Home Fires (4 page)

“Twenty-two years, one hundred and six days.” Skip cleared his throat. “I didn’t count the hours. I was…”

“Speechless, Counselor?”

“Looking for the best word. Devastated. Knocked off my feet. Half dead.
Veritas nihil veretur nisi abscondi.
None of those I’ve found are quite right, and I’m still groping for it.”

Chelle uncovered her plate. “This smells heavenly. Army food’s not really as bad as everybody thinks, but I’m starved and this is going to be better. So I’m going to ask questions now, and you two are going to have to answer while I liberate the best chow.” Abruptly her voice grew serious. “This one’s driving me nuts. Why don’t you look old, Mom?”

Vanessa snapped, “Please don’t call me that. You know I hate it.”

“Last time, I swear. Why don’t you?”

“I’ve been away.”

“In space? Sure! You had to be.” Chelle’s strong, white teeth tore the breast of a chicken.

“I shall not say more, darling.”

Through the chicken, Chelle managed, “Where’s Charlie?”

“I neither know nor care. I voided our contract—unilaterally, which is quite difficult. It was after you divorced us, thus you were not notified.”

“Uh huh.”

“Charles grew boring as he aged. Perhaps Skip has as well. You’ll have to tell me.”

“I haven’t
grown
boring,” Skip declared, “because I was boring already. Chelle found me restful after combat training.”

“Atter lif wi’ you.” Chelle swallowed. “You’re a breakdown trying to happen to somebody else, Mother dear.”

“Why, Chelle! That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

“Absence makes the heart horny, or whatever it is. Why won’t— I’ve got it! You were a spy! I’ll bet you were good at it, too.”

Skip said, “I can’t imagine how a human being could spy on the Os.”

“Electronically.” Chelle was mining her baked potato.

“We spy on the EU, and they upon us,” Vanessa told him. “Everybody spies on Greater Eastasia.”

“I know, but it doesn’t involve interstellar travel.”

Chelle said, “Right. We’re all allies together out there, arm in arm as we march through thick and thin and all that shit. One of the best noncoms we had turned out to be an EU spy, Master Sergeant Pununto. I killed him. Do you know that as soon as I finish my dinner—yours, too—I’m going to rape you? I just decided on it. Anybody want wine?”

Vanessa held out her glass, and Chelle poured. “While he was in that goddamned bathroom getting dressed I damned near broke down the door. What kind of underwear does he wear?”

Before Vanessa could reply, Skip said, “Not relevant.”

“I’ll find out. Probably those cool silk loincloths—they’re big right now.”

“Chelle, really!”

“Now listen up, Skip, ’cause this is serious. I could be stuck here for weeks. I don’t know, but I could be.” She took a pencil and a small notebook from a pocket of her uniform. “I’m going to give you my service number, and the number of the base commander’s office. Phone tomorrow and ask where I am—what part of the processing. They’ll say they can’t find out without my number. It’s a damned lie, but give it to them and ask when I’m getting out. That’s important. They might tell you, but they won’t tell me. Go all legal on them and you’ll probably get it.”

Skip said, “I understand. What I don’t understand is why they may hold on to you for weeks.”

“They think we’re crazy, that combat’s shoved us over the edge.” Chelle fluffed her blond curls. “Those pricks call themselves soldiers, but there’s not a fucking one of them—”

“Chelle!”

“Not a fucking one of them who’s been shot at. I’ve put ‘Base’ beside the base number. The one with ‘Chelle’ is my phone. When you’ve got the info, call up and tell me. We can take it from there.”

Vanessa said, “Choose the world cruise, Chelle. He wants to decamp with you, and there’s nothing like a world cruise. Get a first-class stateroom. Veranda and sauna.”

Chelle raised an eyebrow. “Do you really have that kind of money now, Skip?”

“For you, yes. We’re not rich, you understand, but we’re not badly off. May I ask a few questions? There’s something I want very much to find out.”

“Fire when ready.” She laid aside her pencil and notebook.

“You didn’t recognize me when you saw me in the crowd. You recognized your mother immediately, but not me.”

“Right. She looks the same way she did when I left, or just about. You’re older. It took me a while tonight to see you through the changes.”

“Yet you called this room.”

“Oh, that. Simple. I started calling hotels asking for Mother. This was the second one, and they said she was registered, but—”

“As I was,” Vanessa confirmed, “and as I am. Vanessa Hennessey. I have my own room.”

“I didn’t think you two were sleeping together. But you weren’t in there. Want the rest of it?”

Vanessa nodded.

“There was the man who kissed me. I didn’t think that was Skip—I thought it was probably a mistake. Skip might be here just the same, so while I had this hotel I asked if Skip Grison was there. They said he was and connected me. Are you through eating, Mother?”

“Yes, I am. I’m a light eater, darling. Surely you remember.” Vanessa turned to Skip. “I want to thank you for a very pleasant dinner. By the way, Chelle darling, we did sleep together. It was on the train coming up.”

“No shit?” Chelle looked startled.

“We shared a compartment,” Skip explained. “We had to, because the train was full by the time Vanessa tried to book. We did not do what Vanessa implied.”

She smiled prettily. “I suggested it, but he said my berth was too small. To spare my feelings, I’m sure. Most men relish a tight berth.”

“I believe him,” Chelle said. “There’s no way I could ever believe you, Mother dear. Not about anything.”

“Never credit men about sex,” Vanessa told her. “To hear your father talk … Well, they cannot be believed, and I ought to have taught you that.”

“The Army did. Since you’ve finished your food, how about going back to your room?”

“How rude you are!”

Absently at first, then with fascination, Skip noticed that Chelle’s left hand held her pencil and was writing in her notebook with it.

