by C. Gockel
She blinks. “Well, I was born in Chicago, at St. Mary’s. I was only five pounds and three ounces …”
He might have overdone his magic a bit.
Tara sits back in her chair, long done eating. Her mother has been acting weird throughout the whole lunch. She’s always a chatterbox, but today she’s talked a lot, even for her.
Lionel is just smiling, nodding, and eating everything they put in front of him, as though he’s got a built in Hoover.
“Now I work in the barbershop across from Tara’s office,” her mother says, and stops. She looks at Lionel’s plate, and then at Tara.
Looking down, Tara’s eyebrows hike. “You’re only supposed to eat the inside of the tamale, Lionel.”
“Ah,” he says, delicately removing a bit of corn husk from his mouth.
Tara doesn’t know whether to laugh or wince. With a straight face, she says to her mother, “He’s from New York.”
Her mom blinks and then says, “Anyway, I was the one who told Tara about the job at the University of Illinois with Dr. Eisenberg.”
Reaching for another tamale, Lionel turns to Tara. “You work at a university?”
Tara waves her fork. “I’m just a techie.”
“Techie … a magician?” Lionel exclaims.
“Oh, yes, she is!” Tara’s mom says. “Tara is brilliant with computers and machines—just like her father. They did the electricity for this whole building. Did she tell you? Tara designed websites when she was still in high school, set up a shopping cart for her cousin’s business and everything, and if you get a computer virus, you call her, she’ll fix your machine!”
“Mom.” Tara flushes and looks down at what’s left of her salad. She did get all that from her dad, and a love of comic books, fantasy, and sci-fi, too.
“How about you, Lionel?” Tara’s mom asks. “What about your family?”
A brief frown flits across Lionel’s face.
Tara stiffens. The frown she just saw … She just has a feeling that’s a bad topic. Before she can think of a lie, Lionel says carefully, “My mother … has a farm …” His shoulders are tight and he radiates tension.
He didn’t mention his dad, Tara notices.
“Like an organic farm?” says her mom, excitedly. “I’m always telling Tara, if the city life gets too rough, we can always move out to the countryside and make organic cheese, and sell it to the hopsters for sixteen dollars a pound.”
Tara chokes on a laugh. “It’s hipsters, Mom.” But she’s so grateful her mom didn’t ask about Lionel’s dad.
“Hopsters, hipsters …” Her mom waves a hand. She looks at the clock and her mouth falls open. “So much time has passed … I had no idea.” For a moment, a glazed sort of look crosses her face, but then she says, “I have to get to the shop.”
Standing, she points at Tara. “Tara Lupita Gibson, you got your hair wet.”
“Lupita is your middle name?” Lionel asks before she can answer, a curious note of mirth in his voice.
“Yes, Lupita was my great-grandmother’s name,” she says unaccountably defensively.
Tara’s mother bites her lip. “I can’t stay today, but I’ll come over tomorrow at the usual time. It will have to last you until I get back from Guadalajara with Alma.”
It’s the first time her mom has gone on vacation since Tara’s dad died. Tara had wanted to go too, but hadn’t been able to get time off work. Eisenberg has a big conference coming up and needed her to help him prepare. “You’ll have fun with Aunt Alma, Mom,” Tara says.
Her mom sighs. “I know, but I’ll miss you.” Switching to Spanish, she says, “But maybe some time alone with Lionel will be good for you, Tara. You can get to know him again without your mother in the way.”
Lionel stops chewing.
Tara’s face heats, and she answers in English, “Pretty sure he speaks Spanish, Mom.” Or understands it, magically.
“You speak Spanish?” her mother asks in that language.
“Si,” says Lionel.
“Even better!” Tara’s mom exclaims. She has no shame.
Craning her neck to look at the clock on the stove, Tara says, “Wow, Mom, it’s getting late.”
“You’re right,” says her mom. “You can finish the rest of the food.” She points at Tara’s scarf. “I’ll be back tomorrow.”
Tara hops from her seat. “Great, I’ll show you out.”
