Pt. 084 — Day 9 Evening 1/2

None of the contestants spent much time thinking about seating for meals. They trickled in, in small groups or pairs, in whatever shape the day made. They sat wherever instinct or furniture allowed, motivated more by proximity to the serving trays than anything else.

Tonight Cassie entered with a distant expression, then took the seat nearest the lounge doors. Fiona came in a few minutes later, paused with her hand on the back of an empty chair, and continued to the far end of the table. There were five people between them. Lizzy could see the fracture between them and counted the seats without meaning to.

Pixie had left serving dishes of roast chicken, potatoes, vegetables, and a basket of bread within easy reach. The dining room smelled of rosemary and warm butter. Somewhere behind Lizzy, another table was having a facsimile of a perfectly ordinary evening. Cutlery clicked, a woman laughed, and someone asked for more water, but the unfinished watercolor beings lifted empty cups to mock drink without bothering to mime filling the glass first.

At their table, Cassie cut a potato into pieces almost too small to pick up again. She glanced at the clock above the serving counter, then bent over her plate again absently manipulating her food in increasingly aggressive ways.

Lizzy turned toward Claire. “Did you manage to take care of that chore?”

Claire was looking at her phone beneath the edge of the table. Van’s last question was still on the screen: You sure? She had opened their conversation to write something more honest than her three-letter answer. So far she had only reread it.

Lizzy leaned in, “Claire?” Her tone held a quiet note of pleading, trying to restore some function to the group’s meal through engagement.

She put it face down beside her plate, then turned a practiced smile to Lizzy. “Sorry. What?”

“The chore,” she asked. Trying lamely to ask about something sensitive at a crowded table. “From before, in the archive?”

“Oh. No.” Claire picked up her fork, then put it down to reach for her water. “I couldn’t find the right opportunity.”

Lizzy waited for something else. Claire seemed unlikely to give her a more thorough answer.

At the far end, Fiona reached for the bread. Cassie’s hand had already started toward the basket from the other direction. She withdrew it and took a bite of her potatoes instead.

Mara watched that happen. She set down her knife. “All right, what exactly is—”

Katherine’s fingers closed lightly around her forearm. Mara turned but the older woman gave a small shake of her head, then released her.

For a few seconds Mara looked ready to finish the question anyway. She finally leaned back in her chair and reached for her glass.

“Naomi,” Katherine said, filling the quiet with something safer, “settle something for me. Who chooses the table decorations at Hale Foundation events?”

Naomi blinked at the non sequitur. “That depends on the event.”

“I wanted to know the name of whoever it was that chose the centerpiece that made an entire dinner feel like a confessional booth.”

Naomi laughed into her napkin.“Was it white orchids?”

“White orchids with silver branches and a truly gross amount of taffeta.” Katherine was gesturing with her fork to draw the dimensions of the offending arrangement.

Naomi smiled. “That was the winter benefit. Mother wanted something less elaborate.” She re-folded her napkin, “We heard about the decision from several guests.”

“Good. I shall redirect my resentment to the mystery designer.” Katherine delivered the pronouncement like a ten year sentence.

Lizzy glanced between them. “How can you talk to someone if you can’t see them? I’d have spend the whole night biting my tongue.”

“You speak with considerable sincerity,” Katherine said. “You can make any expression you like.”

Mara’s laugh was brief, but she moved forward again. “You could have changed seats.”

Katherine leaned back in horror, “And abandon the best cover I had all evening?”

Naomi shook her head. “You should have tried sitting beside it. Every time someone moved their plate, the branches caught their sleeves.”

“Beautiful,” Mara said. “dangerous, and impolite to avoid. Sounds like a successful gala.”

Lizzy took another bite of dinner. Katherine passed Naomi the vegetables. “Was the events office responsible for the programs too?”

“Yes. Though Mother rejected more than a dozen proposals.” Naomi’s smile widened. “You should have seen the kinds of things we left in the bin.”

“Then she deserves a medal. I met a donor who complained all night that he wasn’t allowed a twenty minute block to talk about his pyramid scheme.”

Mara leaned forward. “I suppose he believed he invested enough money to hijack the event into a sales pitch?”

Katherine tapped the side of her nose with a single finger, “That’s exactly what he thought.”

Lizzy looked from Katherine to Naomi. “Does anyone ever just say no to these rich people?”

“Eventually,” Naomi said. “But you have to try and manage the rejection so it feels like their idea or they become petulant and stop donating.”

