Part 2

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Chris had been introducing Becky to his favorite music since she was five and Ben Folds was someone they listened to regularly, even though Folds had an unfortunate tendency toward the gratuitous use of profanity. He a.s.sumed, however, that the songs the pianist had written for the animated film would be free of f-bombs.

"Yeah, cool. The trailer looked great."

Chris loved that Becky used terms like "trailer." If nothing else, he'd done a good job with her pop-culture education.

"So let's go," he said, closing the front door in preparation of heading out through the garage.

"Isn't it too early?"

"For the movie? Sure. I mean I a.s.sume so; we'll have to check the movie times online before we leave. But it's not too early for ice cream at Superpremium and a Dance Dance Revolution throw-down before the show."

Becky chuckled. "Dance Dance Revolution? Didn't you walk with a limp for two days the last time we played that?"

Chris shrugged this off. "I'm in better shape now. I've been sneaking out of work to go to yoga cla.s.ses."

"Yeah, I believe that."

Chris looked at her with mock severity. "Was that a dis?"

"Sounded like it, huh?"

"Are you saying you don't think I can kick your b.u.t.t at Dance Dance Revolution?"

"Just saying I don't want you to hurt yourself, Dad."

"Now this is personal."

Chris acquitted himself moderately well at Dance Dance Revolution (though Becky was overwhelmingly better at it) and managed to win one of three air hockey games against her.

A few years back, Chris celebrated the fact that Becky could compete with him at games without his holding back. At this point, though, he needed to push to be compet.i.tive with her. He a.s.sumed she would understand the concept of "go easy on the old man" by the time she was sixteen.

The movie would start at 7:05 so they decided to forego ice cream until after the show, grabbing a quick meal at a Mexican restaurant beforehand. As they ate, Chris considered that he was going to need to start cooking again, at least when Becky was around. He'd done quite a bit of cooking when he was going to graduate school, and Polly and he took turns making dinner when they were first married. After Becky was born and Polly stayed home with her, she a.s.sumed responsibility for preparing dinner every night, and admittedly she was a much better cook than Chris. However, he was determined to get back into the game. He wasn't going to be one of those divorced dads who took his kids out to eat for every meal. That wasn't his idea of home.

"Over the Hedge" was relatively entertaining. The animation was good, the storyline clever, and the voice talent, including Bruce Willis, Steve Carell, William Shatner, and Allison Janney was impressive. The best part, though, was the Ben Folds soundtrack, all of which was G-rated, including Folds's rewrite of his obscenity-laced "Rockin' the Suburbs."

Afterward, on the drive over to Superpremium, Becky put the Ben Folds Five alb.u.m The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner in the CD player, and they sang along to "Narcolepsy" and "Don't Change Your Plans." Chris loved that they shared a deep interest in music. He imagined them going on long weekend drives with CDs blasting. Polly wasn't fond of long drives or loud music, so this hadn't been part of the repertoire up until now.

They sat on a bench outside the ice cream shop, watching cars moving in and out of the parking lot. Licking his dulce de leche scoop and occasionally coming upon a buried treasure of a chocolate-covered caramel, Chris felt as relaxed as he had in weeks. For the first time since Polly had ambushed him he allowed himself to consider that not everything about the impending divorce was terrible. Yes, Becky still had to go through it from the beginning, and that was something he wished she wouldn't have to experience. Yes, he was going to see his time with his daughter slashed dramatically, and the everyday-ness of their relationship would be gone. However, there would be times like this. Times when they were simply together, doing things they loved to do, and Chris would never have to worry during these times if Polly was going to do something to change his mood and ruin the moment.

"Good ice cream?" he said, b.u.mping shoulders with Becky.

"Yum."

"I was a little surprised you went with the Oreo. A little down-the-middle, don't you think?"

"Down-the-middle delicious, Dad."

"Can't argue with that." Chris dug out another caramel and let it melt on his tongue. They sat there quietly, breathing in the late spring air.

"Would it make you angry if I asked you again what's going on with you and Mom?"

Becky hadn't brought up the subject all day, which Chris had considered a blessing.

"It doesn't make me angry, babe. You know what, though? I'd really love it if we could just enjoy tonight without any serious stuff. Would that be okay?"

Becky didn't answer immediately. It was probably fifteen seconds before she said, "I guess that would be okay."

Again Chris leaned into her. This time she leaned back, and they touched heads, staying that way while they finished their cones. Chris knew the answer he'd given Becky was unsatisfactory, and he seriously considered explaining himself. In the end, he decided to take the easier route, though doing so had robbed much of the serenity from this interlude.

Becky offered him a half-smile when they got back in the car, which told him she was still thinking about it. As they exited the parking lot, she skipped to the last song on the Ben Folds Five CD, the beautiful and uplifting "Lullaby." She'd skipped several darker songs to do this.

He decided to take that as a positive sign.

6.

"Oh, come on, Miea, throw your weight around a little," Miea's roommate Camara said.

