by Sue Perry
The books followed orders from Lose Twenty Pounds to refine their loops and quick–drop landings. I had adopted Kelly Joe's unshakeable supportive tone with my books. Acting like Kelly Joe made him feel less absent. True, he had just left, but he was off on dangerous missions and who the hell knew when I'd seen him next.
All the allies had dangerous missions. I could lose any of them. Nearly losing Miles was just the beginning. The only way I could function, facing so much dread and uncertainty, was to make myself too busy to examine the possibilities, and to take action that genuinely contributed to the cause. Sure, cataloguing Cyst construction projects was important but I could do more. I had to. We all needed to push full bore. For them and for me, I needed missions of my own and I had some ideas about what I might do. Hadn't had a chance to talk about those ideas with fearless leaders but maybe that was just as well. What they didn't know, they couldn't forbid me from pursuing.
29. EVERYBODY INCLUDING HERNANDEZ
My apartment on Ma'Urth was as fresh as a can of peas and just as lively. I piled the books on the built–in wall shelf and chose music to blast through my speakers, grateful to be in a Frame where my sound system worked. Mournful was what I needed, so only real country would do, Hank and Patsy and George and murder ballads. The last thing I heard before the speakers began their soothing blast was the click of claws on the wood floor. The cats were here now, too.
Leon jumped onto the kitchen windowsill and stared outside. I went over to share his view. On the fire escape was the sentient lawn chair and on the chair with eyes closed was—Hernandez, strong and still as though sculpted there. Hot damn! He looked like he was sleeping but he wouldn't be, exposed in an unfamiliar place. Sure enough, as I watched, his shoulders clenched and he clutched the chair like it was a roller coaster. I hoped the chair wasn't making him re–live Jay's traumatic death, which Hernandez had witnessed.
"Hey, bud, thanks for letting me know. If that's what you did." I scritched Leon's head and reached past him to raise the window. Hernandez opened his eyes when my nail ticked on the glass. "Yo."
He broke into a huge smile: white teeth flashing, black eyes crinkling. I'd experienced his laugh a faint few times but this might have been the first smile.
"You match the cat." He rubbed his close–cropped pate. "And me."
I rubbed Leon's fresh fuzz, then my own. I had shaved us again last night, to kill time waiting for the Framekeeps visit. As Leon's fur grew out, it became clear he was a slob and his fur matted quickly. I kept fur over his scars, though.
Hernandez unfolded himself from the low–slung chair and rotated at the waist to unkink. "This chair a Traveler?"
"Sentient, anyway." I jogged to the bathroom to unlatch the window bars. He tossed his duffel bag in ahead of him. Once he had climbed inside the bathroom, there wasn't room to turn around so I backed out to the hall.
"I am so glad you finally got here. Are you?"
"Yeah. I think I am."
"May I hug you?"
"Asking permission?"
We held each other a long time, until we had to make a choice. Kiss or dance. We let go simultaneously. My skin tingled wherever we had contact, and the more layers of clothes between us, the more enthused I felt. I couldn't tell you what my time limit is to go without sex but apparently I'd exceeded it.
I led Hernandez out to the front room. He gave my abode a cursory glance, by which he picked up on more than most folks would know after snooping in every drawer.
"The chair indicated you had some bad news in this alley. That flash mob."
"The flash mob came down the alley?" Suddenly it was that night again, two ayem and Leon still wouldn't settle and I paced with him from room to room. "Have they been back since? Did the chair say?"
"Couple times. Is that why you've been away so much?"
"No. Mebbe. Dunno. Nobody tells me nothin' but I was supposed to stay out of Frame for a while." The Entourage had come back. Not the answer I wanted. My shoulders tightened for the umpteenth time of late. Could stress build muscle tone?
Hernandez reached to pet Leon, who squashed flat and scurried away.
I shrugged. "He's a cat. He has issues. How'd you know I've been gone?"
"Ben's worried. You never answer your phone." Hernandez sat on the couch like a carving of someone sitting on a couch.
"Ben's worried about me?" Any heavier irony and we'd sink through the floor.
