Chapter 25

 

Cara

 

 

Packing with remarkable efficiency, stripping Cara's closet, folding, stowing in the larger suitcase on the bed, Sofi glanced quickly toward the door to be sure the men were occupied packing what was on Cara's desk. "You are not unsure about this move?" she said to Cara.

Cara was unsure. Men took up time and energy, and turned demanding and dominating . . . the problem was that she felt dizzy and strange, and the headache lingered in the back of her head, and she supposed that the pain killers were still in her system, not that they had done much good when she took them. Sleep had helped, but she hadn't had enough of that, and she had trouble putting her thoughts together, and she guessed Jared knew this. And he was not so much taking charge as protecting her, which she suspected was important to him. He would always try to protect the people who mattered to him. That's how it felt, anyway, not a bad thing at all.

And she didn't want to be here in this house where Mother had been, that was a fact, and she didn't want to be where Jared was not, also a fact, so this seemed like the best thing to do, but moving in with a man she had known for something like twenty-four hours – well, that was a little scary, if you stopped to think about it.

But it was only until they had dealt with the fly. And it wasn't just any man; it was Jared.

Still. "Jared and I met just yesterday," she admitted to Sofi.

Sofi smoothed the folds of Cara's pink shirt. "Issio taught biology at the Multicultural Secondary," she said, "and we met at the conferences at the start of my first year teaching, by the coffee urn at the morning session. I had never seen him before. We sat together, the whole day. After the conferences, we went home together, to Issio's apartment. Since that night I have never slept apart from him." She considered. "Twice," she corrected herself, "when I visited my father. Issio did not come. He and my father dislike each other." She looked at Cara. "That has been five years," she said. "When it is right, when you know, time does not matter."

And was it right? It felt right. It felt as if she knew. "Five years," she said, and wondered where she and Jared would be in five years. Was there the slightest chance that, like Sofi and Issio, they would be together?

"I am guessing," Sofi said, "that you have read Jared's bio. So you are aware there have been women." Cara nodded, wondering more about Maud than about the Agency, determined not to ask. "This must not be a concern," Sofi said. "This has only made him particular about who he wants to be with. He had women he cared nothing for; now he will have a woman he does care for, or no one at all. He has had no one for some time. I know him; he is our best friend. We have lived next to him for four years. He is a good man. You need not worry about him."

And since that fit with her instinct, Cara let Sofi pack her clothes while she gathered her underwear and cosmetics into the smaller suitcase. Sometimes you had to trust instinct. Sometimes you had to just plunge in.

 

Cara got to work on time Monday morning despite unexpected logistical problems. Neither she nor Jared were accustomed to sharing showers and closets and coffee and mirrors and toast in the morning rush of a work day and they had seriously underestimated the time they would need. Furthermore they had slept in, having been awake a bit too late the night before, although they hadn't really gotten out of bed for any length of time Sunday until they decided to go out for dinner. And of course after they got home . . .

She had not had any idea how incredible it could be.

And it was more than lovemaking, although that was extraordinary enough. They talked as much as they made love, which was, Jared said, to be expected of a couple of academics accustomed to lecturing. They talked, they shared secrets, they laughed. They laughed a lot. She had not laughed so much for years. It was a joyous thing, exploring bodies, exploring minds.

It was wonderful, and profoundly right, to wake in his arms when the alarm rang. It was hard to leave his arms and get out of bed.

But they were on a tight schedule this morning. Dressed, briefcases in hand, pausing just inside the door, they looked at each other and Cara could see her own happiness in his eyes, which was a lovely thing to see. "I'm stuck at the Institute, I think," said Jared, "until six. Your print is on the lock here."

"Yes," she agreed, "and I might stop for coffee with Ann."

"You said she gave you the journal," he said. "And the journal is why you called me in the first place. I like Ann." He put the hand not carrying his briefcase under her chin and lifted her face and kissed her quite thoroughly. "After six," he told her, and held the door for her.

Sofi and Issio were already gone. Gina and Terry, also late this morning, were getting into Lillian's car; all three waved. "See you later," called Mimi from her porch, where she and Clyde were lingering over coffee cups. Cara had met them briefly last night, along with Lillian's sister Phyllis and Al, the man in the little house beside Ollie's place, and the other three Bahtan sisters. Jared had paused on their way to dinner to introduce her. Meeting so many new people would ordinarily make her feel anxious; last night it had seemed natural and easy, as if she already belonged.

