by Nancy Kress
Two and a half years had not changed him much. The long lean body stood in that same relaxed-alert way; the eyes in his tanned face burned just as blue. He was—what, now? Forty? Faint wrinkles at the corners of those amazing eyes, but only faint. “Marianne,” he said, and his voice had that same gravelly depth.
“How did you find me?”
“Time magazine. The bastards. Are you okay? Can I come in?”
“I’m okay,” she lied.
“Uh-huh.” He shut and locked the door, prowled around the living room trying windows, glanced down the hallway of the little bungalow. “You can’t stay here.”
“Why? What do you know?”
“I don’t know anything, if you mean anything definite. But this place is about as secure as a gazebo.” He pronounced it “gays-bo,” and Marianne didn’t correct him. “You work for Stubbins, right? Why didn’t he give you a safer house?”
“I didn’t want a fortress. I don’t use my own name. We thought—Tim, do you really think those people who … that group from Albuquerque will come after me?”
“Well, four of them went to prison. But no, I don’t think they will. Might have trouble getting into Canada, anyway. But there are plenty of other alien-hate groups, even here. NCWAK is getting stronger all the time.
No Contact with Alien Killers. They were the one that had blown up Branson’s partly built spaceship.
Tim said, “You’re outed now and Stubbins ought to take better care of you.”
“I was just going to call him when you showed up.”
“And I’m the first to find you?”
“You are.”
He gave her his old grin, and something turned over in Marianne’s chest. No, God no, not after all this time.
Tim said, “You’re going to hire me for your bodyguard again. Or Stubbins is. I see the old son of a bitch brought out another perfume. Makes you want to like strangers.”
“Not exactly. But Tim, about the bodyguard issue—I don’t think—”
“You got any coffee, Marianne? I could use some coffee. I been driving up here fast and furious.”
Her cell rang: Stubbins. At the same time, a TV van pulled into the driveway. Instantly Tim was at the window, pulling the blinds closed, checking his holster.
“Marianne?” Stubbins said on the phone. “I just saw this damn article, and somebody’s head is going to roll ’cause I didn’t know about it before now. Looks like we need to move you again. And I think a bodyguard would be a good idea.”
Marianne closed her eyes. “Let’s talk about it, Jonah. But first, there’s something else I want you to do.”
“What’s that?”
She glanced at Tim. He was pulling open cupboards in the kitchenette, presumably looking for coffee, but Marianne knew he heard every word.
She said into the phone, “It isn’t just me who was named in that article. I want you to put a bodyguard on Harrison Rice, too. He won’t allow it, but you can get one to just sort of follow him around, right? He not only worked with the Denebs right up till the end, but he’s working now at Columbia on the hearing impairment in children. That’s a double reason for…” For what? Would someone really harm Harrison because he was trying to understand what had happened to a generation of kids? No. She was being paranoid. People’s thinking wasn’t that twisted.
“Yeah,” Stubbins said. “Good thinking.”
Tim smiled at her. “You got sugar someplace?”
* * *
Stubbins was efficient. Within two hours a woman arrived at Marianne’s door, high heels clicking up the walk past the two TV vans and two Internet reporters camped on the sidewalk. The woman, who did not offer her name and who had the bloodless demeanor of a robot, delivered papers and instructions. She made a phone call to Stubbins about Tim, then nodded at Marianne. “You can keep him.”
Tim gave the woman his lazy, hyper-charged grin. She did not seem affected. She said, “One hour to pack, Dr. Jenner,” and clicked her way back to her car, ignoring shouted questions from the reporters.
Exactly an hour later, a sleek black car backed into the driveway. Marianne, wearing a large hat that frustrated pictures, raised the garage door and the black car backed in as far as Marianne’s battered Chevy would permit. Tim loaded suitcases into the trunk and they both climbed into the back seat. The windows were opaque and the driver blank-faced. Another man rode beside him.
Tim nodded professional approval. “Stubbins isn’t taking any chances.”
