DISCLAIMER: I don't own Early Edition or any of its characters. I just like to torture them.
Authoress's Note: This is something I just had to write. It's a bit on the comic side, with a serious scene here and there. There's a lot of Sora's past in here. Clarifying her origins, I guess. Not my normal style, but I like the way it came out. Bon appetit!
Sora smiled to herself. She couldn't smile outwardly at the moment, because her mouth was intertwined with Gary's, but she was so elated that she couldn't just sit there.
The kiss broke momentarily, after all, kissing and forgetting to breathe kind of defeated the purpose, but they stayed close to each other. She smiled outwardly in that moment, wrapped in his arms, gasping for breath.
They were nose-to-nose. Gary ran a finger along her cheek, and then tucked a stray wisp of her hair behind her ear. She closed her eyes and tilted her head back ever so slightly. They slowly started to kiss again. Sora could feel his breath on her lips, his very *nearness* was overwhelming...
And then, the phone rang.
Sora slowly let herself fall out of his arms and backwards onto the remaining two seats of her couch. She reached her hand over her head and picked up the receiver. "Hello?" she asked tersely.
"Cheerio! Sora, Luv, how are you?" It was her dad's unmistakable English accent.
"Oh! Uh, fine, *Dad*," she stressed, for Gary.
Gary tried to get up and leave, but she slammed her shin into his knee and he sat back down.
"Sora, am I interrupting anything? Is this a bad time? I can call back--"
"It's too late, Dad...the moment is over."
"Whatever do you mean? No matter. Tell me all that's going on in your life."
"Not much, Dad...Chuck and his wife were up visiting last week, and they're pregnant..."
"Oh really? Chuck, a father? Good Lord, what is this world coming to? I'm so happy for them. Go on. I haven't heard from you in *ages*."
"It hasn't been that long, Dad...but, um, well, guess what?"
"You *didn't*."
"Didn't what?"
"Buy orange tennis shoes and wear them with anything green."
Sora rolled her eyes. Her father had the weirdest sense of humor she'd ever known. "Uhh...*no*, Dad, I'm talking big."
"I give up. Tell me."
"Well, you see, Dad...Gary and I...are...back together." There was a pause. "Dad? You still there?"
"Yes, of course I am. I must say it's about time you quit moping about and went after the one you wanted."
"*Dad*! For your information I moped more than ever for nine days before he finally asked me back out." Sora rolled her eyes at Gary, shaking her head. "At least he's not mad," she mouthed.
"He didn't know?" Gary mouthed back.
She shook her head.
"Sora, why don't you call and tell me these things? You didn't get a phone *just* to order pizza, you know."
Sora laughed. "I know. Um, Dad, he's...*here*...right now...can I call you tonight?"
"All right, if you must, Sora. Whatever you do, be sure that keeping in contact with your dad is at the *bottom* of your to-do list."
"DAD!!!" Sora cried, flustered. She was about to ask him how he could suggest that she did not care about him, but he hung up. She reached back over her head and fumbled with the phone for a minute, finally getting the receiver back into place. "My dad...is so..."
"Nevermind," Gary told her, taking her hand and pulling her back up to her previous sitting position.
"I really do love him, Gar, but you know how he is."
"Reminds me of my own parents."
They looked one another in the eye and said the word in unison.
"Overprotective."
Sora sighed and slumped herself backward into the couch--which, incidentally, meant Gary's arm was over her shoulders.
The same half-smile returned to his face and the light to his eyes. "Shall we pick up where we left off?"
"Hang on just *one* more minute." Sora sat up and took the phone off the hook. "Okay. Now."
The next day Sora came home from work, very tired. "Stupid, stupid, stupid, STUPID little kid. Had to scare the most flighty horse in the *entire* stables and *guess who* had to get the blame because she was the closest one? I didn't even *see* the dumb kid, and yet *I* had to help the maintenance man fix the stupid board that the horse kicked loose." She reached her apartment and removed her muddy--she preferred to think of it as mud, anyway--boots and entered her living room, setting them beside the door and moving over to sit on the couch.
