by Ramy Vance
Martha leaned back in her chair and tapped her fingernails against the table. The fountain burbled in the background, and somewhere the goat bleated. Webber swept near them, caught in the same gesture of wiping out the inside of a glass, although there was nothing in either of his hands. She started in on the story. “You know, they used to be a happy little family. Marshall and Carolyn were in love.”
“I can’t imagine Marshall in love. Or happy, for that matter.”
“He was. He was quite the romantic. He’d bring her flowers and leave her little love notes.”
“Marshall left love notes?”
“Well, they were Marshall love notes. They weren’t terribly creative but sweet in his way. ‘Roses are red; violets are blue…’ You know, that kind of stuff. He’d hold car doors for her, and they were so cute together.”
“What was Carolyn like?”
Martha quieted and stared into the conservatory. Her enduring memory of Carolyn all these years was of her standing in the kitchen, pulling out a pan of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies from the oven. At the time, she and Rueben were kids.
Rueben didn’t have much of a sense of humor on his own, so this one time in the kitchen he was trying to figure out what made things funny. So he made up goofy little jokes based on ones he’d read online. He kept a little running list of them. He’d told her his latest joke, and it was funny in his little way, and Carolyn had burst out laughing and nearly dropped the pan.
He’d seemed surprised at her reaction. “Was that really funny, Mom?”
“That was actually funny, Rueben. You did good on that one.”
Martha smiled at how tender their little relationship had been. What could have ever made her turn her back on her family and run away? Carolyn had always been such a homey, kind soul.
Martha turned back to Aki. “She laughed a lot and loved to bake cookies. She and Rueben were really close.”
“Then what happened?”
“Fifteen years ago. Thorne. The ‘incident.’ After that, she left. No explanation, nothing. No one has seen or heard from her since. That is, until tonight.”
“Damn, that’s cold.”
“Yep. That’s not even the worst of it. Damn near killed Marshall. He fell apart. After the incident, there was a lot of media hype, and he was honored. He got a few cover stories, and someone tried to make a movie out of the whole thing.
“Once that all died down, Marshall just...he just changed. He went from being a sweet little romantic husband to an ogre of a dad. He started drinking all the time, and Rueben kind of became the sane one in the house and took care of him. He was ten years old and started grocery shopping, keeping house, laundry, covering for Marshall when he was drunk.
“Don’t get me wrong, Marshall was and is a good man. But he was really mixed up for a long time. He still is in some ways.”
“Yeah, I see that.”
“One of Marshall’s old cop buddies finally got him to see a doctor, and he was diagnosed with depression among other things. They put him on meds, and he started to balance out. Now he’s much more manageable. He’s still an ogre, but he can get through a day.”
“He loved her.”
“He did. He really did. And Rueben, he’s pretty screwed up about it all, too. He doesn’t show it. He never has. I never once saw him cry about his mom. When we were little, I saw him cry about other things. Like, when his turtle Speedy died, and Rueben cried. He’d picked out the animal at the pet store with his mother. It crushed Rueben after that, but I knew it wasn’t about the turtle. It was about her.
“That was the only time I ever heard or saw him express anything about her leaving. He won’t talk about her. If someone brings her up, he changes the subject or leaves the room. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the Peet apartment doesn’t have any photos of her, and they don’t say her name. They just say…‘her.’ It was like Rueben completely shut that part of himself down afterward.”
Aki rested her palm on her chin and listened. Martha hoped she heard what she was saying.
“You see, Rueben can handle a lot. But being abandoned, he can’t deal with that.”
Aki leaned back in her chair and sipped her drink. “That’s why he stays with Marshall. Because he has abandonment issues.”
Martha nodded. Her point was getting through. “Exactly. Marshall is…Marshall. Rueben stays with him because he knows what it feels like, and he can’t put anyone else through that. He’s like that.”
Aki narrowed her eyes and thoughtfully studied the top of the glass conservatory. She looked like she wanted to say more, but Webber interrupted them. “May I refill your drinks, ladies?”
