by Sharon Shinn
“We will go on a shopping trip,” he said, suddenly inspired. “Right now! To the spaceport! And if nothing there is suitable, we will take a quick jaunt to Salvie Major and stay until we have amassed for you an entire wardrobe of silk and gauze and sequins.”
“No—do not speak of such extravagances for me,” I exclaimed, backing away. “A nice dress or two, these will see me through many wretched evenings, but I cannot be acquiring a whole closetful of fancy clothes. I would feel strange and foolish—I would feel like I was pretending to be some exotic creature, when I am really a very ordinary one. It would make me behave oddly, you will see—I would not be the woman you have fallen in love with, but some tricked out, tarted up Virtual Jenna for whom you could feel no affection at all.”
“I think I am not so easily beguiled or blinded by outward accoutrements,” he said, in no way impressed. “But we will start with an outfit or two, and work our way up to a wardrobe. I look forward to seeing you tricked out and tarted up! Thus will one of my many fantasies be coming true.”
It took a moment for the meaning of this to sink in, and then I blushed a deep red as bright as the dress I hoped to buy in town. “What! Oh—you debased creature—see if I go to the spaceport with you after all! Or anywhere! Clearly it is not safe to be alone with you, even meekly dressed as I am. I do not know that I wish, by my ensemble alone, to incite you to further indiscretions.”
He laughed aloud at this and we did, I confess, spend a little time trying out a few of the milder indiscretions an affianced couple might be expected to indulge in. Usually I was the one to call these sessions to a halt, but this time he pulled back most unexpectedly, leaving me feeling rather deprived and somewhat surprised.
“No time for this if we’re to have any time at all for shopping,” he said. “Quick, let’s go find the Vandeventer and be off.”
But this I could not allow, since I first had to continue my circuit of the yard, and if I were to leave, I would want to apprise both Mrs. Farraday and Ameletta of my intentions. These conditions made Everett somewhat impatient—and he grew even more so when Mrs. Farraday asked for time to put together a list of things she would like from the shops and Ameletta begged to be allowed to accompany us.
“For it has been ever so long since I have had a chance to sit in the Mayfair Shop and eat pastries!” Ameletta said pathetically. “And I have not worn my pretty dress in days and days and I am feeling so sad about that.”
“This is not an excursion for little girls,” Everett said with what appeared to be a real frown. “This is for adults—engaged adults, at that, and they do not need the chaperonage of children.”
On his last words, it occurred to me that such supervision was exactly what I did require, for Ameletta’s presence might make it easier for me to behave with decorum when there might otherwise be no checks to my enthusiasm at being alone with the man I loved. My gaze lifted involuntarily to Mrs. Farraday’s face, and I could see the same thought was flashing through her mind, and so I made my decision.
“Actually, Ameletta, I would like to have you with me,” I said, bending down and catching her frail body in a quick hug. “For you have a much keener eye for fashion than I have, and I would find your advice invaluable as I am choosing colors and fabrics for my wardrobe.”
Everett’s frown grew even blacker, but Mrs. Farraday’s expression lightened, and my resolve grew solid as steel. “Now, Jenna, let us rethink this,” he began in a blustery voice, but Ameletta’s squeal of delight and my steady avowals soon convinced him that he had no hope of gainsaying me.
“I understand your game, little trickster,” he said to me at last in a low voice pitched to carry under Ameletta’s continued prattling. “You seek to restrain the lover by calling upon the guardian. Very good! Excellent move! But it will not serve for long. My day is coming—very soon, I hope—and then there will be no barricades, and no grounds, for keeping me at bay. You take this round, but my time is at hand. I shall win all and carry home the prize at last.”
