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Ten: Scheming

Will had called. Quite a while after I got home the evening before -- the time stamp on the voicemail said it was after nine o'clock. But I hadn't been as completely abandoned as I thought.

He sounded rushed and a little rough around the edges, as if he were irritated by something. Not me, as far as I could tell; he asked if I was all right, and said that my comment about the phone had worried him a little. Then he concluded by saying he'd be back in the office the next morning by nine o'clock (obviously clergymen didn't follow a standard nine-to-five, Monday-Friday routine), and to give him a call when I had a chance.

I wanted to kiss the little phone. Although it was a Saturday morning, I'd gone back downtown, telling Smike I had a few things I needed to get for my class project. Normally of course I would have just run over to the shops in the Fashion District after class, but these days I was looking for any excuse to get out of the house. Smike asked a few pointed questions, but after I rambled on about hook-and-eye tape, re-embroidered lace, and silk ribbon for a few minutes his eyes glazed over, and I was able to escape without any more interrogation. All during my drive downtown I kept looking through the rearview mirror, wondering whether Smike really had hired someone to tail me, but if anyone was following me they had to be pretty damn inconspicuous, as I didn't notice anything out of the ordinary.

Once I arrived at my destination I pulled into the rooftop parking lot I used whenever I went into this section of downtown. A quick glance at my watch told me it was almost ten, so it should be safe to call Will. I'd programmed the number to All Saints in my phone the day before, so I pulled it up from my contacts list, got the operator again, and then was transferred to Will's extension.

This time he answered. "Hello?"

I still felt a little weird about calling him Will, so I took the easy way out and didn't use any form of direct address. "Hi -- it's Sarah."

"Sarah. How are you? You had me a little worried."

"Sorry." I hesitated, then said, "I'm probably just being paranoid. But Smike said something the other day that got my spider sense tingling, so I thought it was better to be safe. I'm all right, though."

"You're sure." He certainly didn't sound all that convinced.

"Oh, yeah." The half-hearted sunlight was starting to warm up the car, so I paused and opened my window partway after checking that the parking attendant was at the other side of the lot and occupied with the latest vehicle to roll in. "What about you? Did I catch you at a bad time?"

My answer was a not-very-amused chuckle. "You could call it that. This whole IRS thing really has the place in an uproar."

Huh? "Um...IRS?" I asked.

"I take it you don't read the paper or watch the news."

Feeling like a complete idiot, I replied, "Uh -- not lately." Truth be told, I hadn't paid much attention to what was going on in the world the past few weeks. When I lived at home I usually could catch pieces of the news, since my mother liked to watch the local broadcasts in the late afternoon, and there were always copies of the L.A. Times and Wall Street Journal lying around. Mike apparently didn't subscribe to any newspapers -- although scientific journals piled up around the place at an alarming rate -- and I tended to tune out whatever he had on the TV.

"Well, I suppose you've been preoccupied," Will said, appearing to excuse my ignorance. "To be brief, the IRS is threatening to pull All Saints' tax-exempt status because of an anti-war sermon a visiting minister preached here a while back. Never mind that across town another minister basically told his parishioners that they'd burn in hell if they didn't vote in the current president."

"Oh, wow," I said, knowing that was completely inadequate. If I'd still been living at home I'm sure I would have been treated to one of my father's rampages about how the current administration was trying to lead us into fascism, but one advantage of sharing a house with Smike was that I got to miss out on political tirades. "That's...terrible."

"Yes, it is, and it's taking attention away from more worthy subjects, unfortunately." He sighed, then went on, "Anyhow, I got your message after I'd gotten back from a meeting with our lawyer and accountant, so let's just say that I wasn't in the best of tempers."

Since I didn't really know what else I should say, I just murmured, "I'm sorry," then waited.

"One piece of good news," Will continued, his tone a little more brisk. "Raoul Ortiz left me a message yesterday that he thought his contact at the local FBI lab would be able to get to your gown early next week, so we won't have to wait as long as we thought."

"That's great," I said, and hoped it was. What if the tests on the gown didn't prove anything? Will had said he would still help me out, but I knew my credibility would take a beating if the gown turned out to be nothing more than a fancy costume made out of fabrics anyone could have gotten their hands on. Still, I supposed that knowing something -- anything -- was better than knowing nothing. "I'm really interested to hear what they have to say."

Maybe Will picked up on the note of false cheeriness in my voice. "You know that's not the deciding factor, Sarah," he said. "When I said I'd help you no matter what, I meant it."

His words should have cheered me up, but somehow they just started a funny little ache in my chest. Right now I was only a duty for him -- and I wanted to be so much more.

