Bad Grrlz' Guide to Reality: The Complete Novels Wild Angel and Adventures in Time and Space with Max Merriwell (42 page)

I’m not sure about Officer Tom. His job is that of security officer, a position dedicated to keeping order. But I sense in him an easy going nature and a fondness for joking that seems at odds with a sincere dedication to order.

As I stand and watch, another member of deck staff scurries about, setting up deck chairs behind each wind screen. On each chair, he places a fluffy, clean, freshly laundered towel.

I know that passengers will disrupt this order, shaking the towels free of their tidy folds, using the fluffy terry cloth to dry themselves, then leaving the towels in rumpled heaps on the deck. The deck staff will bustle about, picking up the wet towels and replacing them with neatly folded ones. They will not permit the untidiness of wet towels to mar the perfection of the ship.

I watch the deck guy with his towels and I think about which side I am on. On my desk at home, where the completion of my dissertation seems an ever more distant goal, disorder is winning.

The choice is clear to me. I believe it is clear to any Bad Grrl. I sympathize with the staff of the Odyssey, but I will never join their futile cause. I will not become a slave to cleanliness and tidiness and order. I choose to align myself with a winner. I’m for Heat, Entropy, Chaos, and Disorder.

“I love to watch a good liar at work,” she said. “Not your average, workaday liar; but an extravagant, industrious, experienced liar railing against imagined wrongs, weeping for illusory sorrows. A good lie, well-told, is a truly admirable thing.”

—from
Here Be Dragons

by Mary Maxwell

W
HEN SUSAN WOKE
, Pat’s bed was empty, a jumble of tangled blankets and sheets. Susan sat up and stretched, glancing out the sliding glass door that led to the balcony. A sunny day, with no land in sight; dark blue ocean swells, stretching to the horizon.

She had slept soundly for the first time in weeks. The gentle rocking of the ship had lulled her to sleep. She could feel the engines humming far below her, a vibration that had penetrated her dreams.

On the desk beside the sliding glass doors, she found a scrawled note from Pat. “Gone to explore. Back at 10.”

Her stomach growled, reminding her that she hadn’t eaten much dinner. She hadn’t been eating well lately. She’d lost weight since Harry had left her. Her friends said she was on the Misery Diet: no sleep and no food. The clock on the bedside table said it was 9:15.

Her stomach growled again, and she decided she couldn’t wait for Pat. She’d go to one of the ship’s eight restaurants and break the Misery Diet once and for all.

She took a shower and quickly dressed in black slacks and a tailored shirt. Uncertain as to what clothes would be appropriate, she followed advice her mother had given her long ago: “It’s always better to be overdressed than underdressed.”

On the dressing table, she found the brochure that Pat had been reading aloud. She checked the list of the ship’s restaurants and decided to head for Circe’s Kitchen, where the brochure claimed she would find “casual dining with a magnificent view.” She picked up her copy of
Wild Angel
by Mary Maxwell, and took it with her so that she’d have something to read as she ate. Then she headed out the door.

As she stepped into the corridor, the door to the stateroom next to hers opened and Max Merriwell stepped out. He glanced at her, then looked both ways down the corridor. He held a piece of paper in his hand, and he looked puzzled.

“Good morning,” she said. “Is something wrong?” Since she was frequently lost herself, she had a great deal of sympathy for anyone who was confused.

“Not really.” He looked at the paper in his hand and shook his head. “I found this note under my door. I wonder … you didn’t see who left it.”

“No, I just got here. I didn’t see anyone. What does it say?” She asked without thinking, then immediately added, “Oh, it’s none of my business, of course.” She could feel her cheeks reddening as Max put the note in her hands.

At the top of the note was a set of lines, arranged like this:

Beneath the lines, someone had printed: “A one-eyed man treads on the tail of the tiger. The tiger bites the man. Misfortune.” The paper was from one of the ship’s notepads. The words were printed in a large, angular hand, like that of a child who has only recently learned to print.

