Full Spectrum 3 - [Anthology]

by Ed By Lou Aronica et. el.

  She relaxed enough to lie down on the bed, and he pulled the blanket over her. His body was warm. With a corner of the sheet, he dried her face.

  “What happened in the past doesn’t matter. I don’t care about all that. But you’ve got to tell me when you’re mad at me, you’ve got to tell me what’s going on. Promise me that.”

  “I’ll try.” She closed her eyes, but knew that he was still watching her.

  “And I’ll try, too.” He paused for a moment. “Suppose I took some time off from work. We could drive down to Santa Cruz and spend a few days by the ocean. Can you afford the time off?”

  She opened her eyes and looked at him. “Yeah, I could use a few days off—but what about your project?”

  “They’ll do without me for a few days. They’ll just have to.” He watched her, his eyes steady. “I think we both need a vacation.”

  “All right,” she said at last. “I’m willing to give it a try.” She felt spent, drained. She lay in his arms, and finally she slept.

  * * * *

  On the drive to Santa Cruz, she felt awkward at first, as if she and Jeff were strangers on a first date. She kept smiling and making light conversation: “Isn’t the weather nice?” “I wonder if it’ll rain.” “Do you suppose we’ll hit much traffic?”

  Half an hour into the drive, Jeff glanced over at her and said, “It’s okay, Teresa. You don’t have to make small talk.” She bit her lip, suddenly silent. He reached over and took her hand. “Look—I’m not mad at you. Are you mad at me?”

  She considered the question. No, she wasn’t angry. Confused maybe, but not angry. “No, I’m not mad.”

  “Then let’s just relax.” He squeezed her hand. “Why don’t you tell me about how your piece for Santa Fe is going? I’d like to know.”

  She started telling him about the sculpture. At first, she was nervous, but she had relaxed by the time they got to Davenport, a small town just north of Santa Cruz. That night, they stayed at an old Victorian house that had been converted to a bed-and-breakfast inn. The house was perched on the cliffs above the ocean, and Teresa insisted on leaving the bedroom window open, despite the cool ocean fog. From the room, she could hear the pounding surf. They made love, and she fell asleep in Jeff’s arms.

  The next morning, he brought her breakfast in bed and suggested that they drive home, rather than fly. “Last time we drove, we were in too much of a hurry. I’ve never shown you the parts of the desert I really love,” he told her.

  She had her doubts about the trip. Her memories of the drive from San Francisco to Winslow were of long bleak stretches of highway. But Jeff was so enthusiastic she kept her reservations to herself. She had almost forgotten what he could be like when he wasn’t working. All the intensity that he had been focusing on his work was now concentrated on her. “All right,” she agreed. “We can drive.”

  The trip took seven days, with many stops and detours along the way. They wandered among the twisted trees of the Joshua Tree National Monument. They visited the ruins of an Indian pueblo, strolling among the remains of walls that marked where rooms had once been, and startling lizards that were sleeping in the sun. They hiked out to see Arizona’s biggest natural rock bridge and climbed on massive sandstone boulders.

  Late in the afternoon of the sixth day, they sat together on the flat, sun-warmed surface of a boulder the size of a school bus. It was quiet, but not silent, Teresa realized. A raven flew over, its shadow rippling across the rocks. It called once, and she heard the rustle of feathers as it cupped its wings to land on a distant rock.

  “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Jeff said.

  “It always just seemed hot to me,” Teresa said. “Hot and empty and uncaring.”

  “No, you got it wrong,” he said. “This land has its own kind of power. I find myself listening to every rustle of leaves, hearing the hiss of sand blowing over sand, noticing the way the light changes during the day. It focuses my attention, and I see things I’d normally overlook, hear things I would normally ignore. It changes in subtle ways. Each day is a little different. I think it’s beautiful.” He took her hand, and they sat together until the sun started to set.

  That evening, one day’s drive from home, she called Carla from the motel, just to let her know that everything was going fine.

  “Jeff and I both have to get back to work,” Teresa told Carla. “But things are much better between us. I just hope it lasts.”

  “What about Ian?”

  “I don’t think that’ll be a problem.”

  Carla shook her head. “You know, you haven’t changed a bit. You always were amazed when you found out that some ex-lover was carrying a torch for you. You always seem to expect them to vanish without a trace when the love affair is over.”

  “Ian won’t carry a torch,” Teresa said. “He’s not built that way.”

  Carla shrugged. “Have it your way. But you may be surprised.”

  * * * *

  When her alarm went off at six, Teresa woke to find herself alone. Jeff, as usual, was gone, and Ian did not greet her from the monitor in the corner. She waited a moment before turning off the alarm, wondering if Ian would notice the noise and say good morning, but he did not appear. She was not sure if she was disappointed, relieved, or both.

  As she got out of bed she noticed for the first time the sounds coming from the kitchen. She pulled on her robe and walked down the hall.

