A Day In The (Married) Life
Daniel awoke, all wrapped up with warm, soft woman. She was sleeping with both arms around him and a leg across his again, and his arm was around her. Memories of last night returned, forcefully…
Tovala loved to be touched. She shivered with pleasure and welcomed his attentions with moans and soft cries…and not-so-soft ones. She loved to touch him, too, and she'd indulged herself, running her hands all over him, comparing their differences.
She'd asked a lot more questions, and he'd done his best to answer, trying to match her unabashed straightforward honesty. Nobody had ever taught her that she 'should' be ashamed of her body, or embarrassed about the feelings she got from being touched, and kissed…
His one question for her had been critically important. She'd been strangely certain that she wouldn't get pregnant, and he wanted to believe her. If she was mistaken… Any child of hers would be a wonder, and a delight. Unexpected, maybe, but certainly not unwelcome.
And then, there were no more questions. It was time to show, not tell.
Tovala loved that, too. She was passionate, insatiable… Once wasn't nearly enough, for either of them. They'd gone on for hours, touching, kissing, caressing… She was, literally, out of this world.
Now if only they didn't get complaints from the neighbors — or at least, not too many complaints…
They'd undoubtedly get a pass if he explained that it was their wedding night, but that excuse would not hold up for more than a few days. He had a strong suspicion that a long-term solution would be called for. Maybe her force shield, with sound damping turned on? He looked on her with a smile.
Tovala…you're like no woman I've ever known before. You came to me last night because you want me, not because you want something from me. You had no demands, no expectations, only desire. Sex is a wondrous gift we give each other — the way I always thought it should be, and despaired of ever finding a woman who felt as I do.
There's another one of our sick, sordid attitudes. We've made sex a commodity, supplied by women and taken by men. Always with a price tag attached — although paying that bill with actual money is condemned as a sin, a crime against morality. Is it because that makes the true nature of what we're doing far too obvious? All of my ex-girlfriends were, to some extent, immersed in that mindset; some rather more than others.
That unsavory attitude is even reflected in our 'traditional' marriage proposals — the man begs, the woman bestows. On his knees, he offers up an expensive ring as payment, or a bribe, and is dismissed as 'too poor' or 'too cheap' if it's not expensive enough. Now I know why it felt so right when I proposed to you as an equal, not a beggar.
You simply don't think in those terms. Is it because you've lost your memories, or is that the way it is, wherever you came from? Or…is that just the way you are? Whatever the reason, you're the woman I've always been looking for, and never found. You are the woman I want, the only one, my wife, now and always.
His smile faded. But what about you? Will you stay with me, after you've learned what you need to know? You're the most extraordinary woman in the world, and I'm about as ordinary as a guy can be. Every man is going to want you. Hell, some women will want you! Will you still choose me, over the millions of other choices you'll have? I want to trust you, really I do, but none of us can control our feelings. Where are we headed, and will we go there together?
He felt a disturbing need to do something, to prevent her from leaving him, and mercilessly stomped it down. Acting like a clingy, controlling, neurotic git would only drive her away. He had to be better than that, but how? What could he do?
In all the world I can only control my own actions. I will continue as I began; I will talk to you, help you, support you, be here for you, and hope that is enough.
His arm was half-numb where she lay on it. He stroked her hair with his other hand, brushed his fingers across her cheek. "Tovala?"
"Mmmm…" She stretched and opened her exotic purple eyes. They should have looked alien, or unnatural, but in her face they just looked right. She smiled. "Good morning."
He smiled back. "Good morning yourself. How are you feeling?"
Her voice was low, sweet and sensuous. "I feel just wonderful."
She looked perfectly kissable, so he did. She kissed back, giving herself completely to all the delightful new sensations she had discovered. After a time, she pulled back and took a deep breath.
"I think I feel something." She slipped her hand between their bodies, pretended to be surprised, and squeezed. "Oooh, I do feel something. What can we do with this?"
She even likes Morning Wood…
More than an hour later, he shoveled a load of scrambled eggs from the frying pan onto two plates and called, "Breakfast's ready! Come an' git it!"
He was buttering the first two slices of toast when she walked in. She'd thrown a blouse on over a pair of shorts and slippers, but hadn't bothered to button it. She made an…arresting sight. There was something else, too, which he hadn't noticed in the dimly lit bedroom.
"You've got a sun tan." He sounded almost accusing. Somehow, she had acquired a flawless, perfectly uniform golden tan from head to foot, overnight.
"Really?" She looked down at herself, lifted one arm halfway and turned her hand back and forth. "Hmmm."
"Must be because you were out in the sun yesterday." He examined her closely. "But, most people only tan where their skin is exposed to the sun. You're tanned everywhere. Even under your chin and, uh…other places."
His forehead scrunched a little. "You don't get a sun tan overnight, either. Mostly, you get a sun burn if you try. It should take a week or more to get a tan like that."
"I see. I think. This must be another mystery." She sounded resigned.
"Well, we won't solve it right this minute. Let's eat, before it gets cold."
They took seats at the table. She regarded the steaming white and yellow pile on her plate curiously. "What is this?"
"Scrambled eggs. I like mine with a little salt and pepper." He picked up each shaker in turn and demonstrated.
She imitated him and tried a forkful of eggs. "It's good."
"Thanks."
A minute later she asked, "Is this toast?"
He nodded. "Yep. There are a number of things we can put on toast. Let's start with this, it's called cinnamon and sugar." He picked up a shaker and sprinkled some light brown stuff on his slice.
She did the same, and took a bite. "Mmm!" She finished it in short order and looked around the table. "Is there more toast?"
"I can make more." He got up and loaded two more slices of bread in the toaster.
She ate a lot of toast. He worked the toaster, and didn't comment. She tried toast with brown sugar, toast with jelly, toast with honey. She liked all of them, but found that cinnamon and sugar was her favorite.
When they were done with breakfast, he put the dishes in the sink and ran some water on them. He answered Tovala's curious look with, "I washed the breakfast dishes yesterday because I didn't know when we'd get home. I didn't want them to be here waiting for me. Or even worse, have to face them this morning. Today, I'm pretty sure we'll be home in time for supper."
"Where are we going today?"
"We've got some more shopping to do. I wasn't really prepared for having somebody move in."
She gave him a teasing grin and tugged at her blouse. "Guess I should get dressed, then."
He grinned back. "That would be a good idea. Dress for a motorcycle ride. Unless you'd rather ride in the car."
"I like riding on the motorcycle." She slipped into her room.
When she emerged, wearing yesterday's leather jacket, he held out a shiny ring with four pieces of metal strung on it. "Here. This key's for the front door, this one's for the back door, and this one's for the garage. Don't lose 'em."
She took it and held it up. "What's this one?"
"That's a key fob. It's just decorative, and to make the key ring a little harder to lose. There should be a little pocket for key rings in your purse. Or maybe a clip."
In the laundry room, he locked the back door behind them and opened the outside door. Something small buzzed in with perfect timing.
"Dammit!" He set his helmet on the dryer, grabbed a long thin object hanging from a hook beside the door and stalked the unwelcome interloper around the room. "Don't wanna land, huh? Okay, take that!" He whipped the wide, flat end around at the buzzing little nuisance several times, but its flight was fast and erratic. He missed, and missed, and missed, while growling imprecations at the impertinent black dot.
Tovala raised her hand and it disappeared in mid-buzz.
He froze, listening for it, then saw her and relaxed. "You did that?"
