Double Vision

by Tricia Sullivan

  The wheel of the Rabbit dug into my stomach and I barely had room for my elbows when the door was closed. I wasn't allowed to get a new car, either, until I'd shown that I could fit comfortably behind the wheel of this one.

  Stupid.

  Having squished myself into the hot car I turned on the radio as I swung out onto High Mountain Road. Hall and Oates were on PLJ. I made a face but couldn't get anything funkier because all the other stations were commercials. I wondered what those golems were up to. Had they built those structures or had the Grid grown them? And why? In my experience golems had two functions: 1) to die messily, and thereby multiply even more, and 2) to sabotage/steal/ destroy Machine Front equipment.

  Since when did they do landscaping?

  And why, given the numbers of them on N-Ridge, hadn't they gotten hold of Arla Gonzalez yet?

  I swung onto the Parkway and dug for quarters so that I could take the exact-change lane at the tollbooths. At the same time I found some Lionel Richie on the radio, even though I had to steer with my knees. I've always liked doing two things at once. Or more. It keeps my mind occupied.

  Among the quarters I found a couple of fuzzy Tic-Tacs. But they couldn't quite kill the icky-sweet taste of Flying in my mouth.

  Nebula greeted me at the door of my condo. I was late because I'd had to stop at A&P for cat food, among other things. She stood on my feet and tried to climb up my leg, talking the whole while. I put the grocery bags down on the counter and immediately saw that she'd been digging in the spider plant again.

  ‘Bad Nebbie,' I said. ‘Insouciant Nebbie. What did you do to my book?’

  My latest paperback, Crystal Singer by Anne McCaffrey, was buried under the soil that was supposed to be in the spider-plant pot.

  ‘I'm tempted to put an embargo on your Tender Vittles,' I told Nebula. 'You are a wicked, wicked, puss.’

  She took this as praise, rubbing her jaw on the dirty bookcover.

  There was a message from my mother on my answering machine. Was I OK? I hadn't called in a month. Guiltily, I called her back.

  ‘Are you eating good?’ she asked.

  I told her I'd lost a little weight.

  ‘As long as you keep your strength up,’ she said. 'I hope you wouldn't be subscribing to none of these fad diets just so you could look like some model. A man likes a little something to hold on to, Cookie.’

  I ignore the part about men and tell her that I'm very strong thanks to karate. She says, ‘OK, as long as you remember to hit the other guy before he hits you. Don't get hit, Cookie.’

  I give her a little lecture on Bushido and how it's uncool to attack, how you are only supposed to defend yourself in an honorable way.

  ‘Don't let your Grandma Angela hear you say that,’ she said darkly. ‘She used to carry a rolling pin in her purse, and she didn't wait to find out what was gonna happen. She saw a situation developing and wop, she let ‘em have it. Got the butcher that time when he tried to overcharge her on lamb chops.’

  I guess everybody's mother drives them crazy.

  ‘She had to go all the way to Hasbrook Heights for her meat after that, but the upshot was the butcher there heard about what happened and gave her a ten percent discount on everything, just out of fear! How's work?’

  ‘OK. Busy.’

  ‘You socking your money away?’

  ‘Yeah. I don't spend much. Plus I have a lot of stock in the company. You get the check I sent you?’

  'I got it, and it went right where all your other checks go, honey. Straight into savings bonds for my future grandchild. I'm counting on you, baby. I think your brother's gay. He ain't told me about no girlfriend in five years, and now he's talking about taking this job in San Francisco.’

  ‘Not everyone in San Francisco is gay, mom. Maybe he's just not ready to settle down yet.’

  ‘Yeah, that's how it is with my kids. Nobody wants to settle down these days. I just keep hoping you'll meet somebody nice. How's your friend Miles?’

  ‘He's OK. You know he's just a friend, Mama.’

  ‘Why is he just a friend, girl? He's got a good job, doesn't he? He respects you, doesn't he? You think he's shy?’

  ‘We're just friends.’

