The Best From Fantasy & Science Fiction Part 17

"I can help."

She shook her head. "Thank you, anyway."

I did extract a promise that she would let me show her more houses another day; then I made myself leave. I drove home reflecting what pleasant and restful company she was. A man could do far worse than her for a companion. I wondered, too, when I might see Selene again.

There was a note from her on my door the next morning.

Gordy, You should have insisted on dinner last night. Playing hostess for the Senator never included kitchen duty. Help Mandy get a meal subscription.

It was unsigned and the writing was more careful than I would have expected of Selene, but I could not imagine anyone else writing it I called Amanda at noon. Without mentioning the note, I asked about her cooking.

After a short pause she said, "I just throw things together."

I shuddered. "You need more than that I'm going to call a food service in Gateside and take out a subscription for you; then I insist you have your meals with me, either out or cooked by me, until your first week's supply of meals is delivered."

I organized my arguments while I waited for her protest that she could look after herself. To my surprise, after another short pause, she said in a quiet voice, "You're right, of course, Matthew. Thank you for taking so much trouble for me."

Nothing was trouble which guaranteed me the chance to see her twice a day. When I met Selene on the beach several days later, I thanked her.

She shrugged, running in place while she talked to me. "Someone has to let you know when things need to be done."

She started off up the beach.

"May I run with you?" I called after her.

She looked back without stopping. "If you like. I'd like having someone besides myself to talk to. It's only fair to warn you, though. I'm harder to get along with than Mandy."

She was nothing if not honest. In the succeeding mornings, if I ran too slowly, she simply left me behind. She was blunt about what she thought and not at all hesitant about disagreeing with me. Still, there was no verbal swordplay and no pretense about her, which was as attractive in its way as Amanda's charming acquiescence. And I never ceased to be fascinated by the difference between Amanda's serenity and Selene's coiled-spring energy.

Selene also kept me informed on what needed to be done, either around the cabin or for Amanda.

Morning after morning, she would hand me a note when I met her. I was always glad of an excuse to see more of Amanda, but I was puzzled by the notes.

"Why write?" I asked Selene.

That particular morning she was working through a set of torturous-looking exercises that made mymuscles protest to watch. She never broke the rhythm of them and her voice came in gasps between stretches and bends. "Habit, I guess. I always left ... notes for Mandy."

"Like these?"

"Basically. In the beginning ... it was to tell her . . . about me, then . . . to let her know . . . who I met and what... I learned in school ... my half the ... year so people wouldn't . . . know about. . . us."

"When did you become two people?"

She rolled to her feet Swinging up onto the deck, she began using the railing as a bar for ballet exercises. She shot me an amused glance. "Ever curious, aren't you, Gordy?" But before I could protest, she grinned. "We split when we were six. I told Mandy about it when we were seven, after we'd learned to read and write. Any more questions?"

"Yes. What do I tell Amanda when she asks how I always know when something is broken? You don't want me to say anything about you, but I don't want to lie to her."

Selene went on exercising. "She won't ask. People have been taking care of Mandy all her life. She takes it for granted we know what she needs." She straightened, pink with exertion. "Oh, I'd better warn you. Next week is the Senator's birthday. Mandy will be asking you to take her shopping for a gift." She blew me a theatrical kiss and disappeared inside.

Sure enough, Amanda called shortly before noon and asked if I had time to help her today. Caro looked disapproving but had to admit the appointment book was empty.

"Where can I reach you?" she asked as I hung up the phone.

"Somewhere in Gateside."

Caro rolled her eyes. Before she could express her opinion of running out of town on a working day, I left to pick up Amanda.

Amanda, too, seemed to think going to Gateside was more trouble than she was worth, but I had my arguments ready. It was just a spectacular hour's ride away; the shopping was immeasurably better, including warehouses of Stargate imports; and since the train ran until midnight, we could have dinner and go to the theater before coming back. That persuaded her.

By the end of the day I still thought it had been a good idea, though my feet ached from following her through what had to be every shop in Gateside before Amanda found a gift she thought worthy of her father. I requested a window table at the Beta Cygnus, where we could get some coffee and rest while we watched cafe patrons and people in the street outside.

Amanda sat back sipping her coffee with a contented smile. "I hope your business isn't suffering because of all the time you've spent on me."

"I'd suffer if I couldn't spend time on you."

She smiled. "You're very gallant. Oh, look."