They both looked down at their drinks and saw that they were almost empty. Martha stirred the strawberry slush in the bottom of her glass. “No, Webber, I think I’ve had enough.”
Aki pushed her glass away. “That’s enough for me, too.”
He grabbed the glasses with quick, jerky movements. “Excellent. Might I suggest a dip in the pool or maybe the jacuzzi? We offer an excellent selection of women’s swimwear designed to fit your unique figures.”
Martha snorted in laughter. Whoever had written Webber’s script wasn’t much of a writer. “Thanks, Webber. I think we’re good.”
Aki turned to Martha. “You sure? I think we’re all stuck here for the night, or at least most of it, anyway. It might do us good to get in the water for a bit and relax. We’ve had a big day.”
Martha shrugged. Aki was right. They couldn’t exactly go back to their houses with all those reporters. At least not right now, anyway. They might as well enjoy their stay here at Casa del Buzz.
Martha sat with Aki in the hot tub and let the warm water massage her joints. God, it felt so good after the week they’d had.
Feeling more relaxed than she had in a while, Martha started telling old cop stories she’d heard. For only having been on the force for over a year now, she had a lot of them. The guys loved to tell them in the break room.
“Then there was the time Tom and some of the other officers went after this guy…a known drug dealer. They’d been trailing him for months. Finally, they had enough on him. He lived in this rundown apartment building. They had a warrant and everything but when they heard a scream from inside—it had been a movie on TV—they burst into his house yelling, guns drawn, and the dude was asleep. Ass-naked.”
Aki winced. “Ah. That’s awful.”
“Yep. He was, like, old and wrinkled, too. Flabby ass.”
Aki groaned and covered her face.
“So they had him at gunpoint, you know, and he’s all yelling, and the cops were all yelling with guns out. And instead of, you know, asking if he can put on some clothes or something like that…the dude’s a runner.”
“Yikes. With his goods all flapping about…”
“Yup.”
Aki squinted.
“Not even just that. This guy… Before he runs, he reaches down and grabs a random pile of clothes off the floor and splits for the patio door. The officers were all yelling at him to stop, and the man does a running start, then he jumps over the second-floor railing.”
“Oh my gosh. Was he okay?”
“I guess. Once he landed, he kept running. And flapping.”
“Ugh.”
“Yeah. So the officers all booked it down the stairs, and by the time they got to the bottom, the guy is racing down the road on his bare feet. And it’s chilly out. The officers were all wearing coats. So, he’s running, and cars are honking, people are yelling. Three officers are chasing down this naked dude through alleys, and he manages to get ahead by cutting through a noodle shop’s back door. All the while, according to witnesses who were eating, he’s trying to put on his clothes and run at the same time.”
“Yikes.” Aki shook her head.
“He knew the area and had a good head start on the officers, but here’s the worst part. The pile of clothes he grabbed was his girlfriend’s, and of course, none of it f
it. Apparently, his girlfriend was young and shopped at those high school boutiques.”
“Ahh…dirty old man.”
“Right. So, when they finally caught him, he’s this middle-aged, hairy naked dude running down the sidewalk wearing a ruffled women’s top all bunched up near his armpits and pink Victoria’s Secret panties halfway up his legs.”
They both laughed hard, and Martha finished. “They had to cut the top off him. He couldn’t get it off.”
“Are you sure it was his girlfriend’s clothes? Or is that just what he said?”
Martha winced and groaned, and they both laughed.
Then Buzz walked into the pool room. “Oh, hello, ladies. Great idea. Pool party!”
Chapter Four
Tuesday, May 23, 12:30 a.m.
Between the Scotch and the emotional roller coaster and the late hour, Rueben was exhausted. He met Carolyn’s eyes. “Before you tell me any more, I think we should go find the others. Get them caught up too.”
Carolyn nodded. “That’s good thinking. I’d love to get to know them. Here, I mean. I’d love to get to know them here, in this universe.”
