Ким Робинсон - Pacific Edge

That evening and the next day, the whole unwanted raft of condolences. He preferred swimming alone. Laps at the pool, thousands of yards.

He made calls to Jill and his parents. Jill gone as usual. He left a message, feeling bad. He got his mother on screen: weird moment of power and helplessness combined as he gave her the news. Suddenly he appreciated what Pedro had done, to come over and tell him like that. A hard thing to do. The little face on the screen, so familiar—shocked by the news, twisted with grief. After an awkward brief conversation they promised each other they would talk again soon.

Later that day he watched Doris cook a dinner for the house, when it was his turn. “You know we don’t have any way to find those friends of his,” she said. “I hope they’ll get in touch with us.”

“Yeah.”

She frowned.

He was angry at the crew of Ganesh, angry at Nadezhda. Then she reached him on the phone and he saw her, arm in a sling, grim, distracted. He recalled what Tom had told him of her life, a tough one it sounded. She told him what she knew of the wreck. Four other crew members missing, apparently they had been trapped in a forward compartment and had tried to make their way back over the deck. Tom had disappeared in the chaos of the foundering, no one sure what had happened to him. Disappeared. Everyone had thought he was in one of the other lifeboats. She went on until Kevin stopped her. He asked her to come back to El Modena, he wanted her to return, wanted to see her. She said that she would, but she looked tired, hurt, empty. When the call was over he couldn’t be sure if she would come or not. And then he really believed in the disaster. Tom was dead.

They finished the work on Oscar’s house a couple of weeks later, in the burning heat of late September. They walked around it in their work boots and their greased, creased, and sawdusted work-shorts, brown as nuts, checking out every little point, the seal on the suntek and cloudgel, the paint, the computer (ask it odd questions it said “Sorry I fail the Turing test very quickly”), everything. Standing out in the middle of the street and looking at it, they shook Oscar’s hand and laughed: it looked like a clear tent draped over one or two small dwellings, red and blue brick facades covered by new greenery. Oscar did a dance shuffle to the front door, singing “I’m the Sheik, of Ar—a—bee” in a horrible baritone. “And your love, belongs, to meee,” pirouetting like the hippopotami in Fantasia, mugging Valentino-like swoops at Jody and Gabriela, who squeaked “Don’t—stop—don’t—stop” in unison, pushing him back and forth between them.

Inside they split up and wandered through the rooms, looking things over. Kevin came across Oscar and Hank standing together in the central atrium. Hank said, “These black pillars are neat. They give it an Egyptian Roman wrapped in plastic look that I like.”

Oscar looked around dazed. “Egyptian Roman, wrapped in plastic,” he murmured. “I always dreamed of it.”

Kevin went back out front to get a beer from his bike basket.

Ramona appeared down on Laurinda, pedaled up to him. He waved and put down the dumpie, feeling strange. They had talked briefly several days before, after the news about Tom came in. Condolences.

“Hi,” she said, “How are you?”

“Fine. We’re just having a little celebration here.”

“All done?”

“Yep.”

“Hopefully Oscar will have a housewarming?”

“I think so, yeah. This is just an informal thing, the inside’s still a mess.”

She nodded. Pursed her lips. The furrow between her eyebrows appeared, reminding Kevin sharply of Pedro. “You okay?” Ramona said.

“Oh yeah, yeah.”

“Can… can I have a talk with you?”

“Sure.”

“Now’s not a bad time?”

“No, no. Here, let’s walk up the street, if you want.”

She nodded gratefully, eyes to the ground. They walked up the bike path, her bike between them. She seemed nervous, awkward, uncomfortable—as she had been, in fact, ever since her birthday. It made Kevin weary. Looking at her, the long stride, the sun bouncing off glossy black hair, he felt an ache of desire for her company —just that, nothing more. That he would lose even her friendship. “Listen, Ramona, it’s all right.”

She shook her head. “It’s not all right.” Voice muffled. “I hate what’s happened, Kevin, I wish it never would have.”

“No!” Kevin said, shocked. “Don’t say that! It’s like saying…”

He didn’t know how to finish, but she nodded, still looking down. All in a rush she said, “I know, I’m glad too, but I didn’t ever want to hurt you and if it means I did and we can’t be friends anymore, then I can’t help but wish it hadn’t happened! I mean, I love you—I love our friendship I mean. I want us to be able to be friends!”

“It’s okay, Ramona. We can be friends.”

She shook her head, unsatisfied. Kevin rolled his eyes, for the sake of himself alone, for his own internal audience (when had it appeared?). Here he was listening to himself say things again, completely surprised by what he heard coming out of his own mouth.

“Even if—even if…” She stopped walking, looked at him straight. “Even if Alfredo and I get married?”

Oh.

So that was it.

Well, Kevin thought, go ahead and say something. Amaze yourself again.

“You’re getting married?”

She nodded, looked down. “Yes. We want to. It’s been our whole lives together, you know, and we want to… do it all. Be a family, and…”

Kevin waited, but she appeared to have finished. His turn. “Well,” he said. He thought to himself, you make a hell of a crowbar. “That’s quite a bit of news,” he said. “I mean, congratulations.”

“Oh, Kevin—”

“No, no,” he said, reaching out toward her, hand stopping; he couldn’t bring himself to touch her, not even on the forearm. “I mean it. I want you to be happy, and I know you two are… a couple. You know. And I want us to go on being friends. I mean I really do. That’s been the worst part of this, almost, I mean you’ve been acting so un com fortable with me—”

“I have been! I’ve felt terrible!”

He took a deep breath. This was something he had needed to hear, apparently; it lifted some weights in him. Just under the collarbones he felt lighter somehow. “I know, but…” He shrugged. Definitely lighter.

“I was afraid you would hate me!” she said, voice sharp with distress.

“No, no.” He laughed, sort of: three quick exhalations. “I wouldn’t ever do that.”

“I know it’s selfish of me, but I want to be your friend.”

“Alfredo might not like it. He might be jealous.”

“No. He knows what it means to me. Besides, he feels terrible himself. He feels like if he had been different before…”

“I know. I talked to him, a little.”

She nodded. “So he’ll understand. In fact I think he’ll feel a lot better about it if we aren’t… unfriendly.”

“Yeah. Well…” It seemed he could make the two of them feel better than ever. Great. And himself?

Suddenly he realized that what they were saying now wouldn’t really matter. That years would pass and they would drift apart, inevitably. No matter what they said. The futility of talk.

“You’ll come to the wedding?”

He blinked. “You want me to?”

“Of course! I mean, if you want to.”

He took a breath, let it out. A part of his mind under clamps sprang free and he wanted to say Don’t, Ramona, please, what about me? Quick image of the long swing no. He couldn’t afford to think of it. Find it, catch it, clamp it back down, lock it away. Didn’t happen. Never. Never never never never never.