Authors: Gael Baudino
“I don't have time, Lauri. I'm busy.” Carrie sounded maddeningly patient. She might have been explaining gravity to a child.
“It doesn't have to be next weekend. Next month, maybe?” The pond was a mirror, reflecting the cloudless sky. “Don't blow off Denver out of hand.”
“I'm not interested. Why . . . why do you keep calling like this?” There was a moment of stunned shock on both ends of the line. Carrie hastened to explain: “I didn't mean it that way. It's just . . . it's . . . uh . . .”
No, she did indeed mean it that way.
“It's . . .”
Lauri came out of her shock, sagged. “It's . . . it's OK.” The pond was receding, turning from mirror into foul, algae-choked puddle. “Never mind. I understand.”
But Carrie exploded suddenly. “No, you don't. You never understand. You take everything personally. You're always trying to turn yourself into a goddam martyr. I'm sick of it. If you don't want to talk reasonably, don't call.”
“Carrie, I—” But the connection was broken. Feeling cold, feeling limp, Lauri drew the drapes. Martyr? Was that it? She was not sure. Maybe Carrie was right.
The pop went sour in her stomach, and she dumped the rest of the can down the drain and put the bread and cheese away. Stupid. It was, after all, just a pond.
And the hawk was just a hawk, and the stars were . . .
She was still, she realized, slightly in shock. Since she had left Los Angeles, she had always clung to a faint hope upon which she could hang a future. But hope and future were both gone now. Carrie had hung up. The receiver had come down with a finality that resembled the closing of a tomb.
***
She arrived at work ridiculously early the next morning, but she had not slept at all, and she saw no point in fidgeting through an additional hour in her apartment. Once in the office, she made coffee, but she gulped down a cup of the brew without being aware of it.
Three years . . . more than three years. More like four. It was always Lauri and Carrie, Carrie and Lauri. Maybe it had not been all good, but surely it had not been all bad either. They had gotten on each other's nerves upon occasion, and they had fought upon occasion—just like any two people who had decided to live together—but they had also shared joy and laughter. Right now, Lauri was remembering the joy and the laughter. It did not seem right that all the joy and laughter could be negated by the click of a broken telephone connection.
Why do you keep calling like this?
It seemed that, in an unguarded moment, Carrie had let the truth show through, and Lauri recognized it as surely as a jeweler could tell diamond from cut glass.
And so that was it. She was alone now. Her hope had been a thread that had tied her life to another's. It was broken now, and she was adrift. Denver suddenly seemed strange, alien.
She did her best to calm herself when the others arrived, tightening down the bolts on her despair, keeping her voice even. She and Hadden went out into the field, but the interior of the van was a study in silence during the drive up to Northridge.
Hadden's face was grave, and he watched her carefully throughout the morning. Around noon, he called her over. “Want to get lunch?”
“I don't really feel like eating.”
“You need to put something in your stomach.”
“I'm afraid I'll throw up.”
They were in the middle of a field, and there was no one else about for hundreds of yards. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“I can't.” A hornet buzzed by, and she flinched, but the insect circled once and left her in peace.
Hadden shoved his pencil into his pocket and pushed up his sunglasses. “Lauri, I'm your employer. I'd like you to consider me your friend too. I don't invite just anyone on a picnic with my beloved.”
“I . . . I just can't talk about it, Hadden.” She turned half away. She felt cold, but she could not tell if it was the wind or the lack of food. Hadden sized her up, frowning slightly.
“Is it because you're gay?” he asked suddenly.
She stiffened. “How did you know? I thought I played the straight game fairly well.”
“Feelings. I pay attention to them.”
“When do you want my resignation? Or did you want to fire me?”
Hadden capped the theodolite before he spoke. “I thought you knew me better than that, Lauri. I want neither. I want a fully functioning employee. I find you in the office looking like one of the living dead and you insist that nothing's wrong.”
“What is this? Charity for the lezzie?” she said with bitterness. Yes, she knew exactly why Ron had been answering the phone.
“Whatever it is that's hurting you, Lauri, you're going to have to let it go. You can't live like this.”