“The hexagram is from the
I Ching,”
Max said. He tapped a finger on the lines. “You know, the
Book of Changes.
Ordinarily, I throw the yarrow sticks each morning. I find it clears my mind. The oracle is so wonderfully ambiguous. It offers so many possibilities if you are open to them.”

When Susan was in college, her roommate had experimented with the ancient Chinese oracle known as the
I Ching.
Rather than throwing yarrow sticks, her roommate had flipped pennies to select the six lines of the hexagram. The advice the
Book of Changes
gave always seemed rather vague to Susan. You could interpret it in so many ways.

“Don’t you find its advice confusing?” Susan asked.

“Not at all. I find it liberating. A high tolerance for ambiguity is a very useful trait. Unfortunately, in my haste to pack I didn’t bring my copy of the book.” He took the note back from her, pushed his glasses up on his nose, and studied it again. “I recognize the hexagram, of course. It warns of a difficult situation ahead. One is handling wild and intractable people.”

“Why would someone leave you a fortune from the
I Ching?”
she wondered aloud.

“A sort of fan mail, I imagine.” Max smiled vaguely and stuffed the note into his pocket. “Or a warning—perhaps the workshop will be filled with intractable people.”

“Well, I’ll be there and I promise to be cooperative,” she said, smiling.

“Then I won’t worry about it.”

She hesitated, then said, “I was just going to breakfast. Would you like to join me?”

“Well, I was heading to breakfast myself.” He glanced at the book in her hand. “But you look like you were planning to read.”

She held up the book so that he could see the cover. “Given the choice of reading the book or having breakfast with the author, I’ll choose the author,” she said.

In Circe’s Kitchen, a casual restaurant with red-checkered tablecloths and a long breakfast menu, they sat at a table by a window that looked out on the Promenade. Joggers passed the window at regular intervals.

“You know,” Max said, studying the menu, “they really should be more careful about how they name restaurants. Circe was the one who turned men into swine. Hardly a recommendation for an eatery.” Susan laughed. She felt lucky to be having breakfast with Max. When the waiter came, she ordered a Belgian waffle and he ordered pigs in a blanket. She suppressed a giggle and got a funny look from the waiter. Max smiled, obviously glad to be entertaining her.

Max picked up the book she had set on the table. “You mentioned at dinner you had read all my books.”

“All the books you’ve written as Max Merriwell or as Mary Maxwell except for the latest two,
Wild Angel
and
There and Back Again.
I haven’t read any of the books you’ve written as Weldon Merrimax.” Max waved a hand, as if dismissing Weldon’s work as unimportant. “That’s fine. Frankly, Weldon’s work can be rather depressing. Not everyone’s cup of tea.”

“I love Mary Maxwell’s books.” She hesitated. “I guess I should say I love all the books you’ve written as her.”

He shook his head. “You were right the first time. Those are Mary’s books.”

She frowned, remembering the conversation she had overheard on the bridge. Max made a distinction between himself and his pen names. “So you don’t think of yourself as Mary?”

“Not really. Mary writes books with a woman’s perspective. My books are very different from hers. I really prefer writing science fiction, but fantasy is so popular. So I put some time into thinking about Mary Maxwell, a sort of alter ego of mine. Then one night, I met her in a dream and she started telling me a story.”

Susan nodded, frowning. He talked about Mary as if she were real. Susan decided to play along. “So what’s Mary like?” she asked. “I’ve always wondered.”

“She’s a very self-confident woman,” he said. “A bit younger than I am. Totally fearless. She likes to travel—she’s always taking off for exotic places, always getting into trouble. But she’s quite capable of getting out of any trouble she gets into. In fact, I rather think she likes trouble. If there isn’t any trouble around, chances are she’ll stir some up. So she always has fascinating stories to tell.”

Susan smiled. He seemed very fond of Mary. “And what about Weldon?” she asked.

