Authors: Penny Publications
Tags: #Anthologies, #Science Fiction, #Anthologies & Short Stories, #Literature & Fiction, #Science Fiction & Fantasy
She took her first sip of wine, then set it back on the table. "I don't like shouting," she said. "Let's take in a few of the exhibits before the music starts." She plopped a big manila envelope on the table, with "B. Montgomery" written on it in large letters, then thought better of leaving it behind.
"Here," I said, and draped my trusty calfskin over the back of my chair. For good measure, I tipped Tina's against the table. "Bobby knows my coat. He'll find it."
Tina resumed her story on the curving staircase to the second-floor exhibits. "The biggest challenge in my Ph.D. work is the mountain of information you have to wade through." We reached the top and veered into a display of modern acrylics, where the first thing we saw was an enormous array of zigzags, like zebra stripes run amok. "Yuck," she said with a sort-of
faux
shudder. "Glad I didn't drink a whole glass of wine before viewing
that
. But to continue, genome researchers and others, especially in biostatistics, have software packages for what they call ‘data mining,' which involves looking for tidbits of information in piles of data that appear random to the human eye." She gestured toward yet another kaleidoscopic image. "Kind of like looking for meaning in this stuff. Anyway, I've been applying similar tools to the Internet."
"And the police department. . . ?"
"That came in for two reasons. First, data-mining tools can be used to pursue hackers, although now you're chasing people who are deliberately covering their tracks, so it's tougher. But I've gotten a few." She brushed a strand of hair back from her eyes, conveying a quick flash of the girl-next-door Tina beneath the fashion goddess. "I'd read lots about cops before starting at the department—they're one of the most studied subcultures on the planet—but it wasn't until I nailed my first perp that I truly understood them." She gifted me with the smile that had caught my attention all those hours before. "It felt really, really good—like I'd done something truly useful and the world was a better place because of it. Academia can feel the same way, but there's not much instant gratification."
"And the other reason?"
"I needed the money." She was picking her words with care. "My family wasn't exactly supportive of my return to school. It's a long story, going back to my great-grandfather, who left Japan in the late 1920s. He'd become an American citizen and built a thriving dry goods business when the war broke out. Then they sent a lot of Japanese-Americans to Manzanar—do you know where that is? It's this awful dustbowl in the Mojave Desert. You can still find the ruins. By the time he got out, his business had evaporated and he spent the rest of his life scraping to make ends meet. It affected his son, my grandfather, even more strongly. He became obsessed with financial security—only to die young, bitter, and broke.
"That kind of thing can persist for generations. ‘The sins of the father,' and all that. When I decided to go back to school, I was twenty-five, three years into a career in which a few lucky ideas can make you a lot of money, fast. And I was good enough that it might have happened. But talk about nasty subcultures—that time-is-money stuff will eat you alive. Did you notice, by the way, what a good job the spamjackers did of targeting their vics? They wanted people who'd pay up and move on, which is what I would have done in the old days." She blew out a long breath—not a sigh, but stronger, as though forcing something else out, along with the air. Then she gave a gentle laugh. "You're the only one who didn't fit the mold, but with that Beamer full of gadgets, you certainly looked like you did. I'll bet you live alone, put in a lot of time at work, and haven't discovered that you need to do as much of it as possible on a laptop so you're not broadcasting those work hours and all they imply over your Web server."
"Hackers can get
that?
"
"Southside had a whole rash of burglaries last month by someone who seemed to know his vics were working late."
I remembered the laptop on Bobby's desk and felt chagrinned. I'd wondered why he'd switched, when desktop units give you more computing power for the price. "Guilty as charged," I said.
"But you're not like the folks I worked with, in an all-consuming race to the top." Again, she favored me with the smile. But it faded quickly, and her eyes and voice both dropped. "Anyway, nobody gets rich from a Ph.D. in anthropology. My parents barely spoke to me that first year. Then, when I was about halfway through, my grandmother had a stroke and needed a nursing home. My folks don't have much money, but the rest of the family blames them for letting me walk away from that high-paying job. Consulting for the city was a way to help with the expenses, part-time, without getting sucked back into a career I didn't want."