"Hello, Luv!"
She jerked her head up. "Dad! What are *you* doing here? I just about had a heart attack!"
"Oh, Sora, don't overdramatize," Jamie Marley answered his daughter from her couch. "I came in about an hour ago, and the flight was great, thank you for asking."
"Oh, Dad, of course I'm glad to see you," she said, hugging him, "But I wish you would've called or something."
"Oh, Sora, live a little!" he said as she flopped next to him.
"Pardon me? I do believe I am the one with a significant other..."
"Oh, yes. That's why I'm here. I want to meet him."
"Dad, you met Gary while I was in high school. You don't need to meet him now."
"People change. Undoubtedly he's grown up. He certainly couldn't have gotten any younger. And wasn't he married for a while? What if he leaves you, too?"
"Marcia left him, Dad..."
"See? What if he still loves her?"
Sora let out a deep breath that fluttered her bangs. "Dad, please. I know him better than anyone else. I know him better than Marcia ever did. Really. He only thought he loved Marcia because she set her sights on him. She's ruthless. She'll do whatever is necessary to get *exactly* what she wants. And, besides, it's not like Gary and I are engaged or anything. We haven't even discussed it. It's only been a few weeks, Dad..."
"I was engaged to your mother--married to her, even--in less than one week."
"Dad, I do believe it was the *seventies*, and, besides, you were in Europe. Europe is all about romance."
"True. But see how well we turned out."
Sora sighed. "Dad, you're dead-bent, bound, and determined to meet him just to irritate me, aren't you?"
Her father just grinned over at her with a completely innocent expression.
That night after her dad went to bed--Jamie Marley had always been an early-to-bed, late-to-rise kind of person--Sora called Gary.
"Gary?"
"Sora! Hello...what's up? You usually don't call this late..."
"Gary, Gary, help! Me...I...my *dad* is here."
"So? What do you need me for?"
"He wants to *meet* you."
Gary snickered a little. "Sora, he met me back in high school, remember? He doesn't need to meet me now."
"Not according to him." She sighed quite audibly. "Please? Can we have dinner? Tomorrow night?"
"But the paper..."
"Bernard. Remember Bernard?"
"Well, okay, I'll call him and see what I can do. Umm, can we eat here at McGinty's?"
"Perfect! Gar, you're a genius. Seeing that you have a successful business will really help my dad's opinion of you. Six work for you? Seven's too late, Dad goes to bed early...he's already asleep..."
"Sure."
"Thank you, Gary. Thank you thank you thank you!"
"Uhh...you're welcome...I think."
Sora called in sick the next day to spend time with her dad. Of course, it was all spent on the same subject.
"I just want to be sure he's still a nice guy, Sora."
"I know, Dad."
"So you're not angry with me?"
Sora sighed, blowing her bangs up again. "Nope."
"You're being short-tempered," her father accused.
"I'm Irish," she reminded him.
"You're *half*-Irish," he corrected.
"Would you rather me have been English?"
"No, because then I would have had to marry someone other than your mother. I couldn't help her roots."
"I want to be married, Dad, but Gary's a little scared. His first try turned sour, so he needs time to realize that I would never do what she did."
"You loved him far before that other woman ever met him and you still do. Isn't that enough?"
"You don't know Gary, Dad. He *can* be a little slow when it comes to emotions."
"Obviously."
A pause. Even though the words were calm, and mostly in jest, both kept cool demeanors and pretended to be perfectly serious.
"You know, Luv, you're just like your mother."
"In what way?"
"In so many ways. You look like her, you act like her...sometimes when you're off-guard you even sound like her. She didn't have a full Irish lilt, you know. She only spent her first ten years in Ireland. Then she moved to New Jersey and tried to train herself out of it. She might have succeeded had it not been for talking to her grandparents. She still had it, and when her guard was down, she used it, which was a good thing. She saw me, her guard went down, and that half-lilt was what made her so attractive to me. That's how you picked it up...whenever she was with you, her guard fell through the floor, so you have a quarter lilt."
