Authors: Alan Black
TASSO HANDED the last special run of packing straps to the two crewmembers from the equestrian department on Deck RR. He’d looked up equestrian and found that it meant horses, so he extruded the straps with the department designation interspersed with pictures of running horses. Since the crew request hadn’t specified color, he experimented with the color, found a setting for random colors, and let the machine run. The straps shifted color every few feet, often swirling from one color into the next. The crewmembers were clearly ecstatic, the woman even kissing him on the cheek. The man would have kissed him as well, but Tasso managed to duck behind Cherry just in time.
He waved goodnight to the crewmembers as Cherry locked the front door behind them to close up with a sigh. Tasso smiled. Cherry’s little business wasn’t really little anymore. He sat at the extruder and began stuffing the bin full of material. His last chore of the day was to make sure everything was as neat and tidy as he could make it, but he wasn’t quite ready to quit for the night.
Cherry and Ain might be done for the day, but he still had a whole list of special orders he needed to make and he didn’t have any reason to rush away from Cherry’s. Going to his cabin alone didn’t hold any appeal. His original plan for the evening was to meet Anisa for supper, but now he wasn’t hungry and he sure wasn’t going to go looking for her.
Anisa made it sound like he was at fault for her and Ivan kissing. He hadn’t been spying on her and he hadn’t been kissing Ivan. She should’ve been embarrassed instead of acting like he was in the wrong for stumbling across them. He wasn’t going to go chasing after her even if she wanted him to and she could kiss anyone she wanted. In fact, she could kiss everyone but him for all he cared. He was happy being alone, even here at Cherry’s it would be nice to be alone after she and Ain went home.
Cherry interrupted his thoughts, “We’re going to have to get a bigger place if our business keeps growing.”
Ain’s voice floated from the backroom. “Gabby is going to move her shoe store from next door. She wants to be down by Maribell’s dress shop where Mundo’s Tacos used to be. We could tear down the wall between us. We can certainly afford the rent on double the space.”
“Now that’s a good idea, partner.” She looked over at Tasso. “What do you think,
mijo
?”
Tasso shrugged. He wanted to be supportive and enthusiastic, but that was hard to do. He was still trying to reconcile the picture of Anisa kissing Ivan, with the girl who had kissed him at the football game, with the 3D image of her many times great grandmother as a young girl dancing topless on the captain’s desk. “I like it here just the way it is. Besides, we can’t run this extruder any faster than it already runs, and we can’t keep the racks and shelves filled up as it is.”
Ain stepped around the corner. “He is right, Cherry. We are doing a lot more business, but we still aren’t keeping up any better than we were when we couldn’t get hair ribbons delivered on time from Schnitzer’s Merchandise Shipping. We cannot run the extruder more than we do now, because then we would have to make sales to customers because we had goods on the shelves, and we wouldn’t have goods on the shelves unless we were running the extruder more. Ayeeee, why is being a successful woman so hard.”
Cherry said, “Don’t ask me. This is the first time I’ve succeeded before.”
Tasso laughed, “Don’t ask me either, because I’ve never been a woman before.”
Cherry shook her head. “Well, we’re going to have to hire more help. Maybe we can get two someones. We can afford it if we can find the right people. Tasso, can you teach someone else to run the extruder when you aren’t here?”
Tasso nodded, although his heart sank a little. This was his special niche and he was going to have to share it. He put on a smile in spite of how he felt and said, “Of course, it isn’t any more difficult than running a chiamra harvester or a rock jack.” He felt … putting a name to how he felt about hiring someone else was hard. He felt untied, at loose ends, and completely unraveled. This was his job, something no one else did. He thought Anisa was his girlfriend, but he was wrong. He had a little valley home back on Saronno, and that was being taken from him as well. He no longer had a private corner in the attic or a job all his own, because the attic was full of people day and night. When he left here, he couldn’t even go to his own cabin. He shared it with Rod.
Cherry asked, “Do you have any trainee friends who might be looking for a little part time work?”
Tasso thought about it, but shook his head. He couldn’t name one person he thought of as a friend among trainees or crew. Cherry was his boss, but was she a friend too? Ain was distant, but friendly. Gordo maybe, but the big man was friendly with everyone. Had he been friendly with Tasso simply to get close to Cherry? He really liked Kendra, but she was more Anisa’s than his friend. Still, he wasn’t sure what constituted a friend. Growing up, he only had his grandfather. How did a person judge who was a friend and who wasn’t?
He asked, “Can you afford to hire more help?”
Cherry laughed. “Come up here and let’s take a look.”
Tasso set the extruder to run a special order and walked away letting the machine spit out a long roll of special rope threaded with red and gold braids. Ain took a step back from the counter as he stepped up to it. He smiled at her and tried not to take it personally. He knew she was uncomfortable around men, but he still didn’t think acting that way was friendly.