Rueben and his friends had recently discovered a barn full of advanced tech sent out into the universes by a Buzz from another world, so Carolyn’s reveal that she was from another one wasn’t that big a shock. Still, Rueben couldn’t believe he was only finding out about it now. And she was Pete’s mom as well as his? Oh well, with an inter-dimensional emergency on their doorstep, emotional turmoil could wait.
He pulled out his phone. “This mansion is huge. There’s no telling where they are.” He called Martha, then Aki, but neither of them answered their phones. “I guess I’ll have to give you the tour.”
“I’ve been in several versions of this place. They’re usually quite similar. Maybe I can—”
He gulped. “Well, I’ve been here a lot too, but I’ve only been to a handful of rooms. Buzz has a lot of…secrets.” He knew she was only trying to help him out, but after all this time apart, her words felt overbearing. Man, living with Marshall had made him such a dick at times.
“Some things are very consistent between the universes,” she mused. “You spend a lot of time with Buzz?”
“Yep, mostly here lately.”
She pointed up the stairs. “Is the theater on the second floor?”
Rueben nodded.
“Maybe we could try there?”
They climbed the marble steps to the second floor, their footsteps echoing all the way. Rueben and Carolyn reached the carpeted hallway, and he briefly filled her in on his relationship with Buzz. “I found out about my time warp power a few months ago, on Valentine’s Day to be exact. There was a microwave bomb that took out half the people in New York City, and I died for the first time.”
Her face turned serious for a moment. Then she laughed. “The first time’s always the hardest.”
“You’re telling me. Scared the shit out of me. Thought I was losing my mind. Buzz was the only person I could think of who might be able to explain it to me. He knows a lot about science.”
She winked. “I know.”
She took in the plush carpeted hallway and the bronze busts of famous scientists standing at every few feet. She stopped at a full-size rendering of Albert Einstein. “It’s always a mystery to me how science makes this much money.”
“When you’re as smart as Buzz, it pays.”
“In my universe, it was video game tech.”
“Hm, same here,” Rueben said.
“I figured.” Carolyn stared at the Einstein statue and nodded slowly. “And knowing what I know about Buzz, I can see why you’d turn to him for help.”
Rueben dug his hands into his pockets. “Yeah. The funny thing is, he believed me almost right away. We’ve spent a lot more time together over the last few months. We brought Martha into our little crew because we needed to stop the microwave bomb from detonating, and she had some useful information and a killer cop instinct. Also, her déjà vu helped us. I guess she’s kind of like Organic Jim and Thorne but on a much lesser scale. She’s not crazy.”
Carolyn nodded. “Trying to understand our warping ability can certainly make a person’s head spin.”
Rueben chuckled. “When we were dealing with Pete, Buzz created a list of rules regarding time warping. ‘Buzz’s Rules for Repeaters.’” He paused when Carolyn gave him a curious look. “After you tell us your story, I have a feeling we’ll have to add some more rules.”
They approached the ornate oak doors leading into the theater. The doorknobs were dual bronze carvings of roaring lions.
He opened the theater. Martha and Aki weren’t in there, but Carolyn was in awe of the room. Even he couldn’t blame her. He couldn’t help but marvel every time he stepped inside. Red velvet curtains. Plush seats. Gold carvings on the walls. Ultra-modern track lights on the ceiling.
She stared up at the massive screen. “Wow. I’d love to see something in here.”
Rueben laughed. “Yeah, well, all Buzz ever watches in here are science documentaries. And not even the interesting ones. The really bad ones that only professionals would even understand, let alone appreciate.”
She laughed, and they headed back downstairs.
Rueben told her, “If they’re not in the theater, it’s possible they’re in the pool room, decompressing. We did have a long day.”
They took the stairs down, back toward the living room, and down several halls toward the indoor pool room.
“So, Aki,” Carolyn said. “You two?”
Rueben shuddered. His mom had just come back into his life, and he wasn’t comfortable having the “Who are you dating?” talk.
“I can tell you care about her. She cares about you too.”
