“Yeah…I know,” he said. “That was it—the moment it happened. Weird, but you were closer to it than I was. I said ‘little sister’ because I didn’t want to sound too patronizing, but you hit it on the head: she’s our daughter. Still don’t know why it feels that way—we’ve only known her for about six months, and neither of us is old enough to qualify. You said you were seven when she was born. I’m a little older, but I’d still have been in high school at the time—and a social nobody with no sex life.”
“That’s hard to imagine,” Lisa grinned at him, “but you’re right. It’s weird. You don’t suppose…you know, that remark you made about the dragon egg kind of struck a chord with me.
“Who knows? Right now, we’re sadly ignorant of our own dragon selves. Spark knows a lot more about the subject than we do.”
“Hmmm…yeah, she does—and she swears she’s not one—but like you said, maybe she just hasn’t ‘hatched’ yet.”
It was well past midnight, and Sparkling Waters still hadn’t slept. She was curled up in bed, naked—back home, she’d always worn fuzzy pajamas, but since waking up in Lisa’s bed after the rescue, she’d decided she liked sleeping nude.
Sleep still wouldn’t come. At first she’d been angry, embarrassed, and conflicted, but in the hours that followed, she’d calmed down and tried to think it through.
You know they told you the truth. Your own paranormal sense told you that, but you wouldn’t believe it. So you threw a tantrum and ran off to sulk. Talk about Cassandra—this time you’re the one who doesn’t believe yourself.
Now she thought she had it sorted out, but she couldn’t rest without closure—without knowing how Mark and Lisa would take it.
She got up and wrapped herself in the soft, fluffy bathrobe Lisa had given her. Barefoot, she stepped out into the hallway—the deep, rich carpeting in Lisa’s apartment made shoes almost sacrilege. The hallway was dimly lit by the night-light strips near the floor, but all was quiet, and she had no idea where they were. Maybe they went up to Mark’s place tonight. Wouldn’t blame them if they did—staying as far away from me as possible.
“Lisa…?” she said softly.
I’m here, Sparkle. Are you OK?
She was startled by the voice—in her head, not her ears, but unquestionably Lisa.
“I…I’m OK, I think. I just need to talk to you. Both of you.”
We’re here…my bedroom. Door’s unlocked, just come on in.
Sparkling didn’t quite run down the hall, but she walked very quickly and pushed the door open with enthusiasm—then stopped in her tracks and stood there, feeling the warm blush rising in her cheeks once again.
Lisa had brought up the lights before the door opened, and she and Mark were in the middle of the huge bed—naked, though blankets covered them from the waist down.
“Oops…I…didn’t mean to interrupt anything.”
“You didn’t,” Mark assured her. “We were asleep, but that’s no big deal.”
“Now…if you’d come by a couple of hours ago—” Lisa gave Mark a sultry look, “—you probably would have interrupted something. But it doesn’t matter—nothing’s more important than whatever you have to say. Come in and sit down.”
Sparkling looked around. There was a dressing chair next to Lisa’s vanity in the nearby corner, so she pulled that out and sat down facing the bed.
“Whatever I have to say…” She sighed. “First of all, I have to say I’m sorry. I was stupid. I behaved like an idiot.”
“No…you were surprised and confused,” Lisa insisted. “Honestly, so were we, and we didn’t handle it very well. The main thing is, we love you, Sparkle—just not the way you might think.
“Honestly, I feel like your mother—and that’s crazy. I’ve never been a mother, I have no idea how to be a mother, or what it’s supposed to feel like. But that’s the way it feels, the way it’s felt ever since you called for help two nights ago.”
“She’s right, Spark,” Mark added. “Yeah…I said, ‘little sister,’ but that’s because I hadn’t sorted it out yet. ‘Daughter’ is the right word. And I’ve never been anybody’s daddy before, either.”
“I know…I felt it, too,” she admitted, “but I just didn’t want to accept it, and I threw it back in your faces. That’s the stupid part—I threw away the one thing that meant more than anything else.
