“Chris has come dangerously close to losing her apartment once today. I don’t want anything to interfere with that annulment clause. The safest thing is for her to spend the next twenty-four hours in her apartment.”
“Okay, we’ll bring the wedding breakfast here. I’ll call Luigi and have him deliver some teriyaki ham and eggs and have Omiko bring the girls over and …”
“Can I speak to you?” Charmaine’s lawyer said, taking hold of her hand and practically yanking her out of the living room.
“I’m not going to let you jeopardize your apartment a second time,” Stewart said. He went over to the couch. “I think the best thing for us to do is get married immediately. I’ve asked the lawyer to draw up the marriage contracts. Where did this Hutchins sleep? In Ohghhifoehnnahigrheeh’s room?”
“No,” Chris said. “He slept in here. Mr. Okeefenokee didn’t understand the concept of ‘room.’ He thought it meant any space that happened to be available. Hutchins slept up there.”
Stewart looked up at the sleep restraint. “In that? Where did you sleep?”
“On the couch.”
“I can’t believe you let him sleep up there with you not five feet away from him.”
“Neither can I,” Chris said. She got her nightshirt and robe from the end of the couch. “You can sleep in Mr. Okeefenokee’s room.”
“No!” Charmaine said from the doorway. Her lawyer was with her. They were holding hands. “I mean, ’Scuse me, but gee, Mr. Okeefenokee bought all that stuff for you, and it’s a shame to let it go to waste.”
“What stuff?” Stewart said.
“If you want to be able to testify that Chris didn’t leave her apartment for the whole twenty-four hours,” Charmaine’s lawyer said, “you should be the one to sleep out here. Chris can sleep in the bedroom. That way she can’t leave without your knowing it.”
“I thought you said this plan was foolproof,” Stewart said anxiously.
“It is,” Charmaine’s lawyer said, grinning.
“Good night,” Chris said, and went into Mr. Okeefenokee’s room, still carrying the bridal bouquet, and shut the door.
Charmaine immediately slid the shoji screen open a few inches. “ ’Scuse me,” she said. “Can I come in? I got something to show you.” She sidled through the door, shut it behind her, and flashed her hand at Chris. “It’s a diamond. We’re engaged.”
Chris laid the bouquet on the nightstand and started moving boxes off the bed. “I thought you said you weren’t going to marry him because he thought marriage was a real-estate deal.”
“That was before—” She stopped. “Well, I mean, I think it was pretty romantic the way he got you and Hutchins together.”
“We’re not exactly together,” she said. “Hutchins is in Houston and I’m locked in my room.”
“Yeah, but Mr. Fenokee’s going to …” She stopped again.
Chris looked up.
“Mr, Fenokee’s going to what?”
Charmaine fiddled with her ring. “Well, gee, I mean, he’s got that space program, right? Maybe he can talk the NASA people into sending Hutchins back up here. Or maybe you could go down there.”
“I don’t think so,” Chris said sadly. “Stewart’ll see to that. Anyway, Sony’s got a thirty-day travel-permission law, and the marriage expires in”—she looked at her watch—“about twenty-three hours.”
“Gee, that’s right. I better go. I promised Omiko I’d be there for the wedding number. Gee, I almost forgot my pastie.” She picked it up, untaped it from its makeshift handle, and laid the flashlight back on the nightstand. She pointed at the boxes on the bed. “Why don’t you wear that black lace nightie instead of that shift thing?” She flounced out. Chris shut the door and locked it.
She put on her nightshift and her robe and moved the stack of boxes off the bed. “I’ve just had a great idea, Chris,” Stewart called through the door. “I was lying there looking at the hammock, and it suddenly occurred to me that Ohghhifoehnnahigrheeh was right. That is available space. Since we’re going to rent this place anyway, we won’t need those high ceilings. We can turn this into two apartments. I’m going to go downstairs right now and talk to Mr. Nagisha about it.”
She could hear him slide the door to the apartment shut, lock it, and start down the stairs. I hope he trips over the old man in the baseball cap and falls the whole flight, she thought, and then remembered that the old man had gone off with Molly and Bets.
