The Otherlings and the Crystal Amulet

by S V Hurn

  As soon as they walked in, they ran into the crew from JPL sitting at the bar. It was an Irish pub, complete with pool tables and darts off to one side, a small stage for karaoke with a smattering of little tables, and a large old classic style mahogany bar that curved around one entire side of the space. Being that the pub was so close in proximity to JPL, one could always expect to come across other coworkers mingling in a sea of khakis and blue shirts with sleeves rolled up. Of course, Dorathy and Lucy were the exceptions.

  A couple of the guys had been there awhile and were a few drinks ahead. One of them approached Dorathy as they walked in. “Hi,” clearly trying not to slur his words, “you work with Hugo and Jack.”

  Dorathy cocked her head to the side. “Yup, sure do.” Encouraged by her response, he leaned against the wall to regain his balance. He continued, “You’re one of the project managers over there, man those projects are fringe, really way out there,” and he threw back his arm to represent distance.

  Dorathy nodded her head in agreement and said, “Yeah, maybe, but it makes my job more interesting.” At that moment Lucy ran up and grabbed Dorathy by the arm. Before Lucy could drag her away, the audacious drunk asked if he could buy her a drink; she simply said, “Nope,” and off they went to sing a few duets.

  After a couple of hours, they were ready to call it a night. As she always did, Dorathy tipped the doorman for keeping a watchful eye over her car, and he asked if she was ever going to let him drive it. She laughed. “Yeah, maybe, if you’re good.”

  He responded, “Baby, I’m really good.”

  She burst out laughing, “Yeah, I don’t doubt it, Scotty. Don’t forget I know your mom!”

  His buddy, who was loitering around outside with him, punched him in the arm while calling him a jackass. Both boys were laughing, and God knows what they were going to discuss after the two women departed, but surely whatever it was, it would only be in their dreams.

  It was a beautiful Saturday morning. Dorathy woke up refreshed and energetic, so she decided to go for a nice jog through the hills surrounding her neighborhood. She strode out her front door and noticed Kevin’s car was parked in the driveway. She sighed, thought about it a moment, and was forced to remind herself that her daughter was a young woman, engaged to be married. Although they were two consenting adults, after all, it still was hard to swallow that her little girl was all grown up. So off she went; she put her music on and turned up the volume of her favorite old tunes. Listening about island getaways always made her miss her beach house on her very own piece of paradise. She thought . . . one day.

  When she returned, Kevin’s car was gone, and Athena was putting breakfast away. “Hi, Mom,” Athena said in a cheerful voice, “you want me to make you anything before I clean this all up?”

  “Nah, thanks though.” Dorathy went on to say, “So, tonight you’re bringing Kevin and your friends Matt, Stacy, and Kim for dinner, and after dinner you’re all going to take Carlo out to a club, right?”

  Athena replied, without any enthusiasm in her voice, “Yes, Mother.”

  Dorathy raised her eyebrows, and asked, “What’s with the melancholy?”

  With a heavy sigh, Athena asked, “Why are you always bringing home strays?”

  “Jeez . . . really Athena,” Dorathy said with a disappointed note in her voice. She began to plead her case. “Look, Carlo is far from home, most likely the first time in his life, so all I’m trying to do is get him out with some people his own age. And maybe find him a girlfriend, so he won’t be so pathetically lonely.”

  Athena retorted with a smile, “You mean get him laid?”

  Dorathy smirked and rolled her eyes, saying, “Sure . . . why the hell not?”

  “Speaking of getting laid, Mom,” Athena rolled it right back at her, “when, if ever, are you going to find a boyfriend?”

  Dorathy half expected this line of questioning as she had taught her daughter never to hold back in the art of communication. “Jesus Christ, Athena, I just have a truckload of men trying to break down the door to get in here for a good ol’ roll in the hay, don’t I?”

  “No, you don’t, Mom,” Athena continued to shoot back at her, “and the reason why is because you chase all potentially suitable men away. In fact, they go running and screaming in fear!”

