesh as she stared at the black screen.

In her peripheral vision, she saw a metallic flash. There were her keys, sitting by the TV.

She snatched them up and saw Dot peeking into the room. “We have to go,” Bea said, grabbing her logoed work vest from a plastic hook. She shooed Dot out the door and into the corridor.

The hallway lights flickered as Bea turned her key in the lock. Dot knocked on the neighbor’s door before pushing it open. Shawna’s apartment. Bea gripped her work vest – scrunching it so tightly that there would be wrinkles later – as she waited to see if Darren would come to the door. “What’s up, Polka Dot?” Shawna called from within the apartment. The false cheer in her friend’s voice made Bea wince. It meant another migraine for Shawna today.

Before Dot disappeared inside, Bea ruffled her short curls. “Take her laundry down for her, kiddo?” Dot nodded and looked up at Bea, her eyes wide with her mouth pinched together. It made her look older than seven, and Bea ached, deep and visceral.

“I’ve got freezer pizza for supper, Polka Dot,” Shawna said, her voice wavering with pain.

“That’s expensive,” Bea said under her breath, wondering if Darren had brought it – a “perk” as he liked to say. Dot nodded. “Did she buy her meds?” Dot shrugged, her slim shoulders raising her too-heavy backpack.

Coming to the door, Shawna said, “I’ll be fine, Bea, just an occasional headache if I take them once a week. And Darren said he’d bring expired ibuprofen when he stops by in the morning.”  

“After Dot goes to school,” she said, nodding and hoping that her friend would agree. Bea swallowed, struggling to remain passive. She didn’t want Dot knowing men like Darren existed let alone having to witness just what he did to a vulnerable woman. But their collective circumstances didn’t allow for that.

“You’re going to be late.” Shawna twitched her head toward the stairs, and Bea knew the answer to her unasked question.

#

Bea listened to the radio in the gas station kiosk where she worked. A massive parking lot surrounded her, with a grocery store at one end and the gas station at the other. It was always quiet at this time of night, except for the radio playing, as she waited through the small hours of the morning for a customer, any customer, to appear.  This shift, the portable player she kept at the checkout counter. The overhead speakers churned through the usual pop music and advertisements for the grocery store’s brand of ice cream – where the lady’s mouth made dry clicking noises between every word – and commentary about the game show she’d seen earlier.

“A new old game show,” the late-night radio DJ said, as Bea checked that the hot dogs on the roller grill hadn’t burst, losing their curdled insides. The internal temperature of the sausages would keep rising until they split down the side and erupted, opening up like a nidorous spider orchid.

“I remember their special episodes in the seventies,” he said, his voice low and intimate, as though it was only him and his listener in a crowded restaurant. “The game show where the question is never a surprise and the answer is, always, the prize.” His chuckle was rolling and low, meant to skate over a woman’s skin.

It made Bea shudder as she picked up a blistered hot dog with the tongs. It dripped violent orange fat all the way to the trash can.

“They haven’t posted their criteria yet, but their website says they will be in touch with eligible candidates in the area, so keep on your toes. And now we have the latest from one of my favourites,” he said, too close to the microphone, as the standard three chords of a pop song started.

The shift passed with no customers. Bea watched across the parking lot as the grocery store lights came on and the doors slid open, ready for the first shoppers of the day. Even from this distance, she saw a rat scuttling over the litter of receipts and discarded water bottles on its way into the store.

If she were very lucky, Bodhi would arrive on time and she could grab groceries before Darren started walking the floor. Before he could taunt her with seeing Dot when she couldn’t. But like every morning, Bea looked at her phone’s cracked screen for the time. Bodhi was late. More than an hour passed before he strolled through the doors, the automatic door chime forcing Bea’s attention toward him out of reflex.

“Hey, Lady,” he said with a smile wide enough to crack his chapped lips. “How’s it going? How’s the Tater Dot?”

