Chapter 21
When you make a promise to someone, you're being a little unreasonable. The world is complex. Not like furniture-assembling complex, or tax form complex, but building-scale-models-of-the-Spanish-Armada-from-memory-with-a-toothpick-attached-to-one-toe-while-copying-the-O.E.D.-backwards-with-the-wrong-hand-and-defending-yourself-with-the-other-from-a-rabid-monkey-in-chainmail-armed-with-darts-and-also-singing-the-middle-bit-from-Bohemian-Rhapsody-but-only-every-other-word-and-just-the-parts-sung-by-the-drummer-with-the-very-high-voice complex, only a bit worse. That's the equivalent of trying to manage a single leaf falling from a tree from the point of view of the world, and even then from only a few seconds before it happens when it's more or less a foregone conclusion at that point. But the thing about it is, things happen in the world without the world thinking about it. The world is not encumbered by knowing. Tiny unknowable things are happening all around you, little particles colliding and combining and interacting with each other, and if there are enough of them you might, say, change your mind about going to the store to buy food for dinner and instead go to a pub where you bump into someone on the way in and they think the person next to you did it and look up in anger only to meet the gaze of someone they find irresistible and later that week manage to work up the courage to speak to them and then they discover they have a lot in common what with the sports enthusiasm and similar speech defects and what have you and after a few pints they go back to someone's flat to see if other things fit together as well and discover that to the great delight of one and chagrin of the other there are two of the same organs present between them and then the one with chagrin figures "well, we do have the similar speech issues and everything," and things go like they might and the next time you're in the pub you bump into a couple, one looking a little bashful and one perfectly content but both oblivious to the world around them, and thus they make you spill your drink on your new pants, and so you never know, do you. And these things are happening all the time, so when you swear up and down that you're going to give someone a ride to the game, it's just irresponsible, really, because the day before you might find a single sock in the dryer and things would just unravel from there.
And yet, somehow, promises had been made, and continued to be.
•
In a move that will surely surprise you, my reader, I'd like to pick up right where I left off.
"You don't hate me," she said.
She was returning to me with little aftershocks. I knew her, and more than I could have before, because I'd seen what she saw, just for a little while. Felt everything she felt. It was kind of hard to localize, though. That writhing knot of feelings, like a mating frenzy of garter snakes, that surrounded that guy, me. And the difference between being her and seeing her. I knew that she disliked her height and sometimes despaired of hair that made her color choices limited, and I also knew that I loved the angle of her upturned face and the shining deep copper that framed it. And I knew that I was part of terrible things that I could not look at in that moment. And I knew that my being enthralled by her was obscuring those things, but I needed that. Very much.
I was of many minds.
"Are you sorry we did that?" she said. Still looked like she was poised for flight.
"No! No. Not even a little. None. I'm, um…"
I went towards her. She was tense over this, and I wanted that to stop.
"I'm grateful," I said. "I know that was hard for you and maybe you'll never do it again, but I l- …I loved it."
She didn't know what to say. Her eyes were full of something really wonderful mixed with a little surprise.
"You helped me remember a lot," I said, "and you told me a lot of things that you didn't have to, but I'm really glad you did. I hope you – uh – didn't mind hearing me think or anything."
A little laugh came from her like a carriage appearing over a hill, which is to say it rose up from nowhere and jingled a little bit. "I didn't mind at all. I liked it, too. Sometimes it made me want to laugh, but not out loud. That sounded like something you'd say," she said, looking almost pleased with herself.
And it did kind of sound like me.
"If you need that…" she said.
"Meaning?"
"If you need help remembering."
"Yes?"
"I'll help you."
"Will you let me show you what I see?" I said.
"I will. I will."
"You know, that light isn't coming from anywhere."
"There was this way…" she said.
"Yes?"
"This way you looked at me. Or saw me, really."
"Okay."
"I almost didn't…"
"Yes?"
"I almost didn't – recognize myself," she said.
"You saw yourself the way I see you instead of…"
"How I usually see myself."
"Right."
"I have a -" She stopped speaking and kind of wandered a little closer to me. Not quite looking at me, but giving me the side of her face, like she was looking at me with her cheeks.
"You have a…" I said.
"A question I want to ask you."
"All right."
"It's a weird question. And I know how it sounds, but I'm really asking so I can understand something."
"Okay."
"About how it was different to see you look at me."
"Okay."
"Do you think I'm beautiful?"
Oh.
"I'll answer your question," I said, "but you have to listen to my entire answer."
"The entire answer?"
"Mmm hm."
"All right. Suspect, but fair. Go on, then."
"You promise?"
"Yes."
"Okay. Wait. This isn't the answer yet."
"Okay."
"I mean, it's … you're paying attention to me."
"I said I would," she said.
