Two
Rudy sat up, trying to figure out how he'd ended up on his back. He looked around and saw the familiar road and opulent orange and ruddy red decaying leaves on the ground.
Breathing heavily, he was a little alarmed by what he'd just seen. He didn't have a word for it. He couldn't put his finger on it exactly, but he'd just had some sort of…experience.
"What was that?" he asked under his still labored breath and rose to his feet.
After Rudy took a few tentative steps, Randy, carrying a cask that held perhaps six liters of cranberry brandy they'd recently fermented, stopped, and turned to look at his brother.
"Rudy, I know you'd prefer to be alone, but we've been through this, you really need to join us. It's only one day. It's not going to kill you to be around people," he sighed.
"I know. I just felt something. I'm not sure what it was, but I..." he paused and scrunched his lips together. "Sorry, I'm coming."
“Not another excuse!” Randy said with a frustrated sigh as he turned.
“I said I was coming,” Rudy snapped back.
Randy looked at his shorter brother with concern. "Are you sure?” he asked. “You look pale to me."
"I'm fine," Rudy said, shaking it off and taking a few steps forward. He stumbled and was grateful that Randy's hand cinched down around his bicep and kept him steady. "Thanks. I guess that got to me more than I figured it did."
"What?" Randy asked him with concern.
Rudy told him about the sudden images he'd seen and how overwhelmingly clear and vivid they were.
"That's just unnatural, Rudy. Have you been eating any of those strange cassava vines?" Randy asked, looking more worried than ever.
"No!" Rudy said. The vines were, as far as anyone knew, a fungus that grew on some of the trees. That they looked like cassava roots had provided the locals with just enough inspiration to name them. One woman had tried eating them once and ended up with hallucinations for days. Since then, everyone had steered clear of the vines.
They kept walking toward the Lizardi home. "What do you think it means?" Rudy asked his brother.
"Probably nothing. Let's just forget it," Randy said and turned his head toward the house.
They ended up inside just minutes later, and Randy lit up like the Ratoka nebula after dark. He loved people just as Rudy preferred to be alone. This was heaven for Randy. There were at least thirty people jammed inside the house, maybe even closer to fifty. The energy and hustle as people crawled over each other in final preparations for the big feast was like its own sort of food for the extroverted older sibling. Cacophonous sounds of laughter, the clatter of off-world pots and pans, and children who were getting into petulant, intense discussions were all like sunlight to a spring flower in the morning. Randy might be, but Rudy was no blooming plant.
Rudy could be happy for his brother even if all the same sounds and people bumping into one another set him on edge. He immediately wanted to flee. Instead, he found his one friend in the house.
Oregon Gray was a few years younger but seemed to have the same disdain for large gatherings. Finding a kindred spirit in the dazzling holiday celebration gave Rudy a sense of calm in the middle of the raging storm of jubilee.
Oregon, like all his siblings, was blond-haired, blue-eyed, and attractive. Most people figured the Gray family was hands down the most handsome and beautiful set of kids in the small town. Washington, the oldest son, always had an easy time with the girls who either flocked to him or stood in a corner trying to keep their knees from knocking just at the sight of him. He was like a fairytale prince, and they just all turned mute in his presence. Rudy had even seen one girl literally drooling. It made him sick to his stomach.
Oregon didn't have the commanding presence of his brother, which permitted him more freedom of movement and allowed the two young men to slip unnoticed into the Gray wing of the home. Beds were stacked high in the small rooms, but Rudy and Oregon found a small patch of wooden floor, and the blonde conspiratorially pulled a pair of dice out of a small leather pouch.
"Wow, what did you make these out of?" Rudy asked as he rolled the little white cubes in his hands.
Once again, Rudy felt like someone was pulling at his side, turning him around. He looked and frowned but didn't say anything. What is this all about? he wondered.
"My brother made them for me out of dozer bone. You get anything for Survivor's Day?" Oregon asked him. Rudy told him he didn't. They didn't exchange gifts as some in the town were starting to do for the holiday.
The boys played a few intense rounds of dice before they heard Luanna Lizardi call for them. It was time for the meal, and when the matriarch of the Lizardi family called, you showed up...no matter how old you were or whose family you biologically belonged to. In her house, she was the authority. In her house, she was everyone's momma.
The prayer lasted what seemed to Rudy a long time before they all ended up sitting down. He hurriedly reset his hat on his head before Luanna called his name. He slipped it back off with a dejected groan. Oregon was on one side of him, and he didn't even notice who was on the other side until after he got his other leg over the bench and sat down hip to hip and elbow to elbow.
It wouldn't have been inaccurate to suggest he smelled her floral overtones before he caught sight of her long, flowing red hair. He took a drink of cool water from a wooden cup and still felt his mouth dry as he gulped and gazed at her in complete adoration.
His palms went cool and damp. His lip quivered. A shiver ran down his back until his prehensile tail wagged of its own accord. For many years, he had felt an attraction toward her. It was an affinity that drew them together. Long, red hair caught the dim inside light as she drew it back behind her ear. What was the bane of his own existence was the beauty of hers. Never in a thousand years would Rudy have thought he would actually ever get the chance to talk with her.