Cherry called up a spreadsheet ledger, expanding the image over the workspace. She pointed at a number. “See the credit level?”
Tasso whistled. The amount was huge.
Cherry shook her head. “That’s for the month before you started working here. Ain and I were barely breaking even with a figure so high. We have to pay rent on the space, buy goods, and heck, we even had to pay a trash fee to throw packing material away. We were basically working for free, just as a hobby kind of thing.”
Ain nodded. “There were many days I wanted to get a more profitable hobby.”
Cherry flipped through a few pages of the ledger. “Look at this.” She pointed at another credit number.
Tasso’s eyes bugged out at the size of the credit number. This figure was many times larger than the original number. He wanted to say something, but the amount was so stunning he was speechless.
Cherry laughed. “I feel that way when I look at it, too. That is, listen to me, mijo, that is today’s number. It’s not last month, this month to date, or even this week. It is today’s number. We can hire plenty of people if we want to.”
Ain said, “I, too, am happy with my two friends working here, Cherry and Tasso. Another woman working here? Maybe. Another man like you, Tasso? I do not think so. We do need help, but Cherry, I ask you to be careful for me. Maybe we should hire one person at a time and build from there?”
Tasso wondered how Ain could think of him as a friend. Sure they spoke, but their conversation was almost all business, rarely did they speak casually. They’d never spoken outside of this little shop. His dataport beeped. He ignored it. He was going to have to think about this. “I still have a few things to make on the extruder. So—” His dataport beeped more insistently.
Cherry said, “You better get that.”
Tasso tapped his dataport to retrieve the message. “Tasso Menzies, request you meet Purser William Rojo for supper at 19:00 hours in D-1077. Please respond.”
Cherry said, “Whatever you have to make on the extruder will have to wait. It seems you’re getting summoned from on high again.”
TASSO WATCHED the numbers on the corridor change as he looked for D-1077. What had he done wrong this time? Had Señor Rojo received DNA confirmation on his father? Were they going to delay his return to Saronno even further? At least this time, he wouldn’t be bound in handcuffs while sharing a meal with the purser.
He knocked on the door and a young boy of six or seven opened it. The boy turned immediately and ran away, chased by two other little boys, a couple of larger children, and a yappy little animal that looked somewhat dog-like. No one else came to the door. He doubted anyone else heard him knock, with all the laughing, squealing, and animal noises going on as the knot of children ran, jumped on furniture, and generally threw things at each other with wild abandon.
“Hello?” he called out.
“Hello,” a woman called back. “I’m in here, in the kitchen.”
Tasso followed the voice. He found a woman in the middle of a frenzied kitchen. He couldn’t think of a better word than frenzied, as pots boiled, lids clanged, and children ran around and through the kitchen. The woman ignored the children and tended her pots.
She glanced at Tasso, “Who’re you and what the heck are you doing in my kitchen?”
“I’m sorry, ma’am. I was told to meet Purser William Rojo at D-1077, but I must have the wrong place.”
“Mira!” the woman laughed. “If you’re in the wrong place, then so am I. Bill invited you for supper, didn’t he?”
Tasso nodded, “I’m Trainee Menzies.”
“Good, I expect he’ll be along shortly. You sit there and keep me company. It get’s lonesome cooking alone.”
Tasso wondered how she believed she was alone. He wasn’t sure how many children were in the place as they raced back and forth, but there were enough that the woman wasn’t alone. The children moved in and out almost as fast as a growing cluster of stobor, and he thought they were beginning to sound almost as violent and deadly.
She pointed at a chair in the corner with a wooden spoon; the gesture sent a line of red sauce sailing across the floor. A small cleaning bot streaked from a little cupboard, scrubbed the mess, and jumped back into its nest, almost as if afraid of being stepped on by the herd of children streaking back through the kitchen.
The woman stirred one of the bubbling pots, threw something in, tasted it, and threw in more. “Don’t you pay any attention to the kids! They’re playing Alamo. It’s a confusing thing for Texicans to play. The Mexicans beat the Texans in the battle at the Alamo, but the Texans won the war and a place in history. As part Texan and part Mexican, most of us don’t know which side to root for.”
“Lillie,” the woman shouted, “you kill your brother right now and go set the table.”
A young girl shouted back, “Ma! It’s not—”
“My turn,” the woman interrupted. “I don’t care. You get a failing grade in your creative writing class, you take an extra turn at chores. Thems the rules,
mija
. Set an extra plate next to your father, since he has a business guest.”
