by Rachel Ford
“Seats here are hard to get,” Ger explained in answer to our confusion. “Especially on the veranda.”
“Ah.”
A smiling waitress approached, dressed in a crisp uniform. “Good afternoon! Is your party ready to begin, or would you like some time?”
“We’re ready,” Frank said.
“Excellent. I’ll let the chef know.”
Once she left, he explained, “Kudarian restaurants are not like human ones. There’s no menu. Here, you eat what the chef has prepared.”
“What if you don’t like it?”
He shrugged. “You wait until the next course.”
“Oh. How many courses are there?”
“As many as you can eat.”
“You tell the waitstaff when to stop,” F’riya added.
“You mean, they just keep bringing food until you tell them to stop?”
She nodded, and I whistled. “Wow. I’m pretty sure that was my dream restaurant as a kid. Only it served ice cream instead of actual food.”
Frank laughed, but the other Kudarians seemed puzzled. “Ice cream?” Ger wondered.
By time we’d conveyed some idea of sweet, icy, creamy dairy-based concoction, our first course arrived. It was a hot, savory soup, thick and dark. We ate hungrily, greedily, in silence for a few minutes. It was a good soup, and our appetites were great. Having learned my lesson the night before, I slurped along with the best of them.
As our spoons began to scrape the bottom of our bowls, our pace slackened. “So,” Frank asked his sister, “have you guys decided when you’re going to tell mother and father?”
She shook her head. “Not yet.”
“I don’t understand,” Maggie put in. “Forgive me, it’s not my business – and you can tell me to shove off if you like, and I won’t take offense.” She smiled. “But why would your parents object? I mean, they want grandkids, right?”
Ger fidgeted at the question, and F’riya shrugged. “Yes, but…my parents are very traditional.”
F’rok snorted at the word, and I had to work hard to check a smirk. I didn’t want anyone misunderstanding my expression.
“An Inkaya,” Ger explained, “is expected to marry better than a Britya.”
“Still, what’s done is done. I mean, what can they do?”
“A lot, actually,” Frank put in with a sigh. “They can cut F’riya out of the family.”
I blinked. “They can?”
“Yes. That would mean her child would not be an Inkaya. But it’s not just that. If they disown her, it will close many doors in Kriar.”
“Not just to me,” F’riya said. “But to Ger and his family too.”
“They wouldn’t do that, though. Would they?”
“They might.”
“But they accepted you marrying a human, Frank,” I protested. “Surely a ‘traditional’ outlook would object more to a human than a less-well-off Kudarian?”
“It’s different for me,” he said. “I’m the oldest. I’m the heir to House Inkaya.”
“A second child, a daughter, has less leeway,” F’riya added.
“Well,” F’rok declared resolutely, “if they disown F’riya, they’ll lose a son as well as their daughter.”
Ger laughed a touch sardonically. “Losing me will be incentive more than deterrent, F’rok.”
“I didn’t mean you, Ger, although that’s true as well. I meant me.”
We all looked up at him now. The young man shrugged, embarrassed by the attention. “If they’re going to kick you out for loving the wrong man, well, that’s no family I’m going to be a part of.”
F’riya flushed, reaching a hand across the table to take her younger brother’s. “You have no idea how much that means to me, F’rok. But you can’t. You could lose your place at university.”
He shrugged. “I don’t care. You’re my sister, and I’d rather lose that than you. So let them choose: sacrifice a little pride, or lose two of their children.”
“Three,” Frank declared, putting a hand on each of his siblings’ arms. “We’re a package deal. They’ll keep all the Inkayas, or they’ll get none of them.”
Tears welled in F’riya’s eyes, and F’rok smiled proudly at his elder brother. Frank fixed them both with an affectionate gaze. I felt simultaneously deeply touched and deeply out of place to be witnessing this.
“The Three Musketeers,” F’rok declared in a minute, his voice uneven.
“The what?” F’riya asked, blinking away the moisture in her eyes.
“It’s a story,” Frank said. “From Earth, about human friends who would stand by each other no matter what.”