“Hadden, it's no one's business but my own. I'm not going to pester everyone in the world with it. I'm not some kind of whining fluffball.”
“I know you're not.” Hadden's eyes were, once again, reflecting that light, intimating the stars. “But sometimes we need a little help.” He spread his hands. “That's why we're here. To help each other.”
She snorted nervously. “Now, I suppose, you want to tell me about Jesus.”
Hadden stared for a moment, then laughed. “No,” he said. “I'm going to buy you a bowl of soup.”
“I don't want to talk about it.”
“That's OK . . . fine . . . but try the bowl of soup, please.”
Hadden found a coffee shop about ten minutes away that was not overwhelmed by the noon rush, and he politely but firmly asked the hostess for a quiet booth in the back. Lauri did not say much of anything, but sat down, ordered a bowl of vegetable soup, and buried her face in her hands.
“I'm sorry, Hadden. This is ridiculous. If I can't handle my personal life better than this . . .”
“We all have our breaking points,” he said simply.
And in spite of her reluctance, she told him a little about what was happening. About Carrie, the four years, the small, shabby apartment in Hollywood . . .
“So I came out to Denver when it really started to fall apart,” she finished. “Trial separation, if you want to call it that. I thought . . . well . . . I
hoped
that Carrie would join me here after a while.”
Hadden nodded. “And yesterday she told you to forget it.”
“Yeah.” The promise ring glinted mockingly. She had not been able to bring herself to take it off.
The waitress brought their order, and when she had left, Lauri stared at the bowl of soup as though it were an enemy. “I can get through it,” she whispered.
“I know you can.”
Despite her words, though, the sorrow overwhelmed her, and she choked, bending her head, clenching her eyes shut. But Hadden took her hand, and after a moment, in the darkness behind her closed eyes. Lauri suddenly saw a shimmer . . .
. . . and then the stars came out.
She stared at them for what seemed many minutes, drinking in their clarity, their calm, their strength. It was only after she had, with their help, fought down the sobs that she asked: “What am I seeing, Hadden?”
“The stars.”
“Where am I?”
“Within yourself.”
She opened her eyes. “What the hell are you doing to me?”
Hadden shook his head. “I'm not doing anything to you. It's just happening. Maybe it's happening a little faster than usual because you've been around me and Ash, but we've been doing nothing except waiting.”
“Waiting for what?”
He watched her for a moment as though weighing his words. “For you to see the stars, Lauri.”
“OK. I see them. What's going on?”
“You're growing.”
“Don't play games with me.”
“I'm not. I told you you're growing. Everybody does in one way or another. Some people take a different turnoff than most, that's all.”
She recalled the turnoff that Hadden had taken on the day of the picnic. She had not even noticed it until he was already off the highway. And it had led to . . .
“And what turnoff am I taking?” she said.
He pursed his lips, thought for a moment, then: “Eat your soup,” he said. “Look how your hands are shaking.”
“My hands are fine.” But when she looked down and saw that Hadden was right, she relented and picked up her spoon. “I am an adult, you know.”
Hadden's eyes twinkled. “Really? My sympathies. It must be terrible.”
At least he had taken her thoughts away from Carrie. And, in fact, he continued to do so, for while they ate, he kept the conversation on simple, immediate things so that Lauri could, at least for the time being, avoid thinking about her former lover. But even when her thoughts managed to stray to Carrie, the starlight that continued to gleam just at the borders of her inner sight made them easier to deal with, and that grace allowed her better to accept its luminous presence without questioning Hadden further. It was a good thing . . . whatever it was. She would figure it out later. For now, she contented herself with her newfound stability and calm.
When they left the coffee shop, Hadden pulled the company van out of the parking lot and headed in the direction of the freeway. Lauri looked at him curiously. “Aren't we going the wrong way?”
“In case you hadn't noticed,” he said, taking the on-ramp, “we finished the job before lunch. I'm going back to the office.”
