Chapter 8.

 

Gina

 

 

Terry did not like his room, which was bright with sunshine and gold and red stars around the edge of the ceiling and a red quilt on his bed. He did not like his closet and he did not want to put his clothes into it, or have Gina or Willis or either of the Hardesty sisters do it for him. He did not want lemonade, or water, or juice from some unfamiliar fruit; he did not want the chocolate brownies the Hardesty sisters offered.

Willis and Gina each took one, and Willis seemed to enjoy his, and Gina was able to eat about half of hers, but her stomach felt funny and she couldn’t eat any more. The smaller Hardesty sister – she said to call her Phyllis, we're not formal around here – suggested that Gina might want to unpack her things, and Willis too, but Terry started screaming as soon as they left his room, so Gina took him into her room with her while she put things into the closet and the drawers of the white dresser with the big mirror. He sat on her bed, sniffling and now and then giving another great sob.

The bigger sister, who they were to call Lillian, said the rest of their things would be brought in a truck probably tomorrow and did they need anything right now, and Gina said no. She waited until Lillian had gone before she put her teddy bear right under the quilt on her bed, next to the pillow.

Terry didn't want to eat the dinner Phyllis and Lillian cooked, although it was hot dogs and buns and potato salad, and more chocolate brownies, things he loved at home. Willis ate a lot of it; he said it was good, it was real food, not synthesizer stuff, and Gina tried her best to eat too, but her stomach still felt funny. It tasted different. The housekeeper at home used the synthesizer, and that was what they were used to. Willis was probably right. It was better eating real food. She would get used to it after while.

They used real dishes, not disposable ones; they were white with a leafy pattern, very pretty, and they felt heavy and maybe breakable.

After dinner, Terry did not want to go to his room, and he didn't want to stay downstairs and look at the readers Lillian offered, or the vids Phyllis had, or go in the kitchen or explore the back yard with his brother and sister. Gina said she would help wash the dishes, but Phyllis said that was fine, they just stuck them in the dishwasher. So Gina took Terry up to her room while Willis looked over the readers downstairs. She thought maybe if she could get Terry to be quiet, and if she just stayed out of the way herself, Lillian and Phyllis wouldn't be mad. They weren't looking mad but Gina thought they probably still were underneath, where she couldn't see.

It was scary, being with people she didn't know well enough to read.

It was early evening now, the sun starting on its way down to the tree tops behind the Hardesty house. Gina put Terry on her bed and gave him his old floppy blue stuffed dog; he held it very tightly, and stuck his thumb into his mouth. He hadn't sucked his thumb for years and years.

Gina looked out her window. There was a picnic table, she saw, on the front lawn of the middle house in the row of three, and the older couple and the brown man from the house with the trees were sitting around it, all talking very earnestly with a very tall black man who was sitting sideways on the end of the table, listening. He was a lot younger than the other three Earthians, maybe younger than Mom. He might have just come out of the aircar now parked under the roofed shelter between the middle house and the house on this end; he was dressed nicely and had a briefcase which he balanced on its corner and then on its end on the picnic table.

"I wanna go home!" screamed Terry all of a sudden, making Gina jump, and he began to cry loudly again, and the four people at the picnic table all looked up at the Hardesty house. Gina felt embarrassed, and a little scared. She wondered what all these people were thinking, and what they might do if Terry kept on making all this noise. But how did you stop Terry once he got started? Even Willis couldn't do that.

And there were the Hardesty sisters, too. All of these people were strangers to Gina; she had no way of guessing how they felt, or how they would treat Terry, or her and Willis either. If they tried to hurt Terry Willis would be mad, she thought; he wouldn't let them hurt Terry and he wouldn't let them hurt Gina, not if he could do anything about it.

But it was still scary.

The door of the house right next to them banged and two young Bahtan females came out of their yard and crossed the street and joined the conference around the picnic table: they were waving their arms with a lot of energy and the whole group looked toward the Hardesty house and back at one another. It was clear what the subject of their conference was.

Gina sat down and hugged Terry, but he didn't want to be hugged.

 

Terry cried all the next day. He drank a little water but he wouldn’t touch anything else, and he didn't like the food, and he didn't like his room, and he didn't like the yard, and he didn't like the porch, where there was a big porch swing and a clutter of chairs and a table holding some gardening tools and three big pots of flowers.

