“Aren’t you being just a bit judgmental?”
“But, she’s playing with people’s lives here. She has no training or credentials of any kind and she’s going to be counselor extraordinaire.”
“Lots of people do that sort of thing. They’re just trying to help. To make things better.”
“What you Hollywood types don’t realize is that you have so much influence and that influence carries a huge responsibility. Too many of you just get out there and say whatever. And another thing, who are you to decide what is right for others? Just because media promotes you as some sort of gods?”
She was on a roll and her tirade made her feel good in some perverse way that she thought she should have been ashamed of.
“There are even some celebrities who think they should be part of political decisions, attend summits, for Christ’s sake. Just because of who they are. What makes them think they have the kind of background or expertise needed to be part of those processes and decisions?”
“Isn’t that what you do?” he asked. “And didn’t you use us Hollywood types to get your message across?”
There was a dreadful silence. Em stared at him and then just crumbled. Fell to so many pieces that she didn’t think she’d ever be able to put herself back together.
*
Ron couldn’t believe they were arguing again. Well really, what did he expect? I couldn’t leave them all cozy and lovey-dovey forever, now could I? Mentor was off with another Power. I had a few minutes of free rein and I used it to my advantage.
As the argument grew and raged, I gloated at Ron’s discomfort. Then something happened. Em, my lovely Em, lost control. I never wanted that. I never wanted Em to hurt. Their argument had gotten completely out of hand. I couldn’t understand what went wrong.
“You see!” Ooh, boy, Mentor back already. “You let your emotions rule and played with theirs and look what happened. I know you’re a Drone, but even so, you can’t possibly be that stupid.”
I felt like a worm.
Ron wanted to bite back his words, but it was too late. I wanted to take back the argument, but it was too late. Ron wanted to hold Em, to take away the horrible hurt. I wanted to hold her, to take away the horrible hurt. Ron was scared to move, afraid she would reject him.
I was scared too.
*
“Touché,” Em’s voice quavered.
“Oh, Em.” Ron grabbed her roughly and pulled her close. He cradled her head to his chest, and circled her with his other arm. “I shouldn’t have said that. Please, forgive me.”
“But you’re right.” Em cried silently, soaking his T-shirt with her tears.
“No, Em. I was wrong. What you see and the terrible situations you walk into…. You operate on a level far above anyone else. I had no right to compare.”
“But I’m no better. I have no right to criticize.” He was trying to make her feel better and somehow she felt worse.
“Please don’t.” Ron didn’t know what to say, but he was smart enough to hold her close, caress her, and use his voice to try to calm her. A long time later she felt the tension ease slightly.
“Ron, I—”
“No, don’t say anything.” He picked her up effortlessly, it seemed, and carried her to the bedroom and made her lie down. He undressed her and massaged her neck and back. Pampered as a baby, she felt limp and relaxed as the remaining tension released slowly and Ron made tender, sweet love to her. He had it right. It was the only thing to do.
Much later they showered and dressed for dinner. Ron wore his suit pants and one of the light sweaters from the closet. Em pulled on a pair of jeans and a black tank top and reached for a jacket. “Em, wear this.” He held out his dress shirt for her. She slipped into it. He did up the buttons and rolled up the sleeves several times.
“I can’t wear this. I look like a little kid.” The mirror said she was a child trying to play grownup. Mirrored her feelings exactly.
Ron stood behind her, his hands on her shoulders. “You do look like a kid with the shirttails reaching almost to your knees. Cute.” He kissed the top of her head. “Please,” he said. “It’s important to me.”
Em didn’t like the lost little boy look on his face. For him, me wearing his shirt will be the only tangible thing he’ll have to represent our time together. Maybe if I wear it he’ll feel that he can hold a part of me after I leave. She couldn’t deny him that. She nodded agreement.
They walked to a small restaurant, ordered beers, and sat on the terrace overlooking the ocean. “May I ask you something?” Ron said.
