"Hold that for me, please," Hadrian called from halfway down the hall as Cara got on the elevator. She hesitated a moment then placed her hand across the sliding panels.
He jogged to catch the elevator down and thanked her as he boarded the car. She murmured a polite response and looked straight ahead as the doors closed.
"How has your day been?" he asked her.
"Fine," she replied.
"Have plans for tonight?"
"I'm busy," she answered immediately.
He smiled at her defensive reaction. It only provided more of a challenge than the pushover receptionist at the front desk. "I didn't mean that as a pick-up line. It was simple curiosity. I wondered what else you did, other than repairing computers. I thought maybe you could give me some ideas of things to do."
"I've been out of circulation recently, so I don't really know what's available anymore."
"That's too bad. Maybe I can give you some ideas when I find them then," he told her as the elevator doors opened on the lobby.
"If I need them I'll be sure to ask," she answered as she exited the elevator.
"Wait." Hadrian caught her lightly by the upper arm before she escaped. "Have I offended you somehow?" He did not think he had, but on the off chance that he had, it paid to know so he could make up for it and avoid it in the future.
"No, I'm just not interested. Just so we understand each other."
"I'm not selling." He released her arm.
"But Maddie is." Cara turned and walked toward the front doors.
"No one can sell you something you don't want to buy."
"But they can make life hell trying to pitch it, trust me," she answered, hitting the push bar on the glass door hard.
"What do we need to do to get rid of her?"
Cara stopped on the broad sidewalk, turned, and looked at him, shielding her eyes against the setting sun. "What do you mean?"
"I mean, you obviously feel threatened by what she's doing and I can't talk to you while you feel threatened, so we need to do something about it."
"I've tried telling her and she hasn't stopped. Short of me getting married or moving to another state, I don't know what would stop her."
"I'll see if I can think of something," he told her and walked off to his car.
Hadrian got in his car and congratulated himself on how well he had handled things. In one sentence he had gone from being the enemy to being an ally. Now what could be done about Maddie that would satisfy Cara?
Cara was halfway home before she realized what he had said. If he wasn't selling, as he put it, why did he want to talk to her so badly?
.….
On Friday Cara came back to her desk before lunch and checked her voice mail for messages. There were several of the usual calls from people wanting priority service for a minor problem. And there was one from Maddie.
"Hey, Cara. This is Maddie. I won't be able to stop by early to get you for lunch. I have to finish something up first. I'll meet you down in the lobby. Hope you don't mind. Um, see you then."
"No problem here," Cara said to no one in particular as she deleted the message.
Cara dawdled in the office, filling out paperwork and tidying her desk until the lunch hour approached. She had no desire to get there early. Finally at a few minutes before noon she took her purse out of her desk drawer, grabbed her coat, and headed down to the lobby.
When she got off the elevator, Hadrian was waiting for her.
"Where's Maddie?" she asked him. "I didn't expect her to be late."
"She's not late. She isn't coming. She called me and said something came up and she wouldn't be able to make it. She told me she called you."
"Yeah, she did. She left a message telling me she'd meet me down here, not that she wasn't coming. When I see her again..." Cara remembered their conversation of a few days ago. "Did she really call you? You didn't call her to get rid of her? You didn't put her up to it?"
"No, she called me of her own accord. Whatever her idea is, it's entirely her own."
"That does it for lunch then. See you next week."
"Why?"
"You needed both our opinions. Maddie's not here. What's the point?"
"We can still go. I'll just track her down later. Truthfully, her input has not been of great value so far anyway."
Cara laughed. "She's a pretty average example of the users around here. She might take it a little more personally than most, but she has the same problems as everyone else."
"How do you feel about Chinese for lunch? It's one of the decent places I've found and can get to."
Cara remained speechless, suddenly finding she had been herded out the front doors and towards his car. He opened the car door for her and waited for her to get in. "Watch your head," he warned. He closed the door behind her and walked over to his side of the car.
They drove in silence for the few minutes it took to reach the Chinese restaurant. They had beaten the lunch rush and the hostess seated them quickly.
Hadrian asked what she wanted to eat and when the waitress returned with their drinks he ordered for them both – in Chinese. The waitress smiled, wrote it down and nodded, then left.
"Where did you learn Chinese?" Cara asked him.
"In China. I travel a lot, so I've picked up several languages."
"Oh, I see."
