Dry Read online

  This book is dedicated to all those struggling to undo the disastrous effects of climate change

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Dry has been an amazing project to collaborate on, and there are so many people to whom we are grateful!

  A heartfelt thanks to our editor, David Gale; editorial assistant, Amanda Ramirez; and our publisher, Justin Chanda, for trusting us to write a novel together, and for their guidance every step of the way! Everyone at Simon & Schuster has been incredibly supportive. A special shout-out to Carolyn Reidy, Jon Anderson, Anne Zafian, Michelle Leo, Anthony Parisi, Sarah Woodruff, Lauren Hoffman, Lisa Moraleda, Chrissy Noh, Keri Horan, Katrina Groover, Deane Norton, Stephanie Voros, and Chloë Foglia.

  And, of course, Jay Shaw, for such a fantastic eye-catching cover!

  Thanks to our book agent, Andrea Brown; foreign rights agent, Taryn Fagerness; our entertainment industry agents, Steve Fisher, Debbie Deuble-Hill, and Ryan Saul at APA; our manager, Trevor Engelson, for all their hard work setting up Dry as a film; and our contract attorneys, Shep Rosenman, Jennifer Justman, and Caitlin DiMotta, for wading through the endless fields of legal kindling.

  Thanks to the film team—Marty Bowen, Isaac Klausner, and Pete Harris at Temple Hill, as well as Wyck Godfrey and Jon Gonda at Paramount.

  We’d also like to thank our friend and colleague Elias Gertler, for believing in this story from its inception; Barb Sobel, for superhuman organizational skills; and Matt Lurie, our social media sensei.

  Thanks to you, our cup truly runneth over!

  PART ONE

  TAP-OUT

  DAY ONE

  SATURDAY, JUNE 4TH

  1) Alyssa

  The kitchen faucet makes the most bizarre sounds.

  It coughs and wheezes like it’s gone asthmatic. It gurgles like someone drowning. It spits once, and then goes silent. Our dog, Kingston, raises his ears, but still keeps his distance from the sink, unsure if it might unexpectedly come back to life, but no such luck.

  Mom just stands there holding Kingston’s water bowl beneath the faucet, puzzling. Then she moves the handle to the off position, and says, “Alyssa, go get your father.”

  Ever since single-handedly remodeling our kitchen, Dad has had delusions of plumbing grandeur. Electrical, too. Why pay through the nose for contractors when you can do it yourself? he always said. Then he put his money where his mouth was. Ever since, we’ve had nothing but plumbing and electrical problems.

  Dad’s in our garage working on his car with Uncle Basil—who’s been living with us on and off since his almond farm up in Modesto failed. Uncle Basil’s actual name is Herb, but somewhere along the line my brother and I began referring to him as various herbs in our garden. Uncle Dill, Uncle Thyme, Uncle Chive, and during a period our parents wish we would forget, Uncle Cannabis. In the end, Basil was the name that stuck.

  “Dad,” I shout out into the garage, “kitchen issues.”

  My father’s feet stick out from underneath his Camry like the Wicked Witch. Uncle Basil is hidden behind a storm cell of e-cig vapor.

  “Can’t it wait?” my father says from beneath the car.

  But I’m already sensing that it can’t. “I think it’s major,” I tell him.

  He slides out, and with a heavy sigh heads for the kitchen.

  Mom’s not there anymore. Instead she’s standing in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room. She’s just standing there, the dog’s empty water bowl still in her left hand. I get a chill, but I don’t yet know why.

  “What’s so important that you gotta drag me out of—”

  “Shush!” Mom says. She rarely shushes Dad. She’ll shush me and Garrett all day, but my parents never shush each other. It’s an unspoken rule.

  She’s watching the TV, where a news anchor is blathering about the “flow crisis.” That’s what the media’s been calling the drought, ever since people got tired of hearing the word “drought.” Kind of like the way “global warming” became “climate change,” and “war” became “conflict.” But now they’ve got a new catchphrase. A new stage in our water woes. They’re calling this the “Tap-Out.”