  “Wow, really!” Dorathy snapped back, feeling vulnerable and went on to say, “Who peed in your damn Cheerios?”

  “Okay, Mom, calm down,” Athena said, trying to ease this sore spot with her mother and continued on in a calmer, more understanding voice, “all I’m saying is you haven’t had a serious relationship since you and Dad split eons ago and I’m just trying to figure out why not?”

  Dorathy, a bit of sadness mingled with a dash of regret, leaned up against the kitchen counter and simply said, “I guess I just haven’t met the right person yet.” She went on to say now with tears welling up, “I cared a lot about your dad, but ultimately he didn’t want me, he needed someone else, someone I could never be, and I can accept that. I also can accept that I’m an independent woman and I have evolved to a point where I refuse to allow a man to control my life.”

  Athena hugged her mom now because she finally grasped what she was trying to say—she was looking for a partner . . . her soul mate.

  Athena cradled her mom’s face with both hands and kissed her mother square on the lips. “I love you, Mom, and I know there is someone out there for you—it’s just not the time yet, but he will pop into your life when you least expect it.”

  Dorathy smiled and said, “My darling daughter, always a hopeless romantic.”

  Athena replied, “I think I got that from you.”

  Dorathy, who was feeling a little bit brighter about her future and possible romance with her soul mate, who was presently hidden away at some far off place, decided it was a good time to take a shower and go to the grocery store for tonight’s meal of her famous fifteen-pound lasagna and garlic bread. Dorathy loved to cook for guests and was a gracious host. Tonight, would be fun and hopefully Carlo would hook up with one of Athena’s girlfriends, if not for any other reason but to turn his affections away from herself. She laughed under her breath, and reiterated, “That silly boy.”

  Carlo showed up a bit earlier than expected. Dorathy was still layering the lasagna when the doorbell rang. She wiped her hands on a tea towel and answered the door. She saw Carlo standing there with one of those free bags you get from the local liquor store filled with a variety of wine. He was dressed in a closely fitted black shirt that outlined a toned muscular build and had paired his dark blue jeans with stylish black boots. His thick black hair was cut short with just the right amount of length on top. Dark eyes glowing against his olive skin, he stared back at her with a big perfect smile. She thought to herself if she was younger, she would have loved a little roll in the hay, but immediately dismissed that thought as she directed him through the front door.

  In a thick Italian accent, he said, “Thank you fora having me fora dinner. I noa havea gooda food since I leavea my home ina Italy. My momma, shea cooks for me every Sunday after Mass.”

  Dorathy smiled and directed him through the foyer and into the kitchen. “Make yourself at home. My daughter Athena should be here shortly with a group of her friends.” She offered Carlo a glass of wine as she could sense he was a bit nervous about the evening ahead. Carlo accepted with enthusiasm and he picked one of the bottles of Chianti out of the bag. He said, “Thisa one isa gooda bottle.” Dorathy, too busy with her tasks, handed a bottle opener to Carlo, who took it from her and sat at the opposite side of the bar facing the kitchen. As he was uncorking the wine, Dorathy asked, “So Carlo tell me about your family.”

  A big grin broke out across his perfectly sculpted face and he said with fondness, “Well my momma, she livea outsidea Romea, my Pappa hea die long time ago with the heart attack. Mya little sister, Maria, shea marry anda havea three bambinos. Shea no work, hera husband havea good job for the museum ina Romea. Ia go
to University and me geta this job, I knowa I so lucky, but I was the topa my class. I love mya joba in the Robotics. I’ma so excited we gonna be sending to the moon soona. I tella my momma, shea thinks I goa into space, I tella her, “No Momma, we senda the robots toa space, but shea tella everyone I goa into the space.””

  Dorathy giggled and said, “So you’re working on the Lunar Dig Project. That’s funny.” She went on to tell him about the inside joke with that project; either we were there digging to find a huge deposit of sub-lunar water, or The Mother Ship.

  He laughed and said he had heard that joke, that he hoped it was the latter of the two. He went on to tell her, “I wasa going toa try anda have my momma movea here to the USA, but shea no want to goa, she saya she too old now.”