Marianne said nothing. She felt exposed, ridiculous, chagrined at being even more in Stubbins’s debt, raw from other emotions she didn’t want to examine too closely. She didn’t look at Tim.
The reporters didn’t give chase, which meant either they knew they were outclassed or she wasn’t a big enough story. She hoped it was the latter. Tim, who had driven the entire previous night, fell asleep. She remembered that he had always had that ability, and then tried not to remember anything else.
The car deposited them at an apartment building in Toronto. The driver handed Marianne apartment keys to 3B. She said, “Does Jonah Stubbins just keep a whole series of apartments around the world for emergencies like this?” Because it was inconceivable that Stubbins himself lived here, in this respectable but slightly crumbling building from the last century, in this respectable but slightly crumbling neighborhood of a Canadian city. Neither the driver nor the bodyguard answered her. They unloaded the suitcases and drove off.
“Well,” Tim said as he carried in her cases, “home sweet home.”
Marianne set down her laptop case. The apartment, not as big as her abandoned bungalow in Barnesville, had two bedrooms. They opened off a living-dining-kitchen area with a large wall screen. The simple furnishings looked neither old nor brand new, as if the apartment had been put together a few years ago and used occasionally since then. A coffee stain blossomed on the arm of the beige sofa; sheets and blankets were folded neatly on the unmade beds; the few pictures on the wall were generic landscapes. The kitchen cupboards held six plates, six glasses, six cups, six sets of cutlery.
She felt a sudden, unbidden longing for another home—not for her bright little house near the college where she’d taught and researched up until seven years ago, but for the big, messy, noisy house where she had raised Elizabeth and Ryan and Noah. Children’s artwork on the fridge, toys underfoot, SpaghettiOs, cereal boxes with prizes inside.
“What’s wrong, Marianne?” Tim said.
“Nothing.”
“Like hell. Are you scared? You’re safe enough here, you know. That magazine will only be on the stands a week, and for that time I’ll do the shopping and you stay inside and do … whatever it is you do. It’ll be okay.”
“I know.”
“Is it Rice? You worried about him? Are you two still in touch?”
Tim’s gaze was intent; his tone sounded like more than a simple request for information. Marianne said, “We’re not in touch.”
“Uh-huh.”
Her cell rang, saving her from trying to interpret his two maddening syllables. Stubbins again. All their calls went through heavily encrypted satellite links. She answered as Tim turned away to open the fridge, which was empty.
Tim said, “You got a pencil and paper, Marianne? I better make a list. Oh, and money. I hope you got either money or a new credit card, ’cause I don’t.”
Stubbins said, “You arrived all right.” It wasn’t a question. “Now, about that new Internet content you’re writing about my ship…”
* * *
Tim brought back groceries, including two bottles of wine and takeout Thai for dinner. Marianne drank two glasses of pinot noir, trying to calm her jitters, since talking rationally to herself hadn’t worked all that well.
Tim poured her a third glass. “We got to talk.”
“About what?”
“You don’t look at me.”
She was startled that he had noticed.
“Not directly,” he said, “
not ever. Why not? Do you want a different bodyguard?”
Yes.
No.
“Because if looking at me brings back too many memories about Albuquerque and about Sissy, I get that. You can ask Stubbins for somebody else.”
“It isn’t that.” She drank off half the wine.
“Then what is it, Marianne?”
She didn’t answer but did turn her head to look at him directly—See? I can do it? That was a mistake. She couldn’t see her own face, but …
Tim let out a long breath. Of course he would know, he probably already knew, he was nothing if not experienced with women.
He stood up, came around the table, pulled her to her feet and kissed her.
Marianne pulled away. “No, no … we can’t…”
“Why not?” He didn’t let her go. His touch electrified and soothed her, both at once. How long had it been since anyone had touched her? Since Harrison. Two and a half years.
He said, “You carrying a torch for Rice?”
“No.” She wasn’t, not anymore. Banked embers.
“I grieved on Sissy for nearly two years,” Tim said, “and then I hated myself because I stopped. Because I could stop. I thought it meant I was a shallow prick, or hadn’t really loved her. But it don’t mean that, Marianne. It’s just life going on, you know?”