No one seemed to notice how different she was today from the woman who had walked through this campus and entered these classrooms last Thursday, but she felt as though she came from an entirely different world, one comfortably removed from the usual daily problems. And she was busy, catching up on the work she had planned to do over the weekend; Jared was doing the same at his office, and they settled for a phone call at noon instead of lunch together.

Normally Ann would have noticed the change in Cara, but Ann was too upset today; Ann had spent Friday and Saturday with Roger, and Sunday breaking up with him, having discovered by accident on his computer the last love letter he had written to her, a pretty composition embellished with poetry, along with a list of the girls he had sent it to; there were five of them besides Ann. Cara's mind boggled at the idea of Roger having one other girl friend, let alone five. Ann had thrown the screen at him, and the bottle of wine they had been drinking, and when he tried to paw at her she had punched him, hard, and she thought she might have given him a black eye, which served him right, she said. Anyway she had bruised her knuckles, and she was never going to sleep with a man again as long as she lived.

Cara bought her another drink and offered sympathy and decided to save her own news for some other time. She wasn't sure what she was going to tell Ann about Jared, anyway. Ann would probably understand how they could have slept together so soon, but she would be startled to hear that Cara had moved into Jared's house. And Cara didn't want to tell her friend about the fly, which sounded pretty crazy. At this moment, the fly seemed the least important part of the weekend anyway.

It was sprinkling when they left the bar, and by the time Cara got back to Jared's house it was a settled rain; the picnic table, which had been occupied Sunday afternoon, was abandoned. Jared wasn't there; it was only about five. Cara parked over to one side of the car port to leave room for his car. The door opened at once to her thumb print, and the lights came on as she walked into the living room; it was as if the house recognized and greeted her, she thought, feeling a quite unreasonable contentment, beyond anything she felt coming into the house that had never quite been hers.

And it was quiet, too, no Mothervoice to greet her.

She went on into the little study, where Jared and Issio had set up her screen and data chips and whatever else they had found on a table right by the window. She could see the back porch, with a scattering of chairs and that big hot tub on the porch side of the bathroom wall. And through the old-fashioned metal screen surrounding the porch, she could see the lawn and the trees, with the rain misting over them. She put down her briefcase and dialed down the lights and stepped onto the porch, where she could smell the rain in the air and hear it coming down, pattering on the roof and the grass. It smelled of green things and flowers, she thought, looking toward Mimi's house where Clyde had planted bushes down by the D'ubians' short fence; the flowers were just budding out.

She looked across the lawn to the woods and there, just on the edge of the lawn, was a stranger, a tall slim woman in light pants, light coat, gemstones flashing in the pale light at her ears, on her hands, on a thin silver chain with a pendant around her neck, her pale hair upswept in some complex style. She stood very still and straight with no regard whatsoever for the rain, staring at Cara with eyes that looked clear and sharp and blue despite the faded daylight. She had not, Cara thought confusedly, been there a moment ago, but she was there now and Cara stared back at her. She didn't get a sense of hostility from this strange figure, only great interest, as if the woman had heard of her and was investigating. And this was a stranger – this woman was like no one she had met in the neighborhood yesterday, and she thought she had met everyone but the D'ubians.

The stranger was not a D'ubian. She looked Earthian, in fact, but she didn't, somehow, feel Earthian, Cara thought.

Someone tapped on the front door and a moment later opened it, which meant one of the neighbors; Jared had said they had their prints registered on his thumb pad, apparently a neighborhood custom. "Cara?" said Sofi's voice softly. "It is me." She appeared, a white gold blur in the corner of Cara's eye; Cara kept her attention on the strange woman on the lawn. Sofi stopped just in the doorway and let out a soft breath. "She is still there," she said, just above a whisper. "I saw her from my house; I saw she was looking at you. Do you know her?"

"No, do you?" Like Sofi, Cara kept her voice down.

A brief pause. "Gina has seen her in the woods several times," said Sofi. "She does not live here. I myself have not seen her like this before."

A car pulled with a whoosh of displaced air into the car port. The woman turned her head in that direction, although the half wall at the back of the car port would prevent her from seeing much more than Jared's head as he got out of the car. She looked, though, and then turned abruptly, hand on her silver pendant, and vanished into the woods in two or three strides. Cara could not even pick up movement between the trees.

The car door shut.

Sofi and Cara shared a glance and turned back into the house as Jared came through the front door, with his briefcase swinging from one hand, and greeted Cara with that wonderful smile. "Hi," he said, and then noticed Sofi. "Both of you," he said, and then gave them a second look and put down his briefcase on the corner of the couch. "What?" he said.