"Yeah, but it's kind of strong. You know, it makes me…"
"Are you going to insist on telling me how it makes you feel?"
"Uh…"
"If it involves your feet being warm then you can keep that bit to yourself."
"Oh, well, that's…that's kind of unfair."
"Why?"
"What if they are?"
"You've made me feel warm in spots too, but I don't tell you every time it happens."
"Okay, I suppose that's… what spots?"
"Just… spots, all right?"
"Oh. Those spots."
"What are you implying?"
"I have no idea."
"That is both endearing and disturbing about you, you know?"
"…thanks?"
"I'm getting used to it. It's sort of how you are in general."
"I was going to tell you if I thought you were beautiful," I said.
"You was? I mean, you were?"
"And I think that you are preemptively telling me how I am in anticipation of my telling you how you are."
"And if I were?"
"You're just doing that to preserve your pride."
"How can I have pride around someone who I can't help but tell the truth to?"
"Do you want to hear it or not?" I said.
"If you think you might ever get around to it," she said. "All of that nattering."
"You think you're funny, but really it's just a smell."
"This is my palm. Say hello."
"Hel- ouch, yes, it is."
"Now inform me of the status of my beauty, or you'll be saying hello to Ms. Palm quite frequently."
"Do you know how that sounds?"
"I…do."
"Okay, you win."
"Are you going to answer my question?"
"I am."
"Good."
"I was already. Bit of a petty victory."
"Victory nonetheless."
"Are you ready?"
"Fire away."
"Yes."
"Yes what?" Five points.
"Yes," I said.
"You made me promise to listen through your entire answer, and it's one word."
"You do like to interrupt m-"
"How can you say such a thing? And more importantly…"
"Yes?"
"You think I'm beautiful."
"I know you are. Like I know the sun's bright and not made of butter."
"Of course it isn't made of butter. It would melt itself."
"Does that make any sense?"
"Do you, ever?"
"I know my answer was short."
"Terse, even."
"But the thought wasn't. There are not enough words to describe it, but also way too many."
"Right now let's stick to 'too few'," she said.
"But I wanted you to hear the entirety of my answer."
"And I did."
"Not really."
"Oh? Did I sniff and drown out half of it?"
"No. You know what I mean."
"No, I don't."
"You do. Please."
"No."
"Ginny."
"Not any more today!"
Please.
I can't.
Please just look me in the eye.
I won't!
But you can hear me now.
…Bugger. Why?
You promised you would.
All right. All right! Show me then.
•
"I'm beautiful."
"I told you."
"I'm really beautiful."
"You are."
"Apparently, I'm beautiful."
"Mm-hm.
"That's amazing. I never…I never thought I…"
"Now what?"
"You're beautiful. Now what?"
"Well, I don't… it's funny, you know."
"How?"
"Well. It isn't as though I have a mad urge to go out on the town, breaking men's hearts, now that I feel…"
"Okay. Good. I mean, okay."
"It's only… you see, you gave me this. This comes from you, even if it's about me. It doesn't mean it's less true, or really I should say that it's true from a certain point of view, and that's your point of view, but I think that's just…that's all right. Even if it's only true because you said it was, it's still a gift, isn't it? I mean, it's still me, but you showed me me, but…beautiful. And I don't really care what anyone else thinks right now, because you showed me that."
There was a bit of light, fading.
She placed her hand in my hand, which must have been out to her, as it always was and, I felt, always would be.
"You are quite beautiful yourself," she said.
She was what the sun was made of, and I was made of butter.
•
We left the room and found Poppy and Hermione and talked some and Hermione was disappointed and Poppy was in a hurry and my mother came down and saw that I was all right and told me my father was out and would be back later and Poppy left and Molly and Arthur drifted in like a couplet someone had dropped from a poem about family because it was a little too weird and Molly for some reason had a few words for Ginny about how she'd been acting and how family was important and she ought not to be so distant and perhaps a looser-fitting shirt was in order and Arthur tried to head that off but Ginny said that Molly was an expert on distant but less so on family and Arthur and I shared a look before grabbing our dance partners and guiding them out of different doors, not without some resistance.
She was breathing a little heavily by the time I got her to a seat in my room.
"She knows just where to go to make me furious," she said.
"Like a moth to a flame, your mother," I said.
"She just can't seem not to," she said, raking her fingers through her hair. "There's no situation so bad that she can't make it worse."
"Well, then, at least you know now that things before weren't as bad as they could be."
She sat still, looking at me. I probably would have, too.
"My mum," she said. "Raising the bar on pants since 1952."
I couldn't make head or tail of that statement.
"And you," she said - looking at me with what would have been fiercely narrowed eyes if I hadn't been so close to her, because, you know, it's quite difficult to make that work within a foot or two, it needs a bit of distance to gather itself, and as long as I maintain a certain proximity I'm fairly immune to it, so they were actually just a little shifty-looking, maybe, but anyway, that – "manhandled me a bit."