Claire glanced up. “That’s almost every sponsor meeting I’ve ever been in.”

Katherine turned toward her. “You have my sympathy. How many of them start with the comparisons to their own daughter?”

“Depends whether they think I’m allowed to give her a reference.” Claire put her fork down, more interested now. “I explain that I can’t, and somehow we’re still discussing it ten minutes later. Apparently the right amount of money makes people feel like any rule is negotiable.”

Cassie made a sound into her water glass.

Claire looked at her. Cassie lowered it. “Sorry. I’m imagining a man handing a briefcase full of money to my combat assessment teacher with a sly wink.”

“Never anything so useful as cash, I’m afraid,” Katherine said.

Cassie’s smile reached one corner of her mouth. “Obviously.”

“Equipment goes that way too,” Naomi said. “People want to give something you can photograph. Nobody wants to fund maintenance for something we already have.”

Lizzy nodded. “You still need replacement parts, but that doesn’t make for a good headline. Local mogul donates 1100 oil filters.”

“Exactly,” Naomi jumped at the topic. “Food donations can be wonderful, but if a relief center receives three truckloads of fresh produce with no warning—”

“Someone has to find refrigeration,” Mara said. “And transport, and people to sort it before it spoils.”

Cassie set down her glass. “I saw a whole batch of donated coats with the security tags still on. Excellent intentions. Needed pliers.”

Katherine laughed with her, then reached for the potatoes. Fiona had finished eating but remained in her chair, turning her fork over against the edge of the plate.

“The Academy used to have the same trouble with training equipment,” Katherine said, passing the dish toward her. “Impressive hardware, but with unfortunate practical limitations. Does Dr. Hank Haller still teach Force Application? He always tried to get one of the donors to fund his radiation experiments, something about the effect of Gamma on Alter physiology?”

Fiona’s fork stopped. Claire let out a disbelieving laugh. “Please don’t.”

“He taught physics with a grudge,” Fiona said.

Cassie’s eyes lifted from her plate, and Katherine rested her chin against one hand. “That sounds familiar.”

“He understood the forces,” Fiona continued. “I’ll give him that. Ask him what a pressure wave does in an enclosed space, he could show you every calculation. But as soon as someone asked about civilians, he immediately started talking about ‘acceptable casualty rates’.”

Claire nodded, her attention finally staying at the table. “His models assumed you already knew everything important. Target resistance, load-bearing structures, exact civilian locations. If I had that much information, I wouldn’t need half his theories.”

“The radiation lectures,” Cassie said.

Fiona pointed her fork at her. “Yes.”

Lizzy looked between them. “I didn’t have those.”

“You phase,” Claire said. “Different course.”

“Lucky you,” Cassie added. “He had this whole thing about targeted exposure. Very impressive diagrams. Every time someone asked how you were supposed to keep the radiation from also going through the person standing behind the target, he acted like you’d interrupted a religious service.”

“He believed he could design a weapon that would change the face of the war,” Claire said. “Which is true up to the point where you start counting how many people would be left after the blast.”

Fiona leaned forward. “And he never started with getting people out. Always the Alter first. Hit it harder, remove its support, collapse something large on it. Then we can discuss evacuation.”

“Smash the Alter,” Cassie said in a gravelly imitation. She widened her shoulders and stabbed one finger toward the center of the table. “Your objection suggests a failure to grasp the urgency of the situation.”

Fiona laughed before she could stop herself. “That’s him.”

Claire covered her mouth. “He said that to me. Ver Batim.”

“He said that to everyone,” Fiona replied. “He called me a sophist because I asked how many floors of the hospital he intended to drop.”

“You?” Cassie demanded. “That man could spend half a lecture changing what his own question meant.”

“He understood the hospital was full of people,” Fiona said. “He just thought they should have had the manners to leave before he started doing physics in megatons.”

Cassie laughed, sudden and delighted, and Fiona looked down the table toward her. The next remark was already in Cassie’s face. She took a breath to say it.

Then her smile faltered.

Fiona lowered her fork. Claire’s hand moved toward her phone, stopping just short of it.

Lizzy looked at the bread basket. “Could someone pass that?”

Katherine put it within her reach without comment.

—--------------------

Van read the terminal’s restaurant listings with a strained smile. The device opened into reviews, sample menus, and a wine list filled with things he didn’t understand. He considered again if this choice would be a mistake, he was sure someone would ask him something too cultured for him to understand.

