by Liz Braswell
She wiped her face with the back of her hand, eyes burning from the tears and nose definitely swollen. I probably look like shit. But most of the crying seemed to be over; Chloe was just angry.
“It must be really confusing for you right now,” Alyec said, giving her shoulders a squeeze. “I wish I could help.”
“Mai relationships are a lot less … complicated than human ones, aren’t they?” she asked, sighing.
“I think they’re a lot more immediate,” Alyec said with a grin. “Instead of getting upset or running away, if you had been raised Mai and didn’t like seeing me with Amy, you probably would have let your claws out.”
Chloe smiled a little at that.
“I like that you care enough to be jealous,” he said gently, squeezing her arm. They sat quietly for a few minutes, Chloe resting her head up against his shoulder.
It was nice, but if she was going to lead anyone anywhere, it had to begin with the truth. And here’s a good place to start.
“Alyec, I think …” She took a deep breath. “I don’t think this is exactly what I want right now.”
He looked a little upset but nodded. “I’ve been a little freaked out since the whole thing about marriages in the library. …” He struggled for words. “It’s a lot of pressure, and to be suddenly dating the One…” He trailed off for a second. “It’s not that I don’t think someday, maybe—and this wasn’t just all fun or anything—I didn’t think at the beginning anyone would be looking at it to be permanent. We’re dating, for chrissake. One thing about the Mai … our options for even dating are limited,” he said a little sadly.
To her embarrassment, Chloe hadn’t thought about any of this from his perspective before; suddenly he wasn’t just fooling around with a new member of their community—he was going out with the Chosen One. In a lot of the older people’s minds they were probably already engaged, with children, and leading the Mai together into a whole new era of peace and prosperity. She breathed a deep sigh of relief and held herself back from telling him that the curse might be lifting and that maybe they really could date other people—it just didn’t seem like the right time.
Paul’s favorite episode of Star Trek came to her mind: “I found I did not wish to be married to a legend. …”
Alyec as her consort. It just didn’t work.
“Is there anything else you want to get off your chest?” Alyec asked gently.
“Let’s see,” Chloe said, wiping the last of her tears away. “I have just been made leader to a people I know almost nothing about. People aren’t exactly rooting for me, you know. I’m still behind at school, and my relationship with my mom has been all fucked up since I’ve, um, fully become a Mai. I don’t belong anywhere, and my friends”—she indicated the kitchen with her thumb—“have their own things going on. Oh, and there’s someone following me.”
“What are you talking about?” Alyec asked, meaning her last point. “The Rogue is dead; you sort of forced an uneasy truce on both us and the Tenth Blade. And no matter what Igor or anyone who supports Sergei really thinks, no Mai would ever dare lay a hand on you.”
“I just have this feeling that someone is following me—I know it. What about that guy who hates Brian? Rick or Dick or whatever, who was with Whitney Rezza the night at the Presidio…”
“I hardly think he could sneak up on you; he’s just a human and not even as good as the Rogue.”
The streetlamp outside glowed through the frosted window, making everything in the bathroom bleak and soft at the same time, well defined but gray. Individual tiles stood out against old grout; larger things like the mirror and the sink seemed to fade into a matte painting of a bathroom. A car went by, breaking the silence for a few moments.
“Do you know who tried to kill Brian?” Alyec asked softly.
“No, I haven’t asked.” She pulled some toilet paper off the roll, wadded it up, and daubed her nose. “I guess I should.”
“I wouldn’t worry too much.” He put his hands around her shoulders and gave her a squeeze. “You can take on whatever they dish out,” he added, brushing her cheek with his hand and pushing back a stray lock of her dark hair. “Why don’t we go back to the party?”
She nodded, sniffing. He tore off some toilet paper for her to blow her nose on and they returned to the living room, Chloe hoping desperately she didn’t look like an idiot.
“Everything okay?” Amy murmured.
“Yep,” Chloe said, wiping her nose again and knowing what a liar her red and puffy face made her out to be. Kim looked alarmed. “I just—I had a little bit of a breakdown.”
