"I guess things didn't go so well with Berlin." Amanda arched her eyebrows knowingly as Irisa ordered a drink. "Unless she was up there with you." Amanda beamed, playfully adding, "those two-for-one deals are no joke."
"Huh?" Irisa pulled the umbrella out of her drink and tossed it aside like it had personally offended her.
"You know…" Amanda nodded in the direction of the staircase. "There's only one thing that goes on up there."
"Lots of things go on up there," Irisa said. "Night Porters are creative people."
Amanda smiled as she watched Irisa take a cautious sip and asked, "So, did you experience any of that creativity first hand… by maybe, oh, I don't know, having sex with a night porter yourself?"
"No," Irisa replied, utterly unoffended by Amanda's question.
"It's ok if you did," Amanda said. "I'm not your mother, and Berlin's an adult who can deal with heartbreak... Well..." Amanda bobbed her head from side to side, remembering Berlin's proclivity for punching people in the face. "She'll handle it in her own way, and you know that I care about you both, so I'd never choose sides, and I also won't lecture you for enjoying yourself in an establishment I own."
Irisa took a second, less hesitant sip, watching Amanda through an unreadable expression.
"I gave Kenya enough lectures," Amanda continued, "and she never listened to a single one. I know better now. I've learned and grown as a person."
Irisa waited until Amanda finished talking to set her glass down and say, "Berlin told me how she felt."
"That's good!" A wave of relief coursed through Amanda's veins. While it was true that Berlin could handle herself, Amanda would have hated to see her get hurt in love… again. Her rebound with Conrad had left more scars than she cared to admit, and Amanda hadn't seen Irisa with anyone since Tommy. The idea that her two lonely friends could find love and happiness in this fucked up world meant more to her than she could say.
"It is," Irisa said. "It's good."
"And?"
"And… that's it," Irisa said. "Everything's fine. End of story."
"I'm glad." Amanda smiled and made a mental note to get the juicy details out of Berlin later. Now that her relationship was out in the open, they were due for a good drunken girls night. She'd just have to encourage Berlin to keep a few of the gorier details to herself. Berlin's open book attitude towards sex became slightly less entertaining when it involved Nolan's daughter.
"I'm glad too." Irisa smiled with a shy coyness that said far more about her feelings than her words had, "and besides," she continued, "paying for sex isn't for me."
"Yeah," Amanda agreed. "Me either."
"Really?" Irisa asked. "You never take advantage of an owner's discount?"
"Nope."
"Why own a brothel if you don't enjoy it?" Irisa glanced at Amanda quizzically. "Why keep it like this when you could turn it into something else, something like a library. Defiance needs a library."
Amanda held up her glass and said, "They don't serve scotch in libraries."
"Then it could be a regular bar and hotel."
"No." Amanda shook her head. "This is Kenya's legacy. I could never bring myself to change it. I just hope I never sink so low that I end up working here again."
"It was weird seeing you like that."
"I was a fucking disaster in heels. Well, a hot disaster, but definitely a disaster."
"The first time I saw you in that outfit…" Irisa glanced to the side, hiding the sadness in her eyes. "It felt like I was stuck in a nightmare."
"I'm not a psychiatrist, Irisa, but that feeling may have had more to do with a machine manipulating you than the amount of cleavage I was showing."
"It was both," Irisa said, meeting Amanda's gaze. "It was everything. In nightmares, the whole world can go wrong in an instant for no reason. But it's not supposed to be like that in real life. I've fucked up many times, and I've watched Nolan fuck up even more times, but everything doesn't break all at once… only it did. Everything broke the day you lost the election and Nolan died."
"I guess you're right." Amanda sighed. "We collectively lost everything."
Irisa gave a subtle nod.
"And working as a madam after losing my job and my sister really was my worst nightmare." Amanda laughed to relieve the tension brought on by painful memories. "You should have seen me the first night I worked here." She shook her head, ashamed to admit how low she had sunk. "I ransacked Kenya's closet, but I had to get high as a kite to pretend I didn't hate it. I just didn't understand prostitution, but Kenya's night porters trusted me because I was her sister, so I put on a smile and did my best to help them without ever partaking myself."
"I'm sorry you had to do that."
"I got used to it, and besides, it's not the worst thing I've ever done." Amanda looked into Irisa's eyes, considering elaborating on the statement, but deciding against it. "It was just sex, right?" She smiled. "Makes the world go 'round."
"Still… you shouldn't have to do anything that makes you uncomfortable."
"Don't get me wrong, I like sex… just not paying for it," Amanda said. "Hell, I've never even had a proper one night stand."
"For what it's worth," Irisa said. "It isn't that great. It's good, and it's fun, but it's not worth losing your sense of self over."
Amanda raised an eyebrow. Intriguing.
"What?" Irisa asked.
"You can't leave me hanging like that."
"Fine." Irisa smiled, a hint of playfulness in her eyes. "Not my mother, no judgement, right?"
Amanda gave Irisa a single nod of the head. "Right."
"The truth is, before Defiance, that's the only type of sex I ever had, and it was fun, distracting mostly. Perfect if that's all you're looking for, and at the time, that's all I was looking for, but sometimes I used people to feel better about myself, and that never worked."
"I imagine Nolan wasn't too happy with you learning those lessons the hard way."
"Probably not," Irisa said, "but he didn't stop me from living my life... as long as I wasn't trying to get myself killed." A nostalgic smile crossed her face. "I had a pretty bad temper at 18. I decided that I was an adult, and if he tried to stop me from doing anything, I would just sulk away and not talk to him for two days."
"Very mature."
