"How interesting. I'd love to study it."
"Yeah, I'm planning on donating my body to science. Assuming the family doesn't get a better offer from a dog food company."
Clara laughed, and swept into the museum. Finn shelled out the five bucks for tickets, and caught up with Clara. She was standing transfixed in front of the diorama of the Four Aces. Finn looked from the cool wax features of the grandmother to the face of the granddaughter, with its tiny sheen of perspiration on her upper lip and across the high forehead. There wasn't a lot of resemblance.
"She looks like Aunt Fleur," Clara said softly.
"No, Aunt Fleur looks like her. Blythe was Fleur's mother."
Clara walked a little farther into the museum. Stopped in front of the wax figure of Tachyon. Glanced back at Blythe. Back to Tachyon in his finery.
"Why did she do it?"
"I think because she loved him," Finn answered.
"And him?" The tendons in Clara's neck were etched cords beneath the skin. So much tension.
"I think she was the only woman he really ever loved."
"Easy for him to say. She's dead and gone forty years." The anger etched the words like acid.
"I knew Tachyon," Finn said gently. "Admired him, liked him, respected him, sometimes wanted to kill him, but that's another story. I watched him woo women, make love to women, use women. What always struck me about it was the desperation with which he pursued. I think he was looking for another Blythe, but was smart enough to know that couldn't happen."
"With the result being?" Clara asked.
"That every relationship was doomed from the outset."
"That doesn't make him very attractive."
"It wasn't meant to. It was meant to make him understandable." Finn felt anger prickling along his nerve endings. He fought the emotion. This was supposed to be a good day. Their day. He didn't need fucking Tachyon turning up like Jeramiah, and fucking everything up. He found something which he hoped would put the argument to rest. "And hey, Cody loved him. Loves him. Maybe you ought to talk to her about what made him ... him."
Clara walked away a few feet, and stood staring into the black glass eyes of her ancestor.
Finn took a tentative step forward, and laid fingertips against her sleeve. "Clara, she's ancient history. He's ancient history. Wild cards spend too much time agonizing about the past. It's not our past. It sure as hell isn't our future. Let's forget about it."
"Future." She turned the word over in her mouth. Caressing it with her tongue, biting at it with her teeth. "Do any of us really have an unburdened future? You wild cards are right - the future is ordained by the past. We're programmed by the hates and needs and attitudes of our parents and grandparents - "
"It doesn't have to be that way. We're not totally reflexive beings. We can learn, change."
"And what have you learned, Bradley Finn, independent of your joker nature?"
"That this," he slapped at his flank. "Doesn't define me. That this," he touched his head, "And this," as he touched his heart, "Are more powerful than a fluke of genetics."
"And I believe that genetics are everything."
"What about souls?"
"I've never seen one." Clara's expression was as bleak as ash.
"I'm sorry for you," was all Finn could think to say.
♥ ♦ ♣ ♠
"I just want to stop and say hello. We won't stay long. Joan used to volunteer at the clinic, but her health...." Finn had hoped he was keeping it casual. Clara's expression was telling him he hadn't. Before she could demur he reached up and rang the bell. "Joan's like this incredible East Coast blue blood. Makes this surfer kid feel real inferior. The Finn's got money, but no couth. Guess I shouldn't tell you that. You're one of those blue bloods. You'll think you're slumming."
"Why are you so nervous?" Clara asked.
"Nervous?" Finn echoed. Fortunately Perry opened the door before Finn's mouth could shovel out an even deeper hole. "Who's nervous? Hi, Perry."
Perry was slim, gray haired, and old-fashioned. The chain and fob of a watch hung from one pocket, and he was wearing a jacket even on a Sunday in May. He smiled in welcome. Clara visibly relaxed, and Finn began to breathe again. Maybe this was all going to turn out okay. "Bradley! How good to see you. Come in. Come in."
"Missed you at the block party, figured I'd see you and Joan boogalooing on the sidewalk," Finn said as he and Clara entered the vestibule of the apartment.
Perry lost some of his ebullience, and glanced toward the door to his right. "Joan's been a little stay-at-home lately." He offered his hand to Clara. "Perry Simon."
"Clara van Renssaeler." Perry's eyes widened. Clara (damn her perspicacious little self) didn't miss it.
"I'll fetch Joan." The fact that he left them standing in the hall was proof he was rattled.
Finn gave Clara an encouraging smile. And felt it curdle as raised voices came wafting into the hall. Perry had closed the door to the study, so no words could be distinguished, but the soprano member of the duet was clearly distressed, and from the hissing noises, Joan's snake nature was also getting into the act. Finn wondered bleakly what he had done to so antagonize this former friend.
Perry returned. His face was flushed, whether from anger or embarrassment or a combination of both Finn couldn't tell, but he was the urbane host, and invited them into the living room. Clara settled onto the sofa like a nervous cat, and Finn dropped awkwardly to the floor, folding his legs beneath him. Perry darted into the kitchen, and started filling the tea tray.
"I'm sorry you're stuck with just me. Joan's a little ... er, indisposed, but she wanted me to make you both welcome."
He returned with the tray. Poured, offered Clara a cup. She stared down at the intricate Wedgewood pattern, and went white to the lips. Finn reared up, bracing himself on his front legs, alarmed because she looked so faint. Clara gave a tiny head shake, smiled, and took a sip of tea.
"You're at the clinic now, aren't you?" Perry asked.
"Yes."
"Like it?"
Clara drew in a sharp breath. "Normal adjectives don't really apply at the clinic...."
"How so?" Perry asked.
"I feel like a traveler, a visitor in your world." She stopped herself. "But you're an outsider, too."
"To a degree. I can't fully understand the joker experience. But I love a woman who happens to be a joker, and after awhile you don't see the strangeness, you just see the person." He laughed. "And you know something? They say the same thing about me."
Clara laughed, and the knot of tension which had settled into Finn's chest dissolved. It wasn't as good as fantasy had imagined it. It would have been better if Joan had been coiled on the couch, forming a nest for her lover, but it was pretty damn good.
Clara's gaze roamed about the living room. Evaluating the paintings, knickknacks, furnishings. All of it subdued. All of it tasteful. All of it very much Joan. Her eyes slid across the mantle, across the antique French clock, froze on a silver framed photo of Perry and Joan. Her teeth chattered on the gilt edge of the cup, and she sloshed tea into the saucer as she struggled to place the cup and saucer back on the coffee table.
"Bradley, I'm ..." She couldn't seem to think of the word. Her gaze was once again fixed on the photo.
Finn heaved to his feet. He got a hand under her elbow, and helped Clara to her feet. "Thanks for the hospitality, Perry, but I think I've run the stuffin's out of this girl. Give Joan my love."
The frenzied words had carried them back into the vestibule. Clara suddenly let out a mewling little gasp. Finn whirled, saw Joan whip back from the study door in a frenzy of glitter and scales.
Clara clutched at her head and doubled over at the waist. Finn grabbed her wrist. The skin was icy, clammy to his touch. Finn had diagnosed enough migraines over the years to recognize this one.