Her mother was stationed behind the kitchen island, clasping the sides like it was the wheel of a ship. Her knuckles were white.
“I’m, uh, a little overstressed right now,” she added with faint smile. “It just kind of all got to me.”
Chloe felt like she was eleven again, when she’d run to her room crying during her birthday party. All the boys had decided to play football in the street and Jason Pellerin told her that she couldn’t because she was in a dress. Chloe had stayed in her room a good long time, weeping. By the time she finally came out, the party was sort of stilted and over.
“You know what you need?” Paul asked, breaking the silence. “Marriage wanna”
“Paul,” her mom said warningly.
“How about a Matrix marathon?” Amy asked, digging through her voluminous pink purse, whose trim matched the fringe on her leg warmers. “I was just going to lend these to someone. …”
“That sounds … excellent,” Chloe said, breathing a deep sigh of relief. Suddenly the whole tension of the party was broken. TV—the ultimate party solution. Paul and Alyec were obviously interested, and Kim took the DVDs, turning them over curiously in her hand. Her mother went back to chopping pepperoni.
“I’ve never actually seen the third one,” she said, without looking up from her cutting board and chef’s knife.
“It sucked,” Alyec, Paul, Amy, and Chloe all said at the same time.
“Like the dance,” Kim said wryly. “And like the dance, we are going to watch it anyway.”
“Now you’re getting it,” Paul said, clapping her on the back.
Chloe wiped her face but wasn’t embarrassed about it anymore. The boys took over the seemingly difficult process of putting in the DVDs and setting up the TV, and Amy made kettle corn in the microwave.
“Are you feeling better?” Kim asked quietly.
Chloe nodded and smiled. “I just needed to—I needed the cry.” Waves of endorphins and relief were still washing over her. Like it was all going to be all right now. “What did you all do while I was gone?”
“Not much,” Kim admitted. “I thought I heard someone approaching the house; that was exciting for a moment. But no one was there.”
Chloe felt her waves break. But before she could question her further, Kim turned abruptly to Paul. “Are you going to drink that?” she asked, pointing to his glass.
“Huh?” Paul reluctantly dragged his attention away from wide-screen and Dolby digital options. Alyec grabbed the remote while he looked, distracted, at his still-full but slowly melting virgin colada. “Um, well.” He looked at Chloe’s mom, trying to decide what to do. “No,” he finally said.
Kim reached over and took it with both hands, then began lapping at it greedily. “This,” she pronounced, licking the slightest bit of foam off her lips, “is a good party.”
Eleven
It Will be okay, Chloe told herself the next morning, sort of believing it this time. Her mom seemed satisfied—or possibly horrified—and likely to drop the whole needing-to-be-more-in-her-life thing for a while. After sitting through all six hours of the Matrix with Amy snoring through the first hour of Revolutions, Kim pausing the videos every few minutes to ask questions, and Alyec and Paul fighting during the middle of Reloaded about why Jet Li didn’t wind up being in it, Chloe’s mom was feeling pretty well acquainted with her friends.
And h
er Mai friends were apparently not outside the range of normal teenage behavior; even Kim with her ears and slit eyes and claws.
“She’s a little bit of a geek,” was all her mom had said about her after the guests had gone.
Chloe had laughed. “Yeah, the Mai think so, too.”
And now here she was, a normal highschool girl going to high school. She was almost caught up with her homework and exams and had sorted stuff out with Alyec, and Brian was recovering. It even looked like she and Brian could hook up without fatal consequences. Amy and Paul—well, they weren’t really her problem. After last night her two best friends seemed to realize the amount of stress she was under and lowered the weirdness meter a bit. No longer chanting the I will be the cool best friend mantra, Chloe told herself instead, They got to work their own shit out.
After her last makeup French quiz, Chloe was so glad it was over and confident of her grade that she signed her test with a flourish and a fleur-de-lis. She handed it in with a little bow and merci beaucoup. Mme. Sassoon already had her car keys in her hand. Thanks to Kim, Chloe was pretty sure she would get an A.