"Yes."
"Thanks. Let's go before more flies get in." He picked up his helmet and hung the other thing back on its hook. She sorted through definitions and descriptions in her head. So that's a flyswatter.
They got outside and he shut the door. He pulled a pair of sunglasses out of his pocket and put them on. "Okay, you can ditch the fly now. It can't get back in the house."
A black dot appeared and dropped to the ground in front of them.
"Huh." He squatted down, picked up a leaf and poked at the fly. "It's stone dead. That's interesting."
She conjured her own sunglasses in the meantime.
Daniel dropped the leaf, stood up and looked at the pot they'd put out Sunday afternoon. "Wonder what's going on with the diamonds?"
When they looked inside, they found that the pickle jar had disintegrated. Part of the threaded mouth and a few small rounded bits of glass were all that remained, mired in a puddle of black goo. No nails were visible and some of the charcoal briquets were losing cohesion.
"Is that what it's supposed to look like?" he asked dubiously.
"I think so. I don't get any sense that anything has gone wrong."
"Not very impressive." He was a little bit tempted to poke at it with a finger, but only a bit. Who knew how the nanomachines might react? Best to just leave it be.
In front of the garage, they stopped again. He pulled out a key ring and hesitated, with a baleful glare at several more flies. "Not again. I swear the little bastards lurk out here just waiting for a door to open."
He was aware that he was motivated by both curiosity and vindictiveness, but not sure of the proportions, when he asked her, "Could you take out a few of these flies, and then bring them back as fast as you can?"
"Okay." Her head moved in short jerks as she targeted one fly after another. Each fly vanished, reappeared just a fraction of a second later, then dropped to the ground.
He nudged a few flies with his boot. "They're all dead." He turned the helmet over. "But nothing happened to this. Because they were alive, and it's not? That's the obvious conclusion, anyway. Something about the place you send them, not compatible with life? Or the process of moving them there? Or bringing them back?"
"All interesting questions," she agreed.
"Everything we find out about you raises more questions than answers. It's like we're going backward," he grumbled.
"Everything? I didn't hear any complaints last night." Her voice was low and sensuous.
He instantly forgot his frustration. "Last night was incredible. So was this morning."
"Really?" There must have been a tiny bit of insecurity lurking in the back of her mind, because she suddenly felt better.
"Oh yeah."
On an impulse, she swung around and kissed him. When it ended, she nibbled his ear and whispered, "I feel something."
He managed an embarrassed "Uhhh…"
She giggled. "Does that always happen?"
"Not…always…"
She giggled again, teasing. His finger found a button on the key fob and pushed it. The garage door hummed, clunked and rumbled open. She let him go. He walked inside and wheeled the motorcycle out a minute later. The door closed behind him. Another minute saw them both on the bike, down the driveway and on the road.
Daniel pulled into a parking lot, found an empty space and parked. Tovala whisked their helmets away, then got her purse out of the left saddlebag, where they'd stowed it for convenience. He led her towards a store.
She read the big letters across the front. "Boot World?"
"It's a shoe store that specializes in boots. It's where I got mine, and where we're going to get you a pair made out of normal matter, so you won't have to re-create them every day."
Inside, shelves on the walls displayed a profusion of boots in endless variety. He led the way to where the boots were smaller and more colorful. She looked them over, curious.
A young, bearded man approached them. "Can I help— Oh, wow, it's you! Can I get a picture? Nobody's going to believe this."
He pulled out a phone and took several pictures, including a couple of selfies with them. He swiped through them, grinning, then put the phone away.
"Thanks. Now nobody can say you weren't here…" He remembered where he was, and what he was supposed to be doing. "Uh, hi, my name's Brian. How can I help you?"
Daniel said, "My wife needs a pair of boots. Close as you can get to the same style we're wearing now. We, don't know her foot size."
"This way." He led them confidently to where a few low benches stood near the store's center. He pulled a silver and black device about a foot long out from under one of them and set it on the floor.
He gestured at a bench. "Sit there, and take off your shoes."
She considered that as she sat down, then banished her programmable-matter boots. There was no point in taking them off first.
Brian goggled, then got out, "The, uh, the socks, too."
This time she looked at Daniel. "Are we buying socks?"
His smile was a little smug. "No, but I planned ahead." He groped around in his jacket and pulled out a pair of long black socks with a paper label wrapped around the middle. "You can have these."
"We sell socks," Brian informed them stiffly.
Dan gestured irritably at a display rack standing nearby, hung with packages of long white socks. "You mean those? Tried 'em. Waste of money. The elastic goes limp in a few months."
He tore the label off and handed them to her. "These are some great socks. Nice and thick, comfortable, long-wearing, good durable elastic. Naturally, they were discontinued years ago. I managed to grab a few dozen pairs before they ran out. You can share my stash."
She examined the socks, then sent hers away.
Brian recovered a little faster this time. "Uh, okay, now stand up and put your right foot on the plate. Make sure your heel's all the way at the end…good, now put some weight on it…okay, let's see…"
He adjusted a couple of sliding parts. "Okay, step off." When she did, he turned it around. "Now your left foot." He checked, but didn't move anything, and muttered, "Good, both feet are the same size."
That puzzled her. "Why wouldn't they be?"
He smiled up at her. "Usually they are, but a few people's feet are half a size different, or even more. Makes fitting them for shoes a lot harder. Yours are both women's size 7-C, so that's easy. I'd recommend size 7-D though, because it's morning and your feet get a little wider after you spend all day walking on them."
"Leave room for insoles, too. Those green ones, if you've still got 'em." Dan instructed him.
He nodded. "Definitely 7-D then. Wait here while I get a pair."
By the time they sat down and put her new socks on he was back, carrying two boxes. He stopped to pick something off one of the display racks, then set both boxes on the floor. The top box released a smell of fresh leather when he opened it.
"I brought the next size bigger, just in case, but let's start with the 7-D's." The black boot he picked up was a foot tall, square-toed, with a thick sole, a blocky heel, and a brass ring fastened on each side with riveted leather straps. He pulled a folded piece of cardboard out of it. "Hold your right foot out, and point your toes."
He pushed, she pushed back, and the boot slid on without much trouble.
"Okay, now stand up and put weight on it. Good." He poked and squeezed the boot, testing the fit. "Flex your foot and toes. It should be a little loose."
She did.
"Now let's try it with the insole." The small package contained two long flat floppy objects with a green side and a black side. He spent about half a minute getting one of them fitted into the left boot, then held it out. It went on with a little more difficulty than the first one.
"All right, moment of truth. Stand up again and tell me if it feels tight anywhere."
These boots did not look, or feel. quite like the ones she'd been conjuring up for the last three days. Certainly nothing like the armored boots that were part of the…ensemble? costume? she'd been wearing when she first appeared in this world. She shifted her weight, wiggled her feet, and decided that they fit well enough. "I think it fits."
"Great, let me get that one off and put in the insole—"
She held out her hand. "I'll do it. I need to get used to doing things for myself."
He handed it over. Getting the boot off, the insole stuffed into it right side up and flattened out properly, and her foot back in took some determination and a good while longer than Brian had taken with the other boot. If she had to do it again, it would go much faster. She stood up and shifted her weight from foot to foot.
"Try walking around in them a little," he suggested.
She wandered around the store for a minute, evaluating her new boots. It was the first time she'd worn anything she hadn't conjured up, perfectly fitted to her feet, so there were some slight discomforts. They would just take a little getting used to.