She turned off the light and got into bed. There was something hard under her pillow. It’s probably one of Omiko’s tassels, she thought, and turned the light back on. It was her subvocalizer.
“Oh,” she said, and held it to her heart.
“Mr. Nagisha thinks it’s a great idea,” Stewart said through the door. “He’s going to do it to all the apartments in the building. Good night, darling.”
She sat up against the headboard, put the subvocalizer on, and fastened the receiver in her ear. It probably doesn’t work except at short distances, she thought. She turned off the light.
It was completely dark in the room. There was a narrow line of light under the shoji screen, but it only seemed to intensify the darkness.
(Pete,) she whispered without making any noise. (Are you there?)
(I’m here,) he said, so close he could have been sitting beside her. (Where are you?)
(In Mr. Okeefenokee’s room. My subvocalizer was under his pillow.)
(Where’s Stewart?)
(In the living room on the couch. He wants to make sure I don’t do anything to jeopardize the annulment clause.)
(Is everything okay?) Hutchins said. (You’re not going to be evicted?)
(No.)
(Well, that’s good. At least you don’t have to sleep out on the stairs with Leopold and Loeb.)
(Molly and Bets aren’t here. They got a part in Spielberg’s movie.)
He didn’t answer for a while. (There isn’t any justice, is there?) he said finally.
(No.) Chris said. (I wish you were here.)
(So do I. Chris, look, they’ve got us locked up tight here until the negotiations are over. I tried to talk Okee into telling NASA I had to come back up to Sony to get the space program, but he said, “No. Be alone on hahnahmoon.” Well, we’re sure as hell alone.)
(Is he still refusing to talk?)
(No, he’s been talking a blue streak ever since we got on the shuttle. And I have a sinking feeling I know why the Eahrohhs came. I don’t think it was to negotiate a space program or anything else. I think they just like space travel. Okee had that lump of a nose of his pressed to the port the whole way down, and he told the NASA linguistics team the exciting story of our takeoff and landing twice. He also regaled them with a description of how Omiko orbits her colonies and danced “Tiptoe Through the Tulips” for them. Spielberg blew his big chance. Okee’s a lot better than Molly and Bets. He told the linguistics team about you, too. He said you reminded him of his wife.)
(I know,) she said, and wished she had a Kleenex.
(He said I reminded him of himself. No, what he actually said was that I was like him. He then said the reason he’d wanted us to get married was because he knew we liked each other, which shoots our “one word, one meaning” theory all to hell.)
(But if that’s true, maybe he understands the word “space,” too, and there really is a space program.)
(Maybe.) There was silence for a minute. (He told the linguistics team he’d have a demonstration of the space program for them in twenty-four hours. They asked him what he needed for this demonstration, and he said a room with high ceilings. So they stuck us in an old shuttle hangar with a guard and a couple of army cots, and he went right to sleep on one of the cots.)
She could hear something besides what he was saying, a low whooshing noise that rose to a dull roar and then subsided. (I can hear Mr. Okeefenokee snoring,) she said, and wiped her eyes on the hem of the sheet.
(Chris, listen, if there isn’t a space program, Ok
ee’s not going to be the only one who’s in trouble. I didn’t exactly have official clearance to go undercover, and they’re going to want somebody they can blame this on. I don’t know when I’ll be able to get back up there to get you.)
(I know,) she said, sniffling. Charmaine had left her box of Kleenex on the nightstand. She reached for the flashlight. Her hand groped in emptiness where the nightstand was supposed to be. “Hutchins!” she said out loud. “The nightstand’s missing.” She squinted into the darkness. She could faintly make out the walls of her room. “Mr. Okeefenokee’s boxes are gone, too.”
(No, they’re not,) Hutchins said, and she could hear the rumble of Okee’s snoring under his words. (They’re here. Did the nightstand have a box of Kleenex on it?)
“Are you all right, darling?” Stewart said through the door. “I heard you call out.”
“I’m fine,” Chris said. “I was dreaming. Good night.”
“Why don’t you come out and sleep on the—” Stewart said. His words cut off so abruptly she was afraid he had opened the door, but when she turned her head in that direction, she couldn’t see any light, not even the line of light that had been under her door.
