Under the Dome

'I don't trust you not to drop the plate,' she explained, although this wasn't the exact truth; the fact was, she didn't trust him at all. 'I watched you play football, Melvin.'

'Aw, come on, I ain't that clumsy.'

'Also because I want to see if he's all right.'

'He's not supposed to have any visitors,' Mel said. 'That's from Chief Randolph, and he got it direct from Selectman Rennie.'

'Well, I'm going down.You'll have to use yourTaser to stop me, and if you do that, I'll never make you another strawberry waffle the way you like them, with the batter all runny in the middle.' She looked around and sniffed. 'Besides, I don't see either of those men here right now. Or am I missing something?'

Mel considered getting tough, if only to impress the fresh fish, and then decided not to. He really did like Rose. And he liked her waffles, especially when they were a little gooshy. He hitched up his belt and said, 'Okay But I hafta go with you, and you ain't taking him nothing until I look under that napkin.'

She raised it. Underneath were two BLTs, and a note written on the back of a Sweetbriar Rose customer check. Stay strong, it said. We believe in you.

Mel took the note, crumpled it, and threw it toward the waste-basket. It missed, and one of the recruits scurried to pick it up. 'Come on,' he said, then stopped, took half a sandwich, and tore out a monster bite. 'He couldn't eat all that, anyway' he told Rose.

Rose said nothing, but as he led her downstairs, she did briefly consider braining him with the plate.

She got halfway down the lower corridor before Mel said, 'That's as close as you go^ Miz Twitchell, I'll take it the rest of the way'

She handed the plate over and watched unhappily as Mel knelt, pushed the plate through the bars, and announced: 'Lunch is served, mon-sewer.'

Barbie ignored him. He was looking at Rose. 'Thank you. Although if Anson made those, I don't know how grateful I'll be after the first bite.'

'I made them,' she said. 'Barbie—why did they beat you up? Were you trying to get away? You look awful'

'Not trying to get away, resisting arrest. Wasn't I, Mel?'

'You want to quit the smart talk, or I'll come in there and take them simwidges away from you.'

'Well, you could try,' Barbie said. 'We could contest the matter.' When Mel showed no inclination to take him up on this offer, Barbie turned his attention to Rose once more.'Was it an airplane? It sounded like an airplane. A big one.'

'ABC says it was an Air Ireland jetliner. Fully loaded.'

'Let me guess. It was on its way to Boston or New York and some not-so-bright spark forgot to reprogram the autopilot.'

'I don't know. They're not saying about that part yet.'

'Come on.' Mel came back and took her arm. 'That's enough chitter-chatter. You need to leave before I get in trouble.'

'Are you okay?' Rose asked Barbie, resisting this command—at least for a moment.

'Yeah,' Barbie said. 'How about you? Did you patch it up with Jackie Wettington yet?'

And what was the correct answer to that one? So far as Rose knew, she had nothing to patch up with Jackie. She thought she saw Barbie give a tiny shake of the head, and hoped it wasn't just her imagination.

'Not yet,' she said.

'You ought to. Tell her to stop being a bitch.'

'As if,' Mel muttered. He locked onto Rose's arm. 'Come on, now; don't make me drag you.'

'Tell her I said you're all right,' Barbie called as she went up the stairs, this time leading the way with Mel at her heels. 'You two really should talk. And thanks for the sandwiches.'

Tell her I said you're all right.

That was the message, she was quite sure of it. She didn't think Mel had caught it; he'd always been dull, and life under the Dome did not seem to have smartened him up any. Which was probably why Barbie had taken the risk.

Rose made up her mind to find Jackie as soon as possible, and pass on the message: Barbie says I'm all right. Barbie says you can talk to me.

'Thank you, Mel,' she said—when they were back in the ready room. 'It was kind of you to let me do that.'

Mel looked around, saw no one of greater authority than himself, and relaxed. 'No problem-o, but don't think you're gettin down there again with supper, because it ain't happenin.' He considered, then waxed philosophical. 'He deserves somethin nice though, I guess. Because come next week this time, he's gonna be as toasty as those samwidges you made im.'

We'll see about that, Rose thought.

22

Andy Sanders and The Chef sat beside the WOK storage barn, smoking glass. Straight ahead of them, in the field surrounding the radio tower, was a mound of earth marked with a cross made out of crate-slats. Beneath the mound lay Sammy Bushey, torturer of Bratz, rape victim, mother of Little Walter. Chef said that later on he might steal a regular cross from the cemetery by Chester Pond. If there was time. There might not be.

He lifted his garage door opener as if to emphasize this point.