Читать книгу Neon Green - Margaret Wappler - Страница 10

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They didn’t like it, but Cynthia and Ernest owned two cars for necessity’s sake—Ernest’s battered Jetta and the Volvo station wagon that Cynthia used for commuting to a law firm in the city. Whenever the whole family had to pile in, Ernest drove the wagon.

Three days after Ernest’s birthday, they took a field trip to the new mega health-food store, Demeter Foods. After months of advance buzz, Ernest heard about its grand opening during his committee meeting for next year’s Earth Day celebration. Prairie Park had just hired him to direct the 1995 efforts. In years prior, the Earth Day festivities had been modest—a few tents slapped up to educate people on the issues, plus some crafts and activities for the kids—but town hall wanted something bigger to celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary. When his committee got wind that he hadn’t yet basked in the splendors of Demeter, they were horrified. “What are you waiting for?” his boss, Jean, had crowed. For all sorts of reasons, he was skeptical of Demeter Foods, but curiosity ultimately won out.

On the way, Ernest insisted on cranking an NPR story that quoted the president’s executive order from earlier in the year demanding that “all Americans deserve clean air, pure water, land that is safe to live on, and food that is safe to eat.”

“Wow!” Cynthia said. “It really is a new era. Never thought I’d see it.”

“Yep, it’s a good time to be an environmentalist,” Ernest said. “Best time since the early seventies.”

“This is Al Gore’s influence,” Cynthia said. “Don’t you think he’s cute, Alison?”

“Not to me,” Alison said. “He looks like a high school principal.”

“I hate to rain on your parade,” Gabe piped in from the backseat, “but I think it’s just trendy for the moment. I mean, all I see at school all over everyone’s notebooks are those panda stickers from World Wildlife, but I bet you none of them really know anything about pandas.”

“So what?” Alison said. “Maybe people want to save pandas because they’re cute and that’s it. You don’t have to know what it eats for lunch.”

“It’s a little poseurish. It’s like saying Nirvana’s best song is ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit.’”

“Well, I’m going to join the Protect the Planet club and I’m not feeling like a fake.”

“That’s because you’re not a fake. You were raised by these people.” Gabe flapped his hands toward their parents.

“All you kids ever talk about is who’s a poseur,” Cynthia said. “It’s like we’re riding with the authenticity cops or something.”

“That’s really more Gabe’s thing. It’s some kind of code he lives by,” Alison said, and looked at her brother: “Pearl Jam?”

His answer was immediate: “Poseurs.”

“Wrong. What about Jane’s Addiction?”

“Legit.”

“Live.”

He groaned. “Now you’ve got that terrible song in my head.”

“It’s appalling.” Alison thought for a minute, trying to stump him. “Jason Priestley?”

“Dork. But that’s a whole different scale, by the way.”

“Home computers!” Alison announced it like a game show host and applauded loudly.

“Awesome! And our parents should get one.”

“Not going to happen,” Ernest said. “Not now.”

“Just to go back for a minute, I don’t mind that environmentalism is trendy right now,” Cynthia said. “If that gets more people involved, I’m all for it.”

“Did you know that seventy-six percent of Americans now consider themselves environmentalists?” Ernest asked, joining a line of cars turning into Demeter’s crowded parking lot.

No one answered him. Attention was now focused on the shopping spectacle coming into view.

Attendants waved them into freshly painted diagonal spaces. Newly planted saplings decorated every few spots. In the back of the parking lot, several independent stands seemed to be trying to capitalize on the frenzy Demeter Foods had stirred up, and—unless they had crashed the party uninvited—the new big dog in town was generously allowing them to sell their wares on its grounds. There was a massage stand, a crystals and hand-blended oils stand, and a few other like-minded entrepreneurs alongside activist groups like the No Nukes in Prairie Park guys. Ernest thought these businesses could fit in at Earth Day next year—and made a mental note to give each of them a call—except for one glaring exception:

“Look, it’s one of those spaceship sweepstakes!” Gabe said.

He pointed at a folding table covered in neon-green paper. On one side of the table, a miniature flying saucer on stilts with black balloons and purple ribbons tied to it. A blond woman was manning the table alone, her slack expression belying the giddy banner below: WIN A VISIT FROM JUPITER!! SIGN UP TODAY!!

“Nope,” Ernest said. “I want nothing to do with it.”

“Why not?”

But Ernest didn’t answer and instead hustled his family into the new supermarket.

Once they stepped through the automatic sliding glass doors, Demeter Foods unfurled its glory as the gleaming marketplace for an eco-conscious Utopia. The poured concrete floors at a high shine. The refrigerated section of probiotics and fish oil pulsating with inventory. Boxes of cereal with every heart-healthy oat, flake, and cluster kissed with only natural sweeteners. Wedges of cheese sourced from livestock free of hormones and free to roam. Other claims on absolute purity abounded: No pesticides. No GMO. No trans fat. No high-fructose corn syrup. What was left in these foods? Just clean goodness from a never-ending, bountiful crop. Ernest found a tower of green apples so pristine they could’ve all been plucked from the Garden of Eden. He stopped the whole family to admire it.

He whistled. “Anyone have a bottle of Champagne we could pour over the top?”

Demeter Foods should’ve seemed like a victory to Ernest, but instead, he battled a vague annoyance. Here was the extravagant temple to his religion, yet he had to resist the urge to run around and drill each customer: “Do you belong to the Sierra Club? Have you ever done a trash pickup on the beach? Do you have three different bins for recycling?” If they answered incorrectly, he’d pluck them of their eco-bounty and turn them out as false apostles. Maybe he was just like Gabe—obsessed with legitimacy. But it was more than legitimacy; it was effort and investment—time, not just money. He wanted them to spend real time and thought. He didn’t want people thinking changing the world was as easy as buying a bag of non-GMO corn chips for ten dollars.