  Dorathy asked in a concerned motherly way, “So what will you do, being so far away from your home and family?”

  “I thinka I stay for a while, then mya uncle, hea worka for CERN for nuclear research in Switzerland maybe hea geta me a job there.”

  Dorathy perked up when she heard that, as she had visited CERN not too long ago. That trip was one of her favorite business trips. She had been one of the six people from her division that flew to Switzerland to meet with their engineers to go over new concepts in propulsion. It was not like Dorathy to grand-stand and she never used the corporate jet inherited from her father, but she hated to fly commercial for such a long journey and she had been dreading the flight. Although air travel had improved over time with the new faster jet engines that had taken the place of the older, much slower models, travel on commercial flights was still tiresome.

  She had called Lucy and told her not to book the airline tickets just yet, that she wanted to check into something first. She then called her pilot and scheduled the flight. When she called Lucy back, she told her she had handled the air, but wanted Lucy to book a limo for all of them to the airport. Dorathy thought, “What the hell, may as well make it real special.” Her colleagues were happy when they discovered Lucy had booked a limo, but were gob struck when they realized they were going over in a private jet. Most of them brought her lunches for weeks afterwards.

  Dorathy asked Carlo, “Who is your uncle over there? I might have met him.” He told her, and his name sounded vaguely familiar but something at the back of her mind nagged at her, that somehow, she knew him from her past.

  Carlo was leaning in over the counter, “You working ona the cryogenics? You think thata is something you want to do whena you die?”

  Dorathy popped the lasagna into the oven and started prepping the garlic bread. Spreading the roasted garlic over the baguettes, she stopped to think about what her choice would be. “Yes, I think I would do that, most definitely.”

  He wore a smile, but his eyes were saddened by the thought. Lowering his head, no longer being able to look her in the eye, he asked, “Ifa someone gonna wakea you up, I guess dying not so bad after all.”

  Dorathy pondered the thought for a moment, “Yeah, I guess . . . we all have to die, but if there is a chance of life after death, I suppose it’s not so bad. She chuckled, “Doesn’t mean I want to die tomorrow though.”

  Carlo sighed as he sat back against his bar stool, knowing that her future had already been set in motion, “Yes, everyone gonna die sometime. Maybe itsa okay if you die and youra life had meaning. Maybe whena you wake up, you have a better life and do important thingsa that maybe you coulda not even imagine.”

  Dorathy smiled, “Well, hopefully in this life I do what’s important and meaningful and when I die and if, or when, I get revived in the future, I continue my life doing something even more extraordinary.”

  Carlo was feeling better about her project. “I hope you livea forever.”

  “Well Carlo forever is a very long time, why don’t we just live in the moment for now?”

  As that thought settled in with them both, the rest of the crew walked through the front door. When Athena stopped short, Kim and Stacy rear-ended her in the kitchen doorway. All three gals stood there with mouths hanging open, while they gazed upon Carlo. Athena smiled and introduced herself to Carlo, then quickly introduced Kevin as her fiancé and went on to introduce her suddenly very single friends. Before this very moment they were all in make-believe relationships, not wanting to be set up with a loser.

  The wine was flowing, and everyone was laughing and joking while enjoying their dinner, the aroma of an authentic Italian meal lingering in the air. The girls were cleaning up, so they could talk in private. The discussion centered on how they were going to share Carlo tonight as if he didn’t have a say in the matter.

  Dorathy said, “Good, I’m glad you all like him. He’s a good boy.” With that she excused herself, said her goodnights, and commented on how her work was done.

  The next morning, she woke with a bit of a headache she figured was from overindulging in the wine. She had been getting a lot of headaches lately and racked it up to not enough sleep. Still tired, she sat on the edge of the bed yawning, then dragged herself into her bathroom and rummaged through a drawer to find a pain reliever. She peered into the mirror above the sink and thought how old she was starting to look. She pulled at the side of her face. Her reflection stared back, telling her it was something much more than skin deep that haunted her. The years had passed by so quickly and only now showing in the lines of her face. A true happiness lingered in the background, shadowed by the stunning reflection that peered back at her.

