Impossible Things

  “Twenty-one o’clock,” he whispered. “Don’t turn on the light. You’ll wake Butch and Sundance.” He pointed at the floor, where Molly and Bets were curled up in the pink blanket. “Where’s the key to Okee’s room? I can’t get him to open the door.”

  “How did they get in here?” she said, rummaging through her clothes at the end of the couch.

  “I don’t know. Probably Molly had another key.”

  She found the key and handed it to him. “Another key?”

  “This is Molly’s key, too. I threatened to tell her redheaded interviewer that she was really eleven if she didn’t give it to me.” He stepped over Molly and Bets.

  Chris hunted for her robe for nearly a full minute before she realized she was hearing the sound of Mr. Okeefenokee’s snoring. “He’s asleep,” she said, but Hutchins was already out in the hall. She went after him. “He’s asleep.”

  “Remember how he said we woke him up with our talking? Well, I’ve been shouting through the door at him for the last fifteen minutes. I’ve done everything short of kicking in his shoji screen.” He fitted the key in the door and waited for it to be read. “Something’s wrong.” He slid the screen open. “Okee? Are you in here?”

  The snoring continued. Chris followed him inside and slid the door shut behind her. Hutchins was staring at the bed. Mr. Okeefenokee had cleared off the bento-bako boxes and the microwave ovens and made up the bed with red-and-green-patterned sheets. There was a stack of boxes on the foot of the bed with a piece of paper and a deck of playing cards on top of it. Molly’s chip recorder was lying on the pillow.

  “Charmaine must have picked out the sheets,” Chris said. “There are fans on them.”

  Hutchins picked up the recorder and hit a button. The snoring stopped. “He’s gone,” Hutchins said.

  “Gone where? And how did he get out? I thought you were sleeping in the hall.”

  “I didn’t come in until after he was asleep.” He stopped and corrected himself. “Until I thought he was asleep. I was down in Mr. Nagisha’s apartment trying to get Charmaine’s boyfriend to tell me what Okee’d been talking to him about, while Okee and everybody else were watching Sacco and Vanzetti tiptoe through the tulips on TV. Charmaine’s lawyer kept pleading client confidentiality until the interview was over, and when I came back up here, I could hear Okee snoring.” He tapped the recorder on his hand. “He must have hidden in the hall till I came in and then sneaked out.”

  Chris picked up the piece of paper and looked at it. “Why would he do that?”

  “Because he’d found out I’d been lying to him. We probably missed one of the bento-bako boxes or Molly and Bets told him I’d been in here or something. Damn it, coming up here incognito was a truly inspired idea! If I knew where Spielberg was, I’d tell him to come out of hiding before he hurts somebody! Okee’s probably halfway back to Eahrohhsani by now!”

  “He didn’t go home,” Chris said. She handed him the list. “He’s probably down at Luigi’s trying to catch one of Omiko’s tassels.” She pointed to the middle of the paper. “This is number three: ‘Time alone. Talk.’ ”

  He read the list aloud. “ ‘Be friends, talk, time alone, neck, bed, close, honeymoon.’ What is this?”

  “It’s his list. ‘You and Hutchins get married.’ I told him people have to have a chance to be alone to talk before they got married.” She picked up the deck of cards and looked at it.

  “And I said, ‘Neck.’ ”

  “Which is number four.” There weren’t any black cards in the deck. She fanned them out to look at them. There weren’t any hearts either. “You notice those aren’t checked off yet. He’s trying to give us some time alone.”

  Hutchins reached for one of the boxes. He took the lid off and held up a black lace nightgown. “It looks like he thought of everything.”

  “Yeah,” she said, spreading out the cards so he could see them. “Charmaine told him diamonds are a girl’s best friend.”

  “So he got you diamonds,” he said. He tossed the list on the bed. “God only knows what he thinks a closing is. Or a hahnahmoon.”

  “Or a space program. We’d better go look for him. Maybe if I asked him about his space program, he’d explain it to me.”

  “In a minute,” he said. He put the nightgown back in the box. “Okee wanted us to talk alone. Your prospective buyer said to do anything Okee wanted.”

  She was suddenly very aware of her skimpy nightshift and Hutchins’s bare chest. “You leave Stewart out of this.”

