Friday
After Mass Friday morning, as usual, Phila kept a hammerlock on Bernie's arm as they hurried out of the chapel. But Phila couldn't keep the smaller girl from glancing around under her lashes, looking for and finding a swarthy figure in black awaiting them near the entrance. Cecie saw this and dropped behind to signal to him, Not now!
Later, early that afternoon, Phila went down to check on the cruiser and buy a few supplies for the road.
She found the auburn-haired mechanic working on the cruiser when she came into the garage.
"Oh, Miss Connelly, hello," he said, looking around the end of an axel. "You're early."
"Yes, I'm afraid I've been too brusque with you all week, so I thought I'd apologize. But first, I have to admit I've been so icy to you I don't even know your name."
"It's Kip, Kip Langier. I'd shake you hand but," he held them out, grease-covered, for her inspection. She chuckled.
"In that case, Kip, I'm sorry I've been so unkind."
"Hey, no hard feelings; I should be used to it by now. I've much nastier guff said to me since I started working here."
"So when should you have this finished?"
"Probably by tonight. You can get outta here then."
"I might as well wait till the morning rather than risk driving in the dark."
"Oh, good, I mean, well, I know I'm just a mechanic, but I was wondering if you wouldn't mind hangin' out with me tonight. My cousin Mat is visiting me, so I'm trying to keep him out of trouble."
"Otherwise known as the upper level."
He grinned sourly. "You got it."
"Well, could I have a reference or two first?"
"Okay, well, do you know Cecie Martin? She goes to Our Lady of the Immaculate Heart."
"I've known her all my life; we've been staying with her."
"She's a good person and good writer. I've known her since she first came here three years ago; ask her if she'd want to come along, the more the merrier."
"Sure." Safety in numbers.
"So, you lived in Massachusetts all your life?"
"Can I ask a question first? Does everybody in this town dig out the most information on a person that they can?"
"Sorry I sprang that on you like that. Information is the second means to power in this town. And when you've lived around Mechas as long as I have, you pick up a few of their quirks. The way I asked that question is something they might do."
"I've noticed that. Well, I've lived in Massachusetts all my life except when I was in college in Steubenville. Have you always lived here?"
"All my life. I tried to move away, but I just kept coming back."
"Can I ask you a personal question?"
"Shoot."
"Are you a virgin?"
"Well, I'm a virgin in the sense that I've never slept with anyone, organic or mechanic, but you can hardly have virgin eyes in a town like this, or a virgin mind, but I do try to control that."
"Oh, I see. So how's your mother doing?"
"A little better since Mat came to stay with us; she's got someone to keep her company during the day."
"How sick is she?"
"Well, she has every symptom of old age below the eyebrows, but above she's still as sharp as a pin. Now, can I ask you a personal question?"
"Go ahead."
"What brought you to Rouge City, besides your brakes failing?"
"My cousin Bernadette and I are on our way to the Dominican convent in St. Louis to discern our vocation."
He grinned mischievously around the end of the axel. "And after five days you're wrestling with second thoughts."
"I'm not, but I think Bernadette has a crush on some Mecha prostitute."
"Well, as long as she doesn't do anything, I wouldn't get too upset. I went through the same funny period; part of the growing process."
"But you're a man."
He eyed her curiously. "And women don't have hormones?"
"I didn't mean that."
"Okay, how old is she?"
"She's just twenty-one."
"She's still growing. Has she ever fallen in love before?"
"Not to my knowledge. So, where should we meet you tonight?"
"I was taking Mat to the Garden Club; it's a fairly tame place. Might be a little foolin' around stuff, but they're discreet about it."
"At least they are, but they shouldn't be doing it in the first place."
"I'm with you on that one, but what can you do about other people's behavior? So, shall we meet you there around, say 18.30?"
"Sure. In that case, I'd better get going. I have to get a few things for the next leg of the trip."
"Well, in that case, God bless you till I see you again."
"In hope you haven't got anything cooking," Phila said an hour later, when Cecie let her into the suite.
