Robin’s arms shot high into the air. “Truly marvelous!”
“Yes, it is, mam,” Aart said agreeably. He straightened himself up with some effort, held out the champagne. He poured a glass for himself. “For the back pain, mam.”
“We’re not there yet, of course, but we’re getting there.”
“In hopes you’ll realize how full of yourself you are one day, mam,” Aart said, poured himself another glass and downed it.
“Just think, up until now it’s been enough just to get anyone to alert us to how utterly impossible any of us are.”
“Enough, she says.” He poured and drank another glass. Aart observed her gesturing, and thought, This could well be confused for an aerobics class.
“We could go a lifetime before getting the shattering news about ourselves. And then what was one to do but cobble together some new life strategy that made us more flexible, more able to cope.”
“Speak for yourself,” he said. He poured and drank another glass.”
“If we did this every few years, we were doing well.”
“Yeah, you’re right. I deserve another drink.” He poured and drank another glass of champagne.
“Now, we’ll be doing it constantly. Many fine adjustments versus a few big ones.”
“Many fine adjustments, mam,” Aart said. He poured and drank another glass. “I couldn’t agree more.”
“And, of course,” Robin exclaimed, “you see here why the age of the ninety-nine percent versus the one percent is behind us and the age of greater egalitarianism is before us.”
“I’m admittedly not seeing things as clearly as I was a few drinks ago, mam.”
“In the past, all this intel was used to control other people, was well-guarded information, because it conferred advantage. You never told people to their faces what you were thinking of them, or let the information leak out, because that just empowered them at your expense.”
“Makes perfect sense, mam. You pompous ass,” he said. He poured another drink and swilled it.
“And all those control games in the end just makes everyone stuck like flies in a web. Those who control others will themselves be controlled.”
“Brilliant, mam. Permit me to toast your genius!” he said, and slammed down another glass of champagne.
“The only way any of us gets anywhere, anymore, is to take all those brilliant insights into one another and confront the person with them, give them to the one person they could do any good.”
“Maybe I’m the one who’s full of myself. Can’t see why I should give a shit about how the rest of the world is doing. Maybe another drink’ll help me make the connection.” Aart downed another glass of champagne.
“After all, only by empowering one another to be everything we can be can we create a world where there is truly no more than six degrees of separation between us. The person we reach out to reaches out in turn until we contact the person in a position to empower us.” She grabbed hold of him and shook him. “Do you see?” She released him and returned to her pacing.
Aart peered through the colored glass of the champagne bottle, noticed he’d poured the last of the liquor. “God, I hope she doesn’t drink.”
“Instead of figuring out how to hold each other back, so we can get the few remaining jobs everyone else desires, we’ll be giving people the insights into themselves that are keeping them from going and inventing their own jobs, which no one else could possibly compete with.” She shook her head in complete wonderment. “It’s a brave new world.”
“Best appreciated with a clear head, mam. Don’t know what I was thinking bringing this champagne to you. I hope you can forgive me.”
“Oh, yeah sure,” Robin said, noticing Aart holding the champagne bottle. She “poured” herself a “drink,” and walked off with the empty glass as if it were full. “This is definitely cause to celebrate.” She downed the empty glass, returned it to the platter. “Thanks, Aart. That really hit the spot.”
Drew entered the room, dressed to the nines. “You ready for our walk?”
“Yeah, yeah!” Robin reached for her jacket. “I could jog a couple laps around London the way I’m feeling.”
Aart stood statue-still as they walked out of the room.
***
Walking out the door with Drew for their tour of London, Robin thought, how disconcerting it was that, after all the revelations and insights into life her journey had afforded her, to miss what was right in front of her nose all along, perhaps the most defining characteristic of her age. How much more had she been blinded to, that she needed to see?
Maybe she was being too hard on herself. Maybe it was an age of revelations, and she just had to expect they’d keep coming hard and fast for the foreseeable future. That the credo “adapt or die” in this age meant nothing less than slugging her way through them.
***
Robin glanced out the window of the limo at Muriel diving headlong into the chipper shredder. She was spit out as mulch on the other side. The performance had apparently been aimed at her. Robin smiled as her eyes watered. She wiped her eyes. “You were right, Drew. How much further I could have gone if I hadn’t resisted all they had to teach me.”
“They taught you what Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young couldn’t. Otherwise, you’d never have gotten as far as you did.”
“Huh?”
“If you can’t be with the ones you love, love the ones you’re with.” Drew stuck in the CD.
Robin smirked. “Never too smart to be so stupid.”
EIGHTEEN
The clown touched down in front of Drew, and tipped his hat. His silly smile was a little like a grouper opening its mouth to swallow a school of fish.
No sooner had he landed, than Painted Face floated off beneath his handful of balloons. The inflated rubber bladders scarcely had sufficient lift to raise his hand, far less his entire person. The optical illusion of at-will levitation was provided by his shoes, which evidently contained breakthrough spring technology.