“Wouldn’t know,” Bea said with a shrug. “Haven’t seen her since yesterday.” Even if Bodhi had been on time, she still wouldn’t have been able to see her daughter off to school.

“Ah, that’s too bad, Lady,” he said, sliding behind the counter with her. The space was already cramped for one and only possible for two if he slung his arm around her shoulders. For some reason, which Bea never understood, it was impossible to be angry with Bodhi when he showed up. He made her smile with his food-based nicknames for Dot and his physical affection that demanded nothing from her.

She shrugged him off and sidled behind him, patting his shoulder as she moved. “I need to get groceries,” Bea said. She swept her keys into her pocket and left with a wave.

A quick jog across the weed-cracked parking lot and Bea was through the grocery store doors, picking out apples and putting them in a plastic produce bag, on sale this week. She’d only found one so far. Each one she touched was not merely bruised but battered. Some were punctured, skins leaking, revealing decayed flesh beneath. A maggot unfurled itself from around the stem of the prettiest apple she’d held that morning, and Bea wasn’t sure if it was the scream that stopped her gagging or the other way around as she dropped the apple back on the pile.

No apples, then. At least not these ones.

She was about to set the bag down when she felt someone stand next to her. It was the sucking sound of a sweat-dampened cotton shirt and the humid mass of him that told her who it was. Darren. Shawna’s Darren.  He was the manager of the grocery store, gas station, and convenience store, all rolled into one flinch-inducing position of power.

“Meat’s what you want,” he said, standing a little too close. Bea backed up half a step, bumping into the large wooden display meant to look like an old farmer’s cart, as Darren licked his lips.

She was backed into a corner, a literal corner, apples to her left, pears on her right. She looked up at him. The ten centimeters between their heights felt like so much more as he slinked closer to her.

“It doesn’t have to be so expensive,” he said, cupping his hand under the apple in the plastic bag she held in front of her. There were three small flea bites on his wrist, scratched raw, the skin flaking away.

Bea swallowed. Hard. A glob of disgust glued to the middle of her throat. Darren trailed a finger along the bottom of the apple as he watched her. Her shoulders ached with a suppressed shudder, and she gripped the bag harder, her fingernails digging into her palm through the thin, biodegradable plastic.

“I’m good,” she said, putting the fruit on top of the rotting pile next to her, bag and all.

“That’s because you don’t know what’s about to happen.” Darren reached around her, close enough that she could feel his sweltering exhale. He took an apple, the perfect-looking one with the maggot curled comfortably around the stem. He bit into it, juice dripping as his teeth broke the skin. “Not enough customers on the night shift,” he said, his mouth full of half-chewed apple. Bea swallowed down an acidic swell of bile, wondering just how much of the flesh in his mouth was fruit. “Corporate says we need to make cuts. But it doesn’t have to hit you so hard. Shawna’s position will be open soon,” he said, reaching for another apple, brushing her arm, making those small nerves under her skin – the ones that let someone know they’re in trouble – snap and crackle like static electricity.

“Sale ends tomorrow.” He nodded to the sign over the apples.

The charged, snapping sensation under Bea’s skin didn’t leave her the entire day. She would jolt herself awake as she tried to sleep the rest of that morning in Dot’s small, single bed – the one they shared. The crackling feeling intensified as she reached for the half-finished jar of applesauce in the back of the fridge. It was from Dot’s unfinished lunch yesterday. It sent her stomach roiling as she swallowed. Licking the spoon, she decided to forego breakfast. Hunger was better than vomiting money back up on a whim. By the time Dot came home from school, it felt like an electric eel swam through her veins. When Bea returned to the grocery store gas station for her night shift, the sight of Darren’s car in the parking lot made her want to shed her own skin.

That Darren’s grotesque, green car was still parked in the manager’s spot when Bea arrived for work was not a surprise. It wasn’t that he stayed late or started early to work, so much as he enjoyed strutting the aisles, flaunting the odd new status that grocery store managers seemed to have. His new wealth allowed for a low-slung luxury coupe in the most obnoxious colour of the year.