But I managed to sound reasonably normal when I replied, "Thanks, Will," and didn't even hesitate over his name. After all, I couldn't go on avoiding it day after day. Then I said, "Well, I've got to get going, and I'm sure you have a lot to do -- "

"I do, but don't let that stop you from calling me. In fact, here's my cell number, in case it's an emergency and I'm not in the office. Do you have a pen?"

Thank God I did, because I always carry a notepad and pen in my bag in case I need to jot down SKU numbers and that sort of thing when I'm trolling the fabric stores. I scrabbled around in my purse, found the pad and pen (which of course had migrated to the bottom of my bag), and said, "OK, shoot."

Will gave me the number and had me read it back to him to make sure I'd gotten it down right. There was a brief pause, and then he said, "Don't hesitate to call. You're in a tough situation, and -- well, I can't help worrying."

If he worried about me, then that meant I was in his thoughts at least occasionally. And if he kept thinking about me, well...I didn't know where things might lead, but I could hope. Maybe all it really needed was him being around me enough to remember some of the past we had once shared.

"I appreciate that," I said, wishing I didn't sound so formal.

"No problem," he replied, then, "Oh -- there's my other line -- "

I broke in. "Go ahead and take it. I'll be fine."

"Good-bye, Sarah."

The call cut off, and I sat there for a moment, cradling the phone in my hand. My heart was beating quickly -- silly, really, when all he'd done was offer me the same consideration he probably would have shown to any of his parishioners. Still, he'd given me his cell number. That was something.

Holding the precious piece of paper in one hand, I programmed the number into my phone. Then I locked up both items in the glove compartment and hurried out of the car to get on with my shopping.

Saturday mornings the Fashion District is always crowded, but I already knew which stores I needed to hit and proceeded from shop to shop in a route I'd planned out carefully before arriving in downtown L.A. It was really the only way to get anything accomplished down there; it's way too easy to get distracted and start buying stuff for future projects when you've already got enough on your plate to keep you busy for the next six months.

But on my way back to the car I caught a glimpse of some amazing embroidered silk in a shop window and just had to duck inside to take a look at it. I couldn't help thinking that the deep claret-red would look gorgeous with the antiques Mike owned. Overall the fabrics and wall coverings in Mike's house were on the fussy side, and I would have wondered why he kept the place decorated that way except that I knew he never bothered about trivial stuff like that. Oh, if one of the couches or chairs suddenly collapsed under him he probably would have gone about replacing it, but that was probably the extent of his decorating ambition.

Not mine, however. As I stood in the shop, fingering the heavy dupioni and trying to ignore the shopkeeper's enticing come-on of "For you -- good price!", I had a sudden thought. Oh, sure, the wedding had been a constant distraction, but Smike had taken it in stride far too well. If I suddenly got a bug up my butt about redecorating the house, though, it would most likely be far more disruptive. It was a lot easier to ignore stacks of bridal magazines and comments about floral arrangements than it was to remain oblivious to people stripping off wallpaper or redoing your floors.

I wouldn't go completely nuts -- I'd preserve the character of the house as much as possible. Nothing drives me more crazy than seeing people decorate vintage homes with ultra-modern furniture. What's the point of living in what the realtors like to call a "character home" if you're not going to enjoy the design elements that make it unique? On the other hand, Mike's house was definitely due for an overhaul, and this seemed like the perfect time to do it.

With an evil grin, I said, "I'll take thirty yards," and slapped my platinum Visa card down on the counter next to the cash register. Take that, Mr. Westerfield, I thought.

When I got home a few hours later, Smike was nowhere in evidence in the house. I knew he had to be around somewhere, since his car was in the garage. Frowning a little, I dropped my purchases on the floor next to the sofa table, called out "Mike!", and waited.

No reply, but then I noticed the French doors off the living room were open to the backyard. I made my way outside, looked around, and was rewarded with the sight of Smike's rear end pointed directly toward me.

"Nice view," I commented.

He'd been on his hands and knees on the lawn over where it connected to the side yard. At my comment, Smike straightened up and sat back on his heels, then frowned at some sort of mechanical gizmo he held in his left hand.

"What's that?" I asked. It was making noises sort of like a Geiger counter, although I sincerely hoped he wasn't measuring radioactivity levels in the backyard. Having a glow-in-the-dark yard would definitely be the cherry on the cake of my day.

"Just taking some readings." Still frowning, he picked up his PDA from the grass where it lay next to him, set down the Geiger counter thingy, and started scribbling away with a stylus.

