Authors: Crystal Cierlak
After a quick stop at a donation
center, Zoe drove to the nearest home improvement store, the kind with an
enormous lot of construction equipment at one end and a gardening center on the
other. Employees in brightly colored smocks were milling about, leading people
down aisles filled with tools, light bulbs, paint and lumber. She stared up at
the aisle markers, hoping for a sign that would lead her to the right place to
start.
An associate with a friendly
disposition approached her with a smile. “Are you finding everything you need?”
he asked politely.
“I’m not really sure what I need,”
she answered. He seemed nonplussed. Maybe people often came in looking lost and
feeling out of their league?
“Okay. Any particular project or
part of your home that needs fixing or that you’re looking to do some work on?”
She pictured her backyard, the
state of disarray it had devolved into, and figured that was as good a place as
any to start. She liked the idea of dining outside like at the restaurant in
Ventura, eating meatloaf sandwiches beneath the sunset. She wanted to recreate
that, along with the twinkling lights of Paris and Sydney.
“What can you show me in outdoor
dining?”
It was at least two hours before
she saw the parking lot again. As luck would have it, Richard, the associate
who offered her help, was a design student and had some very inspired ideas for
transforming Zoe’s backyard into a beautiful outdoor living space. With his
considerable guidance she bought furniture and cookware to create an outdoor
dining area, sumptuous lounge chairs for beside the pool, lights that would sparkle
against the setting Santa Barbara sky, and enough plants and flowers to start
her own botanical garden. Every idea inspired her and she left with purpose,
feeling even better than she had that morning.
Her stomach growled loudly as she climbed
back into her car. She hadn’t eaten since the night before and the macarons did
little to provide adequate nutrition. She set the car in motion and found
herself on Carrillo Street, heading not towards a restaurant, but to the Canary
Hotel.
“Do you want to sit inside or
outside?” she asked. The parking lot was only half full which meant that the
beach wasn’t too crowded and they were in between crowds at the restaurant. The
swelling afternoon was beautiful and full of promise.
Evan shrugged nonchalantly, a smile
hugging his cheeks. “Whichever you prefer,” he accommodated.
“Inside it is.” The Boathouse
looked like nothing more than a great shack on the beach, but was anything but
haggard. Inside it was contemporary with bright natural lighting, a great blue
couch that wrapped around a wall with enormous glass windows looking out on a
small strip of sand and the expanse of the Pacific, the Channel Islands
languishing out in the distance. An outside deck accommodated more than a dozen
tables, while a wall of half-cement, half-glass shielded guests from wind and
sand.
Two young girls stood at a podium
at the entrance to the outside dining area, one giving directions on the phone
while the second greeted Zoe and Evan with a cheerful smile.
“Welcome to the Boathouse!” she
greeted.
“Hi. Two for inside please,” Zoe
replied.
“Sure! Follow me.” She walked them by
a fully-stocked bar just inside the entrance and placed their menus on a table
against the floor-to-ceiling glass wall. Zoe sat on the blue couch while Evan
sat across from her and the uninterrupted view of the beach and ocean.
“More islands?” he asked as he
looked out over her shoulder to the view.
Zoe glanced back and nodded. “Same
islands.” They didn’t need to talk about that. When she looked up again Evan
was looking right at her and a small wave of uneasiness rippled in her chest.
She wasn’t used to such direct attention from anyone, let alone a perfectly
handsome man who had taken her around the world.
“So,” she started, hoping to stomp
down the uneasiness. “You have a sister.”
His eyes rolled and he nodded in
confirmation. “Sorry if she made you feel uncomfortable. She has a habit of
being very forthcoming.”
Zoe shrugged. “She seemed nice
enough. It’s a shame she was unable to join us.”
“I wasn’t expecting her to show up
in my hotel room this morning, Or at all for that matter. I guess I’ve lost
track of how long I’ve been here.”
A young waiter approached and
welcomed them to the restaurant before pointing out the special of the day on
the menu. He left and returned a short while later with a pitcher of water, pouring
them each a glass as he asked for their order.
