by Anthology
"I suppose you know how I like it?"
She chuckled.
"So, does he need the money?"
The microwave dinged. "Very few actors get rich," said the bot. I didn't think there had been microwaves in the sixties, but then strict historical accuracy wasn't really the point of Strawberry Fields. "Especially when they have a weakness for Shakespeare."
"Then how come he lives here and not in some flop? And how did he afford you?"
She pinched sugar between her index finger and thumb, then rubbed them together over the cup. It was something I still did, but only when I was by myself. A nasty habit; Mom used to yell at him for teaching it to me. "I was a gift." She shook a teabag loose from a canister shaped like an acorn and plunged it into the boiling water. "From Mother."
The bot offered the cup to me; I accepted it nervelessly. "That's not true." I could feel the blood draining from my face.
"I can lie if you'd prefer, but I'd rather not." She pulled the booster chair away from the table and turned it to face me. "There are many things about themselves that they never told us, Jen. I've always wondered why that was."
I felt logy and a little stupid, as if I had just woken from a thirty-year nap. "She just gave you to him?"
"And bought him this house, paid all his bills, yes."
"But why?"
"You knew her," said the bot. "I was hoping you could tell me."
I couldn't think of what to say or do. Since there was a cup in my hand, I took a sip. For an instant, the scent of tea and dried oranges carried me back to when I was a little girl and I was sitting in Grandma Fanelli's kitchen in a wet bathing suit, drinking Constant Comment that my father had made to keep my teeth from chattering. There were knots like brown eyes in the pine walls and the green linoleum was slick where I had dripped on it.
"Well?"
"It's good," I said absently and raised the cup to her. "No, really, just like I remember."
She clapped her hands in excitement. "So," said the bot. "What was Mother like?"
It was an impossible question, so I tried to let it bounce off me. But then neither of us said anything; we just stared at each other across a yawning gulf of time and experience. In the silence, the question stuck. Mom had died three months ago and this was the first time since the funeral that I'd thought of her as she really had been—not the papery ghost in the hospital room. I remembered how, after she divorced my father, she always took my calls when she was at the. office, even if it was late, and how she used to step on imaginary brakes whenever I drove her anywhere, and how grateful I was that she didn't cry when I told her that Rob and I were getting divorced. I thought about Easter eggs and raspberry Pop Tarts and when she sent me to Antibes for a year when I was fourteen and that perfume she wore on my father's opening nights and the way they used to waltz on the patio at the house in Waltham.
"West is walking the ball up court, setting bis offense with fifteen seconds to go on the shot clock, nineteen in the half..."
The beanbag chair that I was in faced the picture window. Behind me, I could hear the door next to the bookcase open.
"Jones and Goodrich are in each other's jerseys down low and now Chamberlain swings over and calls for the ball on the weak side..."
I twisted around to look over my shoulder. The great Peter Fancy was making his entrance.
Mom once told me that when she met my father, he was typecast playing men that women fall hopelessly in love with. He'd had great successes as Stanley Kowalski in Streetcar and Skye Masterson in Guys and Dolls and the Vicomte de Valmont in Les Liaisons Dangereuses. The years had eroded his good looks but had not obliterated them; from a distance he was still a handsome man. He had a shock of close-cropped white hair. The beautiful cheekbones were still there; the chin was as sharply defined as it had been in his first head-shot. His gray eyes were distant and a little dreamy, as if he were preoccupied with the War of the Roses or the problem of evil.
"Jen," he said, "what's going on out here?" He still had the big voice that could reach into the second balcony without a mike. I thought for a moment he was talking to me.
"We have company, Daddy," said the bot, in a four-year-old trill that took me by surprise. "A lady."
"I can see that it's a lady, sweetheart." He took a hand from the pocket of his jeans, stroked the touchpad on his belt and his exolegs walked him stiffly across the room. "I'm Peter Fancy," he said.
"The lady is from Strawberry Fields." The bot swung around behind my father. She shot me a look that made the terms and conditions of my continued presence clear: if I broke the illusion, I was out. "She came by to see if everything is all right with our house." The bot disurbed me even more, now that she sounded like young Jen Fancy.