  ‘You should cook for him. Those Jewish families, they eat everything so bland. Hey, I just thought of something. Do you think he's not interested in you because he wants to marry one of his own?’ She lowered her voice to a whisper. ‘Do you think he's a racist? Doesn't he like black girls? Or... would he expect you to ... convert?’

  I made a face and tugged at my hair. A part of me wanted to laugh and I guess if it had been anybody else's mother I would have laughed. Instead, I snapped, 'I don't know and it's none of my business and anyway maybe I'm not interested in him like that, didn't that ever occur to you, Mama?’

  ‘OK, OK, you don't got to get all huffity about it.’

  ‘Can we just change the subject, please.’

  ‘As long as you're happy, Cookie.’

  The warmth in her voice brought tears to my eyes. I wanted to break down and tell her everything that was going on at work, but that was impossible. Not only wouldn't she begin to understand, but she couldn't help and she'd only get upset.

  ‘Tell me about your tarot class,’ I said.

  ‘Ooh, I'm designing my own deck. I'm gonna call it the Mavis Deck. It's all in pastels and I'm gonna put gold filigree on the back, and I got my calligraphy set to write out the interpretations. I'll send you a copy of the card I just finished. It's Strength. You'll like it.’

  By the time I hung up with her I was late. There was no time to make dinner, so I just brushed my teeth about six times to kill that flower-taste (it didn't work), got my gi and stuff and packed my gym bag, grabbed a water bottle and the car keys, and went out again. I wasn't actually hungry, which was surprising, but I don't like missing meals. I start to feel I don't know who I am if I don't eat.

  Supposedly this is all part of my overall problem/talent. I'm so suggestible that it's probably a good thing I can't watch TV anymore, because I'd be at the refrigerator every time a food commercial came on. Hyper-suggestibility, they call it. In a way it's a talent, because it makes me able to take the crusty nex and experience it as real. Gunther says one day he'll prove it's not just an illusion, that Fliers like me really experience the alien environment. He says that places like the Grid are indistinguishable from Earth to us. 'I can prove that you see what happens there just like a dog hears a dog whistle. I'm just not publishing what I know because the world isn't ready for it.’

  Well, he seems to know a lot about it. Only he doesn't seem to know how I can become thin. I'm sure that my fat is just me paying the price for being a Flier. It's like this: I'll be sitting around reading an Anne McCaffrey novel and she'll refer to Master Robinton spreading cheese on a piece of bread and I'm off to the Fridgidaire with the book still in my hand. The first chapter of The Hobbit is responsible for at least 3,000 calories every time I read it. And the more sensitive my Flying becomes, the bigger my problem. Gunther's right: I'm like a dog, I just can't stop myself.

  The food/book thing has been going on as long as I can remember. I vividly recall reading a Trixie Belden book when I was about seven or eight, and there is a scene where the girl shamus and her friend Honey are drinking lemonade and eating slices of homemade cake. I can remember that cake so clearly, even though it was only cake in a book. I could eat a hundred cakes in real life - and probably have - but none of them can capture the essence of that cake, a cake that isn't even real.

  Well, if that's true, I should be able to subsist on imaginary food. My problem is that I keep trying to make those imaginary foods real. I'm a food channeler, that's what I am. And let's face it, with the nex doing a number on my head the way it does, I have to have some kind of escape. I've only been truly fat since I started working at Dataplex. Before that I was just moderately plump. I think that I've become so sensitive and suggestible that any resistance to food I might have onc
e had is totally gone.

  So off I go to karate, to discipline and reform myself.

  Minnehaha is a small town sitting well away from any major highways. There are no supermarkets, but the main street has a tiny movie theater, an ancient department store that seems to trade mostly in corsets and hats judging by the drab window displays, and a handful of little shops that sell things like cameras and children's shoes. A small sign with KARATE stenciled on it in Chinese-restaurant Oriental lettering points to the dojo, which is tucked down a narrow alley in between an insurance agency and Tony's Pizza. Beyond the alley is an empty lot and then the banks of the Minnehaha River with its cheap, often-flooded houses.