Camara wanted Miea to requisition the royal waccasa.s.sa, so the enormous pa.s.senger gull could take her and some of her college friends on a joyride. This wasn't the kind of thing Miea did. She never liked broadcasting her being a princess directly in line to the throne. Throughout her college career, she'd fought especially hard to avoid special treatment, at least to the degree that her situation allowed. Another major issue, though, was that this wasn't the best time to bother anyone in Tamarisk City with trivialities. Of course she couldn't mention this to Camara. Her roommate had no idea how bad things had gotten with the Thorns. Nor did she know that the king and queen were about to leave on an incredibly risky diplomatic mission that Miea found herself thinking about all the time, though rumors were starting to circulate on campus. Still, Camara should have known Miea well enough by now to know that Miea meant it when she said the time wasn't right and she should have simply left it at that.

"What if I get the guards to drive us out into the countryside?" Miea said.

Camara smirked. "We've had your guards drive us plenty of times. I want to fly."

Miea wondered if Camara might be flying a bit already. Miea had talked to her roommate several times about walking the line between partying and oblivion, but Camara had an annoying way of calling Miea "Your Majesty" whenever she did so, and Miea would always back down.

"I'll get the waccasa.s.sa for the day after finals," Miea said.

Camara waved her hand at her. "Oh, fine. Let's do your stupid old car thing."

Miea was having second thoughts about going out with Camara, wondering, hardly for the first time, if they truly were friends.

Then Dyson approached. He kissed Miea tenderly, and she felt her annoyance with Camara melt away. Now she truly didn't want to go out with Camara but for an entirely different reason.

"Have we decided what we're doing tonight?" Dyson said, unfortunately including Camara in the "we."

Camara touched Dyson on the arm, sidling closer to him at the same time. "I had a great idea, but Miea squashed it."

Miea slowly shook her head. "Camara had an unreasonable idea that involved my making a special request to the palace, and I let her know it wouldn't be possible. We seem to have compromised on a drive to the country."

Dyson seemed surprised by this suggestion, which was unusual because he always seemed enthusiastic about everything. "Why don't we go into town instead? I just heard that there's a tzadik band playing at Putumayo a little later, and they're supposed to be great."

Miea considered this for an instant and said, "I could do that."

Camara patted Dyson on the cheek. Miea noticed that Camara never missed an opportunity to make physical contact with Miea's boyfriend, though she had about as much of a chance of getting Dyson's romantic attention as she had of requisitioning the royal waccasa.s.sa on her own.

"I do love tzadik," she said. "And I've had my fill of the countryside."

Camara had grown up in a rural part of the northern territories. While the sight of regal, six-pawed katmai and round, agile pulgases still fascinated Miea after all her travels, she could appreciate how they probably only reminded Camara of her isolated youth.

They headed off on foot since the town center was only ten minutes from where they were currently standing on campus. Dyson and Camara had both called others to meet them there, and a couple of friends caught up as they walked, considerably enlarging their entourage. Of course two of Miea's "friends" were Sinica and Hensis, Miea's immediate bodyguards. They were fairly good about observing from a distance when Miea was in cla.s.s or hanging around with others, but when she was on the move, they followed closely. This had led to some awkward moments on her dates with Dyson and their only real fight.

"It's just you and me tomorrow night, right?" Dyson said quietly as they walked.

Miea smiled warmly at him. "Just you and me ... if you don't look around too carefully."

Dyson grinned and pecked her on the cheek. He'd been remarkably good-natured about the limits her being a princess had put on their privacy, that one argument notwithstanding. He'd been the first person she'd dated for more than a couple of weeks. The others had been smitten with her royalty a" maybe even smitten with her a" but they'd quickly tired of the surveillance.

Miea was so glad Dyson had the perseverance the others had lacked. What she felt for him so completely surpa.s.sed anything she'd felt for a man before. It wasn't just that they shared an intense pa.s.sion for botany. It wasn't just that he loved music and good food and lengthy political discussions a" all of which she also loved. It wasn't just that he was tall, angular, fit, and had hypnotic eyes. It was all of those things, and something far more important: with Dyson, she felt like Miea, not Princess Miea. Her father liked to tease her about her reluctance to bring Dyson to the palace, but she had to admit that there was something real to that reluctance. When she was at the palace, she was always a princess; she wanted to avoid being that in Dyson's presence as long as possible. She wanted their romance to roam free indefinitely. She knew she'd have to let her father have his "intimate" dinner with forty of fifty others in attendance at some point, but to the degree that she could forestall this, she would.

Putumayo was stuffed with patrons and was as loud as Miea had ever experienced. Of course a table was available for her party. Hensis had called ahead to make sure that was the case.

Okay, Miea thought, as the host seated them, I don't mind throwing my weight around a little.

The table was in a corner to the right side of the stage with a clear view of the enormity of musical equipment on it. The stage was so full of paraphernalia Miea wasn't sure how the performers were going to fit onstage, let alone play their instruments. She hadn't heard of the act they'd come to watch. Were the musicians very small, maybe even invisible?

A waiter came and Camara and several of the others ordered a variety of intoxicants. Miea ordered a barritts, her favorite soft drink. She had intoxicants on occasion but never in public (and they were very much in public; Miea had never taught herself to ignore the many heads that turned in her direction whenever she entered a place).