"I figured you must be out of Frame but I couldn't tell him that because I didn't know what he knows about the Frames."
"Have you talked to him recently? How does he sound?"
"Find out for yourself. He wants you to call him. It's 'Jerry' on speed dial." He pulled a cheapo phone from an inner pocket of his windbreaker and tossed it to me.
"In a sec." I set it on the couch arm and continued into the kitchen, trying to remember the last time I ate.
"Get you anything? There's beer." I checked the fridge. "And... tomatoes. And goat cheese yogurt. With real peach bits." With Ben gone, there was no one to care for my pantry.
"I'm good. I stopped at a food truck."
"How long have you been in town, anyway? You missed a great scene with the Framekeeps this morning."
"So I hear from Miles. Got in last night, hotel in Times Square. Kind of place I don't even leave my toothbrush." He hefted the duffel bag, which he'd planted beside the couch.
Twinge. He'd heard about the Framekeep coup already. "You're welcome to crash here, of course."
"Thanks, I'll take you up on that, at least for tonight. Not sure where Anwyl needs me after that. Mind if I?" He twirled his finger in front of his eye, his symbol for taking a look around. I gave him a be my guest wave but my voice was petulant. "Anwyl knew you were coming? Why didn't he tell me?"
Hernandez went from window to window, checking locks and testing how wide each window opened. "You're asking me to explain Anwyl? What's wrong?"
"I'm just. It's been." I gave him a run down of the last couple days: the training, the Travel, the coup, and the revelation that my leaky brain would keep me sidelined from the action everybody else was in. Everybody including Hernandez.
"'To each being a talent, to each talent a fate'," he mused. "Anya said that to me last night, it makes some sense now. I'm the opposite of you. My thoughts are airtight, Anwyl said I've got the soul of a spy."
"Sad to say, from him that's praise."
Hernandez had finished with the windows and was now examining the front door. "But I can't Travel on my own. After you left L.A., Anya then Monk then finally Anwyl tried everything to teach me. 'You give us no hope,' is how Anwyl left it. I'll never learn to Travel on my own. But it's easy for you." He sounded wistful.
"Trade'ya talents," I sniffed.
"I wish we could. Hold up." He timed how long it took to run from the front door to the bathroom window. Hernandez always knows his getaways. "Eight seconds. That's slow. It's getting around these corners. Lock the bathroom door to buy time." He joined me on the couch.
"Never mind, you're right, I don't want to trade talents. Being able to Travel is better than keeping my thoughts to myself. Crap. You made me feel better. I wanted to have a big sulk later."
He mimed opening the fliptop phone. "Call Ben now." Leon scurried into the room, this time with Dizzy sauntering alongside. "I didn't know you moved Dizzy with you."
"I didn't. She showed up on her own."
"That cat is something," Hernandez said. "She's got powers we can't even imagine."
"True dat."
Ben picked up on the second ring. "You mixed the red and white sauce before you put it on the chicken, like I told you, right?"
"Now I get it. You sent Hernandez to dinner at the Halal Guys truck. No wonder he's not hungry."
"Neeks," Ben purred, "at last. Hernandez said people told him you were fine, but when you didn't answer your phone for so long I thought you must have gotten an emergency laryngectomy."
"Makes sense that would be your
conclusion. You sound good again."
"Know what this sound is?" The phone emitted a dull rattle. "My latest collection of newcomer chips."
My Ben worry knots loosened. "That's a good sound." I reached out to him through the satellite relay. He felt my touch through the ether and sighed.
"That's not what I needed to tell you, though. This is. Watch your back. Those cops found me in Philly."
"Mathead and Scabman? Those ex–cops you mean."
"They've still got badges and they found out my new name and they know you left L. A. They mostly asked about you."
"You talked to them?"
"No, this guy. I've been crashing on his couch. Now I'm exploring a new sector of the country and I'm living on cash. At some point I'll have to use a card or a bank and they can find me again, so I guess I'm on the move until further notice."
"I'm sorry. I've got friends who can help get rid of them, but probably not just now."
"More new friends. When can you tell me what your case is about?"