As I heaved myself out of the beanbag chair, my father gave me one of those lopsided, flirting grins I knew so well. "Does the lady have a name?" He must have shaved just for the company, because now that he had come close I could see that he had a couple of fresh nicks. There was a button-sized patch of gray whiskers by his ear that he had missed altogether.
"Her name is Ms. Johnson," said the bot. It was my ex, Rob's, last name. I had never been Jennifer Johnson.
"Well, Ms. Johnson," he said, hooking thumbs in his pants pockets. "The water in my toilet is brown."
"I'll... um ... see that it's taken care of." I was at a loss for what to say next, then inspiration struck. "Actually, I had another reason for coming." I could see the bot stiffen. "I don't know if you've seen Yesterday, our little newsletter? Anyway, I was talking to Mrs. Chesley next door and she told me that you were an actor once. I was wondering if I might interview you. Just a few questions, if you have the time. I think your neighbors might..."
"Were?" he said, drawing himself up. "Once? Madame, I am now an actor and will always be."
"My Daddy's famous," said the bot.
I cringed at that; it was something I used to say. My father squinted at me. "What did you say your name was?"
"Johnson," I said. "Jane Johnson."
"And you're a reporter? You're sure you're not a critic?"
"Positive."
He seemed satisfied. "I'm Peter Fancy." He extended his right hand to shake. The hand was spotted and bony and it trembled like a reflection in a lake. Clearly whatever magic— or surgeon's skill—it was that had preserved my father's face had not extended to his extremities. I was so disturbed by his infirmity that I took his cold hand in mine and pumped it three, four times. It was dry as a page of one of the bot's dead books. When I let go, the hand seemed steadier. He gestured at the beanbag.
"Sit," he said. "Please."
After I had settled in, he tapped the touchpad and stumped over to the picture window. "Barbara Chesley is a broken and bitter old woman," he said, "and I will not have dinner with her under any circumstances, do you understand?" He peered up Bluejay Way and down.
"Yes, Daddy," said the bot.
"I believe she voted for Nixon, so she has no reason to complain now." Apparently satisfied that the neighbors weren't sneaking up on us, he leaned against the windowsill, facing me. "Mrs. Thompson, I think today may well be a happy one for both of us. I have an announcement." He paused for effect. "I've been thinking of Lear again."
The bot settled onto one of her little chairs. "Oh, Daddy, that's wonderful."
"It's the only one of the big four I haven't done," said my father. "I was set for a production in Stratford, Ontario, back in '99; Polly Matthews was to play Cordelia. Now there was an actor; she could bring tears to a stone. But then my wife Hannah had one of her bad times and I had to withdraw so I could take care of Jen. The two of us stayed down at my mother's cottage on the Cape; I wasted the entire season tending bar. And when Hannah came out of rehab, she decided that she didn't want to be married to an underemployed actor anymore, so things were tight for a while. She had all the money, so I had to scramble—spent almost two years on the road. But I think it might have been for the best. I was only forty-eight.
Too old for Hamlet, too young for Lear. My Hamlet was very well received, you know. There were overtures from PBS about a taping, but that was when the BBC decided to do the Shakespeare series with that doctor, what was his name? Jonathan Miller. So instead of Peter Fancy, we had Derek Jacobi, whose brilliant idea it was to roll across the stage, frothing his lines like a rabid raccoon. You'd think he'd seen an alien, not his father's ghost. Well, that was another missed opportunity, except, of course, that I was too young. Ripeness is all, eh? So I still have Lear to do. Unfinished business. My comeback."
He bowed, then pivoted solemnly so that I saw him in profile, framed by the picture window. "Where have I been? Where am I? Fair daylight?" He held up a trembling hand and blinked at it uncomprehendingly. "I know not what to say. I swear these are not my hands."
Suddenly the bot was at his feet. "O look upon me, sir," she said, in her childish voice, "and hold your hand in benediction o'er me."
"Pray, do not mock me." My father gathered himself in the flood of morning light. "I am a very foolish, fond old man, fourscore and upward, not an hour more or less; and to deal plainly, I fear I am not in my perfect mind."
