by Dan Eaton
“Wow, Myra. Thanks, I feel bad I didn’t get you a present.”
She gave me a knowing smile and said, “That’s okay, it’s not a present. It’s a bribe. A girl’s got to be prepared in case someone’s schedule says they’re busy.”
We both laughed and for the first time in a long time I felt the knot in my stomach ease.
We left the cafeteria and headed for the Viewing room. When we got there, we sat for a while in silence and then Myra cried for a bit. She thanked Jessie for being such a good friend and then apologized to her for being so angry after she had died. Myra reached closure with Jessie and we sat in silence for a while.
Myra gave me a hug and then said, “So how’s dating Nina going?”
“Well, it’s not exactly like I pictured it would be. I thought there’d be more fun and a little less work. I thought it would be a little more of us doing stuff together instead of me doing stuff with Nina.”
“So what’s that mean, are you going to break up with her?”
“No, I do like her. I just wish she’d be a little less intense sometimes,”
Myra laughed and then said, “If Nina wasn’t intense, she wouldn’t be Nina.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right. Hey, what about you and Yang. What’s up with that?”
Myra shrugged and said, “Well, he’s not exactly my boyfriend. The Chinese are much stricter about such things than our parents are. Yang isn’t allowed to have a girlfriend until he’s eighteen. Even then, he says his parents will discourage him from having a serious girlfriend until he’s at least twenty one. We can hang out together at his house or mine as long as it’s chaperoned. I like Yang as a friend. I don’t think it could be anything more. Besides, he’s leaving in two years anyway. Most of the time, I’m actually hanging out with Mai.”
“You mean the two year minimum stay? We all have that. It doesn’t mean his parents can’t stay longer.”
“In this case it does. The UN doesn’t want their monitors getting too cozy with the people they’re monitoring. A new group of monitors will be coming in two years and this group will get sent home.”
We talked for a while longer and then headed home. I noticed Myra insisted on walking me to my door and making sure my parents were home before leaving me. I was sad to see her go because we had talked like the old times and it was fun. Myra would keep her end of the bargain with Yang so there’d be no more contact with Myra until Sam and Christine figured out what was really going on. Wondering what was going on made me think of a more immediate mystery. Where the heck was my girlfriend? It wasn’t like Nina to leave me alone for a whole day, especially Christmas day. Something else had to be going on and I was sure I’d find out eventually.
Mom and Dad walked with me over to Nina’s house. I had called her when I came home from the Viewing Room. She was really happy I called, however, I could tell she was tense also. She didn’t say anything about me seeing Myra . She didn’t say anything at all about it which I thought was kind of strange for Nina. Normally, she wasn’t shy about expressing her displeasure about things. I told her I wanted to see her and had a present for her. She readily agreed to me coming over and Mom and Dad decided to walk with me and exchange Christmas greetings with her parents. When we got there, my parents joined her parents on the patio as they served drinks and Nina gave me a hug and pulled me into their house. She pulled me upstairs to the common room and we sat down together on the small couch.
“Merry Christmas, Bryce. I’m really happy you came by.”
“Merry Christmas to you, too. I got you a little present.”
I had put a lot of thought into Nina’s present. I had set the bar for Nina’s presents high last year when I gave her the replica of Captain Ellie’s Series II blaster that Sandy and I had made. To make things worse, Nina’s birthday was on the twenty-eighth, so I had to have two great presents. I figured out that Nina and I shared a love of science fiction and had spent many hours together comparing notes on the science fiction shows and movies we had watched. Naturally, we’d watched most of the same stuff, yet every now and then we’d come across a gem the other one of us hadn’t seen. About a month ago, I had discovered that Nina had never watched an old show called Orphan Black. My dad had watched it when he was younger and then shared it with me. It was about a group of woman who discovered they were all clones. It wasn’t a space opera like Captain Ellie, although I thought it was very good and Nina would enjoy it.
