Alien Nation #6 - Passing Fancy (34 page)

And on those notes, the
Leethaag
concluded.

George was late coming home, and Susan hadn’t felt much like preparing a meal. But everybody’s day had been pretty full, one way or another, and the general consensus of the family Francisco was that they had to get out of the house and
do
something—to escape or to celebrate or simply to break up the pattern—so the entire clan, baby included, bundled into George’s car for dinner at a nice restaurant.

On the way, Emily spoke of her achievement in school. The story quickly diverted George’s attention from the Serovese Corporation, and when it was over, he couldn’t have been more proud or happy. And said so.

Then Susan talked about what had happened to
her
at work. The family rallied to her side. She should never doubt that she had done the right thing. Touched though she was, she couldn’t completely drop the role of conscientious mom. She reminded the kids that with less income coming in, everybody would have to go easy on extracurricular expenses—at least until she could find another job, which would not be easy in the current marketplace. “This meal may be the last real blowout we have for a while,” she warned, and the warning was soberly heeded.

Talk of Susan’s job led naturally enough to talk of George’s. Under normal circumstances he might have been candid, but the occasion of this rare dinner out had become modestly festive. If he talked about the Inglewood bust—about the fact that he’d gunned down an Overseer while defending Matthew—it would only upset them that he had been in such physical danger. If he talked about the Serovese Corporation or the little scientist in the wheelchair (and his ambivalent feelings about both), he’d only upset himself. And he was not privy to Fran Delaney’s condition. So he said simply that the investigation was still ongoing—which was not, strictly speaking, untrue—saving the details for a more appropriate time.

They arrived at the restaurant and were led to a table where a high chair was brought for Vessna. Buck adjusted his baby sister in it as Emily and Susan went off to the ladies’ room. As soon as he was alone with his father, the shame he’d been holding in over his fiasco amongst the Kewistan Elders became too much to bear by himself—and he broke his vow of secrecy as delicately as he could, thumbnailing the outline of “the ritual” and its aftermath . . . speaking quickly so as to resolve the conversation before the females returned.

When he finished talking, he expected any number of responses from his father, most of them variations of disapproval, and certainly an admonition for attempting such an undertaking behind the family’s back. None of the expectations prepared him for the response he got.

“The
Tighe Marcus-ta,”
George mused. “Yes, I know it well.”

“I never mentioned the name of it!”

“You didn’t have to, son. It’s quite famous. In its secretive fashion.”

“Famous—?”

“Notorious, really. No one ever makes it through the first time.”

“They . . . they don’t?”

“No one’s ever
ready
the first time. One must
experience
it before one can properly assess its demands and one’s desire to meet them.”

“I had the desire!”

“Had?”

“Well, Dad, I mean . . .” Buck went silent, unsure of
what
he meant.

“Buck. The
Tighe Marcus-ta
demands that you redefine yourself. You are barely eighteen years old. I know how this may sound to you, but you can’t redefine yourself until you have
defined
yourself. That kind of change is not an abstraction. It’s practical and purposeful. And you can’t make it without life experience. Your first
Tighe Marcus-ta
tends to indicate just how much more life experience you need.”

“What about Feshnar, my Elder-Master? He said I was ready! And Ru—were they playing some
trick
on me?”

“No. The paradox of the first
Tighe Marcus-ta
is that the Kewistans are genuinely hopeful. For them,
disappointment
is part of the ritual. But it reinforces the wisdom of seeking maturity in stages.” Then his father’s expression changed. “Did you say Ru?”

“You know her?”

“Her husband. On the slave ship. He didn’t survive.” George was silent for a moment. Then he smiled. “He was quite fond of her. Said she liked to shake things up—a real iconoclast. Is she like that still?”

“She was
married?
But she’s a Kewistan
Master.”

“Yes,” George nodded. “Now.”

With that, the Francisco patriarch rested his case. And, astonishingly, some of it even made sense to Buck, who then asked, “Dad . . . ? How do you know so much about the
Tighe Marcus-ta?”