He stole a look in my direction, as if to gauge my reaction to his impromptu performance. A frown might have stopped him, a word would have crushed him. Maybe I should have, but I was afraid he'd start talking about Mom again, telling me things I didn't want to know. So I watched instead, transfixed.
"Methinks I should know you ..." He rested his hand briefly on the bot's head. "... and know this stranger." He fumbled at the controls and the exolegs carried him across the room toward me. As he drew nearer, he seemed to sluff off the years. "Yet I am mainly ignorant what place this is; and all the skill I have remembers not these garments, nor I know not where I did lodge last night." It was Peter Fancy who stopped before me; his face a mere kiss away from mine. "Do not laugh at me; for, as I am a man, I think this lady to be my child. Cordelia."
He was staring right at me, into me, knifing through make-believe indifference to the wound I'd nursed all these years, the one that had never healed. He seemed to expect a reply, only I didn't have the line. A tiny, sad squeaky voice within me was whimpering, You left me and you got exactly what you deserve. But my throat tightened and choked it off.
The bot cried, "And so I am! I am!"
But she had distracted him. I could see confusion begin to deflate him. "Be your tears wet? Yes, faith. I pray . . . weep not. If you have poison for me, I will drink it. I know you do not love me ..."
He stopped and his brow wrinkled. "It's something about the sisters," he muttered.
"Yes," said the bot, "'. .. for your sisters have done me wrong...'"
"Don't feed me the fucking lines!" he shouted at her. "I'm Peter Fancy, god damn it!"
After she calmed him down, we had lunch. She let him make the peanut butter and banana sandwiches while she heated up some Campbell's tomato and rice soup, which she poured from a can made of actual metal. The sandwiches were lumpy because he had hacked the bananas into chunks the size of walnuts. She tried to get him to tell me about the daylilies blooming in the backyard, and the old Boston Garden, and the time he and Mom had had breakfast with Bobby Kennedy. She asked whether he wanted TV dinner or pot pie for supper. He refused all her conversational gambits. He only ate half a bowl of soup.
He pushed back from the table and announced that it was her nap time. The bot put up a perfunctory fuss, although it was clear that it was my father who was tired out. However, the act seemed to perk him up. Another role for his resume: the doting father. "I'll tell you what," he said. "We'll play your game, sweetheart. But just once—otherwise you'll be cranky tonight."
The two of them perched on the edge of the bot's bed next to Big Bird and the Sleepums. My father started to sing and the bot immediately joined in.
"The itsy bitsy spider went up the water spout."
Their gestures were almost mirror images, except that his ruined hands actually looked like spiders as they climbed into the air.
"Down came the rain, and washed the spider out."
The bot beamed at him as if he were the only person in the world.
"Out came the sun, and dried up all the rain.
"And the itsy bitsy spider went up the spout again."
When his arms were once again raised over his head, she giggled and hugged him. He let them fall around her, returning her embrace. "That's a good girl," he said. "That's my Jenny."
The look on his face told me that I had been wrong: this was no act. It was as real to him as it was to me. I had tried hard not to, but I still remembered how the two of us always used to play together, Daddy and Jenny, Jen and Dad.
Waiting for Mommy to come home.
He kissed her and she snuggled under the blankets. I felt my eyes stinging.
"But if you do the play," she said, "when will you be back?"
"What play?"
"That one you were telling me. The king and his daughters."
"There's no such play, Jenny." He sifted her black curls through his hands. "I'll never leave you, don't worry now. Never again." He rose unsteadily and caught himself on the chest of drawers.
"Nighty noodle," said the bot.
"Pleasant dreams, sweetheart," said my father. "I love you."
"I love you too."
I expected him to say something to me, but he didn't even seem to realize that I was still in the room. He shambled across die playroom, opened the door to his bedroom and went in.
"I'm sorry about that," said the bot, speaking again as an adult.
"Don't be," I said. I coughed—something in my throat. "It was fine. I was very ... touched."
"He's usually a lot happier. Sometimes he works in the garden." The bot pulled the blankets aside and swung her legs out of the bed. "He likes to vacuum."
