Cherished
"We cherish our friends not for their ability to amuse us, but for ours to be amused by them."
~Evelyn Waugh
"And then he said: 'I'm sorry I let you down.' Can you believe the nerve?" Rebecca cried. She flung herself dramatically onto Riza's bed, rumpling the bedclothes and knocking off a pillow in the process.
Riza didn't really mind. It was a vast improvement over the pacing, which had been incredibly distracting. Especially when one had a heated electric appliance in hand.
"At least he had the guts to tell you to your face, rather than let you find out from someone else. And he did say he was sorry," she reasoned, carefully running her iron across a wrinkled pair of slacks. Rebecca huffed loudly and rolled over onto her stomach.
"I know," she groaned. "I want to be furious, but the scum-sucking bastard is actually trying to do the right thing…I can't even be pissed off, because he's being so damned noble about everything! It's not fair!" Riza bit back a chuckle.
"The least he could do is behave like a cad so that you could have the satisfaction of being the morally superior one," she teased gently.
"Yes, exactly!" Rebecca cried, in a voice slightly muffled from the way her face was pressed against the mattress. Riza spared a glance at the clock.
"That's time," she said softly. Rebecca let out a heavy sigh.
"Okay. Thanks. I'm all done, now."
"You don't have to impose a time limit on yourself," Riza said, resuming her ironing. "I wouldn't mind if you wanted to keep discussing it."
"You mean keep whining about it," Rebecca replied with a rueful grin. "But no, having a self-imposed time limit actually helps," she admitted. "You're far too kind to interrupt me otherwise, and I don't want all of our conversations to be dominated by my pathetic love life. Besides, this way I can't dwell on it too much."
As she spoke, Rebecca rolled herself halfway off the bed, clinging to the edge as she reached for the pillow she'd knocked to the ground. It was, of course, too far away, so she finally dropped down onto the floor with a thud. Just after she snagged the wayward pillow, something under Riza's bed caught her eye, and she froze in the act of pushing herself to her knees.
"When did I tear this sleeve...?" Riza was muttering under her breath, frowning down at one of her white uniform blouses. Realizing that Rebecca had gone oddly silent, she looked over at the spot her friend had lately been occupying. "Catalina? You all right down there?" Riza asked, craning her neck to see around the far end of the bed.
"Yeah, fine, sorry," Rebecca said, popping back into view as she finally pulled herself upright. "I was just wondering what that thing under your bed was."
"Under my—? Oh...that's my treasure box," Riza confessed.
"Treasure box?" Rebecca repeated with interest, eyes lighting up. Riza flushed slightly.
"I know it's a little childish of me," she acknowledged. "But…there are a few mementos I like to keep close to me. They aren't valuable, or anything, I just didn't want to leave them back home when I left."
Rebecca was still kneeling at the side of the bed, and her eyes drifted downwards and to the left as her friend spoke. Her curiosity was blatantly obvious.
"Yes, you can rummage through it, if you like," Riza said, amused. "But only after you hand me my sewing kit, so I can fix this tear. Bottom drawer, on the left," she added, pointing at her desk.
Rebecca bounced to her feet at once. With the air of a cat pouncing on a mouse, she unearthed the kit from the depths of the desk drawer in mere seconds.
"Ta-dah!" she cried, beaming as she presented it to her friend. Riza had to laugh.
"Thank you...you know, it's really not that exciting. Don't get your hopes up too high," she cautioned.
Rebecca ignored her and dove under the bed again, while Riza sat at her desk and calmly set about threading a needle. Settling back on the end of the bed cross-legged, Rebecca examined her find with great interest.
The treasure box certainly didn't look like anything special. It was a nondescript, rectangular metal box, about five inches deep and roughly the length and width of a standard sheet of paper. Rebecca tugged at the lid expectantly, and frowned when it didn't budge. Before she could do more than pout, though, a small key landed on the bed beside her. She glanced up to see Riza's faint smile, although her attention was already back on her mending. Rebecca inserted the key into the lock almost reverently.