He straightened his back and tapped the venue description again, then opened the route. The little map unfolded beneath his hand. He was still staring at it when footsteps approached behind him.

Evelyn’s voice was lighter than he was used to, “Have you found somewhere?”

Van turned to see that Evelyn had chosen a blue dress that fell just below her knees, its fitted waist giving way to fabric that moved around her legs when she stopped. A light silver wrap rested over her shoulders. Her platinum white hair was pinned loosely at the back, leaving a few strands beside her face, and small earrings caught the terminal’s light.

He took long enough answering that she adjusted the edge of the wrap subconsciously.

“You look beautiful,” he said. Then, panicked at the feeling that his compliment could be misunderstood, “Really beautiful. I mean, you’re always beautiful, but you obviously dressed up and I’m just…me.”

“I thought it appropriate for our evening,” she said, eyes tight with hidden amusement.

“Right.” He let out a breath and smiled at her. “I’m glad.”

Her hand left the wrap. “I own very little that could honestly be called casual clothing. This seemed a reasonable compromise.” She glanced down at herself, then met his eyes again. “I am pleased you like it.”

He nodded, probably too hard, “I do.”

His happiness was reaching her in an unusually uncomplicated rush. Evelyn had spent several minutes in front of the mirror deciding whether the dress made too much of an evening they had agreed to approach without ceremony. Van looked as though she had just improved his day by a wide margin.

He turned back to the terminal, giving her room beside him. “One last check. Any demands beyond the wine, or are you putting yourself in my hands tonight?”

Evelyn inclined her head. “Well, that is terribly forward.”

Van’s finger stopped above the screen. “I meant the plan…we agreed.”

Her face didn’t give anything away, which only increased his anxiety. She finally said, “So I gathered.”

“For where we go. The restaurant, and afterward. I wasn’t—”

She let him finish deciding whether another sentence would help. Then she smiled. “I understood you perfectly. And I stand by my earlier request. You may choose.”

He looked at her for a second, finally catching the amusement in her eyes, and shook his head. “All right. Then I found the place.”

He opened the listing for her. “It’s supposed to have a good wine list. The reviews go on about it quite a lot. And they have a sommelier, which I gather is a good thing?”

Evelyn leaned closer to read. “That sounds promising.”

“Good.” He confirmed the selection before he could reopen the question.

Evelyn offered him her arm. Van glanced at it, then crooked his own elbow with exaggerated dignity. She slipped her hand through and rested it on his forearm.

“This way, then.” His sleeve shifted beneath her fingers as they started walking. Even through the fabric, the contact made her acutely aware of his arm beside hers. She was finding a comfortable pace with him when a chime sounded.

EVELYN CROSS GAINED 2 VP

Linking Arms +1 VP

First Time Bonus x2

Van stared at the projection.

Evelyn’s laugh escaped loudly enough that he turned from the notice to her face. She was looking at the words with open disbelief, her shoulders shaking beneath the silver wrap.

“Linking arms?” She asked with disbelief. “I’m surprised that qualifies as intimacy.” She looked at him. “What comes next? Will you lay your coat across a puddle?”

“I’d have to go get one.” Van considered the problem with a seriousness she distrusted immediately. “I could stand in the puddle. Save the trip.”

“A disappointing solution.” She laughed again and kept her hand on his arm. “Walk, Van.”

They followed the route toward the boardwalk. Evening lights had begun to show between the buildings, and the breeze carried the distant sound of music and people calling to one another over games. Van kept checking the map on his phone, but only long enough to find the next turn.

Before they reached the open stretch of the boardwalk, the route directed them left.

Evelyn looked into the narrow space between two buildings. “Here?”

Van checked once more. “Here.”

The brick alley was lit by small lamps above a series of closed doors. Farther in, a gold sign hung beneath a dark awning.

TEMPO.

A piano phrase reached them when someone opened the entrance. It mingled with the sound of a brushed cymbal, then softened as the door closed again.

“A piano bar.” Evelyn slowed. “I didn’t expect the Hotel to have this.”

“I’m starting to think the map changes depending on what I pick.” Van put his phone away. “We might as well enjoy it while it’s here.”

He held the door for her. Inside, low lamps illuminated small tables and dark wooden booths. A pianist sat near the back with a bass player beside him and a drummer working brushes over a compact kit. The room had just enough conversation to soften the spaces between the notes. Evelyn let her eyes travel across the bottles behind the bar.

