by John Varley
I sniffled for a while, and he continued to console me. Not manly? I should have been consoling him, not the other way around.
“You probly wonderin’ ‘bout them words, too,” he said.
“Words?”
“What they call ‘four-letter words.’ Some of ‘em a lot longer than that.”
“Swearwords.”
“That another name for ‘em.” He sighed. “I know words is just words. But I got me a conditional re-flect.”
“Conditioned reflex?”
“What you said. My daddy, if we young ‘uns’d say a cussword, he’d whup us something awful. He had a long list of ‘em. He didn’t even like us to say”—short pause—“darn. Said it was just the same as … damn.” He swallowed hard.
“If we didn’t say them words often enough, he’d say ‘em for us, and whup us while he was sayin’ ‘em. I done some studyin’ on it, Poddy. Say you take a little puppy, and every day you beat him, all the while a-hollerin’ ‘Bullfrog!’ Bullfrog, bullfrog, bullfrog! Whup, whup, whup!” As he said this he pounded the couch we were sitting on.
“Pretty soon you don’t have to hit him, you just holler ‘Bullfrog!’ and that puppy’ll whimper and cry and pee hisself.”
“Jubal, that’s so awful.”
“It is, ain’t it. Poor little puppy.” And I knew he was thinking about that imaginary little puppy, not “hisself.”
“That’s what happened to me, cher. I hear them words, and my bowels clench up, and my heart goes to poundin’, and I break out all sweaty. Sometimes I get plumb sick and I urp up my food.”
I squeezed his hand.
“Jubal … you know they have ways of deconditioning reflexes like that.”
“They do?”
“Honest to … honest Injun. They can help with phobias, too. You’re not the only one. I freak out when I see a bug, and I don’t like open spaces much unless I’m wearing my pressure suit. That last one’s pretty mild, but believe me, if a spider crawled on me, I’d … oh, Jubal, just thinking about it makes my skin crawl.”
“Really? I don’t mind spiders, me.” He was thinking it over, and I thought he was drawing just a bit of confidence at the thought that a “normal” person like me had irrational fears, too. “I might like to look into that, one a these days. I don’t think I’d ever say them words, but it sure would be nice if I could hear ‘em wit’out gettin’ all trembly inside.”
THEN ONE DAY, Travis walked in on us.
No, not “in the act,” but maybe it was the next worst thing.
Jubal and I were sitting side by side on the couch, watching West Side Story. Damn good music and dancing, by the way. I jumped up, smiling, and hurried over to him, intending to give him a big hug … but was stopped cold by the look of shock on his face. For a second I couldn’t figure out what was the matter. Then I did.
Oh, please, Travis!
Jubal was so involved in the movie that he hadn’t noticed Travis’s arrival at first. Now he looked up and got the big, goofy grin he always got when he saw his favorite cousin. He started to get up.
“Podkayne,” Travis said, “could I speak to you in private for a moment?” He grabbed me by the upper arm, quite roughly, and started pulling me toward the kitchen. There wasn’t much I could do about it. He was much stronger than I was.
We burst through the swinging door and Travis whirled us around, standing with his back to the door. Then he hissed:
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
“Get your hand off me, Travis.”
He looked pained, maybe even a little apologetic, and let me go. I steamed for a moment, glaring at him. Nobody manhandles me that way.
“What are you talking about?” I whispered. I couldn’t think of much that would upset Jubal more than an argument between me and Travis.
“What am I talking about? Get some clothes on, Podkayne. You’re stark naked!”
“I will not,” I said. “Don’t saddle me with your stupid Earthie morality, Travis. At home, sometimes my family wears clothes, and sometimes we don’t.”
“This isn’t your home.”
He had me there, but I was stung. When Travis had showed up when I was a child, I’d always felt that our home was his home. He’d seen me running around naked until I was four, then again when I was nine, and when I was fourteen. He’d never seemed bothered by it. I knew what the difference here was, of course, and it was Jubal, and I know I probably should have kept my mouth shut, but it had to come out sooner or later.