Tasso’s head was beginning to swirl with all of the activity going on. Things with Grandpa never got this hectic unless you were pumping a load of chain shot at a rampaging cluster of stobor. He wasn’t sure what you did with a rampaging cluster of children. You couldn’t shoot them. He thought he would try to take a page from the woman’s book and ignore them, but something happened that he couldn’t ignore, even if he tried.
“Mama, where is my yello ….” Kendra’s voice trailed away as she stepped into the kitchen. All she was wearing was a wet T-shirt and extremely scanty panties. She was patting her hair vigorously with a towel when she spotted Tasso sitting quietly in the corner.
Tasso couldn’t help but notice that all she was wearing was a wet t-shirt and panties and that there wasn’t anything underneath the T-shirt. She might as well have been as topless as Captain Rojo’s seven times removed grandmother. Tasso wanted to stand up, as befitted a polite young man when a woman enters the room, but Kendra froze in the doorway staring at him. In short order, he was too embarrassed to stand up. The mental picture of the topless dancer had caused him repeated erections and seeing Kendra in little more didn’t help the condition. The sight of her pert nipples poking against the damp t-shirt burned into his brain. He knew it would be a long held happy memory.
“Mama!” Kendra’s voice shrieked as she ran from the kitchen. A door slammed somewhere down the hallway.
The woman shouted back. “It serves you right for showering and changing here instead of your cabin in the training corridor. Sheeesh! Teenage girls, what are you gonna do with ‘em?” She looked pointedly at Tasso and pointed her red dipped wooden spoon at him, giving the cleaning ‘bot another run for its life. “Don’t you answer, Trainee Menzies!”
William Rojo’s voice boomed out from the front room. “Daddy’s home. What? No one to greet a weary working man at the door?
Prisa cerveza
fría
.”
Tasso knew he had to stand for Señor Rojo, regardless of his erection. He hoped his coveralls were tight enough to hide his embarrassment. They weren’t.
Bill Rojo leapt into the kitchen as if he was leaping onto a stage. “Ta da!” he shouted.
Señora Rojo shouted back, “Yo ho!” She used her wooden spoon like a sword and drew a red streaked Z across his chest. “The mighty and swift Zeltzina strikes again.”
Bill grabbed the woman, pulled her close, kissed her passionately, and pushed her away with an affectionate shake of her shoulders. He pulled a bottle of cold beer from the refrigerator and grabbed a can of Sola Cola, handing it to Tasso. “Why must I always come home to a madhouse?”
Tasso didn’t think the man was really complaining. He was thankful neither husband nor wife was commenting on the erection pressing against the coveralls.
Bill nodded his head, “Follow on, Trainee Menzies. Let’s go to my office.”
Tasso followed him back into the front room. Bill ignored the children and Tasso tried to do the same. Bill set an upholstered chair upright and put a thick cushion back in its place. He gestured with the top of the beer bottle for Tasso to sit. The purser dropped into a relatively clear spot on a long couch and sighed. He popped the cap from the beer, took a long drink, and sighed even deeper. “I see we have interrupted the battle of Montezuma’s revenge.”
Tasso looked confused. “I thought Mrs. Rojo said it was the Alamo.”
Bill nodded. “Different war. Different battle. Same mess.”
Before Tasso could ask about the battles, an animal jumped into his lap. He froze, not knowing what to do. The only dog he had ever touched was back in the street on Kaduna. This little dog looked nothing like the shaggy dog on Kaduna. It had the big ears of a stobor and almost as many teeth, but only a little short tail like a yapikino. He didn’t know whether to push it off or ignore it. Bill seemed to ignore it, but the dog slid its head under Tasso’s hand. He didn’t have any choice but to pet the creature.
Bill shook his head. “Now you did it. That is Chi-Chi, our old Chihuahua. Now she won’t leave you alone. She’s getting a little old for running around with the other dogs and kids, but she hasn’t lost her passion for lap-sitting.”
Chi-Chi seemed to like it when Tasso petted around her ears, so he scratched her a bit and she settled into his lap.
“It looks like we have some time before supper, so let’s talk business. Ah! There is my oldest. Menzies, you know my daughter Kendra?”
Kendra flounced into the room, having changed and dried her hair. Tasso wondered how she could go from damp to dry and fluffy so quickly. He assumed it must be a female thing, since he always air-dried his hair. She dropped onto the couch next to her father and glared at Tasso. She didn’t say anything, but she was obviously angry at him about something.
“Yes sir,” Tasso said. He wanted to say she was his friend, but he still didn’t have a clue whether she or anyone else was his friend. “We went into town together at Kaduna and we went to a game. Now, we even work together in the attic.”
Kendra continued to glare. Tasso wondered if he was really at fault for seeing her in a wet T-shirt. He didn’t know how he could have avoided it. He was sure he didn’t want to have avoided it, but he imagined she was embarrassed about it. Why was she acting angry if she was embarrassed?