She pointed out the window at a pa.s.sing group who were sporting a rainbow of fanciful hair colors and wearing leotards and tights beneath coats thrown casually around their shoulders.

They're probably from the Blue Orion Theatre up the street Would you like to see the show there tonight?"

"I'd love to." She looked at me through her lashes. "I can't think when I've enjoyed another man's company as much as yours."

She was almost drowned out by a rising tide of babble at the door. I looked around to see the group from the street pouring into the cafe in loud and animated conversation with each other. One of them, a tall lithe man with hair, eye shadow, and fingernails striped fuchsia and lavender, broke off from the group and headed toward us with a grin.

"Selene, love," he said. "What a delightful surprise."

Amanda recoiled.

My chair sc.r.a.ped back as I stood up. "Who are you?"

He stopped, bunking at me. He looked at Amanda's horrified expression and frowned uncertainly.

"Teddy-ah-that is-Gerald Theodore. Selene and I were dancing partners and cohabs in London three years ago."

"I'm not Selene," Amanda whispered.The dancer raised a brow. "Ah-I see. You're the other one." He grinned at me. "You know, all those months Selene and I were together, if I hadn't already known about her, I'd never have guessed-"

"Matthew, I'd like to leave." Amanda fumbled for her cape.

I helped her to her feet and into her cape. With a hand under her elbow, I guided her out of the Beta Cygnus, leaving the dancer staring open-mouthed after us.

I flagged a cab to take us back to the cabletrain station. Amanda said nothing for the entire ride, just sat staring at her hands clenched in her lap. I put an arm around her. She stiffened momentarily at my touch, then buried her face against my shoulder. At the station, waiting for the train to come in, she sat up and began pus.h.i.+ng at her hair.

"Fm sorry. I know it seems an inconsequential thing to go to pieces about, but every time I meet one of Selene's friends I feel like spiders are crawling over me. They're all so ... grotesque." Amanda shuddered. "I don't know how she can actually live with such creatures. I suppose it's her nature. I've never let a man touch me, but she-sh.e.l.l have any man who strikes her fancy, just like her mother."

I felt my brows hop. Her voice was almost vicious in tone.

"My father could have been President but for Margot Randall. The woman was rapacious, vulgar, egocentric, and totally amoral. She nearly drove my father mad before he realized there was no helping her."

I was disturbed by her vehemence and the implied criticism of Selene. "You don't know Selene is like that," I said in what I intended to be a soothing voice. "You've never met her."

"I've met her friends."

That ended the subject for her. She was quiet the remaining ride home. She reached for my hand after a few minutes, though, and held it, squeezing a bit from time to time. I was content.

At the cabin she said, "I'm sorry I was poor company."

"That's ail right. Do you feel better now?"

She gave me a faint smile. "Some. You're a wonderful man, Matthew. If I didn't feel like Selene is leering over my shoulder, I'd kiss you good-night. Another time I will. Please call me tomorrow."

I drove on home wis.h.i.+ng I could have stayed. I wondered what Selene would have to say about the incident.

Selene laughed. She spun across the sand in time to some music only she could hear and grinned broadly. "Poor Vestal Virgin. How shocking to be confronted with the possibility the temple of her body has been defiled."

I had expected a more sympathetic reaction. I snapped, "You don't sound very sorry it happened."

She stopped in midstride with her leg in the air. She held the position a few moments, then slowly lowered the leg and hooked her hair behind her ears while fixing me with a speculative topaz gaze. Her voice was deliberate. "Why should I be? Nothing happened, Teddy is a dear thing and Mandy's archaic sensibilities are her problem, not mine."

I stared at her. "You don't like Amanda, do you?"

She considered the accusation. "I wouldn't choose her for a friend. I think she's insipid and gutless.

She could have sent Teddy on his way with a few polite words instead of making an incident of it. Still, I think I pity rather than dislike her. Don't I let myself get sucked into looking after her like everyone else?

That sweet, yielding, dependency is no more than what her father trained into her. It's the Senator I dislike." She snorted. "Imagine a contemporary man with a nineteenth-century taste in women. No wonder my mother left him." She began dancing again.

I was still angry, not ready to stop the fight yet. "She left him? It is my understanding that her infidelities forced him to divorce her."

The jab left her untouched. With perfect calm and not even a pause in her movement, she said, "He had the press, I believe." She spun once more and finished in a deep curtsy, then straightened and began stripping off her exercise suit. "I'm going to swim. Will you come with me?"