So I said, “Besides, Jubal likes seeing me this way. It makes him happy.”
“Jesus Christ, Podkayne, are you fucking him?”
I slapped him so hard I’m surprised I didn’t take skin off his face. He pretty much ignored it.
“So you are fucking him.”
I slapped him again. This one finally seemed to get his attention.
“As you so gently put it,” I growled, “yes, I am fucking him. Or to put it more accurately, he’s fucking me, and doing a damn good job of it.”
He turned so red I thought he was going to hit me. Instead, he turned his face away and spoke softly.
“Jesus Christ, Podkayne, listen to me, do you have any idea what this—”
“No, you listen to me, Travis. I know you love him, and I know you protect him, but I want you to ask yourself this. How long has it been since you’ve given him a chance to … to be something beyond what he’s always been?”
“You don’t have any idea what you’re saying.”
I did, though, because Jubal had confided in me, one night when it was dark in the bedroom, just a single candle, and he was on the verge of sleep … one of those times when you can confide things deeper than you’ve ever revealed before. He told me that sometimes Travis made him feel a little too protected. This was a bit like the Pope saying maybe God was a little too nosy and bossy and interfered too much. The sort of thing you might need a good stiff drink for, before and after. And he didn’t come out and say it in so many words, I had to decode it, because every other sentence was about how much Travis loved him and how much he loved Travis. All true. But one thing I’ve learned is that love can be the dirtiest of all those four-letter words that scare Jubal so much. When it turns to possessiveness. Love can morph into something ingrown, infected, and ugly. That kind of love can smother at best, and kill at worst.
But I knew I couldn’t tell Travis any of that, at least not then. It would betray Jubal’s confidence. No, I knew that I would have to count on Jubal to stand up to what might be his greatest fear: losing Travis. The rest of my life hung in the balance.
“Now,” I said, as calmly as I was able. “I want you to splash some cold water on your cheek and try to get rid of those red marks. We don’t want to upset him. And I’m going to smile, and take you back into the living room, and you and Jubal are going to sit down and visit a spell. He may have some things to say to you.”
He looked at me oddly. I could practically read his mind. This wasn’t the cheerful little Poddy who’d had a crush on him, not the Podkayne he was used to. I felt in control … of him, anyway. And I could read the beginnings of doubt in his eyes. I knew he would do what I told him to do.
If only I could feel more sure Jubal could stand up to him. Travis is a very forceful personality. Was he fair? Would he listen?
We went back into the living room, where Jubal was looking nervous, wringing his hands with a half smile on his face. He knew something was up, and he probably had a pretty good idea what it was. I made myself smile, and I hoped Travis was doing the same.
“If you boys will pardon me,” I said, “I think I’ll go powder my nose, and you guys can catch up on the news.” I went off down the hall, made it to my bedroom door, closed and locked it behind me, then sprinted to the bathroom and lost my breakfast into the toilet. Damn good andouille and cheese omelet, too. What a shame, eggs being as rare as they were these days.
I washed out my mouth and cleaned myself up, then did a fe
w deep-breathing exercises while staring at myself in the mirror. I guess the course of true love never did run smooth, but this was taking a toll. I looked old. What would Jubal do?
I showered and shampooed my hair. I spent an hour on makeup, starting over twice. From the closet I chose a modest white-ribbed turtle-neck and a gray skirt, and plain black flats. I wanted to look as grown-up as possible. I draped a heavy gold chain around my neck, with my Navy Cross hanging from it, and chose a pair of earrings that matched.
I went to the bedroom door. I rested my forehead against it for a moment, then took a deep breath and went back to the living room.
Jubal and Travis were standing at the end of the couch, hugging fiercely, Travis slapping Jubal on the back. I waited, my heart in my throat.
Finally, Travis noticed me and beckoned me over with one hand. As I was walking toward them, Travis broke the embrace and turned toward me. Tears were streaming down his face. He held out his arms, and I came into them. I had to bend down a little as he spoke in my ear.
“Bless you, Poddy, bless you,” he whispered. “I’ve never seen him happier.”