Startled by the unexpected, Robin laughed. “That’s an awful lot of ingenuity to expend on a simple sight gag, only to repeat it again and again for time immemorial.”
“I beg to differ,” Drew said. “Dedicating yourself to eliciting laughs with the deliciously incongruous is a valid niche in today’s economy.”
“Speaking of the deliciously incongruous…” Robin pointed to the London Eye, one of the world’s largest Ferris wheels, visually plastered against the old country-hall building from an era where they were still erecting Gothic cathedrals. “As good a symbol of the early twenty-first century Renaissance as any.”
“Why is that?”
“The further into the Renaissance we go, the more able each of us is to digest the shocking and unexpected without missing a beat. The more individuality and diversity each person can embrace without imploding, the more truly timeless the age.”
“Movies and video games and books and assorted media allow us to integrate alternate realities now without paying too steep a price for indulging any one of them,” Drew said.
“The price is quite steep—the idea that the best of all possible worlds is the one that keeps all but one at the sidelines. We have to turn this fascist equation on its head.”
“How do you plan to do that?”
“Virtual reality, Drew, isn’t the only ticket to the multiverse. The power of unupgraded human minds will be enough to gain access for a precious few. For others, technology will provide the necessary crutch.”
“Slipping in and out of various timelines at will?” Drew laughed nervously. “God help us.”
“We’ll get each other through it, as we always have.” Robin knew it was a question she’d asked many times before; it had become the refrain of her soul-song. But she had to ask it again. “You think we’ll ever see the world as it is, past our prejudices, the rosy tints of our aberrant psychologies?”
Drew smiled. “With enough heart maybe; when we learn to put the
last of our fears behind us; or at least refuse to let them color our thinking.”
Drew pointed at the family of three getting on one of the cars as the London Eye loaded up. “What do you see?”
“The husband doting over his wife so; the excessive display of public affection… It’s all cover. He’s been having an affair for years and is desperate to keep her from finding out, and risk losing everything, mostly her money, her lots and lots of money. She likes to flaunt it, but you can tell she keeps him on a short leash budgetarily. No bling on him.”
Drew smiled. “How do you know he’s having an affair?”
“Look at his eyes. Every time he hugs and kisses and pulls her towards him, it’s to cover his eyes going to every other hottie in the area.”
“How then do you know he’s just having one affair?”
“He’s just as busy advertising himself as a boy toy to the other women, jealous for that much affection from such a handsome man. He’s hoping one of them will take the bait. That way he’ll have another one lined up if the affair he’s having goes south. This guy plans to be in money the rest of his life, through one woman or another.”
“How do you know the wife doesn’t realize he’s constantly flirting?”
“Oh, she knows. She pretends not to notice so the girls can ogle them together. Those shades she wears aren’t to protect her eyes from the sun. She thinks he’s playing to her needs; all the while, she’s playing to his.”
“And the daughter?” Drew said, smiling.
“All her mad texting on her phone, pretending to be the typical self-preoccupied adolescent, totally tuned out to the two of them… She’s furious at their behavior. She’s bitching to her friends over the internet. Her stony expression is just a mask she’s worn for a very long time. If they even suspect she knows, she’ll be shipped off somewhere, so they don’t have to face the judgment and wrath in her eyes, and etched into every fiber of her being.”
“How do you know she’s afraid of being shipped off?”
“Those college brochures in her hands aren’t colleges; they’re boarding schools. And those aren’t admissions applications stuck in her bag. They’re psych profiles she’s sending her prospective teachers and administrators under the pretense of their winning some prize. She plans to cash in on her acting skills and what she learned from her parents on pushing other people’s buttons to make sure she rules the nest wherever she lands.”
“Why is she so certain she’ll be found out now?”
“Because, I’m guessing, she’s getting ready to shame them before their elite society circles and the rest of the world, using the very same internet prowess that has sustained her all this time.”
“I can’t imagine much changing for the parents. They’ll just find some suitable replacement willing to play the game.”
“Only, I don’t think the daughter will let them get away with anything for the rest of their lives, short of complete redemption. She’ll stalk them to the grave.”
Drew laughed. “I saw everything but the last part. But now that I think about it, looking at the determination in the daughter’s face, you’re right. I do recall not too long ago when you were the one missing the key components of others’ psyches. It seems like you’re my mentor now, the way I was once yours.”
“You’ll learn to lie to yourself better with time, as I will learn to face the truth with less resistance. Trust in your path, Drew. The power of mind to instill your will on this world, which is your approach, is every bit as valid as my determination to slash away all illusions. We’re yin and yang, you and I, forever intertwined.”
Drew meekly snorted his agreement. “We’re learning patience for one another. That’s good. I was wrong to worry about you taking your soul-saving mission too far. The other Renaissance figures will need you to reach out to them to keep them on the straight and narrow.”
“Yes.”
Picking up on her rueful tone, he said, “You can’t save them all, not without taking yourself out in the process.”