(Are you still there, Chris?) Hutchins said.
(Yes,) she said, careful not to speak out loud since Stewart might be trying to unlock the door. I hope Molly took all her keys with her, she thought, and wondered if she should get out of bed and go wedge a chair against the door or something, but she was afraid she wouldn’t be able to find her way back to the bed. If the bed was still there. (Pete, what’s going on?)
(I don’t know,) he said. (This shuttle hangar is now full of Okee’s stuff. The microwaves, the trampoline, even the Christmas tree in the baby buggy.)
Chris squinted into the darkness, waiting for her eyes to adjust, but after a long minute she still couldn’t see anything.
(He didn’t understand when you tried to tell him there wasn’t any space in your apartment,) he said slowly (and he didn’t understand the words “far away” and “close.” And how come? Not because he couldn’t understand the words, but because the concept didn’t make any sense. Chris, I think he’s got a space program, after all.)
It was suddenly not as black in the room. She looked anxiously toward the shoji screen, afraid that Stewart had gotten it open, but the light wasn’t coming from that direction. It seemed to be coming from the back wall where the trampoline had been, only she couldn’t make out the wall.
(It’s not the kind of space program NASA thought they were getting, but so what? I think they’ll be happy with this,) he said, sounding excited. (I couldn’t figure out how he was going to get all this stuff home in that little ship of theirs, and the answer is, he wasn’t. He was going to send it Federal Express. I’ll bet he already took the piano home, and that’s why we couldn’t find it.)
The line of light was under the side walls where the stacks of boxes had been. They were much farther away than they should have been.
(Pete!) Chris said, getting onto her knees on the bed as if she were on a life raft.
(If Okee can send souvenirs home to Eahrohhsani, we’ve got interstellar trade. Not to mention what this means to Sony. So what if we can only transport freight?)
Now a thin line of pinkish-orange light was under the wall where the shoji screen should be. It wasn’t there. (Pete,) she said (I don’t think it’s limited to transporting freight.)
(I wonder what the high ceilings have to do with this. We can build space colonies on earth and then put them in orbit with—)
His voice cut off. (Just a minute,) Hutchins said after a pause. (The lights went out. I can’t see.)
(There’s a flashlight on the nightstand,) Chris said.
(I can’t find the nightstand. It was right here.) His voice sounded suddenly different, farther away, and she couldn’t hear Mr. Okeefenokee’s snoring under it. (Chris, I think it’s disappeared. It’s black as pitch in here. Is the nightstand there?)
(I don’t know. Just a minute.) She got up on her knees, waved her hand over where the nightstand was supposed to be, and cracked her knuckles against the corner of it.
“Ouch,” she said, nursing her hand. (Yes, it’s back.)
“Damn!” Hutchins said. “No, it’s not. It’s here. I just ran into it.”
“But …,” Chris said, and then stopped and peered into the darkness. She crawled to the foot of the bed so that the orange-pink light was behind the nightstand and she could make out shapes. “Pete,” she said, “take off your subvocalizer.” She unfastened the receiver from her ear and closed her hand over it.
“In a minute,” he said. “Okee had a box of flashlights right next to the Christmas tree.” His voice sounded suddenly softer, as if he had turned away.
She unclasped the subvocalizer with her free hand and took it off. “Take off your subvocalizer and say something.” She put it under her pillow and leaned across the bed, feeling carefully for the nightstand.
“Now I can’t find the damned boxes,” he said. “Damn it, I hit my toe again.”
Chris turned on the flashlight. Hutchins had on jeans and no shirt, and he was standing beside the bed, holding his bare foot in one hand. “How did you get here?” he said blankly.
“That’s what I should be asking you. This is my room.” She shone the flashlight around at the walls. The line of pinkish-orange light was getting wider, as if a curtain were slowly going up. “Sort of.” She smiled at him. “Stewart wanted me to stay in my room, but I don’t think this is what he had in mind.”
Hutchins put his foot down and looked blankly behind him at the wall. “Where’s Okee?”