In the first season, a fish shaped knife played a role in the story. I had talked it over with Sandy and he had helped me build a replica of the knife. In addition to being a replica, the knife’s handle pulled apart to reveal a memory stick. I had put all five seasons of the show on the stick so Nina and I could watch them together. I pulled out the present and handed it to her. I watched as she opened the present and pulled out the knife. Nina loves weapons of all sorts so she wasn’t shocked at receiving a knife, however, she was puzzled by this one. Some knives in movies or shows are beautiful works of art, this one wasn’t.
She looked at me and said, “What’s the story?”
“We were talking a month ago and you had mentioned you’d never seen Orphan Black.”
I took the knife from her and showed her how the handle pulled open to reveal the memory stick.
“The knife is a feature in the first season and I put all five seasons of the show on the stick. I thought we could watch them together.”
I must have got it right. Nina looked at the knife, and then at me, and the next thing I knew she was hugging and fiercely kissing me. When we came up for air, she pulled back and said, “Thank you Bryce. It’s perfect. I’d love to spend time with you watching this.”
Despite the occasional kisses, Nina isn’t the most affectionate girl in the world. Her last kiss knocked my socks off and I was wondering if any more were in store for me. Before I could find out, her mom called up from the door and asked Nina to come down and show my parents what she had gotten for Christmas. We went back downstairs and joined our parents on the patio. Nina trotted out the outfits and other things she was given. She saved showing the knife for last. Finally, she pulled out the knife, and she was all smiles as she showed it to my parents and hers. I had shown it to Mom and Dad before I wrapped it so they knew the story. Nina’s parents were perplexed over why she was so delighted over this rather plain knife. She opened up the handle and showed them the memory stick while telling them about the contents. I don’t know if they really got it or not, however, I had clearly made Nina happy and that was enough for them.
We stayed for another hour out there on the patio. Willie’s parents lived next door and they came over and joined the party. Willie wasn’t there because he had to work. I was actually glad of that because it would have been awkward with Willie not exactly believing that I didn’t have anything to do with either of the vandalism incidents. It’s hard on a friendship when something like that stands between you.
I was sitting there with Nina when she suddenly jumped up and said, “Oh shoot, I almost forgot your present,” and ran off into the house.
When she came back, she was lugging a large wrapped box and sat it down on my lap.
“Merry Christmas, Bryce. We’re going to have fun with this.” I opened the box while everyone was watching and inside I found a hard foam helmet, sparring gloves, and shin guards. Except for a mouth guard, it was everything I needed to safely spar with Nina at the mix martial arts self defense classes Nina had me attending now. Nina held a Black Belt in Tae Kwon-do, but the Moon’s lower gravity favored the grappling arts more. Getting down on a foam mat and wrestling with your girlfriend might sound like fun, yet the reality is Nina was an expert in placing locks on my various joints and I didn’t find desperately trying to prevent my face from being ground into the mat a lot of fun.
I could tell from the way Nina’s eyes were shining that she really wanted me to like the present so I put a big smile on my face and said, “Thank you,” while giving he
r a hug.
The self defense training had been Nina’s idea, although Sam had fully approved of it. They had this idea I could be in a fight without fighting back and still not get hurt. I had my doubts about the whole thing. It made Nina happy so I went along with it. Willie’s mom, Bea Stephenson came over and asked Nina if she could see her knife. Bea had watched the show when she was younger and had been a fan back then. That saved me from having to talk to Nina about sparring. My parents decided to call it a night and came over to collect me not too long after that. Nina gave me a hug goodbye and we headed on home. It had been a good day. I got to talk to Myra, Nina loved her present, Nina’s kiss still had me buzzing, and maybe not best of all yet pretty good at this point in the day, was I got to sleep in tomorrow since it was Sunday and Ananyu got the pleasure of getting up at five thirty in the morning to go loping with Nina.
The next few days went by in a blur and suddenly we were celebrating Nina’s birthday. Her birthday present had consumed a lot of my thought processes for the last two months. I knew that getting her one gift for both Christmas and her birthday just wasn’t going to go over well. I thought the knife with the Orphan Black episodes made a great Christmas present. I didn’t want to do another movie/tv show prop for her birthday. I had the bright idea of asking Ananyu for help, however, the only suggestion she had, was coming up with something original on my own would mean a lot to Nina. Duh, Ananyu, duh. If I could do that I wouldn’t be asking you for advice. I was getting desperate after that and ended up asking my mom.
