The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Fourth Annual Collection

by Gardner Dozois

  They had bought a cake and chocolate chip ice cream. Elizabeth cut the cake in the dorm’s tiny kitchen while Tib dished it up.

  “You didn’t tell me you had a date to the Harvest Ball,” Elizabeth said. “Who is it? That guy in your ed psych class?”

  “No.” She dug into the ice cream with a plastic spoon.

  “Who?”

  Tupper came into the kitchen with a catalog. “You’re only twenty points away from a popcorn popper,” he said. “You know what you girls need?” He folded back a page and pointed to a white plastic box. “An ice cream keeper. Holds a half-gallon of ice cream, and when you want some, all you do is slide this tab out,” he pointed to a flat rectangle of plastic, “and cut off a slice. No more digging around in it and getting your hands all messy.”

  Tib licked ice cream off her knuckles. “That’s the best part.”

  “Get out of here, Tupper,” Elizabeth said. “Tib’s trying to tell me who’s taking her to the Harvest Ball.”

  Tupper closed the catalog. “I am.”

  “Oh,” Elizabeth said. Sharon stuck her head around the corner. “Tupper, when do we have to pay for this stuff?” she said. “And when do we get something to eat?”

  Tupper said, “You pay before you eat,” and went back out to the lounge.

  Elizabeth drew the plastic knife across the top of the cake, making perfectly straight lines in the frosting. When she had the cake divided into squares, she cut the corner piece and put it on the paper plate next to the melting ice cream. “Do you have anything to wear?” she said. “You can borrow my rust formal.”

  Sandy was looking at her, the thick notebook opened almost to the last page. “How well did you know Tupper?” she said.

  Elizabeth’s coffee was ice cold, but she put her hand over it, as if to try to catch the steam. “Not very well. He used to date Tib.”

  “He’s on my deceased list, Elizabeth. He killed himself five years ago.”

  * * *

  Paul didn’t get home till after ten. Elizabeth was sitting on the couch wrapped in a blanket.

  He went straight to the thermostat and turned it down. “How high do you have this thing turned up?” He squinted at it. “Eighty-five. Well, at least I don’t have to worry about you freezing to death. Have you been sitting there like that all day?”

  “The worm died,” she said. “I didn’t save it after all. I should have put it over on the grass.”

  “Ron Brubaker says there’s an opening for a secretary in the dean’s office. I told him you’d put in an application. You have, haven’t you?”

  “Yes,” Elizabeth said. After Sandy left, she had taken the application out of her purse and sat down at the kitchen table to fill it out. She had had it nearly all filled out before she realized it was a retirement fund withholding form.

  “Sandy Konkel was here today,” she said. “She met her husband on a dirt road. They were both there by chance. By chance. It wasn’t even his route. Like the worm. Tib just walked by, she didn’t even know she did it, but the worm was too near the edge, and it went over into the water and it drowned.” She started to cry. The tears felt cold running down her cheeks. “It drowned.”

  “What did you and Sandy Konkel do? Get out the cooking sherry and reminisce about old times?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Old times.”

  * * *

  In the morning Elizabeth took back the retirement fund withholding form. It had rained off and on all night, and it had turned colder. There were patches of ice on the central walk.

  “I had it almost all filled out before I realized what it was,” she told the girl. A boy in a button-down shirt and khaki pants had been leaning on the counter when Elizabeth came in. The girl was turned away from the counter, filing papers.

  “I don’t know what you’re so mad about,” the boy had said and then stopped and looked at Elizabeth. “You’ve got a customer,” he said, and stepped away from the counter.

  “All these dumb forms look alike,” the girl said, handing the application to Elizabeth. She picked up a stack of books. “I’ve got a class. Did you need anything else?”

  Elizabeth shook her head and stepped back so the boy could finish talking to her, but the girl didn’t even look at him. She shoved the books into a backpack, slung it over her shoulder, and went out the door.

  “Hey, wait a minute,” the boy said, and started after her. By the time Elizabeth got outside, they were halfway up the walk. Elizabeth heard the boy say, “So I took her out once or twice. Is that a crime?”

