Tribute Part 30

She pitched forward, caught herself, reared back as her legs scissored out. Then, spinning around in his chair, she clutched her hands at her chest as her laughter bubbled out.

"G.o.d! You scared me!"

"Yeah, I picked that up when you nearly bashed your head on my drawing board. What're you up to?"

"I was ... Oh G.o.d. Oh s.h.i.t!" She shoved the chair back, dropped her hands into her lap. "I'm sorry. I completely breached your privacy. I was looking at the sketches you had sitting out, and I saw the book. I just meant to skim the first page. I got caught up. I shouldn't have-"

"Whoa, whoa, save the self-flagellation. I told you before you could read it sometime. I just hadn't written it yet. If you got caught up, that's a plus."

"I moved things around." She picked up the panel, held it out. "I hate when people move my things around."

"I know where it goes. Obviously, you're lucky I'm not as temperamental and touchy as you are." He lay the panel back in its place. "So, what do you think?"

"I think the story is fun, exciting and entertaining, with a sharp thread of humor, and with strong underpinnings of feminism."

He lifted his brows. "All that?"

"You know d.a.m.n well. The character of Ca.s.s behaves in certain ways, and expects certain behavior and att.i.tudes toward her because she was raised by a domineering, unsympathetic father. She's s.e.xually repressed and emotionally clogged, has been reared to accept the superiority of men and accept a certain lack of respect in her male-dominated field. You see a great deal of that in the single portrait. The one you just put back.

"She's betrayed, and left for dead, because she's so indoctrinated to taking orders from male authority figures. To subverting her own intellect and desires. And by facing death, by fighting against it, she becomes a leader. Everything that's been trapped inside her, and more, is released in the form of Brid. A warrior. Empowerment, through power."

Fascinating, he thought, and flattering, to listen to her synopsize his story, and his character. "I'm going to interpret that as you like it."

"I really do, and not just due to the recent s.e.xual haze. It's like a screenplay, a very strong screenplay. You even have camera angles and direction."

"It helps remind me how I saw it when I wrote it, even if that changes."

"And you add in these little boxes like the ones on the art."

"Helps with the layout. That may change, too. Just like the story line took some turns on me."

"You added Steve. You added the Immortal. He's going to be so ... well, insane over that."

"She needed the bridge, the link between Ca.s.s and Brid. A character who can straddle her worlds, and help the two sides of our heroine understand each other."

Not unlike, Ford thought now, how Steve helped Cilla. "Adding him changed a lot of the angles, added a lot of work, but it's stronger for it. And something I should've thought of in the first place. Anyway, it's still evolving. The story's down, and now I have to tell it with art. Sometimes, for me anyway, the art can shift the story. We'll have to see."

"I especially like the one up there, of Brid in what's almost a fouette turn, as I a.s.sume she's about to kick out her leg against a foe."

"Fouette turn?"

"A ballet move." Cilla crossed over to tap the sketch she spoke of. "This is very close, even the arms are in position. To be precise, the supporting foot should be turned out slightly more, but-"

"You know ballet? Can you do that?"

"A fouette? Please. Eight years of ballet." She executed a quick turn. "Of tap." And a fast-time step. "Jazz."

"Cool. Hold on." He opened a drawer, pulled out a camera. "Do the ballet thing again."

"I'm mostly naked."

"Yeah, which is why I'll be posting these on the Internet shortly. I just want the feet business you were talking about."

He had no idea what an enormous leap of faith it took for her to do the turn as he snapped the camera.

"One more, okay? Good. Great. Thanks. A fouette turn. Ballet." He set the camera back down. "I must've seen it somewhere, sometime or other. Eight years? I guess that explains how you did those high leaps in Wasteland Three , when you were running through the woods, trying to escape the reanimated psycho killer."

"Grand jetes." She laughed. "So to speak."

"I thought you were going to make it, the way you were flying. I mean you got all the way back to the cabin, avoiding the death trap and the flying hatchet, only to pull open the door-"

"To find the reanimated psycho killer had taken a convenient shortcut to beat me there. Sobbing relief," she said, miming the action, "shock, scream. Slice."

"It was a h.e.l.l of a scream. They use voice doubles for that stuff, right? And enhance."

"Sometimes. However ..." She sucked in her breath and let out a bloodcurdling, gla.s.s-shattering scream that had Ford staggering back two full steps. "I did my own work," she finished.

"Wow. You've got some lungs there. How about we go down, have some wine, while we see if my eardrums regenerate."

"Love to."

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

She didn't think about the vandalism. Or when thoughts of what waited for her across the road crept into her mind, Cilla firmly slammed the door. No point in it, she told herself. There was nothing she could do because she didn't know what she wanted to do.

There was no harm in a day out of time. A fantasy day, really, filled with s.e.x and sleep inside the bubble of rain-slicked windows. She couldn't remember the last time she'd been content to spend the day in a man's company, unless it had been work-related.

Even the idea of wine and video games held an appeal. Until Ford severely trounced her for the third time in a row.

"She-what's her name?-Halle Berry."

"Storm," Ford provided. "Halle Berry's the actress, and really hot. Storm is a key member of the X-Men. Also really hot."

"Well, she just stood there." Cilla scowled down at the controls. "How am I supposed to know what to push and what to toggle, and whatever?"

"Practice. And like I said, you need to form your team more strategically. You formed your all-girl alliance. You should've mixed it up."

"My strategy was gender solidarity." Under the coffee table, Spock snorted. "That's enough out of you," she muttered. "Besides, I think this controller's defective because I have excellent hand-eye coordination."

"Want to switch and go another round?"

She eyed him narrowly. "How often do you play this?"