After all the arguing, it soon became clear to us that we had wasted most of the day and had better postpone our trip till the morrow. This was good on many counts, not the least being that it gave me time to calm Ameletta enough to make her promise to be at her most docile the next day. In fact, she and I stole away together to spend a most pleasurable hour before the computer monitor in my room, browsing through the fashion sites and discussing what styles would look best on me. I had not been jesting earlier; she had a most discerning eye for cut and color, and she insisted that I look at several outfits that ordinarily I would have passed by as too daring or too unusual. But the more I studied them, the more I liked them, and I agreed that—were anything like these to be found in town—I would try them on.
Dinner that evening was anything but quiet, with Ameletta bouncing in her chair and describing to Mrs. Farraday all the items we would be seeking at the spaceport, but it was quite enjoyable too. I felt a buzz of excitement running through me like a subcutaneous current of energy; I was sure that if I were to touch anything metallic, I would send sparks flying. It was a rather delicious sensation.
The next morning, we set out on our expedition at a relatively early hour, Ameletta dressed in a blue and saffron dress and me in my trusty gray jacket and pants. Everett had the Vandeventer waiting for us at the front door, and with exaggerated ceremony, he made sure his ward and his fiancee were safely strapped in. Then we took off for town.
I must say, this style of travel was far superior to the shuttle bus that had served me on my previous jaunts to the spaceport. The vehicle was superbly maintained and soared so smoothly through the air that there was almost no perception of movement at all. It was much easier to view the landscape through the half-dome of the circular lid than it was through the grimy windows of the public conveyance, and Everett set himself up to be an excellent tour guide.
“There, that is the first settlement made outside the spaceport on Fieldstar. You can see it has been abandoned—the soil mix was faulty and everything planted in it died.”
“But weren’t the mines still operational?”
He shook his head. “That property had been set aside for experimental agriculture, so it never had a working quarry. There’s another property much like it halfway around the globe, and there they got the soil mix right. They grow all sorts of things there—fruits, vegetables, flowers, things you’d never want to eat if you were starving to death and blossoms you wouldn’t even want to throw on the grave of your worst enemy. You’d like it, Jenna. We’ll have to go visit some day.”
“Oh, may I come?” Ameletta exclaimed.
“Yes,” I said just as Everett scowled and said, “No.” Ameletta looked in some dismay between the two of us. I smiled and kissed her on the head.
“Yes,” I said into her ear. “Wherever I go, you are always welcome.”
Everett slanted me a wicked look from the corner of his eyes. Ameletta sat between us on the narrow front seat, or I imagined he would have reached over to give my hand a warning squeeze. “There are some journeys small girls are not going to be allowed to go on no matter how much they beg and plead,” he said in a meaningful voice. “And one of those journeys is coming up very soon. Next week, I do believe.”
I smiled again and hugged Ameletta closer to me. “Where are you going? Why can I not come with you and Miss Starborn?” she demanded.
“Where we are going is a secret, because I am taking Miss Starborn there on our honeymoon, and I want the whole trip to be a surprise for her,” Everett said. “But let me assure you that it will be a most magical and wonderful place.”
“Next week? You are marrying so quickly?” Ameletta cried. “Oh, but that is too soon! No one will have time to buy you gifts! No one will even be able to attend, for you will scarcely have time to send out invitations, and Miss Ingersoll and Mr. Taff and all your friends live so far away—”
“We do not want them to attend,” Everett interrupted. “
They are not really our friends, anyway. The only ones we want present are you and Mrs. Farraday and the staff. And I will perhaps invite the mine superintendent and the assistant mine supervisor and their wives, but you will not have to talk to them, Jenna. They know their place—but they have been good friends to me, and I would like to include them.”
“If they have been friends to you, they are friends to me, and I would be happy to talk to them,” I said quietly. “Even if they are half-cits, as your tone implies.”
He gave me one quick, comical look, for he realized he had offended my sense of pride, but he decided against an apology. “So is it settled?” he asked me over Ameletta’s head. “We have our guest list and we have our date—”
“We do not have a date, for I have never been consulted on the topic, and you have only mentioned ‘next week’ as some vaguely appropriate time to hold a wedding,” I said severely. “It is not that I am not willing to be married with all haste, it is just that I find it hard to believe you can find a magistrate to perform the deed on such short notice.”