“I don’t know. I have a feeling he could be just about anywhere he wants. But I would imagine he’s in the shuttle hangar with all his boxes and the Christmas tree and the trampoline. And half of NASA when they realize we’re gone. You don’t suppose they’ll think he disintegrated us or something?”
He limped over to the bed and sat down beside her. “He said he’d have a space program for them in twenty-four hours. They won’t string him up before then, and I have a feeling that at the end of twenty-four hours we’ll be able to tell them where we’ve been ourselves.”
“Which is where?” she said.
He looked around at the walls. The band of light was nearly a foot wide now. It looked more pink than orange. Chris switched off the flashlight and put it on the nightstand.
“Damned if I know,” he said. “That old faker! He understood every word we said. He knew exactly what kind of space program NASA wanted. And all that stuff about honeymoons and closings and not understanding what kind of roll Bets wanted. ‘Time alone. Talk, Neck.’ I could just …,” he said, smashing his fist against his open hand. He stopped and looked at Chris. “I could kiss him on the top of his lipstick-smeared head,” he said. “I thought I was never going to see you again. I figured by the time I made it back up to Sony, you’d have married your prospective buyer.”
“I couldn’t marry Stewart,” Chris said, taking hold of his hand. “I’m already married.”
“ ‘Put on subvocalizer. You and Hutchins get married. Hahnahmoon.’ ” Hutchins said, shaking his head. “I’ll bet he set up this whole thing with Charmaine’s lawyer, the marriage, the honeymoon, everything.”
He stood up and went over to the wall where the shoji screen had been. When he put out his hand to touch it, the band seemed to spread suddenly in all directions, suffusing the room in pink light.
“The honeymoon!” Chris said, getting up on her knees. “I think I know where we are. And you’re wrong. He doesn’t understand every word we say.”
“What do you mean?” he said.
“I’ll bet you anything those trees are cherry trees, and that we’re on a hana moon.” A forest of blossoming trees stretched around them in all directions. She could almost smell the cherry blossoms. “It’s beautiful here,” she said.
“It is,” he said, but he wasn’t looking at the trees. “And I ha
ve the feeling nobody’s going to come in to evict us or use the bathroom or do a tap-dance routine.” He walked over to the bed. “Spielberg didn’t really give Molly and Bets a part in his movie, did he?”
Chris sat back on her heels. “You were right about Spielberg coming up to Sony incognito. You know the old man who lives above Charmaine?”
He pulled her up onto her knees. “In the baseball cap and sneakers? He’s not Spielberg,” he said. “He’s just some chip-cam director who thinks he can bring back slasher movies. He wanted to hire Okee to star in a low-budget remake of Alien. When I told him I didn’t think Okee was available, he asked me if I thought people would believe in a pair of four-year-olds who were vicious murderers.” He put his arms around her. “I said I hoped it was one of those movies where the murderers get what they deserve in the end. I like movies like that, where everybody gets what they deserve.”
“So do I,” Chris said. Hutchins was even closer than he had been on the bullet. Chris could definitely smell the cherry blossoms. “What’s going to happen to Molly and Bets?”
“I don’t know,” he said, and leaned down to kiss her. “The old guy got this spooky smile on his face and mumbled something about tap shoes.”
I DON’T HAVE A LOT OF PATIENCE WITH SHAKESPEARE conspiracy theories. They all, with the exception of the Bacon theory, seem to be based on an inability to accept the obvious: that Shakespeare was Shakespeare. (The Bacon theory seems to be based on a decoder ring.) They’ve concluded Shakespeare was the Earl of Oxford or Queen Elizabeth or a committee (A committee!? Who are they trying to kid?) because he couldn’t have been an Ordinary Person.
Well, of course he wasn’t an Ordinary Person. He was Shakespeare. But that doesn’t mean he couldn’t have come from Ordinary Circumstances. Say, a log cabin in Illinois. Or a small town in upstate England.
The theories about Anne Hathaway are even worse. Out of a handful of facts—she was six years older, she couldn’t read, she was pregnant when they got married—the theorists concoct an aged, ignorant peasant, deservedly abandoned by Queen Elizabeth or the committee or whoever it was.