“You don’t want to get her anything too fancy. I have an idea, for something unique, why don’t you go talk to Marisa Daniels. She’s still setting up her side business and I’m sure she may have something inexpensive that would make a nice present for Nina.”
I contacted Mrs.’s Daniels the next day and told her what I was looking for. She suggested a bracelet made with garnet stones. She had me come by and look at the stones and a couple of weeks later I picked up the finished bracelet.
When I asked about paying her, she just said, “You just tell everyone where you got the bracelet and we’ll just call it even. I’m really grateful that your mom told me about this opportunity to open my own business. Good or bad, you are someone who gets noticed in this place and if you give a girl a bracelet I designed, others are going to want them to. Consider this advertising for my business. “
I thanked her for being so generous and got the heck out of there before she changed her mind.
I walked over to the cafeteria with my parents that evening. Nina had a lot of friends and admirers so it was going to be a big party. As Ananyu’s best friend, Chef Patel held Nina in high regard, so he sent several trays of goodies to the party to help the celebration along. I made a beeline for the goodies when we got there. I was still full from dinner, yet when Chef Patel makes something, it’s worth eating. Nina and her parents hadn’t arrived yet so I just spent my time wandering around saying hi to the people that would talk to me. Ananyu came in and talked with me while we waited for Nina which made me feel more comfortable being in the crowd of not always friendly people. Nina came in with her parents and immediately came over and grabbed me. I was her arm candy for the rest of the evening as she made her way around the crowd saying hello to everyone.
The party had been going on for a bit when her mom asked for everyone’s help in singing Happy Birthday to Nina. With that over, it was time for her to open presents. Mine was the smallest box there, although when she opened it and took out the bracelet, I could tell she was really happy with it. She gave me a quick kiss and everybody laughed.
She stood there blushing as she was hugging me and saying, “Thank you, Bryce. It’s lovely.”
I put the bracelet on her wrist and the five red stones connected by a silver chain circled her wrist perfectly. For a while, I was pushed back by all of the women in the place coming by to admire the bracelet and I had to agree with Mrs. Daniels thinking that this was good advertising for her business. I’m sure she’d be getting a lot of customers within the next week.
When the party was over, I got to walk Nina home. We even held hands and for once I felt like she wanted to do it to have contact with me and not because she was staking a claim on me. She was very happy, clearly the bracelet had been a hit with her. When we reached her house, she gave me a kiss goodnight that really made me wish my parents weren’t discreetly waiting for me to walk with them the rest of the way home.
Nina gave me a final hug and said, “Sweet dreams, Bryce. I’ll see you in the morning at five thirty.”
It was a completely glorious end to the day, well, except for that whole five thirty in the morning thing. Even with that it was still pretty good.
He was tired. Work was just dragging on today. He’d had the nightmare again last night and couldn’t get back to sleep. His brain had turned again to the Chinese problem. No one but him and Bryce seemed to understand the threat. Even Bryce’s mom had caved in and gave great jobs to those brats of the Chinese. He’d heard rumors that Bryce and his mom were fighting because of it, but Bryce was just a kid and couldn’t do anything about it. Bryce couldn’t, but he could.
He’d hacked into Bryce’s mom’s CDB Farms account and had been going through her schedule when he found a perfect opportunity. The brats were being given a test to see if they could work on their own. They were supposed to reset a group of beds to grow the next crop. All the notes were there about what they had to do. Cheryl Burns expertise was in figuring out how to grow things in the light lunar gravity. Buddy saw how to make sure the plots the Chinese kids worked on would all fail and best of all, no one would suspect a thing until it was far too late.
I had breakfast in the cafeteria with Nina after we had loped the Grand this morning. It gave me an excuse to avoid an awkward breakfast with Mom and Dad, since Mom and I still hadn’t made up from the last argument. We were just about done when I heard Dad’s voice say, “Hey, look, there’s the kids. Let’s go join them.”
