Chapter 13: Bleak Reminiscences
Three days after the fight, Riza was still reliving it. She would roll it over in her mind: the things he had said, the things she had said. More than once she caught herself changing the words that she had said. After a while, the real quarrel and the fantasy arguments became muddled together so that she was no longer certain who had said what and when. One thing was obvious, though. The encounter had ruined everything.
She had expected Mr. Mustang to be happy for her. After all, he focused all of his energies and aspirations on a bright and beautiful future. With the drab, difficult present to contend with, Riza could not blame him for that. He couldn't face reality the way that she could, and he coped by setting his sights on a distant horizon. It had only seemed logical that he would be pleased to find that she was doing the same thing.
Instead, he had shown nothing but dismay. His harsh words had torn into her, stripping away her excitement and crushing her spirits. He had said terrible things about the Academy, and about the military. He had spoken horribly of Ira Hughes, who had been not only his friend's older brother, but the younger one of Riza's beloved Benjamin. Cognition told her that Mr. Mustang had no way of knowing how the thought of the tinker-boy's death frightened her. In her heart, however, Riza was reminded of her father, who had always seemed to know precisely what to say to shatter her slender self-confidence.
Thus cornered by his words and robbed suddenly and brutally of the first truly happy moment that she had had in months – in years – Riza had lashed out. Like a trapped animal snarling at its predator, she had flown into a rage. Looking back, Riza wanted to die of embarrassment. She had behaved like a child: a spoilt, defiant child throwing a tantrum because a playmate had snatched a toy from her hands. And like a child, she was terrified of her own outburst, as well as ashamed. That wasn't how she normally behaved at all, but disillusionment and desperation had driven her into a fit of uncontrollable rage as the pent-up strains and emotions of the past months had burst horrifically forth from her lips.
No wonder Mr. Mustang had not come back to see her. He probably wanted nothing more to do with her after that disgraceful display. Riza wished that he would come, so that she could apologize for her infantile behaviour and try to explain her position more calmly, but night after night there was no sign of him. She was starting to despair of ever seeing him again.
She was working in her little office on the eleventh day since the altercation with Mr. Mustang. Her calculations were interrupted by a soft knock at the open door. Riza looked up to see Orson leaning against the wall. He was wearing blue coveralls and there was a smudge of oil on his nose. In his hand, he had a bouquet of honeysuckle – not the cultured honeysuckle that was sold in the shop, but wild blossoms like those that had grown in the ditches by the road into Hamner. The sight of them reminded Riza instantly of home – and of a long-forgotten time before her mother's descent into madness, when a happy little girl had gathered handfuls of flowers under the prairie sun.
"G'morning," Orson said.
"Good morning," Riza replied politely. "How was the delivery?"
"Good," grunted the young man. He had taken the flowers out to the Armstrong estate for Captain Armstrong's celebratory ball. The family had spent two hundred thousand sens on them. On flowers alone. It was more money than Riza would earn in a decade of working at this little desk. She knew it was wicked of her, but she could not help feeling just a little envious. She didn't want to be that rich, but she would dearly have loved to have enough money to pay for university, and Mr. Mustang's exam, and maybe a new skirt.
Orson held out the flowers. "These are for you," he said. "I saw 'em while I was driving back, and they looked pretty. Just like you."
Riza found herself blushing a little. "Thank you, that's very kind," she said. "I love honeysuckles."
The thought of being given flowers when she worked in a flower shop suddenly struck Riza as a little funny. In spite of herself, she laughed softly. Orson's happy grin vanished instantly.
"What'sa matter?" he asked. "What's funny? I wasn't trying to be funny."
"Oh, no," Riza said, instantly contrite. She didn't want to hurt his feelings, not when he was being so sweet. "I just... why did you bring me flowers?"
Orson shrugged shyly, twisting one foot against the floor. "You've been sad," he said.
"I guess I have," Riza admitted. "I... I had a fight."
"Did you get hurt?" Orson asked worriedly.
"Not that kind of fight. An argument."
"With who?" he asked, heavy golden brows still knit in concern.
"With a boy – with a man who... with a young..." Riza paused. How could she describe her relationship to Mr. Mustang? They were not family, though they had grown up together. They had ceased to be friends on the day that he had decided to run away without saying goodbye to her. They were no longer colleagues working towards a common goal. What were they? "With a cadet who used to be my father's student. We were fighting because I want to enrol in the Academy and he didn't think I should."
"Miss Livvy went to the 'Cademy," Orson put in. "Mama said she was the youngest girl to do that."
"I know," Riza said, nuzzling the bouquet of wildflowers with the tip of her nose. "That's how I know that I can do it, too."
"I don't want you to," Orson said bluntly, nodding his head in an imperious way. His oddly sloped eyes narrowed in disapproval.