"There was a stranger on the lawn in back," said Cara, aware how trivial it sounded and how portentous it had seemed.

"Man? Woman?" he asked. "Is he still there?" He moved toward the study, taking Cara's hand in passing, and Sofi came after them.

"Woman," said Cara. "She left when she heard you come. She didn't feel threatening," she said to Sofi, who nodded.

"Strangers have been seen here," she said. "Gina – " She paused, looked at Jared as if not sure how much to tell him. He looked back, an attentive look in his eye, and Sofi looked elsewhere with a very small shake of her head, communication without words. Well. Everyone knew about Zamuaon Ears; Cara had seen enough of Zamuaon groups at the University to believe they really did have some sort of psychic powers.

Jared was not Zamuaon.

He was not Zamuaon but he was very quick to pick up the small signals of expression and body language and – naturally he knew Sofi and Issio very well, four years, she had said –

"There is a man," said Sofi, "and Gina has seen him, here in the woods, also at school, when Terry was in the band concert. I saw this man at the school, although he disappeared very quickly."

"This woman disappeared quickly," said Cara, and Sofi nodded.

"My sense of him is that he is not Earthian," she said. "I did not feel harm in him, but he is not Earthian. This woman – I cannot say." Jared looked at her sharply; she turned her head away, not meeting his eyes.

"Okay," he said. "Gina saw him?"

"Yes," said Sofi. There were undercurrents Cara could not follow, but he was holding her hand, keeping her close to him.

He looked through the door toward the woods where the stranger had disappeared, but there was not the slightest sign of her now. The rain fell softly on the porch roof and splashed into the wet grass. "Not Earthian?" he said. "Not Alliance? That's interesting. This woman – "

"I saw her from my bedroom," said Sofi. "She stood on the grass, looking at your house, and Cara stood on the porch, looking back at her. So I came over here; I wanted to know if Cara knew anything about her."

"I don't," said Cara. "I came out here because it smelled so nice, and I saw her right there, in all the rain."

"And Gina's seen this man," said Jared. "How long has he been appearing around here? You think there's a connection between the man and the woman?"

Sofi considered. "There are things I must have her permission to tell," she said, "but yes, she has seen him, for some years, I believe, and the woman is – And Issio," she added, "is not home yet. He stopped at the butcher shop. He will be sorry to have missed this."

"I think," said Cara, and stopped, weighing it in her mind; yes, that really was the impression she had. "I think," she said, "that she was looking for me. That's the feeling I got from her. I'm probably imagining it."

Sofi shook her head at once. "No, no, you are not," she said. "That is the feeling I have too."

"But why?" said Jared, and Sofi glanced at him and looked elsewhere.

"No doubt there is a reason," she said, and Jared turned from the window.

"I can go out and look for her," he offered, and Sofi shook her head quite firmly.

"She is gone; I do not feel her," she said. "You will only get wet out there."

"I don't mind a little rain," said Jared. "And if these non-Earthian people are standing around in our woods and on our lawns –"

"We will need to watch for them," said Sofi, and looked up, brightening, as another car door slammed shut on the far side of Jared's house. "Issio is home," she said. "I will talk to Gina later."

She departed through the back porch door, running lightly through the rain with her tail flicking off the drops, twisted gold tail ring sparkling, and Jared put his arm around Cara and drew her against him as they turned into the house again. "Maybe I am just paranoid," he said, "after last weekend, but strangers on the lawn make me uneasy. And Gina has seen this man lurking in the woods, and Sofi won't say, but there's a connection. What did she look like?" he asked.

"She was tall," said Cara, "and thin, and her hair was very light blond. Or maybe she was just old, and her hair was white. She wore it up." She lifted her own hair to demonstrate. "Very sharp blue eyes," she said.

"Odd," he murmured, deep in thought, and his arm tightened around her, holding her close to him, as if to be sure nothing could come between them.

 

He was lying on his back with his eyes closed, but he wasn't asleep; his fingers wandered lightly through her hair as she lay against him. He said it felt like silk; he liked it. It was raining again, very softly, rain-sweet air through the open window to the back porch. There was no one standing on the back lawn. Cara had looked.

"Dr. Gladys Park has multiple lovers," she said, feeling the smoothness of his skin under her cheek.

His eyes opened, regarded the shadowed ceiling. "Is that a question?" he asked.

"Do you know Dr. Park?"

"Slightly. Silent Servants; The Psychology of Domestic Robots. And the Twilight Agency; before my time. Multiple lovers; that sounds exhausting."

"You'd find it too tiring?"

