Carlota smiled as she pulled out Chapter Four from the valise and put everything back. Hopefully, everybody was having a small heart attack at the new schedule. She’d felt like they weren’t working all that hard, since William was the last person who’d made any impression on her as possibly being trouble. And then Armand had seen to destroying the man. And that merely as a way to seduce her.
She thought about the bog troll occasionally, but didn’t go looking.
He might be deep cover for someone and had just been picking off the competition.
Instead, she’d upped her own personal surveillance. Paranoia. Whatever you wanted to call it.
She had never returned to that casino where she’d met Armand and cleaned out everyone else. Not even been on that resort’s property again. Anyone looking might expect her to return to the scene of the crime, as it were. She would not.
At the same time, sitting in her hotel room passively waiting for meals, sleep, and the next mailing would drive her to begin chewing on the scenery pretty quickly, so she did get out occasionally.
Just to be a shit, she often put on something of a disguise in order to go into Bennan proper. The town frequently played second fiddle to all of the resorts, but those places paid well, so that money got circulated here because employees never lived on property. That, in turn, meant nice restaurants, plus some civilized comforts, including a symphony as well as several small theaters where folks hoping to break in at one of the resorts auditioned.
Or just put on weird black-box things where a good audience might be fifty people instead of ten thousand, like when some major recording artist did a short residence at a resort for a season.
Tonight, she’d treated herself to weird. Deeply weird.
Humans had first gone into space some ten thousand years ago, back when the planet Earth was a place, rather than a burned-out cinder. In all that time, nobody had ever found any intelligent life, other than the evil robots mankind had created.
That didn’t stop dreamers from envisioning finding someone, just around the next corner. Perhaps they’d all died off millions of years ago and vanished, only to be awakened somehow today.
At least that was the underlying theme of the musical she’d wandered into, after dinner in a place that was positively a dive. She’d seen the playbill tacked on a community board and it had utterly intrigued her.
Something new, when Carlota had been pretty certain in her cynicism that she’d seen it all.
Singing aliens with tentacles for mouths was new. She couldn’t say they were great, but that was the writer. The cast was putting their heart and soul into the performance, and that was enough for the eighteen other folks in the audience with Carlota.
They took a break for an intermission. Carlota went out to the lobby with the others for a glass of wine, and to throw a handful of cedis into a jar to help support the little non-profit running the space.
They dreamed. She’d almost forgotten what that was like. Over a glass of wine, she studied a few cast and crew mingling with almost as many pedestrians, some of whom looked like they’d accidentally wandered into the wrong building.
At the same time, some person had had an idea for a musical about an alien invasion, and convinced enough friends and fellow lunatics to help them put it on. Carlota couldn’t see something like this ever playing on one of the big stages at a resort, but she supposed that you had to try. She understood that concept at a deeply visceral level.
Most of the others around her were kids. She could say that. None looked over thirty, save for one woman who had the air of a widow. She was elegant, wearing baggy, straight-leg pants in a chocolate brown, with a snug white shirt and sand-colored vest. Long, blondish hair braided expertly.
Like Carlota, she seemed to be just milling about. Not here with anybody. Not on any timeline to do things.
Waiting for others to arrive, which had been the hallmark of much of Carlota’s career. Waiting for agents. Bumping into them briefly to mark them or hand off a note. Or walking away when it didn’t feel right, so you could begin assessing fallbacks.
Carlota caught her eye across the space. The woman was tall, even before she’d added those heels. They toasted each other with wine glasses, and the stranger took that as an invitation.
Was it? Carlota wasn’t sure. The last thirty years had been dedicated to doing what she was told, while subsuming herself into roles dictated by others.
That she got to choose the roles these days really didn’t change the shape.
Just the level of control she got to exercise. The woman approached carefully, as if uncertain about Carlota’s intentions.
Did she have intentions? Armand had been a happy accident. A book that one should never judge by the cover. Few men utterly relished the thought of going down on a woman, which just showed what fools they all were.
