I tried talking to the servants, but they were silent, contented slaves. They worked, or they sat in their quarters watching television and waiting for the master’s voice.
I joined Karl and Vivian out by the pool one day and what looked like a really interesting conversation came to a dead halt.
The only times I ever felt comfortable was when I was in my room with the door shut, or in the library when Karl wasn’t home. He spent a lot of time in Los Angeles keeping an eye on the businesses he controlled for Doro and the ones he had taken over for his own, personal profit. Evidently he did more for them than just steal part of their profits. For me, he did nothing at all.
Doro showed up to see us married. Not that there was any kind of ceremony beyond the bare essentials. He went home with us?or with Vivian and me. Karl dropped the
three of us off, then headed for L.A. Doro challenged Vivian to a game of tennis. I walked three blocks to a bus stop, caught a bus, and rode.
I knew where I was going. I had to transfer to get there, so there was no way for me to pretend to myself that I had wound up there by accident. I got off at Maple and Dell and walked straight to Rina’s house.
Rina was home, but she had company. I could hear her and her company yelling at each other way out on the sidewalk. I walked around the corner and knocked on Emma’s door. She opened it, looked at me, stood back from the door. I went in and sat down in the big overstuffed chair near the door. I closed my eyes for a while and the ugly old house seemed to go around me like a blanket, shutting out the cold. I took a deep breath, felt relief, release.
Emma laid a hand on my forehead and I looked up at her. She was young. That meant she had had Doro with her recently. I didn’t look anything like her when she was young. Doro was crazy. I wished I did look that good.
“You were supposed to get married,” she said.
“I did. Today.”
She frowned. “Where’s your husband?”
“I don’t know. Or care.”
She sort of half smiled in her know-it-all way that I had always resented before. Now I didn’t care. She could throw all the sarcasm she wanted to at me if she just let me sit there for a while.
“Stay here for a while,” she said.
I looked at her, surprised.
“Stay until someone comes to get you.”
“They might not even know I’ve gone anywhere. I didn’t say anything. I just left.”
“Honey, you’re talking about Doro and an active telepath. They know, believe me.”
“I guess so. I came here on the bus, though. I don’t mind going back that way.” I never liked depending on other people and their cars, anyway. When I rode the bus, I went when I wanted, where I wanted.
“Stay put. Doro might not have heard you yet.”
“What?”
“You’ve said something by coming here. Now the way to make sure that Doro’s heard you is to inconvenience him a little. Just stay where you are. Are you hungry?”
“Yeah.”
She brought me cold chicken, potato salad, and a Coke. Brought it to me like I was a guest. She’d never brought me anything she could send me after before in her life.
“Emma.”
She had gone back to whatever she was doing at her desk in the dining room. The desk was half covered with official-looking papers. She looked around.
“Thanks,” I said quietly.
She just nodded.
Karl came after me that night. I answered the door, saw him, and turned to say good-by to Emma, but she was right there looking at Karl.
“You’re too high, Karl,” she said quietly. “You’ve forgotten where you came from.”
He looked at her, then looked away. His expression didn’t change, but his voice, when he spoke, was softer than normal. “That isn’t it.”
“It doesn’t really matter. If you’ve got a problem, you know who to complain to about it?or who to take it out on.”
He drew a deep breath, met her eyes again, smiled his thin smile. “I hear, Em.”
I didn’t say anything to him until we were in the car together. Then, “Is she one of the two?”
He gave me a kind of puzzled glance, then seemed to remember. He nodded.
“Where do you know her from?”
“She took care of me once when I was between foster homes. That was before Doro found a permanent home for me. She took care of me again when I was approaching transition. My adoptive parents couldn’t handle me.” He smiled again.
“What happened to your real parents?real mother, I mean?”
“She … died.”