I moved a little closer and looked over his shoulder. Not that that helped much -- he was scribbling a series of Greek symbols and numbers in Mike's trademark architect-ish hand. I hoped the PDA interface could keep up.

"Readings for what?" I inquired.

"Wait a second -- " Smike bent over, apparently squinting at the readout on the counter. Then he said, "Move toward me."

Wondering what the hell was going on, I took a few cautious steps in his direction, then paused.

He didn't look up, but instead kept staring at the LCD readout on the little gizmo as it rested on the ground. Finally he said, "Fascinating," sounding so much like Mr. Spock that I couldn't help letting out a small chuckle.

"What, am I radioactive or something?" I asked.

At last he glanced up at me, although I got the feeling that he wasn't so much focusing on me as through me. "I'm not measuring radioactivity," he replied.

"Well, thank God for that."

The old Mike might have smiled. Instead, Smike continued to frown as he said, "I'm measuring tachyons."

Planting my hands on my hips, I remarked, "Oh, well...naturally." I lifted an eyebrow at him. "What the hell is a tachyon?"

"I doubt you would understand."

"Try me."

With a sigh, he stood, brushing at the damp knees of his jeans. "A tachyon is a hypothetical particle that travels at superluminal velocities."

My mind grabbed hold of the only part of the sentence it could comprehend. "If it's hypothetical, how can you measure it?"

"Because it's not hypothetical after all." Smike bent down and picked up the little device after he slipped the PDA into the breast pocket of his shirt.

I started to get that Alice-in-Wonderland, down-the-rabbit-hole sensation again. "And someone makes a device to measure something that up until recently was only hypothetical?"

"'Someone' doesn't," Smike replied. "I did."

"You made that?" I gaped at the little brushed-metal box with its liquid-crystal readout. It had several leads coming out of it that must have been some sort of sensors, but really it didn't look all that special.

"Well, how could I measure tachyons if I didn't have a device to do it with?"

That sounded reasonable…sort of. Rather, I didn't know enough on the subject to construct even a halfway coherent question, so instead I asked, "Why tachyons in the backyard?"

Smike gave me a half-contemptuous smile. "Don't you recognize this spot?"

I looked down, then felt a thin trickle of cold move down my spine. Unless my memory were failing me, this just happened to be the exact place where I had fallen through into Middle Earth.

Coincidence? I doubted it.

I didn't reply, and his smirk deepened. "I see that you do. I'm investigating whether it was a one-time occurrence, or whether there is some anomaly in the space-time continuum in this one particular spot. I did get some interesting readings, but the most intriguing part is that the tachyon emissions increased as you moved closer to ground zero."

That really did make it sound like a nuclear bomb, and I took a nervous step backward. "But I've been out here lots of times since, and I haven't had a repeat of that experience." Too bad, I added mentally, since Middle Earth is probably a great place to be right now, considering you're not there anymore.

"I'm sure there are other factors involved than your mere presence." Smike pressed a button on the side of the gizmo, and the screen went dark. "But this is a promising beginning."

Beginning to what? I wondered darkly, but I didn't have to let my imagination range too far to find the answer to that question. I was no scientist, but even I knew that the first step to reproducing a phenomenon was to observe its separate elements and analyze how their interactions created the original incident. And if he'd somehow been able to fabricate a device that actually measured something which had been purely theoretical up until that point -- well, it just showed that I wouldn't be underestimating the combined Mike/Sauron think tank any time in the near future.

But I couldn't let him see that he'd rattled me. I just smiled at him and said lightly, "Guess I'd better start picking out my dress for the Nobel banquet, then." And with that I turned and headed back into the house.

After a brief pause Smike followed along behind me, then stopped and stared at the pile of shopping bags next to the sofa table. "I thought you said you were doing a 'little' shopping."

I had to bend down over one of the bags to conceal my own smirk. "Well, I saw this fabric, and I had the greatest idea!" That remark was issued in the chirpy-bright tone I knew Smike hated. I could almost hear his teeth grinding from where I stood.

"What idea?" he asked slowly.

"Sorry, but the chintz in this place was really getting to me. So I thought I'd do a little redecorating."

"Re -- what?"

With a flourish, I drew a length of the embroidered dupioni out of its bag. "Isn't it gorgeous? I'm going to do all the curtains in here with this fabric. Of course, it means we'll have to buy new couches and steam off all the wallpaper and repaint -- or maybe do Venetian plaster -- but I think it will make all the difference in the world!"

He crossed his arms and glared at me. "Is this as joke?"