What did surprise her was that his car stayed there, parked, all night.         

Bea knew. She stared at it as she restocked the lottery tickets in the yellowed plastic holders on the cash desk. She glanced over her shoulder, that flash of green so distracting, as she pulled too-dry Jurassic Pork sandwiches from their buzzing, lukewarm safety oven. Dehydrated bun and dinosaur-shaped, breaded pork cutlets crumbled in her fingers. Even the kale relish flaked away, all of it leaving a greasy film that hand sanitizer couldn’t fully remove.

Darren still hadn’t left as the lights came on in the grocery store and the doors slid open.

Bea didn’t even check her phone as she waited for Bodhi. She stood there, outside the convenience store, arm propped on one of the gas pumps, looking at Darren’s car.

“Boss man’s here early,” Bodhi said as he walked up from the bus stop.

“Hasn’t left,” Bea said, crossing her arms as she stared across the weed-infested parking lot.

“Inventory night,” he said as he backed through the door, setting off the automatic chimes.

“That’s in January,” Bea shouted over the music in the kiosk.

The all-too-friendly voice of the morning show announcer scraped over Bea’s nerves. “And this weekend, all you nostalgia-nerds are in for a special treat. There’s a 48-hour marathon of The Question. Their specials in the nineties were the stuff of legend.”

“Yeah, they certainly brought the dairy to the watch party,” her co-host said, his forced banter sounding older than the joke he was hoping to make.

An air horn sounded along with some laser gun effects. “Legendary,” a deep-voice yelled in the sound barrage.

#

“I think Darren’s ghosting me,” Shawna whispered as she ruffled Dot’s curls.

Bea struggled to keep from shuddering with this new mention of their shared boss and the offer that he’d made. She didn’t judge Shawna, couldn’t in fact; sixty percent of minimum wage on short-term disability was nothing to live on. There were things that had to be done to get by. Darren knew that. But it didn’t mean Bea wanted Dot to understand that at all. Or to see it daily. Or to become the next target for it. Him.

“Can he haunt you if he’s still alive?” Dot asked, her eyes wide, part curiosity and part fear, which had Bea wondering what was happening in the school yard.

“No, Polka Dot, it means that someone is ignoring you on purpose and you don’t see them anymore,” Bea said, thinking about Darren’s noxious green car in the parking lot all night.

Dot nodded and slipped inside Shawna’s apartment.

“Let me know if he says anything, okay?” Shawna asked, her voice low.

Bea nodded and bit her lip, not entirely certain it would serve any purpose to tell her friend about yesterday. That thought kept her occupied all the way through her forty-five-minute bus ride. It was better than thinking about what she would do when she lost the night shift job. Better than thinking about how there were no jobs in this economy and that unemployment was higher than ever, according to the radio. Better than thinking about how she would take Darren up on that offer.

It didn’t matter that the summer heat had lingered through September, Bea still shivered as she got off the bus. The carts had been left in the parking lot all day, their wheels squeaking as they shifted in a light breeze. It looked abandoned, without even one car, including Darren’s poison-green one.

“Did Darren come get his car?” she asked as she walked through the gas station doors.

Bodhi shrugged. “I looked up, and it was gone.”

“Weird,” she said, looking out at the parking lot again. “Did you see him at all today?” She pulled the edges of her work vest tight around her middle as she crossed her arms.

“Don’t usually see him.” Bodhi gathered up his backpack from behind the cash desk. “How’s the Dippin’ Dot?”

“Learning about ghosting,” she said, forcing a shiver away.

“Everything’ll will work out the way it’s supposed to, the cosmic design, you’ll see.” He squeezed her shoulder on his way out.

Bea sighed as the door closed behind him.

Her shift slipped by as she focussed on the tasks in front of her. She put pizza slices on a tray in the buzzing safety oven, right under the heat lamp, and watched the cheese blister and burn, like plague buboes.