Sora finally smiled, and tried not to laugh. Her father could be so ridiculous at times, but she loved to hear talk of her mother, who had died when she was seven. "I got my name from her, too."
"Yep. Tried to convince her to name you something plain and sensible, like Jane or Mary, but she said she wanted her daughter to have a name that echoed Irish. I asked her like what and she spouted the first thing that popped into her head. Sora Christianna Marley. It does echo Irish."
"So you pretty much drew my name out of a hat."
"Easter bonnet, to be precise. That's why it's so frilly."
Now Sora rolled her eyes. "Did Mum and Uncle Eamon get along really well?"
"Well...*really* well would be stretching it a bit...*okay* sounds a little overdone...*constantly at each other's throats for no apparent reason* comes to mind..."
"Really?"
"They were siblings, Luv. And Irish atop that."
Sora nodded. "I was just thinking, you know, me and Steve get along so well."
"Steve? Oh yes, Eamon and Julia's little tot. How is he these days?"
"The little tot you mention will be graduating high school come the end of the school year. Just turned 19 a few weeks ago, December 13th. Says he's gonna get a job and live near me." She rolled her eyes. "I think he looks up to me."
He smiled. "I'd rather that than have you be pointed at as a bad example."
Sora grinned. "I guess so." She turned to the clock. "Oh, man, Dad, we have to get ready and go!"
Sora led her father through the two sets of doors that opened into McGinty's.
"Nice name. Looks like a decent place...how did you ever find it?"
"Gary *owns* this place, Dad. He took over it when the previous owner retired."
Jamie nodded, eyes a bit wider than usual.
Sora spotted Gary, who waved them over to his booth.
"Hello, Gar," Sora said, sliding in next to him, very close. Her father took his place across from them.
"Hello, Gary. It's been a while."
"Yes...yes it has, Mr. Marley."
"Forget that. You were only eighteen or nineteen when I required you to call me that, but now you're old enough to call me Jamie."
"All right, then...Jamie," Gary faltered. It was strange to him.
Sora elbowed Gary to get his attention and smiled a this-is-going-better-than-I-thought-it-*could* smile.
The conversation was smooth and easy, and Sora thought it went very well.
Until she and her father got home.
"So...Dad...what did you think?" she dared to ask.
"He's secretive. He's hiding something."
"Nuh-uh!" Sora cried, but even as she said it, images of the paper floated across her mind. ~But Dad *can't* find out about that!!!~ her thoughts screamed at her.
"Oh, maybe not from you, but from me. What do you know that I don't?"
"Nothing!"
"The way you say that makes me know better. Now, I'm going to go to bed, and I'll leave you alone to think over it, but I'll tell you this, I won't leave until I find out one way or another, because I will not let him hurt you."
"Daaa-aaad!!!"
"That's final." He entered Sora's extra room. "And if I'm here a day over one week, I'll be repainting this room--orange! And I must verify whatever you tell me!"
Sora fell to the couch. "I'm doomed." She raised her voice so he could hear her. "DAD I'M A GROWN WOMAN AND I CAN TAKE CARE OF MYSELF AND HE'S THE PERFECT GUY AND HE'S NOT HIDING ANYTHING!"
"WHATEVER!"
Immediately she called Gary.
"What's up, Sora?"
"Gary, he...he *suspects*."
"Suspects what?" Gary was sure he already knew.
"That you have a secret. He thinks you're hiding something and he has just sworn not to leave until he knows what it is because he wants to be sure you won't hurt me, and if he stays long enough he's threatened to paint my extra room orange and..." She broke into tears.
"Well, we can't just tell him about the paper--say, isn't he being just a *bit* overprotective?"
"Yeah. He's been like that since Mom died."
"Mmm. So what do you suggest?"
"We *have* to tell him."
"Can he keep it a secret?"
"I got my secret-keeping skills from him, and *I* know."
"Well...fine. If you must tell him there's no way out." He did not want to deal with what might happen if Jamie actually did paint the room orange.
