American Elsewhere - By Robert Jackson Bennett Page 0,198

much of her tits as they’d allow back then. Kelly cleverly comments on this, as he should, all gleaming teeth and crinkled eyes, but the woman parries every comment, growing more forward and aggressive each time, which makes Kelly more and more uncomfortable.

Kelly breaks away from his pursuer, and launches into an angsty but charming monologue about love: “It’s always elusive, isn’t it?” he begins.

“Sometimes everything feels elusive,” purrs the older woman.

“You feel like you have it. You feel like you’re there. But then you look up and—poof—it was all a dream.”

“Such a sad dream,” says the older woman, maneuvering in her chair so a lot, if not all, of her leg shows.

Mona remembers this now. He’s in love with some other woman, but she’s married, or something like that, and this older gal is all over him, but he’s not into her. She wonders if she’s already missed that big ballet scene.

“What we want is just at our fingertips, but we can’t grasp it.” He stretches his arm out toward the camera, eyes theatrically brimming with anguish.

“I could grasp it,” says the woman, smiling cunningly.

“No, you can’t,” says Kelly. “No one can. That’s what dreams are, aren’t they? It’s a sucker’s game. They aren’t real, but we feel they’re real. And so we act in very real ways, and often regret it.”

The woman produces a cigarette, complete with an ornate black cigarette holder, and lights it in a manner that is positively lewd. “And do you regret it?”

“Regret what, specifically?” asks Kelly.

“Leaving.”

“Leaving? No,” says Kelly. He tilts his head, and smiles a little wistfully. “And yes.”

“Really? How can you not regret leaving with every fiber of your being?”

“Were things really better there?” he asks. “Were we all really that much happier?”

“Perhaps,” she says. “You were treated as kings.”

“Kings,” says Kelly. “Queens. Gods.”

“Isn’t that all anyone would ever want?” asks the woman.

“Maybe,” he says, indifferent. “I was told we fled due to danger—everything was falling apart, our world could no longer bear our size, our numbers. The whispers were always vague, always anxious. She wouldn’t tell me much more than that. Just that we had to go, go, and never look back. Now, I’m not sure if I care.” He sits down on the floor at the woman’s feet, chin on his fist, troubled. Delighted, the woman begins running her fingers through his hair. Kelly doesn’t even notice.

Mona frowns. She doesn’t remember him doing that. Wasn’t this a funny scene? And isn’t he supposed to be in love with someone else?

“If you care?” asks the older woman.

“If I care if we were ever really in danger. We’re here now. That’s all that matters.”

“But if you weren’t in danger, and if you could go back, would you?” she asks him.

“Me?” Kelly’s cleverer-than-you grin blooms to occupy half his face. “Oh, no,” he says, and leans back, hands behind his head. “I’m happy here. Here, I’m living the dream.”

“But I thought you said dreams never came true!”

“No, they don’t,” admits Kelly. “But sometimes you can trick yourself into thinking they have. Which is almost good enough.”

“As good as the way the ruined moon shone on the spires of Tridyalith?” asks the woman.

Kelly’s grin turns both sardonic and a little weary, as if he is hearing an argument he’s heard far too often before.

“Is it better than the long lakes of Dam-Uual,” she asks, “where the weaker children could not determine where the buildings ended and the skies began, and only the most powerful could perceive the underwater lights glimmering in the courtyard waters? Do you remember? Were those lights not beautiful to you?”

“As beautiful as the red sun filtering through the tunnels in the ice caps at Yzchintre,” says Kelly. “It would filter through the blue ice, turning a pale green, and seep down to where we slept in pools underground, listening to the tones and songs of the enslaved.”

“A long sleep,” says the woman.

“Mmm,” Kelly says, “not too long.”

Mona slowly sits up. Has First altered the movie for her? Is there a message in this? It doesn’t seem clear yet…

“Would you say that your dream is better than the diamond rains on the moon of Hyuin Ta’al?” asks the older woman. “Do you remember how they piled in the craters before melting and making silver rivers in the dark?”

“My little sister broke that moon,” says Kelly thoughtfully. “She did it as a show of force. Hyuin Ta’al surrendered almost immediately. To think that it will never rain there again…”

“Do you remember