A tall Asian woman approached with menus held against one hip. Her smile made it difficult to tell whether she had been expecting them for five minutes or all evening.

“Good evening,” she greeted. “Table for two? And dinner or just drinks?”

“Just two and dinner please,” Van said.

She nodded, “Would you prefer to sit close to the music?”

Evelyn glanced toward the piano. “Somewhere we can talk, please.”

“I have just the place.”

She led them to a corner booth with a view of the musicians across the room. Van waited for Evelyn to sit, then took the place opposite her. The waitress set down their menus and promised to return for drinks.

Evelyn listened through the end of the piece before asking, “Do you like jazz, or did the wine list do all the work?”

“I like it.” Van rested his forearms on the table. “I lived near a place that played it. On quiet nights I could hear it through my windows. I couldn’t tell you who anyone was, though. Or what any of the songs were called.”

“Then we are well matched.” Evelyn glanced toward the pianist. “I recognize quite a bit of music until someone asks me to name it. Then my cultural education becomes disappointingly vague.”

Van listened for a few seconds. “Do you at least know this one?”

“Not a clue,” she admitted, and he grinned, opening his menu.

The waitress returned carrying a small carafe of water. “May I bring you something to drink?”

Van looked at the wine list, which might as well have been printed in greek. “I know absolutely nothing about wine,” he admitted, gesturing at Evelyn. “I’ll let her take control.”

She looked up at him with dry amusement. “You really must begin monitoring your choice of words. Someone will eventually take you up on them.”

The waitress’s smile deepened without becoming any less professional.

Van blushed and turned back to the menu, “I’m just going to read about the food,” Van said.

“A wise retreat.” Evelyn turned the wine list toward herself. “Could we speak to your sommelier?”

The waitress nodded, “Certainly.”

Van lowered his eyes to the menu. Behind the embarrassment, he was enjoying himself even if it was awkward to think about why. Every time he read over the dishes on offer, he got distracted by thinking about Verena and his impending debt. He forcefully put it from his mind and focused on the menu again, trying to enjoy dinner without the guilt.

The sommelier came over while they were still choosing. Van listened to the explanation, following the differences between the two bottles Evelyn was considering. When asked what he usually drank, he admitted that he had no useful comparison.

“Then try this first,” the man said.

Van took the small taste offered and thought about it. “I like that.”

Evelyn tasted hers. “So do I. We’ll have the bottle.”

After they ordered dinner, Van asked about the instrument beside the piano. He knew it was a bass, but he had never watched someone play one this close. Evelyn turned to look with him, and they spent a while trying to work out how much of the rhythm came from the player’s right hand.

“I should know more about this,” she said. “I’ve seen them live often enough.”

“Would you like me to pretend I do,” he offered. “I read somewhere I’m supposed to lie to impress nice girls.”

“No I wouldn’t,” She laughed at his offer. “And no you don’t, thank you.”

He settled back against the booth, smiling. When the next piece began, she turned slightly toward the musicians instead of reaching for her glass, and he listened with her.

—--------------------

Fiona checked the clock above the serving counter. There was still time before curfew, but sitting here would use it up all the same. Beyond curfew lay the dorm, with Cassie on the other side of the same bed and nowhere either of them could go.

Cassie pushed her chair back as Fiona stood. They both stopped. Fiona looked at the open space beside Cassie’s end of the table. Cassie glanced toward the doors behind Fiona. Then they sat down, matched scowls on display.

Mara lowered her glass very slowly.

Cassie picked up her napkin, looked for something to do with it but put it back. Fiona moved her chair again. Cassie stood at the same time.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Fiona muttered. She stepped away from the table and headed for the courtyard exit.

Cassie remained beside her chair until the door closed. Then she turned and left through the lounge doors.

Lizzy waited just long enough to make certain she was gone. “You’re on Fiona duty,” she told Claire.

Claire looked up. “What?”

“I’m going after Cassie.” Lizzy was already standing. “You need to talk to Fiona. Something happened between them, and I don’t think leaving them alone with it is going to help.”

Claire looked toward Mara, then Katherine. “Could one of you maybe…”

“No,” Katherine said and Mara turned to look at the spy in confusion.

“I don’t think either of us is the person Fiona wants approaching her right now.” Katherine’s gaze moved to the courtyard door. “She’ll spend the conversation defending herself.”

Naomi set down her napkin. “I’ll go.”

Lizzy hesitated. “Are you sure?”

The young heiress nodded. “Yes.”

