The next morning, Ayla walks into Brian’s spartan office and sits down in one of the two uncomfortable chairs on the other side of his desk.
“Yes?” her manager says without turning away from his display. His gnarled fingers click on a manual mouse.
“I’m quitting.”
That gets his attention. His unnerving green eyes turn toward her, and she looks away, gazing at her knees.
“Why?”
Ayla takes a breath to give her prepared, polite excuse, and then realizes that she can afford to burn this lousy bridge. She raises her head and looks squarely into Brian’s eyes.
“I’m going to Mars.” The disbelief on his face gives her a thrill of pleasure.
Brian snaps his hanging jaw closed and frowns. He turns to the giant paper calendar hanging on the wall.
“I’ll need another month from you.”
“I can only do two weeks. Sorry.”
She regrets the apology as soon as it comes out and wordlessly hands him her resignation letter.
“See? That’s the kind of attitude that keeps women like you from being good at these jobs.” Brian shakes his head. “I took a lot of risk hiring you. Good thing you aren’t coming back because I could never give you a reference with this kind of unprofessional behaviour.”
“The only unprofessional person here is you,” Ayla snaps, surprising herself.
Her retort is enough to shut him up, maybe out of sheer astonishment that she would say it. She’d long ago learned to prefer the company of rocks to people, especially people like Brian, but he came with the job and the job came with pay.
She leaves the office in the evening and lets her car navigate the downtown Denver traffic on her way to Aunt Sam’s apartment. The tall, sprawling, assisted-living complex dominates the space between a strip mall and a tract of houses. Ayla parks her car and gazes westward at the afterglow of the setting sun. The peaks of the Rockies are still bare, but the chill October air carries a promise of snow. How strange it will be to gaze at a skyline of ochre and rust instead.
Aunt Sam lives on the fourth floor. Ayla usually takes the exterior stairs two at a time. It’s a fun way to use her spring-loaded prosthesis, but today she goes slowly, stopping at each landing to savour the view. She hadn’t dared to believe that she would be chosen for the mission. After all, she’s a nobody, but they liked her fitness level at the first screening and her geology degree at the second. So what if her amputated foot and scarred face gave her the final advantage? It rankles, but if that’s what it takes to get her to Mars, then so be it.
Samsara opens the front door before Ayla can knock.
“How did you—”
“Your tread gives it away, love. Come in. The tikka masala’s almost done, and the cabernet is open. Sorry I couldn’t wait on the wine.”
“I don’t blame you one bit,” Ayla says, stooping to kiss her aunt’s tan cheek. “The cook deserves a glass of wine while she’s in the kitchen.”
“Cooking is its own pleasure now that I’m semi-retired. My graduate students are doing most of the work.”
Ayla inhales deeply as she removes her sneaker and slips a clean sock over her prosthesis. The air is redolent with the aromas of toasted cumin, coriander, fried tomato, onions, and chilies. Her mouth waters in anticipation, and she tries not to think about the blandness of food in space. Her aunt moves painstakingly around the small kitchen, but she bites her tongue before she can offer to help. She knows all too well what it’s like to be on the receiving end of those offers. Instead, she perches on a counter stool and pours herself a glass of wine.
The apartment is small, just three rooms. The bedroom barely fits her aunt’s bed, but the bathroom is spacious enough to hold a wheelchair. The efficiency kitchen opens to the living room which has a firm sofa, small dining table, and an enormous screen built into one wall. Aunt Sam’s walker is parked by the front door, next to the shoe rack.
“Are you getting used to this place?”
Samsara shrugs. “It’ll do.”
“It’s good that you moved here,” Ayla says, feeling awkward.
“Oh? Are you and Jeff getting serious?”
“No.” Ayla takes a deep breath. “I’m going on the Mayflower.”
Samsara stops stirring the masala and looks at her. Her aunt’s dark brown eyes are sharp and clear. “The what? You don’t mean that one-way spaceship to Mars?”
Ayla nods, tightening her grip around the stem of the wine glass.
“Ayla! Why didn’t you tell me? When? Isn’t it leaving soon?”