"Off and on. Throughout my entire life," he added with a grin. "I'm currently undefeated on this version of Ultimate Alliance."

"Geek."

"Loser."

She handed him her controller. "Put your toys away."

Look at that, she thought when he rose to do just that. Tidy hot guy. Tidy straight hot guy. How many of them were there in the world?

"Saving the world worked up my appet.i.te. How about you?"

"I didn't save the world," she pointed out.

"You tried."

"That was smug. I see the smug all over you."

"Then I'd better wash up. I got leftover spaghetti and meatb.a.l.l.s, courtesy of Penny Sawyer."

"You've got a nice setup here, Ford. Work you love, and a great house to do it in. Your ridiculously appealing dog. The tight circle of friends going back to childhood. Family you get along with, close enough you can cop leftovers. It's a great platform."

"No complaints. Cilla-"

"No, not yet." She could see in his eyes the offer of sympathy and support. "I'm not ready to think about it yet. Spaghetti and meatb.a.l.l.s sounds like just the thing."

"Cold or warmed up?"

"It has to be exceptional spaghetti and meatb.a.l.l.s to warrant cold."

He crossed back, took her hand. "Come with me," he said and led her around to the kitchen. "Have a seat." He took the bowl out of the fridge, peeled off the lid, got a fork. "You'll get yours," he told Spock as the dog danced and gurgled. Turning back, he set the bowl on the bar, then wound some pasta on a fork. "Sample."

She opened her mouth, let him feed her. "Oh. Okay, that's really good. Really. Give me the fork."

With a laugh, he pa.s.sed it to her. After adding some to Spock's dish, he topped off both gla.s.ses of wine. They sat at the counter, eating cold pasta straight from the bowl.

"We had this cook when I was a kid. Annamaria from Sicily. I swear her pasta wasn't as good as this. What?" she said when he shook his head.

"Just strikes me weird that I know somebody who can say, 'We had a cook when I was a kid.'"

She grinned around more pasta. "We had a butler."

"Get out."

She raised her brows, inclined her head and stabbed at a meatball. "Two maids, chauffeur, gardener, under-gardener, my mother's personal a.s.sistant, pool boy. And once, when my mother discovered the pool boy, whom she was banging, was also banging one of the maids, she fired them both. With much drama. She had to go to Palm Springs for a week to recover, where she met Number Three-ironically, by the pool. I'm pretty sure, at some point, he also banged the pool boy. The new pool boy, whose name was Raoul."

He gestured at her with his fork until he swallowed. "You grew up in an eighties soap opera."

She thought it over. "Close enough. But, in any case, Annamaria had nothing on your mother."

"She'll get a kick out of hearing that. What was it like, seriously? Growing up with maids and butlers?"

"Crowded. And not all it's cracked up to be. That sounds snotty," she decided. "And I imagine some woman with a house and family to run, a full-time job and the need to get dinner on the table would be tempted to b.i.t.c.h-slap me for it. But." She shrugged. "There's always somebody there, so genuine privacy is an illusion. No sneaking a cookie out of the jar before dinnertime. Actually no cookies for the most part as the camera adds pounds. If you have a fight with your mother, the entire household knows the details. More, the odds are that those details will be recounted sometime down the road in a tabloid interview or a disgruntled former employee's tell-all book.

"All in all," she concluded, "I'd rather eat leftover spaghetti."

"But, if I remember right, you don't cook."

"Yeah, that's a problem." She reached for her wine. "I've thought about maybe asking Patty for pointers in that area. I like to chop." She hacked down a few times with the flat of her hand to demonstrate. "You know, vegetables, salads. I'm a h.e.l.l of a chopper."

"That's a start."

"Self-sufficiency, that's the key. You manage."

"True, but I've been butler-free all my life. I do have a biweekly cleaning service, and am well acquainted with the primary and alternate routes to all takeout facilities. Plus, I have a direct line to Brian and Matt and Shanna, who will handle small household emergencies for beer."

"It's a system."

"Well oiled." He tucked her hair behind her ear.

"If and when I learn to cook something other than a grilled cheese sandwich and canned soup, I'll have reached another lofty personal goal."

"What are some of the others?"

"Lofty personal goals? Rehabbing a house and selling it at a profit. I hit that one. Having my own business and having said business generate an actual income. Which first requires reaching the goal of getting my contractor's license, which in turn requires pa.s.sing the test for same. In a couple weeks, actually, if I-"

"You've got to take a test? I love tests." His eyes actually lit up. "Do you need a study buddy? And yes, I capitalize the N in nerd."

She paused with what she swore would be her last bite of pasta halfway to her mouth. "You love tests?"

"Well, yeah. There are questions and answers. True or false, multiple choice, essay. What's not to love? I kill on tests. It's a gift. Do you want any help?"

"Actually, I think I'm good. I've been prepping for it for a while now. I think I met your kind during my brief and unfortunate college experience. You're the one who screwed the curve for me, every time. You are, therefore, one of the primary reasons I'm a one-semester college dropout."

"You should've asked my kind to be your study buddy. Besides, you should thank my kind for putting you exactly where you want to be right now."

"Hmm." She deliberately nudged the bowl toward him and away from herself. "That's very slick and clever. Previous humiliation and failure lead to current spaghetti-and-meatball-induced contentment."

"Or, condensing, sometimes s.h.i.t happens for the best."

"There's a b.u.mper sticker. I have to move." She pressed a hand on her stomach, slid off the stool. "And I'll demonstrate my self-sufficiency and grat.i.tude for current contentment by doing the dishes, which includes everything back to breakfast, apparently."

"We were busy with other things."