  Uncle Basil emerges from his vapor cloud long enough to ask, “What’s going on?”

  “Arizona and Nevada just backed out of the reservoir relief deal,” Mom tells him. “They’ve shut the floodgates on all the dams, saying they need the water themselves.”

  Which means that the Colorado River won’t even reach California anymore.

  Uncle Basil tries to wrap his mind around it. “Turning off the entire river like it’s a spigot! Can they do that?”

  My father raises an eyebrow. “They just did.”

  Suddenly the image switches to a live press conference, where the governor addresses a gathering of antsy reporters.

  “This is unfortunate, but not entirely unexpected,” the governor says. “We have people working around the clock attempting to broker a new deal with various agencies.”

  “What does that even mean?” Uncle Basil says. Both Mom and I shush him.

  “As a precautionary measure, all county and municipal water districts in Southern California are temporarily rerouting all resources to critical services. But I cannot stress enough the need to keep calm. I’d like to personally assure everyone that this is a temporary situation, and that there is nothing to be concerned about.”

  The media begins to bombard him with questions, but he ducks out without answering a single one.

  “Looks like Kingston’s water bowl isn’t the only one that’s run dry,” Uncle Basil says. “I guess we’re gonna have to start drinking out of the toilet, too.”

  My younger brother, Garrett, who’s been sitting on the couch waiting for normal TV to return, makes the appropriate face, which just makes Uncle Basil laugh.

  “So,” Dad says to Mom halfheartedly, “at least the plumbing problem isn’t my fault this time.”

  I go to the kitchen to try the tap myself—as if I might have the magic touch. Nothing. Not even the slightest dribble. Our faucet has coded, and no amount of resuscitation will bring it back. I note the time, like they do in the emergency room: 1:32 p.m., June 4th.

  Everyone’s going to remember where they were when the taps went dry, I think. Like when a president is assassinated.

  In the kitchen behind me, Garrett opens the fridge and grabs a bottle of Glacier Freeze Gatorade. He begins to guzzle it, but I stop him on the third gulp.

  “Put it back,” I tell him. “Save some for later.”

  “But I’m thirsty now,” he whines, protesting. He’s ten—six years younger than me. Ten-year-olds have issues with delayed gratification.

  It’s almost finished anyway, so I let him keep it. I take note of what’s in the fridge. A couple of beers. Three more bottles of Gatorade, a gallon of milk that’s down to the dregs, and leftovers.

  You know how sometimes you don’t realize how thirsty you are until you take that first sip? Well, suddenly I get that feeling just by looking in the refrigerator.

  It’s the closest thing I’ve ever had to a premonition.

  I can hear neighbors out in the street now. We know our neighbors—run into them occasionally. The only time whole bunches of them come out into the street at the same time is July Fourth, or when there’s an earthquake.

  My parents, Garrett, and I gravitate outside as well, all of us standing, strangely, looking to one another for some kind of guidance, or at least validation that this is actually happening. Jeannette and Stu Leeson from across the street, the Maleckis and their newborn, and Mr. Burnside, who’s been eternally seventy years old for as long as I can remember. And as expected, we don’t see the reclusive family next door—the McCrackens—who have probably barricaded themselves inside the
ir suburban fortress upon hearing the news.

  We all kind of stand there with our hands in our pockets, avoiding direct eye contact, like my classmates at the junior prom.

  “Okay,” my dad finally says, “which one of you pissed off Arizona and Nevada?”

  Everyone chuckles. Not because it’s particularly funny, but it eases some of the tension.

  Mr. Burnside raises his eyebrows. “Hate to say I told ya so, but didn’t I say they’d hoard what’s left of the Colorado River? We let that river become our only lifeline. We should never have let ourselves become so vulnerable.”

  Used to be no one much knew or cared where our water came from. It was just always there. But when the Central Valley started to dry up and the price of produce skyrocketed, people started to pay attention. Or at least enough attention to pass laws and voter propositions. Most of them were useless, but made people feel as if something was being done. Like the Frivolous Use Initiative, which made things like throwing water balloons illegal.

