Unfit (3 page)

  “What does the Elika say?” asks the secretary turning to face Pertran.

  Pertran gazes at me and drinks deeply from his wine glass. He sets it down and beckons the Lightning beside him to refill it. His gaze lingers on me long enough to make me wish I’d worn more than this simple brown dress.

  “Come now, Pertran,” says Tiller. “The dress is worthless to us. Let her have it back.”

  I glance over at Tiller, but he ignores me as he studies Pertran’s face. So there are people with a sense of right in the Coalition. My faith in humanity may be saved.

  “Pertran must concentrate,” replies Pertran, raising an open hand to Tiller. He picks up his gavel and studies the cart. At once I understand why they sent a telepath in with him. Pertran likely makes a lot of unpopular decisions when he presides on civil matters. Tiller is probably here to prevent riots.

  “Pertran looks upon this peasant woman with favour,” says Pertran. “She will select any one thing from the cart and take it with her.”

  He taps the gavel as he finishes speaking.

  “But‒” I start to say.

  “A question?” asks Pertran, with a look of malice in his eyes.

  His judgement has been passed. Anything I could say now would likely earn me a public flogging. Maybe something worse.

  “Thank you, my lord Elika,” I say, giving him a proper curtsy, while I try not to overtly seethe in rage.

  “Excellent. One Kwan is dismissed. Secretary, introduce the next person please.”

  I take three steps out of the front doors of the tax office and drop onto the front stairs. Hattie rushes past me to take a place on the stairs in front of me.

  “Lords, Kwan, why did you choose me over the dress? What came over you?”

  I lift my head and glare at her. If only she had run away before the appeals hearing. Then Pertran wouldn’t have been able to play such a cruel joke on me.

  “Kwan, don’t be sad. I’ll make it up to you. I promise.”

  She grabs my hand to shake it, forcing me into rapport with her. I’m showered with her thankful emotions. Her mind has a certain raw innocence to it. In the past, she’s looked up to me. After this, she sees me as her saviour.

  I snatch my hand away from her, breaking the rapport. I’m not a hero. I made the choice that would let me sleep with myself at night. I chickened out on what I really wanted, and I hate myself for it.

  “Kwan? Please stop crying.”

  “Stop! Get away. Don’t touch me.”

  She backs up obediently, going down two steps to the sidewalk.

  “Are you mad because Pertran teased you at the end by calling you back? You looked so hopeful when you turned around. But then that meanie laughed in your face.”

  “Hattie, don’t try to talk. This isn’t helping.”

  “Sure, okay. No problem!”

  I get maybe thirty seconds of peace.

  “You know Kwan, it’s getting late. Shouldn’t we be getting back?”

  I sigh. It’s so hard to stay mad at people like Hattie. I get to my feet just as Damas comes out the door holding his antique lamp.

  “Ah, Kwan,” says Damas, giving me a saddened look.

  He tries to place a hand on my shoulder, but I draw back, shying from the contact and anymore forced rapports. That’s it. I’m going home to make an outfit from garbage bags so no one can touch me anymore.

  “Come along girls, I’ll see you home,” says Damas, still casting me a worried look.

  I go with them, content that at least Hattie can talk to him, leaving me to brood in peace.

  I go to Reiki’s that very night, once Damas thinks I’m safely home. Reiki listens to my story of the dress more closely than I expected; probably because she knows about my powers, like all my close friends do. She’s the kind of person I can tell anything.

  “That’s terrible, Kwan. But you’re still going to have a dress to meet Greg’s folks in. Come.”

  She takes me to her closet and gets me to try on some of her outfits. They’re all very loud. Vivid pink, lush magenta-on-yellow, stark black with white heart patterns. It’s a wonder Reiki hasn’t been arrested by the fashion police.

  “You have such big hips,” I say, turning in front of the mirror while wearing her most muted orange cream outfit.

  Reiki’s has that ideal hour-glass figure. It clashes with me since I’m built like a tree branch.

  “Sanny is your size. Let’s get her in on this. Maybe she’ll even lend her fancy parasol.”

  Before long we have Sanny and Francesca over, with shoes and ribbons and spare strips of cloth. I’ll be able to sew everything up in the days before the meeting. It’s perfect.