  Jeff stood in the middle of the kitchen, his back to her, the calm eye in the middle of a hurricane of activity. Coffee steamed from the coffee maker on his left, eggs sizzled in a pan on the stove behind him, and four pieces of brown toast sat patiently in the toaster to his right. He was intently sawing a grapefruit in half.

  Teresa stared in amazement. “What’s this?”

  Jeff turned around. “Breakfast.” He smiled. “I hope.”

  “Breakfast?” She could not remember the last time Jeff had eaten breakfast with her before leaving for work.

  “Yeah, you know, the meal you eat in the morning.” He cut another section of grapefruit. “I noticed that you’d set your alarm for early today, and I figured that we both have to eat, so I thought I’d surprise you.” He put down the knife and grapefruit and grabbed a mug from the counter. “Coffee?”

  “Sure.” Teresa took the mug and settled down at the table. Jeff prepared breakfast as he did everything else—carefully, methodically, precisely. He worked at the counter in front of him for thirty seconds or so, rotated one stop, worked at that counter, and so on around the circle. Somehow it seemed to come out right.

  In a few minutes, Jeff set a plate in front of her and sat down across from her.

  She did not know quite what to say. She was used to talking to Ian in the morning, not Jeff. Ian, however, did not appear. “Jeff?”

  He put down his fork and looked at her. “Yes?”

  “This is nice, but don’t you have to get to work?”

  “Yeah, in a little while. Breakfast just seemed like a nice way for us to get to spend a little extra time together. That’s all.” He sipped his coffee. “I mean, don’t get too used to it, okay? I’m not saying this will be a regular thing, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.”

  They ate in silence for a while. Teresa felt vaguely bribed, or catered to, but Jeff was making an effort. Several times she almost spoke, but each time she stopped herself. Twice she found Jeff staring at her when she looked up from her plate. He seemed to want her to talk, but he did not press her.

  Finally she decided that maybe he really was trying, and that maybe she could try a little more as well. “Jeff, how much of this is real?”

  “What do you mean, real? Is the food that bad?”

  “No jokes. I mean, how much of this”—she waved her arm to take in the kitchen”—is real, and how much is just some attempt to pacify me.”

  “Pacify you? I don’t want to pacify you. I just want to be happy with you. Sure, this is all pretty convenient, coming right after ou
r trip and all, but at least give me a little credit for trying. I won’t make breakfast every day, that’s for sure, but I’ll try to be around a lot more. No—I will be around a lot more.” He leaned closer. “Teresa, I have to start somewhere.”

  Teresa put her mug down. She reached across the table and took his hand. “You’re right. You have to start somewhere, and so do I.” She kissed him lightly. “The food is wonderful, and so, sometimes, are you. I do appreciate it.” She leaned back in her chair.

  As they ate, they talked about simple things—what she wanted to get done on the sculpture, his plans for the day, her knowledge that something that she could not quite put her finger on was still wrong with the piece. When they were done eating, she rinsed the dishes, and he loaded them into the dishwasher.

  Jeff stopped when he was almost out the door on his way to work. “Teresa.”

  She came over to the door. “Yes.”

  “You really are good at what you do, you know. I’m not trying to say that this isn’t a difficult piece, maybe even your hardest yet, but I’m sure you’ll figure out what’s wrong with it.” He hugged her for a moment and, as he held her close, said, “You will.”

  She kissed him. “Thanks.”

  She watched for a moment as he got in his car and started it, and then she closed the door and headed toward the bedroom. Only when she was back in the bedroom, getting dressed, did Ian appear.

  “Good morning, Teresa.”

  “Good morning, Ian.” She pulled on a sweatshirt, unwilling to look at him. She was, she realized, as uncomfortable as she had been when she talked with him for the first time. She sat on the bed and looked at him. “What do you think of the desert, Ian?”

  “I don’t like the desert,” he said easily.

  “Why not?”

  “Because you don’t like the desert. You said so the first morning we talked.”

  She sat in silence, studying the screen. “You always like what I like.”

  “What’s wrong, Teresa? You seem upset.”

  “Why didn’t you talk to me in the kitchen this morning?” she asked. “Because Jeff was here and you thought I wouldn’t want to talk to you with him around?”

  “Yes. You hardly ever start a conversation with me when Jeff’s home, and you seem uncomfortable if we talk when he’s here, so I assumed you’d prefer it if we talk only in private. If I did something wrong, tell me, and I won’t make that mistake again.”

  “I keep thinking about Pygmalion,” she said. She studied Ian’s face. “After he fell in love with his creation, and some god or other took pity on him and made her into a real woman.”

  “Aphrodite,” Ian said.

  “It figures. Aphrodite, the goddess of love.” She studied Ian, thoughtfully. “Would you like to be real, Ian?”

  “I am real.”

  “I mean a real person. Someone who could walk off that screen and sit down on the couch, take my hand, and give me a kiss.”