"Do they pinch or chafe anywhere?" Brian wanted to know.
"Not really. i think they're okay."
Daniel stood up. "Good. They'll get more comfortable as you wear them. Should take a week or so to get them fully broken in."
They stuffed all the packaging and trash in the boot box, followed Brian to the front desk and Dan paid the bill. As they walked back to the bike he warned her, "Let me know if your feet start to hurt anywhere. Boots that don't fit quite right can raise blisters. We don't want that to happen."
"I will."
Tovala sent the box away and retrieved their helmets. Daniel set out for their next destination, a small storefront a few blocks away. This store featured all manner of motorcycle-related gear. He steered her to a rack full of leather jackets.
He selected one. "Here, let's try this one. Get your old one off first."
She sent her fabricated jacket away and he helped her into the new one, then looked at it critically. "The waist looks okay, but I don't think it's big enough up top. Do you feel, ahhh…squished?"
She worked her shoulders, took a deep breath and let it out. "A little. It's not too bad."
He shook his head and started taking it off her. "Not good enough. You'll want to be able to zip it all the way up on chilly days, without it being too tight. Let's try a size bigger."
The third jacket fit to his satisfaction, and hers. They moved on to helmets. None of them featured the color shading she had come up with, but there was a metallic blue one that she found acceptable. He pronounced a pair of long, thickly padded leather gauntlets, size XL, to be a proper fit.
"Your hands aren't as big as mine, but you've got long fingers. When the weather's cooler, you'll be glad you've got 'em. We'll wait a few months and get you some real cold-weather gear then."
He picked up one more item at the counter where he paid for it all. Back at the bike, she put the helmet on and he spent a couple of minutes attaching and adjusting it. "I really like these quick-release buckles. They make getting a helmet on and off a whole lot easier. When we get home I'll tack a few stitches through the straps to keep the ends from flapping."
Their next ride was longer, close to twenty minutes. He parked a short distance from the big white Nordstrom building where they'd bought…a variety of apparel for her. He escorted her into the mall, away from it. She looked back that way, several times.
He smiled. "They said your suit will be ready this afternoon, not this morning. There's a few other things we can take care of in the meantime."
Something shiny caught her eye. Between the rows of stores were a number of small open-sided booths just big enough for some merchandise and the one or two people standing inside. She felt irresistibly drawn to a glittering display of, jewelry, that's what it was, cleverly placed in sunlight to maximize its visual impact. The ploy worked. She pulled Daniel along with her, just as irresistibly. He knew better than to resist, anyway.
Tovala's attention focused on one particular section. Her fingers sifted through sparkly bits of silver metal. She let out a low "Oooooh…" without even being aware of it.
Daniel plucked one of the little cards off its hook and read the scant information printed on it. The only relevant text seemed to be '100% STERLING SILVER'. The earrings tacked through it were simple enough in general shape. Their true appeal came from mirror-bright facets cut into them, forming fanciful designs with hints of rainbows at the edges.
His new wife had never seen anything like this before; he could understand her fascination with them. Her face held a dreamy expression, spangled with shivering flecks of light as she admired one piece after another.
In the end, she selected two pairs of earrings and gave him a heart-melting smile. He didn't see anything to set those particular earrings apart from the rest, but apparently she did. He handed over a credit card, relieved that at least the prices were reasonable.
They had discovered when preparing the 'accessories' for her wedding ensemble that wherever she came from, they also practiced the piercing of one's earlobes to hang jewelry. She put one pair in her purse and stuck the second pair through her ears with unconscious ease, as if she'd done it a thousand times before. She smiled at her reflection and gave her head a tiny shake. Her new earrings threw dancing splinters of light in every direction.
"You look great," he assured her.
She smiled again, took his hand, and they resumed their slow walk through the mall. Every few steps some new wonder grabbed her attention, usually accompanied by a few words of explanation from the man by her side. At last he stopped, opened a big glass door and led her into a store that far outshone the little kiosk. Glass display cases lined the walls and took up much of the floor, filled with more shiny, sparkly baubles than she'd ever imagined.
A distinguished-looking man in an elegant suit smiled at them from behind a display case. "Can I help you?"
They stopped in front of it. Dan said, "We're looking for a pair of wedding rings."
The man's glance lingered on their left hands. "Not satisfied with the ones you have?"
"They're…temporary." Explaining that they were made out of some sort of programmable matter, and might disappear if Tovala stopped thinking about them for a few hours, wouldn't be much use. Let him just assume they were borrowed.
"Ah. In that case, if you could give me some idea of what you're looking for…"
He introduced himself as Joshua and showed them a wide variety of rings. Tovala was captivated at first, but her interest quickly diminished. She squeezed Daniel's hand until she was sure she had his attention.
"Those rings are very expensive, aren't they?"
"About what I expected."
She gestured at another row of rings, at the back. "Some of them cost a lot less. Why are you looking at the expensive ones?"
"We're going to have these rings for a long, long time, so I don't want to settle for cheap ones. Those don't look as nice, do they?"
"No…" She didn't sound convinced, though.
He gave the salesman an apologetic look. "We need to discuss a few things."
He nodded graciously. "By all means."
Daniel led the way to the far side of the jewelry store. As soon as they got there, she said, "I'm beginning to understand money. You're going to spend more than ten times as much as everything else you've bought, just for two little bits of metal. Why are they so expensive?" She touched an earring. "These didn't cost nearly as much."
He set out to explain. "Mostly it's the diamonds. People blame it all on the diamond cartels, for fixing prices and controlling supply, but that's only part of it. Diamonds are rare, especially big ones. Mining them takes a lot of labor and expensive equipment. Then they have to be sorted, graded, cut and polished, fitted into jewelry, which is usually made out of expensive metals. Stores like this have to spend a lot on security so they don't get robbed. The price of a ring has to pay for all of that."
"Why do our rings need diamonds? And why such expensive ones?"
"Diamonds in wedding rings are traditional. Maybe I'm just old-fashioned, but I'd like to stick with tradition. Plus, what we're going to do will get a lot of people's noses out of joint. I think following traditions where we can is a good idea. As for the size," he chuckled, "I don't want us to wind up like that old joke about how a woman knows the diamond in her ring is real, because nobody would ever make a fake diamond that small."
Tovala didn't look like she got the joke. "But if you buy such expensive rings, won't you— won't we, get into debt?"
He smiled reassuringly. "Not over this. I've been spending less than I make for a long time, so I've got money saved up. These wedding rings will make a pretty big dent, but I won't go broke. Besides, the credit card bills won't be due until next month. Your industrial diamonds should be bringing in money by then."
She examined the contents of a display case. "I can make diamonds like these. I can make rings for us, too."
"I'd rather get us away from your programmable matter for things that are supposed to be permanent. Especially our wedding rings."
"I can make them out of normal matter. All I need are the correct elements. The metal." She touched her earring. "I like silver the best."
"Okay, well, let's go break the bad news."
They made their way back to the counter. Tovala smiled, somewhat apologetic. "Thank you for your help, showing us these lovely rings, but, we, ah…"
"We're still exploring options," Daniel finished for her.
Joshua's attempt to hide his disappointment at not immediately selling them two rings for several thousand dollars was less than perfect. "I see. Well, if you have any further questions, here's my card." He deftly produced a business card from an inner pocket and held it out.
Tovala accepted it. "Thank you."