“I never told you my story,” she said, “so you don’t know what I’m talking about. I guess it’s time.”
She sat for a moment and gathered her thoughts, then looked up and began in a calm voice with little hint of emotion.
“I grew up in a commune—one of the last of the original 1960s flower child communities. There used to be hundreds of them in California, but now there’s probably only about a dozen left. My mother’s name was Florence Wachowski—or something like that, she only mentioned it a couple of times, and I never knew how it was spelled. She had it legally changed to one of those halfway Native American–sounding flower child names—Flowing Waters. When I was born, she named me Sparkling, kind of keeping the theme going.
“Of course, the commune preached free love. She had sex with every guy in the group and was never sure who my father was. She told me it was probably a transient—a guy who was just passing through and stayed for a few months. She didn’t remember his name, which wasn’t surprising, since she walked around all day long in a cloud of happy smoke—and this was long before marijuana was legal for recreation in California. That was the one crop they grew on the commune that actually got some care and attention.
“Anyway, my mother didn’t want to be involved in motherhood. I was just another community kid, and I had to call every adult woman ‘mother.’ They all demanded respect from the kids, but only a couple of them made any effort toward raising us.
“I was also supposed call every adult male ‘father’—same deal, give them respect, but don’t expect any real fathering—right up to the point where it became obvious that I was a girl, not a boy. Then I was fair game for all of them under the free love mantra. I started to develop early—I lost my virginity when I was 11. Funny thing is, I never felt like I was being molested. By then I’d been conditioned to think that was a normal way for people to live.
“By age 14, I figured out the commune wasn’t the paradise they claimed it was. We were living in poverty—shouldn’t have been, with the rich land and the number of people we had to work it, but the problem was they weren’t working together. There was no leadership—everybody wanted to be in charge, but anybody who actually tried to take charge was shouted down by the rest of them. They did everything by committee, argued a lot, made a lot of resolutions, and got nothing done. Things broke and nothing got fixed. Jobs needed to be done, but nobody wanted to do them. Anarchy in action.
“Then they took me on a trip to town to try to sell some produce and buy stuff they needed. Normally, they kept the Universal IDs locked up for anyone under 18, but they let me have mine for the trip in case there was an issue in town. As soon as I got off the truck, I ran away and never looked back.
“I found my way to San Francisco—first look at a big city. Was homeless for a while, but that wasn’t a problem, because San Fran has a big homeless community, and they sort of take care of each other. Then I discovered I could make a living selling myself for sex to tourists down by Fisherman’s Wharf. At least I was smart enough to stay away from drugs and avoid the pimps. Eventually I made enough to get a run-down single-room apartment.
“About the time I turned 18, my paranormal talent started coming out. Once I got it figured out, I opened a little shop as a medium—did seances, told fortunes, read cards. Half of it was bullshit, but my talent made it real enough that I got plenty of business.
“I’d probably still be there, but one day a woman came in who didn’t want her fortune read. She worked for LEI’s Special Activities Division, and she was there looking for talent. When she found out what I had, she practically dragged me down to
LA, where they signed me up with the Paranormal Group at a salary that made my head spin. On top of that, they got me my GED and insisted I sign up for college to put a couple of degrees after my name. They paid the tuition, and I got my PhD just last year.
“I’m sorry. I don’t want to bore you with all this stuff, but…”
“No!” Lisa insisted. “You’re not boring us. I had no idea…”
Mark said nothing, but he noticed a tear in Lisa’s eye. Truth be told, he was a little choked up, too. He’d had a pretty rough time growing up himself, hadn’t gotten it together until the Marines straightened him out. He couldn’t imagine how Sparkling had managed to survive in the nasty world, alone since age 14. Most of the people who came to the Ferry for suicide hadn’t been through as much.