  Dorathy was not a vain woman, but she did take care of her physical appearance. She was comfortable going out in ragged gardening clothes without a stitch of makeup on—in fact during her time away from work she preferred to dress down, as she always dressed very well for her job. She was the kind of person that was very adaptable no matter if she was spending an evening at the Ritz or some smoke-filled dive bar out in the middle of nowhere. There were plenty of times long ago when she had been with her father so far off the beaten track that a tent and a campfire were all the comforts they had.

  She was feeling very spent this morning and decided to go for a leisurely walk through her neighborhood rather than her normal jog, then she would pack for the week in Arizona. Before Dorathy knew it, it was time for Athena to take her to the airport. Dorathy grabbed her bag and wheeled it down the hall. She had dressed in a pair of linen pants and a light-weight cotton shirt for the trip, as Phoenix was going to be scorching hot this time of year.

  Athena saw her mom approaching and grabbed her purse. “Okay, Mom, you ready to go?”

  “Yeah, I think so,” Dorathy replied, taking a mental inventory of all the work-related items that she needed to bring with her.

  Athena tossed her mom’s bags into the back of the car, “I think Kevin and I are going to go up to the wine country next weekend, so we’ll pick you up on our way home.”

  Dorathy responded as she was getting into the passenger side, “Sounds like fun. Can you pick up some of my favorite wines for me, I’m running low on my liquid gold,” as Dorathy liked to call her favorite beverage.

  Athena agreed, “Sure, Mom, anything you say.”

  CHAPTER 4

  As Dorathy’s plane came in for a landing, she thought about the two years she had spent living there as a kid—boy how it had grown over the years. The city lights seemed to blaze all the way to the horizon and beyond. Grabbing her bag, she stepped outside to get the rental car shuttle and was nearly thrown back from the blast of heat as the automatic doors opened. Even at almost eight o’clock at night it was still well over a hundred degrees. She thought of the old reply locals had for someone who would comment on the temperature: “Yes, but it’s a dry heat.” No, it’s just too damn hot!

  Happy to finally reach her hotel and her room, she thought a little something to eat would be great before heading to bed. For a moment she contemplated just getting comfortable and ordering room service, but she wanted to make this trip feel like a bit of a vacation, so she washed her face, fluffed her long hair and decided to go
down to the restaurant bar for a bite and a cocktail.

  As she entered the restaurant she asked if they were still serving and was pleased to find that they were. The place was an elegant Japanese restaurant with a half a dozen hibachi tables to the right of a large bar and a sushi bar towards the back. With it being late, the dinner crowd had thinned, so she decided to go back and see about getting a little sushi instead of a big meal. She sat down and ordered a Hawaiian and California roll and that was more than enough. She was enjoying her dinner and having a little small talk with the sushi chief while sipping some warm sake, when a tall, nice looking man politely asked if the seat next to her was taken.

  Taken aback, she looked around her at all the empty seats and politely replied, as not to offend, “No, it’s not, but . . . ,” with a pause, continued gesturing at the vacant tables in the restaurant, “I don’t believe any of those chairs are taken.”

  The man spat out, “Bitch!” and stalked off. Dorathy was infuriated, threw her napkin down on the counter and thought, how could a stranger make such a quick judgment call? “How dare he!” She found herself on her feet, scrambling to beat him to the door. She caught up to him and said firmly, “Listen to me, that was rude and uncalled for! You come up to woman who is on her own, late at night, who is obviously single,” and with that she waved her left hand in front of his face wiggling her bare ring finger, “and what? You might get lucky on your trip away from home? Maybe, perhaps away from a wife and kids? Therefore, as I’m not stupid then you assume I’m a bitch! Really?”

  “Now if you had just taken a seat a couple chairs down and joined in conversation with the chef and me, perhaps then you might have gotten somewhere, but not likely. Don’t you know that intelligent conversation is more an aphrodisiac than some stupid pickup line?” With that she sauntered back to her dinner.