"Umm...he said he'd have to verify whatever I told him." Sora could hear him sigh very, VERY loudly.
"*Fine*. Come over tomorrow morning--I'll call you when--and he can help me with *one* story. *One*."
"Thank you, Gary! You're the greatest!"
"See you then, Sora."
"Bye!"
Sora got her dad up and eating breakfast.
"So?" he asked, hinting.
"So I called Gary last night and we agreed to tell you and prove it to you."
Jamie smiled. "Tell away."
"You won't believe it until you see it."
"We'll see."
Sora motioned to her copy of the 'Sun-Times'. "I went downstairs this morning and bought that. Read me the date."
"Ehh, January 27."
"Right. Now Gary gets one dropped right outside his door, even though it's upstairs. When he comes out to get it, there is a Cat sitting on it, and today his reads January 28."
"Huh?"
"He gets tomorrow's paper...*today*. He finds all the bad news and goes out and changes it. Then when he goes back to read the article, it's changed or been replaced entirely."
Jamie put his spoon down into his cereal bowl. He looked up at Sora. He cocked his head to one side. "You're dead serious, aren't you?"
Sora nodded confidently.
"And you can prove this?" he asked, somewhat dubiously.
"Gary's going to call and you're going to help him."
Jamie leaned back so that his chair was standing only on two legs.
"Good gracious, what *have* I gotten myself into? How long have you known?"
"A month after it first started coming, which was the day Marcia served him divorce papers."
"Oh." He nodded. "And you think *I'm* crazy."
The phone rang. "That'll be him." She answered. "Gary?"
She conversed a moment and then hung up. "Go over to McGinty's now. He'll meet you outside."
Jamie met Gary out front. "Cheerio, young man!"
"Hello, Jamie. Sora told you. Here. You can look at it."
Jamie took the paper offered him. He checked the date and flipped through it, realizing the headlines were different from Sora's copy. "Seems to be in order. Crazy, but in order with what she said."
"Come on. Did you read about the kid on 21st Street?"
"The one that supposedly falls off the roof of that motel?"
"Yeah, come on, we have to go save him."
"Okay..." Jamie said, hurrying to keep up with Gary.
Even though they took the elevated railway, the "el," it took them a good twenty minutes to get there and another fifteen to get to their exact destination.
They emerged on the roof and Jamie looked over the article again. Then he looked up and watched Gary speak to the kid. Then he looked back and the article had disappeared, replaced with a Humane Society promotional article.
"That was so amazing!" Jamie cried for the umpteenth time as he and Gary entered Sora's apartment.
Gary bid Sora hello. "It really wasn't. No action, no need for quick thinking. Very easy, very...dull."
"Maybe for you, young man, but seeing that paper just *change* like that, while *I* was holding it, so you couldn't have done it...it just gives me gooseflesh!"
Gary turned to Sora for translation.
"Goosebumps." She laughed at his arched eyebrow. "My reluctant hero."
He nodded. "So do you believe us now, Jamie?"
"Yes. I understand now. I just have one concern."
For a moment Sora wanted to rip her hair out, ~Here comes another week of Dad,~ but was relieved even as he spoke.
"What if it was to happen that you would get hurt or killed on one of these rescues?"
"I'd be in the article."
"Oh. So you'll never get accidentally taken from my precious Sora by sudden catastrophe?"
"Nope."
"Okay. Sora, direct me to the nearest laundromat so I can wash my stuff and pack to go home." Sora told him where the apartment laundromat was located in the building.
Gary sat on the couch and she sat next to him.
"Whew!" she summed it up. "Well, now *that's* over."
"I am *so* glad. I don't know what else we might have had to do to make him happy."
She nodded. "Well, now it's my turn. Make *me* happy."
"Too easy," he said.
Their lips met for the first time since her father had arrived. The kiss was long, sweet, and ardent.
When it ended, she laid her head on his shoulder. "I'm almost sorry to see him go."
He smiled. He liked having his arms around her, running fingers through her hair.