Maybe this was his moment. Maybe this was the turning point where everything would change. All he had to do was come up with something clever to say and win her heart. He didn’t know any jokes. He wished he knew some fancy poetry like he’d heard his brother recite. Maybe a tongue twister or a limerick would be enough to get her attention.
He couldn't imagine being with anyone like her. She was outgoing and spunky and had a determination that drove men nuts. From what little he knew of her, she was perfect. That had to mean she was perfect for him. It was certainly destiny that she'd ended up seated next to him. He pushed away the remembrance of the beautiful blonde from his vision just a short time before. Here, right in front of him was a living, breathing, real person, not just someone from what seemed like a dream.
He kept taking in the magnificent sight of her. She was stunning. Her skin was fair and porcelain smooth. Her lips were full and delightful. Her nose was amazingly shaped and not too large or small. Her piercing blue eyes were focused on her lamb and sliver of dark swan meat on her plate.
Realizing he was staring, Rudy looked where she looked—at her plate. One bird had been carved up for the whole gathering, as was the tradition in each household. As roast potatoes were passed down the table, her hand incidentally touched his as she handed him the shallow, woven reed basket.
"Oh hi, Rudy, how are you?" Diella said nonchalantly without making eye contact with him before returning her focus to her plate.
He continued gazing at her while he pulled out a piping hot potato and dropped it on the table next to his plate. Oregon took the basket from him while his potato rolled off the flat boards into his lap.
The older pair of Gray girls, Georgia and Nevada, giggled at his plight as he flinched from the heat of the potato on his thighs.
Rudy ignored them, recovered the hot, escaping food, and deftly set it aright on his square plate without taking his eyes off Diella even once. With her sitting right next to him—her leg against his, her soft shoulder making contact with his own—he was utterly immobilized. He could better appreciate the incapacitation of the
girls around Washington. He felt in awe of her. She was so gorgeous.
He'd never even spoken with her. Her beauty was simply intimidating to him. He felt his ears burning—so intent was his rapturous connection to the most attractive woman in town. He tried looking back at his food, but his eyes and neck seemed to have their own control mechanism that was not responding to the urgent requests from his brain to just stay calm and collected.
Still, sometimes you just had to jump in with both feet. It had to be his destiny, after all. It just had to be.
"Why aren't you married?" he whispered to her, even though he was pretty sure he knew the answer. She had been waiting all this time for him. She didn't even look in his direction before he started in with more. "You are so beautiful. I know you are a little older than I am, but I would be happy to marry you, Diella," he blurted before he could stop himself.
"Is that so, Rudy? What are you, sixteen now?" she asked, giving him the satisfaction of engaging him in conversation even though her tone was maternal rather than intrigued and packed with delight as he had foolishly hoped.
"Seventeen. I'm the crash baby, remember?" he asked. "You know, that's why my hair is so red...from the flames of the wreck." He smiled wryly at the joke that he had heard so many times before, but this time, to his advantage.
"And so, now you want to marry me? Just like that?" she said after swallowing and before reloading with a spoonful of potatoes and cheese. His proposal did not seem to affect her momentum.
"Well, it is my birthday, and we do have the same color hair. Why not?" he asked and immediately wished he'd had something—anything— more to offer her. She was older, probably more mature, and way out of his league. Despite those hurdles, he felt the energy to leap right over and boldly ask her.
She turned and laughed at him, almost spitting out a portion of the feast. She then dabbed the corner of her mouth and put her spoon down. "You're serious? You really want to marry me?" she asked incredulously.
Rudy's heart was pounding fast now, and he followed suit, setting down his spoon. He hadn’t used it once anyway. He wanted to kiss her right there. They were close enough. All she need to do was lean a little toward him, just as he was leaning toward her. She looked far more delicious than the swan, lamb, potatoes, carrots, and celery stacked high on his plate. Everything came down to this chance encounter and moment. Would she just say yes and complete his dream?
"Definitely," he croaked, dribbling out some saliva along with the solitary word.
She smiled, patted him on the leg, and answered, "That's sweet, but the answer is no, Rudy. Sorry to spoil your birthday."
He turned back to his plate. His world came plummeting down in horror. He was the crash baby after all. How fitting that his moment of bliss—the possibility of eternal happiness with the most gorgeous woman would end in catastrophic defeat. He focused on his food, letting the words of rejection filter through his dreamy denial until it was dissolved in desolate depressing reality. His lip quivered again, but, instead of from amazed awe and satisfying surprise, now he felt like he was going to cry right there at the table. He held his emotions in with as much strength as he could.
Then, miraculously—and pitifully—he felt her moist lips on his cheek. "Happy birthday," she said, and the Gray girls giggled once more. He felt the rush of blood flood his face and neck, and he knew he was turning crimson with embarrassment. A kiss from Diella was what he wanted—what he'd dreamt of—but a peck on the cheek was nothing like how he'd imagined it. In short, it was a failure, a collapse of his far-fetched fantasy.
He took a bite of the normally delicious food and tasted nothing. He chewed out of habit more than desire. Rudy looked up and saw that Nevada Gray was staring at him. "What?" he demanded in a whisper full of pain and anguish and looked back down at his food, wishing the world would just go away. He yearned to disappear into one of the odd alternate realities he'd experienced earlier. Had it just been an intense daydream? Whatever it was, what did it mean?