Isaac Asimov's SF-Lite

by Gardner R. Dozois

  “Lou, you’re getting silly—”

  “Perfectly intact, no holes in it.” She pushed the lining back down again. “Now. I’m going to drop the ring into this pocket.” She did so and held the pocket open. “Look. Look down inside and make sure the ring is still there.”

  Tony sighed.

  “Do it or you’ll never believe me.”

  He looked and nodded. “I see it.”

  “Fine.” She folded her hands on her knees. “Now we wait.”

  “For what?”

  “For the ring to disappear. I think it takes me a little longer with precious metals than with ordinary objects.” She tilted her head thoughtfully. “I must have a lot of trouble vanishing precious gems. You gave me those earrings three months ago at least.”

  “Lou, this is insane.”

  She arched her eyebrows at him. “Is it?”

  “Yes, it is. There’s no such thing as real magic. And if there were, you wouldn’t be able to perform it by accident. Magic requires a lot of ritual.”

  “If there’s no such thing, how would you know that?”

  “I’ve read about magic, just like anyone else has. Including you, it would seem. Except I never heard you mention any of this stuff before.” He frowned at her suspiciously. “Did you ever fool around with witchcraft?”

  “I don’t know anything about witchcraft. That’s probably part of my problem. If I did study up on it, maybe I could find out what I was doing or saying and stop it.” Lou wet her lips. “I never said anything before because it sounds as crazy to me as it does to you. For a long time I never considered such a thing. But all my life I’ve been a loser. Literally. I don’t know how I got through school. I had to pull all-nighters constantly to do papers. If I didn’t, I’d have too much time in which to lose them. I wrote my Master’s thesis in a week and even then I lost it three times. If I hadn’t kept copies with all my friends, I’d probably still be trying to write it.” She gave a small laugh. “When I went to work, I really had to learn how to think fast. I used the multiple copy device from college, but even so, an awful lot of important contracts were, ah, lost in the mail. The day I got a secretary was the best day of my life. I just dumped everything with her and called for things as I needed them. Now I’ve got a whole battalion of assistants, and I do just fine. Except with the office supplies. I’ve taken to buying my own at a stationery store. It’s expensive, but it’s easier than trying to explain how I can go through all those paper clips, rubber bands, manila envelopes, and pens so quickly.”

  Tony stared at her, his mouth partially open.

  “If that doesn’t sound like magic to you, then what in hell would you call it?” she asked plaintively. He didn’t answer. “You can look in my pocket now. I'm sure your ring is gone.”

  He looked. She kept her face averted as he stood bent over her pocket, transfixed. He made her stand up and patted her down the way cops frisked suspects on television. He felt around on the bed and on the floor underneath, crawling back and forth, digging his fingers into the nap. He took off her shoes and shook them out, peered into her mouth, ran his fingers through her hair.

  “Satisfied?” she asked when he finally plumped down on the bed, holding his ringless left hand up in front of his face.

  “I don’t believe it,” he murmured, “but I believe it.”

  “Wonderful. Now let’s go celebrate my thirtieth birthday. Thirty years of losses probably totaling in the hundreds of thousands, including a hundred-dollar wedding ring and a pair of earrings worth over two grand.” She laughed bitterly. “Happy birthday to me.”

  It was a quiet ride to the restaurant.

  “Maybe it’s swearing,” Tony said to her suddenly over their third cocktail.

  She nearly spat her daiquiri out onto the table. “Maybe what's swearing?”

  “Your vanishing act. Your making things disappear.”

  At the next table, a man glanced up from his menu at them and then looked down again. Lou speared a fried mushroom from the appetizer dish and chewed it sullenly. “What are you talking about?”

  Tony leaned over the table, blinking at her. He’d been drinking Black Russians, and she couldn’t really blame him. “You said it was magic, a curse on you, right? Maybe it is. Literally. Maybe every time you curse, you lose something.” He tried to stab a mushroom for himself, missed, and tried again.

  “That’s the dumbest thing I ever heard.”