  The girl jerked the backpack out of his grip and started off down the walk toward Elizabeth’s old dorm. In front of the dorm a girl in a yellow slicker was talking to another girl with short upswept blonde hair. The girl in the slicker turned suddenly and started down the walk.

  A boy went past Elizabeth on a bike, hitting her elbow and knocking the application out of her hand. She grabbed for it and got it before it landed on the walk.

  “Sorry,” he said without glancing back. He was wearing a jean jacket. Its sleeves were too short, and his bony wrists stuck out. He was steering the bike with one hand and holding a big plastic sack full of pink and green bowls in the other. That was what he had hit her with.

  “Tupper,” she said, and started to run after him.

  She was down on the ice before she even knew she was going to fall, her hands splayed out against the sidewalk and one foot twisted under her. “Are you all right, ma’am?” the boy in the button-down shirt said. He knelt down in front of her so she couldn’t see up the walk.

  Tupper would call me “ma’am,” too, she thought. He wouldn’t even recognize me.

  “You shouldn’t try to run on this sidewalk. It’s slicker than shit.”

  “I thought I saw somebody I knew.”

  He turned, balancing himself on the flat of one hand, and looked down the long walk. There was nobody there now. “What did they look like? Maybe I can still catch them.”

  “No,” Elizabeth said. “He’s long gone.”

  The girl came over. “Should I go call 911 or something?” she said.

  “I don’t know,” he said to her, and then turned back to Elizabeth. “Can you stand up?” he said, and put his hand under her arm to help her. She tried to bring her foot out from its twisted position, but it wouldn’t come. He tried again, from behind, both hands under her arms and hoisting her up, then holding her there by brute force till he could come around to her bad side. She leaned shamelessly against him, shivering.

  “If you can get my books and this lady’s purse, I think I can get her up to the infirmary,” he said. “Do you think you can walk that far?”

  “Yes,” Elizabeth said, and put her arm around his neck. The girl picked up Elizabeth’s purse and her retirement fund application.

  “I used to go to school here. The central walk was heated back then.” She couldn’t put any weight on her foot at all. “Everything looks the same. Even the college kids. The girls wear skirts and sweaters just like we wore and those little flat shoes that never will stay on your feet, and the boys wear button-down shirts and jean jackets and they look just like the boys I knew when I went here to school, and it isn’t fair. I keep thinking I see people I used to know.”

  “I’ll bet,” the boy said politely. He shifted his weight, hefting her up so her arm was more firmly on his shoulder.

  “I could maybe go get a wheelchair. I bet they’d loan me one,” the girl said, sounding concerned.

  “You know it can’t be them, but it looks just like them, only you’ll never see them again, never. You’ll never even know what happened to them.” She had thought she was getting hysterical, but instead her voice was getting softer and softer until her words seemed to fade away to nothing. She wondered if she had even said them aloud.

  The boy got her up the stairs and into the infirmary.

  “You shouldn’t let them get away,” she said.

  “No,” the boy said, and eased her onto the co
uch. “I guess you shouldn’t.”

  “She slipped on the ice on the central walk,” the girl told the receptionist. “I think maybe her ankle’s broken. She’s in a lot of pain.” She came over to Elizabeth.

  “I can stay with her,” the boy said. “I know you’ve got a class.”

  She looked at her watch. “Yeah. Ed psych. Are you sure you’ll be all right?” she said to Elizabeth.

  “I’m fine. Thank you for all your help, both of you.”

  “Do you have a way to get home?” the boy said.

  “I’ll call my husband to come and get me. There’s really no reason for either of you to stay. I’m fine. Really.”

  “Okay,” the boy said. He stood up. “Come on,” he said to the girl. “I’ll walk you to class and explain to old Harrigan that you were being an angel of mercy.” He took the girl’s arm, and she smiled up at him.

  They left, and the receptionist brought Elizabeth a clipboard with some forms on it. “They were having a fight,” Elizabeth said.