“Anyway, the whole point is LifeEnders has been good to me, and I owe them a lot, but they’ve done it because it suits their corporate interests. As far as they’re concerned, I’m a business asset that needed to be developed, and the work I do is their return on investment. Martelli’s a nice guy and good to work for, but he’s my boss, not my friend.
“LifeEnders isn’t my family. The people at the commune weren’t my family; the homeless in San Fran weren’t my family. I’ve never had a family…and then all of a sudden you two come along and offer me one—a little late in life, but still…. So what did I do? I tossed the offer into the trash can and ran off to whine and cry because I didn’t get what I wanted—what I thought I wanted.
“So I won’t blame you if you take back the offer. When all this fuss is over, I’ll just go home, not bother you guys for a while. Maybe we can start over someday, and I’ll try not to screw it up.”
There was a moment of silence. Then Lisa exploded.
“Oh hell no! You will not just go away, and we will not start over! We’ll go ahead from right now and pretend you never turned down the offer in the first place—because you didn’t, not really.”
“Can’t take it back, Spark,” Mark told her with a chuckle. “Dragon won’t let me. He says you’re family, and that’s that. By the way, did you just hear Lisa? Sounded an awful lot like mommy scolding her little girl, if you ask me.
“See, Love?” He turned to Lisa with a grin. “You don’t have to learn how to be a mom—it’s in your blood.”
“I love you guys,” Sparkling said, smiling at last. “I really do. I’d jump in bed right now and hug you—but I’m afraid you’d think I was back on that other stupid idea.”
“S’okay,” Lisa assured her. “We’ll do lots of hugs in the morning when we’re all properly dressed. Now get some sleep, young lady—we’ve got lots more talking to do tomorrow.”
“OK…” Still smiling, Sparkling nodded, got up, and went to the door. Then she turned around and gave them a mock-serious look. “One thing I have to tell you, though…sometimes your new daughter is kind of a naughty girl…”
With that, she opened the robe and flashed them a full-frontal view.
“Good night, Mom…Good night, Dad,” she said cheerfully as she wrapped herself up again. Then she turned and fled down the hall, trailing a little cloud of happy giggles behind her.
“She must get that from you,” Mark said. “You love showing off that beautiful body.”
Chapter Nine: Saturday’s a Working Day
“So…can we assume that you’re going to move in with us permanently?” Lisa asked over breakfast.
She had gone all out to make up for the missed dinner the night before, and they were enjoying omelets made-to-order with pancakes drenched in maple syrup.
“Mmmm…” Sparkling nodded, finishing a mouthful. “If you want me, I’d love to. My apartment lease runs out next month anyway, and I’m sure the landlord is just waiting to jack the rent up again. Was going to buy a condo, but then I would have been stuck with a monster mortgage payment. Nothing’s cheap in southern California, at least not in any area I’d want to live.”
“You’d actually have a shorter commute to LEI from here than your old place,” Lisa said. “Maybe 20 minutes.”
“That’s why this is such an upscale neighborhood,” Mark said. “People are willing to pay big bucks for a short commute to the financial district. But…if you’re going to move in permanently, I think you should take the guest suite on the fifth floor—technically my apartment, though my actual living space is on the sixth. That would give you a full bathroom, small living room, and kitchenette, as well as a bedroom.”
“That’s a great idea.” Lisa chuckled. “Especially since you’ve never used that space. You designed this building, and I’ve often wondered why you did that. The fourth floor was just extra corporate space until I moved in and had it totally remodeled.”
“Well, hey…” Mark shrugged. “Until I met you, I had this crazy idea that someday I might have a live-in mistress. Had no idea she’d want a whole floor for herself.”
Sparkling burst into laughter at that.
“Oh, my gosh,” she exclaimed when she finally got herself under control. “OK—you’ve heard my story, but sometime soon you’re going to have to tell me yours—how you built this place, and how the two of you got together. And thenvery soon I hope—you’re going to have to take me on a grand tour. I haven’t even seen most of your apartment space, let alone whatever else is hidden away in this building.”