  I walked into the dojo, saw that there were no higher ranks than me nearby, and so bowed in the direction of the masters’ photographs on the wall. We have to bow to the highest rank when we enter and leave as a sign of respect.

  There were some kids and their parents in the waiting room, and I saw Miss Cooper sitting behind the desk, taking checks. She smiled at me and we bowed to each other. I inhaled the familiar smell of old, foot-sweaty carpet. I hadn't wanted to come tonight, but now that I was here I immediately felt better. This place had become my second home. When I'd first started training here with Gloria, I'd been terrified and had felt intimidated, but after I passed my first test and got my orange belt I started to feel really proud. I had seen a lot of white belts come and go, and all of them were in better shape than I was, but I was learning katas and drills and techniques that your average person just doesn't know. And the black belts might look impressive and scary, but they're just regular people underneath it. At first this seemed to spoil my fantasy of living in a little slice of medieval Japan, but then it became nice. Especially because Miss Cooper, who is anybody's definition of a woman warrior, started encouraging me a lot. It's thanks to her that I ever got my purple belt. I never thought I'd make it this far.

  Miss Cooper is here every night. She teaches the kids and sometimes she teaches the adult beginners’ class. Sensei is busy in his office most of the time and only comes out once or twice during a lesson to give instructions or say a few words to the class. All of the real work falls to Miss Cooper. On top of all this, she has to do her own training. She runs, she lifts weights, she hits the makiwara, practices her katas, and trains for the demonstration team. Sensei likes to put her forward as an example of how a smaller person can defeat a bigger opponent. He also teaches her naginata, a woman's weapon which is like a curved knife on the end of a stick. She gets to wear a special costume for this in demonstrations.

  I got changed. I haven't gained any weight since I started training, which does give me some hope. But my gi looks like a jib sail, especially because of the way you have to wrap it around your body. I looked down at my stomach. I ought to be very hungry, but that nasty bite of pizza had kicked up a fuss in my stomach and made me felt nauseous. Probably the heat, but I had decided not to stop at McDonald's just to be on the safe side. I now felt tense and scared.

  I was wishing I'd at least grabbed some fries or a Coke as I left the dressing room, and because I was preoccupied I nearly bumped into Sensei himself. John Norman was in his mid-forties, fairly tall, with dark hair that he parted on the side, a big nose, no chin, and heavy, black-rimmed glasses. He was a big guy but kind of clumsy and not in shape, as such. Not to meet the eye. Of course, that doesn't matter if you're a master because of all the secret techniques you know. The most dangerous masters of all look like doddering old men.

  ‘Good evening, Miss Orbach,’ he said, smiling without showing his teeth. ‘You're here early.’

  'I have to do my cleaning,’ I said. Sensei has assigned each of the women with a cleaning job around the dojo. He says he asks us to do it because the men wouldn't do a very good job. Gloria's job is vacuuming the carpets. My job is to keep the bathroom clean. It's all part of showing good karate attitude.

  ‘Well, keep up the good work,’ he answered, and went upstairs. I passed his office to get my cleaning supplies out of the closet and saw that he had been watching a video showing his own teacher, Sensei Ingenito, doing a kata. The katas get changed a lot depending on who's in charge of the organization and I guess Sensei has to keep up with that. I averted my eyes. I didn't want anybody to think I was snooping.

  I only had a few minutes to clean the toilet; then we lined up according to rank and bowed in. I struggled through the warm-up. Miss Cooper was leading. She can do a full split. She told me and Gloria to call her Tanya, which we do when we're outside of class. In class, everybody uses last names and titles out of politeness. Politeness is very important in Japan, and also using titles reminds us that we are doing something serious here. We have a different identity in the dojo than we do out there in the ordinary world. What we're doing in here is deep, historic. Spiritual.

  I felt a little dizzy, and during push-ups I lay on the floor more than usual, but nobody seemed to notice. It was a full class, and the counting rang out in Japanese. Soon the walls were sweating and people were slipping on the wooden floor. Sensei came out after warm-ups and broke the class up into groups

  I always train with Gloria. Always. We joined together, and we always partner up. But Gloria's not here tonight, and Sensei has decided we're going to practice sparring because he wants to enter a tournament next month. I've never been in a tournament, and I've only sparred a couple of times.