She checked her voice mail: two messages. One from Alyec, asking how she was doing, and one from Sergei.
“Chloe, we found something on your dad. I have to look at this property near your school.” Sergei described exactly where it was and how to get there. “It’s an old theater. If you meet me there at four, we can talk.”
“Sacre bleu”, Chloe muttered, snapping her phone shut. He had kept his word—he was really trying. Of course she would meet him.
Speaking of French, where had Kim learned to speak it so well? She had never been to France, as far as Chloe knew. Many of the Mai had never been to San Francisco proper, much less Canada, much less France. Do they dream of doing other things? A few of the Mai had broken out, like Simone the dancer, but it was rare. It was a self-imposed ghetto. She wasn’t sure how much Sergei actually had to do to keep them there.
What about her own dreams, while she was at it? Running a retail clothing empire. Would she just substitute her slavery for Sergei’s; would the Mai insist on working for her?
And, uh, speaking of retail empires, remember how you promised to go see Marisol…?
Chloe had been putting it off for a long time, too smothered by guilt to even think about it. Now she was finally in a good enough mood that she could force herself through it and take whatever was thrown at her, whatever she deserved. She had already chalked up her relationship with the shop owner as over, so at the worst this wouldn’t change anything.
She hadn’t even been by Pateena’s since coming back from Firebird. Once it was her safe haven, her home away from home and school. An entirely different set of people and problems and the first real hard work she had ever had to do. There was nothing to make you appreciate the weekends more than a La-Z-Boy-sized pile of jeans that needed to have their cuffs artfully ripped. Chloe’s short internship at Firebird had just been boring and strenuous.
She stood outside the windows and looked at them for a moment. They had put up a Halloween display—probably Marisol’s doing. She was far more artistic than she had much of a chance to express. One mannequin hung upside down, wearing a leather jacket, like a bat; another wore all orange, like a pumpkin. A third had earmuffs redone as ears and long black Lee Press-On Nails for claws.
A cat, Chloe realized.
Marveling at the irony, she took a deep breath and went in.
“Well, look who’s back,” Lania said immediately. Of course she had to be there. Of course. Chloe’s quest for redemption—and subsequent humiliation—wouldn’t have been complete without it. Though a menace to retail, snotty to the customers, and still not able to understand how to void a credit card sale, the girl had been allowed to work the cash register just because she was a couple of years older than Chloe. And there she was, now assistant manager.
“Coming to get your things?” Lania pressed, hands on her hips and a smug grin on her face. She looked like an afternoon cartoon—the kind that targeted girls and involved teenagers doing shallow things to each other at malls. Chloe couldn’t even work up any contempt; it would have been like dissing a clown.
“Excuse me,” Chloe said instead, carefully walking around her to the back.
“She don’t want to talk to you!” Lania shrieked in the fake homegirl accent she sometimes put on. Lania was from La Jolla—her parents owned a horse ranch.
Chloe took another deep breath, pausing before the metal double doors left over from when the place had been a diner. Then she pushed her way in and sat in the folding chair in front of Marisol’s desk.
Marisol was on the phone. She looked over at Chloe and then stared at her, as if she didn’t trust her not to steal anything.
“Baby, I gotta call you back. Something’s come up. Just wait.”
The little woman was older than she looked: thick, beautiful waist-long hair went a long way to making her look like an art student. But there was a hardness in her eyes and tiny wrinkles that formed around her lips when she pursed them.
Chloe cleared her throat, suddenly not sure where to begin.
“Why did you even come back here?” the woman demanded. “To apologize? I told you that if you didn’t show up on that Wednesday, you were gone for good. What happened, you break up with one of your two boyfriends? You get pregnant? Honey, unless someone died, I don’t even want to hear about it.”
“Well,” Chloe said slowly, “a number of people actually have died.”
Marisol’s eyes widened.