That speech finished her. She hadn’t expected insight from him, or sensitivity—not even sensitivity expressed in clichés. Why not? After all, Sissy had loved him, and Sissy had been nobody’s fool. His scent, masculine and heady, confused her. Still, she made one more try.
“I’m so much older than you—”
Tim laughed. “Who the hell cares?” He kissed her again, and then she was lost completely, drowning in him—no, not drowning, that implied something passive, she was rushing toward him, toward that blue gaze and that long hard body, rushing into the bedroom and the joy that blotted out, for a time anyway, all memory and all regret.
CHAPTER 17
S plus 6 years
For three whole days Daddy didn’t get out of his tall red chair hardly at all, and there was no more milk left or cereal or cheese for sandwiches. Jason and Colin hadn’t had any baths because they weren’t supposed to get in the bathtub without an adult. The upstairs toilet was plugged up but the downstairs one still worked. However, Colin could smell the toilet from his bedroom and he didn’t like it. His bedroom window was too stuck to open. The boys stood in the front hall and discussed all this in whispers.
“I think Daddy’s sick,” Jason said.
“I think he’s mad at us,” Colin said. “He frowns all the time and he won’t talk.”
“If he’s sick,” Jason said, “he should go to a doctor. But if he’s mad, he should say why. It’s not fair.”
Colin nodded. It wasn’t fair. When you were mad at somebody you were supposed to tell them why, using your indoor voice, and then ask what everybody could do to make things better. That’s what Colin’s preschool teacher, Ms. Rydder, said. Colin wished he was back in preschool, but it was still summer. Anyway, he couldn’t go to school until he had a bath.
Jason said, “I told him he should go to the doctor.”
“You did?” Jason was brave. Colin was a little scared of Daddy now. “What did he say?”
“He said, ‘I wanna go home.’”
“But he is home.”
“I know. It doesn’t make sense.”
Colin stood on one foot, but that didn’t help. Outside, a tree said something in the rain, but that didn’t help either.
Jason said, sounding just like Daddy—the old Daddy—“Stop fidgeting, Colin. We have to think what to do!”
Colin tried to think, but nothing came. He said, “Daddy’s talking now.”
They tiptoed into the living room. Daddy sat in his chair, talking quiet but not so quiet that Colin didn’t hear him: “I wanna go home. I wanna go home.” It made Colin feel spooky.
Jason pulled him back into the hall. “Okay,” he said, “I know what to do. We’re going to call Grandma!”
Colin frowned. “Daddy said that Grandma is doing something bad.”
“She’s not. Don’t say that again! Grandma will help us. She’s Daddy’s mommy, and mommies help when people are sick.”
Colin, having no experience with mommies, thought about this. “Okay. But do you know how to do Skype?” Daddy always set up their Skype calls with Grandma and then left the room. Sometimes it seemed to Colin that Daddy didn’t like Grandma. But if she was his mommy … The whole thing was too confusing.
Jason said, “I think I can do Skype. Maybe.”
He could. Colin, watching Jason at the computer, was full of admiration. When Colin was going to real school, he’d be able to do all these things, too.
The computer made the ringing-phone sound. “You did it, Jase!”
“Hello?” Grandma’s voice said, and there she was on the screen. When Colin had been little, he’d thought that Grandma was inside the computer, but now he knew better. She was far away, and very busy, maybe or maybe not doing something bad.
“Hi, Grandma,” Jason said. “Can you see me? Colin is here, too. You have to come to our house. Daddy is acting all weird. I think maybe he’s really sick.”
“And the toilet’s broken,” Colin said, in case Grandma could help with that, too.
Grandma made a sharp, high sound. “Did Daddy fall down? Is he breathing?”
“Yeah, he’s breathing good,” Jason said. “He’s sitting in his red chair. For three days. And he says he has to go home, but he is home. He doesn’t know I’m calling you. Should I call 911?”