Across the abandoned parking lot, the lights came on in the grocery store and the doors slid open. Bea wasn’t certain who had opened them, considering Darren hadn’t appeared this morning. Hadn’t pulled up in that sulphurous chartreuse car. Hadn’t strolled across the parking lot from the store.

“Does Tropical Dot have a school holiday today?” Bodhi said, sidling past Bea as she stood in front of the kiosk, staring at the open grocery store doors. “My cousins do.”

She couldn’t look away from those doors. They looked the same as they usually did, with the glint of foil chip bags displayed at the entryway to entice customers inside. But also, wrong. Or maybe impossible was the better word because they shouldn’t have opened on their own. Bea nodded to Bodhi and headed home, her steps a little slower as she walked to the bus stop. She could say it was the weight of her worries, which was a credible excuse. But those weren’t the thoughts eddying in her mind. Darren’s absence was a puzzle and an anxiety all at once, gnawing at her as she collected Dot from Shawna’s, keeping her from sleep while Dot settled in with a bowl of whatever cereal was for sale last week as she did her homework. Bea didn’t even notice when the television flickered on.

“And now for everyone’s favourite game show, The Question,” the announcer said amid the applause of a shadowed audience. “And here’s your host, Marchos.” His smile caught the studio lights as he walked out on the stage, his canines sharp. He had the benefit of good looks, regardless of the decade. He moved with sinuous grace as he nodded, thanking the audience.

Bea dropped to the sofa, falling into the overused cushions, unable to look away. Her eyes were wide as she watched. One contestant was still in her bathrobe with curlers in her hair. She raised her hand against the glare of the lights. Another woman, in a full-skirted plaid dress, was partway through pulling on a pair of white gloves as she looked around, her mouth hanging open, showing her interior lipstick line. A half-shaved older man in ragged slippers stumbled in the television aisle.

“Welcome to our new participants, come now, you know who you are,” the host said, waving his hand at the confused group. They looked up and around as they walked forward, every step hesitant. The woman in plaid dropped her glove as she walked, intent on the man on stage. The older man stumbled up the stairs as they made their way to the podium.

“It’s time to play,” Marchos said, holding the home audience’s gaze. Bea’s gaze. She couldn’t blink, couldn’t look away. His smile widened, showing off those too-sharp teeth. His movements on that stage, the way he walked, moved his arms, even smiled, were hypnotic.

The television switched off. It took Bea a moment before she started to blink. “Oh no,” Bea said, her voice low, not sure exactly why she said it. She slouched against the couch, drawing her shoulders in. There was a skittering, prickling feeling over her scalp, like a mild electric shock, as if she could feel how quickly her mind was attempting to process information, to connect facts.

Bea’s phone rang in her hands, the cracked screen scratching against her palm as it vibrated. The district manager’s number flashed on the screen as she fumbled to answer it.

“Yeah, so I really hate doing this,” Brock said as soon as they connected.

Her stomach flipped and squeezed as she thought about Darren’s threat. She forced herself to acknowledge Brock, her voice a neutral hum in the back of her throat.

“While Darren is gone…” he said, pausing to sigh.

She hummed again, uncertain and more than a little curious. She wasn’t going to ask where Darren was. Brock wouldn’t tell her anyway.

“Yeah, while he is gone, we need someone to take over the ordering and scheduling.” Papers shuffled on the other end of the call. “Head office and I agree that we don’t have the money for a double salary, but there’ll be a responsibility premium, or something. Corporate payroll will come up with a cost-effective option.”

Bea knew what this meant. There would be little pay for taking on the extra responsibility. At least it was more money. She was silent for a breath too long.

“Look, you going to take this? Or do I need to make other arrangements?” he asked, frustration bleeding into his tone, enough that Bea wondered how many of the very few employees still left in the store had refused before he came to her name on the list.

It would be extra experience that she needed. She couldn’t afford not to take it. Not really. She swallowed, unable to explain the bubble of excitement that overshadowed everything else she felt. “What do I need to do?” she asked.