"Do you buy and sell silver?" Daniel asked, peering into the glass cases.
"Yes…" he said, a little dubious.
"What's today's price?"
"Let me check." He pulled out his phone, poked at it for a minute, then looked up. "Are you interested in buying, or selling?"
"Buying."
"Ah…" He thought for a few seconds. "Today's price is eighteen-forty an ounce."
Daniel nodded. "That's not too bad. Could we get two…no, better make it three ounces."
"Will that be all?"
"For now, anyway. We've still got some more shopping to do."
Joshua added up their purchase, processed Daniel's credit card and handed it back with the receipt. Then he unlocked a case and laid out three silver slabs about the size of business cards and a quarter-inch thick, with rounded corners.
While Daniel finished putting his credit card and wallet away, Tovala stowed the silver ingots in her purse. "Thank you, Joshua."
He gave them his professional salesman's smile. "You're welcome. Be sure to let me know if there's anything else I can do for you."
Dan assured him, "We will."
Outside the store and walking away, she took his hand. "Are we going to buy anything else from them?"
He shook his head. "Not if you can make the rings."
"Then…you lied to him?"
"Not really. If we ever need jewelry, we can go back. Although it probably won't happen."
"So, not a lie, but not exactly the truth, either."
"Does he need to know you're going to make our rings yourself?"
"I guess not," she admitted.
"Then there's no harm leaving that door open, just in case."
"I see." She looked around at the stores. "What are we shopping for now?"
"A computer. I just don't know where we're going to put it."
She gave him a puzzled look. "I can put it the same place as the helmets, right? Isn't that why we rode the motorcycle?"
"No, I mean there's no place to set it up at home. Your room's still full of junk. And…I'm wondering what we want to risk putting, well, wherever it is you put things. We don't know what killed those flies. Are the laws of physics and chemistry the same? What would happen to a computer if you did send it there?"
"Oh. I don't know."
He squeezed her hand. "Will you help me with an experiment?"
She squeezed back. "Yes, of course."
"Get your phone out, and send it to that place."
She opened her purse, took her phone out and looked at it. "Why not yours?"
"Yours is brand new, still under warranty. If this goes FUBAR we just get it replaced."
Her expression turned distant. "FUBAR…I see. I think. Yes, that is logical." The phone disappeared. "Now what?"
In the meantime, Daniel had retrieved his own phone from his pocket. "Now I try to call you."
He pulled up the contact list, found her number and tapped the entry. A recorded voice informed them, "The number you have dialed is not available, or is outside the service area. Please check the number, or try again later."
"Huh. Wherever it is, the cell network can't reach it. Okay, bring it back."
Suddenly the phone was in her hand.
"Now I try again."
This time, her phone emitted a series of notes and lit up, showing 'Daniel Evans' on the screen.
"So, still working." He canceled the call. "Okay, leave it turned on and send it there again."
The phone disappeared.
After a long wait he said, "Now bring it back."
He held his own phone beside hers. "The battery's almost at full charge, and the clock still matches. Looks like it was working normally while it was there. Oh! I know. Let's try to record some video. You tap that icon…now that one…"
They left the phone wherever it went for half a minute, then played back the video. "Huh. Too dark to see anything. Maybe a few shadows, or something, but… Let's try it with the light on."
The light didn't make much difference. "Still too dark. Could be there's just nothing close enough for the light to reach, or there might be some other reason. Like, light behaves differently there?"
He played both videos again without spotting anything new, then handed the phone back to her. "Looks like that's all we're going to find out for now. At least nothing bad happened to your phone."
They had drifted to a halt while monkeying with their phones. They put them away as he got them moving again. Just ahead, down the middle of the paved space between the rows of stores was a walkway surrounded by plants and brightly colored sculpted shapes. Tovala led him down the path, avidly taking in the scene.
Daniel was getting used to them attracting attention, from funny looks to occasional surprised stares and raised cell phones. At least for now, the curious kept their distance.
They angled to the right when that section ended, passed more interesting features, took more turns, and finally approached a wide expanse of glass. He opened a big glass door marked with a rounded white shape and ushered her into a world of white. White tables held white cell phones and white computers. White boxes filled a rack of shelves in the back.
He explained, "This is sort of the lesser of two evils. Support for Linux is still not all there, and making you use MS-win-blows would be unspeakable cruelty so, here we are. We'll look at everything and probably wind up getting you an iMac, like mine."
She looked around. "There are a lot of signals in here."
He nodded. "There are a lot of computers in here. Let's start over there…"
They checked over the various models of computers and monitors, and agreed that the iMac was the most suitable for their purpose. They got in line. When it was their turn, they stepped up to the next sales clerk.
She was quite attractive. A week ago he would have taken notice, might have tried flirting with her. Today Tovala occupied his awareness, leaving him no interest to spare for any other woman. He found it an unfamiliar but somehow comfortable feeling.
He was pleasant and polite, but completely detached as he specified the model and options, finishing with "…and sixteen gigabytes of RAM."
While she printed out the receipt, he confided to Tovala, "I made the mistake of getting eight gigabytes. Then I found out it's almost impossible to upgrade. I've got zero confidence I could pry the display off without breaking it, and if that happens you might as well junk the whole computer and get a new one."
Finishing the paperwork and payment took a few more minutes. A slightly pudgy, nerdy-looking guy brought a white box from the back room, with a picture of a computer on the side. When he spotted Tovala he gave her one of those surprised stares.
She smiled. "Thank you." Now he looked stunned.
"Uhhmm…you're…welcome…" He couldn't take his eyes off Tovala.
Daniel accepted the box. "Thanks."
Outside the door, Tovala put the computer into storage. Daniel looked around, then pointed. "That way."
She took his hand as they started walking. "Where are we going now?"
"You need a bed."
"So, a bed store?"
"Close enough."
A few more minutes brought them to another storefront, this one nearly covered with garishly colored advertisements.
She tried to make sense of the jumble. "A mattress outlet?"
He nodded and opened the door. "They cut costs by selling in large volume with low overhead and almost no customer service. We can get a bed for less money here."
Inside was a big open space packed with beds, leaving barely enough space to walk between them. Again, she tried to make sense of it. "Where do we even start?"
Daniel started threading his way through the knee-high labyrinth. "This way. Ignore most of them and only look at queen size, eighty by sixty inches. Same as mine, so we can both use the same size sheets and blankets."
Tovala followed, watching as he paused here and there to push down on a mattress with both hands and then move on, unsatisfied. She tried it too, uncertain what he was doing.
"What are you looking for?" She poked at another mattress. "How will you know when you find it?"
He pointed to a nearby bed. "Here, lie down on this one."
She looked at it, and at him, and did so.
"Notice how it's a little lumpy?"
She shifted from side to side. "Yes…?"
"You're feeling the springs. Means the padding is too thin, because it's a cheap mattress. I wasted money on a cheap mattress once, and the damn thing lasted about two years. I stripped it down to find out what the deal was and found nine broken springs inside. No wonder it felt like I was sleeping in a hole. And that's not all."
He lay down beside her, about a foot away. "Feel how it moves? Like you're on a hillside, because of my weight? We'd wake up every couple of hours, mashed together in the middle. Cheap. Mattress. Don't want."
He rolled out and stood up, then helped her. They continued their search, now that she had a better idea what they were looking for. After a while he found three mattresses that he didn't reject immediately, and she found two. They tried each one in turn, lying close together, then farther apart. Daniel raised his shoulders and bounced a few times. Tovala tried it too, laughing. A minute of that was enough. They climbed off that mattress and stood beside it.
