by David Larson
“Oh, yeah,” Mike said “I was here a few days ago with Tawny. I’m just trying to get my bearings.”
“I remember you,” the man said. “You’re Mike, right?”
“Yep,” Mike said. “Where are the younger children? The three-year olds?”
The man smiled a little nervously.
“Why would you ask me that?” He said cautiously.
“Oh,” Mike said. “I’m sorry. I’m looking for her son, Axel. I guess I should have told you that to begin with. Otherwise I guess this might look a little weird.”
“Yeah,” the man said, “just a little. Why are you looking for Axel specifically?”
“Oh, he and I only had a limited amount of time to spend together the other day. I just want to get to know him a little better is all.”
Mike was getting tired of this back and forth bullshit.
“Thanks,” he said dismissing the man, “I can find him on my own.”
And he started to walk away.
“That might not be such a good idea,” the man said as he hurried after Mike.
“That’s cool,” mike said over his shoulder. “I got this. Thanks.”
The man hurried to catch up.
“I think you should come back with someone,” the man said. “Tawny, maybe.”
Mike walked through another door and recognized he was in the right place. The man caught up to him and touched him on the shoulder.
“I really don’t think this is a good idea,” the man said.
A man and two women were walking down the hall from the other end. They looked worried. The man that had been following Mike shrugged and raised his eyebrows.
“Can we help you with something?” the woman asked.
“No,” Mike said. “Like I told this guy…I’m fine.”
“Maybe if you told us what you were interested in…”
“I said I was good,” Mike said getting clearly irritated with the people that were trying to thwart his plans to make his relationship with Tawny stronger.
“Jesus!” he said, “What’s with you people? I thought everybody was so damned liberated here. I said I just want to talk to the kid.”
“I think it would be better if you left now,” one of them said.
“And I think it’d be better if you got out of my way…” Mike insisted.
“Hey buddy,” a familiar voice said from behind him.
Mike turned around to see Bob with that ever-present smile. That look on Bob’s face was really starting to irritate Mike.
“What are you doing here?” Mike asked.
“I heard you were kind of lost at the children’s center,” he said “I thought I’d mosey on down here and see if there was anything I could help with.”
“I figured you weren’t here to see Axel,” Mike said darkly.
“I keep telling you brother,” Bob said, “It ain’t like that around here.”
“That doesn’t change the fact that he’s your son,” Mike said. “You still have responsibilities.”
“You’re creating an issue where there isn’t one,” Bob said in a soothing tone that was simply pissing Mike off more. “Why don’t we just go someplace where we can talk about this?”
“I’m not an idiot, Bob. I can see that all you really want to do, is keep me away from your kid. Is it because you still have feelings for Tawny? Are you trying to get back with her? Use Axel to pry your way back into her life?” I bet that’s exactly what it is.”
The people that had confronted Mike in the first place were standing around with confused looks on their faces. One of them actually reached up, turned his translator off, and then on again to make sure it was working. The words that Mike was saying were coming in clear enough but they didn’t make any sense at all.
“I can see why you might think that, buddy,” Bob said. “Believe me I do. I just think that your feelings for her might be clouding your judgement a little. That’s all. Seriously, how about we just go someplace where we can talk.”
“I get it just fine,” Mike said in a slow measured tone that had exactly the opposite affect intended on the people watching the confrontation. “We don’t have to go anyplace. All you’re going to do is explain why she’s better off with you.”
Mike turned around and started walking back towards the tram stop. Then he stopped and turned around addressing Bob.
“This isn’t over by a long shot,” he said. Then he turned and left.
Bob shoved his hands in his pockets and watched Mike stalk off.
“I got a bad feeling about this one,” he said. “A bad feeling.”
Twenty-four:
Tawny was standing in Mike’s home and it was clear that she was worried. Mike was doing everything he could to ensure her that she had nothing to worry about.
“I just don’t understand why you would have gone to the children’s center alone,” she said.
“And I don’t understand if I’m free to move around this place by myself or not,” Mike said defensively. “Everyplace I’ve gone until now, I’ve conveniently had someone go with me. At first I just thought it was so I could have things explained to me. I’m beginning to see now that it was so people could keep an eye on me.”
“That’s not it at all, Mike,” she said pleading. “You can go anyplace you want to. It’s just that when you go walking around the children’s center looking for one specific child it looks like you might have an ulterior motive.”
“How about if I went to the facilitators building by myself,” he said. “What if I went there by myself looking specifically for Serilda? Would that seem like I had an ulterior motive. Would I be confronted by your ex-lover there as well?”
Tawny just stood there, completely unarmed against a total full-on assault of irrational thought.
“Yeah,” Mike said. “I didn’t think so.”
“Can’t you see,” he continued, “I was trying to bond with your son so you would understand how serious I am about you. Can’t you see how much I love you?”