  Tony switched his attention from mushrooms to black olives with success. “Listen to that,” he said to the olive on the end of the plastic pick he was holding. “She tells me there’s a magic curse on her, and when I make a suggestion as to what’s causing it, she says it’s dumb.” He popped the olive into his mouth and gave her a dirty look.

  “Before you put all that alcohol in your system, you thought it was all pretty dumb.”

  “Of course it’s dumb.” Tony took a sip of his Black Russian. “I’m drunk. And well I should be. Today my wife disposed of a pair of diamond earrings and my wedding ring. Right now everything else sounds reasonable.”

  Lou sighed, rested her elbow on the table, and plunked her chin in her hand. “All right. But just what made you come up with the idea that my swearing would make things disappear?”

  “I made the association. Curse—cursing—swearing. Simple as that.”

  “There’s only one thing wrong with that theory, bright guy. I didn’t curse when your ring disappeared.”

  Tony’s chin lifted abruptly. “Yes, you did. You said ‘hell.’ ”

  “I didn’t.” Lou frowned. “Did I?”

  “Yep. You said something about how if your losing things wasn’t magic, what the hell was it? Or something like that.” He looked around for the waitress and signalled for two more drinks.

  “I guess I did.” Lou rubbed the side of her face. “I don’t really remember. I’m a little toasted myself. Wish the food would come.”

  “We’re lucky you didn’t say, ‘Wish the goddam food would come.’ God knows what you’d lose now.”

  “It still doesn’t work, Tone.”

  “And why not?”

  “Because I must have cursed hundreds of times during the three months I had the earrings.”

  “Regular little potty-mouth, aren’t you? So?”

  “Well, I didn’t lose them till tonight, dear” she said with exaggerated patience. “Do you see what I mean?”

  “Ah.” He nodded, grimacing at the appetizer plate. “Ah. ” He pointed a finger at her. “But maybe conditions weren’t right.”

  “Conditions?”

  The waitress came and set down two more glasses, picking up the empty ones. “It shouldn’t be much longer,” she told them. “Chicken Cordon Bleu takes a little time to do right.” Neither of them paid any attention to her.

  “Remember what you said when you did the magic act in the bedroom?” Tony asked. “How I had to give you something I really cared about?”

  The waitress gave Lou a strange look before she walked away.

  “I cared about my earrings,” Lou said huffily. “They weren’t just trinkets, for Chr—”

  Tony put up his hand. “Restrain yourself. I may not have this right, but let’s not take any chances, okay?”

  Lou looked up at the ceiling. When she looked down, she found the man at the next table was staring at her again. She wrinkled her nose at him. “Okay, okay. But I still cared about my earrings.”

  “Sure. In a distracted way. Tonight, though, you really wanted to wear them. So you went looking for them and as soon as you did, you started worrying because you know you always lose things. The pressure was building up, you probably said something like ‘hell,’ and—” He popped his cheek with his finger. “Gone without a trace. Just like my ring, which was as important to you as it was to me.”

  Lou sat perfectly still. “I said, ‘damn it.’ ”

  Tony’s eyes widened. “Oh. You did?”

  She nodded.

  “Uh-hu
h.” He tapped his fingers on the table. “You know, I still didn’t quite believe it. I mean, I was just talking. One absurdity’s as good as another absurdity. Now I’m getting nervous.” He took a large drink from his glass. “And sober. But not for long, I hope.”

  Lou sipped at her own drink without tasting it. “That isn’t going to help me figure out how to beat this thing.”

  Tony shrugged. “Try watching your mouth?”

  “It would be better if I could find a way to get un-cursed. I don’t want to be a sorceress. I’ve been making things disappear all my life, ever since I was a little girl—”

  “Sneaking little curses under your breath, no doubt.”

  “No. No” Lou rapped her knuckles on the table. “Now that I do know. I was a very clean little kid. The worst thing I ever said was ‘Oh, my God.’ ”

  “Which is technically swearing.”

  “It is?”

  “Taking You-Know-Who’s name in vain. That’s swearing. Cursing.”

  “Oh, G—great.”