“Eleven weeks, but I go for training in two. I’m sorry, Aunt Sam. I didn’t want to tell anyone about my application in case I didn’t get in.”
“They’re okay with your foot?”
“More than okay. I can get a special prosthesis. It’ll be great in space, better than my natural foot, and the gravity is low enough on Mars that it’ll be easier on my leg muscles.”
“But—why? Why go? Is it because of Felicia, after all these years?”
Ayla avoids her aunt’s gaze by taking a sip of wine. The tang of it fills her mouth and eases the tightness in her throat. Of course, it’s because of Mom, but it would break Aunt Sam’s heart to tell her so. Her aunt gave Ayla a second chance at life by bringing her to Denver, by raising her when no one else would. She was the only one who didn’t blame Ayla for the accident.
“It’s the opportunity of a lifetime,” Ayla says, studying the garnet-coloured liquid in her glass. “I’m a geologist, and all I’m doing here are stability surveys for bloated high-rises. On Mars, my studies will make history. They’ll actually mean something.” It’s the truth, if only partially.
The room is quiet for several minutes. Aunt Sam turns off the stove and pulls the foil-wrapped supermarket naan from the oven. She hobbles over to the counter, holding on to its edge for support, then cups Ayla’s face in her warm, dry palms.
“My dear girl, as hard as I’ve tried, you can’t forgive yourself, can you? Mars will be an amazing accomplishment. You’re right about that. But you won’t find peace by running farther away.”
Trust Aunt Sam to see through her walls like they were made of crystal. They move to the dining table set for two. After twenty years of living and growing up with her aunt, there’s no pressure to make talk, and Ayla takes advantage of it. She savours the chew of warm naan. Fresh cilantro and chunks of silky paneer dissolve against her tongue, and she sighs contentedly.
“I’m going to miss good food,” Ayla says. “I miss it already, to be honest. I’ve been eating way too much takeout since you moved here.”
Samsara laughs. “I can believe it, but every chef needs an appreciative audience.”
Her aunt’s watch chimes, and Samsara’s smile vanishes, replaced by a deep frown.
“What is it?”
“A message from your sister. It’s about Carlos.”
“Dad?” A hand squeezes Ayla’s heart. This is not an emergency, she tells herself, applying what she learned in therapy and breathing deeply. “What about him?”
“He had a stroke.” Her aunt’s eyes scan the screen.
“How bad?”
“They don’t know yet. Elise says they want him under observation for at least a week, maybe two. You should go and see him, Ayla. It’s been a long time and—given where you’re going, that you might not come back—this could be your last chance.”
“It’s been five years, ever since he moved in with Elise.” Ayla shakes her head. “She won’t let me near him.”
“Do you want me to ask her? Maybe if you tell her your news—”
“No,” Ayla says sharply. “My sister hasn’t spoken to me in twenty years. She doesn’t deserve to know anything about my life.”
The dispirited expression on her aunt’s face makes her relent.
“I’ll call the hospital, see if I can talk to him by phone. Okay? Let’s finish the rest of our dinner in peace. Please?”
Samsara nods, and
they move on to other subjects, but the meal’s pleasure is tainted.
Ayla spends the rest of the weekend running her favourite mountain trails and wondering how to break the news to Jeff. He comes over for dinner on Monday night, bearing a bag full of Chinese takeout and a boisterous demeanour. Jeff tells her about his latest challenging client, but Ayla remains silent, full of restless thoughts. She crunches on egg noodles and orange-glazed chicken and wonders if she can bring dried red chilies to the colony. The pioneers of old relied on spices and spiced food for long journeys. Should Mars be any different?
She looks up from her meal when Jeff stops talking. All lightness is gone from his expression.
“What?”
“Don’t you have something to tell me?” he says.
She feels sucker-punched. “How did you find out? Brian?”
“Yes.”
“That asshole!”
Jeff flings his hands outward in frustration, spattering sauce across the table from his chopsticks. “Are you kidding? Do you have any idea how lousy I felt hearing the news from him? Mars! You’re going to Mars! How could you not tell me about this?”