Tawny was blown away. She had made enough trips to Earth to understand the gravity of what Mike was actually saying now. She understood that having a sexual relationship with him was the single biggest mistake she had ever made. She thought that if she simply explained that to him he would understand, and things could get back to normal until he went back to earth.
“I love you too,” Tawny said. Strike one in the irrationality world series. “I…we…love each other completely here. I thought you understood all of that.”
“I get that,” Mike said. “I love everyone here as well. Just like I love a hot shower, or rocky road ice cream, or the dog I had when I was a kid. But you and I are different than that. This thing that there is between us is something more. Something deeper. Something personal. I don’t know how you don’t get that. I don’t understand how none of you get that there are different kinds of love, and what’s between us is the deepest and most personal kind.”
“Mike, I was with you because I wanted to share that with you,” she said. “It doesn’t mean that we are going to spend the rest of our lives together. It doesn’t mean that we’re going to separate ourselves from the rest of the community and live with each other exclusively. We just can’t be that way. We never have been.”
“All this time,” Mike said clearly exasperated. “All this time I thought that you people were advanced. That this society was lightyears ahead of who and what we are on earth. It’s beginning to look like you all are just a bunch of children that have never grown up. Just a bunch of people with a Peter Pan complex, and some really cool spaceships, just flitting around the galaxy acting superior.”
Tawny stood there silent.
“People grow up and have responsibilities Tawny. They have jobs that they get paid for. They build a life together. Of course, it isn’t easy, but it’s the adult thing to do. I tried, I really did. But if this way of life means that I can’t spend the rest of it with you then what good is it?”
Strike two.
“Just not the way that you’re used to.”
Mike’s mind was racing again. The woman that he would gladly give his life for was saying on one hand she felt the same way he did, and amazingly he could spend the rest of his life with her if he wanted to. There were just strings attached. If those strings meant that he would have to endure watching her make out with another man in public, then he knew he wasn’t going to be able to live by those rules. The only way he could have the thing he craved was to take her back home with him and start a new life there.
“The way I’m used to?” Mike said. “You say that like it’s dirty…”
“No…” she started to say and was cut off by Mike’s runaway train of thought.
“…I see what things are like here, Tawny. I see the kind of world you people have built. I opened up my mind and let everything in as honestly as I could have. I’m just telling you that there’s a lot to be said for the way we live our lives on Earth. I think you could get used to that if you tried.”
“What are you saying, Mike?” Tawny asked.
“I’m saying come back with me. I could make a great life for the three of us there.”
“The three of us?” She was blown away. “Are you talking about taking me and Axel back to Earth with you?”
“Of course I am baby,” he said, pleading now. “It really isn’t that bad. You’ll learn to love it. Honestly.”
“Mike. I don’t know what to say here…”
“It’s pretty simple. Just say yes.”
In Mike’s mind a small scene was playing out where Tawny broke out into a giant grin, ran over to him, threw her arms around his neck, and pledged her undying love for him right there. She would say something cute like I thought you’d never ask, and the newly formed happy family would board the next mission to earth.
“It’s not like that Mike,” she said. “It never was and I’m so sorry that I allowed it to get to this point. I never should have. I should have understood that there were some things that you just simply weren’t ready for.”
“I’m ready for you Tawny,” he said. “I just need the time to prove it to you.”
“Mike, I don’t want to have to send you back before you’re ready to go. But right now you’re not leaving me any other choices. You can’t stay here like this. It’s not healthy. Not healthy for anyone.”
“What the hell do you mean ‘like this’?” Mike asked. The hurt was dripping off every single word he said. “‘Like this’ is being totally and deeply in love with you. How could that be bad?” He was trying to justify everything that he knew in his heart was wrong.
“Is it someone else? Not Bob? Is there someone else that you love that is keeping you from being with me? Is it that guy you were kissing in the common area the other night? If it is just tell me and I know I can help you to forget about him.”
“What are you talking about?” Tawny asked in clear surprise.
“Don’t pretend like you don’t know what I’m saying,” Mike said, clearly irritated. “You know who I’m talking about. You know I saw you. Don’t try to cover it up now, it just makes things worse. I thought you people were all about truth. Why would you try to lie to me about that?”
“I’m not lying Mike,” she pleaded. “I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about. There isn’t anyone else. There isn’t anyone at all.”
Strike three! And the side retires with absolutely no hope of pulling this one out.
“No one at all?” Mike said. “How could you say that? How could you lead me on like that? Didn’t the things that happened right here in this house mean anything to you? Was I just a passing fancy? A quick roll in the hay? Did you lose a bet, or win one? Did you think you’d just bone the Earth guy to see what that might be like, and then cast him off as another conquest fulfilled?