“You come down here, now, and start filling out forms, or something,” Brock said, sounding relieved but also annoyed. Then he ended the call.

Bea gripped the too-thin sofa cushion underneath her, hoping to still the tremor in her hands. She wasn’t sure why it felt like there was a swarm of bees buzzing beneath her skin and in her ears. It could have been excitement – a new challenge to take on, skills to learn, an opportunity when she needed it. Or, it could have been the way that too-wide, too-sharp smile glinted in the studio lights in her memory. The way Marchos seemed to know she was watching. And the way a new opportunity popped up, exactly when she needed it.

#

For the next few weeks, life was better. Any extra money coming in was a good thing, even if corporate only decided to give her fifty cents more per hour. The day shift, working while Dot was in school and getting to spend evenings with her again, was the best thing. Bea knew this, in the very depths of her soul, tousling her daughter’s hair as they sat on the sofa, Dot’s math homework spread out on their laps.

“I brought popcorn,” Shawna said as she let herself in the apartment. “Enough for at least four hours of this marathon.” She shook the box of store-brand microwave popcorn. Synthetic butter flavour. Plain was twenty cents more.

“Can I make it?” Dot said, her little body leaning forward as she reached for the box, her math book falling to the floor.

“Sure,” Bea said, nudging her off the couch.

“Still nothing from Darren,” Shawna said, as she curled up in the opposite corner of the sofa, her knees pulled in tight.

Bea shook her head as she reached for the remote control. There was a part of her that wanted to worry with Shawna, to worry for her. But there was another, newer part of her that was happier now. Better. Brighter. They’d cleaned the store, stocked fresh produce, dealt with the rat problem. Customers started coming back. She didn’t want Darren, or his putrid car, anywhere near the store. Instead of prolonging that dissonance between her friendship and her own advantage, Bea turned on the television.

Mustard yellow and pea green were splashed across the soundstage. An episode of The Question from the sixties. A woman stood at the podium, watching Marchos as he glided across the stage. A small gold cross hung above the oversized buttons on her A-line, gridelin coat. She leaned over the lectern, the cross dangled and hit the microphone, a rasping staccato beat with her every trembling inhale.

“One last question, Nancy, and the prize is yours,” Marchos said, his smile coiling at the edges.

Nancy nodded, her lips parting before she licked them with the tip of her tongue then bit down. It was so odd to see such vulnerable hope on someone, even on television; it looked more like agony than expectation.

“We’ve talked about your love of dolls this entire time, haven’t we, my dear,” Marchos said, taking a step forward.

Nancy nodded again, her shaky exhale coming through the microphone.

“What is the name for the single-room dollhouse that came to market this year?” Marchos read from the cue card he held.

“The Dreamhouse,” Nancy said, her hands clasped tightly in front of her chest, her heels rising from the floor. Her smile was wild now.

“That’s exactly right,” Marchos said, clapping loudly as he stepped to the side. The stage doors opened behind him. A dreamhouse, that single-room carboard structure, sized for an adult woman, was pushed out on stage by a long-legged assistant wearing a white and grey feather boa over a down-flounced evening gown.

“It’s really mine?” Nancy asked, swallowing hard and then nodding. “For me? Only me and no one else? He won’t be there? In my new house?”

“Of course it is my dear, because…” Marchos waved his hand toward the audience. “The Question is never a surprise and the answer is always the prize.”

Gold and green confetti exploded all over as Nancy jiggled at the podium, waving for the cameras, her hand so fast it blurred, as her smile turned feral.

“All that for a playhouse?” Shawna asked, crossing her arms over her chest.

“A win is a win,” Bea said as Dot came back with a steaming bowl of popcorn, the singed smell burning its way through the apartment. “Sometimes, all you’ve got is winning a cardboard playhouse.”

“Can we watch another episode?” Dot asked, settling down on the floor, the popcorn in her lap.

“It’s the only thing on,” Shawna said, curling further into herself.

