“It was quite a revelation for me to realize that underneath all that mechamorph bravado, there was a sensitive human being, full of real dreams and real fears,” said Claudia. “Deep down I knew it all along. But look at all the happiness I lost with him just because I wasn’t able to say what was in my heart. I just hope that you won’t let the same thing happen to you, Lisa.”
Lisa polished off the last sip of wine and set her glass on the table, staring at it absently. Rick had never pulled half the stunts Roy had; she at least had that to be thankful for. But in some ways her problems with Rick ran even deeper than Claudia and Roy’s: Their arguments centered on issues like … competition and control … and Minmei! Roy had stepped out from behind his mask, but Rick Hunter didn’t wear a mask.
The ball remained in Lisa’s court, and even now, after all these hours of wine and honest conversation, she still didn’t know how to play it.
While Lisa was visiting Claudia’s past, Rick was running through his own. He recalled his first exchange with Lisa, when he had called her “an old sourpuss,” and their first meeting after he had embarrassed himself in a lingerie shop. Then there were the countless arguments, most of them over the com net, related to procedure and such. Their capture and interrogation on Breetai’s flagship. That first kiss … The decoration that followed their escape, the complex crosscurrents that developed after Lynn-Kyle entered the scene. The time Lisa had visited him in the hospital—after inadvertently shooting him down. Roy’s death, and how she had tried to comfort him … Ben’s death on that horrible afternoon over Ontario … The final battle that brought them all together, the way they ran into each other’s arms after he had touched down near Alaska Base, thinking themselves the last survivors of their race. And the two long years of Reconstruction following that fateful day. He and Lisa as a team: planning, supervising, rebuilding. She would come over to his quarters for a late-night snack or just hang out and read while he was off somewhere on patrol—often clean up the mess he invariably left behind. And that day not long ago when she had presented him with pictures of hers to add to his album …
For the first time he felt as though he were seeing the whole progression of their friendship clearly. And isolated from its various backdrops—Minmei, Kyle, the war without end, Reconstruction blues—their relationship suddenly leapt out as the most significant one in his life. What leapt out with equal clarity was that he had been an absolute fool!
How, he asked himself now, could he have run that lame number on Vanessa—just to hurt Lisa?! He realized that his stubborn refusal to believe that Lisa was in love with him was all wrapped up in the Minmei dreams he himself perpetuated. Lisa represented a threat to those dreams, much as Minmei was a threat to Lisa’s dreams. Dawn’s harsh words were crystal clear, and so were Rick’s thoughts: He jumped out of bed feeling as though he had slept for a month, refreshed and revitalized, with one purpose in mind—to find Lisa.
He grabbed an umbrella and ran through the rain to her place, but she wasn’t there. He tried a spot in town she frequented; no one had seen her. He phoned headquarters, and the SDF-2 duty chief told him that Lisa had signed out hours ago … That left only one more possibility.
He deposited another token in the pay phone and tapped in the numbers as rapidly as he could.
“You’re kidding,” Lisa slurred when Claudia informed her that Rick was on the phone.
“He called from across the street.” Claudia smiled, recradling the handset.
“You’re serious.”
“You bet I am.” Claudia picked up Fokker’s picture and regarded it. “Now I wanna have a drink with this fella,” she said. “So don’t plan on hanging around here with your friend.”
Lisa was suddenly flustered. “What’ll I say?”
“What’ll you say? If you don’t know by now, then we’ve wasted the whole evening.”
In a moment Rick was pounding on the door, and Claudia was handing Lisa yet another box of tea. “Your Prince Charming is here. Now, go on, and take this with you—it’s a great little icebreaker.”
They walked silently, shoulder to shoulder beneath Rick’s umbrella. Lisa was carrying on a running dialogue with herself, and by the looks of it, Rick was too. After all they had been through together, tonight had all the uneasiness of a first date. Something as yet unspoken had altered the way they reacted to each other.
