by F P Adriani
“Your house?” Nell asked.
“Nell,” I said, “I just don’t know yet what’s going on—where it’s safe.”
“Aren’t you still set for court tomorrow?”
“Yeah,” I said in a dry voice, watching Tan as he drank from a glass full of water and watched me back.
“So much stress on you right now!” Nell said. “Look, I’m running late with dinner anyway. So you can come late—just make sure you come, both of you! Maybe we can all brainstorm over your problem….”
I hung up with her a moment later, and then I said fast to Tan, “Roberto’s on his way here.”
Tan shot me a questioning look.
I hesitated for an instant. Then: “He’s bringing someone to check the cars.”
“There’s nothing wrong with my…oh.” I thought I saw his eyes ever so slightly begin to roll.
“Don’t do it again!” I said.
His eyes stopped. “Don’t do what again?” He started laughing, the remaining water in his glass shaking with his body’s motions.
“Christ, sometimes I could smack you.”
“Just so long as that’s as far as your hitting goes!”
I spun around and rushed to the living room, where I put my scanner back inside my case. I slammed the lid shut and locked it. But I’d kept my gun out.
Tan came up behind me. “Give me a few minutes to get dressed. I’ll come outside with you.”
“Don’t bother,” I said.
“Okay, I’ll go out like this. I’ve always wanted to flash my nuts at the neighbors.”
I didn’t turn to look at him and his blue-covered nuts because I wouldn’t have been able to stop looking. And I wanted to keep my annoyance with him rolling around inside me for a little longer.
“I meant,” I said now, “don’t bother coming out at all.” I walked away from him and to the front door.
*
Outside, my gun stashed inside my black corduroy jacket now, I waited for Roberto. At first I intended to take a closer look-see at the cars myself, but I felt uneasy about that because I really wouldn’t know what I was doing there.
So I just waited on the back patio, at the very end of the side-extension, where some bushes partly obscured the view of the front to me and the view of me to the front.
Several times since I’d moved into this house, I’d said to Tan that it needed some type of housing for our cars. But we’d yet to add anything like that. If we had, I would have waited in there for a little…cover.
The words you’re so paranoid suddenly flashed through my head, but being paranoid was always better than being dead.
I spotted movement out front: the flash of Roberto’s green car.
I stepped off the patio and walked toward his car. A younger guy got out of the passenger side. He had long, messy brown hair surrounding a dirty skinny neck; large hands on skinny wrists poked out of his dark-blue sleeves. He was tall and paper-thin. He probably could have fit under my car without putting it on a lift.
Where the younger guy was narrow, the older Roberto was built like a bus: big and wide and solid. And now his bus-body walked to the back of his car, opened his trunk, and pulled out a bunch of mechanical shit. “This is Paulie,” he called over to me.
“Hello, Paulie,” I said to the guy.
He just looked at me. He didn’t seem to want to speak.
“Paulie doesn’t talk too much,” said Roberto. “He’s married to my cousin, Barbara.”
“Oh,” I said, and this was the first I’d heard that Roberto had any cousins. I knew he had an aunt still alive somewhere, but, other than that, he’d led me to believe he was on his own here on Diamond. He did, however, still live with Jamie, whom I’d brought back with me from a trip to Hera. His living with Roberto was only supposed to be a temporary thing. But it seemed Roberto had become a father figure to the young man, and they’d wound up getting along well as housemates….
Paulie’s big hands were moving on some of the mechanical equipment; his thick fingers pushed buttons on a gadget that was similar in size to my Osier.
“What’s that?” I asked as I walked up to him, and this time I expected a response.
He must have seen my determination in my face because he finally spoke, his voice low and very deep, which always amazed me when that type came from a skinny man. “Roberto says you want a scan done for electricals added on. This’ll do it. Batteries on a bomb, splicing in the circuitry for a shunt of a circuit pathway—whatever.”
“Cool. That sounds like what I need. Where’d you learn to do this type of work?”
There was a weird, almost curt silence from Paulie, and Roberto opened his mouth to speak for Paulie: “In the military. On Earth.”
“Oh,” I said. “Old style or UPG?”
“Old style,” said Roberto fast, and then he changed the subject just as fast. “You in a rush, Pia? This might take an hour or more.”
“Well, I’ve got all the time in the world.” At least while I was still alive I had all the time in the world.
*
I stayed outside watching Paulie work; I figured that maybe I’d learn something…I didn’t learn anything. Paulie’s mechanical efforts were over my head because they were too specialized to car anatomy and car engines, and engines were something I’d never dealt with as a Miscellaneous.
After a while, Tan finally emerged from the house, a fully dressed Tan.
“Where’s the skimpy underwear?” I smirked at him and his black sweater and black pants.
“Later,” he said then in a low voice close to my ear. He passed me by and walked over to Roberto. “Haven’t seen you in a while. How are you doing? Where’s Jamie?”
“He’s off somewhere with his mom. Took her and a nurse on a vacation from the home.”
Jamie had moved his mom from Hera to Diamond several months ago, but she needed care in a special home. Every month I gave him a little money to help with the cost. Though he was doing better now financially since I’d helped him get a job as an interpreter at the Citadel, where Tan and Derek worked, I was still doing much better financially than Jamie. That was one of the perks of having a bit of celebrity: you got free advertising for your business.
