Troubled, Renie wandered back around the table.
"Javier is criticizing my appearance," Florimel announced.
"Chance not!" T4b said. The glyphs of light on his cheeks dimmed when he blushed. "Just saying that the patch looks chizz. She only did some other stuff, could be major scorchery."
"Like what?" Florimel gave him a severe look. "Buy my sim some gigantic breasts?"
Javier shook his head vigorously. "Didn't say that, me—not all unrespectful like that! Just meant you could get some sub-Ds. Like your initials, something. . . ." He trailed off and his own subdermals became even harder to see. "Oh. You molly-dupping me, huh?"
"If that means teasing, Javier, then yes." Florimel shared an amused glance with Renie. "But why are you so dressed up? I'm assuming that is what you really look like today. Such nice clothes just for old friends like us?"
He shrugged. "Got an interview, me."
"For a job?" Renie asked.
"Chance not. Tryin' to get back into school. AGAPA."
"Arizona General and Pastoral Academy," Mrs. Simpkins elaborated.
"Seen. It was Bonnie Mae's idea, like." He suddenly looked like he wanted to back away from the gathering. "Well, mine too."
"Tell them what you want to do, Javier," Mrs. Simpkins said.
He scowled, "Thought . . . thought after all the things happened, I might try to be . . . a minister, like. Youth minister, seen? Work with micros." His shoulders came up as if to protect him from a beating. He looked at Florimel out of the corner of his eye.
Renie and !Xabbu congratulated him, but he was waiting for something.
"Well," Florimel said after a moment. "I think that is a wonderful idea, Javier. I really do." Smiling, she leaned forward and carefully kissed him on his glowing cheek. "I hope your dream comes true."
Even as his subdermals threatened to disappear entirely, another kind of light stole onto his face. "Make it through all that sayee lo stuff, can make it through anything, me," he promised.
"Amen," said Bonnie Mae.
CHAPTER 53
A Borrowed House
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"Are you ready?" Catur Ramsey did his best to keep his voice calm. His stomach was full of small active flutterings, and he of all of them had the least reason to be nervous. Jet lag didn't help. "I think it's time."
"I don't know." Vivien Fennis looked around their living room as if she might never see it again. "I don't know what to do."
"Should we say something?" asked Conrad Gardiner hoarsely. He had been pacing for half an hour while the other two made sure the gear for his wife's new neurocannula was working properly, and now he could hardly sit still on the couch. "Or is there some . . . button we have to push?"
"No." Ramsey smiled. "If you're ready, just let me and Mr. Sellars do the rest."
The transition was instantaneous: one moment they were in a well-furnished California house in a gated community, the next on a path at the edge of a dark and ancient forest.
"Oh my God," said Vivien. She turned away from the trees and surveyed the meadowed hills, the grass glinting with dew in the morning sunshine. "It's . . . it's so real!"
"Not quite up to the network's earlier standards," said Ramsey. "But yes, it's still pretty impressive, isn't it? I haven't got used to it myself."
"Who's that?" asked Conrad. "Is that. . . ?"
Ramsey squinted at the figure coming down the curving hill path. "No, it's Sam Fredericks, right on time."
She waved, then walked briskly toward them, a little incongruous-looking in her pants and dark shirt. Ramsey could not help an inward flinch of embarrassment as he remembered her reaction when he suggested that for such a special occasion she could wear a dress if she wanted to. Still, he had to admit that other than the workaday teenager clothes, she looked like someone who belonged in a storybook setting like this, her eyes bright, her cloud of fluffy brown hair wrapped but not contained by a bright scarf.
She stopped in front of them, suddenly shy. "You're . . . you're Orlando's parents, right?"
"Yes. I'm Vivien and this is Conrad." Ramsey had to admire the woman's aplomb. After all, in the impatient hours leading up to this he had seen almost all of the emotions she was now hiding so effectively. "And you must be Sam. We've met your folks." She hesitated, then swept Sam into a trembling hug. Both of them hung on for a moment as though unsure what to do. "We feel like . . . we feel like we know you, too," Vivien said, releasing her.
Sam nodded. Her own careful composure was also threatening to come undone. "Well, I guess we oughta go," she said after a moment. "He's waiting."
As the four of them made their way up the curving, stone-lined path, Ramsey saw that Orlando's parents were holding hands. They've had too much horror to practice on, he thought—but maybe it helps now.
Still, how could anyone be ready for this?
"What . . . what is this place?" Vivien asked. They had almost reached the top of the hill. A river splashed down beside the path, loud among the reeds, the water so musical it almost chimed. Behind them the forest spread like a shadowy, frozen ocean. "I've never seen anything like it."
"It's from Orlando's favorite book," Sam said. "Somebody had made it already. He could have lived in a castle or something, one of the fancy parts, but he liked this part better." She turned her gaze down to the ground; her smile was strained.
"Somebody . . . made this?" asked Conrad. "I guess I knew that, but. . . ."
"There's more than this," said Ramsey. "Lots more. You can see it all someday if you want."
"You should see Rivendell!" Sam offered. "It's so chizz! Even without the elves."
Conrad Gardiner shook his head in bafflement, but his wife was no longer listening. As they neared the crest of the low hill they could see the next rise. On a knoll above them stood a low house made of stone and wood surrounded by trees, simple in construction but somehow perfect for its setting. "Oh my God," Vivien said quietly as they reached the bottom of the short slope and started up again. "Is that it? I didn't know I'd be so nervous."
A figure appeared in the doorway. It looked down on them but did not smile or wave.
"Who is that?" asked Conrad Gardiner. "That doesn't look anything like. . . ."
"Oh, Conrad, don't you listen?" Her voice sounded like something about to rip at the edge. "That's what he looks here. Now." She turned to Ramsey eyes wide. "Isn't that right? Isn't it?"
Catur Ramsey could only nod; he no longer trusted himself to speak. When he turned back the figure was making its way down the path toward them.
"He's so big!" Vivien said. "So big!"
"You should have seen him before he got younger." Sam Fredericks laughed—a little wildly, Ramsey thought. He stopped and touched Sam's arm, reminding her. They let Orlando's parents walk the rest of the short distance to meet him by themselves.
"Orlando. . . ?" Ramsey could hear sudden doubt in the woman's voice as she looked at the tall, black-haired youth before her. "Is that . . . are you. . . ?"