The stranger getting closer was utterly gorgeous. Slender, but built with muscles. Bright, blue eyes that probably turned gray in bright sun. Made up to appear younger than she was, which Carlota nodded at. They might be of an age, single women in their early fifties, if you looked at the hands and the corners of the eyes with the right sort of vision.
There were only so many tricks you could play with makeup before you had to visit a professional surgeon and hope that they were also an artist.
Carlota had considered having proper work done to become a stranger, but that would have taken her out of the game for as much as a year, at that moment when the siren call of the manuscript had pulled her out of her depression and given her a reason to fight back. To live.
Would she do it when all this was done?
Carlota had a start when she realized that she’d gotten so wrapped up in her game that she hadn’t made it past that day when she was able to walk into a bookstore somewhere and pick up a copy with her name on the cover.
“Is everything okay?” the stranger asked, drawing Carlota back up from squirreling in on herself.
“Sorry,” Carlota said. “A random connection in my head distracted me and reminded me of something I needed to do tomorrow. Or next week.”
“I understand those,” this gorgeous woman nodded. Even her voice was lovely, as was the hint of jasmine in her perfume. “There are times when it just feels like you are waiting around for someone else to decide to do something. Or not.”
Carlota nodded. This was a woman who had that maturity that only a lot of light-years could give you. Youngsters still thought that they could change the galaxy. Could make a difference.
At some point, you realized that all you could change was yourself.
“Or not,” Carlota chucked. “Helen.”
It was as good a name as any. And not like anyone could track her.
“Erika,” the blond replied. “Enjoying the show?”
“More than I expected,” Carlota smiled. “Although, truth be told, I wasn’t sure what awaited me.”
“I know the feeling,” Erika replied with a matching grin. “I saw the playbill on a light pole after lunch, and I’m not sure what drew me to it, but it looked just so outrageous that I needed to see for myself.”
“Are you staying in Bennan, then?” Carlota asked, a bit surprised, because the resorts existed to keep you on their property and filter away all your money. Getting into town wasn’t impossible, as they had to have trams for employees, but still.
“It seemed more interesting,” Erika shrugged. “After a while, those resorts all take on a sort of smoothness that fades into the background. I wanted something more intriguing this trip, though I’m not sure what I was looking for. Maybe singing squidfolk.”
Carlota joined her in a chuckle. Youngsters thought they knew what they wanted. Rarely did they. Or if they achieved it, it turned out to be fool’s gold.
She was something of an expert on the topic.
They made small talk. Carlota found the woman endlessly compelling. Had her husband really run off with a waitress and left someone this smart and beautiful behind?
But then she thought back to the Administrator of the Bureau, patting her on the head because she was past her time and should really just shut up and work at her little desk, or go ahead and resign so they didn’t have to listen to her bitching.
“Men are fools, aren’t they?” Carlota asked.
Erika nodded in sympathy. It was a girl thing.
“Attention, everyone,” a blue squidperson appeared and called. “Intermission will be over shortly, if you could hit the restroom and find your way back to your chairs in five minutes, we’ll be ready for Act Two.”
Carlota and Erika both made their way to the fresher, smiling as they applied lipstick side by side in the mirror. Tall, elegant, beautiful, smart. Armand, without even the bog troll parts.
Carlota leaned into Erika’s shoulder as they crossed back to the auditorium. She even took the woman’s hand, feeling Erika squeeze it in return.
“I’ll follow you,” Carlota said, letting Erika lead her to where the woman had been before. The seats were only two rows, right up against the open space pretending to be a stage, so sitting in the back row and necking with the woman would be poor form.
Still, she leaned over and kissed Erika on the cheek as they sat. Watched the woman’s surprise turn to interest. Erika pulled her into a second kiss, but broke away before they got too involved.
Carlota settled and found herself holding hands with the woman. And thinking about Armand and his radio voice.