George lifted his eyes from the basket of rolls at the center of the table and met his son’s gaze, a very
intriguing
grin on his face.

And then the girls were back, chatting and laughing. The meal went forward in high spirits; George tipped the waitress too well under the circumstances; and on the ride home they unabashedly sang songs along with a Newcomer station on the radio.

Once back in the house, Emily went to the kitchen to deposit a “doggie bag” of leftovers from the restaurant in the fridge. Stepping in, she took note of the answering machine by the kitchen phone. Its little red light was flashing. Then it went dark. Then it flashed eleven times. Repeated the pattern. Eleven messages.

“Mo-om?” she called.

Susan entered the kitchen, Vessna in her arms.

“Yes,
odrey.
What is it?”

“You didn’t check the messages today, did you?” It wasn’t exactly a question, the way she said it. More of an accusation.

“I couldn’t bring myself to, Emily. More grief from the office; I just didn’t want to put myself through it.”

“Eleven messages, Mom! Some of
us
have a life too, you know!”

Susan smiled indulgently. “You’re right, I’m sorry. Tell you what. You listen to the messages for me, okay? Let me know. And the ones from work? I don’t want to hear about them. At least not tonight. I feel too good right now.”

Mollified, Emily’s petulance vanished. “ ’Kay, Mom.”

Everybody else retreated to their personal corners over the next few minutes. Buck to the RV, George and Susan to their bedroom where they helped Vessna retreat to her crib. They were just beginning to get undressed when Emily knocked on the bedroom door.

When she received the okay to enter, she didn’t quite. Just peeked her head shyly around the edge of the door.

“Mom? I think you really ought to listen to the machine,” she said.

There wasn’t much conversation when Matt showed up at the hospital that evening. But unlike the previous night’s brief exchange, this one was not strained.

Cathy saw him waiting for her, and she was very easily in his arms after that, neither one of them sure who had made the first move.

“Called in, as ordered,” he said. “Got your message.”

“Mmmmmm,” she replied, tightening her grip.

“How’s Fancy?”

“She’s fine. You can see her tomorrow.”

“And you?”

She lifted her head from his strong shoulder, smiled into his face with a tired impishness.

“No problem,” she replied. Then she touched her forehead to his and said, “Take me home.”

Her wish was his command.

A
LL THINGS CONSIDERED
, her morning could have been worse. She woke up in a comfortable enough bed in a semiprivate hospital room, no restraints and no lock on the door. Her roommate was a dear human lady of seventy-eight years named Lee, who made just the right amount of conversation and was sensitive enough to allow her some privacy with her own thoughts.

When she got up to use the john, she checked the chart at the foot of her bed. It had her registered as Fran Delaney. Hmmm.

She checked herself over in the bathroom mirror. Fran Delaney wasn’t there. Some Newcomer was there instead. Very familiar and yet—because it had been so long—very different, too. But there was more to the difference than just the passage of time, and she knew it.

So there she was. Fancy Delancey. And that didn’t sound right either. She didn’t mind taking a few metaphorical steps backward if she had to, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to step back quite that far. At least Fran Delaney had been a name of her own choosing, not the joke of some faceless bureaucracy.

Zho’pah had been the name she was born with. She’d even used it in a couple of crisis improvisations, way back in another life, when she was putting the cops through their paces. It had rather a snap to it.

She walked back to bed, pausing to look at the chart again.

Zho’pah.

Fancy Delancey.

Fran Delaney.

She found herself favoring the last one still. It would be neatly symbolic if she went back to one of the other two—the reassertion of her Tenctonese identity—but she kept returning to the same thought: Fran Delaney had been
hers.
It would be nice to come out of this experience with something that was
hers.
She just wasn’t sure it applied anymore.

Ah, well. She’d reinvented herself before. She’d do it again if she had to. This time from
within.

