Nancy Kress - Beggars and Choosers

“I’m looking for someone,” Dr. Turner said. “Someone I was supposed to meet here, but we apparently got our data confused. A woman, a girl really, about this tall, dark hair, a slightly large head.”

I thought, me, of the girl in the woods, and quick tried to look like I wasn’t thinking of nothing at all. That girl came from Eden, I was sure of it, me — and Eden don’t got nothing to do with donkeys. It’s about Livers . Dr. Turner was watching close, her. Annie shook her head, cool as ice, even though I knew she probably remembered that other girl, the big-headed one she said she saw at the town meeting when Jack Sawicki called the district supervisor about them rabid racoons. Or maybe it was the same big-headed girl — I hadn’t thought, me, about that before, me. How many big-headed maybe-donkey girls did we have running around the woods near East Oleanta? Why did we have any?

Annie said, polite but not very, “How’d you miss your friend? Don’t she know, her, where you are?”

“I fell asleep,” Dr. Turner said, which explained nothing. She said it funny, too. “I fell asleep on the gravrail. But I think she might be around here someplace.”

“I never saw nobody like that, me,” Annie said firmly.

“How about you, Billy?” Dr. Turner said. She probably knew my name, her, even before Annie said it. She’d been in East Oleanta for a week, her, eating at the cafe, talking to whoever would talk to her, which wasn’t many.

“I never saw nobody like that, me,” I said. She stared at me hard. She didn’t believe me, her.

“Then let me just ask something else. Does the name ‘Eden’ mean anything to you?”

A gust of wind could of blown me over.

But Annie said cool as January, “It’s in the Bible. Where Adam and Eve lived, them.”

“Right,” Dr. Turner said. “Before the Fall.” She stood up and stretched. Her body under the jacks was too skinny, at least by me. A woman should have some softness on her bones.

“I’ll come back to look in on Lizzie tomorrow,” Dr. Turner said, and I saw, me, that Annie didn’t want her to come back, and then that Annie did. This was a doctor. Lizzie slept peaceful, her. Even from by the door, she looked cooler to me.

When the doctor left, Annie and I looked at each other, us. Then Annie’s face broke up. Just went from solid flesh creased with worry to a mess of lines that didn’t have nothing to do with one another, and she started to cry, her. Before I even thought about it I put my arms around her. Annie clung back, hard, and at the feel of her soft breasts against my chest, I went a little crazy. I didn’t think, me. I just raised her face to mine and kissed her.

And Annie Francy kissed me back.

None of your grateful-daughter crap, neither. She cried and pointed to Lizzie and kissed me with her soft berry lips and pushed her breasts against me. Annie Francy. I kissed her back, my mind not even working, it — the words only came later — and then it was like we just met instead of knowing each other for years, instead of me being sixty-eight and Annie thirty-five, instead of everything breaking down and East Oleanta coming apart like it was. Annie Francy kissed me like I was a young man, me — and I was. I ran my hands, me, over her body, and I led her into the bedroom, leaving Lizzie sleeping peaceful as an angel, and I closed the door. Annie was laughing and weeping, the way I forgot, me, that women can do, and she lay her big beautiful body on the bed with me like I was thirty-five, too.

Annie Francy.

If that donkey doctor in yellow jacks had come back then and asked me again where Eden was — if she’d of done that, I could of told her, me. In this room. On this bed. With Annie Francy. Here.

We slept till morning, us. I woke up before Annie. The light was pale gray, thin. For a long time I just sat, me, on the edge of the bed, looking at Annie. I knew this was a one-time thing. I could feel it, even before she fell alseep, in that little space of time when we held each other afterwards. I could feel it, me, in her arms, and in the set of her neck, and in her breathing. What I needed, me, was the words to tell her that it was all right. That this was more than I expected, me, although less than I dreamed. I wasn’t going to tell her that part. You always dream more.

But Annie didn’t wake, her, and so instead I went to check on Lizzie. She was sitting up, her, looking woozy. “Billy — I’m hungry, me.”

“That’s a good sign, Lizzie. What you want to eat, you?”

“Something hot. I’m cold, me. Something hot from the cafe.” Her voice was whiny and she smelled awful but I didn’t care, me. I was too glad to her her cold, when just yesterday she’d been burning up, her, with fever. That donkey doctor really was as good as a medunit.

“Don’t go waking your mother, you. Just sit there until I get your food. Where’s your meal chip, Lizzie?”

“I don’t know, me. I’m hungry.”

Annie must of taken Lizzie’s meal chip, her. I could get enough food on mine. I don’t eat all that much anymore, me, and this morning I felt I could live on air.

There wasn’t nobody in the cafe, them, except for Dr. Turner.

She sat eating her breakfast and watching a donkey channel on the hologrid. She looked tired, her.

“Up early, you,” I said. I got myself a cup of coffee and a bun, and Lizzie some eggs and juice and milk and another bun. Annie or I could reheat the eggs on the Y-energy unit, us. I sat down, me, next to Dr. Turner, just to be sociable for a minute. Or maybe to think what to say to Annie. Dr. Turner stared at the eggs like they was a three-day-dead woodchuck.

“Can you actually eat those, Billy?”

“The eggs?”

“ ‘Eggs.’ Soysynth stamped out and dyed, like all the rest of it. Haven’t you ever tasted a real, natural egg?”

And the weird thing was, the minute she said that, her, I remembered what a real egg tasted like. Fresh from the chicken, cooked by my grandmama two minutes and served with strips of hot toast with real butter. You dipped the toast into the egg and the yellow yolk coated it, and then you ate them together, hot. All those years and at that minute I remembered it, me, and not before. My mouth filled with sweet water.

“Look at that,” Dr. Turner said, and I thought she still meant the egg but she didn’t, her, she’d turned back to the hologrid. A handsome donkey sat at a big wood desk, talking, like they always do. I didn’t understand all the words:

“—if even a possibility of an escaped self-replicating dissembler… not verified… duragem… government should put the facts before us … emphasize restricted to certain molecular bonds and these are nonorganic… very important distinction… dura-gem… GSEA… underground facility… understaffed in current difficult economic climate… duragem…”

I said, “Sounds like the same old stuff to me.”

Dr. Turner made a sound, her, in the back of her throat, a sound so strange and so unexpected I stopped eating, me, with my plastisynth fork halfway to my mouth. I must have looked a moron. She made the sound again, and then she laughed, her, and then she covered her face with her hand, and then she laughed again. I ain’t never seen no donkey behave like that before, me. Never.

“No, Billy — this isn’t the same old stuff. It’s definitely not. But it might all too easily get to be the same new stuff, in which case we should all worry.”

“About what?” I ate faster, me, to bring Lizzie her food still hot. Lizzie was hungry, her. A good sign.

“What the hell is this shit?” a stomp kid asked, the second he stepped through the cafe door. “Who’s playing this donkey crap, them?” He saw Dr. Turner, him — and he looked away. I could of sworn he didn’t want no part of her, which was so weird — stomps don’t back off shoving nobody, them. I stopped eating, me, for the second time and just stared. The stomp said loudly, “Channel 17,” and the hologrid switched to some sports channel, but still the stomp didn’t look at Dr. Turner. He got his food, him, off the belt and went to sit at a far table in the corner.