We strolled in silence, transiting from postmodernism to the somber tones of the Renaissance, then the happier pastels of the Impressionists. "Now, your turn," she said. "You guard it carefully, but you carry a deep . . . sadness, I think. In some people it would show as anger, but you cover it with order. Divorce?"
I shook my head. "Never married."
"A recent break-up?"
Again I shook my head.
"Well, someone's abandoned you."
"Nobody who was ever there in the first place."
She turned away from a Renoir to face me directly. "Now
that's
a loaded comment."
Slowly, she dragged the story from me, word by grudging word. My father stumbling home drunk in the night. Promises made. Promises broken. Whispered arguments, one voice clear, the other slurred. No violence—whatever else he was, my father was a mellow drunk—but promises, promises, promises. Working a paper route to buy school clothes. Hiding my lunch money. All of this repeating over and over until Mom laid down the law and Dad went out anyway and never came back. Wondering if he was dead in a car accident or dead in a gutter, but presuming he was just plain gone.
"And then?"
Then there were feelings. Nothing surprising: Why didn't he love us? Wasn't I worth loving? Etc. Thank God for Bobby, who at least
understood
, even though we never talked about it. At that age, you don't talk about such things to anybody. Not to Mom, not to Sis, and especially not the kids at school. But Bobby and I could just
be
without having to talk, and without having to put on an act. Then Jill came along and rescued him. He was further gone than I was, but when Jill tossed him a lifeline he was smart enough to know he was lost and to give in to it completely. I'd been more like my father, never grabbing whatever lines might have been dangling in my vicinity because I couldn't risk the surrender—until putting on the act became as automatic as stoking and restoking the campfire to be sure the tigers were always kept at bay. Kind of like upgrading your spamware—something you have to do because otherwise they come at you from all directions.
I told Tina most of that, except the parts about Bobby that aren't mine to tell. I'd like to say that when I was finished, I felt relief, but what I felt was tired. There were indeed tigers circling the fire, and for the first time in years I'd nearly let them reach me. Yet, amazingly, I was still alive and mostly functional. Equally amazingly, Tina didn't find an excuse to leave. Instead, she gave me the gentlest of touches on the elbow and steered me into the next exhibit hall.
A few minutes later, we fetched up in front of an enormous Bierstadt painting of a romanticized mountain range awash in golden light—a fantasy based on a nearby location I'd visited many times.
"Look at that," Tina said. "He put in the river and the waterfall and all the big peaks, and everything else he could think of. Who cares if there's no place where you can actually see it all at once? He just let it all wash over him—gave himself up to the beauty—and produced
this
."
She caught the dubious expression on my face and her chuckle danced in the marble echo chamber of the exhibit hall. "I'll concede that the painting might be a bit overstated. Well, more than a bit. But Bierstadt knew something I had to learn the hard way." Her eyes were on the painting, but her hand was in mine, and I wasn't sure how it had gotten there. "You have to let life wash over you in all its confusion and uncertainty, or you wind up cramped and small, like my grandfather. Yes, his father was unfairly treated. Yes, it still makes me angry to think about it. But it makes me even angrier that grandfather then let them steal his soul along with everything else." She gave my hand a brief squeeze. "Don't let your father do the same to you. He's not worth it."
The tigers were prowling again, nearer than ever. So far they'd just had a sniff at me, but she was urging me to let them drool all over me. "Wow," I said, to keep them at bay a tiny bit longer. "You should've been a preacher."
She shot me another of those looks, but knew when to back down. "That's my brother," she said. "I wasn't the first in the family to stray from the path to riches."
She paused, considering whether to press her point one step further. But she was obviously a person who'd rather fail by trying than by not attempting. "It took him three years to convince me that time is more than money," she said quietly. "You don't have to be alone." Her tone lightened and with a final squeeze, she released my hand. "Speaking of which, let's go find your friends."
