James Hynes - Kings of Infinite Space

“What’s the problem?” Callie said. She was wearing the same skirt she had worn on their first date and a tight tee that bared her upper arms and displayed an inch and a half of belly button. “Is it the singing?

“No,” Paul said. Having to sing was only a fraction of what made him anxious. What did his three lunch companions want from him? What was Colonel going to reveal to him this evening? And who knew what bourgeois horrors awaited him in Colonel’s suburban castle? And (he wondered, way at the back of his brain), how could Colonel afford a house like this on a TxDoGS salary? Worst of all, Olivia was going to be here. Even if he managed to relax in front of the men, how could he possibly relax in front of her? How could he enjoy an evening with Olivia when the next day, Saturday morning, he was going to be alone with her in the darkened cubescape at work? And did he really want to hear her sing?

Callie got out and slammed her door, and she came around the front of the car and bent at Paul’s window like a traffic cop. “Step out of the car, mister.”

“Callie, let’s just go.”

“No way, cowboy.” She lifted the handle on Paul’s door and hauled it open on its groaning hinges. She leaned past him and switched off the engine, and the car coughed into silence, leaving the enthusiastic suburban crickets to fill the swelling darkness. Then she squeezed onto his lap, careful not to bang the horn, crooked her arm around his neck, and faced him nose to nose.

“So fess up,” she said. “How long have you known about this evening, and when were you planning to tell me?”

“I only found out about it today,” Paul lied. The pressure of Callie’s backside on his lap, the steady throb of her pulse in the long curve of her throat, the mild heat of her breath on his cheek — all were making it hard for Paul to maintain his stubbornness. He nuzzled her neck, but she tipped his head back with her finger.

“You know what I think?” Thank , she said. “I think you didn’t want your coworkers to see you with your little trailer trash girlfriend.”

Paul groaned, aroused and annoyed all at once. He locked his gaze with Callie’s and said, “That’s not true.” And, mirabile dictu, it wasn’t. It was the other way around — Paul didn’t want his lively new lover to see what a bunch of losers he worked with.

“They already know about us,” Paul said, “or at least Colonel does. He told me to bring you.”

“Whatever.” Callie pressed her cheek to his and whispered in his ear. “You promised me a night out.” She bit his earlobe. “If you were planning to get lucky tonight, you better deliver.” Then she was off his lap and out of the car, her heels clicking up Colonel’s twee little flagstone walk.

Paul caught up to her breathlessly at the door. In the glow of the paper lantern, Callie straightened her shoulders and gave the hem of her top a pert tug. Then she pressed the bell, and inside the house they heard a recording of a gong, a long, muffled clang. Paul started to laugh and Callie slapped his arm, but before either could say a word, the door swung open and a tiny Japanese woman in an orange track suit lined with racing stripes beckoned them in.

“Welcome!” she said, with an aggressive smile. Her hair was loose and attractively streaked with gray. “You must be Paul!”

“And this is Callie,” Paul said.

“Hey.” Callie stuck out her hand.

“I am Yasumi, Colonel’s wife.” She took Callie’s hand and then Paul’s, giving each a brisk, efficient shake. “Or, as we sometime say, I am Mrs. Colonel, ha ha. Mind your step.”

She led them at a trot down through a sunken living room, lit only by a single, dim lamp, and Paul glimpsed paper scrolls and a Japanese screen and a sixties-vintage fireplace with a low mantle. The room smelled of air freshener.

“You find us easy?” asked Yasumi without looking back.

“Yes,” said Paul, hurrying to keep up as the orange track suit retreated into the gloom.

“We got lost,” said Callie.

“It’s not so hard,” said Yasumi. “Down the steps. Low clearance. Mind how you go.”

Because it was built on a slope, Colonel’s house had that rarest of domestic amenities in central Texas — a basement. Paul and Callie followed Yasumi single file down a narrow, carpeted stairway, paneled in plywood and hung with framed photographs of Colonel in uniform. Paul held back to look at the pictures, but at the bottom of the stairs Yasumi ushered Callie past her and then gestured briskly for Paul.

“No time!” she said, smiling ferociously. “You look at pictures later. We almost start without you!”

Paul reluctantly turned away from a photo of a younger, thinner Colonel at attention in a dress uniform, behind an enormous cake that read DUTY, FREEDOM, HONOR in red, white, and blue frosting. At the bottom of the stairs, Paul stepped into the brighter light of a long, paneled basement. To the right of the stairs a plywood partition with a plain wooden door in the middle cut across the room, but to the left the room ran all the way to the end of the house. The long walls of the basement were hung with movie posters— The Great Escape, Bullitt, Seven Samurai , but also Gigi, My Fair Lady , and The Umbrellas of Cherbourg . Immediately to the left of the stairs, in an alcove in the inside wall, a bar with two padded stools was backed with a mirror and an impressive array of bottles; on the wide bar top were platters of cold cuts, crackers, cheese, and crudités, and a stack of plastic plates and cutlery. Across from the bar, the outside wall was interrupted by a wide, glass sliding door. Beyond the glass, and through his own reflection and the glare of the room, Paul saw a couple more paper lanterns shining from the branches of a live oak, and a lawn sloping away into the dark.

“Professor!” cried Colonel from the far end of the room. He stood on a small, raised platform behind an array of electronic equipment upholstered in black and hung with a tangle of wires. A wide projection TV screen hung on the wall, and two black speakers as tall as Colonel’s wife flanked the little stage. Colonel picked up his drink and stepped down from the platform. He was out of uniform this evening, in an immense Hawaiian shirt splashed with giant red-and-orange flowers, a pair of loose cotton trousers, and big plastic sandals. Paul had never seen Colonel in a short-sleeved shirt before, but he was not surprised to see that the man had arms like a stevedore’s.

“You found us!” Colonel swung gut first round a couch and an assortment of comfortable chairs — an old, overstuffed armchair, a plush loveseat, a La-Z-Boy — arranged in a semicircle facing the platform. “We were about to send out a search party.”

Despite its tidiness, the basement had a musty smell, as if the carpet had been soaked and improperly dried. Paul worried it might squish under his feet and fill his sandals with brackish water.

Colonel swung his hand in a wide circle and met Paul’s in a crushing grip; his bulging forearm was thickly carpeted with steel-gray hair. “She’s a firecracker.” He winked towards Callie, his breath a haze of Rémy Martin. “I can see already that she’s going to be the life of the party. Drink?”

Behind the bar, Colonel made up a scotch and water for Paul, while Paul worked his fingers to restore his circulation and watched Callie introducing herself at the far end of the room. As Yasumi chaperoned, Callie shook hands all around, even with Olivia. She was glowing from within, like one of the paper lanterns outside, and Paul could tell, with a mixture of embarrassment and tenderness, that Callie was prepared to enjoy herself, that she meant to be a little loud and flirty this evening. She was swinging her shoulders and shaking hands vigorously with a flushed Bob Wier, who looked like Pat Boone in a pullover, slacks, and penny loafers without socks.