“There must be others like me who can help. Gretchen, maybe. I sensed a kindred spirit. Maybe we can interlock our efforts better going forward.”
Seeing the flock of privileged and entitled kids being escorted by their parents, Robin’s mind drifted to the urchins booted off the Harding estate. “It’s a shame to leave the Harding household in such unrest.”
“I’m guessing if Ermies’ urchins were smart enough to sell to our jaded staff, they’re smart enough to figure out all they have to do to get back in is throw Minerva her party with a fraction of their ill-gotten gains. If I know Frumpley, who can bleed a turnip, he’ll suggest as much himself, if they don’t think of it.”
They strolled along the river. Drew said, “For all your aptitudes, Robin, and I’m not saying you don’t have enough of them to go around calling yourself a Renaissance woman, you and I have been just as sidelined by life. What can we do about any of this, except maybe write about it in your case, and in mine, see clients on the side, themselves in need of a tune-up so they can climb back in the ring. We’re brighter, more well-rounded than most, more cultured and privileged, and look at us, it’s all we can do to stay in the game. What’s this world coming to?”
“I don’t know, but I aim to find out. Nostradamus has nothing on me.”
Drew laughed. “No, he doesn’t.” He squeezed her hand. “And when you get back to the office?”
“I’ll be getting a new partner to replace Manny. Let’s see if I can mentor him without the heavy hand passed down from my father clear to Hartman.”
“I suppose if I had any sense, I’d join you playing detective. The least I can do is help chase down the people promising to make this world even more unlivable.”
Robin wasn’t sure how she felt about that.
Drew looked far and wide. “Can’t believe you’ve elected to write about all this. Should be a hell of a story. I hope one of the points you make is that we’re all busted in the right way. Our gifts come from the crosses we bear.” As an afterthought he added, “Are you going to make yourself the hero of your own story?”
“No, the Renaissance, and what it represents, is the real hero.”
They stopped again by the river. Drew gripped the railing particularly hard. “If you had to describe this era in three words or less, which three words would you use?”
Robin replied without having to think, “Dancing with God.”
***
Ardel materialized behind Robin and Drew, watched them enjoying the London afternoon. “I guess it is a new day, at that,” he said. He took a look around at the rest of London.
Drew’s putting his hand around Robin’s waist drew Ardel’s eyes back to her. “Good to see you coming into your own at last, kid. Trust me, you’re just getting warmed up. But be careful, it’s a wild wild world out there.”
He collapsed.
The last thing he heard was: “Is he dead?” “I can’t tell. Someone, help! We need help over here!”
***
Robin held the fallen man in her arms. It was Ardel, the one she had gotten a psychic hit of the day she touched the bloody knife in her bathroom. He seemed to re-energize simply from her embrace; within moments he opened his eyes.
“This is not something we can fix here. You’ll need to teleport me.”
Robin smiled with embarrassment. “I’m afraid you overestimate my abilities.”
“I can help you remember what you forced yourself to forget.” He took her arm and it all came back to her in a flood.
She stood, held him in her arms effortlessly. And she teleported.
***
Drew gulped as Robin disappeared right before his eyes. He knew Robin had come a long way, but—
Drew yanked the beer out the hand of a passerby. The wife took one look at him, and dragged her husband away.
Drew swilled the beer as he lost himself staring at the river.
NINETEEN
Drew gazed up f
rom his whiskey glass to regard Robin materializing before him in his living room, becoming increasingly less ghostlike and more corporeal. “Who invented liquor? In what age did people live, exactly, when this stuff was actually strong enough?”
Robin smiled, feeling his pain. Reading empathy on her face just seemed to snap him out of self-pity mode and triggered rage instead.
“You just teleported yourself and some stranger to the far end of the galaxy. And I used to think we were so close.” He threw the whiskey glass on the marble counter. To their mutual surprise, it didn’t shatter. They seemed to translate the visual metaphor in the same instant—maybe they weren’t as fragile as they thought.
“You’re right. It’s time to tell you everything. No, to show you.”
With the obelisk’s help, she commenced the data dump at a feed rate which wouldn’t fry his mind.
***
Drew gazed up from the face of the dining room table, tired tracing his fingers over the lines between the tiles, a ploy he’d been using to steady his mind for some time now.
“Well, what do you make of it?” Robin sounded as eager for his take on things as ever.
Drew took his thumb and started tracing the ridges in his nails as he talked. “It is because you chose to lean into your fears that you drew the demon-possessed to you. Because you chose to be so serious; comedy mushroomed around you. Because you chose to apply such titanic energy to getting over yourself and helping others get over themselves your story became epic as the universe just upped the number of people around you and the amount of madness necessary to contain you spirit, to provide the opposition needed to get you to cool it. But also to show you that you could play the game anyway you wanted; if gods among men you chose to be, so be it; but is this how you want to be? The universe will mirror your truth—whatever it is; until you don’t need it anymore; teaching in the end, no attachments, no aversions.”
Renaissance 2.0: The Entire Series (books 1 thru 5) Page 189