  Friends. They do odd things like sacrifice their wardrobe for you. It makes my heart dance.

  “Kwan, that better be a tear of happiness that just rolled down your cheek,” says Francesca.

  Yep, best friends are those who are willing to tickle you mercilessly until you smile. Such a cheap tactic, but I love them for it.

  Everything is ready two days before the formal invitation even shows up. The hand-delivered invitation arrives in a scroll case bearing fancy lettering written in Standard. Since I’m the only one in my family who is versed in Standard, it falls to me to read it to them.

  Then comes a day of fussing about last-minute alterations, followed by the dreaded taxi ride there.

  I find myself nervous during the trip. I question my appearance and what they’ll all think. So terribly so, the horses pulling the carriage become irritable. This reminds me to calm down on my thoughts and stop projecting.

  “The Lanarrs’ house is really big,” says my brother when we arrive.

  “Now, Jason,” says my mother. “You’ll remember your manners, when you’re there, right? No staring, remember your pleases, and watch your elbows.”

  “But it’s really, really big,” he says, persisting.

  I agree with him. Greg has driven me past it before, but always in the back, where the family parks its cars. From the front it looks like an opulent mansion.

  A sizeable curved driveway embraces fields of green on either side. Two white pillars hold up the second-storey veranda sheltering the wooden front doors. Freshly painted iron-wrought railings adorn the veranda, framed in tulip-shaped flower planters. The second and third storey windows are all trimmed in brilliant white.

  The doorman awaits us, so that by the time the carriage has drawn to a stop, and the driver has placed the step for us to get out, the doorman is ready to take my hand.

  Greg’s mother, Tirsha Lanarr emerges from the door as we alight. In a muted fashion statement, she wears a high-necked blouse over layered black skirts. She wears her straight brown hair up in a bun, giving her a teacher-like appearance under her bifocals.

  “Kwan! I’m so happy to see you for the first time. My son has spoken so highly of you.”

  I take her hand which she holds out and down, as the books say to do. Her public mind thoughts immediately scream into my head. She thinks my hair is a crow’s nest and my dress is untrendy but passable. She thinks my hands are rough and bony and that my face looks like I’ve not been fed. She’s been warned to brace for my Orionite face-paint, but luckily I didn’t wear any today. Overall, it’s what I can expect. A lot of people put thoughts like this into their public minds when they first see me.

  The moment ends, and I stand aside to allow my family to repeat the gesture. There’s some awkward pauses, as she herds us inside and into a lush livingroom in thick white carpeting. Greg waits nearby, adjusting teacups on a tray in the adjoining diningroom.

  Greg turns as we come in and comes to meet me in the livingroom.

  “Hello, Kwan,” he says. He kisses the back of my hand in a very proper way. His thoughts read of nervousness for me. I wish I could send back that everything is okay, but as a non-telepath, he won’t hear my thoughts. With all the parents watching, a conspiratorial wink is out of the question. He will have to settle for the calmest smile I can give.

  “Thank you Greg. Your hospitality is boundless.”

  He moves on to shake my father’s hand and kiss my mother’s. My brother gets an arm shake and a playful clap on the shoulder. It’s so smoothly done, I wonder if it’s been rehearsed.

  The furniture has been carefully chosen. Two facing love seats. One for each set of parents. An armchair for my brother. Smaller, and placed by a set of hand-carved wooden cars. When my brother eyes the cars, Greg tells him its okay to pick them up, which naturally deposits him in the intended chair. That leaves an armchair each for me and Greg. On opposite sides of the room, as is proper.

  But then Greg’s father arrives. I see where Greg gets that natural curl to his hair. And where he gets those hazel eyes. His father has a strong jaw-line. Perfect for what boardroom meetings he likely presides in.

  After a new set of introductions, we all take our seats, and our parents begin to talk business.

  There’s the initial pleasantries about who does what for a living and such. Then the expected questions come up of how me and my brother fare in the schools “of silver calibre” and if we have university potential.

  My father responds to this by telling them how skilful I am with sail repair. To hear him tell it, the few times I’ve resewn batten pockets for him are the most glorious art-forms left on the planet.