Claire’s shoulders lowered. “Thank you.”

Naomi left through the courtyard door. Lizzy hurried after Cassie.

Mara waited until their footsteps had faded. “Claire. Are you all right?”

Claire picked up her phone. The conversation with Van was still open. She locked the screen before Mara could see it, but this time she kept it in her hand.

“I’ll handle it,” she said. “I know what I need to do.”

She had meant that in the Archive too. Then she had spent the afternoon trying and failing to force the issue. Now that the date night was on, she knew Van was busy. She could ask for a time tomorrow, but she didn’t know if there would be any before the challenge. She could at least stop telling him there was nothing important to discuss.

Claire pushed her chair in and left.

Mara watched the lounge doors close behind her. When she turned back, Katherine was looking at the half-full water glass beside Claire’s plate.

—--------------------

Cassie had wrapped herself in a blanket and wedged into the corner of the lounge couch with a magazine open across her knees.

Lizzy crossed the carpet quietly.

“So how did you get picked?” Cassie demanded.

Lizzy stopped beside the armchair.

“Short straw? Did everybody vote,” her voice rose in volume with each question. “Send Lizzy, she’ll be nice about checking how much I’m bleeding?”

“You can’t yell at me.” Lizzy’s hands were trembling, so she put them against the back of the chair and continued. “I came because you’re my friend and I’m worried about you. I can tell you’re in pain right now, but didn’t do whatever happened.”

“I know that!” Cassie threw the magazine onto the cushion beside her. “I know you’re here because you care. That’s not the problem. I need to yell at somebody, and the somebody I want to yell at isn’t here, and if she was I’d probably say something fucking awful.”

Lizzy stayed where she was.

Cassie pulled the blanket tighter across her lap. “I know,” she repeated, quieter but still angry. “I know it’s not you.”

Lizzy thought about that, then came around the chair. “All right then. Yell at me.” Cassie frowned but Lizzy pushed through it. “Tell me what happened. You can be loud. Just remember that I’m your friend.”

Lizzy sat at the other end of the couch, leaving the magazine between them. Cassie dragged both hands over her face.

“We were having a good time,” she said, loud enough that Lizzy glanced once toward the doorway. “An actual good time. She was telling me about last night and making fun of me, and I was making fun of her, and it was normal. Better than normal. She was laughing so hard she could barely talk.”

Her hands fell into her lap.

“She made this stupid joke about Verena making us share the bed properly. So I said she wouldn’t have to make me. And Fiona thought I was still joking. Which, fine. I hadn’t exactly been standing there with a sign.”

Lizzy drew one leg beneath her, settling in to listen.

“So I stopped joking. I tried to take her hand.” Cassie’s voice lost some of its volume. “That’s all. I reached for her hand, and she jumped away like I had the plague or something.”

The blanket had slipped off one shoulder. Cassie pulled it back up. “She said she wasn’t gay. I said okay. I told her I’m bi, even though I don’t care about labels or anything. I just thought there was something between us. I asked her if I was wrong.”

Lizzy leaned forward, holding a pillow like a shield.

“She could have said yes. She could have said she didn’t feel that way. That would have sucked, but fine. I can take a rejection.”

Cassie looked toward the lounge doorway, then down at her hands.

“She kept going. Like asking had made me some kind of creep. Like I had accused her of something awful.” Her thumb rubbed a fold in the blanket. “Then she told me if I needed attention so badly I should go flirt with Van.”

Lizzy winced.

“Yeah.” Cassie sat without speaking for several seconds. Somewhere down the corridor, a door closed. “I told her she could say no without making me feel so gross.”

Lizzy moved toward her before thinking through the movement. Her arms had started to lift when Cassie held up one hand. “Don’t. I don’t want to be touched right now.”

Lizzy stopped immediately. “Sorry.” She moved back to her own cushion, and Cassie lowered her hand.

“I’m sorry about Fiona,” Lizzy said. “I thought you two had a connection too.”

Her answer was firm. “We do.” Cassie pulled the blanket away from her mouth. “I’m not imagining things. I don’t do puppy eyes and love notes, so I’m not looking at things through rose tinted glasses or whatever. We have some kind of connection that she doesn’t want to acknowledge.”

Lizzy considered her next question before asking it. “Do you think she panicked?”

“I think something about the situation got under her skin. I don’t know what. But we were fine until she understood what I meant, and then suddenly I was trying to do something terrible to her.”