Inside, Rebecca found a few photographs and an odd assortment of seemingly worthless trinkets, along with some folded-up papers down at the bottom. She went for the photos first.
The first one she picked up was of a little blonde girl sitting on a man's knee. Riza and her father, Rebecca assumed, given that the little girl looked like a miniature version of her friend, ribbons and curls notwithstanding. There wasn't much of a family resemblance. But it was a charming picture: the father-daughter pair looked like they'd been laughing just a moment before the photo was snapped, all bright eyes and wide grins. Rebecca smiled down at them and then carefully set the photo aside.
The next one was a wedding photo. The bride was ducking her head shyly and peeking up at the camera from beneath her lashes, clutching a bouquet of wildflowers to her breast with one hand and her new husband's arm with the other. But wait a moment...the bride looked almost exactly like Riza. So much so that it couldn't be anyone other than her mother. But the serious man standing beside her was definitely not the same person in the first photo. Holding them side by side, Rebecca wondered who the man in the first one was, laughing so cheerfully with little Riza on his knee. Perhaps a beloved uncle? Or a close friend of the family? Oh, that could be it! Hadn't Riza said an old family friend had encouraged her to join the military, back when the girls had first met? And this man was wearing a military uniform, so that certainly fit.
Appeased, Rebecca turned her attention back to the wedding photo and studied the groom, who must be Riza's father. Although he seemed very solemn at first glance, Rebecca recognized the faint smile on his lips - his daughter smiled in exactly the same way when she was quietly pleased about something. Well, it certainly explained where her reserve had come from, Rebecca thought with a grin. But, wow, the resemblance to her mother was...uncanny. If she hadn't known better, Rebecca would have sworn that it was her friend's face smiling out at her. Tearing her eyes away at last, she picked up the third and final photo.
This one was of a very young Riza and her mother. The older woman was beaming at the camera, practically radiating joy and love. The little girl held a single wilted daisy in one chubby fist and clutched at her mother's dress with the other. Her mother had a basket full of flowers over one arm, and was holding a wide-brimmed hat to her head with the other hand, as if to secure it against a breeze. The edges of this particular photo seemed more worn than the others, leading Rebecca to believe that it had been handled far more frequently. Remembering that the smiling woman had died only a few years after the photo had been taken, Rebecca bit her lip and replaced it very gently with the others.
Moving on to the assorted knickknacks, Rebecca examined each one in quick, slightly puzzled succession: a key on a long silver chain, a rather beautiful set of hand-painted nesting dolls, a dried rose, a slightly battered volume of poetry written in a foreign language, an origami flower, and a slender metal rod. The last item was the most curious. The rod was no thicker than the lead in a pencil, and Rebecca could not think why it looked familiar.
"Say, Riza," she began to ask, holding it up.
"It's a sparkler," Riza supplied.
Rebecca realized with a start that Riza was watching her. With an elbow on her desk, and her chin in her hand, she had clearly finished her sewing some time ago.
"At least, it was," Riza was saying. "It's a few years old, now, and hasn't been stored properly, so I don't know whether it would still work. But it was the last one in the box. I couldn't bring myself to light it," she explained. Her eyes had gone slightly dreamy.
"A solstice firework, then?" Rebecca asked. Riza nodded. "I thought that was mostly a Central City tradition. Did your hometown do the fireworks shows and things too?"
"No," Riza replied, smiling. "I'm from a farming town, so we always made a much bigger deal over the autumn harvest celebration. But a friend of mine brought those back from Central City one year. They were the first fireworks I'd ever seen in person."
"Aw, that sounds like a happy childhood memory," Rebecca said with delight. "Come tell me about these other things," she added, scooting back a bit to make room. Riza shook her head, even as she settled on the foot of the bed.
"There's not much to tell, really..." she began. Rebecca glared at her. "No, there really isn't! They're just...mementos of home. I mean...here, this one's a key to the basement of my house," she said, pointing to the silver chain. "The rose is from my mother's garden, the paper zinnia was given to me by an acquaintance the day I left," she said, ticking the items off one by one. "These letters are from her as well...she likes to keep me up to date with the latest happenings back home."