“Uh, you aren’t going to be too cold, are you?” Rick asked her.
“Oh, no … Are you?”
Rick suggested they call a cab, even though it was only a few blocks to either of their quarters—and that was the general idea, wasn’t it! She smiled and said that she enjoyed walking.
Rick agreed: Yeah, it felt good to walk.
“I walk a lot at night,” said Lisa.
“That’s great—it’s terrific exercise.”
Finally, when she couldn’t stand the small talk anymore, she said: “Rick. We’ve got to talk.”
They were at the corner nearest his place. Rick gestured. “We could go to my quarters, but I don’t have anything to offer you—er, wine or …”
She produced the package of tea. “I’ve got just the thing.”
Rick smiled. “You’re a lifesaver,” he told her.
CHAPTER
SIXTEEN
First and foremost we must accept who we are; only then can we gain a clear view of our motives. How well I recall being one of the important people, and how well I recall the effect that illusory self-image had on my decisions and motivations. Fallen from grace, I was rescued from what might otherwise have been a transparent existence. Unimportant, I learned to know myself. This forms the basis for the following lesson.
Jan Morris, Solar Seeds, Galactic Guardians
November 2012 came and went, Thanksgiving for those who remembered it—not in remembrance of the pilgrims, though, but in memory of the feast held two years before, when the SDF-1 returned to its devastated homeworld and founded New Macross. Wild flowers covered the western slopes of the Rockies, and blue skies had become an everyday event. The cities had been peaceful, and there was no further sign of Khyron. Minmei was back on tour.
Rick and Lisa had been seeing a lot of each other. This morning she was in the small kitchen of her quarters, humming to herself while preparing sandwiches and snacks for the picnic she and Rick had planned. On routine patrol only days ago, he had discovered an ideal spot in the nearby forest. Lisa was in high spirits. She had a map of the area spread out on the table. It seemed like months since she had taken personal leave and years since she had done anything like this. And she owed at least some of her happiness to Claudia for getting her to be more honest with Rick; she had told him how special he was, and surprise of surprises, he had said he felt the same way toward her.
In his own quarters a few blocks away, Rick was getting himself ready. Lisa had said she wanted to take care of the food; all he had to do was show up on time. He was certain he could handle that much. It was strange to be out of uniform, almost frightening to contemplate a return to normalcy, days and days of uninterrupted peace. And that very sense of discomfort made him ask himself how similar the human and Zentraedi races had become: in their own way grown dependent on war.
The phone rang while he was shaving. He turned off the razor and went to answer it, figuring it was Lisa trying to hurry him along.
“I’m almost ready,” he said into the handset, not bothering to ask who was on the line. “I’ll be there—”
“Hi there, it’s me!”
Suddenly uncertain, Rick looked at the phone.
“It’s Minmei!”
“Oh, Minmei!” he answered, perking up. “Where’ve you been?”
“All over the place,” she said dismissively. “Where are you now?”
Rick looked at the phone again. “Home.”
Minmei laughed. “Oops, I completely forgot! I called to thank you … for saving me and … Kyle. I mean it.”
“You don’t have to than
k me, Minmei,” Rick said plainly.
After a moment she asked him if he was free for the day. Rick hemmed and hawed but didn’t mention the picnic. She was hoping that he could make it over to Monument City—she had a few hours free before tonight’s concert.
“I kinda made plans already.”
“Oh, please, Rick,” she purred. “I’m only here for today, and I’m sure whoever you’re going to meet won’t mind.”
Rick thought back to his conversation with Lisa, how he’d asked her to cancel whatever plans she had made so they could get together for the picnic. He looked at his watch and wondered what sort of last-minute excuse he could come up with. Sickness? A new war?
“Pleease …” she repeated.
“Uh, I guess it’s okay,” he said, relenting. “It’s not every day that I get to spend time with you.”