Cassie’s eyes were bright. She looked angry about that too. “Maybe she’ll never want to date a girl. Maybe she just doesn’t want to date me. Either way, she didn’t have to talk to me like that.”

“No,” Lizzy said. “She didn’t.”

Cassie leaned back against the couch.

“Does that mean you’re going to try again?” Lizzy asked.

“No.” Her voice was hard. “She said no. I heard her.” Cassie reached for the magazine, then left it where it was. “I have a different goal now.”

Lizzy waited.

Cassie drew the blanket over both shoulders. Her eyes moved toward the doorway, then away. “I don’t know what her problem is yet,” she said. “But I’m not letting whatever it is eat away at her. She’s so angry all the time. I thought I understood because of the kidnapping, but now I’m worried about her.” She had a look of determination even though her eyes trembled at the corners, “She might not want a girlfriend, but I’m still her friend and I won’t let her dig her own grave every day and not help.”

Lizzy let that stand. She moved the magazine onto the side table and stayed at her end of the couch.

—--------------------

Naomi found Fiona on a bench near the pool. The water reflected the lamps in long, broken lines. A few functional inhabitants were still swimming at the far end, their voices carrying across the deck. The water splashed when they dove into the water, but none of them dripped as they pulled themselves out onto the stone.

Fiona had chosen a place beyond the nearest light. She sat with her elbows on her knees and her hands hanging between them.

Her shoulders sagged when Naomi approached. “Let me have it.”

Naomi stopped beside the bench. “May I sit?”

Fiona waved toward the empty space. Naomi sat with enough room between them that neither had to adjust. For a while she listened to the water moving through the pool’s overflow channel. “Are you all right?”

Fiona laughed. “Fine.”

“If we’re going to lie to each other, I might as well leave.”

Fiona turned toward her. Naomi kept her hands folded in her lap. The swimmers shouted something to one another. Fiona watched a ripple reach the near edge of the pool and break against the tiles.

“Cassie and I had a fight,” she finally admitted.

“I gathered.” Naomi waited. “What about?”

“A stupid misunderstanding.” Fiona rubbed her palms together, then braced them against her knees. “And I overreacted. Because apparently that’s what I do.” She gave a short, irritated laugh. “Everyone’s got advice. Mara. Van. People from other universes. The audience wrote a fucking book about it.”

Naomi adjusted her seat, “Two books.”

Fiona looked at her and Naomi raised her eyebrows in defiance.

A reluctant smile pulled at Fiona’s face. “Thank you. Much better.”

“You’re welcome.”

The smile faded slowly. Fiona bent forward again, staring at the line where the water met the deck. “I know better. That’s the part I can’t stand. I can sit through all these conversations and understand every bloody word. Then something happens and I’m halfway through saying something horrible before I remember I had a choice.”

She rubbed at one palm with her thumb. “I just want to stop ruining my own life.”

Naomi let her finish. “That’s a difficult thing to say.”

Fiona did not look up. “Doesn’t seem to be difficult for me tonight.”

“You still said it.” Naomi turned toward her. “I admire that. But you need someone you trust enough to talk about what’s actually bothering you. Whatever the misunderstanding was, you’re miserable. You shouldn’t have to keep guessing at it alone.”

Fiona pushed her hair back from her face. “And who’s that supposed to be? I can’t talk about it to the rest of you. You are all kidnapped, just like me. You don’t need my whining. Who’s next, Alpha?” Her laugh had no humor in it. “Verena? I’m sure she’d enjoy the insight.”

“Someone you trust,” Naomi repeated. “Someone who’s opinion you’d respect, Evelyn?”

Fiona pressed her lips together. Evelyn would listen, that was part of the difficulty. She would give Fiona time, and eventually Fiona would have to say it was more than stupid misunderstanding. “She has enough to deal with.”

Fiona drew her feet back beneath the bench. “I can talk to her about some things. This is…” She stopped, irritated by how close she had come to giving Naomi something to ask about. “Maybe when we get out.”

Naomi looked across the pool. “That could be a long time to stay miserable.”

Fiona said nothing. After a while she leaned back, her shoulders touching the bench. Naomi stayed beside her as the lamps brightened against the darkening water.

—--------------------

Van had ordered some kind of fish he’d never heard of before tonight. When dinner arrived, the first mouthful persuaded him that maybe his kitchen needed something besides a microwave.

“That good?” she asked. “You look like you’re reconsidering life choices over there.”

“I am,” he nodded, finished chewing, and held out the plate a little. “You should try it.”