“I’m not just another notch in your bed post, Tawny. I was in love with you way before we shared the night together. I was serious then, and I’m serious now. All I need is that chance to prove it too you. To prove that my intensions are completely honorable. I don’t just love you, baby; I need you. I have to have you just to go on living. Why can’t you see that?”
Tawny relaxed. She could see that this wasn’t going anyplace and that it never was going to. She had made the ultimate mistake and where things stood now were all her fault. She knew Mike had to go back. And she knew she could never see him again. Eventually he would understand.
She turned and walked out the door.
“Tawny!” Mike called after her. And the door whooshed shut.
“Son-of-a-bitch!” he yelled into the empty room.
Twenty-five:
Mike had been zipping through all five stages of grief at record speed. Once he finished with the 5th and final stage of acceptance, he’d start all over from the beginning again. Denial and anger were simple whistle stops each time. The train would pull into the station, Mike would walk out onto the platform to look around and then jump back into the car, as he was whisked on to bargaining and depression.
This was made doubly hard, because he decided to wallow in the isolation part for as long as he could. Tawny wasn’t returning any of his attempts to contact her, and he wanted nothing to do with Bob. He still kept working at the community garden plot, but that was beginning to be tedious.
It had only been two days since his blow-up with Tawny, and Mike was doing everything he could to maintain a low profile. He was hoping that if he could be good for long enough his hosts might forget the issues he had created, and allow him to stay. He knew that eventually he was going to have to include himself in community time. But the thought of seeing Tawny again, and her being unapproachable, might be more than he could deal with.
That evening as he brooded alone at home he had gotten a call from Brizio asking him to join he and Mia for dinner at the common area. Mike thought that would be a great way to reintroduce himself to society and show that he really was the open minded individual that they thought he was in the first place.
When he arrived Brizio and Mia were already there. Mike said hello and sat down to join them.
“How have you been?” Brizio asked. “People haven’t been seeing much of you around lately.”
“I know,” Mike said. “It’s just that Tawny and I are having some issues and I need to get my thoughts together so I can fix it.”
“Fix it?” Mia asked. She shot a worried look at Brizio.
“Yeah,” Mike said, “we just had a disagreement is all. I don’t think she understood how I felt about her. That’s all.”
“It was pretty obvious that you had some pretty strong feelings for her,” Brizio said. “I’m just not sure it could have worked out the way you wanted.”
Mike was doing an outstanding job of misunderstanding almost everything that was being said to him over the course of the last two or three days. He felt a little better knowing that at least Brizio understood what he was going through.
“Possibly not,” Mike said. “I’m not sure Bob would have ever allowed it.”
Mia leaned back and shot a “what the hell is he talking about” look at Brizio.
“I hear you spent some time at the children’s center,” Mia said trying to change the subject.
Brizio rolled his eyes at her.
“Yes, I did,” Mike said. “What’d you hear about it?”
“Oh,” Mia added, “just that Tawny took you over there and showed you around. So, what’d you think?”
Either Mia hadn’t heard about the altercation there or she was doing an outstanding job of deflection.
“Pretty amazing place,” Mike said. “I have to be h
onest though I have a hard time understanding how anything gets accomplished there. It seems like controlled chaos.”
“I guess it can look like that,” Brizio said.
“Yeah,” Mia added, “it might seem a little out of control the first time you see it. But I really loved my time there.”
“Didn’t you miss being home with your parents?” Mike asked her.
“I’m not sure what you mean,” Mia said.
“I guess that was a dumb question,” Mike said. “You never really know a home life with parents and all, do you.”
“I got to spend quite a lot of time with my mother and father if that’s what you mean,” Mia said. “They were at the center all of the time. But then so was everyone else here. We don’t spend a lot of time doing personal things, Mike. When we finish working we usually go to the center and help mentor the children.”
“So, you know who your mother and father are?” Mike asked.
“Of course we do,” Mia said, just a little surprised with the question.
“Why wouldn’t we?” Brizio asked. “We spend time with them every day.”
“I don’t know,” Mike said. “I’m just trying to understand where I fit in here.”
Mia and Brizio realized that they were treading on dangerous ground now. Neither one of them thought it would be a good idea to remind Mike that he was leaving. And they certainly knew that asking him what the hell he meant was out of the question.
“I imagine you must be missing Earth by now,” Brizio said as a foray into addressing the 400-pound gorilla.
“Not really,” Mike said. “Well, I guess if I’m totally honest, I didn’t miss Earth at all until things went to hell with Tawny. If I were back on Earth, I’d know exactly how to fix things with us. Here, I just seem to be making things worse every time I open my mouth.”
“You all know what it’s like on Earth,” Mike continued. “Haven’t you ever thought that possibly the way we doing things there might be better? You know, at least something. A kind of melding of cultures.”
“Not really,” Mia said.
“I don’t think anyone has ever considered that,” Brizio added.