“We’ve only been dating for a couple of months.” She hates the defensiveness in her tone. “I didn’t want to risk losing you if they didn’t pick me.” Besides, you’ll find someone better, she almost says out loud.
She gets up to escape the hurt in his eyes and scrapes the rest of her food into the trash can. Her watch beeps. It’s a reminder to call the hospital, one that she set herself so she’d stop avoiding it, but the timing is terrible. Her plate clatters into the sink as she tries to steady her shaking hands.
“I’m sorry. I know I should’ve told you sooner, but it’s over anyway,” she says, still facing the sink. “I’m leaving next Saturday for training.”
“It’s over all right, but it didn’t have to be like this. You think you’re unlovable because your face makes you ugly and that’s why no one asks you out. You’re wrong. It’s not the scars that repel people, not the ones on the outside anyway. I would’ve been happy to watch you soar into the future, but I can take a hint. I hope you find what you’re looking for out there.”
His chair scrapes over the tile floor. She succeeds in holding back her sobs until the front door slams shut. It’s for the best, she tells herself. There’s no good way to break up. They hadn’t even come to the point of saying “I love you” to each other.
Later, as she brushes her teeth, she stares at the curtain covering the bathroom mirror and wonders if Jeff was right. She holds the cloth aside and forces herself to look at her reflection. One half of her face is ordinary, a blend of boring brown tones. The other is a warped landscape, stretched taut in some areas, puckering like an angry pink mountain range in others. She lets the curtain fall. Mars won’t have any mirrors to hide from.
Elise got the good looks in the family: hair the colour of rosewood, eyes like a summer sky, sweetly bowed lips. How does her sister look now after twenty years and two kids? Thinking of her reminds Ayla of her dad, and she imagines him lying in a hospital bed, wondering if his other child cares about him anymore.
She grabs her tab as she walks into the bedroom and calls up flights to Los Angeles. There’s an evening option for next Friday, her last day of work. She books it and changes her Corpus Christi flight to Sunday, from LA. One day with her immediate family—more than enough—then off to mission training.
Her sleep that night is restless. She dreams of spice barrels coming loose and floating like bloated, drunken bears through the Mayflower’s cargo hold.
Ten days later, Ayla steps out of the air-conditioned terminal into the warm Los Angeles night. Exhaust fumes mix with the scent of sea salt and it evokes memories of driving along the coast in her mother’s old convertible. She wonders for the hundredth time since boarding the airplane if she should have come.
She merges onto the freeway and is instantly snarled in seven lanes of traffic. She switches the car to auto-follow. It creeps along and passes a fly-by-night costume store. Her stomach clenches as she remembers the date. Tomorrow is Halloween. Lost in all of the Mars preparations, she has, for the first time in her life, overlooked the holiday.
“Damn,” she whispers to the dashboard.
Ayla resumes control of the car and pulls off the freeway, driving through a posh stretch of Santa Monica before heading north along the coast. Here and there, clusters of costumed teenagers are out partying early. She opens the windows and lets in the ocean breeze, fresh and moist. Her curls break loose, flying across her face, but she doesn’t care as she loses herself in the buried, painful memories that she’s been keeping away.
Ayla, age six, wanted desperately to be a robot, as did her best friends, Emma and Shaden. The three of them decided to coordinate, cobbling together their costumes from cardboard, dryer vents, and liberal amounts of duct tape. They were a hit at every house, wandering the hilly streets of their suburban Calabasas neighbourhood and collecting more than their fair share of candy.
Emma’s Dad and Ayla’s Mom were their chaperones for the night, happily taking their pictures in front of the more elaborately decorated homes. The street lights glowed yellow-orange, and Shaden pretended they were on Mars, that his LED ring light was a laser.
The sidewalks were crowded, though, and they couldn’t easily run in their bulky costumes. Still, Ayla wanted to play so she tore off a sparkly sticker and wrapped it around the tip of her index finger.