  “Well, I’d say whatever it was about, it’s over now.”

  “Yes,” Elizabeth said. Because of me. Because I fell down on the ice.

  “I used to live in this dorm,” Elizabeth said. “This was the lounge.”

  “Oh,” the receptionist said. “I bet it’s changed a lot since then.”

  “No,” Elizabeth said. “It’s just the same.”

  Where the reception desk was there had been a table with a phone on it where they had checked in and out of the dorm, and along the far wall the couch that she and Tib had sat on at the Tupperware party. Tupper had been sitting on it in his tuxedo when she came down to go to the library.

  The receptionist was looking at her. “I bet it hurts,” she said.

  “Yes,” Elizabeth said.

  She had planned to be at the library when Tupper came, but he was half an hour early. He stood up when he saw her on the stairs and said, “I tried to call you this afternoon. I wondered if you wanted to go study at the library tomorrow.” He had brought Tib a corsage in a white box. He came over and stood at the foot of the stairs, holding the box in both hands.

  “I’m studying at the library tonight,” Elizabeth said, and walked down the stairs past him, afraid he would put his hand out to stop her, but they were full of the corsage box. “I don’t think Tib’s ready yet.”

  “I know. I came early because I wanted to talk to you.”

  “You’d better call her so she’ll know you’re here,” she said, and walked out the door. She hadn’t even checked out, which could have gotten her in trouble with the dorm mother. She found out later that Tib had done it for her.

  The receptionist stood up. “I’m going to see if Dr. Larenson can’t see you right now,” she said. “You are obviously in a lot of pain.”

  Her ankle was sprained. The doctor wrapped it in an Ace bandage. Halfway through, the phone rang, and he left her sitting on the examining table with her foot propped up while he took the call.

  The day after the dance Tupper had called her. “Tell him I’m not here,” Elizabeth had told Tib.

  “You tell him,” Tib had said, and stuck the phone at her, and she had taken the receiver and said, “I don’t want to talk to you, but Tib’s here. I’m sure she does,” and handed the phone back to Tib and walked out of the room. She was halfway across campus before Tib caught up with her.

  It had turned colder in the night, and there was a sharp wind that blew the dead leaves across the grass. Tib had brought Elizabeth her coat.

  “Thank you,” Elizabeth said, and put it on.

  “At least you’re not totally stupid,” Tib said. “Almost, though.”

  Elizabeth jammed her hands deep in the pockets. “What did Tupper have to say? Did he ask you out again? To one of his Tupperware parties?”

  “He didn’t ask me out. I asked him to the Harvest Ball because I needed a date. They put you on weekend duty if you didn’t have a date, so I asked him. And then after I did it, I was afraid you wouldn’t understand.”

  “Understand what?” Elizabeth said. “You can date whoever you want.”

  “I don’t want to date Tupper, and you know it. If you don’t stop acting this way, I’m going to get another roommate.”

  And she had said, without any idea how important little things like that could be, how hanging up a phone or having a flat tire or saying something could splash out in all directions and sweep you over the edge, she had said, “Maybe you’d better do just that.”

  They had lived in silence for two weeks. Sharon Oberhausen’s roommate didn’t come back after Thanksgiving, and Tib moved in with her until the end of the quarter. Then Elizabeth pledged Alpha Phi and moved into the sorority house.

  The doctor came back and finished wrapping her ankle. “Do you have a ride home? I’m going to give you a pair of crutches. I don’t want you walking on this any more than absolutely necessary.”

  “No, I’ll call my husband.” The doctor helped her off the table and onto the crutches. He walked her back out to the waiting room and punched buttons on the phone so she could make an outside call.

  She dialed her own number and told the ringing to come pick her up. “He’ll be over in a minute,” she told the receptionist. “I’ll wait outside for him.”

  The receptionist helped her through the door and down the steps. She went back inside, and Elizabeth went out and stood on the curb, looking up at the middle window.

  After Tupper took Tib to the Angel Flight dance, he had come and thrown things at her window. She would see them in the mornings when she went to class, plastic jar openers and grapefruit slicers and kitchen scrubber holders, scattered on the lawn and the sidewalk. She had never opened the window, and after a while he had stopped coming.