"No, I don't yet. Why?"
"Kip Langier, the mechanic who's fixing the cruiser, invited us to dinner."
"Cool. Kip's a good boy, not a bad-looker either. He helps out around the chapel whenever he can." She darted a teasing look like a double take. "Are you thinking maybe of staying?"
"Certainly not! How's Bernie?"
"A little mopey from being cooped up, she's washing her hair just now. So where are we having dinner?"
"I think he called it the Garden."
"Also known as the Paradise Garden; not a bad place, so long as you get a table, not a booth."
What new hazard was this? "Why?"
Cecie tried to keep a straight face. "I went there once with some friends and we ended up in a booth. There are these big planters along the walls, full of some sort of Mecha plants."
What next? "Mecha plants?!"
"They're as weird as they sound. They look like real plants, but they aren't and they wired them to smell like plants and rustle like plants in a breeze, so the management doesn't have to rig a fake breeze through the place which would knock over everybody's drinks."
"That must be nice."
"Yeah, to look at, but it's not so nice if you're sitting under a big leaf going flap, flap, flap."
"Well, then it might be like someone was fanning you with it."
"And they're hitting you on the head with it?!"
"I guess that wouldn't be much fun."
"It's one of those things that isn't when it's happening, but telling everyone about it later is funny."
"So you want to come along?"
"Sure—in the hopes we get a table, not a booth."
At 18.00, they headed out into the pulsing night.
As they passed by Our Lady of the Immaculate Heart, Cecie glanced toward Joe's usual post. He wasn't there, but that was to be expected. Friday nights brought him a lot of business. She'd have to think of something.
After they passed through the front gates and the foyer of the Paradise Garden club, they passed through its long outer courtyard that enclosed the club proper. Under a perpetual halcyon "sky" simulated trees and ferns shaded a plastic gravel path that lead to groves and alcoves and hedged nooks of all sorts set aside for discreet encounters of various kinds.
Fortunately for Cecie, they got a table, not a booth. Kip's cousin Mat turned out to be close to what Cecie expected, a short, stocky-built but skinny twerp with dishwater blond hair and bad skin. All through the meal he kept his eyes to himself as far as the three girls at the table were concerned, but he kept darting furtive glances at the Mecha waitresses that passed by their table.
Kip kept the conversation lively with stories about his family and their various misadventures, which encouraged Phila to talk a little bit about her family.
"So how long you girls been here in the city?" Mat ventured, trying to get into the chatter.
"I've lived here about three years, since I finished college," Cecie said.
"Bernie and I have been here five days too many," Phila said, explaining the incident that brought them here and where they were going.
"Interesting detour yah got, eh?" Mat said, grinning. Phila regarded him with baleful eyes; his grin faded.
"It's been a learning experience," Bernie said.
"But I can't imagine why any decent person would want to live here; I mean, it attracts all the worst elements," Phila said. "All these people dissipating their energies on sinful horrors."
"Rouge doesn't just attract the sinners, it attracts the worse than sinners: the self-righteous," Kip said. "You have to admit, the self-righteous types are almost comical compared to the sinners, who are really more to be pitied than anything else."
"Tell us about 'em," Mat urged.
"Well, one night this guy who belonged to a weird Bible cult broke into a convenience store nest to where I live and tried to steal all the porno VR discs behind the counter. The locks went on smart and he got trapped inside. The security cameras caught it all. He was running around like a rat, dropping discs all over the floor, trying to find a way out. He was still there when the manager came to open up next morning. And then when he was arraigned, he had the nerve to claim he was not guilty, that God had told him to break into the convenience store."
"Yeah, an' didn't God Himself invent the commandment 'Thou shalt not steal'? That applies to anything, right?" Mat said.
"I could tell you one I actually saw happen, but I'll keep it short since it's rather violent," Cecie said, discreetly reaching for the cellphone in its leg sheath strapped to her thigh, under her skirt. "This happened the first year I lived here. A madwoman, probably involved with the same cult group, went on a rampage armed with a chainsaw in the street; she started mowing down Mechas as if they were grass, saying they were the abomination of desolation standing in the temple of God's universe. A friend of mine had a near-miss that day; fortunately for him, his makers had the presence of mind to give him good self-preservation circuits."