  “I’d be glad to. The hell with what Stewart says. The hell with what Okee wants. I want to talk to you alone.”

  Chris backed away from him, knocking over the bento-bako boxes again. “I don’t want to talk to you,” she said unsteadily.

  “Fine. Don’t say anything. I’ll do the talking. I didn’t ‘romance’ you, as you call it, because I needed a place to stay. And I didn’t pretend to be shuttle-lagged. I was shuttle-lagged, damn it, and all I could think of was keeping close to Okee.” He came around the bed, ignoring the scattered bento-bako boxes. “It took about one good look at you to make me realize I should tell you the truth, but every time I tried, we were interrupted by some damned vaudeville act.”

  Chris kept backing down the narrow aisle between boxes, which was even narrower now that the microwaves were stacked on one side. “And that’s why you kept interrupting my lunch with Stewart?” she said, and crashed into the Christmas tree. Two ornaments hit the floor and bounced. “Because you were trying to tell the truth?”

  “I was trying to keep you from marrying somebody who only wants your apartment,” he shouted. “He doesn’t care about you! He pawns some alien off on you without even knowing if he’s friendly. What if it is a space pogrom and Okee’d decided to start with you? What if he’d decided to take you home to Eahrohhsani or marry you off to someone else?”

  “He did,” Chris said.

  “And Stewart doesn’t know about it, right? No, of course not. Because he’s too busy telling you to do whatever Okee wants. So, fine, let’s get married!”

  There was nowhere left to back. Another ornament hit the floor and rolled, and tinsel shimmered onto Chris’s hair and shoulders. “Married?” she said.

  “Sure. Why not?” he shouted. “Okee’s got everything we need right here: champagne, diamonds, Stewart’s permission.” He waved his arm at the room. “I’ll bet if we dug through this mess, Okee’s even got a justice of the peace in here someplace.”

  Hutchins was very close, and since they were both barefoot, he loomed over her. “I thought you didn’t want to get married,” Chris said unsteadily.

  He looked at her for a long, silent minute. Then he reached forward and plucked a piece of tinsel out of her hair. “I changed my mind,” he said.

  The shoji screen slid open. “I know they’re in here,” Molly said. “I heard them thyouting.”

  “Ohghhifoehnnahigrheeh!” Stewart called. “Chris! Where are you?” He appeared at the end of the hall. “Where’s Mr. Ohghhifoehnnahigrheeh?” he said hurriedly, giving Hutchins and Chris the barest of glances. “We need him up at NASA immediately.”

  “He’s not here, Stewart,” Chris said.

  “Obviouthly,” Molly said, her arms folded across her chest.

  “Well, where is he, Chris?” Stewart said impatiently.

  “I don’t know,” Chris said, shaking tinsel out of her hair.

  “What do you mean, you don’t know? This is an emergency. The linguistics team just discovered that Ohghhifoehnnahigrhee’s the leader of the Eahrohhs. If they find out up at NASA that he’s missing—”

  “He’s not missing,” Hutchins said, stepping forward. “Pete Hutchins, Navy Intelligence Linguistics Unit.”

  “This is just a little misunderstanding,” Stewart said, looking daggers at Chris. “My fiancée doesn’t really mean he’s missing.”

  “I know,” Hutchins said. “I’ve had Okee under observation for the last two days.”


  “That’th not all he’th had under obthervation,” Molly said, looking at Chris’s bare feet.

  “Right now he’s at Luigi’s Tempura Pizzeria watching the sutorippu,” Hutchins went on imperturbably. Stewart took out a pad and pencil and began scribbling. “It’s down in Shitamachi. On Osaka Street.”

  “Osaka Street,” Stewart said. “I’ll call NASA and have him picked up immediately.” He started out to the hall.

  “Picked up?” Chris said, following him.

  “He’th not really there at all,” Molly said. “They jutht want you to leave tho they can have theckth.”

  “Theckth?” Stewart said.

  “Too much noise,” Mr. Okeefenokee said. He appeared at the end of the aisle, his orange-pink hair mashed down on one side as if he’d been lying on it. “Can’t sleep.”

  “Mr. Okeefenokee, what are you doing here?” Chris said.