Riza felt a stirring of indignant anger. Did every man have to tell her it was a bad idea? Why couldn't they mind their own business?
"Well, I want to," she said with surprising obduracy.
"But who's gonna do the books, then? Mama's no good at 'em, and Sis is away at school." Orson looked suddenly like a lost little boy. It hadn't taken Riza very long to realize that there was something different about him. He wasn't as sharp as most people, and he couldn't read or write except to sign his name. He was a very good driver, and he could fix just about anything... but sometimes he behaved much younger than his years, and there was a sweetness to him that other boys did not possess.
"I'm not going right away," Riza soothed. "Maybe I won't be able to go at all.
"Good," Orson said. "I don't want you to go. Not ever. You're nice and you're pretty. If you stay, you can meet Sis when she comes home for the holidays!"
"I'd like that," Riza promised.
Orson grinned toothily. "Good," he said happily. "That's real good."
Then he strode off to get back to work, leaving Riza with her columns of numbers and her armful of honeysuckles.
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Orson Oakley loved children. He would let them play in the bed of his truck, and even gave them rides up and down the street. He would save wilted blossoms to give to the little girls, and the boys he would enlist to help him work on the rickety engine of the blue truck. He kept a bag of humbugs in the front pocket of his coveralls to mete out to his little friends – for of course, the children of the neighbourhood loved him, too. Many of them had working mothers who were too busy in the family shop to spend time with their young, and fathers who wore sober moustaches and grim, practical frowns, so Orson's smiling face and boundless patience was treasured by the children. He was really an overgrown child himself, and that made him at once their friend, their mentor and their ally.
Beyond the age of eight or nine, this attitude shifted. Older girls gave Orson a wide berth when he loped down the street, clustering together to whisper and gossip when he was gone. Their male counterparts would tease him, mocking his awkward gait and his deep voice, calling him hateful names, and throwing refuse at the truck that he kept so proudly polished. Working boys were the worst of all. They were hateful bullies, and could be downright cruel and even violent unless Mrs. Oakley was on hand to chase them away with her broom.
So it was that today Riza kept one eye on the two customers browsing in the shop, and one eye on the window. Orson was outside, changing the oil in the truck while he talked to Katrina Harris.
Katrina was his special pet. She was six years old, but a lifetime of poor nutrition had stunted her growth so that she looked much younger. She lived over the butcher shop with her family – seven people crammed into two tiny rooms. There had been eight, but her brother had finally reached that magical sixteenth birthday, enlisted as a private, and been deployed to the western battlefields. Her parents both worked at Amalgamated Auto, which produced most of Amestris' low-end motorcars. She had an older sister, ten years old, who seldom ventured outside, for she cared for the grandparents. Katrina's grandmother was blind, her hands gnarled with arthritis and years of piecework. Her grandfather was dying of the black lung, for he had been a miner. This left Katrina to care for the baby.
His name was Mikey and he was eleven months old. He was in rude health, for by some miracle his mother still had her milk, and she fed him morning and night, supplementing the gruel on which most babies his age subsisted. He was so plump, and Katrina so small, that he was an onerous burden for her thin arms. Though he could walk if she held his chubby hands, he had no shoes. So it was a common sight to see Kat waddling up the street, struggling under the weight of her baby brother.
Now, she was sitting on the curb with Mikey settled between her legs, his back to her stomach. He was playing with the nuts from the engine, which rested in a hub cap that Katrina held. Once in a while, his sister would coo fondly in his ear, but mostly she was occupied in serious discourse with Orson.
The tableau reminded Riza painfully of Benjamin Hughes. The eldest of the six Hughes brothers (Roy's friend Maes was the youngest) had befriended her the summer after her mother's death. Those days had been some of the darkest in Riza's young life, second only to the horrible pain and torment and humiliation that had attended her father's application of the tattoo. She had not understood why her mother was dead, why her home was torn apart, why her father was angry and distant and no longer seemed to love her. Mr. Mustang – who had in those days been Roy, her dear, dear boy and her only playmate – had been growing up so fast, busy with his alchemy and with Maes, with no time for her. Ben had made time. He had played cat's cradle with her, taught her how to move quietly through the forest, how to hunt rabbits and pheasant. Quiet, introspective and sober, his temperament had suited her perfectly.
As the years had passed, Ben's health had deteriorated. He was tormented by his past, by the part he had played in his mother's death and his brother's birth. Those demons had driven him to drink, and the alcohol had closed its iron fist around him. When last they had met, Ben had been struggling to stop drinking, with little success.
Riza wished that he was here in Central, instead of far away in the east somewhere. More than anything, she needed a friend. She was ashamed of this weakness, but in her heart she knew that however strong she tried to be, she was still just a young girl. She missed her friend. She wanted to see Ben again.