"Not yet. Not on the phone. It's too—don't let them find you, Benny."
"That part I figured out on my own. Hey, gotta get to a meeting."
If I had a star for every time he'd used that excuse to end a conversation, I'd be a galaxy. "Love you bro."
"Love you sis. 'She's my sister and my daughter. Understand?'"
"Nice delivery, Faye!"
When I hung up, Hernandez was scratching Leon's jaw but watching me, unsurprised by the conversation.
"Mathead and Scabman found Ben." I told him something he already knew.
"We won't let them get him," he assured me. "Or you."
30. I'VE GOT YOUR SECRET ANSWER
I needed food so we went out. Downstairs, Hernandez examined the foyer until he knew all its exits and we chatted about his daughters, their adventures in Spain, and their growing bond with their mother. His ego was solid enough that he could feel glad for them, even though he missed them like both his lungs.
"Nica! Over here, bitch."
The voice calling to me was so familiar yet so disorienting to hear in New York. I followed Hernandez' gaze down and over, saw the woman on the sidewalk from his first–timer's point of view. She had luxurious burgundy hair, luminescent skin, a compact streamlined frame, and—Hernandez would soon discover—a vocabulary that could melt steel. Even back in third grade she had been gorgeous and shocking. My Jenn was here in New York, paying a taxi. And leaning on a cane.
"Jenn?" I failed to keep the WTF out of my voice. Her cane snagged a sidewalk bump and made her stumble. She recovered like a ballerina, raised the cane, stood a moment considering it, then chucked it, like a spear, into the bed of a passing flatbed truck.
"Motherfucking M.S. is breaking my balls," she greeted me. Without the cane she wavered, but kept her feet planted and let us come to her. "I'm Jenn." She held out a hand to Hernandez and checked him out as she said to me, "No wonder you've been ignoring your phone."
Holy rollers, was Hernandez blushing?
"We were going out for a prowl but let's go back upstairs, we'll get dinner delivered," I said.
"No. I want to go out with you, help me get this shit upstairs first." Jenn hefted her purse. For her it was a modest bag, smaller than a cargo hold.
A few steps away, Hernandez watched her and waited for us to decide a plan. Jenn waved the purse at him and said sweetly, "Standing there like you've got jizz in your ears. Take this upstairs. Please?"
The please released him from staring. Somehow her words never offended, though from anyone else's mouth, they would end friendships and sink ships. Hernandez ran the purse upstairs and then we headed out, Jenn leading the way. She set a fast pace, but she kept light fingers on my forearm.
"Why are we stopping?" Jenn looked from me to Hernandez to the construction site at which we stared. I got out my phone and made note of the address.
"It's—for a case." At mention of case, Jenn made a noise that sounded confrontational. "C'mon, I'm done. What do you want for dinner?"
Jenn wanted Indian and I wanted Middle Eastern. Hernandez was still full from his lunch. In New York you can find good food of any persuasion within blocks, so we got takeout and took it to a bench at the far edge of Riverside Park. It always feels right to put Jenn in the middle so that is how we sat, facing the Hudson River—although we couldn't see it through the scrawny trees. The Hudson Parkway was just below us so all we could hear was traffic flow—which carries its own sort of peace. Still, the feel of the river was in the air, that sense of righteous movement.
"Doesn't your cousin live over there?" I peered across the river to New Jersey.
Jenn replied, "She does. That's where I crashed the last three days, waiting for you to show up or answer your fucking phone. I've got to get out of there, she's obsessed with taking care of me, makes me want to crawl inside my own asshole."
"Then you'll be glad to move in with me. As you know, I'm a lousy hostess. Anyway, I'll be out a lot working my case." Jenn made another confrontational noise. I was sorry she hadn't warmed up to the idea of the Frames. "How long can you stay? And what are you doing here? Why'd you ditch your retreat?" I tossed a falafel from hand to hand, to cool it faster. I was eager to eat it. The mushed fried garbanzos looked like a golf ball wrapped in moldy toast—a proof that looks deceive.