“Oh.”
“What was their motto? ‘One for all, and all for one.’”
Frank grinned. “Seems about right, doesn’t it?” F’riya nodded through tears, and he squeezed her arm. “One for all, and all for one, sis.”
F’rok nodded, repeating, “One for all, and all for one.”
“One for all,” F’riya said, her cheeks wet and puffy but her eyes sparkling with happiness, “and all for one.”
Chapter Nineteen
After an incredible lunch, we split up. F’rok had to visit a friend from his university. Maggie and I decided to hit the city’s shopping center. After assuring our hosts that we would be fine on our own, they relented. Frank, F’riya and Ger would spend the time catching up.
I was thrilled to have Maggie to myself at last. The Inkaya children were very progressive, but a fake marriage seemed like more than enough to throw at them at one time. How would they take a lesbian romance? We didn’t know, and it didn’t seem worth the risk to find out.
So we kept the loving looks and affectionate touches to a minimum. Now, at last, though, I was able to wrap an arm around her. “God, I’ve missed that.”
“What?”
“Being able to hug you.”
She laughed. “Me too. You have no idea how many times I’ve had to stop myself from touching you this morning alone.”
“I don’t know how I’m going to survive the rest of this trip,” I sighed.
She grinned impishly at me. “Well, it was your idea to come here.”
“Oh hush,” I said, nudging her. “It wasn’t my idea to fake a relationship.”
“No,” she agreed. “That’s squarely on me.”
“Yes it is.”
“But that was a public service, more than anything. I mean, think of all the food they already prepared. It would have gone to waste.”
“Very thoughtful.”
“Exactly. And all the guests they had coming? Think how silly they would have looked without an engagement to announce.”
“You’re a real Mother Teresa.”
“True, true.” Her eyes were twinkling, but then she sobered a little. “But, in all seriousness – other than the not being able to kiss you or hug you or touch you thing – I am having a really good time.”
I nodded. “Me too. Other than that.”
We laughed again, and walked at a leisurely pace, wrapped in each other’s arms. The market district was a visibly newer section of the city. The buildings glimmered with metal and glass, in distinctly non-Kudarian designs. There were still plenty of perfect angles here, but there were round kiosks and curved surfaces too. I could only imagine the horror this cosmopolitan area would cause men like Akura – or, for that matter, Frank’s parents.
“They’re a good family,” I said abruptly.
“What?”
“Frank and his sister and brother. To stand with each other, like that.”
“They are. It’s ridiculous: forced marriages, prohibited marriages.” She shook her head. “All they’ve done is complicate their kids’ lives. Why not let them live and love who they want?”
“At least they have each other. ‘The Three Musketeers,’ I mean.”
She nodded. “Yeah. Speaking of standing with your family…I reached out to Dave this morning. I offered him a raise if he stayed.”
>
“Oh?”
“I know it’s stupid,” she said, a chagrined smile spreading across her face. “He’s a terrible cook, and we could definitely do better. But…” She shrugged. “He’s been a part of my crew since I had a crew, Kay.”
I nudged her again. “You don’t have to explain, babe. Your crew is your family. And if a little more money is what it takes to end Dave’s temper tantrum, well, so be it.”
She nodded. “It wasn’t. He turned the offer down.”
I squeezed an arm around her. “Sorry to hear it, Mags.”
“I had to try, anyway.”
“And who knows,” I said. “He really is a lousy cook. He might not find another berth.”
The streets we’d traveled so far had been lightly populated, but as we reached the market district the foot traffic picked up. So, I noticed, the stares directed our way. We’d gotten a few sideways glances all morning, but now that we were on our own, without our Kudarian friends, they picked up. So, too, did the curled lips and sneering scowls.
I heard about as many slang terms for human as I did gay that afternoon, each seeming to inspire similar levels of disgust among the speakers. Still, though they were unsettling and too frequent, they comprised the minority of our interactions.