Well, my heart didn’t have anyplace to leap to, being in my throat already, but it did some really fancy gymnastic moves in there and for a minute I wondered if I’d choke. But it tripped a release valve and turned on the waterworks. Travis took my hand and placed it in Jubal’s, gave our clasped hands a pat as I wondered if Jubal was going to crush my fingers, and then he drew back to admire us.
“So,” he said. “Y’all ready to set a date?”
22
JUBAL DIDN’T DARE appear in public at all, even to the extent of coming to Thunder City under heavy security and secrecy. It was just too dangerous. There were too many powerful people with long memories who would like to examine the goose that laid the silver bubbles, and wouldn’t mind if he died in the process. And it was better if I stayed away, too, what with the clamor building over “Jazzie’s Return.”
Oh, yes. While Jubal and I were canoodling, Mike and Tina and Quinn had done a little fiddling with my latest effort, put it out there, and it had immediately shot to the top of the charts. There was clamoring for at least another concert, more if possible, and Tina told me that if I wanted to do a systemwide tour, it was mine for the asking. But she didn’t pressure me in any way, and when I told her that I wouldn’t be ready for anything like that for quite some time, she seemed to understand. Maybe a year from now, she suggested, and I let her think I was agreeable to that. In fact, at the moment at least, I’d rather have died than even think about going on tour again.
Besides, now I had Jubal.
Was “Jazzie’s Return” really that good? I didn’t know. I liked it, and it seemed to have something new to say in this still-rather-mysterious (to me, anyway) new genre of Pod music. But I also realized that my celebrity had reached such heights after the Earth tour that I could have recorded “Ninety-nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall” on a Jews’ harp and it would have shot to the top, too. That happens, and an artist should be aware of it. I woke up to it when I realized I was getting the same huge amount of applause on nights when I was clicking like a Geiger counter as on nights when I was about as sharp as the butt end of a bassoon.
The audience begins to adore you for your reputation, as much as anything. You can do no wrong. My best career move at this point would be to die. Then every snippet I’d ever recorded, outtakes, bootlegs, do-overs, could be marketed as “The Lost Podkayne Sessions.”
What an artist needs most at this point in her career is somebody honest enough to tell her when she stinks.
Anyway, because of that, when Travis issued his invitation a few days after coming back to the Fortress of Sillitude (sorry, Solitude), it was for the “family” to come to him rather than us going back to town.
Travis has two families, and they had always been more or less separate. That’s because his biological family, the Broussard clan, were mostly on Earth, and his adoptive family, the Stricklands, Garcias, and Redmonds, were all on Mars. But that changed after Grumpy, and most of the Broussards were now either Martian citizens or residents. Only a few diehards were still holding out Earthside.
Everybody got an invitation, and it took two buses to bring them all out to the Fortress. It was chaos for a while there, with me being introduced to dozens of Broussards I’d never met before, since practically all of them had arrived on Mars while I was sleeping on Europa. Jubal was in heaven. Though he doesn’t do well in crowds, this crowd consisted of practically all the people in the universe that he cared about. He and I had spent the whole day cooking a massive smorgasbord, or as Jubal put it, “He’p yourself style.” Now he had become quite the social butterfly, and half his conversations were in bayou French, which I gathered he was a lot better at than at English. I resolved to learn it as quickly as possible.
My parents were there, and both sets of grandparents, and Uncle Bill and Aunt Amelia and some of their brood, and Mike and Marlee (still together, my fingers crossed), and Tina and Quinn. Somebody had brought a guitar and somebody else had brought a squeeze box, and I tried my hand at the washtub bass, and soon there was stompin’ and dancin’ and feastin’ fit to beat the Mardi Gras. Laissez les bons temps rouler!
After about an hour Grandma Kelly took me by the arm, gently, and without a word led me down the hall to my bedroom and closed the door behind us. Mom was there, looking worried. She faced me and put her hands on my shoulders.
“I’m not going to be judgmental, baby,” she said. “But please tell me. What’s going on with you and Jubal?”