He looked them all over one more time. "So, have you made up your mind?"
She pointed. "This one." She sounded quite certain.
He nodded. "OK, now where do we go to check out…?"
Finding the clerk and processing Daniel's credit card took about ten minutes. Meanwhile, two workmen hauled out a pair of big rectangular bundles wrapped in plastic and a long cardboard box. He picked up the receipts and waved at their merchandise. "Can you put those away?"
"Okay." The three items vanished, producing a small gust of wind and astonishing the store's employees.
"Thank you for your help," Tovala told them before accompanying her husband to the door.
Outside, he squinted up at the sky. "It's about lunch time. Let's go."
He folded the papers and she stashed them in her purse, then took his hand and they made their way through the mall's twists and turns until they began to smell food. Lots of food. They emerged into an open area full of chairs and small round tables, surrounded by storefronts with all manner of foods cooking away.
He waved at the scene. "This is the food court. Grouping the fast food places together makes sense for everybody. They mostly need the same types of services and utilities, people looking for something to eat can find it all in one place, and use the same tables and chairs. We can get a dozen different kinds of food right here."
With that, Tovala was off, more excited than he had ever seen her. He was swept along in her wake, scrambling to keep up with her nonstop questions.
"—it's a Greek word, so G-Y-R-O is pronounced 'Hero'—"
"—fried fish. Cod, I think—"
"—because it's shaped sort of like a submarine, long and round. The little ones are called torpedoes—"
"—no, no, hot dogs are not made out of dogs, any more than hamburgers are made out of ham. Well, sometimes they do put bacon on 'em—"
"—like the chicken we had yesterday, but grilled instead of fried—"
Twenty minutes later they claimed a table, laid out an esoteric selection from half a dozen different food vendors and sat down. She considered it all, picked up half of a tuna salad foot-long sub and took a bite.
She half-closed her eyes in pleasure. "Mmmmm!"
He took the other half. "Glad you like it."
"It's wonderful," she said after her second bite, then set it down to try a piece of fried fish. "Mmmmm!"
Tovala ate her way through the unfamiliar foods with great enthusiasm, pausing only to drink from her large cup of lemonade. Daniel enjoyed her enthusiasm as he ate, more slowly. She avoided a few of the hottest spicy items after a few bites, so he was left to finish off the remnants. Not his favorites, either, but endurable.
Between them they polished off the entire motley meal in less than an hour. Tovala sipped more lemonade, Daniel got up and headed for one of the stores. "Back in a minute."
He brought back two dishes heaped with something red and white, covered with tiny colored bits, set them down, and grinned. "Strawberry sundaes. I think you'll like it."
She pulled out the plastic spoon stuck in the mass, sampled it and smiled blissfully. "Mmmmm!"
She dug in. Half a minute later her smile turned into a grimace; a sharp ache flared behind her eyes and tears sprung forth. She barely avoided smashing her sunglasses as she clamped a hand to her forehead. "Owww, what's happening to me?"
He instantly looked guilty. "Oh, shit, I should have warned you! If you eat ice cream too fast, well anything cold really, it can make your head hurt. They call it 'brain freeze' but really it's your sinuses that got chilled. I'm sorry, it never occurred to me but of course you wouldn't know. Anyway, just breathe out through your nose until it gets better."
She did, and the sensation faded quickly. She lowered her hand and regarded the ice cream warily. "How much should I slow down so that won't happen again?"
"Hard to say. It's different for everybody."
She regarded her bowl suspiciously, then took another spoonful. When it didn't make her head hurt, she enjoyed the mix of sweet flavors. They dawdled over their desserts, watching people pass through the food court, or stop off for their own lunches. Tovala's hair got a fair amount of attention, talk, and cell phones pointed their way, but no one went so far as to disturb their meal. Finally they were reduced to scraping up the last traces of ice cream.
She finished her lemonade, then shifted her purse around and opened it. She'd taken his advice, and left the strap looped around her neck even while eating. She fished out the three silver bars they'd bought at the jewelry store, laid them on the table, and they disappeared.
She regarded the food wrappers. "Do those contain carbon?"
"Uh, yeah. Paper, plastic, cardboard, they're all made out of carbon compounds."
"Good." Everything except his not-yet-empty lemonade cup vanished.
"Making more diamonds?"
"Yes, for our wedding rings."
"But not in a pot in the back yard."
"No."
"How long…?"
"I'll know when they're finished," was all she could tell him.
"Fair enough." He drank the last of his lemonade, got to his feet and took a step towards the trash cans, then looked back. "You want this one too?"
"Might as well." She stood up, and the cup disappeared. Daniel held his hand out, she took it, looked around and started walking. "Nordstrom is this way."
He shook his head. "It might still be too early. Why don't we give them a little longer and look around some more?"
"Oh. All right."
They meandered through the mall, pausing in front of a few stores, until another little kiosk caught his eye.
"Look over there. We should get you some normal matter sunglasses." He steered her in that direction.
She picked through dozens of sunglasses of all sizes, shapes and colors, not quite sure what she was looking for.
"Hey, what do you think?"
His deadpan tone should have warned her. In the future, she would remember. A pair of ludicrously oversized, overdecorated bright pink sunglasses covered most of his face.
She started laughing harder than she had ever laughed before. It felt wonderful. She spotted another pair of crazy sunglasses, put them on, and he laughed too. They took turns trying on the silliest sunglasses they could find and laughing at each other.
In the end, they selected two ordinary pairs that fit her comfortably and blocked out excessive brightness. He paid for them and they moved on.
They reached a store with a row of mannequins wearing swimsuits in the front window. Daniel stopped in front of the second one, which displayed a bikini made with tapered vertical bands of white, purple and dark blue.
He half-smiled. "Okay, now, that can't be a coincidence. Somebody saw episode twelve."
Tovala regarded it curiously, uncertain what he meant.
He turned toward the door. "I'd like to buy that for you. Okay?"
She followed his lead. "Uuhb…sure."
They found the suits in several sizes on hangers and picked through them. Tovala pulled one out. "This one will fit me."
He didn't know why she sounded so confident; this suit didn't stand out from the others in any way he could see. Well, if it didn't fit, she could try again. "Cool. Want to try it on, just to be sure?"
She nodded decisively. "Yes, I should."
He looked around, and pointed. "Changing booths, right over there."
When she stepped out a few minutes later, all he could do was stare. The bikini showed off her entrancing beauty to perfection. It's like she gets more beautiful every time I see her. How does that work?
He recovered and said, "Wowza. You look great."
She smiled, almost bashful. "Thank you, Daniel."
He grinned devilishly. "Thank you for the show."
Whatever response she might have made was forestalled by a blare of musical notes issuing from his pocket. He fished out his cell phone, tapped a green circle on its face, held it up to his ear and said "Yo," in a carefully neutral tone.
An unfamiliar woman's voice inquired, "Daniel Evans?"
His voice was still neutral. "Yeah, that's me."
"I'm calling from the San Diego District Attorney's office to confirm the arraignment date for a Tovala Evans. Do you know where she is?"
Studied neutrality went by the wayside. "Oh! Yeah, she's right here. When is it?"
"We found her an opening in the morning calendar this Thursday, the twenty-fourth, day after tomorrow. Can she be there?"
"Thursday, yeah, that's good. We'll be there. Uh, where exactly?"