I turn around to see my mom and dad making their way towards us with their full trays.
Dad said, “Good morning Nina, Bryce. Mind if we join you?”
Without waiting for an answer, he plopped down next to Nina and starting to demolish his stack of pancakes.
Mom sat down next to me and said, “Morning Nina. Are you all set for tonight’s New Year’s Eve party?”
Nina gave my mom a surprised look and said, “Bryce and I aren’t going tonight. He doesn’t want to risk a run in with Yang. I thought you knew?”
I knew I was in trouble as soon as she said it. My Mom took a minute to collect her thoughts and then said, “Bryce, is what Nina is saying true? You aren’t going to the party because of Yang?”
I said, “Mom—” and that was all I got out before she said, “Listen to me Bryce. My son is not a criminal that needs to hide in the shadows. You will go to the party and have a great time with Nina. I don’t want to hear anymore of these excuses about Yang. Yang will behave himself and you will too.”
I didn’t want to have another argument with my mom in front of God and everybody else so I just said, “Yes, ma’am. Nina, we’d better be going. I’ve got stuff to do.”
With that, we left. I think Nina was secretly relieved we were now going to the party even though I was still dreading it. If I had thought it through, I would have realized that the party was a perfect time for Nina to show off the bracelet I had given her for her birthday. As it was, I was dreading what might happen with Yang and really wishing we had come back from breakfast earlier so my mom wouldn’t have found out we weren’t going until after the party.
Nina gave me a kiss when we parted and said to pick her up at seven. She had her usual long list of things to do today. I was lucky that almost all of the new harvest was in and the plots were reset. Myra, Adam, and the Yangs, would finish up the work today while I got to spend time with Sandy. There was so much going on these days between Mussconny Machine and Mussconny Fabricati
on that days went by without me seeing Sandy. Sandy had been wanting to teach me welding for a while and had set aside time in his busy schedule to start training me on that today. I was really looking forward to it, in part, because I enjoyed learning new skills, on the other hand, the other part of me was just grateful for a distraction to keep me from thinking about the upcoming party.
I picked Nina up at seven like she asked and she looked great. She had her long blond hair down and it cascaded over the bright blue dress she was wearing. Sitting on her wrist was the bracelet with garnet stones. The stones seemed to glow a fiery red against the blue backdrop of her dress. We walked to the cafeteria with her parents and munched on the goodies Chef Patel had set out. We wandered and talked with people and after a while I realized I was actually having a good time. Yang was sitting with his mother and sister while his father was making the rounds talking to people.
Around nine, they started playing music and people started dancing. Nina and I hit the dance floor and I forgot all about my troubles. Here I was, dancing with the dream girl who had been beyond my reach for so long and now the look she was giving me was saying there was no place, but in my arms, she’d rather be. I would have been happy with just dancing with Nina all night, however, Ananyu wasn’t having any of that. For the next dance, Ananyu spirited me away from Nina and Nina just laughed about it. The two of them took turns for the rest of the evening and then, surprising me, Nina didn’t freak out when, Meadow asked me for a dance. I was very happy because Nina apparently had finally reached a place where she was okay with another girl besides Ananyu dancing with her boyfriend. I was also happy to be sharing a dance with Meadow. She was one of the few kids in the younger class that didn’t believe all the nasty things people had said about me and I was very grateful to her.
It all came to an end so quickly. Nina and I were dancing again when someone got too boisterous and bumped into me. Nina and I went flying into a table and I ended up crashing onto the floor. I started laughing the thing off, yet a quiet grew over the crowd and as I looked up at who had crashed into us, I realized it had been Yang. He started walking towards me with hatred flaring in his eyes. Nina was back up off the table and as soon as she saw what was going on, moved in between me and Yang. He had been dancing with his sister Mei and turned to her and said something about me always hiding behind my bitch. That just set me off and I started to walk over to him when Mr. Zhang came up and grabbed Yang and pulled him away.