Gina looked with longing at all the trees surrounding the houses, that surprising little forest, but she didn't know if they were allowed to go into it or if she would have to sneak out when no one was watching. She didn't know what the rules were here. She tried to keep quiet, so she could watch and see how it was and not be noticed much herself. Anyway she couldn't think of anything to say to anyone. If Lillian or Phyllis asked her questions, she answered as politely as she could, using her very best grammar; they all spoke Trade here, very little Earthian. It was another difference, like the meals they served. Willis said the food was amazing, and Gina honestly tried to eat it, but she just couldn't choke down more than a few mouthfuls.

In the afternoon a truck delivered their boxes from the port, and the man in the house with the trees, whose name was Al Crane, and the couple in the house across the street from him, who were Clyde and Mimi Dokker, came over to help Gina and Willis and Lillian and Phyllis load the antigrav dollies and steer them upstairs. Terry took one look at the boxes coming into his bedroom and began to scream hysterically and try to push them back out. He didn't want those boxes in his room, and he didn't want to be in his room, and he wanted to go home, he said, weeping.

Mimi sat down on her heels beside him, where he was crouched on the floor knuckling tears from his eyes, and tried to talk with him. She said it was always hard being in a strange place but this was a very nice place, and he would have a lot of fun here if he would just give it a chance. She said she had spent a lot of time in strange places, and she knew how it went. Terry didn’t give her a single look, but Willis asked her where she had been, and it turned out that she and Clyde had been spacers and had been all over the Alliance trading. And Al Crane had been a navigator on an Alliance survey ship, and had seen planets no one else had seen. Willis thought that was wonderful, and he trailed them down the stairs asking questions, and they stayed in the living room talking with him for a long time.

Gina piled up Terry’s boxes in the corner of his room and took him across the hall to her room, and made an effort to unpack some of her things. It seemed better once she had her familiar old readers on the shelf over the little desk by the window, and she even gave some thought to putting the dolls out somewhere. She didn’t care about the dolls, with their empty vapid faces, but maybe it would look a little bit like home if she did.

"We have to stay here," she said to Terry, who was sniffling and sucking his thumb again. "We have to get used to it."

"I don’t wanna get used to it!" shrieked Terry, taking his thumb out of his mouth, and down the street two Bahtan heads poked out of the bounty of shrubs in their yard, and the tall black man, getting out of his car in the driveway of the middle house, looked toward the Hardesty house as if he wasn’t certain whether to frown or laugh.

The next day was Saturday; school, a frightening prospect itself, was starting the following Wednesday, Phyllis said. "So we need to get your school clothes ready, and if you need anything we can go shopping for it," she said.

"I don’t wanna go to school!" screamed Terry, pounding his feet on the floor as hard as he could.

He also didn't want to eat the pancakes Lillian made for breakfast next morning, from scratch, with real ingredients, even berries picked out of the Bahtan back yard earlier that morning. Willis ate four; Gina was able to get down a little more than half of one. The flavors were stronger than the synthetic food, but not unpleasant. She thought she could learn to like it very much, but she just couldn't seem to swallow a lot of food right now.

Both Phyllis and Lillian were looking tired, and Willis whispered to Gina that he thought they should take Terry out on the porch for awhile and give them a break. So he and Gina sat Terry down between them on the porch swing and pushed it slowly back and forth while the Hardesty sisters rattled dishes and talked in low voices inside. Gina could hear the phone chime, as it had several times yesterday and last night, and Lillian talked for awhile somewhere in the kitchen.

Down the street, Mimi was out in her yard getting the lawn mower started; it whirred to life and moved off across the grass, cutting a swath from the porch to the street, and Mimi paused on the porch to watch it. "They’ve been all over space," Willis told Gina and Terry. "They fought with space pirates. And Al did too, and he was on a ship that explored where Project Azuri/zai is working, and he saw brand new places no one else has seen. Someday I want to do that, go see new things in space."

"I don't like space!" whimpered Terry, and his face screwed up again and the tears came out of his eyes and when Gina tried to wipe them he pushed her away and got out of the swing and sat down on the top step of the porch, a huddled little ball of misery.

The tall black man came out of the middle house and cast a thoughtful look up the street at the three of them on the porch, and then he crossed his lawn and talked for a moment with Mimi, who nodded, agreeing with whatever he said. Hands in his pockets, he strolled across the street to Al’s house and vanished among the trees.

A few minutes later he appeared with Al beside him, carrying something in his hand, and the two of them walked up the road to the Hardesty house, talking quietly together. Willis stopped rocking the porch swing and he and Gina watched them come; Terry, still whimpering, stuck his thumb in his mouth again and when they reached the steps he wrapped his arms around his legs and buried his face in his knees.

Al was carrying several decks of playing cards.

