by Zoe Chant
After a while, sighing at the hours left before the alarm went off, Heather turned on her bedside lamp and leaned over the side of the bed for her second knitting bag.
Her first knitting bag was out in the living room, where a magical unicorn knight may or may not be sleeping on her floor. This bag was a project she hadn’t touched for a while, and it took a moment of staring at the needles to remember where she was on it.
Her first few purls were halting, and she had to undo several stitches before she found her rhythm. Then Heather sighed back against her pillows and found the comfort that she always dredged up when she was knitting.
Clack, clack.
Clackclack…
She could focus on the pattern, on the design that was woven with every row. Vesta turned over on the bed next to her and slept for a while with all four legs pointing into the air.
Clack.
Clack.
Clackclack. Clack.
Clack.
The yarn tamed to her needles, and she was able, for a moment, to turn chaos into contentment.
It wasn’t long before she heard stirring from the living room. The steps were quiet, but heavy, and she knew she wasn’t imagining things when the toilet flushed the way she had showed Rez the night before. And then flushed again. And then flushed again.
Heather got up and pulled on her clothes, Vesta grumbling at being disturbed, then cautiously opened the bedroom door. She could see down the hallway to the air mattress on the floor, sheets rumpled invitingly.
She hesitated, then knocked on the bathroom door. “Everything okay in there?”
Rez pulled the door open swiftly. “I apologize,” he said. “You said not to waste utilities, but I had never seen such a device in action. I...er...appear to have broken it in my enthusiasm.”
He was wearing only the pants that he’d been wearing the night before, his bare chest everything that Heather remembered. For a moment, it rendered her speechless, then she ran out of air and had to breathe again.
“No, it’s okay, you just didn’t give the bowl enough time to fill up again,” Heather said, trying to sound as if he hadn’t made her tongue long for something else to do than talk. The toilet fill gave its last hiss. “It will work fine again now.”
Rez, from cautious arm’s length, flushed it again, and his face lit up to see it work properly.
“Fascinating,” he exclaimed.
Heather laughed nervously. “Are you hungry?”
The glance he gave her suggested he wasn’t thinking of food. “I am.”
“Cereal okay?”
“What is cereal okay?" Rez asked curiously.
“I'll show you,” Heather squeaked.
Vesta came wandering hopefully from the bedroom at the sound of food in the kitchen, and she had apparently forgotten that Rez was visiting, because she gave a bark of alarm, and then scampered for the greeting she thought she was due.
Rez approved of Heather's sugar-frosted wheat squares, and downed a second bowl when she offered it.
“We need to get you some more clothing today,” Heather said firmly, working very hard at not staring at his chest as she put her dishes in the dishwasher. “And today I have dinner at my mother’s. I work weekends, and because I can’t make it to Sunday dinners, we always get together on the last Friday of the month.” After agonizing over whether to leave Rez alone in her apartment, cast him loose on the outside world, or bring him with her, Heather had realized that she didn’t have a choice. “You’re coming with me.”
“I would be honored to meet your family,” Rez said politely. He didn’t seem to feel that implied anything, to Heather’s gratitude, but she knew that her mother would assume differently.
“Let’s shower and we’ll catch the eleven o’clock bus.”
Rez looked at her blankly, and she set him up with the shower.
Listening to him shower was almost as bad as watching him slink around her apartment without a shirt, because Heather could picture everything he was doing, and she had a very clear memory of certain attributes she’d gotten an eyeful of the day before.
She was grateful to switch places with him, and her own shower was on the chilly side.
It was with extreme reluctance that Heather led Rez out of her apartment and deadbolted the door behind her. “It’s really important to lock up in this neighborhood,” she pointed out when he puzzled over her action. “I don’t know about where you come from, but we can’t just leave things unguarded.”
“That seems sensible,” Rez said agreeably.
His reaction to motor vehicles was exactly as Heather had anticipated, and even though she had shown him photographs, he was clearly alarmed by their size and speed, and fascinated by their styling.
“Stay on the sidewalk,” she cautioned him when he started to wander. “Cars are only supposed to drive on the road.”
She pointed out the lines and traffic signals, and led him to the bus stop as she tried to fill him in on how to greet people and navigate.
A panhandler shuffled towards them with an outstretched hand.
“I shake his hand?” Rez confirmed.
“No, no,” Heather hastened to stop him. “He’s asking for money.” To the panhandler, in a discouraging tone, “Nothing today.”
“Fuck you, lady,” the man snarled, but he eyed Rez cautiously and wandered down the street towards the next stop.
“He was disrespectful,” Rez said disapprovingly.
“He’s not all there in the head,” Heather said. “You can’t take it personally.”
As they sat at the bus stop, she told him the backstory they would use with her mother.
“We are going there now, in one of these cars?” Rez asked, gesturing to one of the vans that drove past.
“We are going to BigMart first, in a bus. Ah, there’s our line.”
Heather rose from the hard bench and pulled Rez up with her to the edge of the sidewalk. She could feel his hesitation and resolve as the bus, which must be absolutely monstrous to someone who had never seen one, pulled up in front of them. They waited for the people to come out, then Heather led him up into the bus. She held their fare out to the surly-looking bus driver and he printed them the round-trip tickets.