A little while later a nice, boyish intern with curly blond hair came in to check up on her. Steinbach, his name was. She asked him his first name. He blushed and told her it was Thaddeus. Thad. She told him it was a
hell
of a name, a grand name. He was as sweet as pie, treated her with enormous respect, and told her they’d release her tonight or possibly tomorrow morning. He just wanted to keep her under observation for a while longer.

He then got very serious and spoke to her about what she’d been through, the medical implications mostly, leaving the social-moral issues for her to sort out. Some of it she knew or had guessed. Some of it was news. Some of it was obvious—preaching to the converted. But she endured it graciously because he clearly cared so much, remembering what it had been like to care about strangers. Maybe it was worth getting back to.

Thad concluded by mentioning a drug abuse support group he and a psychologist ran once a week. He
strongly
advised that she participate in it. Or something like it. She was not, of course, a drug
addict
in the strict sense. But readjusting to society—and to her own culture—would require a support system. All the more because she was sophisticated enough to rationalize the need away. She assured the young intern she’d give it a think. And she would. He took her at her word and left, promising to return in a few hours.

She ate well—about as well as anybody eats in a hospital—and it wasn’t until visiting hours that the day had its first potential bump.

Iris McGreevey and Dallas Pemberton came into the room. The producer and the director. They hired you, they could fire you.

Here it comes, she thought. The blow-off. The bailout. An obligatory
How are you?
and then a raking over the coals. And the shame of it was . . . she’d brought it upon herself.

She was so firm in her conviction that matters would proceed in such a fashion that what they said at first made no sense to her. Not because they were speaking insensibly but because it didn’t compute. It didn’t fit. She asked them to repeat it.

“I said I need to know what you’ll need in the way of brushup rehearsals,” Dallas said. “And when you’ll be ready to return to the show.”

“We’re losing money,” Iris added. “We need you back badly.”

“I . . . I don’t think you understand,” Fran protested. “I can’t be what I was before.”

“Illness does not diminish goodness,” Iris insisted. “You can still be good.”

“Yes, Iris, but—”

Dallas took her hand then. “We
understand,”
he said meaningfully. “We
get
it. We wouldn’t have it any other way.”

It hit her then. As she was right now. They wanted her to continue in the role
as she was right now.

“It occurs to me . . .” Iris began, and faltered. She had no real gift for humility. “It occurs to me that I can’t call my theatre The Healthy Workplace and not give your people a healthy place to work . . . So I think I’ll be revising our casting policy and there you are,” she concluded quickly.

“Furthermore,” Dallas added, “some of the institutional theatres from New York sent scouts last week. While you were out, there’s been some . . . how you say,
interest.”

“In . . . in what?”

“Depends on who you talk to. The Public Theatre made an offer to transfer the production intact. The Roundabout would like me to remount it with you in the lead and a higher profile supporting cast. Both of them are interested in you for other shows in their season next year.”

Fran started to say something obvious, but Iris lifted a hand to stop her.

“Before you point out the same tiresome fact about your former physical appearance,” she said huffily, “let
me
point out that I took the liberty of delicately explaining your . . . situation. In confidence. Their interest only increased.”

“It’s a double-edged sword,” Dallas cautioned. “By default, you’d be going public with your story, even if you didn’t want to . . . but that would also give you the opportunity to speak on behalf of all the . . . well, you know. Public awareness. Performing a valuable service and all that.”

Tears came to Fran’s eyes. She tried to stifle them. Couldn’t.

“I can’t thank you both enough. I’m just so grateful and—” She slapped the blanket over her thighs, sudden anger mixed in with her joy.

“What’s the matter?” asked Dallas.

“Damn it,” Fran said. “If their interest ‘increased’ . . . if I go public as you say . . . I’ll just be a curiosity in New York. Like a fad. And once the novelty wears off—”

“—
That,”
Dallas said, “will be up to you, I think. I won’t make any phony showbiz pronouncements—we’re both too smart for that—but in my opinion, Newcomers are going to be around for a long time. And if you keep plying your trade with care, craftsmanship, and heart, there’s no reason why
you
shouldn’t be as well.”