He greeted them with a wave. "Hi," he said. "How you doing?" It was perfectly obvious how they were doing, and none of the three of them bothered to answer, although Willis gave a little wave himself. "This," said Al, indicating his companion, "is Jared Ramirez; he lives just down there, by Mimi and Clyde, and he works at the United Alliance Institute." He poked a thumb back over his shoulder, to the streets beyond the half-a-house on the corner; Gina remembered the sprawl of buildings they had passed. It was, she knew, a school for grownups. "Jared, this is Willis, and this is his sister Eugenia, and this is Terrill, here on the steps."

"Hello," said the tall black man. "Pleased to meet you."

"How do you do, Mr. Ramirez," said Willis for all of them, on his best manners.

"Call me Jared," he said. He had a really nice smile. "Al and I came over because we’re looking for someone to play cards with us." He leaned down to look at Terry, who was peeking over the edge of his knees. "It’s no fun playing with just two of us. We need other people to play. Big people who can read numbers."

"I don’t like to play cards!" wailed Terry. "I don’t like numbers!" He gave a great sob and buried his face in his knees again.

"Well, that’s okay," said Jared. "It’s a pretty hard game anyway; you're probably too young for it. But maybe Willis might play, and how about you – is it Eugenia?"

"We call her Gina," said Willis, and Jared nodded.

"That’s better," he said. "Gina. Do you want to play? We’ll show you how."

And there she was, she realized with horror, the center of attention, the men, and Willis, and at the porch door both of the Hardesty sisters, and everyone was looking at her and waiting for her to answer. Even Terry, who had cast a look of resentment at Jared when he said Terry was too young, was peeking at Gina with one eye around his right knee. And she looked up at the tall black man she did not know at all, and she felt him touch her mind.

She had never felt anyone do that before.

It was a light and careful touch, and it halted the instant he realized that she had felt him; she saw the surprise in his mind and his face, and then he moved his mind into hers, very gently, because he didn't want to hurt or frighten her. He thought she had been hurt and frightened enough. She felt him touch these fears, all the uncertainties, all the confusion, and then he opened his mind to her and drew her in.

She could easily see, just at the top of his mind, what he and Al were doing. He had, she understood, actually intended to nudge her into this card game with his mind. He thought that if she and Willis began to play, and showed that they were enjoying what was, in fact, a very simple game, that Terry might get interested too, might begin to play, might even begin to enjoy himself and forget his fears and start to settle, to learn how to live here. So it would help if he could persuade her.

But there was more than that, and she looked at this in amazement; she saw the sense of outrage running throughout the entire neighborhood, not at the uproar Terry was making, as Gina had been thinking, but at Mom for dumping them, abandoning them here. Terry's crying upset everyone, but no one was angry at them; everyone was concerned. She saw the phone calls crisscrossing the neighborhood, as the people crisscrossed the streets, talking, worrying, trying to find something to help all three of them. She saw Mimi and Clyde working to draw Willis out. She saw the Bahtan girls slipping through their garden gathering berries to take to Phyllis and Lillian for breakfast. She saw Phyllis and Lillian trying to think of ways to distract Terry, and to reach Gina herself.

Because they weren't as worried about Willis, who was really intent on making a place for himself here, or about Terry, who was noisy and frustrating but very young; he would get tired, they all thought, and then they could reach him. They were mainly worried about her, Gina, who had been trying to be quiet and invisible and no bother to anyone; they were worried precisely because she was quiet and invisible, and they all understood how scared she was, but they didn't know what they could do for her. And they all cared, even if she couldn't understand why.

She looked up at Jared. He was angry, she saw, at Mom, and very few things made him angry; he was not an angry man. And he genuinely wanted to help. His mind was warm, even protective; she felt very safe for the first time in a long time, as safe as she had felt when she was very little, sitting on Willis' bed, knowing he would take care of her and Terry.

Seeing that she had felt this, Jared smiled at her and drew his mind away, as gently as he had reached out, and she smiled back, and nodded, agreeing; they would play cards. He looked pleased and Al smiled and they both looked around the porch and Al set the decks of cards he was carrying down on the table. "Can we use the table here?" Jared asked the Hardesty sisters.

"You can use the heirloom silver if you want, Jared Ramirez," said Phyllis in a tone of profound gratitude, and he laughed.