She took a bite, then offered him a piece of her chicken in return. He managed to get the sauce on the tablecloth while transferring it to his plate.

“Sorry,” he said mostly out of habit.

“Van, it’s a tablecloth.”

“I know. It’s just a very white one.”

She tapped his wineglass near his elbow. “Just don’t waste any of this excellent wine and we’ll call it a success.”

He laughed and took another sip. As dinner continued, he asked about things on the menu he had never tasted. Evelyn answered some questions and admitted she didn’t know the answer to others. He found himself wanting to try half the dishes, then told her so, and she suggested they could argue over a different pair next time.

By the time their plates were cleared, he had begun to recognize one of the pianist’s returning phrases. He tilted his head when it came around again. Evelyn followed his attention, listening until it ended.

He was considering dessert when she asked, “How are you feeling?”

“Good.” He smiled at her. “This was a good choice.”

“It was,” she admitted as she turned the stem of her glass between her fingers. “I can feel that you’re enjoying yourself. I’m reluctant to interfere with that, but I have been concerned about how you’re coping.”

Van lowered the dessert menu.

“With the Hotel,” she added. “The assignments. What happened in the training room. Last night couldn’t have been easy.”

He looked down at the table, then nodded. “Fiona’s a real challenge.”

Evelyn waited.

“I wouldn’t say this to her. I learned that lesson.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “But I think somebody hurt her, and sometimes when she’s fighting with the rest of us, she’s still fighting them.”

She tilted her head. “That is possible, but I wasn’t asking for your assessment of Fiona’s needs. I was asking about yours.”

His hand dropped from his neck. “Oh.” He looked toward the musicians. The bass player had closed his eyes, one hand moving steadily along the instrument’s neck.

Evelyn gave him time.

“I haven’t really thought about it that way,” Van said at last. “What I need.”

“What have you been thinking about?”

“Whether I’m making things worse. Whether everyone’s all right. What I should do next.” He ran one fingertip along a crease in the tablecloth. “There’s usually something.”

“There usually is,” Evelyn said. “I have spent enough years leading teams to know that you can always find one more thing that needs doing. And if you’re exhausted or frightened or angry, you make worse decisions. You miss things. Eventually the people relying on you get the consequences.”

Van sat back, his attention settling on her.

“But I can hear how that sounds,” she continued. “Another reason you must do something correctly for everyone else. I want to know whether you’re all right because I would like you to be all right.”

He looked at her across the table. “I’m tired. Not falling asleep tired. I just keep thinking there’s something I haven’t done, or something I should have said differently. Even when nothing’s happening.”

Evelyn lowered her eyes to her glass. “Yes. I know that kind.”

“I thought you might.”

“I am rather good at disguising it. That hasn’t made it pleasant.” She looked up again. “You need somewhere to stop for a while, before you reach the point where someone has to intervene.”

“Pixie already did,” he admitted. “She cured me with food and a nap. And to think, I was going to argue with her.”

Evelyn smiled. Van remembered how tired he had been once he finally stopped moving. He had eaten everything she gave him. “How do you make space for that?” he asked. “When people keep needing things?”

Evelyn let out a small laugh and looked down at her wine. “It was considerably easier at home. I lived alone, and I had arranged my life to contain very few close personal relationships.” She lifted her eyes. “My calendar could protect an evening. It couldn’t make that evening satisfying.”

“What did you do with it?”

“Quite often, worked.”

Van gave her a look.

“Yes,” she said, accepting it. “I can see the weakness in my example.” Evelyn rested her hands on the table. “Sometimes I read. Sometimes I managed to sit through a film without feeling like I should be doing something else. I had to learn that enjoying an evening was a sufficient reason to leave it free. I still find work easier when I’m unhappy. It gives me something I know how to do.”

“Tonight must be annoying, then.” Van considered that for a while. “I’ve picked everything. You don’t know what’s next.”

She looked at him. “It was considerably more annoying before you looked so delighted to see me.” Her fingers touched the edge of her wrap. “I wasn’t certain about the dress.”

He looked away from her face. “You should be certain about the dress.” Under his breath, he said, “I’m certain about the dress.”

She smiled, and he kept his eyes on her instead of retreating to his glass. Van took a sip of wine. He liked it more now than he had at the first taste, though he still couldn’t have explained why without borrowing the sommelier’s words.

“That’s good advice,” he said. “I just don’t know how to do it here. There’s another assignment every night. Classes. Training. And now the Challenge.”