  Tony brightened. “Hey. Maybe we can figure a way to bring things back.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah. Now that we’ve figured out how you’re losing things, maybe we can dope out some way you can reverse the spell and find them again.”

  The waitress came with their meals, setting the plates down in front of them slowly, in case there was any more interesting talk about magic acts in the bedroom. When there wasn’t, she left. Lou picked up her knife and fork and began sawing at her chicken.

  “I don’t think so,” she said. “Tonight was the first time I’d done anything like I did with your ring. I was always too terrified that it would work. Which it did. It took me thirty years to get to that point. I’ll probably be sixty before I stumble over a reversing spell. And I don’t think there is one.”

  “There has to be,” Tony said around a mouthful of red snapper. “Magic is symmetrical. Yin and yang, all that.”

  “You’re talking about the magic you’ve come across in books. Popular culture stuff and covens in California. What we’re dealing with is magic that works. That stuff doesn’t.”

  Tony dragged his head from side to side. “If it works one way, it’s got to work the other. Even magic—real magic— must have laws, just like nature. Hell, you’re even governed by one of them. Action: swear. Reaction: disappearance.”

  The light buzz Lou had been feeling was beginning to wear off as her stomach filled. “All right. That sounds reasonable, about as reasonable as it can sound, considering. H— heck.”

  Tony winced. “That was close.”

  “I thought there had to be conditions.”

  “Don’t tempt fate.”

  “This is peachy,” she said sourly. “I can spend my life either losing things or sounding like Little Mary Sunshine. What the—What is this, anyway? I didn’t ask to be a sorceress.”

  “Relax.” Tony patted her hand clumsily. “Cheer up. I helped you find out why you always lost things. I bet I can help you find them again.” Much to her dismay, he signalled for another drink.

  By the time they were ready to leave, Tony was nearly in a stupor. She managed to get him to walk from the restaurant to where the car was parked but there was no question of his driving. “Thanks a lot, Tone,” she muttered as she buckled him into the passenger seat. “My birthday and you get bombed. Thanks a bundle.”

  His eyes opened to slits and he smiled at her sleepily. “You’re welcome. Happy birthday.” Then he was out again, really out. She slammed the car door and stalked around to the driver’s side, not very steady herself. She hated driving when she’d had even just one drink, but she’d always been able to hold her alcohol better than Tony. Still, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen him so drunk.

  Not that she wouldn’t have liked to be smashed herself, she thought, keeping to an even twenty-five miles per hour all the way home. She had more reason for it than Tony did certainly. She glanced at his limp form, drooping like a rag in the shoulder harness, and felt a little surge of anger. Here she was, an unwilling sorceress in the middle of a modern American city with a power that could do her absolutely no good at all, and when she needed his help, what did he do? Got drunk and passed out.

  She clamped her lips together. Don’t say it, she told herself. Don’t say it or you’re sure to vanish the house keys, because in a few more blocks they’re what you’re going to want most.

  She maintained control, not even allowing a sigh to escape her until she drove the car into the garage attached to their house. If Tony had been not indisposed, he would have insisted on backing the car in so he could just drive out the next day, but she wasn’t about to attempt such a thing. Tony could just back out of the driveway for a change. It wouldn’t kill him.

  She got out of the car and went to unlock the door to the kitchen, fumbling with the keys in the dark. She flipped the garage light switch and found to her great annoyance the bulb was burned out. Now she’d have to practically carry Tony inside in the dark. Sighing, she unlocked the door and began feeling her way around to Tony’s side of the car.

  “Tony? Tony, we’re home.” She heard a faint answering moan. He was going to be righteously sick in the morning. “Tony, wake up so I can get you in—” Her foot hit something hard with an alarming clatter and she lost her balance, falling sideways onto the hood of the car. “Oh, goddammit!” she yelled, struggling to push herself upright.

  Then she froze, leaning on the car, realizing what she had said.

  “Tony! Tony!” She pushed herself around the front of the car, banging her knee on the bumper. “Tony, I said it! I slipped and said ‘goddam’, Tony, quick, wake up, we’ve got to find out what I lost this time. The house keys—”

  She yanked the car door open. The flash of the dome light hurt her eyes, and for several seconds she could only stand blinking at the empty front seat.