  They have a small catering guild serving the meal, so we all transfer to the diningroom, where the parents continue chatting.

  My parents have some sort of plan cooked up. Whenever their shields are weak, I can tell they’ve discussed this in detail long before. There’s a negotiation taking place during this dinner; a meal that was just supposed to be a meet-and-greet. I wish they would have kept me apprised of any plan.

  The Lanarr parents also throw up shields. Not telepathic ones, but negotiation types, where they keep their true thoughts tightly sealed and away from their public minds. All I can read from them is subtle clues, such as when they’re impressed or not.

  Now that I think about it, I bet they’re all negotiating a wedding right here on the first meeting. Do they even know Greg hasn’t proposed to me? Why does this have to be so complicated?

  In the end, once Mrs. Lanarr learns that my school doesn’t teach dance, heraldry or calculus, she offers to enroll me under the family’s scheduled private tutoring. My parents drag their feet in accepting until she assures them there will be no cost.

  I hope my parents know what they’re getting me into, because I only took year one algebra.

  Still, daunting or not, I can’t wait to tell Reiki.

  It’s all the way until the next day before I get a chance to talk to Greg alone again. Since school is out for the weekend, he comes to my door to fetch me.

  “Come on, Kwan. We’ll go to the park and hang.”

  “You jerk. You saw me yesterday. You could have told me you were going to drop by today.”

  “Nah, just go throw on a jacket and lets go.”

  Since I was already dressed, I’m ready and out the door in just thirty-six minutes. Greg complains, but I stick my tongue out at him.

  He’s brought his skateboard and shoulder-bag with change of shoes and bottled water. He chats excitedly and puts his arm over my shoulder. With the contact, I also sense that this is the first time his circle of friends will see me.

  Shoot. I should have taken more time on my hair.

  “Hey Kwan,” says Greg, letting me go. “So you’re a telepath, right?”

  “One day soon I’ll be able to get rapport with you, and you will know for sure.”

  Just a little more familiarity with his mind and I should be able to trade inner thoughts with even him, a non-telepath. I can’t wait to tell him in my mind how much I adore him. Words are such terrible carriers of thought. They’re like the dead bodies of thoughts that the other side studies forensically.

  Greg chuckles. He’s trying hard to hide something from his public mind, since he knows I won’t like it. His eyes are alive in mischief as he points at a line of ants on the sidewalk.

  “There’s one way to find out for sure.”

  And with that, he suddenly stomps on the ants.

  The ants die instantly under his foot. Their tiny souls sparkle like hapless tinsel under a match.

  The surviving ants recognize danger, but fail to comprehend the source. They scramble in all directions. Some take refuge in the crack in the sidewalk. Others bump into the injured or dying and stop to collect them. Those unlucky helpers die under Greg’s next stomp.

  “Stop!” I shout.

  I dive to the ground to prevent him from striking a third time, but Greg has already given up. He’s stepped back from the scene of carnage long before I can shield the ants with my body.

  Poor ants. Victims of us humans and our games. I wish my powers could heal your crushed bodies.

  “Wow, you really are a telepath,” says Greg.

  “Murdered unexpectedly in the prime of their lives without affection, when they were treasured of their peers and queen.”

  “Aww, Kwan, snap out of it. It’s just a bunch of ants.”

  “Tell that to the ants who just died.”

  “Come on, quit crying. It was a joke. I didn’t think you’d get all funny about it.”

  Greg grasps me by the shoulders to pull me to my feet, but also blanketing me in his feelings with the contact. He’s annoyed with me for making a scene about this. And he’s disgusted with me for crying. This sets me to bawling. I twist from his grasp and run away from him.

  “Kwan! Wait!”

  I ignore him and run on. He lets me get ahead, stopping to grab up my purse that I dropped. Why did I go and leave that behind? Now I have to let him catch up. At least he’ll have to work for it.

  I make him chase me for a block before I slow enough to hear out his apologies. Finally, I snatch back my purse.

  “Stop apologizing to me. It’s those ants back there you should be making amends with.”

  “Look, I’ll bring them tiny flowers tomorrow.”

  The thought of ants accepting flowers makes me want to laugh. I fight it because I’m supposed to be angry, but the corners of my mouth betray me.