“Can I get a cross between the
California Benedict and the Smoked Salmon Benedict, but substitute the salmon
for crab cakes?”
“You got it And for you, Sir?”
“I’ll have the Dungeness Omelet,”
Evan ordered.
“Very good. I’ll be back shortly.”
“That’s really delicious, by the
way,” Zoe exclaimed. “Anything they make with crab cakes is delicious.”
Oh
dear, please don’t babble
, she chided herself.
“You sure have an enthusiasm for
food,” he mused, a wide smile brightening his face.
“Do I? I think I just find things
that I like and then never order anything else. I like consistency.”
“So you go out to eat a lot?” he
asked before taking a sip of water.
“Not every day but probably more
than most people. I can’t cook so sometimes it’s a choice between nibbling on
whatever is in my fridge or going out. Anyway, we were talking about your
sister,” she reminded, hoping to steer the conversation away from her babbling.
“How long has it been since you last saw her?”
Evan leaned back in his seat and
expelled a breath of air. “I’m not exactly sure. Maybe a few weeks by your
time. Time is measured differently where I’m from.”
It was difficult for her to fathom
time moving any other way than what was natural to her. “Different how?” she
asked.
“Here time is broken down into
minutes, hours, decades, and so on and so forth. Back home it is generational.
Our measurements are more abstract. A single lifetime in Terra can be hundreds
of years here on Earth.”
She shook her head
incomprehensibly. “If that’s so then how old does that make you? If you don’t
mind me asking?” she added the last part as an afterthought.
His smile never once faltered.
Maybe he found humor in explaining the differences between the two worlds to
her?
“How old do you think I am?”
Zoe arched an eyebrow and sat back
against the cool blue cushion of the couch. “You don’t
look
more than
thirty.”
Evan nodded appreciatively at her
assessment. “I suppose if I were from here that’s about how old I would be,
give or take a year. There really isn’t an equation in which to convert Terra
into Earth.”
“Terra? That’s what your home is
called? Interesting.”
“How so?” he asked, his interest
piqued.
“Well, ‘terra’ is Latin, meaning
Earth. Our two words share a commonality.”
His lips parted in a wide smile
that was practically a laugh. “You’d be surprised how much we have in common
with you. We look the same, don’t we?” he offered, holding his hand out to
compare to her and those around them.
“Sure,” she shrugged. “Except we
can’t teleport, or travel to other universes.”
“True enough. You will one day,” he
winked.
The waiter appeared again and
placed a plate in front of each of them. After excusing himself, Zoe and Evan
dug in, eating in silence as restaurant patrons quietly conversed around them.
“So what else do we have in
common? Does Terra look like Earth?”
He looked thoughtful at the question.
“Not exactly. Terra probably looks more like what Earth will look like in the
future. We use technologies that are still being developed here but on a larger
scale.”
“Such as?” she prompted.
“You all have these touch screen
devices you call smart phones, right? We use the same touch screen glass
technology but we’ve built our residences out of it. It monitors and records
our biorhythm to maintain our health, and whatever it can’t do, a Reproduction
Unit does.”
“
Reproduction unit
?”
“For procreation and regeneration,”
he clarified.
“You’re able to regenerate?” She
had seen plenty of science fiction movies and shows where people were able to
grow or regenerate internal body parts, but it always remained in the realm of
science fiction.
“It’s how we live for so long,” he
answered nonchalantly. Of course he would have been used to such technological
advances.
“Okay, and procreation? Is everyone
a test tube baby?”
The colloquialism didn’t seem to
register. “Test tube baby?”
She felt dumb for even having
suggested it. It sounded much worse out loud than in her head. “Um, it’s a
term, a pejorative really, for when an egg is fertilized outside of the body,
such as in a laboratory.”
“Oh, I see. We don’t have such a
crude name for it but yes. It’s how we control the population.”
Zoe was gobsmacked. “So what
about... You don’t...” she trailed off. Her cheeks warmed as they filled with a
rush of blood. “Do you have sex?”