They made small talk about computers for a while, waiting for their food to arrive. Cara gave him her opinions about various components and systems he was considering.
The meal arrived and Cara reached for her fork.
"You don't use chopsticks? I thought for certain you would be an expert," Hadrian commented as he brandished a pair of his own.
"I never bothered to learn. It's quicker to just eat it with a fork," Cara replied.
"You should learn. It's easy really. Here, try it." He held out a set wrapped in paper.
"Really, I'd rather just eat my meal."
"I insist. Put down that fork before I have to take it away from you."
Reluctantly Cara set down her fork and took the pair of chopsticks.
"First you unwrap them and snap them apart."
Cara did as instructed.
"Now take one and lay it between your thumb and index finger and resting on your third finger. Like this." He held his up as an example. "Then you take the other one and lay it over your index finger and hold it with your thumb. See? That's the one that will move. The other one you hold still and hold things against it with the top one. Now pick something up."
Cara wiggled her chopsticks experimentally then aimed for a piece of her cashew chicken. She grasped a piece of chicken precariously and put it in her mouth, quickly ducking her head to meet it halfway before she dropped it.
"There, see? It's not that hard."
"But a fork is easier," Cara said, putting down the sticks and looking for hers. The utensil had disappeared. "You stole my fork! Give it back!"
Hadrian merely took a bite of his Szechuan beef and smiled. Cara saw she had no chance of her getting her fork back any time soon and picked up her chopsticks again, muttering, "You're evil." Cara surveyed her plate. She had to order something that was diced. "It's going to take me forever to eat with these. I'll starve."
"Motivation."
"Okay, how do you eat the rice?"
"Why do you think it's sticky? You pick up a clump of it just like anything else."
Cara started the arduous task of feeding herself, while Hadrian carried the conversation. She listened to him talk about his travels while she fought with the chicken, nuts, and celery on her plate. She gathered from the way he talked that he had been just about everywhere. You name it, he had seen it. If he had not traveled there for business, his family lived there.
Finally, Cara finished with her meal. She hadn't had enough to eat, but she had run out of patience. Hadrian asked for the check and, when the waitress returned with it, they opened their fortune cookies.
Hadrian read his first. "Your current plans will succeed if they are rethought." He looked at Cara expectantly waiting for her to share hers.
Cara unfolded the slip of paper and read, " 9 16 24 31 39 45."
Hadrian laughed, "No, not that side. Read the other side."
Cara turned the paper over. "You will meet the pan of your dreams."
"Quit fooling around."
"That's what it says. Honest!" She showed him the slip of paper.
"It's obviously a typo," he dismissed.
"Or maybe I'll take up gourmet cooking as a hobby." Cara looked at her watch. "We'd better be getting back."
Hadrian drove them back to work with speed enough to have Cara clutching at door handles. She gratefully got out of the car before he opened the door for her again and started walking inside.
Hadrian locked his car and set the alarm, then slowly followed her inside, playing with his keys as he watched her hurry against the rising wind. He smiled.
.….
"Brrr, it's cold out there."
"Yeah," Alia agreed with Cara as she came in from outside. "They said a front would be coming through early this afternoon and I guess it did."
"Yeah, now that you mention it, it was getting windy coming back from lunch today," Cara said as she took off her coat and hung it up.
"So how was your lunch meeting today? Oh, be careful going in the bathroom."
"Why?"
"You'll see. Just be careful opening the door."
"All right." Cara had to go see what was in there now, her curiosity piqued. She carefully opened the door, slipped inside, and shut it behind her. "Alia!" she groaned after a moment. "You didn't! How could you? It's not allowed."
"No, I didn't," Alia answered her once Cara came out into the kitchen where she was cooking. "It's not staying long. Only until I can give it away. It's a surprise."
"It better not be staying long."
"What is not staying long?"
"You?" Cara asked Jareth hopefully as he came around the corner into the kitchen. "I suppose you're here for the next episode in the saga of 'Will Cara Ever Get Married?'"
"Of course," Jareth answered, munching on a carrot stick he stole from Alia. "I do hope you won't disappoint me this time."
"Yeah, let's hear it. You didn't answer me before," Alia added.
"Well, for starters Maddie weaseled out of it without telling me, so I had to go with him alone. Then we went to a Chinese restaurant and he stole my fork and made me eat with chopsticks."
"Poor baby," empathized Jareth insincerely.