“It’ll be fun,” Minmei said excitedly. “You can see your friend any time, right?”
“Yeah …”
“Great! I’ll be waiting for you at the airport. And dress up,” she told him.
An old school chum showed up, Rick thought, replacing the handset. Somebody who just wandered in from the wastelands. Quickly he punched up Lisa’s number, but of course she had already left; more than likely she was already at the Seciele coffee shop waiting for him. Better to say nothing, he decided at last. Just not show up at all.
There are a hundred reasons why this is a good idea, Rick said to himself as he dropped his fanjet in for a landing on Monument’s new strip, not the least of which was the chance to put his little craft through some paces—it had been months since he’d taken it out. And of course it was good for his relationship with Lisa: putting his feelings for Minmei to rest and such. But “sudden business in Monument City” was what he planned to tell Lisa; he promised himself that he would take her on two picnics to make up for this.
He cut quite the dashing figure in his new gray jumpsuit as he jumped from the cockpit. He had changed from denim and flannel to his one and only suit and was wearing it underneath, a black scarf tied around his neck.
“I’m over here, Rick!” Minmei waved from behind the chain-link fence. “How’ve you been, flyboy?”
He approached her, smiling. She was wearing a tight-fitting sweater and skirt, heels, a large red hat that matched her belt, and big round tinted glasses.
“I don’t think I would have recognized you,” he confessed.
She laughed. “That’s the point, silly.”
Rick got out of the jumpsuit and stowed it in his carry case, while she ran to the gate, coming around to his side of the fence.
In a moment they were walking arm in arm, not saying much to each other. Rick felt uncomfortable in his button-down shirt and tie but tried not to convey it.
“Listen, Rick,” Minmei said at last, biting her lower lip. “I’m sorry to drag you away from your appointment. I hope he wasn’t mad at you, whoever he was.”
Rick cleared his throat. “Uh no, he wasn’t mad … I rescheduled my appointment with him …” Minmei pressed herself against him, her hand caressing his arm. People were checking them out as they strolled by. “Aren’t you worried that someone might recognize you … and me, and, er …”
“I’m never worried with you,” Minmei sighed. She turned him around and reached for the knot in his tie, adjusting it. “I’ve never seen you in a suit before. You’re very handsome—you look important.”
Important? he asked himself. He remembered how good it felt to be in denim and flannel—strange but good. And here he was in a suit, wandering around Monument City with a star on his arm, looking important, and receiving compliments left and right. What did Minmei have in mind? he wondered. Lisa had wanted to picnic and hike.
Minmei had rented a vehicle for them to use. Rick climbed behind the wheel and followed her directions into the city. Monument was about the closest thing Macross had to a sister city. It had been founded by Zentraedi once under Breetai’s command, who had rallied around the crashed warship towering out of its lake the way humans had around Lake Gloval’s similarly situated SDF-1. Monument had spearheaded the separatist movement and had recently been the first to be granted autonomy from the Macross Council.
She sensed that she might have done something wrong, but she had only been trying to show him how she felt about him. If flattery wasn’t going to work, she had hopes that the restaurant she was leading them to would do it: beautiful view, great food, soft music … It was probably more suited to quiet dinners than early lunches, but it had been difficult enough to block out even a few midmorning hours from her busy schedule. And there were only so many excuses she could come up with to convince Kyle that she needed private time.
Chez Mann was an anachronism, a sumptuously decorated theater restaurant with window walls, crystal chandeliers, and tuxedoed waiters, which, for all its pretensions, ended up looking like an airport cafeteria. An arrogant maître d’ showed them not to the secluded table Minmei requested but to a deserted-looking one along the window wall, while a lifeless pianist noodled his way soullessly through an old standard.
“Do you like it?” Minmei said when they were seated. “My producer has a friend who’s part owner. Movie stars come in here all the time,” she continued, pressing her point.
