“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