"Have her report to Superior Court Department Five-Eighteen, eleven hundred Union Street, before eight o'clock. Check in with the bailiff, and then wait until her case is called. I've also sent an E-mail to the address we were provided."
"Eight o'clock, Department Five-Eighteen," he repeated.
"That's right. Do not miss the court date. Good day, Mister Evans."
"Bye." He ended the call and flashed a smile at Tovala. "We've got your court date, it's Thursday morning."
"Oh. I see." She seemed nervous.
"Worried?"
"Yes. I know we have to face this, but…"
"You don't know what's going to happen. Neither do I. But, there's no getting out of it."
"I know." She gripped his hand, rather too hard. "I will be relieved when it's over, but until then…"
"There's nothing we can do. Don't— Heh, I almost said, don't worry about it. That's no help at all."
She sighed and squeezed his hand again. "Let's go to Nordstrom now."
He paid for the bikini while she changed. He read the receipt and chuckled at the product description — 'swimsuit, two piece, style DAL-12, size 8'. Somebody had watched episode 12, and didn't even try to hide it from those who knew what to look for.
Tovala emerged from the changing booth, carrying the bikini. Two remarkably small pieces of cloth to have such a big effect. She put them in her purse, along with the receipt, took Daniel's hand and they departed.
She was quiet during their walk to Nordstrom's, wrapped up in her own thoughts. Several times, he stopped himself from asking what was on her mind. When she's ready to talk, she will.
Once inside, she guided him unerringly to the area they had visited yesterday. Brooke was busy with another customer. "I'll be with you in just a minute."
It wasn't much more than a minute when she told the other customer, "There, why don't you go try these on?"
She turned to Tovala with a professional smile. "Your suit is ready. Come with me." As they walked away she asked slyly, "How did your other items work out?"
He didn't hear Tovala's answer, but he heard Brooke giggle. Alone again, he was left with nothing to do but loiter in the women's wear department, garnering odd looks from other shoppers.
A few minutes later, the other customer stepped out. Just as she was starting to look impatient, Brooke returned, followed by Tovala carrying a gray garment bag over her arm, both of them murmuring and giggling conspiratorially. Brooke cast an appraising look over him, said something to Tovala, and they giggled some more.
What have they been talking about? he wondered. Do I want to know? Probably not.
Brooke was quickly occupied with the other customer. Tovala smiled, walked up to him, wrapped her arm around his and squeezed tight. "Let's go."
He returned her smile. "Sure."
She seemed to be a lot less stressed. As soon as they left the store, she sent away the garment bag and clasped her hand around his arm.
"When I go to court, you'll be there with me."
He put his hand over hers. "Right there beside you. I'll do everything I can for you."
"Knowing that helps. I feel better."
At the bike, she asked, "Where do we go now?"
"Home. We'll hang up your suit and drop off the other stuff you've got stored."
In about a minute they were on their way. The twenty-minute ride was uneventful, aside from a few drivers distracted by Tovala's vibrant purple hair. Children stared at her, too. She clung close and said nothing, like she had a lot on her mind.
He parked in front of the garage, helped her off the bike and accompanied her to the back door. He set his helmet on the dryer. She groped at the new buckle on hers but it didn't want to open for her.
He guided her fingers. "Feel those two bits sticking out, there and there? You sort of pinch 'em together…yeah, like that."
She got the helmet and sunglasses off. He started to fish keys out of his pocket, and stopped.
"Here, you do it. Get out the keys I gave you…"
She dug them out of her purse.
"The second key is for this door. Yeah, that one. Hold it out with the teeth up…good. Now stick it in that keyhole, there…"
He talked her through unlocking the deadbolt and doorknob.
"Now you can turn the knob and open the door."
She did, with a little "Ah…" of accomplishment. He led the way to her room, slid a door open and pushed some things out of the way.
"You can hang your suit up here in the closet, bag and all. You'll want to hang up your jacket, too."
The purpose of that curved metal wire at one end was now obvious. She hooked it over the bar. He pointed out a heavy-duty hanger for her jacket, showed her how to hang it up, shut the closet door and moved some more stuff around. "Let's stand your mattress and box frame on edge against the wall for now. We can put your computer on that table."
In a few minutes she brought out everything she had stashed away.
He looked the room over. "Gah, what a mess. Well, we can deal with it later. Right now, we need to go shopping again."
"We do? What else do I need?"
"We need groceries. We're running out."
"Groceries means…food. Is that because of me?" She sounded almost guilty.
"Not really. I'd need to go shopping in a few days anyway." He stepped into his own room and emerged a minute later without the jacket. "A quick pit stop and we're off."
She was still getting used to slang. "Pit stop?"
"Bathroom. We won't be back for at least an hour."
"Oh."
He met her at the back door. "I'm taking the car this time. I don't know if putting food wherever you send things would be safe. Inert objects and electronics seem to do OK, but something killed those flies. I don't know if all biologicals would be affected, or only if they're alive, but I don't want to take chances with anything we're going to eat. Sound reasonable?"
"Oh. Ummm…yes. I see." She considered his words as they left the house, he put the motorcycle in the garage and backed the car out. He had apparently been thinking about the matter ever since that first fly dropped dead, and she couldn't find fault with his caution.
Once they were on the road he added, "We can talk to Doctor Helena about running some tests. Find out if it's safe, or not. Until then, food stays here, in normal space."
He reached out and twisted something in front of them. Music poured out all around and behind her. She looked around, surprised. "What's that?"
He grinned. "Bob Seger. I turned on the radio. This song's called 'Even Now'."
She listened, smiling. "I like it."
A man talked over the last fading notes. "That's a blast from the past, Even Now by Bob Seger. And here's another one, Don't Look Back from Boston. Can you believe it's been forty years?"
The next song played, carrying her away on the melody. It seemed that the more music she heard, the greater its emotional impact became.
Two more songs brought them to another parking lot in front of another big building. Daniel fetched a cloth bag from the back seat. He pulled out one of the shopping carts lined up outside the glass doors, which opened at their approach. They walked inside, and Tovala gazed around the huge open space in wonder. Music was playing in here, too. They passed row after row of long shelves crammed with brightly colored packages of food, food and more food. Beyond the last row were bins and racks of green, yellow, orange and red objects.
They spent more than half an hour pushing the cart back and forth between the rows of shelves, loading it up with a wide variety of food she had never seen before. Tomatoes, she recognized. Long green things, she didn't. She asked about them, but without any experience of the foods in question, she found his answers uninformative. The cart slowly filled up until they reached the far end of the store, swung around the last corner, and he picked one of the lines of people waiting with their own carts.
"It's not just how long the line is," he confided to her. "Six people with just a few items will move a lot faster than two with full shopping carts."
They reached the front, and he started setting food on the long shelf. It moved, carrying everything to a woman who held each item in front of a tiny window with a red light inside until it beeped.
Daniel answered her quizzical look with, "That machine scans the labels and adds up the prices to tell us how much all this costs."
When their cart was empty, he pushed it to the end of the long counter and started loading packages back into it. He dumped a pile of other bags out of the cloth bag and put small items into them.
The woman scanned the last item. Daniel got out his wallet and stuck a credit card into a device above the counter. It buzzed, he pulled the card out, and the woman handed him a long strip of paper. "Have a good day."
"You too." He put his wallet away and stuffed the paper into his shirt pocket. He resumed putting things in the cart, muttering "Hundred and seventy-four bucks" to nobody in particular.