Dyson, in a show of support, ordered a barritts as well, as did Sinica. Miea was a little surprised that Sinica was sitting with her at the table. Usually, both he and Hensis positioned themselves elsewhere when she was out. She glanced around and found Hensis on the other side of the room.

Not long after their drinks arrived, the lights went down, and the band a" all normal-sized people a" walked onstage, stepping gingerly around the ma.s.s of equipment. Without saying a word to the audience, the musicians swung into their first song. As was typical of tzadik, the beat, performed by three percussionists, was propulsive. The wash, however, performed by three string players, was tender, almost plaintive. About a minute into the first song a musician stepped to the edge of the stage and blew into an instrument that Miea had never seen before. It had a neck that curved upward to a long, flat opening. Miea expected the instrument to make a rich, reedy sound, but what came out was cluttering, almost like the call of the tiny purisma.

Miea leaned toward Dyson. 'What is that thing?"

"He calls it a barsuk. He invented it a" that's what's getting them so much attention. Amazing, isn't it?"

"Amazing."

The barsuk player stepped back after a long bit of improvisation, and two surprisingly tall women began singing in unison. At first they seemed only to be vocalizing, but soon Miea discovered a pattern in their phrases; they were singing backward.

"What kind of machine lets them do that?" she said to Dyson.

"It's not a machine. They're doing it themselves."

"They're singing backward together?"

"Can you imagine how much practice that takes?"

Miea simply shook her head in wonder. Looking around, she noticed that the audience seemed transfixed. Some were dancing, some were shouting, but all seemed in thrall. Except Hensis, who maintained diligent watch, as did Sinica. And a man in the other corner of the room. And a woman standing about twenty feet behind her. Each bore the unmistakable attentiveness of the royal guard. Had her parents increased her security detail without mentioning it to her?

The song continued for easily twenty minutes, introducing new sounds and counter-rhythms as it progressed. Finally the music seemed to converge. What were once layers became a unified blend, and then, with an explosion of percussion, the song ended. At its conclusion, one of the percussionists threw a drumstick into the audience a" straight in Miea's direction. Delighted, she reached out for it, only to have Sinica dive across the table to intercept the stick before it got to her, knocking over her barritts in the process.

Instantly, Hensis and one of the other people she a.s.sumed to be a guard converged on the stage, drawing a great deal of attention to themselves. The band seemed intimidated by this and the percussionist who'd thrown the drumstick held up his hands to show he'd intended no harm. By this point he'd recognized Miea and seemed mortified by what he'd done.

The concert continued a few minutes later once it became clear to Miea's bodyguards that she had never been in danger. The muttering among the crowd ended as a new song began. However, Miea found she couldn't give herself to the music as she had before.

Hensis and Sinica had never overreacted like this before. Obviously her father was much more concerned about what was going on with the Thorns than he'd acknowledged to her.

7.

Becky ran into the house giggling. When the Ben Folds CD finished, she'd switched to the radio, and as they turned into the neighborhood, "Bohemian Rhapsody" came on and she and Dad started singing the crazy middle part together. Mom was in the kitchen, and Becky walked over to kiss her on the cheek, a huge grin still on her face, thinking about Dad's ridiculous opera voice.

Just then, Dad came around the corner singing, "Scaramouche, Scaramouche, can you do the fandango" really loud. Becky giggled again and turned toward him. When she did, though, she saw Dad's face drop as he saw Mom, and he stopped singing. Becky looked over at Mom and saw her eyes get small.

And all of a sudden, the world became real again.

Mom tried a smile at Becky that didn't work. "Did you have fun tonight?"

"Yeah," Becky said, unsure whether that was a good answer or a bad one. "We went to the movies."

Mom nodded and then looked toward Dad. "A note would have been nice."

Becky didn't want to look at her father, even though she knew what his face was going to be like. She'd seen it enough times in these kinds of situations. "You were supposed to be home later," she heard him say.

Mom's eyes actually got smaller, which was saying something. "Well, I'm not."

Becky was amazed that she'd been able to forget what things were like in the house for even a minute. Now that she remembered she just wanted to get away from it. If they weren't going to tell her what was going on, they couldn't expect her to stick around in the middle of it.

"I'm gonna go up to my room to read," she said.

Mom kissed her on the top of the head. "You go ahead, honey."

Becky slowly walked out of the kitchen and then picked up speed as she got into the hallway. When she got up to her room, she realized that her Ray Bradbury book was still in the den. There was no chance she was going down to get it, though. She'd already made her getaway. She got her Nintendo DS instead and started to play a game.

She must have gotten really caught up in Dino Master, which was a surprise considering how she was feeling, because Dad made that throat-clearing sound he made when she'd zoned out and he was trying to get her attention. She looked up at him.

"Okay if I come in?" he said.

"Yeah, sure. What's up?"

He took a few steps into her room. "It's after eleven."

"It is?" Becky looked over at the clock in her room. "Wow, I guess I was really concentrating on this game. I've gotten some cool fossils."