Well, it was a lot better than “Are you fucking him?”
“Is it that obvious?”
“It might have taken me a bit longer if I only had you to look at, but not a lot longer.”
“The way Jubal looks at you …” Grandma Kelly sighed. “The man always was a bit of a puppy dog. If he was a basset hound, he’d be tripping over his own ears.”
“So what have you done, Poddy?” Mom asked.
“I’ve fallen in love with him, Mom.”
They both looked at me like I was maybe a piece of furniture they were thinking about buying, both of them leaning toward no.
“Have you thought this over?” Mom asked.
“How much thinking can you do when you’re in love, Mom?”
“There’s that,” she said, with a sigh.
“The serious answer is, yes, I have. I know it’s not going to be easy. And you probably think I’m stupid, him being so much older …” I didn’t know where to go from there.
“Not stupid. You’ve never been stupid, Poddy. In fact, sometimes I’ve wondered if you were being too analytical for your own good. Some of those boys in high school were … never mind that. Kelly?”
Grandma Kelly moved into position. What was this, good cop, bad cop?
“Does Travis know about this? He does? What did he say?”
“He was against it. I had to slap him around.”
Grandma didn’t smile back at me.
“Was?”
“Then he talked to Jubal.” That seemed to stop her for a moment. “He doesn’t own Jubal, Grandma. And Jubal stood up to him, for once.”
They looked at each other, and Grandma gestured to Mom, like “She’s your daughter, you’ve got the floor. “
Mom was silent for a while, then nodded.
“It’s not just the age, Poddy. It’s almost like he’s a relative. Hush! I know he’s not, by blood anyway. He’s an old friend of the family.” Did she step a little hard on the word old?
“But he’s only a little older than you now, Mom. And he’s younger than Grandma. I mean, when they met, he was older, but now he’s …” Something was tickling at my brain. Ah, but I was so much older then …
“What Evangeline is saying,” Grandma put in, “is that … well, we all know he wouldn’t hurt you. He’s not capable of it. He’s the sweetest man I have ever known. I admit, I never thought of him as lover material �
��” She shook her head. “What I’m saying, if you hurt him, I will slap you so hard …”
“You’ll have to get in line, Kelly,” Mom said.
“I’d never hurt him,” I swore. “And his sweetness is one of the reasons I fell in love with him.”
“Well, all right, then.” Mom hugged me, and Grandma got into the act, and it was another of those three-way lovefests. I’ll admit, it didn’t touch me as deeply as with Jubal and Travis, my eyes remained dry—I mean, where did they get off, giving me the third degree?—but I knew it was because they loved me, and loved Jubal, and didn’t want either of us to get hurt.
But still. Nosy. I hope I never get that way … but I probably will. The nosy gene was all around me.
Grandma pulled back a little and looked at me, narrow-eyed.
” ‘One of the reasons’?” she asked. “Tell me more, just between us girls.”
I mimed zipping my lips. “Personal, Grandma. I’ll never tell.” She shrugged, and started to turn away. “But he is hung like a stallion, and fucks like a bunny rabbit.”
Two seconds of shocked silence—gotcha!—and then we all three started laughing so loud that Dad knocked on the door and stuck his head in for a second. He took in the scene and wisely decided it was none of his business.
“MY REASON FOR bringing y’all out here—and I do have one, other than drinking …”
You’d never know it to look at us. We are not, by and large, a hard-drinking family, though the various Broussards were demonstrating both a larger capacity and a better ability to hold it than the rest of us.
Jubal never has more than one beer, and Travis, an alcoholic, drinks coffee or ginger ale. But a lot of people were feeling no pain.
“What I’m offering is a Mystery Tour. Any of you who are interested can board my ship, the Second Amendment, in one week’s time—to get your affairs in order—and take off on a ten-day, all-expenses-paid junket to a mystery destination that I guarantee you’ll find interesting.”
“Getting your affairs in order sounds ominous, Travis,” one of the Broussards said. They knew him as well as the rest of us did. There was general laughter. Travis held up his hands, palms out.