And for months I’d thankfully been busier than normal there. But now I’d have to put a mountain in the way of MSA’s momentum….
“Well,” Paulie said as he pulled a flat cart containing equipment out from under Tan’s car, “I don’t see anything anywhere that shouldn’t be there.”
I sighed and so did Tan. “Good,” I said. “Now can you fix them up with a more sophisticated alarm system? I’ve got something on there—”
“I see that.” His free hand waved at my red car. “I can put an alarm-armed field around them, but the problem is: the more sensitive I make it, the more it’ll go off. Like a leaf from up there—” his fingers pointed at a tall oak “—falling on it might trigger the alarm.”
That damn garage need again. I sighed. “Just do the best you can. Don’t make it that sensitive. But think fingers touching it.”
The guy’s head nodded atop his skinny neck.
Tan suddenly took my hand and urged me toward the house. “Why don’t you go get changed for Nell’s—I’ll handle this out here.”
“But—”
“Come on, Pia. You’ve had a bad shock today. You must be feeling it.”
I was.
I stared into his eyes, feeling a burning behind mine. “Someone hates me. Hates me enough to want to kill me. That hurts.”
“I know,” he said, his voice a soft caress. “We’ll talk more about it tonight when we’re alone.”
*
Later, once I’d changed into a brown sweater and brown slacks, I was back outside paying Paulie—or at least I was back outside trying to pay him: he wanted what I thought was a too-little amount of money.
When I said that to him, he stopped talking again.
Roberto took over for him. “Paulie gets a n
ice pension. He doesn’t need the money. He did this partly as a favor to me.”
“Well, thanks,” I said, my eyes on Paulie.
He sort of nodded in reply, but he turned around and headed back to Roberto’s car so fast that I really couldn’t be sure of the sort-of nod.
*
Not long after, I was driving Tan in my more-secure-now car toward Nell and Derek’s place. It was almost nighttime, and it wasn’t a long drive, but the back roads from our house were a little too bumpy.
“I hope whatever Paulie did doesn’t fall off,” said Tan, his face a mask of irritation as he bounced on his seat.
I glanced at him. “I thought you said the key-cards he gave us have a test function—”
“They do. I was just being sarcastic. I’m getting kind of nauseous….”
“Well, you know this road’s annoying. And you chose your house with its location!”
“It’s exactly what I want.”
“So then don’t complain. But, because I love you, you can complain all you want.”
He laughed at my contradicting my own words.
I finally pulled the car down Nell’s driveway toward where her brick-red house sat nestled between some large bushes. When she and Derek had gotten married last year, they’d bought this place shortly after.
Most of Diamond was very temperate in climate, and this part of Diamond was no exception. But, occasionally, the nights turned cold. And tonight was supposed to be one of the more frigid ones.
Pale gray smoke rose from the red chimney atop Nell’s square red house, and the front door opened. Gold light spilled from the doorway, where Nell stood excitedly waving to me; her face looked so happy that for a moment I forgot the rest of the day and let myself feel happy for her happiness. She’d finally gotten what she’d always wanted: her own home. But then she’d gotten even more than that: a nice man and a just-as-nice baby.
“I’m so glad you came!” she called to me now as I turned off the car’s engine.
From the backseat I grabbed my case and a gift bag holding two bottles of plum wine. Then I walked up the porch stairs and into the doorway, where Nell took me in her arms. She was wearing a satiny midnight-blue top, and her satiny shoulder felt cool against my face.
She shifted against me and pulled back a bit, her hand reaching for the side of her breast. When she spoke now, her brown eyes rolled, and she kept her voice low—apparently, for her and my ears only. “I was feeding before—she favors this boob, and it’s so sore now! What’s wrong with my other one—why doesn’t she like it as much? That’s what I want to know.”
I laughed so hard, and I realized then that I’d made the correct decision in coming there.
I handed her the gift bag, and her other arm urged me to come inside more; a little cold wind touched my hair as Tan walked in behind me. When Nell hugged him now, my eyes traveled down the living room to where I spotted Derek setting the dining-room table. That room was decorated a rich red; so was the living room I was now walking through. Their house was sort of a mirror image of Tan’s house: his bedrooms were on the left of the kitchen and living room; their bedrooms were on the right of the dining room and living room.
“Hey,” I called to Derek as I moved closer to him. He grinned at me beneath a head of golden hair. “What’s for dinner?” I asked now. “It smells so good in here! Where’s the baby?” I looked at Annie’s green and white round playpen near the dining-room table, but the pen was empty.
“She’s asleep in her crib,” Nell said from beside me.
“Oh…I thought I could see her tonight.” I felt really disappointed.
And the degree of my disappointment must have been evident in my voice because Nell quickly grabbed my hand and tugged me toward the hall that led to her bedroom. “Of course you can see her. Come on.”
