Norrey smiled, and her fingers relaxed. “Let’s hold that thought,” she purred.
If captured—don’t let them give you to the women.
The salad arrived then. Thousand Islands for Norrey and French for me, just as we would have ordered if we’d thought of it. The portions were unequal, and each was precisely as much as the recipient felt like eating. I don’t know how Fat Humphrey does it. At what point does that kind of empathy become telepathy?
There was further sporadic conversation as we ate, but nothing significant. Fat Humphrey’s cuisine demanded respectful attention. The meal itself arrived as we were finishing the salad, and when we had eaten our fill, both plates were empty and the coffee was cool enough to drink. Slices of Fat’s fresh apricot pie were produced warm from the oven, and reverently dealt with. More coffee was poured. I took some pseudoephedrine for my nose. The conversation reawoke groggily, and there was only one question left for her to ask now so I asked her first.
“So what’s happening with you, Norrey?”
She made a face. “Nothing much.”
Lovely answer. Push.
“Norrey, on the day there is nothing much happening in your life, there’ll be honest government in Ottawa. I hear you stood still, once, for over an hour—but the guy that said it was a famous liar. Come on, you know I’ve been out of touch.”
She frowned, and that was it for me, that was the trigger. I had been thinking furiously ever since I came off standby in Norrey’s arms back at the studio, and I had already figured out a lot of things. But the sight of that frown completed the process; all at once the jumble in my subconscious fell into shape with an almost audible click. They can come that way, you know. Flashes of insight. In the middle of a sentence, in a microsecond, you make a quantum jump in understanding. You look back on twenty years of blind stupidity without wincing, and perceive the immediate future in detail. Later you will marvel—at that instant you only accept and nod. The Sicilians have a thing like it, that they call thethunderbolt. It is said to bring deep calm and great gravity. It made me break up.
“What’s so funny?”
“Don’t know if I can explain it, hon. I guess I just figured out how Fat Humphrey does it.”
“Huh?”
“Tell you later. You were saying....”
The frown returned. “Mostly I wasn’t saying. What’s happening with me, in twenty-five words or less? I haven’t asked myself in quite a while. Maybe too long.” She sipped coffee. “Okay. You know that John Koerner album, the last commercial one he made? Running Jumping Standing Still? That’s what I’ve been doing, I think. I’ve been putting out a lot of energy; doing satisfying things, and I’m not satisfied. I’m… I’m almost bored.”
She floundered, so I decided to play devil’s advocate. “But you’re right where you’ve always wanted to be,” I said, and began rolling a joint.
She grimaced. “Maybe that’s the trouble. Maybe a life’s ambition shouldn’t be something that can be achieved—because what do you do then? You remember Koerner’s movie?”
“Yeah. The Sound of Sleep. Nutball flick, nice cherries on top.”
“Remember what he said the meaning of life was?”
“Sure. ‘Do the next thing.’ ” I suited action to the word, licked it, sealed it and twisted the ends, then lit it. “Always thought it was terrific advice. It got me through some tough spots.”
She toked, held it and exhaled before replying. “I’m ready to do the next thing—but I’m not sure what that is. I’ve toured with the company, I’ve soloed in New York, I’ve choreographed, I’ve directed the whole damn school and now I’m an artistic director. I’ve got full autonomy now; I can even teach a class again if I feel like it. Every year from now until Hell freezes TDT’s repertoire will include one of my pieces, and I’ll always have superb bodies to work with. I’ve been working on childhood dreams all my life, Charlie, and I hadn’t thought ahead any farther than this when I was a kid. I don’t know what ‘the next thing’ is. I need a new dream.”
She toked again, passed it to me. I stared at the glowing tip conspiratorially, and it winked at me. “Any clues? Directions at least?”
She exhaled carefully, spoke to her hands. “I thought I might like to try working with one of those commune-companies, where everybody choreographs every piece. I’d like to try working with a group-head. But there’s really no one here I could start one with, and the only existing group-head that suits me is New Pilobolus—and for that I’d have to live in America.”
“Forget that.”
“Hell, yes. I… Charlie, I don’t know, I’ve even thought of chucking it all and going out to PEI to farm. I always meant to, and never really did. Shara left the place in good shape, I could… oh, that’s crazy. I don’t really want to farm. I just want something new. Something different. Unmapped territory, something that—Charlie Armstead, what the hell are you grinning about?”
“Sometimes it’s purely magical.”
“What?”
“Listen. Can you hear them up there?”
“Hear who?”
“I oughta tell Humphrey. There’s gonna be reindeer shit all over his roof.”
“Charlie!”
“Go ahead, little girl, tug on the whiskers all you want—they’re real. Sit right here on my lap and place your order. Ho ho ho. Pick a number from one to two.”
She was giggling now; she didn’t know why but she was giggling. “Charlie….”
“Pick a number from one to two.”
“Two.”
“That’s a very good number. A very good number. You have just won one perfectly good factory-fresh dream, with all accessories and no warranty at all. This offer is not available through the stores. A very good number. How soon can you leave town?”
“Leave town! Charlie....” She was beginning to get a glimmer. “You can’t mean—”
“How would you like a half interest in a lot of vacuum, baby? I got plenty o’ nuttin’, or at least the use of it, and you’re welcome to all you want. Talk about being on top of the world!”
The giggle was gone. “Charlie, you can’t mean what I think you—”
“I’m offering you a simple partnership in a commune company—a real commune company. I mean, we’ll all have to live together for the first season at least. Lots of real estate, but a bit of a housing shortage at first. We’ll spring for expenses, and it’s a free fall.”
She leaned across the table, put one elbow in her coffee and the other in her apricot pie, grabbed my turtleneck and shook me. “Stop babbling and tell me straight, dammit.”
“I am, honey, I am. I’m proposing a company of choreographers, a true commune. It’ll have to be. Company members will live together, share equally in the profits, and I’ll put up all the expenses just for the hell of it. Oh yeah, we’re rich, did I tell you? About to be, anyway.”
“Charlie—”
“I’m straight, I tell you. I’m starting a company. And a school. I’m offering you a half interest and a full-time, year-round job, dead serious, and I’ll need you to start right away. Norrey, I want you to come dance in free fall.”
Her face went blank. “How?”
“I want to build a studio in orbit and form a company. We’ll alternate performing with school like so: three months of classes dirtside—essentially auditions—and the graduates get to come study for three months in orbit. Any that are any good, we work into the next three months of performance taping. By then we’ve been in low or no gee for a long time, our bodies are starting to adapt, so we take three months vacation on Earth and then start the process over again. We can use the vacations to hunt out likely talent and recruit ’em—go concert-hopping, in other words. It’ll be fun, Norrey. We’ll make history and money both.”