"Well, it took forever and my hand started to cramp. It was –"
"– not fair?" suggested Jareth.
"No, I was going to say that it was rude of him to steal my fork like that."
"Why didn't you ask for another one?" asked Alia.
Cara paused and frowned. "I don't know. It didn't occur to me."
"It was good practice in manual dexterity for you," Jareth told her. "You haven't practiced all week, have you?"
"What's he talking about?" Alia asked Cara.
"After you and Tieran left last week he started teaching me how to manipulate crystal balls like he does. And no, I haven't been practicing," she told him. "It's a little hard to practice without a ball. You took yours with you."
Jareth produced a crystal for her and tossed it to her.
"I haven't gotten very far really," she said standing up in the middle of the kitchen. "See, he says you start by learning to catch it like this. Then you flip it like this, but you get so good at it that really rolls instead of becoming airborne." Cara demonstrated by placing the ball on the back of her hand and tossing it up in the air, trying to catch it in the palm of the same hand. Instead, it soared through the air in a beautiful arc and landed with a plop in the pot of soup Alia was fixing on the stove.
Cara looked warily in the pot and said quietly, "I'm not very good yet."
Jareth collapsed into fits of laughter in his chair at the kitchen table.
Cara rounded on him, offended. "And I suppose you never did anything like that when you started out?"
"I never...practiced...in a...kitchen," he panted as he gasped for breath and shook his head.
"Was this thing clean?" Alia asked as she held out the crystal in a ladle, draped with a limp onion.
Jareth managed to control himself. "As clean as Cara's hands were."
"I just washed them."
"That's good, because this is dinner. Here, take it." Alia shoved it at Cara. "And get out of the kitchen with it."
Cara took the ladle, rinsed it off in the sink, grabbed a few paper towels and retreated to the couch in the living room. Jareth followed her.
"It wasn't that funny," she sulked.
"Oh, but it was."
"I'm beginning to really dislike Fridays. They used to be a day I looked forward to – now I dread them. The only good thing about them is that I get a free lunch. And look at me! I'm turning into a wimp who can't think for herself."
"You are not," Alia said, drying her hands on a towel as she came in from the kitchen and sat down. "You can't be perfect all the time. No one can."
"Except me, of course."
"Who asked you?" said Cara as she grabbed the towel from Alia and threw it at Jareth.
That reminded Alia of something she needed to ask Cara and she changed the subject. "What are you going to do for Christmas?"
"You, too? Oh, you mean for the holiday."
"Yeah, what'd you think I meant?"
"That party at work. Maddie brings it up regularly. I don't know. Stay here I suppose. What are you doing?"
"My parents called today wanting to know if I'm coming home and who I'm bringing. Did you want to come?"
Cara sighed, "As much as I like your family, Alia, I don't feel up to a big family thing. I think I'll stay here. You don't need me to drive with you do you?"
"No, I'll manage."
A thought occurred to Cara. "Do they know about Tieran yet?"
"No," Alia got up to take the towel back out to the kitchen. "I mean it's not exactly something that comes up in conversation. 'Oh, by the way, Mom, I met a guy in this land where they have dragons and genies and he does magic.' They'd think I'd lost it," she finished as she sat back down.
"You wouldn't have to tell them that. You could just mention you'd found a guy you liked."
"Someone... unusual," added Jareth.
"Yeah, or a foreigner. Did you even mention your stay in the hospital after the costume party?"
"No, they didn't ask."
"What'd you expect? Them to say 'Have you been in the hospital recently, dear?'"
"No, of course not. But it only would have worried them and then I would have had to explain everything, so I didn't bring it up."
"Well, you'd better mention Tieran before you go. Especially if he's going to go with you. Is he?"
"I haven't asked him yet. I haven't decided if I will. They just called today."
"It is a big decision – taking someone home to meet your parents," commented Jareth.
"What would you know about it?" Cara asked him.
"Nothing really. Only what I've read."
Cara turned back to Alia. "You'd better ask him soon. He might have plans."
"Tieran? Doing what exactly?" Jareth scoffed.
"And I suppose you do have plans?" asked Cara.
"No, am I invited?"
"Not in a million years," Alia said. "You'd never blend in."
"And what would all your Listians do without you?" Cara added.
.….
"And a double word score is 64," Jareth finished with satisfaction.
"Jareth, 'xyster' is not a word," complained Alia.