  Elizabeth looked down at the grass. At first she couldn’t find the worm. She parted the grass with the tip of her crutch, standing on her good foot. It was there, where she had put it, shrivelled now and darker red, almost black. It was covered with ice crystals.

  Elizabeth looked in the front window at the receptionist. When she got up to go file Elizabeth’s chart, Elizabeth crossed the street and walked home.

  * * *

  The walk home had made Elizabeth’s ankle swell so badly she could hardly move by the time Paul came home.

  “What’s the matter with you?” he said angrily. “Why didn’t you call me?” He looked at his watch. “Now it’s too late to call Brubaker. He and his wife were going out to dinner. I suppose you don’t feel like going to the concert.”

  “No,” Elizabeth said. “I’ll go.”

  He turned down the thermostat without looking at it. “What in the hell were you doing anyway?”

  “I thought I saw a boy I used to know. I was trying to catch up to him.”

  “A boy you used to know?” Paul said disbelievingly. “In college? What’s he doing here? Still waiting to graduate?”

  “I don’t know,” Elizabeth said. She wondered if Sandy ever saw herself on the campus, dressed in the winter white sweater and pearls, standing in front of her sorority house talking to Chuck Pagano. She’s not there, Elizabeth thought. Sandy had not said, “Tell him I’m not here.” She had not said, “Maybe you’d better just do that,” and because of that and a flat tire, Sondra Dickeson isn’t trapped on the campus, waiting to be rescued. Like they are.

  “You don’t even realize what this little move of yours has cost, do you?” Paul said. “Brubaker told me this afternoon he’d gotten you the job in the dean’s office.”

  He took off the Ace bandage and looked at her ankle. She had gotten the bandage wet walking home. He went to look for another one. He came back carrying the wrinkled job application. “I found this in the bureau drawer. You told me you turned your application in.”

  “It fell in the gutter,” she said.

  “Why didn’t you throw it away?”

  “I thought it might be important,” she said, and hobbled over on her crutches and took it away
from him.

  * * *

  They were late to the concert because of her ankle, so they didn’t get to sit with the Brubakers, but afterward they came over. Dr. Brubaker introduced his wife.

  “I’m so sorry about this,” Janice Brubaker said. “Ron’s been telling them for years they should get that central walk fixed. It used to be heated.” She was the woman Sandy had pointed at at the Tupperware party and said was Janice who loved Jesus. She was wearing a dark red suit and had her hair teased into a bouffant, the way girls had worn their hair when Elizabeth was in college. “It was so nice of you to ask us over, but of course now with your ankle we understand.”

  “No,” Elizabeth said. “We want you to come. I’m doing great, really. It’s just a little sprain.”

  The Brubakers had to go talk to someone backstage. Paul told the Brubakers how to get to their house and took Elizabeth outside. Because they were late there hadn’t been anyplace to park. Paul had had to park up by the infirmary. Elizabeth said she thought she could walk as far as the car, but it took them fifteen minutes to make it three-fourths of the way up the walk.

  “This is ridiculous,” Paul said angrily, and stode off up the walk to get the car.

  She hobbled slowly on up to the end of the walk and sat down on one of the cement benches that had been vents for the heating system. Elizabeth had worn a wool dress and her warmest coat, but she was still cold. She laid her crutches against the bench and looked across at her old dorm.

  Someone was standing in front of the dorm, looking up at the middle window. He looked cold. He had his hands jammed in his jean jacket pockets, and after a few minutes he pulled something out of one of the pockets and threw it at the window.

  It’s no good, Elizabeth thought, she won’t come.

  He had made one last attempt to talk to her. It was spring quarter. It had been raining again. The walk was covered with worms. Tib was wearing her Angel Flight uniform, and she looked cold.

  Tib had stopped Elizabeth after she came out of the dorm and said, “I saw Tupper the other day. He asked about you, and I told him you were living in the Alpha Phi house.”