Chloe thought of the Rogue and the fight at the Presidio—one of the Tenth Bladers hadn’t gotten up when it was over. And of course if you counted her, that was two deaths right there.
“My mom was kidnapped by these weird cultists. And they … sent this crazy serial murderer after me. And then I was sort of being held captive by these people who are kind of related to me…. It’s kind of a long story. You can call my mom and ask her if you want, though.”
There was a long moment while Marisol stared into her eyes.
“No,” she finally said. “I … believe you.” She didn’t look happy, though, like she didn’t want to believe it. She had to try one last test. “And no one missed you at school?”
“They were told I had mono. My mom’s law firm was told she was on vacation.”
“Are you … okay?”
“I’m alive.” Chloe shrugged.
There was another silence between them, as Marisol was obviously trying to work out what was polite to ask about and what would be prying, what was concern and what was curiosity.
This was where Chloe could tell her. This was where she could come clean, demonstrate the claws. Show Marisol just how far from the ordinary her life had been recently; as far from work and her and vintage clothes and receipts and hems and even Lania as it could get. She used to tell her boss things she never would have told her mom—it was like having a much older sister or aunt with objective, slightly less “mom” views on her life.
“How are your two boyfriends?” Marisol finally asked.
The moment was over.
“Only one now. He’s lying in a hospital bed recovering from having the shit kicked out of him trying to save me.” Chloe decided to cut the next awkward silence short by standing up again. “Well, that’s really all,” she said, shrugging. “I came by to apologize and let you know that my going AWOL wasn’t really without a reason.”
Marisol’s face softened into the look she used to have when Chloe would sometimes cry about her mom or school. “Why didn’t you at least call?”
“I … I was feeling really guilty,” Chloe admitted. But now that she thought about it, now that she was standing before the woman she was terrified of ever seeing again, it was kind of ridiculous. “You told me not to come back and all, so I figured you’d be mad at me and never want to talk to me again. You said that this was a business, not babysitting for flaky teenagers.”
“Oh, C
hloe, you imbécile,” Marisol said, smiling sadly. “I didn’t know your mother was kidnapped and whatever else. I just thought you were having boyfriend problems. You could have—you should have called me. You should always feel you can do that, no matter what.”
“Thanks,” Chloe said. Remember this, she told herself. Not that Marisol was nice enough to forgive her, but that some things transcended personal guilt. She had to understand what was really important and what were her own screwed-up feelings and the difference between the two.
“I—I just hired this other girl,” Marisol said hesitantly. “I can’t give you back your old hours.”
Chloe put up her hand. “Don’t worry about it. Believe me, there’s so much on my plate right now I’d flake on you again, something I’d rather avoid. And according to my biological family, I’m sort of a princess or priest or something.”
Marisol looked skeptical. “Do you get a crown?”
Chloe laughed. If only. “No, just a whole lot of shit to learn about the people I come from.”
“That doesn’t sound so good. There should at least be jewels. All right, well, if you want to work some hours, call me. Andy’s no worker like you. But she gets along okay with Lania.”
Chloe rolled her eyes. Marisol barked with laughter.
She tried to avoid both Lania and the new girl on the way out, the latter of whom was chatting merrily on her cell phone while rearranging racks that the customers had gotten out of order. She had black goth hair, but her attitude was all wrong, kind of like a flightier version of Amy. Chloe sighed and left, unable to resist throwing one smug, calm smile in Lania’s direction—the girl had obviously been trying to listen in on her and Marisol’s conversation.
She wandered over to where she was supposed to meet Sergei, correctly expecting him to be a few minutes late. Everything else about Firebird Properties ran like clockwork, but some of the older Eastern European employees, even Sergei himself, seemed to have trouble getting anywhere on time.
The theater was disappointing: there wasn’t even a cool marquee or anything like that left outside, just empty frames where posters had once hung. With the ticket booth all smashed in and graffiti on its brick walls, the building looked a little beyond abandoned and well on its way to condemned.