Curious stares filled the larger portion and were, oddly, a relief compared to the more hostile reactions. Scarcer than either other greeting, though, was something that surprised me: affirming nods. They were subtle – just a quick bob of the head here or discrete smile there. But they were powerful, too. They helped push away the darker encounters of the day.
Maggie seemed unfazed by all of it. “You’re new to being queer, babe,” she said when I asked how she managed such detachment. “To knowing you are, anyway.” That was true. I’d always assumed I was straight until I met her, and found myself falling in love with a woman. “I’ve known I was queer my whole life.” She shrugged. “You just get used to it.”
It seemed a sad answer, and the matter-of-fact way she offered it only heightened the sensation. “Oh Mags.”
She smiled at me, a resigned kind of smile. “Not everywhere’s like this, Kay. But it’s part of life: there will be places and people who will go out of their way to let you know they despise you for existing while queer.”
I sighed. “That sucks.”
“Yeah. It does. Luckily, those places and people are fewer and fewer all the time.”
I nodded slowly. “Imagine living here, though.”
“I wouldn’t,” she said. “Then again, I don’t have family and ties here. So it’s easy for me to say.”
We walked in silence through a stall selling perfumes, pausing to smell the fragrances here and there. “Mags?” I said in a minute.
“Yeah?”
“Sorry I insisted we come.”
“Hey.” She glanced me over with a sharp gaze, then reached over and took my hand. “Are you okay?”
I nodded. The comments and stares took me aback. They didn’t feel great, that was for sure. But I’d had a good day and I was with Mags, and that counted for a lot more than their hostility. It was her I was worried about. This wasn’t how she’d wanted to spend her vacation, and I’d been the one to insist. She was listening to those hateful words, subjected to those upturned noses and curled lips, because of me. “Yeah, I’m fine. I just…I didn’t realize how it would be. I’m sorry you have to put up with that.”
She took my other hand, now, in hers and drew me close. Then, slowly, deliberately, she leaned in for a kiss. I was aware of a few stares, but my attention was quickly drawn to her. My pulse raced and my breath caught, and when our lips parted, I was aware of nothing beyond the taste of her lips still lingering on my tongue. “Don’t be sorry, Katherine. I’ve been having a hell of a good time,” she said, her tone low and her eyes warm.
I smiled. “Me too, babe.”
“And I’m glad I came. I don’t give a shit if people decide they don’t like me. But…” She flushed a little. “I care about you being happy. I love you.”
Her tone was earnest, and rich with emotion. It surprised me just how much emotion. “I love you too, Maggie. Thank you for being here with me.”
She held my gaze for a long moment. “Anywhere, Kay: I’d go with you anywhere you asked me to go.”
“Excuse me,” a voice sounded behind us, “but can I just grab one of those?”
Making our apologies, we stood aside, and let a smiling Kudarian matron pass us. She added a bottle of a floral-labeled scent to her bag, then asked, “You are human, aren’t you?”
Maggie cleared her throat, letting one of my hands go. “That’s right.”
“We don’t see many humans in Kriar.”
“I would imagine not,” Mags said dryly, “since we’re not allowed on-planet without a sponsor.”
The sarcasm in her tone was lost on the woman, though, who nodded. “I hadn’t thought of that. You’re probably right.”
“It’s a beautiful city, though,” I said. “We saw the water organ earlier, at Warrior’s Park.”
“Ah.” Her eyes lit up. “It’s magnificent, isn’t it?”
“It is. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“You should check out the one in Kolara,” she said in confidential tones. “Ours is the pride of every Kriarian, of course. But theirs…” She shook her head. “You’ve never heard tones as rich. And it runs a new piece every fifteen minutes. And the selection of music – oh!” She clasped her hands together at the memory. “You’ll never be able to hear another organ the same afterwards.”
We spent some time in conversation with our new friend, whose name we learned was Kaya arn Vulari. Unbidden, she gave us a list of must-see attractions. “Most of them are outside Kriar, I’m afraid.” She shrugged. “It’s a very fine city, but with only a month to spend here? I’m sorry to say, you can do much better than our humble town can offer.”