  “Las Vegas still has water,” someone points out.

  Our neighbor, Stu, shakes his head. “Yeah—but I just tried to book a hotel in Vegas. A million hotel rooms, and not a single one available.”

  Mr. Burnside laughs ruefully, as if taking pleasure in Stu’s misfortune. “One hundred twenty-four thousand hotels rooms, actually. Sounds like a whole lot of people had the same idea.”

  “Ha! Can you imagine the traffic on the interstate trying to get there?” says my mom, in a sour grapes kind of way. “I wouldn’t want to be caught in that!”

  And then I put my two cents in. “If they’re diverting the remaining water to ‘critical services,’ it means there’s still a little bit left. Someone should sue to get them to release a fraction of it. Make it like rolling blackouts. Each neighborhood gets a little bit of water each day.”

  My parents are impressed by the suggestion. The others look at me with an isn’t-she-adorable kind of expression, which ticks me off. My parents are convinced I’m going to be a lawyer someday. It’s possible, but I suspect if I am, it will just be a means to an end—although I’m not sure what that end would be.

  But that doesn’t help us now—and though I think my idea is a good one, I suspect there’s too much self-interest among the Powers That Be for it to ever happen. And who knows, maybe there isn’t enough water left to share.

  A phone chimes, receiving a text. Jeannette looks at her Android. “Great! Now my relatives in Ohio found out. Like I need their stress on top of my own.”

  “Text them back: ‘send water.’ ” My father quips.

  “We’ll get through this,” my mom says reassuringly. She’s a clinical psychologist, so reassurance is second nature to her.

  Garrett, who’s been standing quietly, brings his Gatorade bottle up to his lips . . . and for a brief moment everyone stops talking. Involuntary. Almost like a mental hiccup, as they watch my brother gulp the quenching blue liquid. Finally, Mr. Burnside breaks the silence.

  “We’ll talk,” he says as he turns to leave. It’s the way he always ends a conversation. It signals the conclusion of this loose little fellowship. Everyone says their goodbyes and heads back to their homes . . . but more than one set of eyes glance at Garrett’s empty Gatorade bottle as they leave.

  • • •

  “Costco run!” says Uncle Basil late that afternoon, at around five. “Who’s coming?”

  “Can I get a hot dog?” Garrett asks, knowing that even if Uncle Basil says no, he’ll get one anyway. Uncle Basil is a pushover.

  “Hot dogs are the least of our problems,” I tell him. And he doesn’t question that. He knows why we’re going—he’s not stupid. Even so, he still knows he’ll get a hot dog.

  We climb into the cab of Uncle Basil’s four-by-four pickup, which is jacked up higher than should be allowed for any man his age.

  “Mom said we have a few water bottles in the garage,” Garrett says.

  “We’re going to need more than just a few,” I point out. I try to quickly do the math in my head. I also saw those bottles. Nine half-liters. Five of us. That won’t even last the day.

  As we turn the corner out of our neighborhood and onto the main street, Uncle Basil says, “It may take a day or so for the county to get the water up and running again. We’ll probably only need a couple of cases.”

  “And Gatorade!” says Garrett. “Don’t forget the Gatorade! It’s full of electrolytes.”  Which is what they say on the commercials, even though Garrett doesn’t know what an electrolyte is.

  “Look on the bright side,” Uncle Basil says. “You probably won’t have school for a few days.” The California version of a snow day.

  I’ve been counting down the days for junior year to end. Just two weeks now. But knowing my high school, they’ll probably find a way to tack any lost days on at the end, delaying our summer vacation.

  • • •

  As we pull into the Costco parking lot we can see the crowd. It seems like our entire neighborhood had the same idea. We do nothing but slowly circle in search of an empty space. Finally Uncle Basil pulls out his Costco card and hands it to me.

  “You two go in. I’ll meet you inside when I find a place to park.”

  I wonder how he’ll get in without his card, but then, Uncle Basil finds ways around any situation. Garrett and I hop out and join the hordes of people flooding the entrance. Inside it’s like Black Friday at its worst—but today it’s not televisions and video games people are after. The carts in the checkout line are stocked with canned goods, toiletries, but mostly water. The essentials of life.