"And this?" Rebecca prompted, holding up the battered little book bound in scarred calfskin.
"A volume of poetry by a Cretan poet called Baudelaire. It was one of my father's favorites; I read it to him sometimes when he was ill."
"You can read Cretan?" Rebecca asked, incredulous.
"Mm-hm. I'm not fluent, mind you, but my Cretan is passable. I do a bit better with Aerugonian, to be honest."
"Just when you think you know a person," Rebecca murmured in awe. "What other languages do you speak?!" Riza flushed a little and shrugged one shoulder.
"A little bit of Drachman. I doubt I'll ever need to know it, but I found it fascinating to learn."
"Wow..." Rebecca breathed. "Wait. Ok. Can we start over? Let's go back to the key. Why do you have a key to your basement on a necklace?" Riza plucked the necklace out of the box and got that faraway look in her eyes again.
"I don't trust easily," she said after a moment.
"Understatement of the year," Rebecca nodded. Riza smacked her arm lightly.
"And neither did my father," she went on, as though Rebecca hadn't spoken. "At times, he was downright paranoid, convinced that he had to guard his secrets; that everyone was after what belonged to him. Seeing him like that, either unwilling or unable to place his confidence in the people closest to him..." she trailed off.
"It was hard for you," Rebecca suggested gently.
"It was painful," Riza agreed. "Anyway, the basement was his workspace, and he always, always kept the door locked. Then, late one night, he had an accident. He'd been working down there for several days straight, without stopping to eat or rest. And so he had a dizzy spell, which caused him to fall and hit his head. The door was locked from the inside, and there was no other key but his. I couldn't get to him."
"Oh my God," Rebecca whispered, horrified.
"Exactly," Riza said grimly. "In the end, my friend was able to help me break into the basement, and my father was fine except for a bump on the head and some mild dehydration. But if I hadn't heard him fall…or if my friend hadn't been there…" she sighed. "I had a spare key made as soon as possible. And I keep it close as a sort of reminder that shutting everyone out can be just as dangerous as blind trust."
As she ran her thumb over the key, Riza thought about that terrible night, and about the young man who had proven himself trustworthy again and again and again.
"That was...much heavier than I expected," Rebecca said, blinking. "I thought you called this a treasure box, not a painful-memories-that-became-life-lessons box."
"Sorry," Riza said, laughing gently. "But that's the only one with a depressing moral lesson attached, I swear. Pick another," she offered.
"You sure?" Rebecca asked, warily. She didn't want her idle curiosity to dredge up any other painful memories.
"Go on," Riza encouraged, still smiling. Rebecca hesitated, and then gingerly lifted the dried rose.
"So…you're sure this wasn't a gift from a lover?" she asked, hopefully. Riza chuckled.
"Well, in a manner of speaking, but not from one of mine," she teased. Rebecca raised an eyebrow. "I told you my mother kept a rose garden? Back when they were first married, my father used to travel a lot for his work. He brought back a different variety of rose from every place he visited, for her to plant in her garden," Riza explained. "This was her favorite variety, a yellow bloom with bright pink tips."
"Oh, I know the kind you mean," Rebecca said. "They really are beautiful; she had good taste. Okay, so we've done the cautionary tale and the keepsake of your mum…so how about this one?" she asked, pointing at the origami flower.
"A parting gift from the postmistress in my home town," Riza explained. "Origami is a hobby of hers. She makes all kinds of flowers and animals and things; everyone loves them. She and her husband sell them for a few pennies apiece at the Harvest Festival each year."
"Does she happen to know anything about the language of flowers?" Rebecca asked, her grin brightening.
"Yes," Riza replied, surprised. "That's another one of her hobbies. How'd you know?"
"You said it was a zinnia, before. She told you what kind of flower this was when she gave it to you, right?"
"I…yes, she did, come to think of it. I didn't bother to question why she was so particular about it."