The music was starting by the time we got back to the table, and Bobby and Jill were there, sitting as close together as the straight-backed chairs allowed.
Bobby gave me a nonchalant wave. "Figured you'd be back eventually," he said cheerily. He stuck out a hand to Tina. "You must be the soon-to-be-doctor Nakamura."
"Not soon enough," she smiled in return. She slid her envelope across the table, and Bobby was starting to open it when Jill laid her hand gently on his. When he glanced her way, she mouthed something that looked like "not now" and cocked her head almost imperceptibly my direction.
There are occasions when nonverbal signals pass between those two with the speed of computer chatter over high-speed lines. Bobby shoved the envelope back toward the center of the table. "Business later, dancing now," he pronounced, and turned to his wife. "May I have the honor?"
Her assent was light, sweet, and aimed at Bobby, but her eyes were on me—assessing, probing, and briefly mixed with something that might have been frustration, or worry.
If Tina caught this, she chose to pretend otherwise. Instead, she slid her chair around the table in my direction—whether to get closer to me or for a better view of the band, I wasn't sure. Then the band swung into a lively tune and for the next few minutes conversation was difficult.
In front of us, Jill dipped low as Bobby twirled her about the dance floor. He was good at showing her off, and she basked in it. Watching them, I was finally ready to face one tiger—asking myself what it was that I really, secretly thought of Jill.
The answer was a surprise. Of course, I loved her. I always had. But not that way. There was no secret attraction. I loved her dearly, partly because she was my second-oldest friend, but more for her love of Bobby. One without the other was as unimaginable as half of the couple now flowing so easily among the other dancers.
Tina leaned close, cupping a hand to my ear. "They make a nice pair, don't they?"
I nodded, startled by how easily she'd seemed to have read my mind. Or maybe she was just following my gaze. "They always have." And finally, the dream made sense. The blonde may have looked like Jill, but she hadn't
been
Jill. She'd been the
concept
of Jill. What I wanted, with a longing so carefully papered over that it was hard to recognize without the emotional data-mining I'd been avoiding all day, was a woman who could rescue me as Jill had rescued Bobby. No, that wasn't right. I
wanted
to want it, which wasn't quite the same thing.
Tina again leaned close, the scent of her perfume making my heart race with a desperate mix of fear and longing. "Are you going to ask me to dance?"
Without a prompt like that, I probably wouldn't have. I've never been much of a dancer.
"It's okay," she said cryptically. Then, with a hint that she might really have mind-reading potential, she added, "Besides, all eyes are going to be on those two, not us."
The rest of the evening was a blur. We danced, we finished our wine, we found hors d'oeuvres, we talked during the set break but not about spam, and when the band started back up, it was Bobby who met my gaze, although this time the mix of expressions was unreadable. Eventually we spilled onto the street, the B. Montgomery envelope still unopened. Dinner came next, then a couple of more drinks—something I usually avoid for fear that alcoholism runs in my blood.
Finally, Bobby opened his envelope and we sort-of got down to business.
The envelope contained my autodrive download, which was the only one Tina was allowed to give him. Even then there was a consent form for me to sign. One side-effect of spam is that the more the hackers prove that nothing is safe, the more privacy-conscious the government becomes. It's as if the bureaucrats constantly need to remind us it's not their fault. Tina herself was free to talk about anything she wanted, so long as it wasn't too specifically related to individual vics. Bobby offered her a job on the spot, but she surprised him by hesitating.
"Look," he said finally. "Is there some reason you don't
want
to make money?" Then he proved that two can play the mind-reading game, or maybe that he'd been doing other homework during part of the time when he'd supposedly been finishing his afternoon project. "I don't run a sweatshop like your former employers," he said. "I do this because it's fun,"—he glanced at Jill—"and it allows me to spend all day with my wife, and"—he paused slightly—"helps make up for a few things. You name your hours, I'll name your pay, and by all means finish up that Ph.D. and become the best damn anthropologist you can."