"Well, I…"
"Yes?"
"I'm a man."
"Well-spotted."
"Had you noticed?"
"Mmm, perhaps."
"And I handled you."
"Come again?"
"Not in the sense that…only in the sense that I touched you."
"I see."
"You know very well what I mean. You're just trying to make me squirm."
"You bustled me up the stairs like I was a…"
"What I like about that," I said, "is that you are about to make yourself suffer by comparison to yourself."
"No, I am not," she said.
"Anymore."
"Get on with it."
"Okay. There were two motivating factors in hustling you up here."
"Bustling."
"Whatever you want."
"Enthrall me," she said, folding her arms.
"Number one, things were taking a turn for the worse."
"Do you think so?"
"They were taking on water."
"Erm."
"Sinking."
"Fine."
"And Molly was fully prepared not to see reason, and in this she, perhaps, may not have been entirely alone."
"Really."
"Tell me that's not true."
"Just go on, you great prat."
"So I wished to keep the peace, just as Arthur did."
"So the men have to step in and protect the unreasonable women from themselves."
"On the one hand, no, and on the other hand…still no."
"That's a two-handed no," she said. The almost-smile went very deep into me.
"It takes two hands," I said.
"It had better," she said.
"Are you threatening me?"
"Why? Are you scared of me?"
"Little you? Ow. Ms. Palm is a lot meaner closer up."
"Serves you right," she said. And listen here, my reader, they were not slaps, not smacks, really, just taps, and I can't explain it – if anyone else had done it to me I might have introduced them to Mr. Inappropriately-Affectionate Carpet, but with her, well, it was related to the second reason I'd frogmarched her upstairs.
But still. "Do you smack everyone that you meet?"
"Of course not. Only the ones that deserve -"
"So, like, your brothers? Me? Your boyfriends?"
"Boyfriends?"
"You know… people who don't want to smack you back."
"Erm."
"That doesn't exactly make you formidable, does it?"
"Where on earth are you going with this?"
"Do you think I'd do that to you in return? Ever?"
"Well, I should think not."
"So you're kind of a bully to someone who cares about you?"
"What?" Ten to me.
"Is it because you're short?"
"Wh -" She stopped herself.
"You also have a bit of a temper," I said. My voice was as soft-edged as I could make it.
"Which unfortunately you like to stoke to an inferno."
"It's not that I like it."
"Oh?"
"I love it."
"I don't find it charming that you want to get me mad so you can enjoy it."
"It's not really that either."
"What the bloody hell is it then?"
"It's the way your eyes flash. It's how you look unbreakable and full of a… a making kind of strength."
"A…"
"Most people are just swimming in this sea of probability. Things roll over them and past them and they're just tossed around by them and float on the surface or get pulled under, even, but they don't make anything happen. But when you get your ire up, the world feels different around you, like you just say, 'to hell with anything to the contrary of me,' and make your place in it. You make things happen. And also…"
"Yes?"
"You look gorgeous."
Her head bowed and her hair fell in front of her face. After a moment she said, "I suppose I could learn to live with it."
"You have no choice. You're stuck with it."
"Didn't you…" She looked up at me suddenly. "You said there were two reasons you manhandled me up here."
"I did."
"Just keeping up with all the things you say…" She cast her gaze upwards. "Can't believe I actually remembered that."
"No one has really bothered like you," I said.
"How would you even know if anyone had?" she said. After a pause, during which her eyes widened and subsequently focused on an area rug that had rumpled in reproach, she said, "I think that was fairly insensitive of me to say."
"Not inaccurate, in general," I said.
"What do you remember? It seems like some things filter through and some don't. Do you remember any people from New York?"
I thought about it very little. "Not really. Maybe the guy who ran a hot dog stand, maybe a girl with blond hair or something, I don't know."
"A girl? A friend, maybe?"
"No idea."
"What did she look like?" She leaned forward a little. At the moment all I could really think of was what she looked like.
"I can't really see her. Her face was… it's all a bit caliginous."
"I'm sorry?"
"Dim."
"Just because I-"
"The memory…of her… is dim."
"Yes. Right. I clearly need a…"
"Fuse?" I said.
"If you were not a little right about that," she said, her eyes intense, "I would have to kill you."
"Why is it," I said, "that when you say you'd have to kill me that somehow it sounds really, really appealing?"
"There are deaths, and there are deaths," she said.
"Stop that."
She laughed for me. Well, maybe it wasn't for me, exactly, but it felt very much like a gift.
Joking about death.
•
A/N: Short, yes, but no one can deny reality forever, especially my protagonist. Thanks to my betas, and my Danish friend who rides along, and J for listening whole-heartedly, and Baby J for sleeping deeply so that I could write this.