One episode blended into the next and the next and the next. Only Dot left the room to get more popcorn. This episode of The Question was from the eighties. A man in a fluorescent windbreaker – electric blue with a charged orange chevron – was the final contestant. His hands shook as he gripped the edges of the podium while Marchos shuffled his cue cards.

“And now, to our final question. For Jeff.” Marchos turned to the man standing at the podium. Jeff gulped as he flexed his hands and gripped the lectern tighter. “No need to be nervous,” Marchos said, his voice smooth. “All you need to do is answer the question.”

The man shook his head, tendons in the side of his neck taut, veins popping. “I don’t want to,” he said, his voice rasping into the microphone.  

“What kind of car appeared in the 1983 film Terms of Endearment?” Marchos asked, his sinuate smile widening. Jeff’s tight clench made the lectern vibrate.

“That movie was a comedy, Jeff,” Shawna said, waving at the television. Dot giggled on the floor at the gesture.

Jeff shook his head, eyes wide. His cheeks ballooned as though the answer filled them up, ready to spill out when he could no longer hold it. Marchos tapped the cue cards against his palm. “Come now, Jeff, the answer is the prize after all, and the audience is waiting.”

“The prize has got to be a car, right?” Shawna’s smile was as wide as Marchos’ and no longer twisted with the usual pull of pain.

Head tilted, Bea looked at her, wondering when the last time Shawna had a migraine. She couldn’t remember a time since they’d started working together when her friend was not experiencing some pain.

“Silver corvette, 1978.” The answer came out on a rushing exhale that thundered in the microphone, forcing Bea’s attention back to the screen.

“And now for the prize,” Marchos said as acid green and tangerine confetti exploded from overhead. The stage doors parted and the same assistant with the feather boa and near-spindled legs walked out beside a gleaming silver car, with its shining curves and honed hood. The left headlight was cracked, shattered. There was rippling and crumpling along the side. Jeff collapsed, hanging down with his hands still clamped to the podium, as he sobbed.

“Is that blood?” Bea asked, pressing back into the sofa cushions. Shawna leaned forward in her seat.

“That’s all for this evening, everyone. We’ll be seeing you soon,” Marchos said, looking directly at the camera – at Bea.

The television snapped off.

And so did Bea’s breath.

“I guess that’s the end of the Friday night marathon.” Shawna stretched her arms above her head. “See you tomorrow,” she whispered as she crept around Dot, who slept curled around the popcorn bowl, and out the door.

Dot rolled over on the floor, rubbing her fist across her eyes. “Do I have to go to bed?”

Bea nodded and tried to steady herself. Why was she sat there, scared of a game show? She tucked Dot into bed and pulled the worn, thrift-store sheets up as Dot went back to sleep. Curling herself around her daughter, she nuzzled Dot. There was no way she was going to find sleep on the sofa that night.

#

The store was bustling on Monday morning. The lines at the cash desks were long as Bea weighed and paid for the green apple in her hand. The customers didn’t seem to mind as they scrolled through their phones. Bea slid behind the customer service desk and looked down at the schedule in front of her as she bit into the crisp apple and licked the juice off her hand. They’d have to hire at least one more cashier for the day shift, maybe another shelf-stacker on nights. She tapped her fingers against the papers on the wooden clipboard. She’d have to check with Brock to see if she had authority to hire anyone while they waited for Darren to come back.

Frowning, she took another bite of the apple, the regular price lower than the sale price from weeks ago. She didn’t want to think about Darren or how she hadn’t seen his irradiated car anywhere in town. There were other, better things to do. Produce to order. Things to put on the zero-food-waste app. Sale tags to replace. Prices to mark down. Since she’d been the de facto manager, she’d learned that the more money the store made, the bigger a manager’s bonus; store profits by way of bonus cheques funneled directly into Darren’s pocket. And his car. Rotten produce was cheaper to buy wholesale than good produce, which meant more money for Darren. Not enough employees to stack shelves and sort through the ruin and rot, meant Darren had a larger bank account.