“Do I shake his hand?” Rez hissed near her ear.
Heather shook her head and led him back to the seats. He gingerly sat beside her, and jolted back to his feet when the hydraulics hissed, the doors shut, and the bus began it’s winding ramble towards the city.
“This is amazing,” Rez said too loudly, plastering himself to the window.
Heather was keenly aware of the attention they were getting. Even dressed in ill-fitting clothes, Rez was a lot of man, and he was loud and amazed enough that they were the object of many suspicious glances.
As the bus filled, she shushed him, and they moved closer together to let a woman with a heavy armload of groceries take the seat beside them.
She had to stand out to let them out at her stop, and Rez gave her a bow of his head. “Your bounty is great,” he said admiringly.
The woman stared at them like they’d escaped a loony bin.
“Sorry!” Heather exclaimed. “He’s...new to this world.”
She dragged him off the bus before he could say anything else.
“Is this our destination?” Rez asked, staring.
“Welcome to BigMart,” Heather said, dread in her stomach.
Chapter 9
“Do I shake her hand?” Rez asked as they passed through doors that slipped opened at their approach and a cheerfully smiling woman offered them a flyer.
Heather shook her head at both Rez and the woman and Rez had to wonder if he had misunderstood her instructions about the standard of greeting.
He followed her into a market so large and wonderful that he had to stand a moment and gape.
To one side stretched edible goods, great bins of fruits and vegetables, some of them recognizable, some of them things he’d never seen b
efore. They were in all the rainbow colors, wrapped in thin plastic, tied with colored strings, spilling out of boxes. There were glazed cases showing steaming dishes and cold cream salads and meat sliced impossibly thin. Beyond he caught sight of heaping shelves of bread and rolls, neatly stacked.
To the other side, as if that was not miraculous enough, were racks and racks of clothing goods. Perfect duplicates of shirts and pants were hung in tidy rows. There were stacks of absolutely identical trousers, and bins of socks and even shoes.
“Where are the sellers?” he asked, when he finally realized one of the reasons it all seemed so odd.
“The...what?” Heather had walked several steps away before she realized he wasn’t beside her.
“The sellers,” Rez repeated. “Shouldn’t the seller of the fruit be beside her bin? How do you pay? Do you not have hawkers?”
“This is all one store,” Heather explained, gesturing wide. “One person...er...company owns the whole thing. There are some helpers—there’s one in that blue shirt. But you just wander the whole place and fill up…over here. This is a shopping cart.”
Rez eyed the wheeled contraption with some trepidation, swiftly concluding that it was a method of transporting goods. It boggled his mind that a person could purchase enough to need wheeled conveyance, but when Heather put it front of him, he pushed it obediently after her.
She ignored the fantastic food and took him towards the back of the store, into an area that he recognized by the false models as men’s clothing.
Here, again, were racks and racks of identical garments. But no, they weren’t identical. Heather dug through them, looking at tiny parchments attached to the cloth. They were different sizes.
“This might fit you,” she said, holding up an oddly fashioned shirt with buttons all down the front. “Let’s try it on.”
Rez began to strip off his ill-fitting shirt and Heather gave a squeak of alarm. “No, you can’t undress here.”
Rez froze, his shirt already mostly off. “It is unseemly?”
“Really unseemly.” Heather appeared to have trouble breathing and Rez took a certain amount of pride from being able to fluster her. “They have dressing rooms. But let’s pick a few more things first.”
They loaded the cart with beige and blue trousers and t-shirts. Wrapped packages of socks and undergarments were added. “Don’t try those on,” Heather cautioned. “We just have to guess on those.”
A few pairs of shoes were thrown in, fascinating squishy things emblazoned with bright colors. One of them squeaked and after Rez tested the mechanism a few times, Heather put them back on the shelf.
She showed him to the dressing rooms, and he obediently tried every item on, modeling each one in turn.
They narrowed the selection down considerably.
“Do we consult with a tailor now?” Rez asked.
“A tailor?” Heather asked.
“To refine the fit?”
She blinked at him. “Don’t they fit?”
Had he insulted her? “They will do,” he said contritely.
“Do you really have everything fitted to you personally?” Heather asked in astonishment.
“Are all of your people the same shape?” Rez asked, confused. He had certainly observed people in all forms and sizes.
Heather was fingering one of the shirts thoughtfully. “Not even close. I guess that most people don’t know how to sew, and a tailor seems like an extravagance if the clothing is close enough.”
“It will clothe me,” Rez assured her. “Even if it does not truly flatter me.”
Heather grinned at him. “You’re a little vain, you know?”
Rez’s consternation must have been apparent on his face, because she swiftly added, “Don’t feel bad. It’s nice to see that you aren’t a complete unicorn.”
Consternation turned back to confusion. “I...am a unicorn.”
“We call something absolutely perfect and unattainable a unicorn,” Heather explained. “Because it will never happen, everyone has flaws. And...unicorns are impossible.”
“I am not impossible,” Rez said quietly.