  “Thee?” Molly said. “I told you he wathn’t at Luigi’th.”

  Mr. Okeefenokee bent over and picked up one of the ornaments and hung it back on the tree. “Too much noise. Fighting. Sleep in back.” He gestured in the direction of the back wall, where the trampoline and the roller skates were.

  Chris said, “But what about the recorder you—”

  “Left a message on saying you were going to Luigi’s?” Hutchins interrupted smoothly. “Did you leave it because you didn’t want to be disturbed?”

  “Message,” Mr. Okeefenokee said, smiling and nodding.

  “You need to accompany me up to NASA immediately,” Stewart said. “You are needed for the negotiations on the space program.”

  “Space program,” he said, his head bobbing even more vigorously. “Closing.”

  “Hutchins, you’d better come with us to help translate,” Stewart said. “I’ll call NASA and let them know we’re on our way.” He went out into the hall to the phone.

  Molly picked up the cards on the bed and looked at them. “Doeth that old man know you thtole hith cardth?” she asked Okee. Mr. Okeefenokee beamed at her.

  Hutchins pulled Chris back into the aisle. “Where’s your subvocalizer?” he said softly.

  “I gave it to you. Don’t you have it?”

  “I gave it to Okee. I asked him to try to talk you into wearing it again.”

  Chris frowned. “He asked me why I wasn’t wearing it and told me to put it on, but he didn’t give it back to me.”

  “Great,” Hutchins said. “Now he doesn’t understand the word ‘give’ either, so how can he give us a space program?” He gripped her arms. “Look, I can’t let Okee go up to NASA by himself. I’ve got to go with him.”

  “I know,” Chris said.

  “If you had your subvocalizer, you could listen in on what’s happening, but … I’ll call you as soon as I can, okay?” He looked at her. “Maybe it’s just as well you don’t have it on. I might subvocalize what I’m thinking.”

  “I knew you thtole my recorder,” Molly said. She brandished it at Chris. “Wait till I tell Bets about thith.” She stomped out.

  “What did you say to upset that poor, dear child?” Stewart said. “I got through to NASA. I told them we were on our way. Perhaps you should get dressed, Mr. Hutchins.”

  “Yeah,” Hutchins said. He went out into the hall. Mr. Okeefenokee followed him.

  “I think I should go with you, Stewart,” Chris said. “Mr. Okeefenokee doesn’t understand English very well, and I couldn’t …”

  “I hardly think you’d have anything to contribute to the space-program negotiations when you haven’t even bothered to learn to pronounce his name correctly,” Stewart said.

  “How do you know it’s a space program?”

  “What?”

  “I said, how do you know Mr. Okeefenokee,” she said, saying his name with emphasis, “is talking about the same kind of space program you are? What if he’s talking about something else?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” he said, walking around the bed to look at the microwave boxes. “What else could he possible be talking about?”

  A spice program, Chris thought. A space pogrom. Radio. “Aren’t you going to ask me what I was doing here in my nightgown with Pete Hutchins?”

  Stewart bent over to look to the accordions. “What’s all this stuff doing in here?”

  “You told me to do whatever Mr. Okeefenokee wanted. He wanted to buy things.”

  “I meant anything within reason,” he said, picking up one of the bento-bako boxes. “How in heaven’s name did he expect to get all this home with him?”

  “How did he expect to get all this home?” Hutchins said, frowning. He had put on his shirt and a tweed jacket.

  “It wath right there!” Molly said, pointing at the bed. “In plain thight.”

  “She stole it just like she stole our curling iron,” Bets said. “That’s what I told the interviewer.” She struck a pose. “I said, ‘She steals things and she won’t let us use her phone or her bathroom and …’ ”

  “Out,” Chris said. She took hold of the pink ribbons on Bets’s nightgown and used them to propel her out the door.

  “You’re just trying to get rid of us so you can be alone with Hutchins, but we fixed you! We—” Chris slid the door shut.

  “What was all that about?” Stewart said. “You didn’t actually steal that darling tot’s recorder, did you?”

  “Molly’s practicing her lines for a screen test,” Hutchins said. “A remake of The Bad Seed. Okee, are you ready to go up to NASA?” Okee nodded and smiled. Hutchins herded him downstairs.

