Robert Heinlein - Variable Star

“So? I suppose I could go to Vegas and turn a two-credit bit into a megasolar at the roulette wheel.”

“Blackjack,” she said. “The other games are for suckers.”

“My tenants back home on the Rock might strike ice. In the next ten minutes I could get an idea for a faster-than-light star drive that can be demonstrated without capital. I can always stand at stud, but that would kick me up a couple of tax brackets. Nothing else comes to mind.”

She said nothing, very loudly. Silver peeped, turned left again, and increased speed, heading for the coast.

“Look, Spice,” I said, “you know I don’t share contemporary Terran prejudices any more than you do—I don’t insist that I be the one to support us. But somebody has to. If you can find a part-time job for either of us that pays well enough to support a family, we’ll get married tomorrow.”

No response. We both knew the suggestion was rhetorical. Two full-time jobs would barely support a growing family in the present economy.

“Come on,” I said, “we already had this conversation once. Remember? That night on Luckout Hill?” The official name is Lookout Hill, because it looks out over the ocean, but it’s such a romantic spot, many a young man has indeed lucked out there. Not me, unfortunately. “We said—”

“I remember what we said!”

Well, then, maybe I didn’t. To settle it, I summoned that conversation up in my mind—or at least fast-forwarded through the storyboard version in the master index. And partway through, I began to grow excited. There was indeed one contingency we had discussed that night on Luckout Hill, one that I hadn’t really thought of again, since I couldn’t really picture Jinny opting for it. I wasn’t sure she was suggesting it now… but if she wasn’t, I would.

“See here, Skinny, you really want to change your name from Hamilton to Johnston right away? Then let’s do it tomorrow morning—and ship out on the Sheffield !” Her jaw dropped; I pressed on. “If we’re going to start our marriage broke, then let’s do it somewhere where being broke isn’t a handicap, or even a stigma—out there around a new star, on some new world eighty light-years away, not here on Terra. What do you say? You say you’re an old-fashioned girl—will you homestead with me?”

A look passed across her face I’d seen only once before—on Aunt Tula’s face, when they told us my father was gone. Sadness unspeakable. “I can’t, Joel.”

How had I screwed up so badly? “Sure you could—”

“No. I can’t .” She swiveled away from me.

The sorrow on her face upset me so much, I shut up and began replaying everything since our dance, trying to locate the point at which my orbit had begun to decay. Outside the car, kilometers flicked by unseen. On the third pass, I finally remembered a technique that had worked for me more than once with women in the past: quit analyzing every word I’d said and instead, consider words I had not said. Light began to dawn, or at least a milder darkness. I swiveled her seat back to face me, and sought her eyes. They were huge.

I dove right in. “Jinny, listen to me. I want to marry you. I ache to marry you. You’re the one. Not since that first moment when I caught you looking at me have I ever doubted for an instant that you are my other half, the person I want to spend the rest of my life with. Okay?”

“Oh.” Her voice was barely audible.

“You give me what I need, and you need what I can give. I want the whole deal, just like you’ve told me you want it—old-fashioned death do us part, better or worse monogamy, like my parents. None of this term marriage business, no prenup nonsense, fifty-fifty, mine is thine, down the line, and I don’t care if we live to be a hundred. I want to marry you so bad, my teeth hurt. So bad my hair hurts. If you would come with me, I would be happy to walk to Boötes, carrying you on my back, towing a suitcase. My eyeballs keep drying out every time I look at you. Then when you’re out of their field of vision, they start to tear up.”

Her eyes started to tear up. “Oh, Joel—you do want to marry me.” Her smile was glorious.

“Of course I do, Skinny you ninny. How could you not know that?”

“So it’s just—”

“Just a matter of financing. Nothing else. We’ll get married the day we can afford to.” I loosened my seat belt, so I’d be ready for the embrace I was sure was coming.

Her smile got even wider. Then it fell apart, and she turned away, but not before I could see she was crying.

What the hell had I said now ?

Of course, that’s the one question you mustn’t ask. Bad enough to make a woman cry; to not even know how you managed it is despicable. But no matter how carefully I reviewed the last few sentences I’d spoken, in my opinion they neither said anything nor failed to say anything that constituted a reason to cry.

Silver slowed slightly, signaling that we were crossing the Georgia Strait. We’d be at Jinny’s little apartment on Lasqueti Island, soon. I didn’t know what to apologize for . But then, did I need to? “Jinny, I’m sorry. I really—”

She spoke up at once, cutting me off. “Joel, suppose you knew for sure you had your scholarship in the bag? The whole ride?” She swiveled her seat halfway back around, not quite enough to be facing me, but enough so that I was clearly in her peripheral vision.

I frowned, puzzled by the non sequitur. “What, have you heard something?” As far as I knew, the decisions wouldn’t even be made for another few weeks.

“Damn it, Stinky, I’m just saying: Suppose you knew for a fact that you’re among this year’s Kallikanzaros winners.”

“Well… that’d be great. Right?”

She turned the rest of the way back around, so that she could glare at me more effectively. “I’m asking you: If that happened, how would it affect your marriage plans?”

“Oh.” I still didn’t see where she was going with this. “Uh, it’d take a lot of the pressure off. We’d know for sure that we’re going to be able to get married in as little as four years. Well, nothing’s for sure, but we’d be a whole lot more…”

I trailed off because I could see what I was saying wasn’t what she wanted to hear. I had to shift my weight slightly as Silver went into a wide right turn. I didn’t have a clue what she did want to hear, and her face wasn’t giving me enough clues. Maybe I ought to—

Wide right turn?

I cleared my side window. Sure enough, we were heading north; almost due north, it looked like. But that was wrong: we couldn’t be that far south of Lasqueti. “Jinny, I—”

She was sobbing outright, now.

Oh, God. As calmly as I could, I said, “Honey, you’re going to have to take manual control: Silver has gone insane.”

She waved no-no and kept sobbing.

For a second I nearly panicked, thinking… I don’t know what I was thinking. “Jinny, what’s wrong ?”

Her weeping intensified. “Oh, Jo-ho-ho-ho—”

I unbuckled, leaned in, and held her. “Damn it, talk to me! Whatever it is, we’ll fix it, I know we will. Just tell me.”

“Oh, God, I-hi-hi’m sorry… I screwed it all up-hup-hup-hup…” She clutched me back fiercely.

I was alarmed. I’d seen Jinny cry. This was hooting with sorrow, rocking with grief. Something was seriously wrong. “Whatever it is, it’s okay, you hear me? Whatever it is.”

She writhed in my arms. “Joel, I lie-hi-hi-hi-hied… I’m so stu-hoo- hupid …”

Ice formed on the floor of my heart. I did not break our embrace, but I felt an impulse to, and I’m sure she felt it kinesthetically. She cried twice as hard. Well, much harder.