“Hmmm…well the life story part will have to wait for a rainy day, Spark,” Mark told her, “especially since it’s really two stories that got tangled together into a crazy mess—took us about two years to actually figure out we were in love with each other. As for the tour of the building, we can do the apartments today after work.
“Then maybe we can afford a day off tomorrow to show you the rest of the building. I’m kind of proud of it. Like Lisa said, I designed it and made life hell for the contractors who built it for me—watched over every detail to make sure they got it right.”
At that moment, an attention-getting tone sounded from the audio system in Lisa’s apartment, accompanied by beeps from both Mark and Lisa’s pads. Mark got his open first.
“Somebody’s at the gate…” He touched an icon, bringing up the image from the security kiosk. “Well, hey, Spark—it’s your boss. Now what the hell is he driving?” He touched another icon.
“Good morning, Tony—what’s up?”
“Got a present for Waters. She left it parked at the office the other night…figured she might want it brought here.”
Mark showed the image to Sparkling, whose eyes went wide with surprise.
“Aphrodite! You brought Aphrodite! Omigosh! I forgot all about her…poor baby, left alone in that nasty old parking lot….”
“Yeah, well, we had to get on YouTube to figure out how to start and drive the darned thing,” Martelli grumbled. “This antique actually requires you to shift gears by hand, and press something called the ‘clutch pedal’ while you’re doing it.”
“I’m opening the gate,” Mark told him. “Bring it around the building to the left and go down into the underground lot. Put it in space number three, next to Lisa’s car. We’ll meet you down there, and you can come up and join us for breakfast.”
“Can’t stay.” Martelli shook his head. “Have to get back to the office, and Wilcox is right behind me to give me a ride. I’m expecting to hear back today on my request for a meeting with Keel.”
“OK. We’ll meet you downstairs anyway. Tell your guy to park in front of the building, and we’ll bring you out the front door.”
“It’s so good to see you again, baby….” Sparkling applied an affectionate hug to the front of the ‘68 Volkswagen Microbus. “This is going to be your new home…right next to Mom’s Audi and Daddy’s Jaguar.”
“We’ll put your name on that parking space, Spark,” Mark said with a chuckle. He had just returned from sending Martelli on his way and was now walking around Aphrodite, taking in the details.
“She’s beautiful,” Lisa said, “and she looks brand new. Somebody must h
ave spent a lot of money to restore her.” Besides the obvious mechanical perfection, the little bus was covered with colorful, psychedelic, airbrush artwork.
“Yeah…that was me,” Sparkling admitted. “I sent her to a custom shop in Las Vegas and told them what I wanted. Some of the artwork is a redo of the original; some of it is new. Those guys were real airbrush artists, but they got my approval for everything before they painted it. I wanted to capture the ‘60s vibe—no skulls, no dark images.”
“But where did you find her in the first place?” Mark asked.
“Well…that’s the thing. I used to see her every day when I was a kid—lonely and abandoned in a barn on the commune. She’d broken down years before I was born, and nobody knew how to fix her or wanted to even try. I used to hide inside her when I’d done something wrong and they were looking for me.
“Since I joined LEI, I’ve been keeping an eye on those people. Three years ago, they were going broke and about to fold up—everything was going to be sold at auction to satisfy creditors. I had built up a pretty good bank balance by then and decided to go up there. When I saw Aphrodite on the auction block, I just had to have her, so I kept bidding until nobody else was left.”
“Did the commune people know who you were?” Lisa asked.
“No…there were only a couple I knew. My mother left years ago, and nobody knew where she was. I asked about her, but nobody recognized me, and only one of them even remembered her.
“The place was a dump. It was bad when I was there, but this time I hardly recognized it. I know it’s been 10 years since I left, but still, I wouldn’t have believed it could have gotten that much worse.
“So I rescued Aphrodite, hired a flatbed truck, and shipped her directly to Vegas. Then I took some vacation time and went there to watch them fix her up.
The Dragons of Styx Page 8