Because she was still too small to sleep in her own room, Annie slept in the corner beside Nell and Derek’s bed. And when I stepped inside their room now, my eyes first fell on the beautiful swathe of red and brown blankets flecked with gold threads that Nell had hung on that corner’s walls. Then my eyes moved to the bunch of colorful toys and baby-care paraphernalia arranged on the floor and on the long dark dresser nearby, which flanked the overstuffed red chair that Nell used whenever she had to nurse Annie during the night.
I sighed, partly because the room was just such a warm, sigh-inducing space, and, partly because, tonight, in the center of that warmth, little Annie Nelline Willet was sleeping so peacefully.
Her tiny body in her little white nightshirt lay nestled inside her cherry-red crib cushion. Her lips were slightly open and her copper-colored curls framed her round peaceful face, which was a soft brown touched with a golden red. She looked like a fifty-fifty mix of both her parents—except her hair, which was courtesy of a distant, very red-headed relative of Derek’s.
I reached down to touch one of Annie’s copper curls; then I gently stroked her teeny-tiny fingers. The absolute softest skin—baby skin.
“She is soooo beautiful,” I said.
“She looks like her mom,” said Derek in a soft voice as he walked in.
“She looks like her dad!” said Nell.
“You’re both wrong,” I said, “and you’re both right: she’s both of you.”
“I agree with Pia,” said Tan from behind me. “I wish she was awake—I could have used a cuddle….”
“I’ll give you one later,” I said, and Nell laughed.
“Tan, about work today…” Derek began, and then he and Tan moved out of the room.
I stared down at Annie again. I’d always found the way children came out a curious thing: sometimes they were a fifty-fifty blend of their parents; other times they were like duplicates of one of the parents; and, still other times, the children fell somewhere in between. You just never knew beforehand. Nature apparently loved its secrets and surprises….
I suddenly remembered that I’d once possessed what Annie had: a house full of love, love from my parents. It had been so long ago, but whenever I would come here and whenever Nell would occasionally bring Annie to the office, I would re-experience the memories I’d repressed about my parents, about how much they loved to hug me and would always take me with them when they traveled, which traveling they’d loved to do.
Now, tomorrow, my memories of them would resurface even more, but not in a good way….
“Let’s go in her room now,” Nell said to me. “I just put the finishing touches on the walls today. And I can’t wait till you see it!”
I couldn’t wait either, and when I finally did walk into the adjoining nursery a moment later, I felt happy for the first time that day. It was hard to not be happy with all the room’s reds, oranges and yellows surrounding me.
My eyes slowly passed over the rainbow shapes Nell had painted on the walls, but they were rainbows without any blues. “I don’t want her to ever be blue,” Nell had told me once, and now I thought that, in this room, Annie would never be sad. No one could ever be.
*
We finally went into the kitchen so Nell could finish cooking her Thai vegetable curry. This meal was a treat to me: Nell was a great cook. But I had been missing her cooking because, lately, with Derek and the baby and her side-business making jewelry, Nell seemed to have less and less time to spend entertaining….
Her dark eyes glanced up at me as she moved around the kitchen, her hands gathering and mixing together some extra spices. “I’m glad you came tonight for my own reasons too,” she said then in a very low voice.
At first I didn’t understand why she’d spoken so softly: Derek and Tan had disappeared into the study.
But then I realized that Nell’s voice had lowered because she was about to say something difficult for her to say—and difficult for me to hear.
“I worry so much now,” Nell began. “When you’re always thinking for more than yourself, that worrying’s what happens. I’m lucky that I’ll always have my blood family to care for Annie,
but a person’s family doesn’t know everything about her. They deliberately don’t want to know—or you just can’t tell them everything. That’s where you come in, Pia. If something happens to me, I hope you’ll fill Annie in on the rest of me.”
I felt a sharp jolt of fear lance deep inside me. “What are you talking about, Nell? Don’t even talk like this, please. Nothing’s going to happen to you.”
“I don’t think anything will happen either, but we’ve all got to go some time. And I just don’t want my daughter to have an incomplete picture of me. She might need to know something about me no one but her Aunt Pia could tell her.”
My mouth shook, and though I was very touched Nell had asked this of me, I didn’t want to even think about not having her in my life. When I thought of this now, my stomach instantly turned into a tight pit of sadness. Nothing would happen to Nell. I wouldn’t let it happen. “I’ll do whatever you wish, but, Nell, this is so depressing to discuss….”
“Oh I know—I know!” She turned to me then and smiled. “But it’s the cycle of life. And it isn’t all bad. Think of all the good times we’ve had together!”
Now I couldn’t help asking: “Christ, Nell, you’re not dying or something, are you?”
“What?” She laughed. “No. I didn’t mean to scare you. I just have more time to think nowadays even though my body’s busier.”
“It certainly is…. Actually, I’ve been considering hiring someone else to help you with MSA’s paperwork on the days you’re there.”
“You know,” she said to me now, “I’ve been thinking of getting an assistant too. Though maybe I should just quit it with the jewelry—”
“No—don’t do that! If you quit anything, quit MSA. You’ve got more important things to do now.”
“Everything’s important,” Nell said, her plum-painted lips sliding into an ironic curve. “I don’t want Annie growing up in an unstable world filled with lots of crime. What I do with you at MSA is important to me too.”
