Now the man turns his head just enough to see her. He relaxes a little. “He’s with you?”
“Yes. Was there a problem?”
“No, ma’am. He just looked a little odd. I guess this”—he still has my card in his hand—“explains it. As long as you’re with him…”
“I’m not his keeper,” Marjory says, in the same tone that she used when she said Don was a real heel.
“Lou is my friend.”
The man’s eyebrows go up, then down. He hands me back my card and turns away. I walk away, beside Marjory, who is headed off in a fast walk that must be stretching her legs. We say nothing until after we arrive at the secured waiting area for Gates Fifteen through Thirty. On the other side of the glass wall, people with tickets, on the departures side, sit in rows; the seat-frames are shiny metal and the seats are dark blue. We don’t have seats in arrivals because we are not supposed to come more than ten minutes before the flight’s scheduled arrival.
This is not the way it used to be. I don’t remember that, of course— I was born at the turn of the century—but my parents told me about being able to just walk right up to the gates to meet people arriving. Then after the 2001 disasters, only departing passengers could go to the gates. That was so awkward for people who needed help, and so many people asked for special passes, that the government designed these arrival lounges instead, with separate security lines. By the time my parents took me on an airplane for the first time, when I was nine, all large airports had separated arriving and departing passengers.
I look out the big windows. Lights everywhere. Red and green lights on the tips of the airplanes’ wings.
Rows of dim square lights along the planes, showing where the windows are. Headlights on the little vehicles that pull baggage carts. Steady lights and blinking lights.
“Can you talk now?” Marjory asks while I’m still looking out at the lights.
“Yes.” I can feel her warmth; she is standing very close beside me. I close my eyes a moment. “I just…
I can get confused.” I point to an airplane coming toward a gate. “Is that the one?”
“I think so.” She moves around me and turns to face me. “Are you all right?”
“Yes. It just… happens that way sometimes.” I am embarrassed that it happened tonight, the first time I have ever been alone with Marjory. I remember in high school wanting to talk to girls who didn’t want to talk to me. Will she go away, too? I could get a taxi back to Tom and Lucia’s, but I don’t have a lot of money with me.
“I’m glad you’re okay,” Marjory says, and then the door opens and people start coming off the plane.
She is watching for Karen, and I am watching her. Karen turns out to be an older woman, gray-haired.
Soon we are all back outside and then on the way to Karen’s apartment. I sit quietly in the backseat, listening to Marjory and Karen talk. Their voices flow and ripple like swift water over rocks. I can’t quite follow what they’re talking about. They go too fast for me, and I don’t know the people or places they speak of. It’s all right, though, because I can watch Marjory without having to talk at the same time.
When we get back to Tom and Lucia’s, where my car is, Don has gone and the last of the fencing group are packing things in their car. I remember that I did not put my blades and mask away and go outside to collect them, but Tom has picked them up, he says. He wasn’t sure what time we would get back; he didn’t want to leave them out in the dark.
I say good-bye to Tom and Lucia and Marjory and drive home in the swift dark.
Chapter Three
MY MESSAGER IS BLINKING WHEN I GET HOME. IT’S Lars’s code; he wants me to come on-line. It’s late. I don’t want to oversleep and be late tomorrow. But Lars knows I fence on Wednesdays, and he doesn’t usually try to contact me then. It must be important.
I sign on and find his message. He has clipped a journal article for me, research on reversal of autistic-like symptoms in adult primates. I skim it, my heart thudding. Reversing genetic autism in the infant or brain damage that resulted in autistic-like