A few minutes later, Tara’s outside, wrapping her arms around herself, hopping up and down in the brisk air.
Standing in the street, her mother says, “He’s nice, Tara. Nice looking … a little shorter than you, but so is most everyone.” She opens her car door but doesn’t get in. She just looks expectantly at Tara.
Tara doesn’t mind short guys, but they’re only interested in tall girls if they’re willowy. She is healthy and works out, but is definitely not a willow. Instead of pointing that out, Tara replies, “He’s not from around here, Mom, and he’s going home soon.” The idea is starting to make her a little sad. It is nice seeing the nice side of magic.
Her mother waves her keys. “It could work out. Chicago is much better than New York. He’d move for you, and if he doesn’t, he’s an idiot.”
“Thank you for the confidence booster, Mom, but he’s really just a friend.”
That earns Tara a “Pfft,” and then her mother sighs. “I know your last date with someone outside the community was disappointing—”
“Outside the community” means not black. Tara might be Mexican African-American, but with her dense hair and dark skin, she looks more African, and that’s the bucket society tosses her into.
“—but this guy, I don’t think he’s like that.”
Tara sighs. Her last date had been with an anesthesiologist from “outside the community” who said he liked “dating black girls because it makes my parents so angry!” They hadn’t had a second date, though not from lack of trying on his part.
“Really, Tara, don’t be afraid to expand your horizons,” her mother advises, and Tara has to bite her lip to keep from saying, “His horizon is on another planet!”
Her mother continues, “If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have married your father.” Her mother’s voice trembles at the last word, and Tara feels a lump in her throat.
“I have to get going,” her mom says, slipping into the car, just before Tara says, “I miss him, too.” Weekends, and holidays, every time a new Star Wars, Star Trek, or Marvel movie comes out, and whenever a new sci-fi series takes off … most every day, actually. Tara loves her mom, but her mom just doesn’t get those sorts of things.
She watches her mom drive off, and then turns around and squints as two large black birds soar overhead. They’re the biggest crows Tara has ever seen.
When she goes back inside, she finds Lionel at the table, still eating. He glances at her and the weird clothes he’s wearing disappear to reveal the sweatshirt and pants he borrowed. The points of his ears reappear between his long bangs.
She finds herself tensing up. “Sorry about my mom,” she says instead of probing into why she feels uneasy. “She’s always trying to find my soulmate.”
He gives a sort of snort. “There is no such thing as soulmates—”
Smiling, Tara says, “I know that,” and sits down on a chair.
“—for humans,” Lionel finishes. “You’re the most primitive of all the lesser races.”
The bubble of nice magic pops. “Pardon?” says Tara, sitting straighter.
Lionel blinks at her. “Did that come out wrong?”
“I don’t know,” Tara says, the tension returning to her muscles. “Did it?”
“I don’t mean to offend,” says Lionel.
Tara tilts her head, and her jaw gets hard.
“But surely it is obvious,” he says, waving a fork. “You’re not magical.”
Tara narrows her eyes. “You called me a magician earlier.”
“Well, a primitive magician, you have no concept for suc
h things as …” His head jerks. “You have a word for dark matter!”
“Yes,” says Tara carefully. “And dark energy. I work in the Dark Energy Department.” Which lots of people call the “Magic Department.”
Lionel’s eyes get wide. He leans toward her and whispers, “Hadrosaur … do you know what that is?”
“A type of dinosaur,” Tara guesses.
Lionel sits back in his seat fast. “English did not have words for dark energy, or dark matter, or hadrosaurs when I was here last!”
Tara gives him the side eye, wondering what he’s getting at.
He waves his hand. “I don’t actually know those words … magic knows them … so I can say them, but I can’t say or understand a word that has no analog between our respective languages.”
She should still be mad, but Tara finds herself fascinated. “Airplane,” she blurts out.
“I have no idea what that means.”
She tilts her head. “But that is a compound word made of two simple words. ‘Air’ like the air you breathe, and ‘plane’ like a flat surface. You can’t put it together and come up with a guess?”