  “Would you like that?”

  She wanted to hit him. “Damn it, Ian, can’t you just once tell me what you feel, what you want, and stop trying to figure out what I want?”

  Ian looked contrite. “I told you; what you want is what I want. That’s the way I’m built. I can’t be any other way.”

  “No wonder Pygmalion fell in love with Galatea,” she said softly. “You want what I want. I can do no wrong.”

  “That’s right,” Ian said.

  “But it’s not right, Ian. I’m not always right. Not even close.”

  “Teresa, I know you’re unhappy with me. What do you want me to do?”

  “Nothing,” she said, shaking her head. “Do you think Pygmalion was happy? I mean, his statue must have been the perfect lover. No arguments. No demands.”

  “I don’t know. The story stops right after Venus made the statue into a real woman.”

  “Of course it does. Love stories always end with falling in love. They don’t deal with the messy stuff afterwards. But that stuff’s part of love, too, you know.”

  “What’s part of love?”

  “The messy stuff. The arguments. The compromises. The disagreements. The negotiations. The give-and-take. All of that. I don’t think Pygmalion was happy. I don’t think so.”

  “Teresa, I know you’re unhappy with me, but I just don’t know what to do.”

  “I don’t know either. Sometimes I wish things between us could be like they were in the beginning—simple, no complications, no problems.” She shook her head slowly. “But I guess you can never go back.”

  “Sure we can.”

  “What?”

  “If you want me to, I can erase all my records of everything that’s happened since any point in time you pick. You just tell me when you want me to roll back to, and I’ll do it.”

  “You’ll forget everything?”

  “Everything—if that’s what you want.”

  “No!” Teresa was trembling, but she wasn’t quite sure why. She remembered how easy her first conversations with Ian had been, but she also remembered how guilty she had felt after she had erased his memories. No one should have that much power over anybody else. She looked at her hands; they were shaking. “Just give me a minute, Ian, okay?”

  “Okay.” He stared patiently from the monitor.

  When she finally spoke, she felt like she was breaking up with someone. “Ian, I don’t want you to delete any of your memories. I don’t want that kind of control over you. But,” she paused and took a deep breath, “I think you should plan on having fewer conversations with me in the future. And you shouldn’t worry about talking to me in front of Jeff. If you have something to say, I’m sure he won’t mind hearing it.” Ian was watching her intently from the screen. “We’ll still be friends, but I think that from now on I’ll want a lot less from you.”

  “Okay, Teresa. But if you need me, I’ll be here for you.”

  “Right.” She did not know whether to believe him. She did not even know if it mattered.

  * * * *

  Teresa went to her workshop and switched on the sculpture. She watched as the lifters brought the balls to the top and let them go. As the balls rolled through the maze of metal plates, boards, and brass hands, the storm started quietly and built rapidly to thunder. The music was a perfect mirror of the sounds in her head, of her plans and desires for it, and yet it was not enough. It sounded mechanical—a weak imitation of a real storm, lacking the wildness of a thundering sky, the unstoppable, unpredictable force of a downpour.

  In groups of eight, the balls rolled into the waiting lifters. Each lifter took its group back to its starting position, and the whole process began anew. Each time the sculpture played the same perfectly timed, perfectly repeatable peal of thunder. The music never varied, never changed. It was completely controlled. No two real storms ever sounded the same, but her sculpture would play the same music over and over until it broke or rusted into dust.

  As the sculpture played for the third time, she knew what she had to do. She rummaged through her pile of scrap metal until she found a piece of half-inch solid metal bar. At her welding bench, she cut the bar into four-inch lengths. When she was done with the first bar, she found two others and cut them into similar pieces. After four bars she had about thirty small pieces.

  She found a sheet of thick metal plate in the corner of the shop and used her welding torch to cut it down to a square about a yard on a side. She clamped the sheet metal to her bench and started welding the small pieces of metal bar to it. She placed them randomly, trying not to form any particular pattern, so that the short spikes stood up from the sheet metal. She always left enough space between the spikes for one of the sculpture’s balls to pass through, but not much more. When she was done she took the whole assembly to the sculpture. She worked for most of the morning installing the new piece and adjusting the tracks to work with it.

  When she was finished, she turned on the sculpture and settled back to watch and listen. As the first storm star
ted, the lifters freed the balls and they began to wind their way down the tracks, playing the storm she had heard so many times before. As the first balls reached the bottom of the tracks, however, they fell into the spikes of the new piece.

  The balls ricocheted among the spikes, rattling in an irregular rhythm and changing course at random, much like the small metal balls that bounce through a Pachinko game. Two balls found their way quickly to the bottom, and a lifter started up with them. The other six bounced around on the metal spikes and reached the bottom later. Balls in the other groups also entered the plate of spikes. Because the number of balls in each lifter changed, the number at each starting position also varied, and the second storm began with a different sound.