There was one area, though, that she positively insisted we rely on Kriar. “Kolara might have an organ park that will put ours to shame; the Kressan water gardens make ours look like a muddy little watering hole; and Ukla’s nature preserves shame Kriar’s, it’s true.
“But there’s one thing that Kriar has that no other city on Kudar, and no city on Kulri or Vi’rek for that matter, can top: and that’s our plum cakes.”
“Plum cakes?” I repeated. It seemed a modest accomplishment, beside all that she’d named.
But Kaya nodded firmly. “I would put our plum cakes against any plum cake in the cosmos.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever had a plum cake,” Maggie admitted.
The Kudarian woman’s jaw dropped. “Oh, you poor human. Never?”
“Me either,” I shrugged.
“Oh!” She was genuinely distressed by this. “Your friends haven’t taken you for a plum cake?”
“No.” I hastened to add, lest she read something into Frank’s hosting, “Not yet.”
She shook her head. “Well, that’s unconscionable. You’ve been in Kriar two days now, and not eaten plum cake?” The shaking intensified. “No. We must rectify this. Come with me, ladies: I will take you to Mother Ikyel’s myself.”
“Mother Ikyel’s?”
“Ikyel arn Ikyet’s café, where the finest plum cakes are found in the city famous for having the finest plum cakes on Kudar.”
Chapter Twenty
Our protests that we’d eaten, and rather too much already, were ignored. “Plum cake,” she told us, “can keep for several days. You will sample it.” She grinned. “And – if you can stop eating – take the rest with you. But you cannot go another day without trying it.”
Maggie seemed amused by Kaya’s insistence, and – though eccentric – she struck me as an amiable soul. So it was decided: Mother Ikyel’s it was to be.
Whatever suspicion I might have been harboring that this plum cake obsession existed only in the other woman’s head was quickly laid to rest when we reached the café. Despite it being we
ll past the lunch hour, it was packed with diners.
But the tables held no meals: only mugs of steaming beverages, and plates laden with slices of cake. Kaya found us a table, and said, “Take a seat, Magdalene and Katherine. I will be right back.” Then, she bustled through the packed room to the front of the café, where she spoke to a middle-aged woman.
The conversation apparently went as expected, for she returned with a triumphant smile. “I told her,” she said, plunking into a seat, “that you were visitors from another world. And you had never had plum cake.”
“Ah,” I said. “Was that Mother Ikyel herself?”
She beamed. “It is. She oversees the baking of every cake that is served here, you know.”
“We are in the presence of greatness, then,” Maggie declared. Her tone was seriousness itself, but her eyes sparkled with mischief.
Kaya nodded, though, confiding, “I thank the gods I cannot cook like her. I would weigh a thousand pounds.”
I laughed. “I haven’t stopped eating since I’ve got to your world. At this rate, Kaya, they’re going to have to roll me off the planet on a cart.”
She laughed too. “Tell me about yourself, though, Katherine. You said you were an engineer on a starship. What does that mean?”
For a few minutes, we talked about my job and Maggie’s, about the kinds of things that would occupy an average day onboard the Black Flag. Then a tall, middle-aged woman in a crisp blue uniform approached our table, a tray in hand. On this tray sat a great, plump golden cake drizzled in reddish-purple icing, a pot of steaming liquid, a set of mugs, and a creamer and sugar set. Behind her, a young man in a similar uniform carried a smaller tray, this one set with dishes and a serving utensil for the cake.
Kaya clasped her hands in delight as she set the cake between us. “I am Ikyel arn Ikyet,” she greeted. “It is not often I welcome visitors from other worlds to my café.”
“We’re delighted to be here,” Maggie said, gesturing at Kaya. “We have heard nothing but the highest praise for your cakes, Ikyel.”
Preening, the Kudarian woman bowed. “Please, enjoy this on the house. I have prepared coffee too – which is, I believe, a favorite of your race?” We protested that we wouldn’t think of eating without paying, but she was adamant. “Welcome to Kriar, ladies.”
