"Do Ya" belongs to Jeff Lynne and Electric Light Orchestra. One word was changed to fit the situation.
Do Ya
—
199, middle of July. Reunion picnic on the grassy hills of the Sanc Kingdom. A perfectly idyllic day. The grass was green, the sky was blue, the few clouds were white stromatolites on the Western horizon. There was just the slightest breeze, and the air was warm and dry. The sun was high in the sky. The cars were parked just down the hill on the side of the road.
Trowa wandered through the crowd, wondering why he had come another year. He mingled the way he did best: a smile, a greeting, and keep moving. It was refreshing to see all the familiar faces. It was awkward to see old war friends settling down. In his long-sleeved shirt buttoned at the wrists, hands in the pockets of his slacks, hair in his eyes — his throwback style that refused to upgrade and self-deprecating slips, he didn't quite fit in with this new attitude of his friends. He wished Quatre was there to keep him company but he had managed to avoid the event: he said he couldn't get away. But Trowa had let Duo convince him anyway. He saw Duo talking to some ex-MS pilots, trying to get enough to start a game of football or volleyball or something similar. Nearby, Hilde was showing off her engagement ring. Relena and Noin and Une were talking politics over potato salad in bright tank tops and capris — the security was a couple yards away listening to an American baseball game. He saw Nichol shoot the Lady a flirtatious glance as he scooped some potato salad onto his own plate, saw the look returned. Mariemaia was playing frisbee with somebody's dog. Heero was smiling behind his sunglasses.
Then he saw her. She stood by the edge of the hill, looking out towards the sea where the air show planes were going through their maneuvers. She was wearing a white sundress with a halter strap, the hem stopping just above her knees, the cut a perfect compliment to her long, graceful legs. Orange cream high-heeled sandals hugged her slender feet and the straps crisscrossed her ankles, snaked partway up her legs. She had on a hat with a brim that was almost grotesquely wide, underneath which her long, platinum blond hair flowed freely against her back. She wore her stiff collar turned up on one side like a '40s starlet, a funky femme fatale, showing off the fine tone of her slightly sunburnt shoulders. A mild breeze ruffled her skirt, her hair, the brim of her hat, causing the fabric of her dress to cling to the very natural, very womanly curves of her body. He saw her turn to greet two good-looking young men as they approached, and her genteel, unaffected lip-gloss smile could have lit the world.
—
But I never seen nothing like you
—
Trowa heard laughter behind him as Zechs joined the women around the food table, Noin peppering him with sweet talk in the form of playful teasing, showing him off to her friends. He heard Wufei's voice as he walked by, and then Sally greeted him with a word and a wave before responding to her partner. Someone was playing their car stereo too loud, the low and high end both pushed to their limit, and he heard two guitars playing the same three descending chords in a loop. The dog barked and its tags clinked against each other like the beer bottles lifted from a cooler. Someone scored a home run on the radio. The show fighter jets swooped overhead faster than the speed of sound, and when they had passed — the grass bending and the tablecloths flapping in their wake — the sonic boom shut out everything else, even the car stereo, for one brilliant moment.
When it cleared, he heard her laugh flying to him across the air — clear and fresh like the blue sky, smooth as velvet. Almost tangible. Unquestionably weightless. She flirted with all the young men who approached, smiling behind her big, dark glasses, her voice carrying with the confidence and nonchalance her every move exuded. They hung on her every uttered sound. Her tongue could melt their hearts.
—
But I never heard nothing like you
—
"Up for a game?"
Trowa turned as he felt Duo's hand clap his shoulder. His exuberant friend stared at him, a Blue Wave baseball cap sitting just askew on his head, football in hand, waiting for a response. "Uh, I'm sorry, Duo," he said. "What did you say?"
But instead of telling him Duo smiled. And as he looked in the direction Trowa had been looking, his smile changed to a grin. His grin changed to a: "Ooohhh!" He chuckled. "Sorry, Trowa, I thought you looked bored over here. Yeah. She's really something, isn't she?"
"I know I've seen her before," Trowa said, "but I don't exactly remember. . . ."
"You don't?" Duo sounded incredulous. "After how you two met the first time— Well, I guess it has been three years. . . ."
—
In the
country where the sky touches down
On the field, she lay her
down to rest
In the morning sun
—
He remembered vaguely the sound of her name. Dorothy, he thought it was. Yeah, "Dorothy Catalonia." The last time he had seen her she had been confused, caught between who she thought she was and her real self, not too unlike himself. He knew that was why he hadn't recognized her right away. Now that he saw her in all her true colors, a fresh first impression, everything about her — her ease, her certainty, the roguish angle at which she held her head — they made something click like magnets.
"Uh — yeah, that's it," Duo said beside him. "Wait, you're not getting any ideas, are you, Trowa?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well, look at her," Duo said snorting. "She's a total ice princess. A spider woman — or whatever they call it." He nodded in her direction to better get his point across. She was laughing with the men around her, who stared adoringly into her dark gaze, only seeing the outside — each one vying for a laugh, a smile. They competed like wild chimpanzees with their volume for her womanly charms. And she gave them liberally, making them believe she was interested in their stupid jokes, their cookie-cutter war stories.