She threw herself into the Heliomere without looking back. After a bit I undressed and followed her.

Compared to the chill of the air, the water felt boiling hot. The heat drew out the last of my anger, though.

As I paddled around, I felt my muscles relax and a drowsy la.s.situde flow through me.Too soon, it seemed, Selene was shouting, "Don't go to sleep, Gordy. It's time to get out."

We made the cold dash across the beach to the cabin, picking up our clothes on the way. Inside we huddled together wis.h.i.+ng for a fire and toweled ourselves dry while the polycarpet ran rainbows of browns and electric blues around our feet. In the course of it I got my arms around Selene. I pulled her against me. She met my mouth hungrily, but when I started pulling her toward the fake animal pelt in front of the fireplace, she rammed me with a sharp hipbone and wiggled loose.

"I don't have time. I have to dry my hah" before I wake Mandy."

"You never have time for anything but exercising. Will you ever?"

She licked her lips. "Ask me in January."

I walked back up the beach wondering in bemus.e.m.e.nt if I could be falling in love with two such different women at the same time. If so, how fortunate they were the same woman.

I called Amanda later. I expected to find her herself, yesterday already forgotten, but she still sounded anxious. "Matthew, can you come up?"

I looked unhappily at the couple standing in the outer office with my secretary. What a time for clients to walk in. "I have some people here. Can it possibly wait?"

There was a pause while she debated. "I guess so, but, please, come when you can."

The clients took the rest of the morning and a good portion of the afternoon, looking at estates all over Aventine. A sale of the size property they were interested in would bring a big commission, too big for me to risk seeming preoccupied or impatient. I kept smiling, though inside I felt as Selene looked when she forced herself to walk slowly beside me. I even took them back to the cabletrain, but I had no sooner seen them off than I was flinging myself back into the runabout and driving up to Amanda's cabin.

"What's wrong?" I asked, walking in.

Amanda sat wrapped in a shawl and staring into the empty fireplace. The polychair had turned pale gray. "She's trying to take over, Matthew."

I palled another chair up beside her and sat down. "What do you mean?"

She pulled the shawl tighter around her. "When I got up this morning, that chair you're sitting in was bright blue. It's always brown or yellow for you. Selene has to have been sitting in it."

I was conscious of the chair s.h.i.+fting under me but did not let it distract me. "Does that mean she's taking over?"

Amanda laced and unlaced her fingers in her lap. "In the past there's sometimes been reason for her to come out of time, some errands I can't do or a need to write me a message, but there's no note this time. I also found damp towels that weren't there last night. If she isn't honoring our agreement any longer, soon it won't be minutes she's taking, it will be hours, then days, until there's no time left I can count on for my own. I don't know what to do, Matthew. How can I fight her?"

"I know a psychiatrist who spends her weekends here in Aventine. Perhaps she can help."

"No!" Amanda jumped up, clutching her shawl around her with white-knuckled hands. "She'd only want to reintegrate me."

I stood, too, and cupped her face between my hands. "Would that be so terrible? Then all the time would be yours."

"But I'd have to become part of ... what Selene is." She pulled away from me, shaking her head.

"That's unthinkable. I couldn't bear it. There's no other way but to go on as I am. So promise me, Matthew, promise that if you ever see Selene, you'll tell me. I have to know when she's stealing time."

I took a deep breath and lied with a straight face. "I promise."

Amanda walked into my arms and buried her face against my neck. "Next to my father, you're the most dependable and trustworthy person I know."

If I looked as guilty as I felt, I was glad she could not see my face.

She stirred in my arms. I felt a ripple of tension in her body. She lifted her head and kissed me hard. I grabbed her shoulders and held her off at arm's length to look at her.

"Selene," I hissed. "What are you doing here?"

"I sensed you felt the two of us ought to talk." She slipped out of my hands and went to curl up in one of the chairs.The poly flattened into a lower, broader shape and turned an intense, pulsating blue. It was odd to see Selene in Amanda's clothes, but odder yet that, despite them, she looked like herself and not Amanda. Energy ran like a restless, self-willed thing under her skin. She could not even sit without that coiled-spring tension.

"Talk, Gordy," she said.

"I'd intended to do it tomorrow. What am I supposed to tell Amanda when she comes back?"

"Tell her she fell asleep. By the way, thanks for saying nothing about me."

"Next time m tell her. I won't lie to her again. So I guess this will all have to stop."

She frowned. "You mean quit running together?"