She continued her remark. "Until I think of my lovely cherry spare room turning orange!"
Authoress's Note: This is something I just had to write. It's a bit on the comic side, with a serious scene here and there. There's a lot of Sora's past in here. Clarifying her origins, I guess. Not my normal style, but I like the way it came out. Bon appetit!
Sora smiled to herself. She couldn't smile outwardly at the moment, because her mouth was intertwined with Gary's, but she was so elated that she couldn't just sit there.
The kiss broke momentarily, after all, kissing and forgetting to breathe kind of defeated the purpose, but they stayed close to each other. She smiled outwardly in that moment, wrapped in his arms, gasping for breath.
They were nose-to-nose. Gary ran a finger along her cheek, and then tucked a stray wisp of her hair behind her ear. She closed her eyes and tilted her head back ever so slightly. They slowly started to kiss again. Sora could feel his breath on her lips, his very *nearness* was overwhelming...
And then, the phone rang.
Sora slowly let herself fall out of his arms and backwards onto the remaining two seats of her couch. She reached her hand over her head and picked up the receiver. "Hello?" she asked tersely.
"Cheerio! Sora, Luv, how are you?" It was her dad's unmistakable English accent.
"Oh! Uh, fine, *Dad*," she stressed, for Gary.
Gary tried to get up and leave, but she slammed her shin into his knee and he sat back down.
"Sora, am I interrupting anything? Is this a bad time? I can call back--"
"It's too late, Dad...the moment is over."
"Whatever do you mean? No matter. Tell me all that's going on in your life."
"Not much, Dad...Chuck and his wife were up visiting last week, and they're pregnant..."
"Oh really? Chuck, a father? Good Lord, what is this world coming to? I'm so happy for them. Go on. I haven't heard from you in *ages*."
"It hasn't been that long, Dad...but, um, well, guess what?"
"You *didn't*."
"Didn't what?"
"Buy orange tennis shoes and wear them with anything green."
Sora rolled her eyes. Her father had the weirdest sense of humor she'd ever known. "Uhh...*no*, Dad, I'm talking big."
"I give up. Tell me."
"Well, you see, Dad...Gary and I...are...back together." There was a pause. "Dad? You still there?"
"Yes, of course I am. I must say it's about time you quit moping about and went after the one you wanted."
"*Dad*! For your information I moped more than ever for nine days before he finally asked me back out." Sora rolled her eyes at Gary, shaking her head. "At least he's not mad," she mouthed.
"He didn't know?" Gary mouthed back.
She shook her head.
"Sora, why don't you call and tell me these things? You didn't get a phone *just* to order pizza, you know."
Sora laughed. "I know. Um, Dad, he's...*here*...right now...can I call you tonight?"
"All right, if you must, Sora. Whatever you do, be sure that keeping in contact with your dad is at the *bottom* of your to-do list."
"DAD!!!" Sora cried, flustered. She was about to ask him how he could suggest that she did not care about him, but he hung up. She reached back over her head and fumbled with the phone for a minute, finally getting the receiver back into place. "My dad...is so..."
"Nevermind," Gary told her, taking her hand and pulling her back up to her previous sitting position.
"I really do love him, Gar, but you know how he is."
"Reminds me of my own parents."
They looked one another in the eye and said the word in unison.
"Overprotective."
Sora sighed and slumped herself backward into the couch--which, incidentally, meant Gary's arm was over her shoulders.
The same half-smile returned to his face and the light to his eyes. "Shall we pick up where we left off?"
"Hang on just *one* more minute." Sora sat up and took the phone off the hook. "Okay. Now."
The next day Sora came home from work, very tired. "Stupid, stupid, stupid, STUPID little kid. Had to scare the most flighty horse in the *entire* stables and *guess who* had to get the blame because she was the closest one? I didn't even *see* the dumb kid, and yet *I* had to help the maintenance man fix the stupid board that the horse kicked loose." She reached her apartment and removed her muddy--she preferred to think of it as mud, anyway--boots and entered her living room, setting them beside the door and moving over to sit on the couch.