  Something feels slightly off. I’m not sure what it is, but it hangs in the air like a scent. It’s in the impatience of the people in line. The way people use their carts—on the verge of being battering rams to make their way through the crowd. There’s a sort of primal hostility all around us, hidden by a veneer of suburban politeness. But even that politeness is stretching thin.

  “This cart sucks,” Garrett says. He’s right. One wheel is bent, and the only way to push it is to lean it on the other three wheels. I look back toward the entrance. There were only a couple of carts left when I grabbed this one. They’ll all be gone now.

  “It’ll do,” I tell him.

  Garrett and I forge our way through the crowds toward the back left corner, where the water pallets are. As we do, we overhear bits and pieces of conversations.

  “FEMA’s already slammed with Hurricane Noah,” one woman tells another. “How are they going to help us, too?”

  “It’s not our fault! Agriculture uses eighty percent of the water!”

  “If the state spent more time finding new sources of water, instead of fining us for filling our swimming pools,” one woman says, “we wouldn’t be in this position.”

  Garrett turns to me. “My friend Jason has a giant aquarium in his living room, and he didn’t get fined.”

  “That’s different,” I explain to him. “Fish are considered pets.”

  “But it’s still water.”

  “Then go drink it,” I say, shutting him up. I don’t have time to think about other people’s problems. We have our own to worry about. But it looks like I’m the only one who cares, because Garrett has already gone off to hunt for free samples.

  As I push the cart, it keeps veering to the left and I have to lean heavily on the right side to prevent the bent wheel from acting like a rudder.

  As I approach the rear of the warehouse, I can see that it’s the most crowded spot, and as I reach the last aisle to see the water pallets, I realize I’m too late. The pallets are already empty.

  In hindsight, we should have come straight here the moment the taps were turned off. But when something drastic happens, there’s a lag time. It’s not quite denial, and not quite shock, but more like a mental free fall. You’re spending so much time wrapping your mind around the problem, you don’t realize what you need to do until the window to do it has closed. I think of all those people in
Savannah the moment Hurricane Noah made that unexpected turn and barreled straight toward them, instead of heading back out to sea like it was supposed to. How long did they stare unblinking at the news, until they packed up their things and evacuated? I can tell you how long. Three and a half hours.

  Behind me, people who can’t see that the water pallets are empty keep pushing forward. Eventually some employee will have the good sense to put a sign out front that says NO WATER, but until they do, customers will keep piling in, pushing toward the back, creating a suffocating crowd, like the mosh pit of a concert.

  On a hunch, I maneuver my way to the side aisle, and to the racks of canned soda, which are also beginning to disappear. But I’m not here for soda. As I look around the stacks of drinks, I find a single case of water that someone abandoned there maybe yesterday, when it wasn’t such a precious commodity. I reach for it, only to find it pulled away at the last second by a thin woman with a beak of a nose. She stacks it on top of her cart like a crown on top of her canned goods.

  “I’m sorry, but we were here first,” she says. And then her daughter steps forward—a girl I recognize from soccer—Hali Hartling. She’s annoyingly popular and thinks she’s much better at soccer than she really is. Half the girls in school want to be like her, and the other half hate her because they know they’ll never come close. Me, I just put up with her. She’s not worth the energy for me to be anything but indifferent.

  Although she always seems to bleed confidence, right now she can’t even look me in the eye—because she knows, just as her mother knows, that I had that water first. As her mother pulls their cart away, Hali leans closer to me. “I’m sorry about that, Morrow,” she says earnestly, calling me by my last name like we do in soccer.

  “Didn’t I share my water with you at practice last week?” I point out to her. “Maybe you could return the favor and share a few bottles with me.”

  She looks back to her mother, who’s already moving down the aisle, then back to me with a shrug. “Sorry, they don’t sell them by the bottle here. Just by the case.” And then she gets a little bit red in the face, and turns to leave before it becomes a full-fledged flush.