Vulnerability, not just the women who worked for him, but the whole community, meant so much more than money for Darren.

Bea wasn’t used to the new level of disgust she felt toward him as she turned to the computer, her hand on the freshly-cleaned mouse. Her cell phone rang. Bea took a half-step back as she looked at her phone. No one ever just called. A call meant something. Texted, yes. Actual call, no. She was slow, perplexed really, as she reached for it.

“Boss Lady, it disappeared,” Bodhi said, frenzied. “Whole thing – boom – gone. Like it never existed.”

Bea shook her head. “Wait, what?”

“Jurassic Pork. Gone.”

“The oven with the stupid dinosaur sandwiches?” She looked out through the long row of windows to see Bodhi standing in the middle of the parking lot, halfway to the store from the gas station, as though he’d run as far as he dared.

“Extinct.” The joke might have been funny if Bodhi didn’t sound so panicked.

Bea started toward the doors, if nothing else, to talk Bodhi back into the kiosk. The lines were long at the gas station too. The effect of affordable prices. The background music in the store played a few familiar notes. “Tune in this evening for a special episode of The Question,” a radio announcer said, as Bea walked through the doors.

The September sun beat brutally on the tarmac as Bea walked toward her friend. He wrapped his arms around himself, cellphone clutched in one hand.

“I’m not going back in there, Boss Lady,” Bodhi said, shaking his head. He was pale beneath his tan, and his hand shook as he pointed at the kiosk. “How can a whole oven just disappear?”

“I’ll go look, okay? If it is there when I go in, will you go back?” Bea tried to keep her voice soft, as she put a hand on Bodhi’s shoulder. A tremor ran through him and then deepened into a shiver. “You sure you’re okay? Not a fever or anything?”

He shook his head. “Go look.” There was a plea in his voice.

She squeezed his shoulder before crossing the rest of the way to the station. On the surface, it looked nostalgic, like it might have done in decades past or out of a Rockwell painting.

Bea paused at the door. The little building looked normal. She could still see the hotdogs on the roller and the pizza steadily blistering in the oven. She wanted to step back, but static snapped over her scalp, making her flyaway hairs stand up in the door’s reflection. She looked back at Bodhi, still shivering in the middle of the parking lot, cars swerving around him as they left.

She ignored the slithering under her skin and took a single step through the doors.

The chime rang. Lights flared. She raised a hand to shield her eyes. She blinked and looked around. It wasn’t only the Jurassic Pork oven that had disappeared, but everything inside the store. She wanted to panic, wanted that heart-stuttering, breath-speeding feeling. But she knew what this was.

“And welcome to the stage, our next contestant,” Marchos’ voice carried through the air as a spotlight hammered on. “Bea Falk.” He lingered over the syllables of her name as television static zapped over her skin.

Bea held her hand in front of her eyes as she looked at the stage. The auditorium was near silent. No laughing, no cheering, not a rustle of fabric. It was only her and Marchos. She slid her foot forward, too tentative for a step, yet closer to the stage all the same.

“Come now, don’t be shy,” Marchos said, waving her forward. His canines lengthened as he smiled. “It’s merely a question, and you already know the answer.”

There was a note in his voice that was soothing, nearly compelling, as she took a more certain step forward. There were lights that led her up the stairs to where Marchos waited, his hand extended, his smile feral. His skin was hot as she slipped her hand into his. She’d expected a shock at the contact, but its absence left her staring, head tipped to the side, at their joined hands.

“Welcome to The Question, my dear, where the question is never a surprise and the answer always the prize.” His voice was low, as though this was not broadcast for millions of people across the country. She didn’t stop him as he tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow and led her across the stage. Couldn’t stop him, really. She enjoyed the familiarity, and knowing this surprised her. “Now, you’ve watched us at home. I know you have.”