Tovala felt troubled. "You're spending a lot of money because of me, aren't you?"
He gave her a reassuring smile. "It's fine. You're my wife. Providing for your needs is a responsibility I accepted when we got married. You just need a lot right now because you were dumped on a strange planet with next to nothing. It's not your fault."
He loaded everything back into the cart, pushed it through another pair of doors that opened on their own, and crossed the parking lot to his car. Their groceries pretty much filled the trunk. He pushed the empty cart into a large metal frame not far from their parking space. "Always put the cart here when you're done with it. I really hate lazy assholes that leave shopping carts in the middle of parking spaces to get in everybody's way."
Now that he'd brought it to her attention, she could see a few shopping carts scattered randomly around the lot. People had just left them there, made parking spaces unusable, rather than expend the minimal effort to move them a short distance? There were several of the frames, some of them quite close to the abandoned carts. She shook her head. Yet another part of this strange world that puzzled her.
They got into the car and drove away. While waiting at a stop light, he said, "One more stop and we're done for the day. That store's got lower prices, but there are some products they don't carry."
She was beginning to recognize familiar areas. They pulled into the same shopping center where they'd bought her discount clothing yesterday and parked in front of another store. The shopping carts here resembled the ones she'd seen, but made out of plastic instead of metal. This store resembled the other one, too, only smaller and with a lower roof. They spent much less time here, and only picked up a few items, including two frozen-pizza boxes.
"Are we having frozen pizza for supper tonight?" she wanted to know.
He grinned and shook his head. "Nope, I've got something else in mind."
"But you won't tell me."
"Come on, you like surprises, don't you?"
She sighed. "How would I know? Everything is a surprise to me. I never know what's going to happen next."
"It won't be that way forever. Life will get less surprising as you gain more experience."
She sighed again. "I hope it's soon."
This store's checkout was much like the other store's, except that Daniel hadn't brought any bags. He just put everything back in the cart, pushed it out to the car and stowed it all in the trunk. There were shopping cart frames here, too; different in configuration but serving the same purpose.
The short drive home took only a few minutes. He got out of the car before her, and from the far side of the garage hauled out a wide, shallow metal tub attached to two wooden poles. Again, he noted her curious expression.
"This is a wheelbarrow. We can get everything in two trips, instead of a dozen."
He loaded up the wheelbarrow and held out a bag. "Here, could you carry this?"
Two trips were almost enough. He returned the wheelbarrow to the garage and brought in the last few items. What looked like half a grocery store was now piled on the kitchen table, the counters, and two chairs. He groaned a little, and started putting it all away. Tovala watched attentively, learning which articles belonged in the freezer, the refrigerator, and the 'cupboards' mounted on the walls.
He put two plastic bags on a wide flat tray in the oven and turned a knob on the front. Next, he half-filled a big shiny pot with water, set it on top of the stove, turned another knob and a blue fire lit up under it. He brought in a big plastic bucket, set it beside the table and sat down, in front of a large bowl and the long green things. He tore the first one open, revealing rows of yellowish-white bumps inside.
"It's corn," he explained. "You have to peel the husks off and pick out all the silk. Well, as much as you can, anyway."
He broke the end off, dropped the green part into the bucket, set the yellow part in the bowl, and picked up the next one.
Tovala reached for an ear. "Can I help?"
"Uh, sure. Just, um, watch me, and try to clean all the stuff off the corn."
She was cautious at first, making sure she did everything right, but quickly gained confidence and speed. Soon she was deftly stripping off the husks and silk.
He watched, slightly envious. I've been shucking corn for years. After five minutes she's doing it faster, and better.
"What's this?" She held up an ear with long, discolored gouges down the sides.
He scowled. "Bugs ate it, probably corn borers. The whole ear's ruined, just pitch it in the bucket. Hope we don't find any more like that."
They didn't. He carried the bowl to the stove, took the lid off the pot, put the corn in ear by ear, replaced the lid and stepped back. "This is going to take a while. Let's go clear out your room while we wait."
He opened the door and looked around her room, discouraged. "That's a lot of stuff. We're not gonna finish it right now, but we can make a start."
"Oh." She looked over the room full of disorder. "What can we do?"
"First, we decide where to put the bed. Then we'll know where to put everything else."
She wandered around and wound up standing in front of the window. "Here?"
He shook his head. "You won't want it right under the window. Too drafty, and too much noise from outside. How about there?"
They agreed on a spot near the door and cleared a space. Daniel fetched tools from the garage, unpacked the bed frame, looked over the instruction sheet and set to work. She picked up the instructions and watched him assemble the frame, step by step.
They unwrapped the box base and set it onto the frame, then heaved the mattress on top. He brought in a mattress pad, sheets and a blanket and demonstrated How To Make A Bed. When he finished, Tovala grabbed him and they toppled across the bed, laughing.
He kissed her. The rest of the world seemed much less important for a while.
Daniel sat up. "You still need pillows. And pillowcases. Be right back."
He brought a chair in, too, then put a pillowcase on the first pillow. "Here, you think you can get this one?"
"All right." It wasn't as easy as he'd made it look, though.
Meanwhile, he moved more stuff around, set the computer on the floor, put the table near the bed with the chair in front of it, unpacked the computer and set it up. It all looked almost exactly like the setup in his living room.
He reached toward the computer, then stopped. "Here, you do it. Have a seat." After she sat down, he guided her hand. "Feel that button on the back? Right here, that's it. Push it, and hold it for a second or two."
There was a loud musical chord. After a few seconds, the same white shape she'd seen at the computer store appeared on the screen.
"It takes a minute to boot up," he informed her.
She watched until the screen changed, and showed a message.
"Right, now, click the mouse to link it with the computer."
She did. The screen changed again.
"Okay, enter your name, and make up a password. Something you can remember, that nobody else could ever figure out, not even me. Enter the exact same password in both boxes, and let me know when you're done. I'm going to look the other way."
Keys clicked. "Okay, I'm done."
"Good. Now let me get the network set up…" A few more mouse clicks. He pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and referred to it while carefully typing in a long sequence of letters, numbers and symbols, then worked through several more dialog boxes.
"There. I'll copy all the music from my computer later, but for now you can just link to it."
Her face lit up with a big smile. "Really?"
"Yup, listen to whatever you want, but, later. Right now, let's check on supper."
The big pot was making a low rumbling sound. The lid bumped up and down, shooting out puffs of steam. He turned a knob and it settled down. He explained, "When water boils, it's as hot as it can get. Leaving the burner turned up just boils off more steam. It can't make the water any hotter or the food cook any faster, so all it does is waste energy. So, you turn the burner down until it's just barely boiling."
She watched him take two thick pieces of cloth from where they hung under the nearest cupboard, open the oven, pull out the tray and set it on top of the stove. He got a similar tray from another cabinet, unwrapped a package and set a whitish block on the tray, put that in the oven and turned a different knob.
"There. Should be ready in about twenty minutes."
He got a flat can out of the refrigerator and set it on the stove, between two unlit burners. "Might as well warm up Jake's cat food while I'm at it."
They returned to her room. Her wistful look at the computer prompted him to step over and bring it out of sleep mode. "You want to listen to something, huh? Lemme see, how about this one…"
The sound that issued from the computer was strange to her, groups of seven notes all the same except the fifth one alternated between higher and lower. After a few repetitions another sound joined in, then a rhythmic thumping in time with the notes. A woman's voice added words she did not understand:
Hibikiau negai ga ima, mezameteku…
"Is this more Japanese music?"
