52.

One Free Evening

Talon’s Reach, Year 200 AGH (month 10)

The nurse taking over from Vessa had already read the handover. She asked about the two entries that needed asking about, made her own note, and moved Vessa’s empty cup out of the way.

“Go,” she said. “You’re standing on your strap.”

Vessa stepped clear of it. She had been going to ask whether there was anything else.

In the lift, a departing worker moved a bag to give the fox room to turn. Vessa brought her long tail around her paws before the doors closed. The cream tip caught a strip of light from the landing; then the landing rose away, and the light went with it. For several floors she watched narrow openings slide past. People were still at work beyond them. She was finished.

At the bottom, the doors opened onto an older public street. A shopkeeper was pulling in a display that would otherwise spend the evening obstructing half the pavement. Vessa passed before the last stand came across, with the pleasure of having somewhere to be and enough time to get there.

Her parcel was waiting at the collection point.

“Same place for the connection?” the worker asked.

“Yes. Earlier departure today.”

The worker checked. “You changed it at midday.”

She had. She had kept the collection point in her Common Signal account and entered the earlier window during her break, while there was still enough of the afternoon for it to feel improbable. Now the worker put the small wrapped purchase into her open sling and directed her to the waiting place. The next customer was already naming a parcel behind her.

Her connection arrived with time for her to board. No one sent her back to arrange a second handoff. The parcel settled against her side, two replacement lamp wicks doing their modest part in the weight of her evening. She let the passing streets occupy her until West Courts.

Elian, her human partner, was still at the Federation interface. She saw the top of his bent head before his face, the brown waves falling forward as he attended to something the local attendant was showing him. He had tied his hair back for his last performance. It had escaped.

“That’s when I begin,” he said. “They can’t collect it then. I’m using it.”

“This carrier wants the earliest pickup here.” The attendant moved a finger down to the next entry. “Your old restriction says after the performance. Put the finishing time in this field.”

Elian checked the date, then the time. He read it aloud once more, slowly enough to annoy somebody who did not know him. Vessa knew him. She stopped where she could see his face without interrupting.

His usual instrument carrier’s round ended too early for this engagement. He had told her that much over breakfast, with his case waiting by the door. Now the attendant brought up the later round offered by the other participating carrier.

“These are the completed deliveries you selected?”

“Yes. With the case instructions.”

The attendant waited while he checked the handling note. Elian found the line he wanted, nodded, and paid the small help fee. The attendant confirmed the later collection and that his working account would stay in place. He looked at it for a moment after the attendant had finished with him, his mouth lifting at one corner.

Vessa liked that moment. He had not seen her yet. The troublesome part of tomorrow had fitted into place. She could watch him have it.

Then he looked up and pushed a loose wave of hair back from his blunt chin.

“You’re here.”

“I said I would be.”

“I know. It’s still good.”

He put the confirmation away. There was a broad, low bench outside the busy part of the room, and he sat there while she settled beside him. She left the sling on the far side and moved into his arm. His hand came around her back, warm through her fur. She pressed her pale muzzle against his sleeve and breathed in the familiar smell of him, cloth warmed by travel and the faint dry smell of his instrument case.

For a little while he did not ask about work. She had missed this with quite unreasonable force while answering an ordinary question that morning. Eighteen months together, and she could still lose her place in a sentence because she had remembered the weight of his arm.

He bent his head close enough for his loose hair to brush her ear.

“Did the collection work?”

“Everything worked. I finished on time. The parcel was there. I got the connection.”

“Mine too. They’ll collect after I finish tomorrow. Same case notes, new carrier.”

“Then we can eat.”

“We can certainly eat.”

She stayed against him for another breath before taking back the sling.

On the way to supper she told him how close the eating place was to the music room. They would have time for both courses if they ordered promptly. Dena had said the room filled slowly, but the late part could be wonderful. They could stay for that and still get home without being out all night.

“Good,” he said, and moved to the outside of a knot of people so they could keep going together.

Vessa was already deciding which course she would order first.

*   *   *

They sat beside each other on a broad bench at a low table, with the parcel beside the wall. The pastry broke in dry flakes at the first bite, leaving the onion filling hot enough that Vessa had to wait before taking another. She settled her tail out of the serving path and listened to Elian describe the man who had tried to close his last engagement three times.

“Three?”

“He thought we’d finished. Watch.”

He gave her the phrase under his breath, two little runs and a pause. As soon as the pause arrived, he drew himself up with the pleased authority of a man about to thank a room for coming. He held the pose for a moment, then hummed the answering phrase. His shoulders sank. Vessa laughed into the steam from her plate.

“After the second time he stayed half out of his chair,” he said, rising a little from the bench. “Waiting. I could see him just above the music. Every time I looked up, there he was.”