Lucky for me he survived, Bernie thought.
The live band that had been playing light music through the dinner hour stuck up an old Carlos Gardel tango. Several couples had taken to the floor.
Kip looked at Phila. He stood up and approached her. "I know we barely know each other, but could I dance with you?"
"Well, I never really danced before," she demurred.
"I'll show you how."
"Okay." She rose and let Kip lead her to the floor.
Cecie looked at Mat. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"
"What, that Phila just might not need to go to that convent to decide her vocation?" he asked, grinning.
"Something like that," Cecie replied. Under the tabletop, she thumbed the speed dial and pressed a number.
"Hey, either of you gals wanna burn the floor with me?" asked Mat.
"Not me," Cecie replied quickly as the line picked up. "The right dancing partner for Cecie Martin is out there, but we'll see if he shows up in the Paradise Garden Club." She said her name and location a little louder and more distinct than the rest.
"You, Bernie?" he asked, getting up.
"I guess you can teach me," Bernie said, getting up and letting Mat take her hand.
Cecie hoped her voice had picked up.
High above them, across town in a dark, nameless room, Joe's pager, now slung from the back of a chair, trilled. His present occupation with a customer overrode his reaction.
But once they had parted, he attended to the summons. Cecie Martin, Paradise Garden Club, the display read. It was not typical of her to send for him at night, especially after he had not heard anything from her all day. But he could only respond to the call.
He headed for the main escalator to the lower level. Usually he had little business down there, but he knew its paths. Mustn't keep the ladies waiting…
A few minutes later, the maitre d' of the Paradise Garden came to the table where Cecie sat watching the floor full of dancers.
"Ms. Martin, there is a man up front who wishes to speak to you. He says his name is Joe; I think he's Mecha."
"Thank you, I'll be right there," she said, getting up and going to the front.
Joe stood waiting for her at the front desk, gazing on the girl cashier who kept pretending not to glance at him.
"Hey, Joe, whaddya know?" Cecie said
He looked up at her. "I'd like to know how goes the master plan? If we are to cut the ties that bind Bernadette, I am the scissors."
"I've got it worked out, but the success depends on Bernadette's reaction. Right now she's dancing with someone she wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole. So I'm going back in there to sit down. You're to wait here for thirty seconds and then come in after me."
"What dance are they playing?"
"A tango."
His eyes glowed. "My specialty. Am I to dance with her or with you?"
"With me. The idea is to get her jealous so she'll leave, but you're to go after her, find her and console her."
"I shall do my utmost to fulfill that."
"Just don't do anything to her I wouldn't let you do to me."
"That I shall not."
"You got it?"
"Yes. Thus, instead of some Orga woman using me to get to an Orga man, I will be using you to get to Bernadette."
"That's one way to look at it." She glanced at her watch. "Thirty seconds," she reminded him.
"I shall be counting them off."
Cecie walked back to the table and sat down as if nothing had transpired.
Bernie's feet were killing her after the number of times Mat stepped on them: he seemed to be wearing lead boots over cement socks. She wondered if the mysterious Joe knew how to dance.
Just as she thought this, a slim, graceful figure in black approached the table where Cecie sat jotting something on her palmtop scriber. At the same instant, Mat swung Bernie away so that she lost sight of them, but she got a glimpse, even at that small distance, of those perfect eyes. The crowd of dancers blocked her view
Then it parted and she saw something that nearly made her stop in her tracks, even with Mat leading.
"Looks like Cecie found her dancing partner," Mat said with a wicked chuckle.
Cecie was dancing with Joe. A tango no less, her body so close to his you couldn't slide a tenth NB between them. They looked a little incongruous: she in her plain cut gray button-down over her ankle-length black skirt, he the epitome of elegance in his wide-skirted black tailcoat. But they moved as one; she seemed to swoon in his arms as he leaned over her, his gaze melded to hers, all but hypnotizing her.