“How can you tell?” The words fell out of his mouth.
Carolyn gave a motherly smile. “It’s obvious by the way she touches your arm. I saw when I first approached the two of you outside the U.N. building. She must have thought I was another crazy reporter at first.”
“Oh.” It felt good to have some confirmation that Aki was still into him. Although not nearly as bad as Buzz, Rueben wasn’t the best at reading the opposite sex and at times wondered why Aki was still hanging around a computer geek like him regardless of him being a “mysterious and badass” Repeater.
“How did you meet her? Work?”
Rueben nodded. “I…uh needed her professional help with stopping the bomb. Then our work relationship kinda turned into a, um, personal relationship.”
She must have sensed his reticence, because she didn’t comment further on it. Instead, she changed the subject. “What do you do for the government? Here. On this world, I mean.”
“It’s not the same in all the universes?”
Carolyn shook her head. “In one world, you’re the head of the CIA. That timeline was a bit farther along in years though. In another, you were a field agent and your best friend was Mike—”
“Don’t say it.”
“Fury.”
“Argh. I used to hate that guy. He’s okay now though. I guess.”
“Ahh, then you must be in the CIA’s IT department.”
“Yeah, how did you know?”
“In most worlds, you’re in the IT department, and you hate Fury. In a lot of the other worlds, you two get along quite nicely. Whatever did he do to deserve your ire?”
He smirked and delivered a line he’d always wanted to. “If I tell you, I’d have to kill you.”
She shrugged. “Go ahead, fine by me.”
They chuckled at the inside Repeater joke. Rueben was surprised by how good it felt to be laughing with his mom, even at a time like this. When he glanced up, he saw that they’d reached the pool room entrance. From the other side came the muted sound of rock music. After a curious glance at Carolyn, he opened the door.
The pool room was a large circular room with high glassed walls and colored lights. The floor above it contained an observatory, and Buzz had a
ll sorts of telescopes up there. Tonight, Martha, Aki, and Buzz were all in the water. Rueben had never known that Buzz had a great sound system installed in here. Right now, the volume was high and pumped out party rock as the three of them sat in the warm water, beers everywhere.
Rueben yelled over the music, “Hey, Buzz. I didn’t hear you get in.”
Buzz lounged against the side of the hot tub with his scrawny arms draped over the rim, reminding Rueben of Ferris Bueller. He sipped from a beer bottle, and Rueben wanted to laugh at the image of Party Buzz.
“I just got here. Came in through the back. Had to put the surviving Binnies back in their rooms.”
“Where’s Zach?”
Buzz winked. “He went home with a busty reporter. Him and Mike Fury both. The lucky bastards. It was my plan on the rooftop that prevented the worst of the devastation those drones could’ve caused. But did the reporters want to hear about me? Oh no. All they were interested in were boobs and muscle. People are stupid.”
They all laughed at that and consoled Buzz’s ego. Buzz seemed happy for the praise and waved Rueben and Carolyn closer to the pool. “Get in. The water’s fine. We saved the world, and we should be celebrating, damn it.”
They all cheered, and Buzz continued, “We can also toast to the return of Carolyn Peet.” He made a face. “That is unless you plan on bailing again.”
Carolyn shifted uncomfortably on her feet, and Martha and Aki stared at a clueless Buzz. Aki snapped her fingers at him. “Hey, shut up.”
Carolyn laughed awkwardly. “No. It’s okay. I deserved that.”
Rueben held up a palm. “Guys. I know we’ve had a hell of a day. But Carolyn has some important stuff to say.” When his friends didn’t visibly react, Rueben added, “About Pete.”
They all stiffened. Buzz’s beer tipped out of his hand and spilled into the water like urine.
Rueben cleared his throat as Martha and Aki climbed out. “Can we kill the music?”
Buzz reluctantly shut off the music and climbed out after the girls.
Rueben tossed his buddy a beach towel sitting off to the side. “You all might need another drink. This is going to be a lot to take in.”