“Pew! Pew!” she shouted, waving her finger at Shaden and then at her mom who laughed and nudged Emma’s dad.
Ayla stumbled over something. She looked down and saw a silver-handled toy gun.
“Watch out! I have a laser gun,” she yelled, grabbing it and pointing it at her mom. “Pew!”
She pulled the trigger.
It’s the sounds and the smells that Ayla can’t forget: the horrible popping noise over the din of the crowds; the screams, some of which were her own; the smoke that stung her nostrils before they filled with blood.
West Hills is a different hospital than it was twenty years ago, but Ayla shuts down the part of her brain that wants to compare the ICU ward “then” versus “now.”
“I’m here to see Carlos Butler,” she says to the receptionist.
“Your name?”
“Ayla Narayan-Butler.”
The receptionist frowns at her display. “I don’t see it on the list. We only have another five minutes before visiting hours end. I’m sorry, but you’ll have to come back tomorrow.”
Ayla represses a sigh. “What time?”
“Nine o’clock.”
Ayla wanders back to the parking lot and slides her claim key into the valet machine. As she waits for the car, she considers sending Elise a message, but she’s saved by the car’s arrival. The empty vehicle pulls to a stop at the curb, and Ayla slides into the driver’s seat. She drives without thinking too much about where she’s going, feeling her way through streets that are vaguely familiar like scenes from a faded film strip.
The first few months after the shooting, Ayla was in and out of the hospital for reconstructive surgery so often that she was barely conscious. They told her later that the slide on the semi-automatic had blown backward, shearing off half her face in the process, but she was numbed by an influx of medication. She lost her memories of that time in the haze of opiates. When she was in her right mind, she felt Elise’s fury in a thousand tiny ways—excluding her from games, cutting off bits of her stuffed animals, knocking over her now clumsy body “by accident.”
Dad was submerged in his own grief most of the time, but whenever he did look at Ayla, at her mangled face and absent foot, she could feel his revulsion. Only her aunt was sharp enough to realize what was happening. After a year and a half of pleading, Samsara convinced Dad to let her go to Denver. He visited once a year until he could no longer travel, but he always came on his own, without Elise.
Ayla pushes the past behind as the shape of t
he neighbourhood becomes excruciatingly familiar. There—that’s the street where it happened, and that’s her own street. She turns the car and slowly rolls by her former home. A light is on upstairs, but she can’t see anyone. A silver minivan is parked in the driveway, and the lawn is conspicuously absent of Halloween decorations.
She stops the car in the cul-de-sac and sits, shaking from head to feet. She feels a pang for Elise’s children, deprived of both a grandmother and the pleasure of Halloween, and it’s all her fault.
As grief and guilt threaten to drown her, she breathes deeply and imagines herself taking the memories and locking them away in a large, heavy metal box. The trembling and the emotions gradually subside. She closes her eyes and buries the metal box deep under the earth, to be left behind forever. This house isn’t her home, nor is this planet. When semblance of peace returns, she searches the car’s navigation system and spends the night at the first hotel on the list.
Halloween morning dawns. The sky is fittingly grey and laden with clouds. Ayla stands in the hospital lobby and stares at her watch, paralyzed with indecision. She glances up at the sound of a woman’s voice and sees the back of a brunette head at the reception desk. Before she can decide whether she wants to be noticed or not, Elise turns and sees her. For a moment, Elise doesn’t seem to recognize her, but then realization dawns.
Elise strides over. “You! You unbelievable little—what are you doing here? Do you realize what day it is?”
A flush creeps up Ayla’s cheeks, and she hunches as she nods. She focuses on the patterns of the industrial carpet beneath their feet.
“I came to see Dad.” Her muscles tense with the urge to run out of the hospital and never come back.
“And you chose today, of all days, to visit him. You are such a selfish, self-absorbed—” Elise stops and draws a deep breath, then lets it out audibly. “You’ll never change, will you?” She taps her foot. “I suppose you have a right to see him. I’ll take you in, but I’m not putting you on the visitor’s list.”
Where The Stars Rise: Asian Science Fiction and Fantasy Page 8