Bernie could no longer bear to watch. She let go of Mat's hands and stumbled from the floor.
"I think that's your cue," Cecie said to Joe, peeling herself from him.
"In which direction did she leave?" he asked, scanning the room.
"Toward the door, let's hope she got confused and ended up in the courtyard."
"Wish me luck: the cord is about to be cut." He kissed her on the cheek and left, following in Bernie's footsteps.
Cecie returned to the table and sank onto her chair, her legs trembling under her; a hot flush spread up her face and down her chest.
Bernie meant to go to the ladies' room, but she got confused and ended up in the courtyard. She sank onto a loveseat under a trellis of wisteria, white lilies around the base. You're acting stupid, reason told her. You're lovesick over something little better than a washing machine.
Besides, you may be in danger of sinning just by showing any interest in it, just by noticing it...him, just by looking at…him.
She sat on an old fashioned loveseat, the sort with two separated seats artfully constructed so that the two sitters could turn and face each other. She sat with her head hung, eyes closed, mind racing, ears deaf to the world in case she heard anything she shouldn't
She raised her eyes; a man and a woman passed by her, their arms about each other's waist. She couldn't tell if one of them was artificial, like the plants around her. Something in her, a new inner self she had hardly noticed until now, longed to be like this, to be paired off, yet another voice banged around in her head, telling her it must be otherwise. She dropped her head.
Movement rustled the air around her, but not the movement of the plants, bringing with it a white noise barely above the level of hearing. The love seat creaked.
"Bernadette?"
She opened her eyes. His graceful hand lay on the seatback, close to her arm. She lifted her eyes, her gaze traveling up his arm to his face.
His face, so perfectly symmetrical, flawlessly molded, the face of a demi-god if she allowed such beings into imagination.
And those eyes: as if to spite the mild blankness that seemed to characterize Mecha eyes, his eyes held an inner warmth, a gentle fire she had never seen anywhere. Did real men's eyes hold this light? Was that really lust in them, or was it something else? If he was really only a machine, he didn't really desire her. What went on above those eyes?
"What do you want?" she asked, petulant.
"Perhaps I should be asking you that question: what do you want, Bernadette?"
"What could I want?"
He leaned closer to her, his gaze on her hands. "I think you want freedom. I think you want another being to help you cut loose the things that bind you."
"Help me do what?"
"Help you unfasten the ties that bind your spirit."
Her mind objected. Of course she was free! She needed no release, especially not at the hands of something like him.
But curiosity overrode the voice in her head. She realized it was her father's voice.
She wanted to rush away, but she wished to remain seated, wanting only to look into the beautiful face before her.
"I'm not bound by anything," she objected.
"It seems there is at least something binding your tongue. You didn't thank me properly the other day after you fell."
"I was frightened. I was startled. I'm sorry…thanks, I mean, thank you." Her hand crept toward his; she pulled it back.
"You're welcome." A pause. "But that cord, that fear still binds more than your tongue."
"What could it bind?"
"Your mind, your heart. Why else did you flee from me? Why else are you afraid to look straight at me or at any other man?"
"I don't know; it's what my father told me I had to do. I mean, he told me I could marry if that's what I'm called to do."
"But if you are to marry you must meet and fall in love with a man. And yet you are afraid to even look at or speak to something like me; how then can you relate to a real man?"
She realized at once this thing spoke the truth. All her life long, her foster father had, for whatever reason, kept her bound with fear. He was a good man who meant well, who meant only to spare her from suffering.
She felt a hand on her wrist. She looked down and saw his hand on her wrist, smoothing the cuff of her sleeve. He lifted his hand and stroked her face. Her flesh turned to fire under that touch. She trembled.
"You are beautiful. Has anyone ever told you that?"
"No. I mean, no, I'm not beautiful, n-not like Cecie."
"No, you are not beautiful like Cecie; you are beautiful like Bernadette." His hand lowered to her shoulder. He paused. "You feel tense. I sense tension in your flesh."