"Hello, Luv!"
She jerked her head up. "Dad! What are *you* doing here? I just about had a heart attack!"
"Oh, Sora, don't overdramatize," Jamie Marley answered his daughter from her couch. "I came in about an hour ago, and the flight was great, thank you for asking."
"Oh, Dad, of course I'm glad to see you," she said, hugging him, "But I wish you would've called or something."
"Oh, Sora, live a little!" he said as she flopped next to him.
"Pardon me? I do believe I am the one with a significant other..."
"Oh, yes. That's why I'm here. I want to meet him."
"Dad, you met Gary while I was in high school. You don't need to meet him now."
"People change. Undoubtedly he's grown up. He certainly couldn't have gotten any younger. And wasn't he married for a while? What if he leaves you, too?"
"Marcia left him, Dad..."
"See? What if he still loves her?"
Sora let out a deep breath that fluttered her bangs. "Dad, please. I know him better than anyone else. I know him better than Marcia ever did. Really. He only thought he loved Marcia because she set her sights on him. She's ruthless. She'll do whatever is necessary to get *exactly* what she wants. And, besides, it's not like Gary and I are engaged or anything. We haven't even discussed it. It's only been a few weeks, Dad..."
"I was engaged to your mother--married to her, even--in less than one week."
"Dad, I do believe it was the *seventies*, and, besides, you were in Europe. Europe is all about romance."
"True. But see how well we turned out."
Sora sighed. "Dad, you're dead-bent, bound, and determined to meet him just to irritate me, aren't you?"
Her father just grinned over at her with a completely innocent expression.
That night after her dad went to bed--Jamie Marley had always been an early-to-bed, late-to-rise kind of person--Sora called Gary.
"Gary?"
"Sora! Hello...what's up? You usually don't call this late..."
"Gary, Gary, help! Me...I...my *dad* is here."
"So? What do you need me for?"
"He wants to *meet* you."
Gary snickered a little. "Sora, he met me back in high school, remember? He doesn't need to meet me now."
"Not according to him." She sighed quite audibly. "Please? Can we have dinner? Tomorrow night?"
"But the paper..."
"Bernard. Remember Bernard?"
"Well, okay, I'll call him and see what I can do. Umm, can we eat here at McGinty's?"
"Perfect! Gar, you're a genius. Seeing that you have a successful business will really help my dad's opinion of you. Six work for you? Seven's too late, Dad goes to bed early...he's already asleep..."
"Sure."
"Thank you, Gary. Thank you thank you thank you!"
"Uhh...you're welcome...I think."
Sora called in sick the next day to spend time with her dad. Of course, it was all spent on the same subject.
"I just want to be sure he's still a nice guy, Sora."
"I know, Dad."
"So you're not angry with me?"
Sora sighed, blowing her bangs up again. "Nope."
"You're being short-tempered," her father accused.
"I'm Irish," she reminded him.
"You're *half*-Irish," he corrected.
"Would you rather me have been English?"
"No, because then I would have had to marry someone other than your mother. I couldn't help her roots."
"I want to be married, Dad, but Gary's a little scared. His first try turned sour, so he needs time to realize that I would never do what she did."
"You loved him far before that other woman ever met him and you still do. Isn't that enough?"
"You don't know Gary, Dad. He *can* be a little slow when it comes to emotions."
"Obviously."
A pause. Even though the words were calm, and mostly in jest, both kept cool demeanors and pretended to be perfectly serious.
"You know, Luv, you're just like your mother."
"In what way?"
"In so many ways. You look like her, you act like her...sometimes when you're off-guard you even sound like her. She didn't have a full Irish lilt, you know. She only spent her first ten years in Ireland. Then she moved to New Jersey and tried to train herself out of it. She might have succeeded had it not been for talking to her grandparents. She still had it, and when her guard was down, she used it, which was a good thing. She saw me, her guard went down, and that half-lilt was what made her so attractive to me. That's how you picked it up...whenever she was with you, her guard fell through the floor, so you have a quarter lilt."