In response I widened my eyes and shot him what I hoped was an innocent look. "Joke? No. I figured if I this were going to be my house too then I should make it a little more mine -- I mean, this place looks like someone's grandmother lives here!"

"My -- Mike's grandmother did live here." The dark eyes glinted at me, and I could tell he was getting pretty steamed.

Perfect.

But I continued with the innocent act. "I thought you inherited this house from your -- I mean, Mike's grandfather."

"I did -- he did." Smike's eyes narrowed a bit, as he obviously went into the archives to dredge up the relevant information. "Mike's grandparents separated when he was very young, but his grandfather wouldn't hear of a divorce, so he bought this house for his estranged wife. When she passed away he retained ownership, and when he died he left the house to Mike. Apparently the grandfather never lived here at all -- he had a separate residence not too far away, which Mike's father subsequently inherited and now uses as a rental property. Any other questions?"

His tone invited anything but further questioning, so I said, "No, that pretty much clears it up."

Obviously my reply did little to mollify him, because he went on, "Don't you think you're taking on a little too much? After all, we do have a wedding coming up in less than six months."

"Piece of cake," I said blithely. "I mean, Tricia is handling all the details, so I don't have too much to do. Speaking of which, are you available next Tuesday afternoon? She needs us to meet with the cake designer and taste samples so we can decide what we want."

Most guys would have been happy to go eat cake for an afternoon, but of course Smike wasn't "most guys." He shot me an irritated look and said in grudging tones, "If I must."

"Well, I can pick it out if you don't want to, but it will look weird if you don't come." That was the gambit I always used whenever Smike tried to weasel out of some wedding-related duty. The one thing he seemed to fear was not playing his role correctly. If the real Mike would have gone to some cake designer's shop (God forbid you should call her a baker) and tried different samples of cake until he made himself sick from sugar, well, then, Sauron would do the same, or die trying.

"I'll be there," he said immediately, and I had to repress a smile.

"Great." With that I turned and surveyed the living room, making a mental list of what could stay and what could go. I probably couldn't improve upon the lovely Victorian antiques, but the wall coverings and drapes were toast, as was the carpet. I went over to the closest corner and squatted down, picking at the carpet where it met the floorboards. As I had hoped, the yawn-inducing beige berber hid what looked like some gorgeous hardwood floors.

"What are you doing?" Smike asked, in a voice tinged with wariness and -- to my delight -- alarm.

"Confirming a suspicion. Some Philistine put carpets over the original wood floors. So I'm going to pull all this up and see what condition it's in. We'll probably need to have it sanded, and then -- "

He shook his head. "Somehow I get the feeling I'm going to be spending a lot more time at the lab."

"Oh, it won't be that bad." Actually, it probably would. I knew this from personal experience because I'd spent a miserable few days several years ago when my parents had refurbished the wood floors in my own house. Those floor sanders are loud. Still, I didn't want to scare Smike too much. With any luck, he'd be at home trying to work in his office when the floor guys showed up to do the job. "Besides," I added, "I absolutely guarantee that you will like this place much better when I'm done with it. I mean, if you're going to be in this world for a while, shouldn't you have a home that suits you better?"

The quizzical look Smike gave me indicated that reducing the floral factor in the pretty Tudor-style house wasn't quite equal to having his old digs at Barad Dûr restored to him. OK, maybe Sauron's previous headquarters had square footage we currently lacked, but it wasn't very cozy. Or maybe he was just thinking that he'd made the first step toward conquering new galaxies or whatever, and therefore having refinished floors wasn't high on his list of priorities.

But whatever might have been going through his mind, he apparently decided to abandon the argument, because he just shrugged and said, "If that's what you want."

"It is," I said right away.

Smike's gaze shifted to the bags of fabric on the floor. Thirty yards of embroidered silk can be pretty bulky. "And you're going to do this yourself?"

"Oh, not all of it. But the drapes -- yeah, no problem. It's mostly a lot of hemming."

"Mmm." For a second he looked so out of his element -- so completely Mike -- that I felt a rush of unexpected pity. I guess even Dark Lords have a tough time dealing with the intricacies of interior decoration.

Surprising even myself, I got on my tiptoes and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. "You won't regret it. I promise."

For a second he appeared completely shocked, and then his mouth curved in the familiar cool smile. "I don't know," he said slowly. "I may come to regret it quite a bit."

You have no idea, I thought. Just wait until the combined whammy of seating charts and house painters hits you upside the head.

And with that thought to comfort me, I gave him a quick smile, then gathered up my purchases so I could stow them away in my sewing studio over the garage.

This was going to be lots of fun.