Nita regained enough self-awareness to shake her head as the vibration of the two worlds’ relationship inside her head began to die back a little and she found more room to breathe. “You guys,” was all she could say at first. “Wow.”
“We have fun,” Jupiter said.
It was a staggering understatement. She could still feel echoing in her body the shadows of the complex dance that Jupiter and Saturn performed with and around each other every second (“How can you be dancing around Saturn when her orbit’s outside yours?” “It’s a simple topological inversion. Turn your back on the Sun and the inner orbits and include Saturn and everything else, and they’re all inside your orbit—”)
And how did I even hear that? Nita thought, dazed.
Resonances, Jupiter thought, and giggled. There’s always room for one more in the dance.
“Wow,” Nita said again, because it was all she could think of to say.
“But you know, they laugh at us, the other planets,” Jupiter said. “They say, ‘You two have been going around together for how long? And you’re only now noticing it? Are you ever obtuse.”
At that Nita started laughing again, though this time there was a slight edge to it. “Yeah,” she said, recalling various recent conversations with both Dairine and Carmela, “well, don’t be embarrassed, you’re not the only one who gets that.”
“Oh good.”
And without any warning the crowd in front of them seemed to part, and Kit came through it in a hurry. He headed over to Nita and stood in front of her with barely a glance at the guy sitting next to her, and bent down toward her with worry written all over his face. “Are you okay? I felt—something—right across the room.”
“Oh no, no,” Nita said. “I’m fine.”
“You’re sure?” Kit said. And now he turned his head toward Nita’s companion. “And who’s your friend?”
Nita grinned. “Kit, Jupiter,” she said. “Jupiter, Kit.” She paused. “Wait a minute, I think I got that backwards. The older one should come first, right?”
Kit’s eyes went wide as the full impact of the other’s persona hit him. His mouth opened, but no sound came out.
“Better sit down,” Nita said. “This is going to take some explaining . . .”
It did. It was dark by the time they left Jovie to his own devices and headed across the room. “That,” Kit said, “was . . .” He trailed off. “I don’t even know how to begin describing that.”
“Me either,” Nita said. “I don’t know about you, but I could use some ordinary. And something to eat.”
“Yeah,” Kit said.
There were buffet tables in all four corners of the big room. The burritos on offer had a lot of appeal for Nita, and she went through several of them one after another, with another bottle of the Cel-Ray soda. “Your appetite’s plainly okay,” Kit said, looking suspiciously at the soda, “otherwise I’d start worrying. That stuff smells like metal polish.”
“No it doesn’t!”
“Yes it does,” Kit said. “God only knows what it’s doing to your insides.”
“Only what it does to the insides of thousands of other New Yorkers,” Nita said. “Otherwise they’d have the Board of Health after them. Anyway, if you’re worrying about insides, you shouldn’t keep putting that habanero relish on your burgers. You won’t have any stomach lining left.”
“Come on, it can’t hurt your stomach lining. That’s a myth.” Nonetheless, Nita observed that he changed over to a ballpark mustard relish for his fourth burger.
“You’re going to roll home after that,” Nita said.
“Look,” Kit said. “I’ve been on my feet all day! And so have you. And these burgers are small.”
Nita smiled. “You’re just trying to make up for the lack of blue food,” she said. “You don’t fool me.”
Kit sighed. “I was kind of hoping Sker’ret might’ve brought something in from the Crossings, but I guess it wouldn’t have made sense for him to be doing the catering too . . .”
They wandered back into the main part of the room, where the divide between dancing Invitational guests and nondancing ones was becoming more pronounced as the evening wore on. A lot more people were now sitting or lounging around the walls, the sound of conversation and laughter scaling up into a low roar that competed very successfully with the dance music in the middle of the room. Nita and Kit wandered in a long arc around the room, saying hi to various people they recognized.
“What’s going on over there?” Nita said to Kit at one point. “There’s a whole bunch of people in a circle on the floor—”
Kit shook his head. The two of them set off in that direction: and then Nita saw Kit register something that made him break out in a grin. “What?”
“It had to happen” was all he said as they made their way over to the group. A shout went up inside the circle, along with cries of “Oh, man, how the hell—” and “Deal me out, I’m done!” And among these, one voice with a sharp, abrasive Australian accent rose highest of all. “That’s it, ladies and gentlemen, read ’em and weep—!”
Nita threw Kit a look. She knew that voice. “Oh, no—”
“Oh, yes,” Kit said. As they approached, Nita saw a thin wiry guy in dark slacks and a shirt plastered with giant Day-Glo flower designs. He was raking toward him a huge pile of the participants’ glowing souvenir tokens, blue and green both, while others in the game were throwing down their cards in resignation or disgust. “Who wants to buy in to the next hand, ladies and gentlemen? Who knows, everybody else’s luck might change . . .”
“Matt,” Nita said, shaking her head. “Only you.”
Matt looked up at her, and a grin of delight stretched across his face. “Nita!” He jumped up and stepped straight through the circle to her, threw his arms around her, and nearly crushed her in a hug. “Long time no see!”
She hugged him back and ruffled his dark hair, which was all over the place as usual. “Lissa was talking about you before—”
He smiled sourly. “I bet she was!”
“But I didn’t realize she meant you were here! Are you mentoring?”
“Not me. My mate Dokes.” He peered up over the circle of card players and past them into the main part of the room. “. . . Never mind, can’t see him. But come on, Nita, you could’ve found me in a minute. There’s an app for that . . .” He reached into his pocket, pulled out a WizPhone, and waved it at her.
“Oh no, don’t tell me Darryl’s got to you too,” Nita muttered.
“Are you kidding? No one can resist him. I’m starting to think he’s on commission.” Matt laughed. “But never mind that. Care to try your luck?”
“I could get into that,” Kit said. And he promptly sat down cross-legged in the circle. “Who’ll stake me a few?”
A tux-clad young African-American gent with glasses and a studious look laughed and handed Kit a few. “Glutton for punishment, huh . . .”
“Randy, hush up, you’ll scare him off!” said a tall brunette who’d made room for Kit on his other side, handing him some tokens as well. She had a small Siamese cat on her shoulder, and Nita found herself suddenly wondering if Irina was around, and exactly where her parakeet was.