Shelter (58 page)

    "Of course, Roberta." So she got a blanket out of the closet and curled up on a pile of napmats, and fell asleep to the soothing sound of the mice running on their wheel.

    * * *

    "Roberta," someone said. She opened her eyes, disoriented, eyes and mouth gritty. Where was she? "Roberta, it's five A.M."

    She sat up, head pounding. School. She was at school. She was at school because Doe—

    "Roberta," Fred said, "I think you should go home and shower and change clothing before the children arrive, don't you?"

    "Yes," she said. She couldn't believe she'd slept so long. "Yes, Fred. Thank you. I only meant to nap for a few minutes."

    "You were very tired, Roberta. I knew you needed to sleep. Do you feel ill? Would you like to go home and take today as a sick day? I can call one of the substitutes, if you like."

    "No," Roberta said. She'd never taken a sick day before, and if she took a sick day now she'd have to stay home, and she didn't know where home was now, or what she'd find when she went back to the apartment. Whatever was there, she didn't want to have to look at it all day. "No, I'll go home and shower and change, and then I'll come back."

    "Be sure to eat a good breakfast, Roberta."

    "I will, Fred. Thank you."

    "You're welcome. You're my friend, Roberta, and I care about you. I'm glad I could help you. Thank you for coming here when you were upset."

    That was probably all programming too, but she found herself unaccountably moved. "Thank you for being here," she said, even though Fred was here all the time. Where else would he be?

    * * *

    Feeling as if she hadn't slept at all, she made her way home through a gray dawn. Everything hurt: her head, her back, her legs. It hurt to breathe, It hurt to think. Part of her wished she could take a sick day, but she knew that being in the apartment would only make her feel worse, and there was nowhere else to go except school. She didn't let herself imagine what she'd find in the apartment, because every time her thoughts moved in that direction, she found herself becoming rigid with grief and panic, shot through with dread. Maybe Doe hadn't left at all. What would she do if Doe was still there?

    Doe wasn't there. Roberta could tell from the street. When she looked up at the apartment windows, she could see even in the dim light that the tea curtains in the kitchen were gone. Mitzi had made the curtains, red and white check. Better not think about it.

    She found herself climbing the stairs as if wading through syrup. There was something outside her door, a shiny gray bundle. When she reached the landing, it unfolded a segmented arm and handed her a note, written on heavy mauve paper and scented with cinnamon.

    Roberta, I'm sorry. I didn't know things were so bad until I saw Migraine Mary carrying all her stuff downstairs. That other one isn't much to write home about. I shouldn't have said anything to you, although I guess maybe it wouldn't have made any difference. Anyway, I apologize. I was being stupid, and I shouldn't have been stupid. I know about losing friends. I know you don't much like bots, but this one's a gift, anyway. His name's Mr. Clean and he'll eat dust and dirt and help keep your place neat, which can be useful when there's only one person to do the housework. Maybe he'll keep you company too, even though he's only got a really rudimentary AI chip. I've never used him in the performance troupe because he's too shy; I guess he's programmed that way for people who are scared of bots. He likes to stay out of sight, but he's got a basic feedback mechanism, so if you talk to him or interact any other way, other than kicking him or something, he'll know you don't mind his being around and he'll come out more. He's pretty charming, really, and I hope you like him. He's solarpowered, so if he starts seeming sluggish, just stick him in a sunny window and he'll perk right up.

    It would serve me right if you never spoke to me again, but I'm here if you need to talk, or if you need a cup of tea or something. Good luck. It's no fun living with pain, but it's possible. I know this from experience. Let me know if I can do anything. Zephyr.

    The kindness of strangers. Numb, Roberta unlocked the apartment door; Mr. Clean, a tiny tank, rolled silently in ahead of her, and promptly scooted under the nearest chair. It meant a lot for Zephyr to give up one of her bots, even one of the simpler ones, and Roberta would have to think of some way to thank her, but right now she couldn't think about anything at all except what she'd see when she flicked on the living room lights.