A man appeared on the screen behind Grandma. He had really blue eyes. He was buttoning up a shirt. “Jason, I’m Tim, your grandmother’s friend. Are you okay, son? Are you alone in the house?”
“I’m here,” Colin said indignantly.
The man smiled. “So you are. Marianne, where are they?”
“Basville, in New York State. Between Rochester and Syracuse. Ryan moved after Connie died.”
“We can be there in five hours.”
Grandma said, “Don’t go out of the house, Jason, Colin. We’re coming as fast as we can, okay?”
“Okay,” Jason said. “What color is your car?”
The man smiled. “Blue.”
“I like blue,” Colin said, so as to not be left out of the conversation.
Grandma said, “Do you have your father’s cell phone?”
“No,” Jason said. “But I can get it from his bedroom.”
“You do that, Jason. Keep it turned on because I’m going to call you a lot. Meanwhile, you boys just sit and watch TV, okay?”
“Yes!” Colin said. Usually they weren’t allowed much TV. Maybe this would be good. Maybe Grandma would get Daddy well again. Maybe Tim would take Jason and Colin to the swamp in his blue car. Maybe everything would be all right.
* * *
Marianne called Jason every twenty minutes on Ryan’s cell, trying to keep the conversation light: “What are you watching on TV?” “Is that a good cartoon?” “What is the Hero of Heroes doing now?”
“They’re fine,” Tim said. He drove expertly along the New York State Thruway, after a too-long delay at the border crossing caused by prolonged computer checks on Tim’s guns. It seemed to Marianne that she’d held her breath for the entire half hour. She didn’t really know much about Tim’s past, nor how the arrest in Albuquerque might have affected his legal status. Of course, the charges had been dropped.…
“Surprised that I’m clean, aren’t you?” Tim said, when they finally drove away from Customs. “You never asked, but you thought I was a dangerous criminal with a long rap sheet.”
“I don’t know what you are,” Marianne said tartly.
“Sure you do.” He reached out and gave her shoulder a caressing squeeze.
How did this happen? Every day that she and Tim had been lovers, the situation had struck her as preposterous. He was seventeen
years her junior; his most intellectual activity was computer games; she didn’t love him. Nor did he love her. But nearly every night they reached for each other, her hunger fueled by long abstinence and his by, she suspected, sheer animal hypermasculinity. They gave each other considerable sensual pleasure. She had stopped worrying what he thought of her aging body. This, she knew, was helped by the surreptitious survey all women make of each other; she looked younger than her age.
And they were considerate of each other, which also helped. They stayed away from subjects that might hurt: her children, his past, Sissy, Harrison. Albuquerque. Conversation was light, and if it didn’t satisfy Marianne, she never said so. Nor did he. They were careful, and tender. None of which made the situation any less preposterous.
Her cell rang. Stubbins, agitated enough to forget to shed his down-home persona, said, “What the hell do y’all think you’re doing? You back in the States?”
“My son is in trouble, Jonah. I’m going to him.”
“What kind of trouble? You got Saunders with you?”
“Yes. Ryan—”
“If it ain’t one thing with you, it’s some other fucking thing! You need another lawyer?”
“No. Maybe. I don’t know yet. I’ll call you later.” She hung up and put the phone on silent. To Tim she said, “How did he know?”
Tim threw her an amused glance. “Your cell. Plus a tracker on my car and probably bugs in the house. You think Stubbins doesn’t know where you are every minute? He doesn’t want any more scandal anywhere near his spaceship.”
“Then he shouldn’t have hired me in the first place!”
“A complicated man, you told me once. This our exit?”
The house sat at the end of a country road, not far from the Reardon Wetlands Preserve. It seemed that even jobless, Ryan could not let go of his obsession with purple loosestrife. Or with aliens.
Ryan, did you— But she would never ask that.
She had a sudden piercing image of him as a small boy, her quiet and secretive middle child, looking from Elizabeth to Noah as the two shouted at each other about something or other. His fair hair, now darkened to shit brown, was always falling into his eyes. But when Ryan thought he was right, the gravitational pull of a black hole couldn’t move him.