There was an indignant shout from the street, and Riza looked up. Orson was backed against the open bonnet of the truck, cornered by three burly boys. They were obviously from the construction site up the street, where a new branch of the Central Bank was being built: they wore hard hats and denim work pants, and their muscular chests were bare. They were leering wickedly at Orson, taunting him in derisive tones that were muffled somewhat by the glass.
Riza ran to the door, ignoring the customer who had just made an inquiry about lilies. She burst onto the sidewalk just as Katrina let out a second shout and sprung onto her skinny legs.
"He ain't!" she sobbed furiously, as the hubcap full of bolts went flying from her hand. "Orson ain't!"
"Sure he is!" one of the big boys snorted. "Retard, retard!"
There were tears in Orson's eyes, but he said nothing. His mother had coached him to ignore his tormenters in the hope that they would go away. Katrina was not so circumspect. She stepped over her baby brother, who was looking around in bewilderment, trying to divine where his toys might have vanished, and pushed the biggest of the boys.
"He ain't!" she cried.
Riza came forward. "Move along, please," she said timidly.
"Who's gonna make us?" one of the bullies sneered. "You?"
"I'm gonna!" Katrina shouted. She pushed again. The young man, obviously annoyed, swatted her. He likely did not mean to hit her hard, but she was so thin that the inertia of the blow sent her sprawling to the pavement with a startled cry.
"Stop that!" Riza yelped in horror. The boy nearest to her grabbed her arm.
"Hey, don't get sore. He's only a retard," he reasoned loathsomely. "Gimme a kiss."
He leaned forward, smacking his lips, and with his other hand he pawed at Riza's waist. She tried to twist away.
"Leave her 'lone!" Orson bellowed. Suddenly he sprung forward, shoving the boy with all his might. Orson was short and stocky, but he was solidly built and strong from toting crates full of stock. He upset the bully's balance, and Riza wrenched her arm free. "Get outta here before my mama comes back!" ordered Orson, pushing the bully again. "You don't hurt Riza, an' you don't push Kat! Get outta here!"
The bullies turned tail and strolled away as quickly as they could without disgracing themselves. Riza clutched her arm, trying to catch her breath. On the pavement, Katrina was shaking and crying, her knees and the palm of her right hand skinned and bloodied. Little Mikey began to wail, because he was frightened by the shouting and his big sister was crying and his bolts were gone.
Riza picked him up, jiggling him against her hip. "Are you hurt badly, Katrina?" she asked, trying desperately to sound calm. She could still feel the place where the youth had grabbed her, but Mikey was batting it contentedly, and that seemed to make it feel better.
Kat shook her head, but she was still crying softly. Orson knelt down beside her.
"Don't cry," he begged. "Don't cry, Kat."
"You ain't," she blubbered. "You ain't a retard."
Orson grinned sheepishly. "Yeah, I am," he said. "Just a little bit. I can't read or write. I ain't smart like Sis and Riza. And you. Hey, Kat, I bet you could learn to read."
Kat shook her head. "Got nobody to teach me," she said. "I can't go to school."
Orson considered this. "Maybe Riza could teach you," he said. "Hey, Riza? Could you teach Kat her letters?"
"I'd like to," Riza said, swinging back and forth so that the baby gurgled happily; "but I have work to do."
"Mama'd give you time," Orson said, grinning enthusiastically. His altercation with the other boys was all but forgotten. "I bet Mama'd pay you for it, too. We'll ask her. When she gets back from errands, we'll ask her."
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Mrs. Oakley, amazingly, approved of the idea. Each afternoon, Kat would come by the store with baby Mikey, and Riza would sit with her for an hour, teaching her her letters. Kat was a bright child, and easily engaged. She learned quickly. Mrs. Oakley would feed her little sandwiches and a big glass of milk, and she bought baby biscuits for Mikey, too.
It was a lovely break from the accounting work, and somehow Mrs. Oakley found an extra twenty-five sens a week, which she called Kat's tuition. That money helped to buy food, but more important was the change in pace. Riza loved the baby, with his fat little feet and his endless smiles. And she loved teaching Katrina, who was so sweet and clever, and who reminded her of what she once had been, long ago before her father had forced her to change into something else.
That week, Riza wrote a letter and sent it off to South City, where Eli Hughes worked. Maybe he would be able to get it to Ben. She wished desperately that he would write to her. Well, have Gareth write to her, for Ben had never been to school and was almost illiterate. Central was too far out of the way for him ever to visit her, but Riza waited every day, hoping that he would write.
Most of all, though, she wished that Mr. Mustang would come to visit her in the night again, as he had been wont to do before she had driven him away with her childish tantrum.