    All the furniture was still there, of course. Doe couldn't have moved it without a van, and Iuna probably had furniture of her own. Doe's fancy desktop computer and printer were gone. Roberta's modest laptop remained. Doe had taken most of the artwork, leaving pale rectangles on the walls and dust-free ovals and circles and squares on tables, where statues and vases had been. She'd left a lopsided ceramic bowl Roberta had made in a college pottery class, and some vintage landscape photographs the two of them had bought for a song at a garage sale. The Tiffany poster, which had been the brightest thing in the living room, was gone, and so was the antique Navaho wall hanging, and so was the still life of an apple and some flowers, painted in oils, that Doe's grandmother had finished just before she died.

    Everything bright. All the color. Roberta swallowed stale tears and moved on wooden legs to the kitchen, which looked the same until she opened the cabinets. The nice dishes and flatware were gone. Of course they were; they'd been Doe's. Doe had left the junky plastic dishes Roberta had had since college, and some mismatched, dingy cutlery. Now Roberta was glad she'd never thrown the stuff away. She wondered for a moment where Doe and Iuna had found enough boxes and newspaper to pack up all the dishes. They'd been busy after she left. Maybe Doe had planned it that way. Maybe she'd had boxes and newspaper collected, stored somewhere, waiting until she could manufacture some way to have Roberta kick her out.

    Roberta closed the cabinet doors and leaned her head against them. She was going to have to go into the bedroom now. The bedroom was what was left. She was going to have to go into the bedroom, and then into their bathroom; she was going to have to take a shower and get dressed and go to work, and after work she'd have to take care of the checking account and work out a new budget. She could afford to keep the apartment on what she made; that was the advantage of living in a dump. They'd talked about moving and had never gotten around to it. Now she was glad.

    Bedroom. Roberta peeled her forehead carefully away from the cabinet doors, which were slightly sticky from years' residue of cooking grease—she wondered if Mr. Clean could handle vertical surfaces—and headed resolutely toward the bedroom closet. She wouldn't look at anything else. She'd pick out what she was going to wear to work, and then she'd shower.

    She'd known that the closet would be nearly empty; even so, her small collection of clothing, most of which hung crookedly, looking dingy and worn, appalled her. The closet seemed huge without Doe's stuff in it, another apartment, practically. Doe had even taken all the extra hangers. Roberta pulled out some nice cords and her most comfortable tunic, and turned to the linen closet outside the master bath. One set of sheets was left, and a few towels.

    In the shower, she closed her eyes and let the hot water pound on her face. She had to remember to count her blessings. She had a job, she had a place to live, she had her health. She had discovered kindness from unexpected quarters: a machine, a crazy neighbor. She felt flayed without Doe, as if her skin had been stripped off, but that would pass. It would pass. They hadn't been happy for a long time. Surely it was all for the best.

    But when she got out of the shower and had to face the bed, because her dresser was on the other side, the pain hit her again. Doe had stripped the bed. No sheets, no comforter, no pillows. She'd taken the pillows, both of them. She hadn't even left one for Roberta. Didn't Iuna have pillows? And then Roberta realized that she wouldn't have wanted either Doe's pillow or the one Iuna had been sleeping on. She doubted very much that Doe had taken the pillows out of kindness, but perhaps the effect was the same.

    She set her jaw, walked to her dresser to retrieve underwear, and then fled into the living room to get dressed. Mr. Clean had been working his way along one wall, and when he saw her he dashed under the couch. Roberta, still wearing only a towel, got down on her knees on the rug—the good wool carpet, Doe hadn't taken that either, praise be—and said, "It's okay, Mr. Clean. You can come out now."

    Nothing. "Mr. Clean? You can come out. I'm not afraid of you."

    She heard a faint whining noise, and then the bot emerged. "Hi," Roberta said, feeling stupid. "So, um, do you do tabletops? How can you climb up on a table, anyway? You've got treads."

    It must have somehow deciphered the word table. It wheeled smartly around, unfolded a pair of astonishingly long segmented arms, one of which had proffered Zephyr's note earlier, reached for the top of the coffee table, got a grip, and swung itself up. Then it began circling the perimeter, sucking dust.

    "So," Roberta said. "You're a gymnast. I wish I could do that. Do you do cabinets?"