Max shook his head, looking like a disappointed father. He wasn’t as happy with Weldon, she thought. “Weldon’s another story,” he said. “A very rough character. His parents were carnival grifters. His mother told fortunes. His dad played three-card monte, standing at a folding table on the edge of the midway. ‘Find the queen,’ his dad would say, ‘Find the lucky lady and double your money.’ As a kid, Weldon shilled for his dad, making bets and winning repeatedly, convincing the marks that they could win. If that kid could win, they figured anyone could.

“But they couldn’t and they didn’t because somehow the queen was never where they thought she’d be—maybe because they didn’t think she’d be up Weldon’s father’s sleeve or in his pocket.”

“That sounds like a hard life,” Susan said.

Max nodded. “Weldon began contributing to the family income when he was sixteen. His dad was in prison for a few years—a con had gone wrong. So Weldon was playing three-card monte at the edge of the midway, just as his dad had. ‘Find the lucky lady,’ Weldon crooned. ‘Maybe it’s your lucky day.’ Another carnival brat was serving as his shill, and the kid had won a few bucks.”

“It was a slow night and Weldon was just about to give up. The midway was starting to close down when half a dozen workers from one of the steel plants came by and started gambling with their pay betting big and losing big. Weldon was doing great—until the steel workers decided he was cheating. His shill ran for help, but the kid didn’t run fast enough. The steel workers broke both Weldon’s hands, stomping them beneath heavy boots and fracturing the fingers that had manipulated the cards so nimbly. By the time Weldon’s friends found him, the steel workers were gone. Weldon’s mother nursed him back to health, but his hands have never been the same.”

“How terrible,” Susan said, forgetting for a moment that he was talking about an imaginary character.

Max shrugged. “When Weldon recovered, he stole a car, went back to the town, waited at the back gate to the steel mill, and shot the three men as they came out. Killed two, left the third paralyzed from the waist down, and took off before anyone knew what was happening. Then disappeared into the carny world and got away with it. Don’t waste your sympathy on him. He’s a ruthless man.”

Susan stared at Max, horrified at the story. Then Max laughed. “You said you didn’t read Weldon’s books and here I am, telling you Weldon Merrimax stories.”

Susan managed a smile, remembering that Weldon was an imaginary character. There was no Weldon Merrimax, no steel workers. The waiter brought their breakfast just then. Susan dug into the Belgian waffle with enthusiasm.

“You’ve got a better appetite than you did last night,” Max said. “You’re feeling better?”

“Well, I wasn’t really seasick,” she began, feeling a little foolish. She looked up from the waffle. “I just …” She hesitated, then continued, “I just didn’t want to answer a lot of personal questions.”

Max nodded as if he had known it all along. “Of course,” he said. “Tom figured it out and covered for me,” Susan said. She looked down at her plate. If her discomfort had been so obvious that both Tom and Max had realized what was going on, surely others had noticed. “I hope the others didn’t think …” she began.

Max waved his hand, interrupting her. “The others didn’t notice a thing. Oh, perhaps that young fellow, Ian, and your friend, Pat, figured it out. But the rest…” He shook his head. “Most people walk around as if they were half asleep. They don’t notice half of what’s going on around them. Cops and writers pay attention to things that other people don’t. I watch people and make up lies. Cops watch people and figure out when they’re lying. I have the easier job, I think.”

She sipped her coffee and thought perhaps she had underestimated Max. He was rather sharp about noticing what was going on around him.

When she looked up from her coffee, she caught him studying her face. “You know, I have a suggestion for you,” he said. “A suggestion?”

He was watching her carefully. “I think you need to learn to lie.”

“I beg your pardon?” She stared at him, taken aback.

“I think you need to learn to lie. You’re really much too honest.”

“I didn’t think a person could be too honest,” she said.

“Oh, I disagree. Take that conversation with Alberta at dinner. She was asking personal questions to find out who you were so that she could figure out how to treat you. That was what dinner was all about, you know. Sizing people up and jockeying for position.”