Leaning forward, Lionel says, “When you take them apart like that, I understand the words separately, but when you put them together …” Straightening, he looks up at the ceiling. “How can air be a plane unless this is a theoretical construct—perhaps a plane that exists mathematically but has no physical embodiment?”
“That’s a good guess,” Tara replies.
Lionel smiles and winks. “Higher race.”
Crossing her arms over her chest, Tara glares at him. “But wrong.”
He raises his hands. “I’m joking.” Wincing, he adds, “I’m thinking the concept of ‘higher race’ doesn’t quite translate, and I’ve offended you.”
“But you said if the analog doesn’t exist, it wouldn’t translate, so in that case, I should be offended,” Tara counters.
Lionel’s ears twitch. “Humans can’t use magic—or dark energy, as you call it—so you can’t be a …”
“Higher race?” Tara finishes for him.
His lips purse, and he looks to the side.
Unfortunately, he’s partly right. Humans know about the existence of dark energy, but they can’t make it do anything. “So, you look down on us because of it?” Tara guesses.
Lionel wavers in his seat. “You look down on us because you’re taller?” A beam of sunlight streams through the window and lights his features, making him look like a damn angel. Emphasis on the damn. Tara glares at him. “You’re evading.”
Lionel sighs. “I really don’t mean to be abrasive. You have been most hospitable …” He looks around. “... and though your home is very alien, I have found it much more comfortable and aesthetically pleasing than I would have expected.” He looks at her with great earnestness. “You have running water.”
Tara gives him a tight smile.
“As for your mother, I found her quite charming, and if her objective was to match us together as romantic partners, I would be honored.”
Tara feels herself go cold. “But a lesser race isn’t going to be your soulmate.” And it’s so close to her last date that she finds herself containing the urge to throw something across the room … or at him.
His brow furrows. “You make it out as though I think you are some sort of animal. That’s not true. But humans are … young. The youngest race of all the bipedal species. Elves are the oldest race, older even than dwarves, and we are the only ones with soulmates.” He rolls up a sleeve. “You see,” he says, showing her a green tattoo she hadn’t noticed before on the front of his forearm: two trees entwined to make a sort of trellis with their branches above and roots below.
“It’s lovely,” Tara says. “But what does it prove?”
“My soulmate has one exactly like it. It is not a crude human ‘tattoo.’ It appeared spontaneously by magic. That is how we know we are soulmates. Do you have such a mark?” He raises an eyebrow.
“Just because we don’t have a mark, doesn’t mean we don’t have soulmates—if we’re different species, we might have a whole different marker … it could be in our DNA for instance. That’s—”
“I know what deoxyribonucleic acid is.” His brows furrow. “Though I’m surprised that you do.”
“We’re different species, so our soulmates could be delineated by something else completely,” Tara says, lifting her chin.
He raises an eyebrow. “And you believe that?”
She could be game, and argue, but she suddenly feels tired. “No, I don’t believe soulmates are real. I mean … I think there’s someone for everyone. Actually, I’m sure there is more than one person for everyone.” Not that she’s found herself someone. For a moment the two floors of her duplex feel too large and empty. “Even if you could only fall in love with a one-in-a-million type of guy, there are over seven billion people on Earth, so that means there’s what, seven thousand divided by two … there are three thousand five hundred or so guys out there who are perfect for me.” And somehow, she hasn’t met a single one of them.
“Seven billion?” Lionel says, his jaw dropping.
“Actually, I think it’s crossed seven and a half billion.” Tara says, tapping a finger and looking at the ceiling.
“How do you feed that many people?” Lionel asks.
Tara gives him a tight smile. “Not everyone eats well.” Or at all. Her eyebrows rise. “I think it’s not a matter of production, but rather distribution. I read once that there’s never been a famine in places with paved roads, but there are a lot of places that don’t—”
“Seven and a half billion,” Lionel repeats again.
Tara blinks at him.
“Elves don’t lie.” His eyes narrow. “But humans can … Are you lying to me?”