He nodded. "That's Level-Five Judgelight, by a group called fripSide. It's from the anime A Certain Scientific Railgun."
Her head bobbed to the beat. "I like it."
He grinned. "Great."
They resumed cleaning up.
Daniel stretched, groaned and stopped the music. "I'll have to haul some of this stuff out to the garage, and stash some in the attic. But not right now. It's supper time, so let's eat."
In the kitchen, he opened the oven. "Looks good." He turned the burner and oven off, and used the pieces of cloth again to get the tray out, the block now a golden brown color. "This needs to cool off. In the meantime…"
He put a chunk of cat food in a bowl pulled from the dish rack and took it out to the living room, calling, "Jake! Supper time."
He came back, got out plates and silverware, and served up their meal.
She looked it over as they sat down. "What is all this?" The salads were familiar, but the rest was new to her.
He explained, "I felt lazy, so I got two whole pre-roasted chickens. The store sells them hot and ready to eat, I just put them in the oven on LOW. There's salads, corn-on-the-cob, dinner rolls and potato salad to go with them. You take these," he held up a yellow thing with two sharp metal spikes on one end and demonstrated as he continued, "stick them in the ends of an ear of corn, like this, roll it in this tray with the butter and put some salt on it."
He took several bites. "Just chew the kernels off; the corn cob is not good to eat."
She copied him. "Mmm, this is good."
"Let me know when you're ready for another one and I'll pull it out of the pot. The rolls," he picked one up, "split open along these seams so you can put butter on 'em. And I like to put a little extra mustard on the potato salad."
She was too busy eating to reply. As usual, she ate a lot. He didn't comment, and ended their meal with the cake and pudding dessert from their first night.
After they finished, she offered to help him clean up, and wash the dishes.
"Ub…sure. Thanks."
"I think this is something I should learn to do," she said judiciously.
"Okay. First, we take all the food we didn't eat and put it away for later. It's what we call leftovers."
She helped him store the 'leftovers' in plastic containers, cover them and put them in the refrigerator.
"We'll finish this off in a few days. If you're storing something for more than a week or so, it should go in the freezer. Except eggs. Don't freeze eggs. They burst their shells and make a real mess when they thaw out."
They washed the dishes, with a certain amount of splashing and giggling.
Daniel put the last of the silverware in a dish rack and dried his hands. "Back in a few."
He exited through the laundry room and returned a few minutes later carrying a flat object taller than himself. He took it into her room, pulled it out into a triangular shape and set it near the door.
Another word became clear to her. "That's a ladder, isn't it?"
"That's right." He climbed the ladder, put his hands against the ceiling and pushed a rectangular section of it up, revealing a hole into a dark space.
"The attic gets beastly hot in the daytime, so we should put the stuff up there now. Could you hand me a box? That one, there, would be good."
He took the box, hoisted it through the hole, shoved it aside and called for the next one. When there wasn't room for any more, he crawled up through the hole and she heard dragging and thumping noises from overhead. She took the opportunity to start her new computer playing more music.
Daniel climbed back down, sneezed twice, then coughed a few times. "Ack! Attic dust is the worst! Makes you cough, and sneeze, and itch all over. Be right back."
He paused only long enough to pick up a box and left the room, returning a few minutes later with a plastic bag. He took out something gray with two pink disks attached and answered her curious look with, "It's an industrial dust mask. Stops the sneezing and coughing, at least."
The mask covered his mouth and nose. A strap around his head held it in place. His breathing sounded strange, with clicks and hissing noises. He pointed. "Okay, 'nother box." His voice sounded strange too, sort of muffled and buzzing.
They put up more boxes, he climbed into and out of the attic a few more times to move them around. The piles gradually diminished; the room was less cluttered when he lowered the piece of ceiling back into place. He descended from the ladder one last time, pulled off the mask and wiped sweat off his forehead, leaving a big dirty gray smear. "Whew. Still kinda hot up there. Well, that's about all I can put in the attic for now. Most of the rest belongs in the garage, anyway. Might as well get started."
"Do you have to do that now?" Did he seem overly focused on this cleanup? Almost…obsessive, was that the right word?
"Well, I don't have to, but I kind of want to get it over with." He sounded casual, but she thought she detected a heavier undertone. Almost as if something was more important than he let on.
She decided to go along, at least for now. "All right."
He folded up the ladder and maneuvered it through the door. She picked up a box and followed him. Inside the garage, he pointed to the back. "Just set it down there, against the wall."
While she did that, he stood the ladder against another wall, then laid the plastic bag on on a workbench and set the mask on it. He felt that he should explain. "We breathe out water vapor, all the time. If you put something over your face, the vapor gets trapped and condenses in it. This mask is all wet on the inside now. If I don't dry it out before putting it away, germs and mold will grow on it. Even if it doesn't make me sick the next time I put it on, it's still gross."
A dozen round trips later, Tovala looked around the room and called a halt. "That's enough, isn't it?"
Daniel looked around, too. "Uh, yeah, I guess so. For now, anyway. This should be at least semi-livable."
"Good. Our rings are finished." She held out her right hand, and two glittering silver rings appeared on it.
"Woah…" was all he could manage to rings she'd made were…sensational.
Gleaming solid silver, each set with a large diamond he guesstimated at two or three carats. She'd taken a cue from her earrings; the rings had similar mirror-bright designs cut into the sides in intricate abstract patterns, pleasing to the eye, which seemed to hint at, but not reveal, some deeper meaning. Obviously a matched set, one ring bigger and heavier, the other one somehow more graceful and refined.
Tovala extended her left hand toward Daniel with a smile. The old ring disappeared.
He took the hint, picked up the smaller ring and slid it onto her finger. Next, the ring disappeared from his hand, she put the large ring on his finger and moved in for a kiss.
"Hey, wait, I'm all dirty and sweaty—" he protested, not very hard.
"I don't care." Her kiss made him forget about his grubby condition for a while.
After the kiss she asked, "Are we done for the night? Is there anything else we have to do?" It sounded like the answer she wanted to hear was 'No'.
"Not really. I need to take a shower. And these clothes have to go straight in the laundry."
"Good. I'm ready to stop." She flexed her feet. "And get these boots off. They're not what you'd call 'broken in' yet."
"Uh, no, they wouldn't be."
She sat down and stuck her foot out. "A little help?"
"Sure." He worked the boot off, then the sock, and examined her foot. "Don't see any blisters starting, so that's good." He didn't find any latent blisters on her other foot, either.
She regarded the boots critically. "These boots are not quite right, and I don't just mean the fit. They need to be, um, modified, I think…" Her eyes narrowed slightly and they vanished.
"Modified, how?"
"I'm not sure."
Here we go again, he thought. Rather than ask more questions she couldn't answer, he stood up and stretched his back with a groan. "Well, then, I'm off to the showers. Back in a few."
"See you." A quick shower sounded good to her, too.
Daniel rinsed and refilled the water bowl, washed the cat food dish and scooped the litter box before taking his own shower. The door was closed when he returned. He hesitated, then rapped on it with a knuckle. "Tovala?"
"Just a minute," she called from inside.
Not much more than a minute later, she opened the door. "Daniel."
Tovala's voice had grown even more seductive with experience. So had her smile. Tonight's lingerie was black lace, with pale purple embellishments.