“I remember you,” Chelle told Vanessa. “I know you forward and backward, and you haven’t changed a hair. I need to get to know Skip all over again.”

“I’m sure it will be fascinating exploration for you both—provided that one of you has brought the requisite medications.”

“We’re still contracted, aren’t we, Skip?” For a moment Chelle looked stricken. “You wouldn’t be here if you’d backed out some way.”

He nodded. “You’re not sorry?”

“Hell, no! Want to check that for yourself?”

“Yes. As soon as possible.”

“Then please tell my dear momma to get the fuck out of our room.”

Vanessa rose. “You won’t forget my predicament, will you, Skip?”

He shook his head.

When she had gone, Chelle said, “So Mother’s got a problem, or says she does. Want to tell me about it?”

“No. Ethically, I can’t. But even if I could, I would prefer not to.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because I’d be betraying someone I enlisted to help me, that’s all. If she wants to tell you, fine. But she’s asked my assistance, and I like to think I’m an honest man and not just an honest lawyer.”

Chelle had a charming grin; he wondered whether she knew it. “Lawyers are all crooks. Ask anybody.”

“Right. And all soldiers are thugs. May I kiss a thug? Again?”

Her nod seemed strangely shy.

When they parted she said, “We’ve a lot of catching up to do. Are you good at cross-examination?”

“I am. Very.”

“Just like that?” She smiled.

“Let me enlarge on it. I’ve made a lot of mistakes in cross-examination, and I know it. But when I listen to others trying to do it, I understand why so many tell me I’m good.”

“Then I’m not going to let you ask me questions. I won’t ask you any either. You answered the big question I had when you came here.” Chelle sat down on the bed.

He sat beside her. “You answered mine when you asked the hotel about me when you couldn’t find your mother.”

“Thanks. She’s changed somehow. You probably don’t remember how she used to be.”

“Did I…?” He paused. “Yes, I saw her once. We ran into her in some restaurant.”

“Simone’s. You saw her twice. At least twice. The other time was when she went on base and tried to get the Army to turn me loose. We were in the Enlisted Personnel Club watching a couple of my friends play Ping-Pong.”

“Yes, I remember.”

“Mother’d gotten through to the base commander—she knows politicians—and he asked me to come to his office and explain that I didn’t want a discharge. You came with me.”

“You’re right. She was vehement.”

“She threw a fit. She’s good at it.” Chelle paused. “I expected her to throw one when I told her to leave, but she didn’t. Was that because she’s so worried about her problem?”

“That’s a question.”

“Yeah, I guess it is. Can I take it back, Counselor?”

“Certainly. You may withdraw it without prejudice if you so choose.”

“Then I do.”

“That’s good.” His arm found her waist. “Because I didn’t know the answer.”

“She’s changed. That’s not a question. It’s fact.”

“If you say so, I’ll accept it. I’m sure I never saw her after you left.”

“I’m glad you’re not wearing a tie.”

“In that case, I’m glad I’m not.”

She toyed with one of his shirt buttons. “I’ll bet you’d like to undress me.”

“You’d win.”

“And I’d like to undress you, but … Those earrings. Maybe you noticed Mother’s earrings.”

He shrugged. “I thought them pretty.”

“They are. But they’re just red feathers. No stones. Her dress looks nice on her because she’s still got a good figure and knows how to wear clothes, but I looked it over pretty carefully, and it’s off-the-rack. She’s poor now.”

He nodded.

“You said the compartments were gone when she tried to book. On the train.”

“I did. Yes.”

“Okay. I don’t think she was going to pay for a compartment. You got her to come, and I think you were going to pay for it. You’re probably tired of talking about her. Undressing is better.”

He smiled. “More interesting, certainly.”

“You know, I’m glad you said that.” Chelle’s hand tightened on his. “It makes it a little easier to say what I’ve been too chicken to say. You’d like us to undress right now. You’d like to go to bed, and so would I. I’ve been—well, you know.”

“There’s something you feel you ought to tell me first.”

“Yeah, and ask a favor, too. Asking a favor isn’t a question. Doesn’t count.”

“Correct.”

“Please don’t get all upset, Skip.”

“I won’t.”

“Just like that? Try hard not to.”

“I won’t get upset. You have my word.”

“Here’s the favor. I’d like us to undress each other with the lights out.”

He rose. “I understand.” A switch near the door extinguished every light in the room.

Her voice reached him through the darkness. “I don’t think you do. I don’t see how you could.”

“You’re a young woman. Biologically, you’re twenty-five. I am a middle-aged man. Biologically and in every other way I’m forty-nine. I’m not overweight—but I’m not twenty-seven, either.”

“That isn’t it at all. Will you please sit back down? I want you to kiss me, and I want you to call me Seashell, the way you used to.”

It should have been funny, but he felt his eyes fill with tears.

“Here it is. I was blown all to hell, Skip. The doctors put me back together as well as they could, but there are scars.”

Unable to speak, he nodded. His hand had found her shoulder in the dark; bowing before her, he kissed her.

“I took my own shirt off. I guess you found that out when you put your arms around me.”

It was difficult, but he said, “I did, Seashell.”

“Want to do the rest for me? If you don’t, just say so and I’ll go.”

*   *   *

Much later, while she was in the bathroom doing the things that women did at such a time, he thought back on all that he had heard and seen that evening.

The line of light beneath the bathroom door vanished with a click. He heard the door open and her soft barefoot step before she said, “Your turn.”

He rose. As he passed the table at which the three of them had eaten, he picked up the little notebook beside her plate. In the bathroom he read:

Mastergunner Chelle Sea Blue.

Sv #66797-9053-0169101