“Of course.”
He hesitated. “Em, are you real? I know we talked about your two lives and all, but….”
“Are you asking if I’m human?”
“Yeah, I guess. Sometimes, I think you must be a dream, or—”
“An alien?” She chuckled. “You’re cute when you blush.” He reddened even more at that and then laughed with her. “Why did you think alien?”
“I’ve been able to read people pretty accurately since I was a teen, but I can’t read you.”
“So what caused you to change your mind, the great sex?” She leered at him. “Of course, for all we know, aliens could be pretty good lovers too.”
“Your fingernails,” he said, ignoring her teasing. “Broken and bloody, not exactly robot or alien material.”
“The fingernails convinced you I’m human?” She gazed at her hands and then at him. “Okay, your logic makes a weird kind of sense so why are you still worried I might be an alien?”
“I’m going on spec here, but I’ve given this a lot of thought. And,” he blushed again, “we discussed it endlessly on the set. I figure you’re maybe like Super Girl or Wonder Woman.” He shifted forward on his chair. Em noticed that he tightened his grip on the beer mug, and his knuckles whitened.
“Sorry to disappoint you, but I think that I’m a very regular person. I know that I even get cranky and bitchy, hard as that may be to believe.”
Ron suppressed a sigh, frustrated with her non-answers. He wanted to push, but something held him back. Fear of angering her and then losing her? She hoped it wasn’t that. She hoped they were beyond that by now. “I have seen you angry so I’ll believe the bitchy part too.” He reached across the table to squeeze her hand. “I love you Em, warts and all.”
“I know.” And I can’t answer all your questions or completely satisfy your curiosity. I’ll never be able to. “Ron, about earlier—”
“Em, please.”
“No, I have to say this. I’m sorry I blew my tensions on you. That wasn’t fair.”
“I’m the one who should apologize. What I said was unforgivable.”
“But you were right.”
“You know, Em, it’s easy to let the power of celebrity get out of hand. It would have been easy for me to fall into the trap of overestimating myself and taking a public stance in areas beyond my realm.”
“How did you stay as grounded as you are?”
“Fortunately I had people around me who put a stop to the grandiose attitude I was acquiring.”
“What about the salaries? Do you think they’re justified?”
“Do you?”
“No way!”
“The question really is should anyone make that kind of money?”
“Teachers should.”
Ron’s jaw dropped. “Why teachers?”
The prevalent attitude, she thought with a sigh. Teachers really didn’t count to most people. “Think about it. Teachers get the whole world started. Where would you be without public education?” Maybe all educators should disappear for a while, and then people would realize they’re more than babysitters.”
Could she do it? Send all the teachers on a holiday—somewhere warm, with a beach and no money worries or off to a ski hill. For six months or so. Would the voice let her? Worth asking that’s for sure.
“Em? You there?” Ron waved a hand in front of her face
. She grinned and changed the topic. Ron argued that this was not another Middle Age. She thought it was. Their discussion took them around what seemed like hundreds of topics and veered back to issues of celebrity and media.
Walking home from the restaurant hand in hand, she asked Ron what sorts of things he worried about.
“Mostly stuff closer to home. Providing for my family. My kids growing up safely, not getting into drugs or being killed in a car accident. The usual, I guess.” They let the conversation slide as they sauntered home enjoying the moonlight and each other’s company.
*
Personally, I thought she’d look much better in my shirt. And then she said she loved him. The words were spoken so softly that Ron wasn’t sure she had really said it. She had and I recoiled. It was too much to bear, hearing it like that.
They discussed so many things. I was jealous of that too. I wanted to be with her, talking to her, holding her hand, stroking her hair, touching her…. I heaved a sigh and looked around for Mentor. Nowhere to be seen, thank Guardian.
I understood Em’s need to talk. I needed someone to talk to, too. I wasn’t about to blurt out any of this at our debriefings. Of course, Powers could confide in Mentor. As if!