“You could have told him.”

“I was playing.”

“Between.”

“Between was the dangerous part.”

She laughed again. At the next table somebody turned, caught Elian poised in his half-rise, and smiled without having heard the beginning. Elian noticed and sat down properly, knocking his knee against the table as he did it.

“That wasn’t in the performance,” he said.

“Keep it.”

“I nearly did it there. When he stood for the third time, I started to stand with him.”

“You were playing.”

“I know.”

The server came for their empty water jug. Vessa had to wait until she could say “Another, please” without laughing. Elian reached for the last loose flake of pastry on his plate and ate it. His hands had stopped keeping the beat of the story.

Vessa glanced at the admission time beside her plate. Plenty of time. More than she had expected.

“You must tell Dena that afterward,” she said. “She’ll have everybody trying to stand up at the wrong moment.”

“I’d rather not work tonight.”

She looked back at him. “I meant for fun.”

“I know what you meant.”

The words were quick. She waited for something to follow them, but he took a drink instead.

“You were just telling me.”

“Yes. You.”

The server set down the fresh jug between them. Vessa thanked her. There was a soft mark of onion and butter on the edge of her plate. She had been enjoying this meal very much.

“Dena isn’t asking you to give a performance.”

“Dena hasn’t asked me anything.”

Vessa moved her attention to the admission time again. Supper, the music, people they liked, and home together. Nothing in it looked unreasonable laid out like that. She had checked her shift, found a night when he was free, spoken to Dena, bought the places. She could still tell him they would have a good time if they went.

“Do you want to go at all?” she asked.

“I want to go with you.”

“That isn’t what I asked.”

He looked down at the empty space where his plate had been. The server had taken it without Vessa noticing.

“Some of it,” he said. “I’d like to hear some music. I thought we’d have a long supper and come back early enough to sit down.”

“We are sitting down.”

His mouth moved, nearly a smile. He let it go.

“At home. With you. Without getting up for the next thing.”

She wanted that too, which made his tone harder to bear. It sounded as though she had arranged the evening to prevent it.

“You said the late part sounded good.”

“It did when you were telling me.”

“Elian.”

“You were so pleased. I liked hearing you.”

She could remember herself explaining, and him leaning against the kitchen doorway, smiling. She had taken the smile for an answer to several questions she had not separated.

The pastry had cooled. She ate another bite. It was still good, the onion sweet against the sharpness tucked underneath it. She did not want to abandon the food or the music or her hope of being in a room where other people were making the noise.

“I don’t want to spend the whole night at home,” she said. “I want to go somewhere. And I’d like you to choose something without making me guess which of my choices you liked.”

He rubbed the place where his knee had struck the table.

“Fair.”

“What would you choose? If we hadn’t promised anything yet.”

He looked toward the window. She made herself leave the question alone.

“The first part of the program,” he said. “Then the old street home. We could walk. I want to hear somebody else play, and afterward I want to hold you for longer than we have between departures.”

Her ears warmed. That was the thing he could have said at the beginning. It was also the thing she might have hurried past while explaining how they could fit everything in.

“The room won’t even be full in the first part.”

“Is that important?”

“I like it when it’s full.”

He considered this with more care than he had given her whole itinerary.

“The first break after the open turns?” he said. “Would that give it time?”

“Yes.”

“Then that. No story from me. No extra tune.”

“I wasn’t going to make you play.”

“I know.” His hand came off the table and rested open beside her.

She moved closer along the bench. He raised his arm to settle it around her, and she leaned into him.

“The story was very good.”

“It was better before I injured myself.”

“I don’t agree.”

His fingers moved lightly against her fur. She finished her pastry. When the server offered the sweet course, Elian asked what was warm, and Vessa let him choose it.

*   *   *

Dena Duckett was counting admissions when they arrived. She looked up, pleased, with one finger still holding her place.

“You made it.”

“Both of us,” Vessa said.

“There are places just past the second lamp. Wait, let these people through first.”

Dena moved a pile of unused admissions to make room for a wet coat somebody had put where it would cover her count. She directed its owner toward the hanging space. By the time Vessa and Elian passed, she was greeting the next arrivals.

The places beyond the lamp gave Vessa a view between shoulders. Elian settled beside her, with enough room for her tail on the bench. A player was tuning at the front, turning one note until its rough edge disappeared against another. Vessa could feel the room gathering itself around the sound. She had wanted to be here. Even with the uncomfortable part of supper still in her, she was glad of it.

The first song began without an announcement. Someone behind them recognized it and drew in a breath too early for the refrain. Elian’s head tilted. He waited through the opening, then let the refrain go by without adding his voice.

Vessa listened for the place where he would have entered. The singer took it differently, stretching the last word while a hand at the string accompaniment kept the time underneath. The people behind them came in late and laughed quietly at themselves. On the next round they were ready.