—
They come
a'runnin' just to get a look
Just to feel, to touch her long
blond hair
They don't give a damn
—
Duo shook his head sadly. "Look at those posers. She's just playing with them," he said, "and they're too blind or stupid, they don't even realize it." The way she tossed her hair she might as well have tossed them all aside, they bored her.
"She looks lonely to me," Trowa said.
"Well," Duo continued more uncertainly, "she's way out of our league anyway. If you want my advice, don't even try — unless you wanna get burned." And suddenly he was his normal self again, playfully jabbing Trowa's shoulder and slapping the football between his hands. "Hey, why don't you join us, Trowa. We could use another guy and you really look like you need something to do."
Trowa just shrugged, making his smile drop. Duo took one last look at Dorothy and sighed for his friend. "Okay, suit yourself. But if you change your mind you know where to find us." He ran off, calling for Heero to go long. Trowa heard his raspy imitation of a thousand screaming fans. He saw Dorothy yawn into her hand before turning to contradict one of the fools around her.
Then out of the blue a strong wind whipped across the picnic scene from the sea. People cried out a warning as paper plates blew off the table. Dorothy reached up casually to hold onto her hat, but she was just too late. It flew off her head like a dove taking flight — and her eyes followed after it, her freed hair dancing around her body as it flew right to Trowa. Her dark glasses met his gaze. His heart started in his chest. And when he brought his arm down he realized he had caught it.
There was a triumphant smile on Dorothy's lips as though she had planned the whole thing. Standing there firm on the edge of the hill with everything whipping around her, he would have believed she controlled the weather if she said it. He could smell the brine in the wind. She lowered her glasses. Her eyes were clear and radiant, the color of water in a single drop. She was staring at him incredulously — she might have shaken her head, but seemed too shocked to move it — and there was a wild glint of mischievous inspiration in her stare. It never wavered from Trowa, even as all the men around her continued as if nothing had happened. He heard a strain of violins and cellos sent forth from the car stereo rising with his pulse.
—
But I never seen nothing like you
—
As he approached her she said, her eyes hardly leaving his: "I'm sorry, boys, but you'll have to excuse us." She stepped toward him as she hooked her sunglasses onto the front of her dress where it came to a vee. "You're Quatre's friend," she said, her smile warm and honest for the first time he had seen that day; "Trowa Barton."
She pronounced his name like a pleasant memory. Trowa could feel the envious eyes of the other men on him as they moved away. "Dorothy."
She took the hat from him as he held it out like a handshake and let it dangle against her thigh. Her stance was full of gratitude. "I didn't think you remembered," she said. "Well it's about time. I was wondering when you might come talk to me, my errant knight in shining armor." Her facetiousness was sweet, and her laugh was satisfied. She looked over his shoulder at the picnic crowd, chest rising as she sighed deeply in feminine indecision. When she met his eyes again it was with a flash of rebelliousness and excitement the likes of which he hadn't felt in years. "Hey, I know a place where we can watch the air show — just the two of us. What do you say?" she said, flipping her sunglasses open and slipping them on, looking up at him over the rim dangerously. "Wanna get out of here?"
Like she had to ask.
—
Do ya do ya
want my love
Do ya do ya want my face
Do ya do ya want my
mind
Do ya do ya want my love
—
Dorothy led him jogging to the end of the line of cars, where an orange cream convertible with white racing stripes sat a conceited distance from the others. The key was already in the ignition, the top down, waiting for its getaway driver; and when they got in, she put the hat under her seat, started the engine and turned up the radio. They took off down the curvy, hilly road, past the black town cars and sedans that must have been jealous toward the coast. Trowa wondered what everyone would think when they found them missing — if their disappearance would be labeled rude or scandalous. He smiled at the thought as the engine revved and Dorothy shifted into fourth, and her hair lapped her fair face like ocean waves in a summer storm.
They found a hill where they could sit and watch the jets. As they came around flying low over the bumpy land in tight formation, they left long straight tails of white smoke before rolling away from each other. Dorothy followed them with her fingers, making jet noises as the air rattled around them; the vibrations making the earth shake and their hearts beat harder, stronger. They lay in the grass long after the pilots had retired as surf music blasted from the car stereo. If it was a trap she had led him into, the spider's web Duo implied it was, he would have gladly walked into it again a hundred times over. Except it seemed to him she had set him free, and that was a million times better.
Under the bright afternoon sun, he looked at Dorothy — who stood like an Earth goddess and smiled naughtily, whose car matched her shoes; and when he closed his eyes he saw her burning image on his retina. And when evening came and the tops of the clouds lit up pink like fiery opals, and they stood side by side against the car, she kissed him shyly and he could smell the sea.
—
7/4/02