Sora finally smiled, and tried not to laugh. Her father could be so ridiculous at times, but she loved to hear talk of her mother, who had died when she was seven. "I got my name from her, too."
"Yep. Tried to convince her to name you something plain and sensible, like Jane or Mary, but she said she wanted her daughter to have a name that echoed Irish. I asked her like what and she spouted the first thing that popped into her head. Sora Christianna Marley. It does echo Irish."
"So you pretty much drew my name out of a hat."
"Easter bonnet, to be precise. That's why it's so frilly."
Now Sora rolled her eyes. "Did Mum and Uncle Eamon get along really well?"
"Well...*really* well would be stretching it a bit...*okay* sounds a little overdone...*constantly at each other's throats for no apparent reason* comes to mind..."
"Really?"
"They were siblings, Luv. And Irish atop that."
Sora nodded. "I was just thinking, you know, me and Steve get along so well."
"Steve? Oh yes, Eamon and Julia's little tot. How is he these days?"
"The little tot you mention will be graduating high school come the end of the school year. Just turned 19 a few weeks ago, December 13th. Says he's gonna get a job and live near me." She rolled her eyes. "I think he looks up to me."
He smiled. "I'd rather that than have you be pointed at as a bad example."
Sora grinned. "I guess so." She turned to the clock. "Oh, man, Dad, we have to get ready and go!"
Sora led her father through the two sets of doors that opened into McGinty's.
"Nice name. Looks like a decent place...how did you ever find it?"
"Gary *owns* this place, Dad. He took over it when the previous owner retired."
Jamie nodded, eyes a bit wider than usual.
Sora spotted Gary, who waved them over to his booth.
"Hello, Gar," Sora said, sliding in next to him, very close. Her father took his place across from them.
"Hello, Gary. It's been a while."
"Yes...yes it has, Mr. Marley."
"Forget that. You were only eighteen or nineteen when I required you to call me that, but now you're old enough to call me Jamie."
"All right, then...Jamie," Gary faltered. It was strange to him.
Sora elbowed Gary to get his attention and smiled a this-is-going-better-than-I-thought-it-*could* smile.
The conversation was smooth and easy, and Sora thought it went very well.
Until she and her father got home.
"So...Dad...what did you think?" she dared to ask.
"He's secretive. He's hiding something."
"Nuh-uh!" Sora cried, but even as she said it, images of the paper floated across her mind. ~But Dad *can't* find out about that!!!~ her thoughts screamed at her.
"Oh, maybe not from you, but from me. What do you know that I don't?"
"Nothing!"
"The way you say that makes me know better. Now, I'm going to go to bed, and I'll leave you alone to think over it, but I'll tell you this, I won't leave until I find out one way or another, because I will not let him hurt you."
"Daaa-aaad!!!"
"That's final." He entered Sora's extra room. "And if I'm here a day over one week, I'll be repainting this room--orange! And I must verify whatever you tell me!"
Sora fell to the couch. "I'm doomed." She raised her voice so he could hear her. "DAD I'M A GROWN WOMAN AND I CAN TAKE CARE OF MYSELF AND HE'S THE PERFECT GUY AND HE'S NOT HIDING ANYTHING!"
"WHATEVER!"
Immediately she called Gary.
"What's up, Sora?"
"Gary, he...he *suspects*."
"Suspects what?" Gary was sure he already knew.
"That you have a secret. He thinks you're hiding something and he has just sworn not to leave until he knows what it is because he wants to be sure you won't hurt me, and if he stays long enough he's threatened to paint my extra room orange and..." She broke into tears.
"Well, we can't just tell him about the paper--say, isn't he being just a *bit* overprotective?"
"Yeah. He's been like that since Mom died."
"Mmm. So what do you suggest?"
"We *have* to tell him."
"Can he keep it a secret?"
"I got my secret-keeping skills from him, and *I* know."
"Well...fine. If you must tell him there's no way out." He did not want to deal with what might happen if Jamie actually did paint the room orange.