  “I really think I should go with you, Stewart,” Chris said.

  He started down the stairs. “It’s not necessary,” he said, stepping over the old man, who was laying out a hand of solitaire. “You stay here and help the kiddies rehearse for their screen test. Besides, you’re not even dressed,” he said, and then turned and looked back up at her in surprise.

  “Call me,” Chris said, and looked over his head at Hutchins standing by the door. “Please.”

  “I doubt if we’ll be able to,” Stewart said crisply from the foot of the stairs. “I should imagine we’ll be in negotiations all night.”

  They went out. Chris hesitated a moment and then started to run back up the stairs to get dressed so she could go with them.

  “Wait,” Mr. Nagisha said from the door of his apartment. “I have something to give you.” She came back down the stairs, stepping carefully over the laid-out cards, and he handed her a folded paper.

  “What is it?” Chris said.

  “An eviction notice. You are in violation of your lease.”

  “I am not,” she said, unfolding the paper. “How am I in violation?”

  “Subletting without landlord’s permission to a person not a relative and withholding of rent.”

  “What? You mean Mr. Okeefenokee? I didn’t sublet my apartment to him. NASA requisitioned it, and Stewart paid you. I saw him. Nobody withheld any rent, and if you’re talking about Mr. Hutchins, Mr. Okeefenokee was the one who asked him to stay with him. If you think he should be paying rent, too, you’ll have to talk to NASA.”

  “I have evidence. You must be out by seven o’clock tomorrow morning. I have rented your apartment to other tenants.”

  “What kind of evidence?”

  He flourished a chip at her, and for a minute Chris thought it was the missing recording of “Tiptoe Through the Tulips,” but Mr. Nagisha walked past the old man, stepping squarely on the cards, and up to the landing, where he stuck the chip into the TV.

  The title, “Orphans of the Stairs” appeared in front of the screen followed by a shot of the apartment building. A voice-over, which sounded suspiciously like the redheaded interviewer, said, “Inside this building is one of the apartments NASA has requisitioned so the aliens will have a place to live. But what about all those people on Sony who don’t have a place to live? Today I met two of them.” The interviewer appeared on the landing with Molly and Bets in their navy-sailor dresses. They curts
ied as he introduced them, all their dimples showing.

  Mr. Nagisha fast-forwarded and then stopped. The interviewer said, “Let’s see these budding performers in action,” and Molly and Bets clomped out in their wooden shoes. Mr. Nagisha fast-forwarded it before they could get started on “Tiptoe Through the Tulips.” He stopped it.

  “Spielberg, are you out there?” the interview said. “All these two talented tots ask is a chance to break into show biz.”

  He hit the fast-forward button, and when he stopped the chip again, Molly was saying, “Thyee and the alien have thith whole apartment, but thyee won’t let uth use the bathroom or the phone or anything, even if we’re eckthpecting an important call from our agent.”

  “And then last night she kicked us out of her room,” Bets said, stepping neatly in front of Molly. “We just wanted to sleep on the floor.” She began a pretty pout and then seemed to realize that if she stopped talking, Molly would jump in, and added hastily, “I think she wanted us out of there so she could be alone with him.”

  “Who?” the interviewer said, his ears perking up. “The alien?”

  “Of courth not,” Molly said, putting her arm up so it was in front of Bets’s face. “Mr. Negeethya doethn’t know it, but thyee rented her apartment to thith other guy.”

  “His name’s Hutchins,” Bets said, wrestling Molly’s arm down to where she could see over it. “We saw him give her the rent. It was a whole bunch of yen. She’s not supposed to rent to anybody without telling Mr. Nagisha.”

  “He wasn’t paying me rent,” Chris said. “He took some money out of my purse to pay for breakfast. He was giving me my change.”

  The scene in front of the TV cut suddenly to Chris trying to shut the door on the interviewer’s foot. “The occupant of the apartment, Ms. Christine Arthur, was unavailable for comment,” the interviewer said.

  “I did not rent my room to Mr. Hutchins,” Chris said. “Mr. Okeefenokee asked him to stay. He doesn’t understand English very well, and he thought ‘room’ meant any available space and …”

  “Evidence,” Mr. Nagisha said.