“Start by allowing an evening like this to count. You keep treating date nights like mathematics homework,” Evelyn said. “There is a woman, a set of preferences, several possible activities, and somewhere among them an answer you’re supposed to produce.”

Van looked around the restaurant. He had considered the wine request, the menu, the reviews, how far they would have to walk. “That sounds a lot like what I did.”

“And it brought us somewhere lovely. You may stop preparing now. I’m here.”

He leaned back against the booth. She smiled at him before continuing. “Most relationships cannot sustain a circus every evening. People eat dinner. They go for a walk. They argue about what to watch and choose something neither of them particularly wanted.”

She laughed to herself at some distant memory. “The small things accumulate, Van. Shared interests. Ordinary time. Knowing you can sit beside someone without having to keep earning the chair.”

He looked down at his hands. “I feel like I have to impress you,” he said. “All of you. You all do such incredible things. In so many ways, you are all vastly out of my league.”

His fingers opened against his knees. Evelyn waited while he found a way to continue without turning it into a joke.

“I’m so ordinary. Not even ordinary, I’m broken in a lot of vital ways. I’ve never done this before. Dating. I thought doing it properly meant giving the girl a good experience. Picking somewhere she’d like, making sure she had fun, making it worth coming.”

Evelyn set down her glass. “You chose a place with good wine because I asked for good wine. That was thoughtful. I am enjoying it.” Her voice eased. “But the experience becomes good because you share it with someone whose company you enjoy. Sometimes the restaurant helps. Sometimes the food is terrible and you spend years laughing about it. You don’t have to manufacture everything the other person will feel.”

Van glanced at the space where their plates had been. “So if I’d ordered something awful, you’d still be having a good time?”

“I would be having a good time at your expense.”

He laughed. “That sounds more likely.”

“And you would be welcome to return the favor. My judgment is occasionally questionable.”

Van listened through another piano phrase, then returned his attention to her. “I suppose I should trust you to complain.”

“I shall tell you. We agreed this morning.” Evelyn leaned back, giving him a mildly challenging look. “You would survive my disapproval of a restaurant.”

“I think I would,” he said, smiling.

“And your circumstances provide one unusual advantage.” Evelyn reached for the bottle and tipped the last of the wine into her glass. “Even if the evening is dreadful, you needn’t worry about persuading me to accept a second date. The Hotel has already scheduled it against my will.”

Van stared at her for half a second before laughing, “That’s one way to get a callback, I guess.”

“A devastatingly effective booking policy.”

He shook his head, still smiling, and took another sip. When the waitress returned to take their dessert orders, he opened his menu immediately. “I want the chocolate cake.”

Evelyn looked up from hers. “A decisive recommendation.”

She ordered the pear tart. When the desserts arrived, Van looked from her plate to his and shook his head. “You’ve made a mistake.”

“I suggest gathering evidence before you commit to that position.” Evelyn cut a piece from the edge of her tart and put it on his side plate.

He tasted it, considered, then slid his own plate a little closer to the center of the table. “You need to try this too.”

She did. He waited for her verdict with considerably less patience than he had shown at the terminal.

“Very good,” she conceded. “I still prefer mine.”

“You’re allowed to be wrong.”

Evelyn laughed. “That permission will be useful tonight, I suspect.”

They ate slowly. Van asked whether she ever baked, and she admitted that she could make a respectable cake provided she followed the instructions and nobody interrupted her. He told her he had never learned to bake, though he was increasingly tempted by the idea of having cake whenever he wanted it. She began to caution him about wish fulfillment, then caught his expression and stopped.

“What?”

“Nothing,” he said. “you sounded like you were about to give me homework.”

She looked down at her tart, smiling. “Eat your cake.”

After the waitress cleared their plates, Van listened through the beginning of the next piece. “Can we stay for this one?” he asked.

Evelyn settled more comfortably against the booth. “I’d like that.”

He sat back too. For the length of the song, neither of them tried to fill the pauses between the notes. Evelyn drank the last of her wine. When she put down the glass, she glanced at the empty bottle, then across at him.

“Well. Dinner is finished.”

He nodded.

“What do you intend to do with me now?”

Van drew a breath. He had been confident about this part at the terminal. Across the table from her, with the question finally asked, he could feel his nerves catching up.

Evelyn waited, one eyebrow beginning to rise.

He leaned forward. “This is where your promise to do something you normally wouldn’t comes in.”