The kids were dashing off every few minutes, returning with lavish items they’d dump into the cart for Ernest to inspect. A twelve-dollar box of cookies, made with locally milled wheat flour (local to where?). Sun-dried tomato pasta in a package printed with nontoxic ink (who was using toxic ink on a food product?). Elderberry tincture that was $24.95 (for no discernible reason). He rejected all of these, but when Alison dropped in a bottle of suntan oil with no number on it, just the alluring promise of golden-brown skin, Ernest had to take a stronger stand.

“Alison,” Ernest said, “you know that there’s a hole in the ozone so big that part of Australia, all the little children there, have to wear head-to-toe clothing, these kind of beekeeper outfits with netting over their faces, to protect themselves from the sun?”

Alison folded her arms across her chest. “I do know about that, Dad. I think you’ve mentioned it once or twice before.”

“We’ve got one month left of summer. That’s still plenty of time for you to get a skin lesion.”

“Mom,” Alison said, “help me out here.”

Cynthia suggested they visit the sunscreen aisle together, where they could settle for something in the middle. On their way, Gabe took the opportunity to bring up what had been bothering him since they’d entered.

“Dad?”

“Yes, son?”

“What’s your problem with space?”

“Because it’s overhyped,” Ernest replied without having to think about it. “These spaceships coming from outer space, landing in someone’s yard, everyone gawking, but for what? There’s no real interaction with the Aliens. They never come out! It’s just a commercial stunt. It’s just another mindless distraction so we don’t have to think about the real problems on Earth.”

“But isn’t it exciting that a spaceship from Jupiter could land in your backyard? And I’ve heard that some of the aliens do come out.”

“Those are just tabloid rumors. It’s all a kind of scheme that exploits our curiosity about aliens.”

“How is it a scheme? It’s not like you don’t get anything,” Gabe said. “You get a visit from a spaceship! For free!”

Cynthia pushed the cart down the spacious aisle. “Don’t you kids remember when we drove to see one in Downers Grove? You guys might’ve been too little to remember. I have to admit, it was pretty spectacular. Hundreds of people crowding around in some lady’s backyard waiting for the lights to spin around. All this chatter and intrigue: ‘Are they coming out?’ A little part of me thought the spaceship might attack, government-approved or not—”

“It got gimmicky awful fast after that,” Ernest said. “Remember that 60 Minutes when Morley Safer tried to present it as this quirky American experience? He toured all around suburban America, interviewing the families hosting the spaceships, trying so hard to make it seem so quaint. Honestly, Gabe, after you’ve seen one you’ve seen them all.”

“Really? So you’re sick of them?”

“They’re just loud and silly. And probably unsafe on some level.”

“Unsafe how?” Alison asked. She vaguely remembered the trip to Downers Grove; she wasn’t freaked out by the spaceship so much as the people. There was an old woman in the crowd who looked like she hadn’t eaten for weeks, clutching prayer beads and crying with her eyes violently squeezed shut.

“Who knows what those things are exposing us to? It’s been only ten years. Not long enough to gather a reliable data set.”

“Ernest, you know those things were tested for years before they came over, before the government even told us about them,” Cynthia said.

“Seriously, Dad, how unsafe can they be?”

“It’s just not our style, OK?” Ernest said.

“OK,” Gabe said. “Miracles from space—not your style.”

“It’s not really a miracle from space if they’ll land at any old house.”

“No, you have to be a winner,” Gabe said. “It’s not just any old house. It’s not random.”

“By definition, Gabe, random’s what a sweepstakes is.” He knew his voice was inflected with that pedantic tone Gabe hated, but Ernest couldn’t help himself.

“Oh, OK.” Gabe tossed up his hands. “I guess since the spaceship isn’t made out of recycled boxes or hemp or whatever, it doesn’t count as an object of interest.”

They walked in silence until Gabe sharply veered off into another aisle and disappeared, muttering something about finding more overpriced snacks. The family went on without him. In front of the sunscreen display, Ernest held up a severe white bottle emblazoned with gold numbers.

“How about this?”

“Seventy-five?”

“It’s the strongest stuff on the market; it says so right here.”

“Dad, it looks terrifying, like some kind of engine oil.” Alison snatched the bottle from his hands. “Active ingredients: avobenzone, homosalate, octisalate, octocreylene, triethanolamine. You guys will barely buy lotion with alcohol in it. Why is all this craziness OK?”

Ernest drew in a breath to speak but then stopped. Alison loved when she could stem, if only for a moment, the tide of education from her dad’s mouth.

“Forty-five,” Ernest said. “You can still get a little bit of color from that.”

At the register, Ernest purchased two reusable bags, the same kind his boss, Jean, had brought to the meeting, despite the steep price.

“I’ve fallen for it,” Ernest mumbled to Cynthia. “These are nice bags. But see how they also have plastic? Karen would charge a nickel for each of those, as a deterrent.”

“They’re really nice bags,” she said, rubbing the fabric sacks. “And now everyone will know you shop at Demeter Foods. Pretty fancy!” She jabbed him in the back with her finger.

On the way out the door, the heat from the outside blasted their air-conditioned skin. As they loaded the groceries into the car, Gabe waved at the blond woman behind the WIN A VISIT FROM JUPITER! table. She treated him to a sweet wink.