Jenn had decades of practice responding to my strings of questions. "I'm here until you kick me out, I get sick of being here, or my next retreat starts. If I go to it. I came because I needed to be somewhere where people would ignore me. The retreat was fine but I couldn't get into it."
"I'm surprised." I added a second falafel to my toss.
Hernandez stopped gnawing the giant street pretzel he'd bought to keep us company while we ate. "Describe the retreat," he injected. He wasn't going to let us leave him out of the conversation; I liked that about him. So did Jenn. The way she looked at him, she liked everything about him.
Jenn explained, "I'm always going to shit and doing shit to try to connect with G–O–D."
Hernandez rested the gnawed pretzel on his knee. "I understand. The connecting didn't happen this time?"
She slammed the lid on her takeout box, denting the Styrofoam. "The connecting doesn't happen any time, I just don't usually admit it."
"Since when is that true?" The times I'd talked with her after retreats, her enthusiasm had been genuine.
"Since forever. I'm still agnostic as fuck. I convinced myself for a while that I was having all these spiritual experiences," her emphasis was scornful, "but that was because I needed to have them. You know?" She tugged on her hair, pulled it perpendicular to her head—indicating utmost frustration.
"I don't buy that," I said. "You found something real at those retreats." I watched Hernandez over the top of Jenn's head. He nodded thoughtfully at the anger in her reply.
"I found something? Like what?"
I didn't react. It wasn't me she was mad at. "Maybe you hoped you'd find a cure at a retreat."
"Fuck no, that wasn't the point, I know I'm dying young. Change the subject, I started it so I choose when to end it. What kind of shitheel loser brings metaphysics to a picnic dinner, anyway." She threw a sideways glance at Hernandez, who looked out toward the river.
"Times I've faced off with death always left me wondering, what else is there?" Hernandez said, with a take it/leave it directness that kept his sympathy from overpowering.
"Well, honey, I've been sucking a whole lot of mystical cock to find that out and I've got your secret answer. It's nothing. There's nothing."
"Must make it hard to face what you're facing." Hernandez replied evenly. Which helped my understanding to coalesce. Jenn's retreats were her way to make the void less deep and empty. I'd figured that out a while ago, but I'd missed the key take–home message: her effort was backfiring; making her feel worse.
She started to cry. Jenn. Crying.
She clutched her elbows and buckled forward. Hernandez and I exchang
ed a look behind her back. Any effort to comfort could backfire.
"She's usually very chill," I told him. "Try not to judge her."
"Up yours, cunt." She sat up but her hair curtained her from view.
"Death is such a bummer." I delivered it stoopid sincere.
Which triggered a snort and then fury. Jenn hurled her food container across the path and it splattered, staining the bushes with yellow curry. She chucked my food, falafel by falafel. Hernandez handed his pretzel to her, and as she hurled it he fetched her some pebbles to throw. She threw everything while spouting a white–noise stream of obscenities. Finally she paused and looked at my falafels, strewn across the path. "Shit. Were you done with those?"
"I am in awe," I replied. "You sounded like Donald Duck."
She snorted again.
"Only good thing about the war," Hernandez mused, "was, sometimes when we felt like that we got to throw grenades."
We considered the falafels that littered the path. They continued to not explode.
"Next time order a side of grenades," Jenn instructed.
The sun was low enough to blast my eyes through the skimpy trees. I stared until I no longer had to squint and tree shadows touched our feet. The flow of the Hudson Parkway grew louder; rush hour. Jenn stood and looked around like she'd just arrived. She proffered elbows to us and said, "Come on, girlfriends, show me my new neighborhood."
We set off, sharing arms with Jenn.
31. NEW YORK RAT STORIES
It happened so fast, the life–or–death consequences didn't register until it was over. We were out of the park and crossing Riverside Drive. We had the green light but a kamikaze bike messenger zoomed into the intersection as his light turned red, pounding his bell instead of braking. I shouted a warning but Jenn was already in harm's way. She had jumped in the bike's path to hurl herself at a taxi door. The taxi had stopped a few feet from the curb, and the passenger door opened into the path of the bike messenger, while a shaky old gent propped his cane against the door and prepared to emerge.