"I'm afraid."
"Of me? Or of yourself?"
"I don't know. I don't know."
"If you could let go of this tension, your spirit could go free. Here, if you wish, I can help you."
"Just be careful."
He ran both his hands over her shoulders, his fingers pressing into the broadcloth and the flesh beneath. He slid his hands down her back, along her spine, then up to the nape of her neck, under her hair. The pressure released, increased, released, increased, in easy waves as his fingertips gently kneaded her flesh. Her spine softened. She relaxed her neck into his hands.
His gaze ran down her form. "Why do you dress so? Are you afraid to let men know you are beautiful?"
"No, I just…I don't know." She realized the sack-like clothes she wore were not of her own choosing, but part of the fear her father had instilled in her.
His hands ran down her sides, smoothing the fold of her dress against her flanks.
"I'm sorry, I'm not…not…"
"You need not apologize, not to me, nor to anyone else. You are beautiful in your own way because you are a woman. Whoever made you made you to be beautiful." He released her waist. The fire in her face started to fill her whole body.
"No one has ever spoken to me like this."
"You have never fallen in love?"
"Not till now, not till now."
He held her face in his hands. It was her turn to lean in closer to him. His face moved in, his eyes on hers. She shut her eyes lest they melt under that brilliance in his eyes that shone into hers. She opened them just a peek to find his eyes had eclipsed her world with green gold, like the light shining on the leaves around them.
She felt his lips on her cheek, so soft. His eyes shifted angle; he kissed her other cheek. She wanted to return the gesture somehow, to show she was no longer afraid, that the cord was breaking under his gentle touch.
Kip led Phila back to the table, where Cecie sat across from Mat, not facing him.
"He's that good, eh?" Mat was saying.
"Where's Bernie?" Phila demanded.
"That's what I'd like to know," Mat said.
"Wait, who's the 'he' you just mentioned, Mat?" Phila asked.
"Joe came through a little while ago and I was dancing with him," Cecie replied. She pointed to the tall glass a quarter full of ice water that stood before her on the table, along with a pitcher. "That's why I'm drinking this; next best thing to a cold shower."
"I got a funny feelin' this Joe might know where Bernie is; I saw him duck out after her."
"Which way did she go?" Phila asked.
"She headed up front."
"Cecie, you go check the ladies' room; I'm going to check that garden," Phila said. She strode up front; Cecie followed her.
Joe's eyes moved in again; Bernie trembled, but not with fright, only ready for the next gesture.
And then a voice spoke.
"What are you doing with my cousin?"
Joe looked away toward the voice and stood up, but he put his hand on Bernie's arm, as if to let her know he could deal with this intruder.
It was Phila's voice. Bernie did not know whether to look up or to keep her head bent.
"I am merely freeing her spirit of its fears; any man who knew of her sorrows would think himself obligated to assist her as best he could and as he saw fit."
"Get your hands off her." He removed his hand from Bernie's arm. Bernie reached out and clasped his wrist. "You take your hand off him too, Bernadette. Haven't you any shame?"
She found the courage to look Phila in the eye. "Maybe it beats being scared of everything that walks by that has a deep voice and…well, whatever else it takes to make a man," Bernie retorted.
"You've let this mockery corrupt you!" Phila cried. Then she added to Joe, "You leave her alone!"
"Philomena, I have meant harm to neither Bernie nor—"
"Shut up!" Phila threw a punch at his left cheekbone or whatever it was he had under there. She felt something give under there as he stepped back from the punch. His hand went to his face, his eyes gone blank.
Cecie rushed up. "What are you doing?!" Bernie put her hand on Joe's shoulder, but he did not react. Phila, one fist doubled, stood staring up at the Mecha. "Are you all right?"
"I shall be…all right," Joe replied, his voice slightly slurred. Cecie sensed rather than felt some silent pulse emanating from him, probably a damage alert going off, alerting his owner that something was wrong. She wanted to linger with him, but she had to get Phila and Bernie home.
To be continued…