“Sometimes, I think you are,” she replied.
Chapter 10
I really did get a unicorn, Heather thought.
He was so hot that people gave him a double-take in the BigMart, and he was unfailingly kind and courteous. He shook hands with one of the stockers before Heather could stop him, to the poor kid’s complete confusion, and Heather thought that she should probably explain the use of the gesture a little better.
She took him to the toiletries aisle next. “I don’t know if you want to use my shampoo or not, but I’m pretty sure my deodorant won’t suit you.”
“Deodorant?”
“It’s July in Georgia. Deodorant is one of those things that is necessary to maintain our...er...social covenant not to stink too badly.”
Rez dutifully smelled the tubes that she uncapped for him, and expressed delight in each of them. “Is it...very dear?” he asked. “Perfumes in my world are rather rare and expensive.”
Heather started pointing out the prices. “This is quite cheap.”
Rez frowned at the cart and fingered some of the tags. “I fear you are spending a great deal on me. The vehicle of transportation also took your coins.”
“Tips at the Ren Faire have been good lately, and I had some extra money socked away for a rainy day,” Heather said quickly. “And...” She came to a stop, looking away as if the manly body wash in front of her was suddenly fascinating.
It was hard to put her finger on the connection that she felt for Rez, hard to define how she could no more leave him to fend for himself than she could have abandoned Vesta. He needed her, and she hadn’t thought twice about making sure he had a few basic things. “It’s not like I’m buying you top-end anything,” she ended lamely.
“I will find a way to repay you,” he vowed.
“It doesn’t have to be like that,” Heather said, turning back to look at him. “We call it paying it forward. Sometime in your life, everyone needs help. So when you have a chance to help someone, you do, and when they have a chance to help someone else, they do. And when you need help, hopefully someone will help you. It isn’t...an exchange of services. It’s doing the right thing when you have the means.”
Rez was quiet. “You were correct,” he said thoughtfully.
“I was? About what?”
“This is a good world.”
Heather couldn’t define the tightness in her chest.
Fortunately, Rez spotted the shaving tools on the opposite side of the aisle. “Are these for the shaving of beards?” He ran a hand over the stubble that only made him hotter.
“Ah no,” Heather said. “Those are for ladies. Men’s are over here.”
“What is the difference?”
“Price, mostly,” Heather said wryly. “And yours don’t come in pink.”
“That is a shame,” Rez said with regret that could not have been faked.
Heather giggled.
They selected a few more key items, Rez accidentally sprayed shaving cream on his nose as he inspected the canister, and Heather turned the shopping cart to the checkout line.
“You look reluctant,” Rez observed, wiping the cream from his perfect nose. “Is it too much to buy?”
“No, nothing like that,” Heather said warmly. “It’s just time to go see my mother.”
“This makes you nervous?” Rez guessed.
“You have no idea.”
Chapter 11
Rez was on pins and needles by the time they arrived on foot at a modest cottage in a neighborhood of similar buildings. There was a spread of unnaturally short grass before it, which seemed common for this world, and an ineffective looking fence. An odd wooden sentinel with a shuttered metal box at the top stood near the gate.
“It’s a mailbox,” Heather explained shortly as she ushered him along the short path to the front door. “Try...not to stare at
stuff. Pretend to be the strong, silent type, and I’ll do my best to keep you caught up.” She paused at the door before knocking and adjusted the collar of his new shirt. “Do you remember your backstory?”
They had rehearsed the backstory on the bus ride over. “I am a foreign exchange student from Morocco studying medieval literature at Georgia Tech. I did not have a place to stay when the dorms closed for summer and I am couch surfing. We met at the Ren Faire where you work. If your mother asks my religion, I am Catholic.”
“I’ll try to steer clear of those topics, but we’ll see.”
She looked as nervous as Rez felt, and Vesta was trembling in her arms, but she lifted her chin and turned to the door, giving it a firm, loud knock before she opened it and walked in. “Mama! We’re here!”
“In here, sweetie!” came the warm reply, and Rez followed Heather into a house filled with smells.
“I hope you’re hungry,” Heather said, putting Vesta down.
If Rez had not been, the tantalizing smells would have ensured his appetite. “What amazing dish has been prepared?” he asked as he stepped into the kitchen, completely forgetting his intention to remain silent.
The woman who emerged from behind a refrigerator door gave him a wide-eyed look of astonishment. “When you said you were bringing a man, I didn’t realize you meant you were bringing that much man. Heather Rose, have you been holding out on your mother?”
“Yeah, Heather, have you been holding out?” An adolescent version of Heather appeared in the far doorway, chewing something in her mouth.
“My sister, Charlotte,” Heather introduced with a sigh. “My mother. This is Rez. Is Fiona here?”
“No,” Charlotte said with a careless slouch. “She’s out with her heathen doctor tonight.”
“Charlotte Ann,” their mother said warningly. “We got company.”
“Is he a heathen? Or a doctor?” Charlotte was clearly unimpressed by the use of her full title or the warning in her mother’s voice.
“I am a foreign exchange student,” Rez offered. Was he supposed to shake her hand? He was thoroughly unsure.