  I'm excited.

  Miss Cooper paired me up with Cori Knight. I'm a purple belt and Cori is a green belt with two stripes - almost a brown belt, which is a pretty big deal. She was out for over a year recovering from a knee injury, so even though she outranks me she hasn't been around for most of the time that I've been training. Cori is skinny, poor because she's a graduate student, and always whining about something. She has extremely long brown hair that she wears in a braid; she never wears makeup and she seems to have permanent PMS. Tonight she's in a good mood because her boyfriend gave her a couple big hickies over the weekend, and instead of trying to cover them up she's wearing a tank top under her gi. I'm jealous that she's skinny and has a boyfriend, but I'd rather be fat and single than be stuck with her personality.

  I heard that once Cori got her nose broken in a tournament. She also wears a knee brace on her left knee. She's incredibly lazy in class and totally sucks, but she still outranks me and Gloria. No matter what we do, we can't catch up.

  We square up to fight, smiling fakely at one another.

  ‘Watch my nose,’ she says. ‘And my knee.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘And your stomach.’

  She had surgery to remove a cyst or something so she's funny about being hit in the stomach. So, that leaves as possible targets her chest - no, can't hit her in the boobs, she's a girl - OK, so what am I allowed to hit?

  She's got lots of targets on me, though. I mean, come on, it's like hitting the broad side of a barn.

  Cori started dancing around. She would come shooting in to hit me in the body, leading with her face - but I couldn't hit her in the face, remember? I mean, I couldn't even fake a hit to her face or focus a hit near her face, in case I made a mistake and damaged her precious once-broken-already nose. So she'd hit me, smirk, and dance back out of range again. If I went after her she'd remind me, ‘Keep your form! Square your shoulders! Chamber your opposite hand!’ which of course she's allowed to say because she outranks me. Meanwhile she's totally relaxed her own posture so as to extend her reach and hit me more easily. And I'm supposed to just stand there and take it.

  She got me a couple times pretty hard in the gut.

  ‘You better tighten up when you get hit,’ Cori said, panting. She was bouncing up and down in her front stance like she was on a trampoline. Sensei told everybody to loosen up when they spar, and this kangaroo stuff seemed to be her interpretation.

  ‘I am tightened up,’ I said. ‘That's just fat.’

  ‘Well, it's sticking out so I get to hit it.’ And she smiled at her own humor.

&n
bsp; I was getting annoyed. I can remember coming in with a couple of faked punches to the face, disobeying the rules she'd set. This freaked Cori out and she put up her arms to block, which was when I gave her a roundhouse kick in the left kidney. To give me some credit, I didn't actually hit her in the face, although the idea was tempting. As she was crashing sideways from the force of the roundhouse I guess I did sweep her right leg out from under her for good measure, and she crumpled to the floor. I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do at this point but I gather you are not supposed to then jump on the person, straddle their chest and start slapping them around the sides of the head.

  It was sort of like instinct. Playground stuff.

  I mean, Cori p'd me off, you know? I was trying to play by the rules and she was taking advantage of it. I don't like that. I am a nice person and I don't like it when people think that means they can do whatever they want to me.

  There was only one other black person in the class, a green belt called Troy. He was kind of cute and he knew it. He actually pulled me off Cori and dragged me away. He kept saying, ‘Whoa, whoa, easy, girl,’ like he was talking to a horse. I started crying.

  ‘Come on, baby, you're all right,’ he said in my ear. ‘Don't let them see you flinch.’

  I snuffled mightily, wiped my face on my already-sweaty gi sleeve, and nodded. Don't let them see you flinch. Story of my life.

  without a babysitter

  When you first get the nex back, you don't know where you are. You have to call Machine Front to get your own coordinates.

  GOSSAMER UNDAMAGED BY STORM, you add. DETECTING NEW OLFACTORY AGENTS. RECOMMEND FULL FILTRATION FOR GROUND STAFF.