Bill was either oblivious to his daughter glaring at Tasso, or he decided to ignore it, as was his apparent habit with all of his children. “I heard you have a whole staff of people working there now. You’re certainly causing a world of upset in my department. Your attic pulled my best supervisory accountant to ride herd on the cleanup effort. And the influx of usable equipment and goods is tossing a lot of our standard procurement spreadsheets right down the trash chutes.”
He looked at his daughter, “So, Kendra. How does it feel working in the attic?”
Kendra leaned against her father and propped her feet up on the couch. “It’s more fun than working in the bovine waste management department. I was scheduled to do a training rotation through children’s services, but La Dueña Dunstan gave me an automatic pass on that section since you and Mom breed like Texas jackrabbits in the spring.” She waived her hand around at the children racing around each other.
Bill laughed. “Yes, but children’s services was supposed to teach you how to manage a roomful of children, not just keep them contained, corralled, and somehow keep them alive. Still, the attic sounds like the place to be as long as we’re between planets. Is Trainee Menzies a good straw boss?”
Kendra glared at Tasso. “I would’ve thought so, but he yelled at Anisa and threatened to beat up Ivan today, just because they were talking.”
Tasso was surprised. He hadn’t yelled or threatened. Unless he was crazy, he remembered it more the other way around. He didn’t know what to say. He shook his head no.
Kendra glared. “No? You aren’t going to deny it, are you? Ivan and Flacco told me about it. Anisa was so upset she skipped cheerleading practice this afternoon. Are you going to start calling all of my friends liars?”
Tasso shook his head. “I remember it different, but I’m not going to call anyone a liar.” Now he was getting angry. He hadn’t shouted at anyone. He hadn’t made any threats. He wanted to deny ever making threats, but he clearly remembered threatening the Lamonts more than once, and he even threatened Mr. and Mrs. Lamont with a shotgun. Flacco hadn’t even been there, yet his witness was being thrown in his face. He thought he liked Anisa, but he didn’t care if he ever saw her again. He liked Kendra too, but he was done taking guff from everyone around him. Whether he made threats or not, he was going to punch Ivan and Flacco in their respective noses the first chance he got and he couldn’t care less if La Dueña Dunstan was watching.
All he wanted was a little control over his own life and for people to leave him alone. No matter where he went, the computer tracked him and everything he did. This La Dueña Dunstan computer thing was constantly looking over his shoulder and recording everything he did and said. She was more intrusive on his privacy than Grandpa had ever been. If Kendra wanted to know what was going on, all she had to do was wait a few minutes, and someone would post a video on the shipnet. If not, Security was supposed to put a special over-watch on anytime he came in close contact with Ivan, Flacco, and Eber. Why would they assign Flacco to work on the same team with him if they didn’t want them to come into close contact?
He wasn’t going to comment on what went on between Anisa and him. Nor would he say anything about him and Ivan. He certainly wasn’t going to say anything about Anisa and Ivan. He couldn’t see why Kendra cared one way or another, she hadn’t been there any more than Flacco had.
He should’ve walked away. That was what he told himself he should’ve done back on Saronno when he beat up the two Bog-Irish boys. That’s what he should’ve done when Cruz confronted him at the elevators. Purser Rojo ordered him here. He didn’t have any control over where he was now. Suddenly, he decided he did. He stood. “Thank you for the invitation to dine, sir.” He started to turn toward the door, but Bill stopped him with an upraised hand.
“Please sit down, Trainee Menzies.”
“Or what? Really, what’re you going to do? Are you going to send me to my room without my supper? I was going there anyway, and I’ve certainly lost my appetite. Are you going to have Security arrest me again? I’ve been there, remember? Would you kick me off the ship like you did Cruz? You might as well, since I didn’t ask to be here in the first place.” He took another step toward the door.
Bill said, “Please, Tasso—”
“Please what? I don’t like being accused of things I didn’t do.”
“This isn’t why I wanted to meet with you—”
“No? Instead, you allow your daughter to call me a liar and hide behind false accusations?”
“Wait a minute, young man—”
Kendra interrupted, “Don’t you deny it, Menzies.” She was on her feet with her fists clenched in anger.
Tasso spat back, “I don’t have to sit here and be called a liar. I don’t like it any more than anyone else.” He looked at Kendra. “I don’t care what your friends say about me, and you can believe anything you like about me.”
“Sit down and shut up, both of you!” Bill bellowed.
The noise level dropped to zero all over the cabin. Children sat wherever they were. Even Señora Rojo stepped out of the kitchen and sat in a chair in the dining room. Kendra dropped back onto the couch. She dropped her chin to her chest, hiding her face behind a cascade a black hair, with fists still clenched in anger.