Elspeth came over to my alcove. How did she always know when I needed her most? “Watching Em? Of course you are. I needn’t bother asking. What’s she up to now?”
“Sleeping.”
Ron lay awake listening to Em’s deep and even breathing as she slept. He could feel her contentment. Suddenly he bolted upright. He had been reading her all evening, anticipating her desires and moods, sometimes even anticipating what she would say. He looked down at her, marveling. This had to be the connection he had imagined when he first met her. There truly was something between them, something so tangible he could almost see it and this time he knew he wasn’t kidding himself. He settled down beside her and pulled her close, happier than he had ever been in his life.
Ron was right. They did have a connection. I figured Mentor had given it to them and that drove me crazy. I wrapped my arms around Elspeth and let the tears flow.
Chapter 31
“Yo bro.” My friend Exelrud could be so exasperating with his casual demeanor. Watched too many of those Earth movies, that was the problem. “So, what's your girl up to now?”
“She’s here, there, and everywhere. Sometimes, she transports herself after watching news clips. But, usually, I send her on little errands.”
“Can I watch?”
“No!” Bad enough I was letting Elspeth see everything—well, not the sex bits of course. No way was I going to let Exelrud see any of it. He was too nosy for his own good.
*
She slumped on one of the sofas in the staffroom, toed off her shoes and swung her feet up. Thank God everyone was gone. She really should leave too, but was too fatigued to move. The day had flown by. Never a dull moment surrounded by teens. Today had been brutal. A fight at smokers’ corner, an injury in the lab, thankfully not too serious, girls crying over a squabble that she hadn’t fully understood and probably didn’t want to, and a trip to the nearest clinic with a boy who had something in his eye. Turned out to be a piece of metal from working with his dad on Sunday.
“Did you tell your dad your eye hurt?”
“Yeah.”
“What did he say?”
“He told me to wait and see if it went away.”
The doctor didn’t think there would be permanent damage.
But that wasn’t what was bothering her now. It was the whole messy business of strange words coming out of her mouth at the oddest times. She’d taken to writing them down phonetically and trying to discover what they were. Some were easy. Spanish, French, Russian. Others were obscure. Urdu, Swahili, Javanese. And some she never did identify.
The words were the least of it. Had she really been the one to have the hostages in Columbia released unharmed? Had she met with the cartel leaders and the Mexican president to stop the drug trade, or at least try to? Had she led police, over a period of twelve hours, to illegal arsenal stashes in one hundred and forty-two locations across the US?
It seemed she had. She hadn't turned on the TV for months, had canceled her subscription to the newspaper, but she couldn't avoid hearing the conversations around her, at school, in line at the grocery story, at the gym. The media had apparently reported that doctors were confident the hostages would regain their health. It seemed the cartels were curtailing their activities and drug users were flocking to detox clinics. Hundreds of thousands of people had come forward to turn in arms voluntarily.
Had she really gone to the soccer game in Rio?
Without Ron?
And, there were the dreams, of course. One almost every night. Last night’s had been particularly vivid and horrifying.
Huge tents filled with row after row of makeshift tables hastily assembled from crudely constructed sawhorses and pieces of boards or old doors, anything that could be scrounged.
Each table piled high with remnants of clothing, broken bits of bones, some with muscle and sinew still attached, and human skulls as far as the eye could see.
She picked up a skull and put her finger through the hole in the forehead. She picked up another to see the back smashed in at a crazy angle.
She put the skull down and held up a uniform jacket, picked up a thighbone, then part of a hand with a ring hanging loosely from the baby finger, and after that a tiny pink baby sweater. She put the sweater down, picked it up again and stared in horror. She was holding a baby with empty eye sockets, not just any babyher own daughter. She dropped the body, screamed, backed away.