    At the word cabinets, it stopped, faced Roberta, and beeped twice. The bot equivalent of "yes, ma'am," maybe. Then, navigating delicately around Roberta's lopsided bowl, it returned to dusting the tabletop. By the time she got home that evening, there would be no sign that any other objects had ever been there.

    * * *

    Nicholas was the first child to arrive that morning, and while he took off his coat and got out the picture he'd been working on the day before, he told Roberta and Fred all about how much the Hobbit liked Bluebell. "He thought she was really pretty, and he patted her and told me I'd given her a good name. He said he was going to feed her some pizza. He said he'd gotten the pizza from behind a restaurant, where they'd thrown it out. He said it had pepperoni and anchovies and peppers on it, but Bluebell wouldn't have to eat that stuff if she didn't like it. I asked if I could have some, but he said it might not be good for me."

    Roberta blinked, her throat sore from crying. Pepperoni and anchovies and peppers? Wasn't that a little specific, for an imaginary friend? This Hobbit sounded suspiciously like a baggie. Why would a kid have an imaginary baggie for a friend?

    Maybe those were the things Nicholas liked on his own pizza, but she doubted it. A kid like anchovies? That would be weird even for Nicholas. "Nicky, why does the Hobbit have to eat thrown-out pizza?"

    Nicholas went rigid; she could see the fear in his face. "Zillinth's coming. I can't tell you any more about the Hobbit. He's our secret, remember?"

    "Okay," Roberta said. She felt as if she were underwater, or in a dream. "Yes, Nicholas, I remember."

    And here came Zillinth, with her mother right behind her, holding the girl's blond braid triumphantly aloft. "See, the peanut butter worked!"

    Peanut butter? She must be in a dream. What did peanut butter have to do with hair? And then, dimly, Roberta remembered the bubble gum. It might as well have happened a hundred years ago. ''I'll make a note of it," Roberta said.

    "So will I," said Fred. "Thank you very much, Mrs. Petroski. That's very useful information for me to have."

    "Ha!" Mrs. Petroski said happily. "I never thought I'd be telling an AI anything it didn't know. You've made my day, Fred."

    Zillinth giggled, and Fred said, ''I'm very happy to hear that."

    Steven arrived next, wanting to show everyone a seedpod he'd found, and then Benjamin and Cindy trooped in, and then it was story time and then it was naptime. Roberta let the day carry her along in its current. She remembered that she'd been really upset yesterday about the mouse business, and she knew she should ask Nicholas more questions, but she couldn't quite remember why. That had all happened in another lifetime. Only as Nicholas was getting ready to leave did she ask, out of some obscure sense of duty, "So, how did your dad like Bluebell?"

    "Daddy likes mice," Nicholas said cheerfully. "That's why he gave me the note saying I could have Bluebell. Fred, why do mice come in different colors?" And Fred, to Roberta's immense gratitude, was off, into a child's-eye-view of genetics and biodiversity. She was off the hook. She'd done her duty, and once the kids were gone she could go home, to that newly strange pIace, and go to sleep.

    She knew she should talk to Nicholas's parents directly about the mouse, make sure Bluebell had made it home okay, ask Kevin and Meredith if they knew about the Hobbit, but she couldn't summon the energy. Surely no one would blame her for not tackling those two the day after she'd been abandoned by her lover. So as Nicholas darted out the door to join his mother after school, Roberta just waved to both of them through the window. Good-bye, good-bye, good riddance.

    After the last child had left, as Roberta was sluggishly cleaning things up and putting things away, Fred asked, "How do you feel, Roberta?"

    She looked at her watch. "Are we off the record, Fred?" She hoped that question would sound sufficiently lighthearted if they were still on the record.

    "All the children have left, Roberta, so, yes, we are." She nodded. "Well, frankly, I feel like shit."

    "Yes, I thought so. You didn't seem like yourself today. You were less engaged with the children than usual, and you moved very slowly, as if moving hurt."

    "Yes," she said, grimacing. "It did hurt. How perceptive of you." Especially since Fred was an AI and couldn't hurt. She was going to hurt for a long time, but there was no point in saying so. "I'rn sorry I did a bad job, though."

    "No one can do an equally good job all the time, Roberta. You did a fine job. I wouldn't have noticed anything wrong if I'd just met you. I just wanted you to know that I hope you feel better soon."