She shakes her head. “Nope.”
Rolling down his sleeve, he says, “Maybe it’s a good thing you don’t have soulmates. You’d never find them among so many people. When the time is right, we will find each other …” His expression darkens.
“You don’t know who she is?” Tara asks.
Frowning, he shrugs. “No.”
“But you know she’s out there,” says Tara. “And when you meet, it will be perfect … why not meet now?”
His eyebrows shoot up.
She waves a hand. “I mean, not right now, but as soon as you get home? Why wait?”
“I’m too young,” he says, and that darkness she’d seen returns again. “Too young for an elf to be interested in such things.”
Tara’s lips part. If she didn’t know better, she’d think he was bitter about that. But what does she know about soulmates? Apparently, she doesn’t get to have one as a lesser human.
She feels a lump forming in her throat. To know that there was someone out there for you … if Dwayne, her once fiancé, had known she was his soulmate, that she really wanted to be with him, and loved him, could he have waited just a little longer? She lets out a breath. He’s moved on, and that’s water under the bridge now.
Shaking his head, Lionel eyes the leftovers. “Thank you for the food. I see you are done, and I’m not hungry anymore. Shall I help you clean up?”
“You don’t have to,” Tara says automatically. He is a guest, after all, and even if he is kind of arrogant, her parents raised her right.
He makes a dismissive sound. “I’m not a noble elf. I can help clean up.”
Tara catches the dismissiveness in how he says “noble.” She’s struck with the idea that although the elves may consider themselves a “higher race,” there doesn’t seem to be a lot of love lost between the classes. It makes Tara unaccountably sad.
“Sure, thanks.” Tara picks up some leftover tamales. “This way.” Lionel follows her to the kitchen, and Tara feels the hairs rising on the back of her neck. He was shot, he’s walking, and he created Earth-like clothes when her mother arrived …
Putting the food on the counter, Tara probes … gently. “Thos
e clothes you were wearing earlier—”
“They were an illusion,” Lionel says. “Thor, son of Odin, the King of the Realms, passed through Alfheim, my home, on his way back from Earth between your last great wars. There was a young man with him from your world.”
Tara freezes. “Kidnapped?”
“Oh, no, recruited!” Lionel says, putting a bag of chips down and holding up his hands. “Odin doesn’t allow the kidnapping of humans. That’s not one of his vices.” He frowns and his jaw gets hard. “Odin and his servants travel all over your world to find the bravest, most honorable warriors at the time of their last breaths. If they join him, they are offered the Apples of Idunn and become magical … like the Vanir, Asgardians, Frost Giants, or …”
“Elves?” Tara supplies.
Lionel gives her a sly grin that brings out his dimple. “Well, no, alas our ears aren’t as easy to bestow as magic and immortality.”
Despite herself, Tara feels her lips turning up at his cheekiness. She also finds her eyes sliding to the tips of his ears pointing out from beneath his long, smooth bangs. Catching herself, she retrieves some Tupperware.
“The illusion I wore for your mother was recreated from his attire,” Lionel says, “I wasn’t sure if your mother saw me wearing your clothing—”
“Thank you for that.” Tara huffs, imagining it. She starts sorting through the leftovers. “What else can you do?”
He grins. “Like all elves, I’m charming.”
She barely contains a snort.
He winks and says, “I can’t do telekinesis … amazing you have a word for that! I can’t shapeshift, and I don’t know of anyone who can, or would want to. It would seem by definition to be horribly painful. You have a word for telepathy, too!”
Tara freezes and feels her cheeks heat, but then Lionel says, “I can’t do telepathy. If you secretly find the points of my ears hideous, I wouldn’t know.” She hears the smile in his voice and wonders if he caught her peeking.
“I can start fires, but I have more of an affinity for ice. Making things cold is really just about slowing the excitation of molecules—I’m good at holding things together, in place. It perhaps makes me a better steward. I can mend wounds, obviously, or that nick to my femoral artery would have been the end of me.”