Lauri settled down and watched the buildings pass by. Having said, in spite of herself, more than she had wanted to, she was disinclined to talk. Hadden and the stars had pulled her out of her shock, true, but now she felt alone. She supposed that it was something she would have to get used to. Funny, though, how four years of companionship made it difficult to contemplate a lonely future.
But she had survived before Carrie, and she would, somehow, survive now. The stars were nice. Something to fill the emptiness, something—
“What do you know about Elves, Lauri?” Hadden said quietly as he drove through the mid-afternoon traffic.
She continued to watch the passing buildings, the other cars. “Not much. They're either little and magical and sit on mushrooms, or if you like Tolkien or fantasy games, they're tall and whack people with swords.”
He laughed. “Yes, that's the general opinion, isn't it?”
“Something you know that I don't?” She turned to face him. Hadden stepped on the brake and slowed the van a good three seconds before a convertible darted across two lanes directly in front of them. “Nice.”
“Thanks. Innate talent.”
“That's what you said before. But . . . what about the Elves . . .?” Suddenly, it seemed important that she ask.
“They really existed, Lauri. Right alongside humans. For thousands of years. That's how all the old stories got started. They were, well, sort of magical, but they didn't sit on mushrooms. And they didn't usually go around whacking people, either.”
“How . . . uh . . . how do you know this?” Lauri was puzzled. Hadden did not seem the sort that was given to bouts of fantasy.
“Research. Experience.”
Experience? “So . . . what happened to them?” Playing along with him. It was the least she could do, she supposed. “Did they die out?”
“Sort of. Most of them faded during the Middle Ages. But some . . . well, some had intermarried with humans.”
“Yeah. OK. Interesting theory.” His conviction was making her uncomfortable. She rather wished that he would drop the subject.
“It gets even more interesting,” Hadden continued. “The gene pool is a convoluted thing indeed, and, by now, everyone in the world has a certain amount of elven blood. Recently, it seems, it's started to wake up in people.”
This was going well beyond Lauri's ability to maintain even a courteous suspension of disbelief, but as he had been kind to her, so she contented herself with, “Hadden . . . you're weird.”
He grinned at her. “Isn't it great?”
When they finally arrived at the office, Hadden sent her home. The day's field work was finished, and he could easily take care of the paperwork himself. Lauri did not argue: the food had dealt with a part of her weakness, but she needed sleep, too. Hadden took her out to her car and made sure she could drive herself home.
“Wait a minute,” he said after she had started the engine. He pulled a business card out of his wallet and scribbled on the back. “Here's my home phone number, and Ash's, too. If you need help, call us.”
She looked blearily at the numbers on the card. “You think I'm having some kind of breakdown? I'll be all right. Really.”
“It's not that. I'll feel better knowing you can reach us if you have to.”
“Yeah . . . sure . . . well, whatever you say.” She slipped the card into her pocket and pulled out of the lot.
Winding through the upper-class housing developments with their careful landscaping and ironclad covenants, the drive home was uneventful save for an occasional sports car driver who wanted to get somewhere—anywhere!—ahead of everyone else; and when Lauri got into her apartment, she threw off her clothes and crawled into bed. Most of the other inhabitants of the complex were at work, and she drifted off without a rock and roll accompaniment.
The stars surrounded her immediately, washing her in gleaming luminescence. Strangely, though, she knew she was asleep. She had perfect, lucid consciousness of her condition, but she decided that, for now, dreams were infinitely better than reality, and so, wherever she was, she put her hands behind her head and stretched out as though she were sunbathing. As before, she felt the light soak through her. As before, she responded to it, and she was content.
She might have been in that other place for many hours when, faintly, she heard a sound. She opened her eyes. She was in bed, and the phone was ringing. The clock said that it was near midnight, but the phone continued to ring, and she hauled herself up and ran for the kitchen.
“Hi, sweetheart,” came the voice. It was Carrie.
What?
The stars swam around her, and she realized that she had not turned on the lights. She wondered if she were still dreaming, but dismissed the thought. “Uh . . . hi . . .”
“I wanted to see how you were . . . how you were doing.”
“I . . . uh . . . OK. What's going on?”
“I didn't mean to yell at you the other day.”
What?