"I know." Her cheeks turned pink with embarrassment. "But Nolan and I didn't actively keep secrets. There were absolutely subjects we never talked about, but he knew what I was doing as much as I knew why he would stop in the local brothel. Business arrangements were easy for him. No feelings. No hassle. No trouble… and trust me, when he was left alone in a town with nothing to do, he'd find the woman who would cause him the most trouble."
Amanda smiled. "Sounds like Nolan."
"I think I spent two straight years rolling my eyes at him. My father had no middle ground. He would either fall for a woman who he'd regret leaving behind, or he'd wake up from a one night stand with a gun to his head… which is why visiting a brothel was the safest choice for him."
Amanda laughed with more enthusiasm that the story warranted, but she needed to hear a light-hearted tale about Nolan's antics.
"Looking back, sometimes it actually was funny," Irisa said in reaction to Amanda's laughter. "I didn't see it that way at the time, but I never had a problem falling for one night stands, and if I slept with someone married, well… I never found out."
"Did you ever want something more?"
"No. I was convinced I'd spend my entire life as an ark hunter… but Nolan thought about other options."
"Antarctica," Amanda said.
"That, and…" Irisa paused like she was holding back a secret she wasn't sure she should share. "Did he ever tell you that there was another town before Defiance?"
"No," Amanda said, "he didn't."
"I was 12," Irisa said, and Amanda noted that it was the same age Irisa was when she wrote her love letter. "And Nolan thought I should go to school, so he found a little town that actually had a school claiming to accept Irathient children. He met a woman, and he probably could have had something real with her if he had stayed. I didn't get it then. I didn't understand how he could be happy living there because I got in trouble, and I hated it, so we left, and we didn't stop traveling until we ended up here."
"And you finally found a home," Amanda said.
Irisa shook her head. "I wish it were that easy, but we never wanted the same things. I only stayed here for him… to make up for the time I made him leave."
"And now?" Amanda asked, almost afraid of the answer, afraid another person she cared about might be planning to leave her. "He's gone… so are you still trying to leave town?"
"No," Irisa said with confidence. "I finally realized why Nolan liked it here.
"And why's that?"
"Because shooting hellbugs in the badlands is like paying for sex. It's a fun thrill, but you can't base your life on it. The badlands are where you go for adventure. Defiance is where yo go to live."
"Even with the constant threats?" Amanda asked. "You're putting your life on the line every day you're working as a lawkeeper. Is that so much better than putting your life on the line shooting hellbugs and ark hunting? It certainly pays better than lawkeeping."
"It's not about how I might die," Irisa said. "It's about how I'm living. Lawkeeping gives me that thrill if I need it, but there's a purpose to it. I'm helping people. At least I'm trying to help them." She paused, looking into Amanda's eyes. "And I want to be happy." She took a breath as she searched for her next words. "I lost my father, but he gave me a home before he left, and I wish I could tell him how grateful I am for that."
"I'm grateful for that too," Amanda said. "And thank you for staying."
"I should be thanking you for giving me a chance to redeem myself," Irisa said. "I just wish he was here to see it."
Amanda swallowed the lump in her throat and managed to say, "me too."
"I've lived with him most of my life. Feels so empty without him around." Irisa grabbed her drink to hide her pain. A lost child, alone in the world.
Amanda instinctively wrapped her arm around Irisa's shoulders. "I may not be your mother, but we are family." She squeezed Irisa tightly. "You can come to me anytime you need to."
"Even now?"
"Of course," Amanda said as she pulled away from the hug. "I meant what I said."
"So you'll tell me the truth?"
"About…?"
"Do you actually think he's dead?" Irisa looked away, her voice unusually quiet. "When I first told you what happened, you said you thought he was dead, and you've been refusing to even talk to me about it ever since." She met Amanda's gaze. "Have you changed your mind?"
"The truth?"
Irisa nodded, a hint of fear in her large eyes.
Amanda took a deep breath. "I actually may have changed my mind… but I'm not supposed to be a romantic remember?"
"Who gives a shtak about what you're supposed to be?" Irisa snapped
"I do," Amanda said.
"So stop."
Amanda let out a noise that was somewhere between a sob and a laugh. "I can't stop. I can't change everything about myself as easily as I change my shoes."
"Of course you can," Irisa said. "I feel like I've been 5 different people in the three years I've lived here."
"That's different."
"How?"
"It just is." Amanda shrugged. "I'm the mayor. I need to be logical and reasonable."
"Why?"
Amanda shook her head, a small laugh escaping her throat. "You can be extremely frustrating sometimes, you know that?"
"Sometimes you have to be frustrating to get people to say what they need to say."
"And what do I need to say?"
"That he's alive."
"Ok, then I need you to give me one good reason why I should think that."
"Because I need you to say it," Irisa said, her voice rising with every word.
Amanda's stomach flipped, and her heart broke as Irisa pulled away, regret clouding her eyes.
"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have snapped like that," Irisa said.
"No, Irisa, don't. Don't be sorry." Amanda squeezed Irisa's shoulder, feeling like the worst person in the world. "I'm sorry that I let all my personal baggage cloud my judgement. I'm sorry that I gave up on him, but most of all, I'm sorry I let it form a divide between us."
"It's not your fault."
"Actually, it is my fault because you're right. I have no proof he's dead, no idea what happened to that spaceship, but I do know Nolan. He's proven that he can survive anything… so I don't know why I tormented myself by insisting he died when I could just as easily insist on his survival. It's so easy to imagine him living out an outrageous adventure with Doc Yewll at his side."
"Waking up with a gun pointed to his head." A hint of a smile tugged at Irisa's lips. "Doc saving his ass."
"Well." Amanda frowned. "If I'm making up stories about Nolan's adventures, they're not going involve waking up in bed with random women."
"Ok," Irisa said, her smile growing. "Not that."
"But definitely something equally Nolan."