She woke up shaking so hard the bed shook too. She bolted for the bathroom, retched and vomited. Eventually the nausea eased and she hung over the toilet bowl clinging weakly to the sides. In due course she recovered enough to sit back on her heels without falling over. She waited agonizingly for a return to normal. When her stomach finally stopped heaving, she levered herself up clutching the edge of the counter top. Leaning against it she bent over to splash her face and neck with cold water. The clock showed 3 a.m. She picked up the phone and dialed anyway, called her daughter, just to hear her voice, to know she was alive, safe.
*
“Kaya!” A bad word. Very bad. One of ours. And Mentor had just used it. This was not going to be good. “Isn’t it enough that she has to live it? Now you have her dreaming it too.”
“I don’t give her the dreams. They’re her own.” I felt feeble protesting like that.
“You could stop them. Save her the agony.”
“I tried. She’s too strong.”
“Guardian, have mercy.” Mentor looked up to the heavens. “Why did you give me such an idiot to deal with?” A string of bad words followed. I searched frantically for an escape. “It’s your responsibility,” she thundered. “Fix it.”
Chapter 32
Ron sank into the first class seat with a heavy groan. The months after the movie’s release had been a constant round of travel and interviews. He and the gang escaped as often as possible to the Garcia family’s restaurant, the one place they could be guaranteed a break from the scrutiny. They laughed and joked with Raûl and his parents and spent happy relaxing hours listening to him and his sister as they translated their grandmother’s stories, most of them about Em's rescue of their family.
The movie he was working on now was partially completed and he was flying to yet another location shoot. He looked forward to time alone in the four days before the cast and crew arrived. This break was a concession to his celebrity status. He was a Hollywood megastar now—offered his pick of roles—a status that he would never have had if not for Em. A status that was every actor’s dream and one that, for better or worse, he loved.
He closed his eyes and sighed again. It was a little over three months since he had been with Em. He assuaged his loneliness with his memories, reliving every detail of their time together. He misse
d the questions, the discussions, even the arguments. He missed her smile, her frown, her laugh, her face, her body. He felt the familiar erotic ache as his body responded to those mental images.
He had become compulsive. Hell, he’d been compulsive from the first time he saw her on TV, searching for every possible detail about her.
He could hear her voice now as he replayed their last conversation word for word. He had asked what the future held for them.
“I don’t think we can see each other again.”
“But Em—”
“No.” She placed two fingers over his lips. “This time was special, just for us, but it cannot happen again. It was a gift.”
“Em, I can’t go back.”
“You can go back and you will. You have two wonderful kids, Gram, and a new relationship developing with Rita. You can’t give any of that up. I won’t let you.”
“And you?”
“Ron, it will be okay. Trust me.” And she was gone.
Ron sighed again. If he had an eternity to love her, it might be enough. You will have, a deep soothing voice reverberated in his ears. He laughed mirthlessly. God, now his head was playing games with him. Shit, he’d never survive at this rate.
Em had been right—partly. He had gone home to Gram and the kids. What Em didn’t know was that he had already broken up with Rita.
Rita hadn’t given up easily. She invited him out or to her place for dinner, including Gram and the children, making it difficult for him to refuse. There was no sex, but Rita professed understanding. After all, she was a fellow actor, she knew the strains of the creative process and intense publicity.
She met him in Allan’s office, unannounced, and asked to take him for coffee. “You don’t have to explain,” she said. “I understand perfectly. I was good enough for you before, but now that you’re Mr. Big Shot, hobnobbing with Miracle Madame, no less, I’m chopped liver.”
Ron said nothing. Any explanation would sound feeble and only make her angrier.
His silence angered her too. “You fucking asshole!”
“Rita, please.”
“Stuff it up your ass, Ron. I ought to—” She stopped, interrupted by Jamie who had spotted them at the corner table and come over to say hi. Rita brushed past Jamie, causing her to lose her balance.
Ron reached out to steady Jamie and pull out a chair for her. “I’m sorry you had to see that,”