“Well, there you’re wrong,” he retorted. “I contacted the people at the Registry Office two days ago to inquire into their calendar. They handle all sorts of legal transactions,” he explained, “including mergers and business dissolutions, and they’re equipped to handle marriages as well. I assumed, being a PanEquist as you are, that you would have no particular yearning to be married inside a faith, but I am willing to be overruled in this if you have strong feelings. My only stipulation is that, whatever denomination you choose, it be prepared to conduct the ceremony within weeks, if not days.”
“I am content at the Registry Office,” I said serenely. “As you suspect, all venues are equal to me.”
“But Miss Starborn, what will you wear?” inquired the ever-romantic Ameletta.
I smiled at her. “That, chiya, is one of the things we must determine during our expedition today.”
And indeed, during the next several hours, a wedding dress was one of the outfits we looked for in the shopping outlets of the spaceport. Everett declined to accompany us into the bridal boutiques, choosing instead to stroll outside and talk to his many acquaintances, but Ameletta and I had a grand time. Although we looked at a great many dresses, the one she finally selected for me was a creamy off-white gown of a severe but classic cut. Indeed, the stiffly ruffled front resembled a tuxedo shirt, complete with high pointed collars and three-inch cuffs on the sleeves. The floor-length skirt was made of yards and yards of heavy satin that fell from a deep V at the waist; the material did not swirl, but it had a lovely drape, and the whole presentation of the dress gave me the classical dignity of a marble garden statue. Even my grave face looked suitable above this austere pattern; the fabric was so rich that I looked, not my usual pinched self, but luxurious and pampered.
“I like it,” I decided.
“Yes—of course you do—but you must wear a hat,” Ameletta said. She was already hunting through the racks of premade caps and veils, impatiently putting aside the ones she felt were inappropriate.
“I don’t need a hat,” I protested.
“Yes, and shoes. I know exactly what will be best.”
In the end, hard as it is to believe, I was dressed from head to toe in my wedding finery on the advice of an eight-year-old girl. She had selected a small beaded headband that curved over my dark hair like a subtle halo, lightening my features and softening the lines of my face. For shoes, she had chosen plain but high-heeled pumps that caused the lines of the dress to fall in an even more flattering arrangement down my hips.
“And you are so short—a little heel like this is just what you need,” she said, when I claimed I could not walk without stumbling. She spoke with such authority that I began to wonder exactly how she and Janet Ayerson had passed all their time together when they should have been practicing math and vocabulary. “It gives you distinctive.”
“Distinction,” I corrected automatically. “What it will give me is bunions.”
“You will not have to wear the shoes very long,” she pointed out. “And they so very perfectly complete the ensemble.”
The tone did me in; I laughed, and then I capitulated. We purchased everything, using some of my last remaining credit, and directed everything to be delivered to Thorrastone Park.
When we rejoined Everett on the street, he exclaimed, “Well? Success or failure? I believe there are half a dozen other shops where you can seek your bridal dress.”
“No, we found exactly what we were looking for,” Ameletta said briskly. “We have so much more shopping to do! But now it is time for a pastry.”
We laughed and agreed with her, stopping for a light snack at a fabulously expensive restaurant to fortify ourselves for further shopping. Then it was back to the mercantile district to look for additional clothes. This time Everett insisted on accompanying us and offering his opinion on all the outfits I tried on. I must say, it made me rather nervous to parade before not only Ameletta and the shopkeepers, but my critical fiancée, in a succession of costumes so daring and so costly that I could not imagine even trying them on under other circumstances. It was he who insisted I attempt the red velvet skintight pantsuit, though anyone could tell I did not have the figure for such nonsense and even he agreed once I emerged, scarlet-faced, from the dressing room. But the royal blue tunic over the harem-cut trousers suited me surprisingly well, and two more sober dresses in shades of green proved to be the best choices yet.