"It was a question," he said. "And the answer is no. Not because it's too tiring. Because it's unsatisfying."

"It is?"

"You see," he said, moving so that both arms were around her, "it's illusion. A few hours, nice words, sometimes affection over a period of time, but not love, not real love, only the appearance of it. And that's okay when you're really young, but sooner or later you want more substance. I," he said, "want more substance. I'm tired of the games. I want the real thing. And that comes from spending your time with one person, to learn and share and grow with that one person and – so the answer is no. I can't speak for Dr. Park, but for me – the answer is no."

"You had the real thing," she said, plunging, not into a place she much wanted to be, but it was there, and she needed to know, before she risked anything more. And that was silly, because it was too late; she had already risked everything. If Maud was still there in his heart, she should know so she could think of ways to drive off this possessive ghost.

"With Maud? You're worried about her," he said. "You shouldn't be. Yes, I loved her, but it's ended now. And you and I are beginning, and I know it's early, but I want you to know that you're the one I want to be with. Maud is the past. You are the present. Maybe we're the future, together. I mean to find out, anyway, and that can't be done with multiple lovers. Just you and me, sweetheart."

"That's very romantic," she said, and it was very beautiful too, she thought. She remembered what Sofi said, that his experiences had only made him particular, looking for the right partner. Sofi said that he was a good man. Her own instinct was to agree. So far, her instinct had been good.

"You don't have to believe me right now," he said. "But it's true, and if you'll stay with me, I'll prove it to you. And in the meantime, I'll tell you as often as you need to hear it. And show you."

She thought that would be fine.

 

The neighborhood was, Cara suspected, being very tactful; if both her car and Jared's were parked in the car port, no one dropped in without calling first, or at least ringing the door chime, even Lillian looking for Terry's bike under Jared's front porch, even Al returning Jared's Dickens reader. They might all have their prints registered, but they refrained from using them when they suspected Jared and Cara wanted their privacy. The hot tub was left alone after five in the evening, although she knew Al and Clyde and Mimi, especially, used it frequently in this cool wet spring weather; she came home to find traces of their presence, cinnamon rolls or crusty loaves of bread from Clyde and Mimi, cookies and cupcakes with decorative frosting from Al, set on disposable plates in the kitchen, often with a small note – "Cara, hope you like chocolate," for instance.

Sofi called Tuesday after school to say she had spoken with Gina, and suggested they all get together on the weekend, and talk about the people in the woods. "I am wondering," Sofi said, "if perhaps we should involve the rest of the neighbors. Maybe they have seen something also. We should know."

"Yes, we should," Cara said.

"I will talk with Phyllis and Lillian," said Sofi. "They have the most room for all of us to meet. Also it would be better if Terry were not present when we talk. I believe he has something with his school friends this weekend. I will find out and let you and Jared know."

Wednesday Jared called her at noon to invite her, formally, "since we never get lunches together," he said, "since we don't get our work done when we should," to go out to dinner with him that evening; he would, he informed her, pick her up at her office, as befit a man taking his girl out on a date.

So when Ann suggested coffee before they went home, Cara had to decline. "Can we go tomorrow instead?" she asked. "I have a date; he's picking me up here."

"A date?" exclaimed Ann. "Cara, that's great! Who is he? When did you meet him? Why didn't you tell me? Who is it?"

"His name is Jared," said Cara, and spotted him coming down the hall, pausing momentarily to exchange greetings with an assistant professor straying out of the music department; they spoke as acquaintances, laughed. "There he is," she told Ann, who turned and looked, and her jaw dropped.

"Oh, wow," she said with great reverence.

Jared reached Cara’s office door, took in both of them with a glance and a smile, and then bent to kiss Cara. "Hi, sweetheart," he said cheerfully. "Ready to go?"

"I just need to dump this in my office," she said. "Ann, this is Dr. Jared Ramirez; remember that article in the journal you showed me, about the folk tales?"

"You did call him," said Ann.

"Ann Swift; she teaches creative writing," Cara told Jared.

"Pleased to meet you," he said, arm around Cara.

"Well, you two have a great evening," said Ann, backing off toward her own office. "Cara, call me if you get a chance. And I’ll see you tomorrow, right?"

"Yes, tomorrow," said Cara, leading Jared into her office. Behind his back Ann caught her eye, pantomimed an eye-rolling faint, fanned herself, and shot Cara a thumbs-up before she retired to her own office. "She approves of you," Cara whispered to Jared. "Are we showing off?"

"Yes, isn't it fun?" he said.

He was right; it was.