There were two more songs before the open turns. A host moved among the listeners, asking who had brought something. When he recognized Elian he stopped.

“Will you give us one?”

“Not tonight, thanks. I’ve come to listen.”

“Another time, then.”

The host had already turned when a woman farther along raised her hand. She wanted to try something she could not quite remember the beginning of. Another listener offered her the first few notes, too high, and she shook her head until they found where she wanted to start.

Vessa watched Elian take a breath as though he might help. Then the woman found it herself. His breath went out. He leaned back, listening.

The tune had a brisk, turning middle that brought the room with it. Near the end it seemed to be returning to the beginning, but slipped sideways into a slower phrase. Vessa looked at Elian. His eyes were on the player. She liked seeing him surprised by a choice somebody else had made.

He glanced back at her after the ending. She moved close enough for her fur to brush his sleeve. He stayed there while the next person stood up.

By the break the room was full. A group had made a place for a late arrival without yielding any of the space they thought they occupied. Laughter passed across it as people tried to decide whose elbow belonged where. Dena was bringing someone a chair from the back. At the front, two players were testing a quick passage together, then stopping to argue about it with evident pleasure.

Vessa wanted to hear what they would settle on.

Elian caught her looking.

“Our break,” he said.

“I know.”

She watched the players try it once more. They both stopped at the same wrong place and laughed.

She could easily ask for one more tune. She had the argument ready, that they were here and the players were almost ready too. But she was beginning to want the walk, the familiar sound of his steps with hers. She looked away from the players.

“Come on,” she said, before they could begin again. “Which way were you taking me?”

“The old street.”

He waited while she reclaimed her sling from beside the bench. They had paid for the whole program. The music would go on without them. At the entrance Dena was occupied with two arrivals who had brought only one admission between them; Vessa caught her eye and mouthed goodnight. Dena smiled and returned to the count.

*   *   *

The journey notice at the corner showed the connection Vessa had expected. She checked how long they had before it, then looked down the familiar street instead.

“We can walk this part,” she said.

Elian turned with her toward the old street. They passed the shopfronts that had closed while they listened to music. Light from an upstairs window caught in the uneven glass of a door and moved with them until they had gone by. Higher up, windows remained lit at levels where she had been working only a few hours before. She did not try to find her own.

Elian was humming the slow phrase from the woman’s tune. He lost it halfway through and began again, more quietly. Vessa waited. This time he found the turn.

“That,” she said.

“Yes.”

At the next open stretch she stopped and turned the sling toward him.

“Will you take this?”

He lifted the parcel out. The absence of its small weight was surprisingly pleasant.

“What have I got?”

“Lamp wicks.”

“Good. I was hoping it was something impressive.”

“Two of them.”

He shifted the parcel into the crook of his arm as carefully as if she had improved it. She walked close to him. For a while they said nothing, and she could hear the quiet scuff of his shoes beside her own steps.

At home he put the parcel on the table. Vessa left the empty sling near the door. She could have opened the wrapping and replaced the wick that needed replacing. Instead she followed the sound of him choosing something to play.

It was a little recorded piece they had heard often enough to disagree about where it should end. The beginning came out thin, then filled the room as he adjusted it.

He turned toward her.

“Dance?”

“You’ve already hurt your knee.”

“I’m hoping to do better without a table.”

She joined him on the clear part of the rug.

He began with too much stride for the space. Vessa turned more tightly, and for a moment they were going around different centers. She stopped. He came back with the look he got when a piece of music had begun badly and he was pretending they had meant it.

“Again,” she said.

This time he made the steps smaller. She moved beside him, close, then curved away enough to leave room for her tail. The dark fur of her paws disappeared against the rug’s pattern and emerged again at its worn edge. He watched the turn instead of trying to lead her through it. When she came back toward him he was there, laughing a little at how cautiously he had waited.

They found a way to keep the same time. It lasted through one phrase and most of the next. Then his foot caught the raised edge of the rug, and what began as a grand turn became an undignified little adjustment.

She laughed. He bowed from where he had landed.

“Don’t make it worse,” she said.

“I thought that was the recovery.”

She went toward him again. They moved together through the slower part. She could see the tiredness in his shoulders now that he was not holding them for an audience. When the next quick phrase began, neither of them followed it.

He sat on the low seat by the rug. Vessa settled beside him, and his arm came around her as she closed the last space. His hand rested against her back. She turned her muzzle into the soft crease of his sleeve, where it was warm from the bend of his elbow.

“There,” he said quietly.

She stayed.

The quick phrase finished. The recording went on to the part she liked less. Across the room, the parcel remained unopened on the table, and Elian’s hand, which could have kept the time, lay still against her.