"Just put those plants down in the sun somewhere," said Lillian. Al grabbed one of the potted plants, and Jared picked up the second one, and Willis got up and got the third one; they put them down on the steps across from Terry, who huddled away from them and refused to look. Gina made herself get up and gather a handful of the gardening tools and put them down on the porch floor by the railing, and the men lifted the table out and away from the wall, so there was room to gather around on all sides. Lillian appeared with a couple of dining room chairs, and Al pulled two of the porch chairs up and Phyllis came out with the tall stool from the kitchen. No one looked at Terry, no one paid him any attention at all, but Phyllis put the stool down between the chair Willis was taking and the chair Gina was sitting in, across from Al. Jared brushed dust off the table with one hand and sat down himself and Al began to shuffle the cards.

"This game," he announced, "is called Go Fish. It’s a very old Earthian game."

"How do you play?" asked Willis.

 

The rules of the game were easy to learn and it really was kind of fun; even Willis enjoyed it, although Gina could tell it was too babyish a game for him. She liked it. Before she knew it she was saying, "Go fish!" nice and loud like everyone else, so Al and Jared didn’t have to ask her to repeat what she said, and she found herself smiling and even giggling when they all got silly.

Terry wasn't sniffling any longer and when she stole a peek at him, she saw that he was just sitting there on the steps with his chin on his knees, watching them. After awhile Phyllis brought out big glasses of juice; Gina didn’t know what kind of fruit the juice came from, but she tasted it and it was really good, and Willis liked it, and both Al and Jared drank it, and when Phyllis put down a glass beside Terry he didn’t cry. After a few minutes, he sampled it, and put it down, and then picked it up and tried it again.

She thought they had let her win the second game; she thought it very strongly, and Jared, who was shuffling, looked at her with amusement. He had heard what she was thinking, but he didn’t say anything. Willis won the next game.

After awhile Terry got up and stood behind Willis' chair and watched his cards while he played, and then he came over and stood beside Gina, watching hers. When Lillian put down a plate of cookies – white ones with frosting on the tops – Terry took one absentmindedly, as if he hadn't done it on purpose, and he ate it all. The card players were joking and being loud, arguing about who had the fives, and Gina realized that she had eaten a whole cookie herself without even knowing it. Her stomach felt a lot better.

After awhile Terry moved so that he could see Jared’s hand, and at first Jared seemed to ignore him and then he glanced at Terry and smiled and pointed at a couple of the cards he had and put his fingers to his lips – secret – and Terry almost smiled back. He did move closer to Jared and watched with some attention while Jared played.

Lillian brought out a platter of sandwiches and handed them around; she said that Mimi and Clyde had made the bread and Willis looked surprised, as if people who went into space had done enough without being bakers too. The bread was very good; actually the sandwiches were good, and Gina was able to eat a whole one this time. She was hungry. And Terry ate a few bites, leaning against the stool between her and Willis.

Al shuffled through the deck of cards and asked if everyone wanted to keep playing Go Fish or wanted to try another game. Willis was bored with the game, Gina knew, but he was aware of Terry too, the way Terry was watching and not crying any more, and he wasn't going to do anything to spoil that, and she certainly wasn't either. "Oh, let’s keep on playing for awhile," said Jared. "I feel like my luck is going to turn." All right? he asked, a clear voice in her mind, as clear as if he spoke in words. She had never talked like that with anyone and didn't know if she could do it. She gave him a little nod instead.

He reached to put his glass on the porch floor, to get it out of the way, and Gina saw a glint of silver at his neck and looked more closely. It was a silver chain like the ones Mom had given Willis and Gina and Terry, and it had a round pendant on it with what looked like the same design, or something very close to it. Turning back, Jared caught her eye and quirked an eyebrow inquiringly at her.

"Your necklace is like mine," she said, and lifted hers out of the neck of her shirt to show him. He leaned over for a closer look and then took his chain off and held it up beside hers.

"It is," he said. "Just the same."

"Me, too," said Terry, the first words he had said for days without crying, and he took off his chain too and Jared gravely compared all three of them.

"Our mom gave us these," Gina said. "Willis has one too." Willis nodded and touched the chain at his neck. "She said they were for luck."

"Celtic knots," said Jared, pointing to the design on Terry's pendant. "It’s a very old Earthian design. The superstition says it's for good health and a stable life, things settled and calm."

Al leaned over to look, and Phyllis peered over Gina’s shoulder. "Think of the four of you having all the same thing," she said. "Where did you get yours, Jared?"

"Maud gave it to me," he said. "Years ago."

"It’s pretty," said Lillian.

"Yes, I like it," said Jared, and put it back over his head, and Terry put his on again and climbed up to sit on the stool next to Gina, the height of the stool bringing him up to the right height for the table top. Al began to deal the cards, and this time he dealt cards to Terry, too.