"I am afraid it is," Tieran said from behind her.
"Tieran!" Alia exclaimed. "When did you get here?"
"I just arrived. It is a word."
"Yeah, he's right. It's here in the dictionary. Says it's obsolete. 'A surgical instrument for scraping bones.' Ugh. Where'd you pick that up, Jareth?" Cara asked with a grimace.
"Here and there," Jareth answered smugly.
"Did you want to play, Tieran?" Cara asked. "We could start a new game. Jareth's pretty much won this one already anyway."
"Oh, I have something for you," Alia said suddenly and hopped out of her chair.
"Yeah. Give it to him, already. I want my bathroom back," Cara added when she saw Alia heading for the closed bathroom door.
Alia opened the door just wide enough to admit her as she stepped through sideways and closed it behind her.
Tieran looked at Cara questioningly. "What is it?"
"You'll see. I'm not going to ruin the surprise," Cara answered as she cleared the tiles from the board and turned them over to mix and deal them again.
"I have no idea," Jareth shrugged when Tieran turned to him.
When Alia showed no signs of reappearing after a minute, Tieran sat down in the chair she had vacated and made himself comfortable. Cara dealt out the tiles and they started a new game.
"How did you convince Jareth to play a game with you?" he asked Cara.
"We appealed to his competitive nature. We've been stuck in this apartment all weekend long because of the icy weather. We had to do something. Scrabble isn't much fun with only two players so when he showed up again we nabbed him."
On their second word around, Alia reappeared from the bathroom carrying a very large, dark blue ribbon bow. Attached to the bow was a small pale kitten, which she presented to Tieran.
"Merry Christmas!"
Tieran stared at the tiny feline, speechless.
"Well, go ahead take him."
"Why?" he finally asked as he took the kitten from Alia.
Jareth supplied an answer as he drew a tile, "It's a Christmas present. You know, the holiday from this world where people exchange gifts?"
"You seemed like a cat person and he reminded me of you," Alia added.
"A cat?" Tieran was nonplussed.
"Mm-hmm. Look at his eyes, they're blue."
Tieran turned the kitten so he could see its face beyond the bow. The kitten owned a pair of the deepest blue eyes he had seen in a cat. "So they are. 'He's got my eyes. I think I'll call him Jareth,'" he quoted with a smirk.
"Please, not on my account," Jareth said emphatically, rearranging the tiles on the rack in front of him.
"What? Don't you like cats, Jareth?" Cara teased. "I thought that was just another List invention."
"I don't mind cats," he answered, taking the kitten from Tieran, "but at last count, I had approximately a dozen of them named after me. Enough is enough."
"Then he will just have to wait until a name suggests itself," Tieran said. "Two Jareths running around would be too confusing in any case."
"Alia's right, he does seem to have your eyes, Tieran," Jareth commented as he held the kitten up in front of his face to examine him. The kitten squirmed a little and took a swat at Jareth's nose in protest at being passed around and held in that position. Jareth tucked him against his chest before he could get loose or do any damage and removed the large bow from around his neck.
"With eyes like that he has to be part Siamese, which means he may change colors yet," said Alia. "Maybe once he does, a name will come up."
The kitten, oblivious to this discussion, romped across the couch in pursuit of the ribbon Jareth trailed in front of him.
"Maybe you should have gotten Jareth one, too, Alia," Cara said. "He seems to be enjoying him more than Tieran."
"Have mercy on the poor little creature," Jareth said as he quickly handed the ribbon to Tieran. "Can you imagine what the goblins would do to him? A kitten would not have a chance in my castle." As if for emphasis, the kitten crouched on the cushion, pinned his ears flat against his skull, and bared his tiny teeth, hissing. "You see, he agrees with me."
"It looks more like he begs to differ to me," Cara disagreed. "He looks like he thinks he's ready to take on anything." Tieran tossed the end of the ribbon at the kitten, who pounced on it and savaged it viciously.
"What's gotten into him?" Cara asked rhetorically. The kitten tired of the ribbon abruptly and began to calmly groom himself. "Weird cat."
Scrabble is a registered trade mark of Hasbro Inc., in America anyway. In Canada it's owned by Hasbro Canada Corporation and everywhere else it's J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc., neither of whom have anything to do with either of the Hasbros oddly enough. shrugs The things you learn on websites. And in case anyone's forgotten, Labyrinth and Jareth belong to the Jim Henson Company.