"Umm...he said he'd have to verify whatever I told him." Sora could hear him sigh very, VERY loudly.
"*Fine*. Come over tomorrow morning--I'll call you when--and he can help me with *one* story. *One*."
"Thank you, Gary! You're the greatest!"
"See you then, Sora."
"Bye!"
Sora got her dad up and eating breakfast.
"So?" he asked, hinting.
"So I called Gary last night and we agreed to tell you and prove it to you."
Jamie smiled. "Tell away."
"You won't believe it until you see it."
"We'll see."
Sora motioned to her copy of the 'Sun-Times'. "I went downstairs this morning and bought that. Read me the date."
"Ehh, January 27."
"Right. Now Gary gets one dropped right outside his door, even though it's upstairs. When he comes out to get it, there is a Cat sitting on it, and today his reads January 28."
"Huh?"
"He gets tomorrow's paper...*today*. He finds all the bad news and goes out and changes it. Then when he goes back to read the article, it's changed or been replaced entirely."
Jamie put his spoon down into his cereal bowl. He looked up at Sora. He cocked his head to one side. "You're dead serious, aren't you?"
Sora nodded confidently.
"And you can prove this?" he asked, somewhat dubiously.
"Gary's going to call and you're going to help him."
Jamie leaned back so that his chair was standing only on two legs.
"Good gracious, what *have* I gotten myself into? How long have you known?"
"A month after it first started coming, which was the day Marcia served him divorce papers."
"Oh." He nodded. "And you think *I'm* crazy."
The phone rang. "That'll be him." She answered. "Gary?"
She conversed a moment and then hung up. "Go over to McGinty's now. He'll meet you outside."
Jamie met Gary out front. "Cheerio, young man!"
"Hello, Jamie. Sora told you. Here. You can look at it."
Jamie took the paper offered him. He checked the date and flipped through it, realizing the headlines were different from Sora's copy. "Seems to be in order. Crazy, but in order with what she said."
"Come on. Did you read about the kid on 21st Street?"
"The one that supposedly falls off the roof of that motel?"
"Yeah, come on, we have to go save him."
"Okay..." Jamie said, hurrying to keep up with Gary.
Even though they took the elevated railway, the "el," it took them a good twenty minutes to get there and another fifteen to get to their exact destination.
They emerged on the roof and Jamie looked over the article again. Then he looked up and watched Gary speak to the kid. Then he looked back and the article had disappeared, replaced with a Humane Society promotional article.
"That was so amazing!" Jamie cried for the umpteenth time as he and Gary entered Sora's apartment.
Gary bid Sora hello. "It really wasn't. No action, no need for quick thinking. Very easy, very...dull."
"Maybe for you, young man, but seeing that paper just *change* like that, while *I* was holding it, so you couldn't have done it...it just gives me gooseflesh!"
Gary turned to Sora for translation.
"Goosebumps." She laughed at his arched eyebrow. "My reluctant hero."
He nodded. "So do you believe us now, Jamie?"
"Yes. I understand now. I just have one concern."
For a moment Sora wanted to rip her hair out, ~Here comes another week of Dad,~ but was relieved even as he spoke.
"What if it was to happen that you would get hurt or killed on one of these rescues?"
"I'd be in the article."
"Oh. So you'll never get accidentally taken from my precious Sora by sudden catastrophe?"
"Nope."
"Okay. Sora, direct me to the nearest laundromat so I can wash my stuff and pack to go home." Sora told him where the apartment laundromat was located in the building.
Gary sat on the couch and she sat next to him.
"Whew!" she summed it up. "Well, now *that's* over."
"I am *so* glad. I don't know what else we might have had to do to make him happy."
She nodded. "Well, now it's my turn. Make *me* happy."
"Too easy," he said.
Their lips met for the first time since her father had arrived. The kiss was long, sweet, and ardent.
When it ended, she laid her head on his shoulder. "I'm almost sorry to see him go."
He smiled. He liked having his arms around her, running fingers through her hair.
She continued her remark. "Until I think of my lovely cherry spare room turning orange!"