"Yes."
"I take good care of him."
I nodded and reached for my purse. "I can see that." I had to go. "Is it enough?"
She shrugged. "He's my daddy."
"I meant the money. Because if it's not, I'd like to help."
"Thank you. He'd appreciate that."
The front door opened for me, but I paused before stepping out into Strawberry Fields. "What about... after?"
"When he dies? My bond terminates. He said he'd leave the house to me. I know you could contest that, but I'll need to sell in order to pay for my twenty-year maintenance."
"No, no. That's fine. You deserve it."
She came to the door and looked up at me, little Jen Fancy and the woman she would never become.
"You know, it's you he loves," she said. "I'm just a stand-in."
"He loves his little girl," I said. "Doesn't do me any good—I'm forty-seven."
"It could if you let it." She frowned. "I wonder if that's why Mother did all this. So you'd find out."
"Or maybe she was just plain sorry." I shook my head. She was a smart woman, my mom. I would've liked to have known her.
"So, Ms. Fancy, maybe you can visit us again sometime." The bot grinned and shook my hand. "Daddy's usually in a good mood after his nap. He sits out front on his beach chair and waits for the ice cream truck. He always buys us some. Our favorite is Yellow Submarine. It's vanilla with fat butterscotch swirls, dipped in white chocolate. I know it sounds kind of odd, but it's good."
"Yes," I said absently, thinking about all the things Mom had told me about my father. I was hearing them now for the first time. "That might be nice."
THE HAND YOU’RE DEALT
Robert J. Sawyer
And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
-- John 8:32
"Got a new case for you," said my boss, Raymond Chen. "Homicide."
My heart started pounding. Mendelia habitat is supposed to be a utopia. Murder is almost unheard of here.
Chen was fat -- never exercised, loved rich foods. He knew his lifestyle would take decades off his life, but, hey, that was his choice.
"Somebody offed a soothsayer, over in Wheel Four," he said, wheezing slightly.
"Baranski's on the scene now."
My eyebrows went up. A dead soothsayer? This could be very interesting indeed.
I took my pocket forensic scanner and exited The Cop Shop. That was its real name -- no taxes in Mendelia, after all. You needed a cop, you hired one. In this case, Chen had said, we were being paid by the Soothsayers' Guild.
That meant we could run up as big a bill as necessary -- the SG was stinking rich. One of the few laws in Mendelia was that everyone had to use soothsayers.
Mendelia consisted of five modules, each looking like a wagon wheel with spokes leading in to a central hub. The hubs were all joined together by a long axle, and separate travel tubes connected the outer edges of the wheels.
The whole thing spun to simulate gravity out at the rims, and the travel tubes saved you having to go down to the zero-g of the axle to move from one wheel to the next.
The Cop Shop was in Wheel Two. All the wheel rims were hollow, with buildings growing up toward the axle from the outer interior wall. Plenty of open spaces in Mendelia -- it wouldn't be much of a utopia without those. But our sky was a hologram, projected on the convex inner wall of the rim, above our heads. The Cop Shop's entrance was right by Wheel Two's transit loop, a series of maglev tracks along which robocabs ran. I hailed one, flashed my debit card at an unblinking eye, and the cab headed out. The Carling family, who owned the taxi concession, was one of the oldest and richest families in Mendelia.
The ride took fifteen minutes. Suzanne Baranski was waiting outside for me. She was a good cop, but too green to handle a homicide alone. Still, she'd get a big cut of the fee for being the original responding officer --after all, the cop who responds to a call never knows who, if anyone, is going to pick up the tab. When there is money to be had, first-responders get a disproportionate share.
I'd worked with Suze a couple of times before, and had even gone to see her play cello with the symphony once. Perfect example of what Mendelia's all about, that. Suze Baranski had blue-collar parents. They'd worked as welders on the building of Wheel Five; not the kind who'd normally send a daughter for music lessons. But just after she'd been born, their soothsayer had said that Suze had musical talent. Not enough to make a living at it -- that's why she's a cop by day -- but still sufficient that it would be a shame not to let her develop it.