“Yes—that is nice—that is very good,” Everett approved as I sashayed around the public area in the second of these two gowns. “I see you are not the peacock of women, but more truly the swan. You require elegance, not garishness, to show off your sleekness and style.”
“I am more like a wren or a sparrow, common and colorless,” I retorted. “My best hues are the natural background shades against which I can blend in with my surroundings.”
He disputed this, and then he disputed even more hotly my intent to pay for my new acquisitions myself. Indeed, we had quite a bitter, though quietly conducted, argument on the topic, which escalated when he realized I had purchased my bridal gown with my own money.
“Do you not understand?” he demanded in a piercing whisper that even Ameletta and the salesclerk, on the far side of the store, had to be able to overhear. “It is my job now—my duty and my pride—to care for you in all things. I want to shower you with gifts, not merely because I can afford it, but because you have gone for so long with so little, and it is my delight to indulge you. But even if I was a poor man with very little money, it would be my task now to provide for you. That is one of the obligations I took on—just as the privilege of loving you in every fashion is also something I have assumed with the vow to marry you.”
“Well, you have not married me yet,” I said. “I am still an independent woman, not a dependent bride, and I would rather come to you penniless than dressed in rags. I am responsible for myself until I do marry you—and even then, I will be responsible for myself in spiritual and emotional matters—and you must honor my wishes now or I will suspect that you will not honor any of them in the future.”
Thus I convinced him, but barely, and spent nearly the last of my hoarded credit. I could not be sorry, though, for I had meant every word. I might be poor in purse, but I was rich in pride, and he would have to learn that now or bruise himself against it for the rest of our lives together.
After we had finished shopping for my trousseau, we spent a couple of happy hours merely playing. Everett purchased a large, gaily dressed stuffed animal for Ameletta (it was not as familiar as a bear nor as foreign as an alien species, but it certainly did not look like any creature that I knew in the universe). We also strolled through a holo exhibit, one of Ameletta’s favorite activities, and paid the admission at the Scientific House. This, to me, was a rather weak collection of demonstrations of gravity, light, and motion, but Ameletta ran around happily experiencing weightlessness and centrifug
al force.
“The best part is outside,” Everett told us when the little girl had finally had her fill of the zero-g chambers and light meters. We waited in line till it was our turn to climb into a small spheroid car that took us up an impressive tower to an open-air landing. The three of us climbed out and were almost instantly knocked over by a whirling wind. Ameletta cried out and grabbed for Everett’s hand; I gasped and clutched at the chest-high railing.
“What is this?” I called to Everett over the rushing sound of animated air. I had to brush the hair back from my face and repeat my words even louder for him to hear me.
“Solar tower,” he shouted back. “We’re still protected by a forcefield, but a porous one, and we’re up high enough that we can feel the effects of the atmospheric pressure. Breathtaking, isn’t it? Makes you feel like you’re standing on the very threshold of space.”
Indeed it did. I clung to the rail with even more determination, and turned my face deliberately back into the wind, tilting my closed eyes heavenward. I had the most physical sense of oceans of black space pressing down on me, a great void opening up before me, the limitless miles of the universe piled in spangled constellations above, below, before me. The whistling of the powerful wind seemed to be the whisper of the Great Mother, calming her restless children or adjuring them to behave. The tendrils of breeze across my face—surely no more than my own hair whipping across my cheek—felt like her loving fingertips smoothing away a tear. I felt her presence; I sensed her great and deeply personal interest in me, Jenna Starborn—in all her children. Indeed, as I stood there with my eyes shut and my whole body tense with exaltation, I swear I sensed the life force of every other soul in the universe, embedded in the consciousness of that divine being, who knew us all and forgot none of us and carried us with her wherever her seeking spirit sent her.
“Jenna.” But the concerned voice was male, and human, and called me back from the brink of communal ecstasy. “Jenna. Are you going to swoon? You appear to be in a trance.”