  “Oh, dam,” she said miserably. “Oh, goshdam it all to blazes.”

  The front seat stayed empty.

  ADO

  Connie Willis

  “Ado ” was purchased by Gardner Dozois, and appeared in the January 1988 issue of Asimov’s, with an illustration by Laura Lakey. It is one of a long sequence of memorable stories by Connie Willis that have appeared in Asimov’s under four different editors over the last decade, since her first Asimov’s sale to George Scithers— stories that have made her one of the most popular writers that Asimov’s has ever published, and a mainstay of the magazine. In 1982 she won two Nebula Awards, one for her superb novelette “Fire Watch, ” and one for her poignant short story “A Letter from the Clearys” (both Asimov’s stories); a few months later, “Fire Watch” went on to win her a Hugo Award as well. In 1989, her powerful novella “The Last of the Winnebagoes” (another Asimov’s story) won both the Nebula and the Hugo, and she won another Nebula last year for her novelette “At the Rialto. ” Her books include the novels Water Witch and Light Raid, written in collaboration with Cynthia Felice, Fire Watch, a collection of her short fiction, and the outstanding Lincoln’s Dreams, her first solo novel. Just released is a major new solo novel, Doomsday Book, and a new collection is coming up. Willis lives in Greeley, Colorado, with her family.

  In the story that follows, she delivers a stinging, razor-edged satire about the future of education—one that is, alas, all too likely to come true. . . .

  * * *

  The Monday before spring break I told my English lit class we were going to do Shakespeare. The weather in Colorado is usually wretched this time of year. We get all the snow the ski resorts needed in December, use up our scheduled snow days, and end up going an extra week in June. The forecast on the Today show hadn’t predicted any snow ’til Saturday, but with luck it would arrive sooner.

  My announcement generated a lot of excitement. Paula dived for her corder and rewound it to make sure she’d gotten my every word, Edwin Sumner looked smug, and Delilah snatched up her books and stomped out, slamming the door
so hard it woke Rick up. I passed out the release/refusal slips and told them they had to have them back in by Wednesday. I gave one to Sharon to give Delilah. “Shakespeare is considered one of our greatest writers, possibly the greatest,” I said for the benefit of Paula’s corder. “On Wednesday I will be talking about Shakespeare’s life, and on Thursday and Friday we will be reading his work.”

  Wendy raised her hand. “Are we going to read all the plays?”

  I sometimes wonder where Wendy has been the last few years—certainly not in this school, possibly not in this universe. “What we’re studying hasn’t been decided yet,” I said. “The principal and I are meeting tomorrow.”

  “It had better be one of the tragedies,” Edwin said darkly—

  ***

  By lunch the news was all over school. “Good luck,” Greg Jefferson the biology teacher said in the teachers’ lounge. “I just got done doing evolution.”

  “Is it really that time of year again?” Karen Miller said. She teaches American lit across the hall. “I’m not even up to the Civil War yet.”

  “It’s that time of year again,” I said. “Can you take my class during your free period tomorrow? I’ve got to meet with Harrows.” '

  “I can take them all morning. Just have your kids come into my room tomorrow. We’re doing ‘Thanatopsis.’ Another thirty kids won’t matter.”

  “ ‘Thanatopsis’?” I said, impressed. “The whole thing?”

  “All but lines ten and sixty-eight. It’s a terrible poem, you know. I don’t think anybody understands it well enough to protest. And I’m not telling anybody what the title means.”

  “Cheer up,” Greg said. “Maybe we’ll have a blizzard.”

  ***

  Tuesday was clear, with a forecast of temps in the sixties. Delilah was outside the school when I got there, wearing a red Seniors Against Devil Worship in the Schools T-shirt and shorts. She was carrying a picket sign that said, “Shakespeare is Satan’s Spokesman.” Shakespeare and Satan were both misspelled.

  “We’re not starting Shakespeare till tomorrow,” I told her. “There’s no reason for you not to be in class. Ms. Miller is teaching ‘Thanatopsis.’ ”