Elizabeth Moon - The Speed of Dark

But I want to know why Tom and Lucia are angry with Don more than I want to explain to Marjory about why it’s wrong to say Don is a real heel. “Is it because he doesn’t do enough stretches?”

“No.” Marjory sounds a little angry now, and I feel my stomach tightening. What have I done? “He’s just… just mean, sometimes, Lou. He makes jokes about people that aren’t funny.”

I wonder if it is the jokes or the people that aren’t funny. I know about jokes that most people don’t think are funny, because I have made some. I still don’t understand why some jokes are funny and why mine aren’t, but I know it is true.

“He made jokes about you,” Marjory says, a block later, in a low voice. “And we didn’t like it.”

I don’t know what to say. Don makes jokes about everybody, even Marjory. I didn’t like those jokes, but I didn’t do anything about it. Should I have? Marjory glances at me again. This time I think she wants me to say something. I can’t think of anything. Finally I do.

“My parents said acting mad at people didn’t make them act better.”

Marjory makes a funny noise. I don’t know what it means. “Lou, sometimes I think you’re a philosopher.”

“No,” I say. “I’m not smart enough to be a philosopher.”

Marjory makes the noise again. I look out the window; we are almost to the airport. The airport at night has different-colored lights laid out along the runways and taxiways. Amber, blue, green, red. I wish they had purple ones. Marjory parks in the short-term section of the parking garage, and we walk across the bus lanes into the terminal.

When I’m traveling alone, I like to watch the automatic doors open and close. Tonight, I walk on beside Marjory, pretending I don’t care about the doors. She stops to look at the video display of departures and arrivals. I have already spotted the flight it must be: the right airline, from Chicago, landing at 10:15 P.M., on time, Gate Seventeen. It takes her longer; it always takes normal people longer.

At the security gate for “Arrivals,” I feel my stomach tightening again. I know how to do this; my parents taught me, and I have done it before. Take everything metallic out of your pockets and put it in the little basket. Wait your turn. Walk through the arch. If nobody asks me any questions, it’s easy. But if they ask, I don’t always hear them exactly: it’s too noisy, with too many echoes off the hard surfaces. I can feel myself tensing up.

Marjory goes first: her purse onto the conveyor belt, her keys in the little basket. I see her walk through; no one asks her anything. I put my keys, my wallet, my change into the little basket and walk through. No buzz, no bleep. The man in uniform stares at me as I pick up my keys, my wallet, my change and put them back in my pockets. I turn away, toward Marjory waiting a few yards away. Then he speaks.

“May I see your ticket, please? And some ID?”

I feel cold all over. He hasn’t asked anyone else — not the man with the long braided hair who pushed past me to get his briefcase off the conveyor belt, not Marjory — and I haven’t done anything wrong. You don’t have to have a ticket to go through security for arrivals; you just have to know the flight number you’re meeting. People who are meeting people don’t have tickets because they aren’t traveling. Security for departures requires a ticket.

“I don’t have a ticket,” I say. Beyond him, I can see Marjory shift her weight, but she doesn’t come closer. I don’t think she can hear what he is saying, and I don’t want to yell in a public place.

“ID?” he says. His face is focused on me and starting to get shiny. I pull out my wallet and open it to my ID. He looks at it, then back at me. “If you don’t have a ticket, what are you doing here?” he asks.

I can feel my heart racing, sweat springing out on my neck. “I’m… I’m… I’m…

“Spit it out,” he says, frowning. “Or do you stutter like that all the time?”

I nod. I know I can’t say anything now, not for a few minutes. I reach into my shirt pocket and take out the little card I keep there. I offer it to him; he glances at it.

“Autistic, huh? But you were talking; you answered me a second ago. Who are you meeting?”

Marjory moves, coming up behind him. “Anything wrong, Lou?”

“Stand back, lady,” the man says. He doesn’t look at her.

“He’s my friend,” Marjory says. “We’re meeting a friend of mine on Flight Three-eighty-two, Gate Seventeen. I didn’t hear the buzzer go off…” There is an edge of anger to her tone.

Now the man turns his head just enough to see her. He relaxes a little. “He’s with you?”

“Yes. Was there a problem?”

“No, ma’am. He just looked a little odd. I guess this” — he still has my card in his hand — “explains it. As long as you’re with him…”

“I’m not his keeper,” Marjory says, in the same tone that she used when she said Don was a real heel. “Lou is my friend.”

The man’s eyebrows go up, then down. He hands me back my card and turns away. I walk away, beside Marjory, who is headed off in a fast walk that must be stretching her legs. We say nothing until after we arrive at the secured waiting area for Gates Fifteen through Thirty. On the other side of the glass wall, people with tickets, on the departures side, sit in rows; the seatframes are shiny metal and the seats are dark blue. We don’t have seats in arrivals because we are not supposed to come more than ten minutes before the flight’s scheduled arrival.

This is not the way it used to be. I don’t remember that, of course — I was born at the turn of the century — but my parents told me about being able to just walk right up to the gates to meet people arriving. Then after the 2001 disasters, only departing passengers could go to the gates. That was so awkward for people who needed help, and so many people asked for special passes, that the government designed these arrival lounges instead, with separate security lines. By the time my parents took me on an airplane for the first time, when I was nine, all large airports had separated arriving and departing passengers.

I look out the big windows. Lights everywhere. Red and green lights on the tips of the airplanes’ wings. Rows of dim square lights along the planes, showing where the windows are. Headlights on the little vehicles that pull baggage carts. Steady lights and blinking lights.

“Can you talk now?” Marjory asks while I’m still looking out at the lights.

“Yes.” I can feel her warmth; she is standing very close beside me. I close my eyes a moment. “I just… I can get confused.” I point to an airplane coming toward a gate. “Is that the one?”

“I think so.” She moves around me and turns to face me. “Are you all right?”

“Yes. It just… happens that way sometimes.” I am embarrassed that it happened tonight, the first time I have ever been alone with Marjory. I remember in high school wanting to talk to girls who didn’t want to talk to me. Will she go away, too? I could get a taxi back to Tom and Lucia’s, but I don’t have a lot of money with me.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” Marjory says, and then the door opens and people start coming off the plane. She is watching for Karen, and I am watching her. Karen turns out to be an older woman, gray-haired. Soon we are all back outside and then on the way to Karen’s apartment. I sit quietly in the backseat, listening to Marjory and Karen talk. Their voices flow and ripple like swift water over rocks. I can’t quite follow what they’re talking about. They go too fast for me, and I don’t know the people or places they speak of. It’s all right, though, because I can watch Marjory without having to talk at the same time.