me smile.
There are a smattering of cars in the Food Bank parking lot, and I keep my head ducked against the cold as I hurry to the unremarkable concrete building. The security camera peers down at me, but I know it sees nothing.
I go to the kitchen to stick my lunch in the refrigerator, then make my way up front to sign in before a quiet morning of sorting and stocking. But instead of the usual staff divide of older ladies in front, everybody else in back, the dozen people assembled today are standing up front, mingling uneasily. Lola is there, too, pacing and muttering to herself.
I feel sick. For eighteen months I’ve wondered what would happen if they found out who I really was, how they’d react, what they would do. And even while my skin flushes hot and my heart pounds too hard, my common sense tells me this reaction is too much. So Reese Carlisle volunteers at the Food Bank. So her father’s in prison. He stole two hundred million dollars, not boxes of generic cereal and day-old bananas.
I shuffle next to Rodney, who glances down at me.
“What’s going on?” I whisper, my voice still too loud in the cavernous space.
“We got raided,” he says from the corner of his mouth. He keeps his eyes trained on Lola, like he might get blamed for it.
“Why?”
“Beats me.”
We’ve had FDA inspections since I started, both scheduled, both uneventful, neither of which generated this type of reaction.
We continue to stand in an awkward, uncertain silence for another minute, until finally the sound of tires crunching over the frozen pavement interrupts, reminding us there’s a business to run. Lola looks at her watch and, seeing the lost time, snaps out of it. Today her braids are thick and purple, shifting around like snakes. If I didn’t already think she was scary, I’d be terrified.
“All right. Well, get to work then,” she says, less venom in her voice than normal. “We’ve got work to do up here, and we’ve got lots to do back there. Salvage what you can, throw away what you can’t, and let me know what you’re unsure about. And be fast.”
We turn to go, but Lola stops us. “And work together,” she adds. “Rodney and R.C., Andre and Joanne, Devon and Gayle, Carlos and Susan.” Even though Rodney is the only pseudo-friend I have here, I don’t think for a second that Lola is pairing us up based on common interests. Quite the opposite—if we’re not working with our friends, we’ll focus. There’s no way anyone in these partnerships has anything to gossip about with their new coworker.
Everyone is wise enough not to complain, vanishing into the warehouse in varying directions. Rodney and I automatically go to my corner, and that’s when I finally see what’s got everyone so shaken: we haven’t been inspected; we’ve been searched.
The warehouse isn’t trashed, but it’s definitely been investigated. Open boxes of cereal sit on the floor, their plastic-sealed contents intact. Large bags of rice are sliced open, pallets upended, a hundred cases of tomato sauce opened to expose their harmless contents. A large box of melons has been cut down the side, honeydew and cantaloupes spilling onto the floor like oversized marbles.
I was here during one of the other inspections. They came in with their blue and yellow jackets, FDA stamped across the back. Just two guys marching around with Lola and her clipboard, making sure the fridges and freezers were set to temperature, the mouse traps were empty, the expiry dates were in order. A passing grade, a handshake, a goodbye.
This is much, much different.
I turn in a slow circle to take in the carnage. “Did they find anything?”
“Not that I could see,” Rodney replies. “We all had to go up front to wait. They were sitting outside when we showed up. Wouldn’t even let us back here.”
I trail my finger along the open top of a family-size can of baby formula, the chalky white powder sticking to my finger. Ruined. “The FDA did this? Why? Why would they open boxes, spoil things?”
“It wasn’t the FDA,” Rodney says, as we reach my aisle. “It was the FBI.”
My knees lock, my feet skid, and the whole room starts to spin. But it’s not Rodney’s words that do it, it’s the degree of destruction that awaits me. The carelessly dumped boxes, split cans of garbanzo beans and mushrooms and corn leaking all over the floor. Unlike the rest of the warehouse, my