"Zinnias, in the language of flowers, mean 'remembrance of an absent friend,'" Rebecca explained. "She wanted you to think about your friends back home. Or to know that they were thinking of you. Or possibly both."
"I should've known it was something like that," Riza said, smiling fondly. "Well, now I'm awfully glad I remembered to send a card on her birthday this year."
"Man, you have such awesome neighbors," Rebecca pouted. "I doubt any of mine even knew my name, let alone my birthday. In fact, they probably never even noticed when I left home for the Academy," she complained.
"Oh, somehow I doubt that," Riza said, giggling. "They must have wondered why the neighborhood was suddenly so much quieter."
She just managed to dodge the much-abused pillow that was launched at her face.
"I guess you have a point, though," Rebecca conceded, returning the origami flower to the box. "Anyone as fabulous as I am is bound to be missed when she's not around," she added loftily. "Okay, we already went over your father's book and the firework, so that just leaves…this!" Rebecca reached for the nesting dolls and examined them more closely. "These are amazing; I've never seen a set of nesting dolls like this before!"
"Aren't they lovely? These were one of the prizes from a Harvest Festival game, one year."
"Oh, so you won them? Must have been some game," Rebecca said, admiring the detail on the tiny innermost figure.
"Actually...I didn't win them. They were given to me," Riza admitted, truthfully. Rebecca's head snapped up.
"Given to you?" she repeated, eyes shining. "Given to you by a boy? Omigod, so was it your first date? And he won a prize for you, too…and you've kept it with all your other important keepsakes! Aww, Riza, you're so damn cute!" Rebecca squealed, bouncing up and down.
"How could you possibly—?" Riza started to ask, shocked.
"You know how sharks can smell blood in the water from, like, a mile away?" Rebecca asked. "It's kinda like that. So come on! Tell me all about this festival date! What was his name?"
"It wasn't a date," Riza protested, feebly. "We just went as friends...and we had a lot of fun," she admitted, blushing a little at the memory.
"You're blushing," Rebecca pointed out mischievously. "Why all the blushing, Miss we-just-went-as-friends? Hm? What aren't you telling me?"
"Nothing!" Riza cried. Her cheeks were still pink. "I-it was a festival! We did festival-related things!"
"Like winning games and giving the prizes to your date," Rebecca nodded sagely.
"No, like competing against a friend to see which of us was better at darts," Riza corrected her. "And like trying all sorts of different festival foods, and dancing, and shopping for overpriced souvenirs together."
"Dancing?" Rebecca echoed. Riza swore inwardly. She hadn't intended to reveal that…but it was too late now.
"So...it may have been the friend I've mentioned before," she admitted, suddenly nervous. "And it may also have been the same night he taught me how to dance."
Rebecca just stared at her, mouth slightly agape.
"You are literally the cutest thing ever," she finally said. "You and your adorable, squishy little romantic underbelly! I could just eat you alive!"
"Stop it!" Riza laughed, hiding her crimson face in her hands. "See if I ever tell you anything again!"
With a sort of a flying tackle, Rebecca dragged Riza into one of her infamous bear hugs. Riza struggled valiantly, but Rebecca was a determined creature, and in the end both girls ended up on the floor in a tangle of limbs, giggling and out of breath.
"You…are a madwoman," Riza gasped out, between breaths.
"And you're…a hopeless…romantic," Rebecca panted. "But don't worry…your secret's…safe with me."
"Still not...telling you...his name," Riza added a beat later.
"Damn!"
A.N. A little something light and fluffy before I start with the angst :) I apologize if it got a bit exposition-y, but I promise I'm going somewhere with all of this!
Readers of 'Espionage' may recognize some of the items in Riza's memory box...and the first photo is actually of Grumman and his daughter (mentioned in the final chapter of 'Espionage' and again in 'Infinite Arms'), but Rebecca won't figure that out until she actually meets him.
As always, feedback is welcomed and appreciated! Thanks for reading!
xoxo Janie