Connie Willis - Fire Watch

“He said I tempted… men with it. He said I was a-that I made men think wicked thoughts about me. He said it was my fault that it happened. He cut off all my hair.”

It was coming to me finally that I had asked her just what I thought I had: whether she had a boyfriend.

“Do you think I-do that?” she asked me pleadingly.

Are you kidding? She couldn’t have tempted Brown in one of his bone-a-virgin moods. I couldn’t say that to her, though, and on the other hand, I knew if I said yes it was going to be toss-up time in dorm land again. I felt sorry for her, poor kid, her braids chopped off and her scut of a father scaring the hell out of her with a bunch of lies. No wonder she’d been so edge when she first got here.

“Do you?” she persisted.

“You want to know what I think,” I said, standing up a little unsteadily: “I think fathers are a pile of sent.” I thought of Arabel’s story. Little brown animals as long as your arm and Brown saying, “Your father only wants to protect you.” “Worse than a pile of scut,” I said. “All of them.”

She looked at me, backed up against the wall, as if she would like to believe me.

“You want to know what my father did to me?” I said. “He didn’t cut my braids off. Oh, no, this is lots better. You know about trust kids?”

She shook her head.

“Okay. My father wants to carry on his precious name and his precious jig-juice, but he doesn’t want any of the trouble. So he sets up a trust. He pays a lot of money, he goes jig-jig in a plastic bag, and presto, he’s a father, and the lawyers are left with all the dirty work. Like taking care of me and sending me someplace for summer break and paying my tuition at this godspit school. Like putting one of these on me.” I held up my wrist with the ugly alert band on it. “He never even saw me. He doesn’t even know who I am. Trust me. I know about scutty fathers.”

“I wish…” Zibet said. She opened her book and started copying her notes again. I eased down onto my bunk, staring to feel the post-float headache. When I looked at her again, she was dripping tears all over her precious notes. Jiggin’ Jesus, everything I said was wrong. The most I could hope for in this edge place was that the boys would be done playing beasties by midterms and I could get my grades up.

By midterms the circulation system had broken down completely The campus was knee-deep in leaves and cotton. You could hardly walk. I trudged through the leaves to class, head down. I didn’t even see Brown until it was too late.

He had the animal on his arm. “This is Daughter Ann,” Brown said. “Daughter Ann, meet Tavvy.”

“Go jig yourself,” I said, brushing by him.

He grabbed my wrist, holding on hard and pressing his fingers against the alert band until it hurt. “That’s not polite, Tavvy. Daughter Ann wants to meet you. Don’t you sweetheart?” He held the animal out to me. Arabel had been right. Hideous little things. I had never gotten a close look at one before. It had a sharp little brown face, with dull eyes and a tiny pink mouth. Its fur was coarse and brown, and its body hung limply off Brown’s arm. He had put a ribbon around its neck.

“Just your type,” I said. “Ugly as mud and a hole big enough for even you to find.”

His grip tightened. “You can’t talk that way to my…”

“Hi,” Zibet said behind me. I whirled around. This was all I needed.

“Hi,” I said, and yanked my wrist free. “Brown, this is my roommate. My freshman roommate. Zibet, Brown.”

“And this is Daughter Ann,” he said, holding the animal up so that its tender pink mouth gaped stupidly at us. Its tail was up. I could see tender pink at the other end, too. And Arabel wonders what the attraction is?

“Nice to meet you, freshman roommate,” Brown muttered and pulled the animal back close to him. “Come to Papa,” he said, and stalked off through the leaves.

I rubbed my poor wrist. Please, please let her not ask me what a tessel’s for? I have had about all I can take for one day I’m not about to explain Brown’s nasty habits to a virgie.

I had underestimated her. She shuddered a little and pulled her notebooks against her chest. “Poor little beast,” she said.

“What do you know about sin?” she asked me suddenly that night. At least she had turned off the light. That was some improvement.

“A lot,” I said. “How do you think I got this charming bracelet?”

“I mean really doing something wrong. To somebody else. To save yourself.” She stopped. I didn’t answer her, and she didn’t say anything more for a long time. “I know about the admin,” she said finally.

I couldn’t have been more surprised if Old Scut Moulton had suddenly shouted, “Bless you, my daughter,” over the intercom.

“You’re a good person, I can tell that.” There was a dreamy quality to her voice. If it had been anybody but her I’d have thought she was masting. “There are things you wouldn’t do, not even to save yourself.”

“And you’re a hardened criminal, I suppose?”

“There are things you wouldn’t do,” she repeated sleepily and then said quite clearly and irrelevantly “My sister’s coming for Christmas.”

Jiggin', she was full of surprises tonight. “I thought you were going home for Christmas,” I said.

“I’m never going home,” she said.

“Tavvy!” Arabel shouted halfway across campus. “Hello!”

The boys are over it, I thought, and how in the scut am I going to get rid of this alert band? I felt so relieved I could have cried.

“Tavvy,” she said again. “I haven’t seen you in weeks!”

“What’s going on?” I asked her, wondering why she didn’t just blurt it out about the boys in her usual breakneck fashion.

“What do you mean?” she said, wide-eyed, and I knew it wasn’t the boys. They still had the tessels, Brown and Sept and all the rest of them. They still had the tessels. It’s only beasties, I told myself fiercely, it’s only beasties and why are you so edge about it? Your father has your best interests at heart. Come to Daddy.

“The admin’s secretary quit,” Arabel said, “I got put on restricks for a samurai party in my room.” She shrugged. “It was the best offer I’d had all fall.”

Oh, but you’re trust, Arabel. You’re trust. He could be your father. Come to Papa.

“You look terrible,” Arabel said. “Are you doing too much float?”

I shook my head. “Do you know what it is the boys do with them?”

“Tavvy, sweetheart, if you can’t figure out what that big pink hole is for—”

“My roommate’s father cut her hair off,” I said. “She’s a virgie. She’s never done anything. He cut off all her hair.”

“Hey,” Arabel said, “you are really edging it. Listen, how long have you been without jig-jig? I can set you up, younger guys than the admin, nothing to worry about. Guaranteed no trusters. I could set you up.”

I shook my head. “I don’t want any.”

“Listen, I’m worried about you. I don’t want you to go edge on me. Let me ask the admin about your alert band at least.”

“No,” I said clearly. “I’m all right, Arabel. I’ve got to get to class.”

“Don’t let this tessel thing get to you, Tavvy. It’s only beasties.”

“Yeah.” I walked steadily away from her across the spitting, leaf-littered campus. As soon as I was out of her line of sight, I slumped against one of the giant cottonwoods and hung on to it like Zibet had clung to that wallplate. For dear life.

Zibet didn’t say another thing about her sister until right before Christmas break. Her hair, which I had thought was growing out, looked choppier than ever. The old look of strain was back and getting worse every day. She looked like a radiation victim.