Connie Willis - Spice Pogrom

“No, thank you.”

“Okay,” he said, and knocked again immediately.

“Go away,” Chris said.

“You and Hutchins get married tonight,” Mr. Okeefenokee said. “I must talk to you about closing.”

She opened the door. Mr. Okeefenokee came in, wearing his solemn expression. “Why are you not wearing your thuwevrherrnghladdis?”

Chris put her hand up to her throat. “It hurt to wear it,” she said. “Charmaine said to ask you if you’d like to go see the show at Luigi’s tonight.”

“I cannot go. You and Hutchins get married tonight.”

“We can’t get married, Mr. Okeefenokee,” Chris said. “I’m engaged to Stewart, and even if I weren’t, Hutchins doesn’t want to marry me. He just wanted a place to stay.”

“You like my wife,” he said, continuing to look at her solemnly, the lines above his nose deepening.

“I thought Omiko reminded you of your wife.”

“Omiko sake cups like wife,” he said, reverting to pidgin. His cheek knobs were bright orange. “But you like her, most.”

“You miss your wife, don’t you?” Chris said, and then remembered that he wouldn’t understand that meaning of “miss.” “It makes you sad that she is far away.”

“Far away,” he said, nodding and smiling vigorously.

“Far away,” she said, walking to the end of the hall.

“Far away.” She came back and stood in front of him.

“Close.”

“Closing,” he said, and his face smoothed out into his expression of understanding. “Hahnahmoon. I bought bed. Put on subvocalizer. You and Hutchins get married after interview.” He went bustling out, his wispy hair trailing behind him, like sunset clouds.

“I don’t think so,” Chris thought sadly, sliding the door shut. I’m engaged to Stewart and Hutchins just wanted a place to stay. Mr. Okeefenokee hadn’t understood her when she’d said that. “I bought bed,” he’d said, and he hadn’t understood “close” either. Or “far away.” She had a sudden terrible vision of Stewart trying to explain what a space program was. “Space program,” she could hear him saying, “go far way,” and Mr. Okeefenokee would nod and smile vigorously.

I’d better tell Hutchins about “far away,” she thought. She went out in the hall to look for him. He wasn’t on the stairs, but everybody else was, including Mr. Nagisha’s evicted cousins. They were watching Molly and Bets’s holographic images in front of the TV. Molly and Bets, still in costume, were dancing alongside their three-dimensional images, and both Mollys were bawling “Tiptoe Through the Tulipth.”

Chris went back inside and went to bed, locking her apartment door but leaving the door of her room slightly open so she could hear Hutchins when he came back. If he comes back, she thought sadly. After a while she heard someone come in, and got up, but it was only Mr. Okeefenokee. He disappeared into his room and began to snore almost before he had the shoji screen shut.

“Chris, wake up,” Hutchins said in her ear, and at first she thought he was using the subvocalizer.

“I took it off,” she said sleepily, and opened her eyes. He was squatting beside the couch, his hand on her shoulder. He had on jeans and no shirt. “What time is it?” she said, reaching for the light. “And what are you doing in here?”

“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.”