She immediately regretted the
question. She could practically see her skin turning red in her peripheral
vision as a rush of blood invaded her face. It wasn’t as if she was as forthcoming
with every person she spoke to.
Evan cleared his throat and took a
sip of water. Zoe could just barely make out what appeared to be a smile
partially concealed and distorted behind the glass.
“Sorry,” she rushed. “Of course you
shouldn’t answer. I’m so sorry; I don’t know why I asked that.”
Oh god, I
wish I was
dead
.
Her face was flushed and a bead of sweat was
forming at her hairline. Oh how she wished she had said anything else or could
at least disappear into thin air. If only
she
was the one who could
teleport.
She didn’t dare make eye contact
with him. Instead, she pretended to be suddenly fascinated with her purse as
though she were looking for something absolutely imperative to her survival. A
new face might have done the trick. Her hands moved absentmindedly over her
belongings hoping one of them would provide a distraction from the moment. How
would she recover from such an embarrassment?
His hand was on hers before her
mind could even register what was happening. It was tan and very soft, but
strong. A few veins made soft hills under the skin, and a smattering of lightly
colored hair grew down the side of his hand and over his knuckles. His
fingernails were short and clean, a pleasing fact that made an impression
somewhere in the back of her mind. She had not even noticed him get up from his
seat across the table and sit next to her on the couch.
“Don’t be embarrassed. It was just
a question.” His voice was quiet and deep, his words meant for her and no one
else. She dared to look up finally and found his green eyes were kind but not
lacking the intensity she witnessed so many times before. He always looked at
her as though he were trying to see past the visible and the conscious.
He was as physically close to her
as he had been that morning when she thought he was going to kiss her. There
may have been a restaurant full of people surrounding them, but they fell into
the dark distance, their voices receding with them into the black.
“When I first came here I had so
many questions and had no one to ask. So I can understand and even appreciate
your curiosity. Everything I know of Earth I learned by observation and
reading. The truth is I never had anyone to compare homes with, so to speak.”
His thumb distractedly smoothed
over the skin of her hand as it had on her collarbone. Between that and his
physical proximity she found it difficult to keep her attention focused.
“As for your question...” he began.
The words had Zoe focusing on his face again, waiting for what he would say
next. “Each of us is created in a Reproduction Unit and carried to term via
government surrogate. We’re genetically altered to not conceive naturally, or
what you would consider to be natural. So yes, we do have sex and as far as I
know it’s the same for us as it is for you.”
She could barely breathe for fear
of making too much noise. “As far as you know?” she asked quietly. Her heart
was beating rapidly in her chest. His eyebrows came together in amused
embarrassment.
The charged air between them seemed
to spark, and Zoe realized she was staring as intently at him as he was at her.
It was impossible not to think of him as being capable of sex given the nature
of the conversation. Her thoughts went immediately to every physical encounter
they’d had since meeting, a touch of his hand or the weight of his arms around
her chest. The previous 24 hours seemed longer given everything that occurred.
Evan didn’t feel like a man she only just met. He felt like a man who possibly
wanted to kiss her; whom she would want to kiss back.
Somewhere close by she heard the
sound of a man clearing his throat. Zoe looked up, broken from the closeness of
Evan, and saw their waiter who looked like he desperately wished he hadn’t
interrupted.
“May I get you anything else?” he
asked. He sounded almost apologetic and his eyes looked everywhere but at their
faces. Zoe took a proper breath and smiled shyly at him before excusing
herself.
“I’ll be right back,” she mumbled
at Evan before getting up and walking towards the restroom. Without so much as
a glance behind her Zoe locked herself behind the wide door of the women’s
restroom and gripped the sink basin with her hands. She looked in the mirror
expecting to find her appearance disheveled and unkempt or her face red from
their interaction, but what she saw instead surprised her. The flush was a
fresh bouquet of pink to her cheeks, the rest of her face aglow with
excitement. The gold adornments in her cardigan were casting a sparkle of light
randomly across her face and hair, the whole effect making her look she were
lit from within. It was in her mouth where she found the smallest measure of a
smile, the corners of her mouth tipped upward ever so slightly.