Panic crashed through her soothed daze, making her tremble as the spotlight illuminated the podium. “Why am I here?” she whispered, dread curling its way from the pit of her stomach up to and around her vocal cords.

“Because you have a question to answer,” he said, standing behind her at the podium. A scent of campfire hung around him, oddly pleasant. “Look there for the camera, dear, let all those who will be watching see your face.” His suit rustled as he pointed across the vacant space.

“There’s no audience,” she said, her fingers curling over the edges of the lectern, the leucite edges digging into her palms.

“There always is,” he said, his sweep across the stage too sinuous.

The static from his voice raced up Bea’s spine and over her scalp. There was a muffled groan behind the question mark doors before her. Her eyes snapped wide and she leaned back, trying to peer into the darkness behind the set.

“Would you like to see your audience?” Marchos asked, too-smooth, too-pleased.

Her first impulse was to shake her head, to say no, but she was compelled to nod.

“Only one person today, my dear, just for you,” he said, extending his arm to the doors that had already started to slide open.

She knew before she saw the feather boa and the green glint of a car hood. It was Darren. There was another groan that trailed off into a moan, confused and pained. Bea was used to feeling empathy, at the very least sympathy, when she knew someone was hurt. But it wasn’t there. Curiosity flashed, bright and burning, as her panic faded. She watched as they wheeled him on stage, sitting in the driver’s seat of his noxious car with a towel around his waist, his head lolling against his shoulder as he struggled to open his eyes. Her hands loosened on the edges of the podium.

“Bea,” Darren said, his voice hoarse as he blinked. “You gotta ge’me outta here,” he said, words slurring. He reached a hand out only to meet the end of a leather restraint, then let it fall against the car seat.

Part of Bea was ready to start forward, ready to undo the restraints and loop his arm around her shoulders. There was a louder part of her, an angry part of her, that wanted to see him here, exactly like that, as vulnerable as she had been in a situation he could have changed.

Instead of bolting to him, she pulled up and faced Marchos. His smile was affirming as he looked at her and she relaxed further – no longer dazed or panicked, but eager.

“Remember, unless you are cheering, you are quiet,” the assistant with the feather boa said, tapping Darren’s lower lip with a painted talon.

It was a threat, Bea knew. She tilted her head to the side, watching as the assistant trailed their clawed fingers over the bottom of Darren’s mouth, along his jaw, and then rested, tips poised on his cheek.

“Yay,” Darren whispered, eyes wide as he patted his hand against the side of his car.

“What shall we talk about today, my dear?” Marchos’ question cut through Bea’s fascination, forcing her attention back on him. “Will it be how processed meat can curdle and clot your insides?” As Marchos asked, Darren’s leg bunched and bundled, swelling fast and making him groan again. The skin split, ulcerating and leaking, peeling back the same way a spider orchid bloomed.

“Or shall we discuss how creating food deserts in communities dries them out and makes them crumble?” Darren’s skin started to wrinkle and sink against his bones and then flake away, like dehydrated meat and bread left too long under a heat lamp.

“Or how fostering rats makes plagues fester, creating epidemics in communities that cannot withstand them?” Those little flea bites at Darren’s wrist ballooned and blackened. He cried out, the muscles in his neck straining.

“Or will it be the same conversation it always is: he carries on – the advantage all his –and your life returns to what it was before?”

Darren pounded his fists on the car, each blow ringing out across the stage, as he bit his lips. His desire was clear, but hers was not the same.

Bea thought about it, thought about all the time she spent with Dot. About all the people who could afford to come to the store. About the extra money she could make. About how much better their lives would be – and were now. About how Shawna hadn’t had a migraine since Darren disappeared. She thought about how they’d all lived, really lived, in the time he’d been gone. But that wasn’t the actual question, she knew. That question, couched in terms of health and happiness, was darker. It made her shiver as a shock of certainty arced through her. She tightened her hands over the podium again, leaning forward, knowing what the prize would be. What her answer would be.  

“So, my dear, what is the cost of living?”