Rick regarded her quizzically. Minmei seemed incapable of accepting the present state of the world. Movie stars: There weren’t more than a handful of entertainers left on the entire planet, let alone in Monument City! In fact, if anything, the notion of entertainment was reverting back to much earlier forms of story telling and what amounted to religious drama and reenactments.
“Who cares about movie stars?” Rick said harshly.
Minmei smiled at him. “Well, I’m a movie star, and you like me.”
“I liked you before you were a star, Minmei.”
Her first reaction was to tell him: I’ve always been a star. Miffed, she said: “You mean you don’t like me just because I happen to be famous?”
“I like you,” he reassured her, but she had already turned her attention to something else. Rick glanced down at his watch and thought again about Lisa. When he looked up, Minmei was sliding a present toward him.
“Just my way of saying thank you, Rick.”
He didn’t want to accept it. It wasn’t, after all, like he’d done her some sort of favor. But she insisted, claiming that she had looked all over for something special. Finally, he shrugged and opened the wrapping; inside was a winter scarf of handwoven alpaca wool, as rare as hen’s teeth these days.
He put it around his neck and thanked her. “I’ll think of you whenever I wear it.”
“It looks good with that suit,” she commented, hoping the nervousness she felt wasn’t visible. It was so important to her that he understand how she felt.
“Makes me feel like Errol Flynn,” Rick joked, striking a pose.
She laughed. “All you need is a sword.”
Minmei wanted to reach out and take his hand, but just then the waiter appeared with cocktails and set them on the table. The moment spoiled, she looked across to Rick and said: “Why do waiters always seem to serve people at precisely the wrong time?”
The waiter, a long-haired would-be actor with a pencil-thin mustache who had had a bad morning, returned: “And why is it that movie stars always seem to find something to complain about?”
Rick stifled a laugh, happy to see Minmei taken to task. But it hardly fazed her. He joined her in a toast to “better times” and began to feel suddenly at ease. They began to talk about the old times—for the two of them, a period of scarcely four years. To Rick it felt like yesterday, but Minmei seemed to think those times a million years ago.
“Some things time can’t change,” Rick said cryptically.
She nodded. “I know. Sometimes I think my feelings haven’t changed at all.”
It was an equally vague sort of response, and Rick, recalling Minmei’s feelings, wasn’t sure he wanted things to return to yester
year. He decided to be straightforward—the way Lisa had been with him recently—just to see where it would lead.
“I still think about you, Minmei,” he began. “Sometimes at night, I—”
There was some sort of commotion at the door; the maître d’ was shouting, insisting that the man who had shoved his way past him was required to wear a tie before entering. The longhaired man turned out to be Lynn-Kyle.
Both Rick and Minmei had turned their attention to the scene; now they were staring at each other blankly. Minmei took Rick’s hand, squeezing it, her eyes brimming with tears.
“Please Rick, you’ve got to promise me: Whatever he does, whatever he says, you won’t interfere.”
“But—” he started to protest.
“Promise me!”
Rick’s lips became a thin line, and he nodded silently.
In a moment Kyle was standing over Minmei.
“I’ve been looking all over for you,” he said, controlled but obviously angered. “You knew I scheduled a press conference. Come on, we’re leaving.”
He made a move toward her, but she refused to budge.
“Don’t be obstinate, Minmei! Do you realize the strings I had to pull to get those reporters out here today?!”
Rick held himself in check, the scarf still around his neck; Kyle hadn’t bothered to acknowledge him. Rick guessed he was still sore about having had to be rescued. The dirt bag. Still, this was business, and maybe Kyle had a right to be angry. He decided to help Minmei out by offering to leave. But instead, she put him right in the middle of things.
“We don’t have to leave—I’m not going!”
Now Kyle grabbed her by the wrist. “Oh yes you are!”
“Get your hands off!” she retaliated. “You’re hurting me, you bully! Who do you think you are, anyway?!”
Doomsday: The Macross Saga Page 50