“Ron,” one of the crew called, “someone to see you.”
“Frank! She’s here?” He scanned the set looking for her.
“No, but she will be later tonight. I’m to bring you to the house if you want.”
If I want? Yes, I want! “Just tell me when.”
“I’ll pick you up at your place at six.”
Ron entered the house calling her name but she wasn’t there. He hung his shirt on her side of the closet hoping she would wear it again. He slipped off his shoes and socks and padded barefoot through the living room to the deck to wait, tense with the need to see and touch her.
*
“Ron!” He turned. Em burst through the patio door and threw herself at him, wrapped her arms tightly around his neck, her legs around his waist. He closed his arms and hugged her close. She laughed with the pleasure of his touch, the joy of his love, the warmth of his body against hers.
She let go with one hand to caress his cheek. Within moments they were making love, wild, intense, desperate, and oh, so satisfying.
She wanted to cry with the beauty of it, but more with the sadness of it, for she was sure it couldn’t last. She tried not to worry about their future, but she had a deep sense that their time together would be ending soon. She snuggled against Ron and gulped down her tears.
Later, he watched her dressing for dinner and burst out laughing.
“What’s so funny?”
“You.”
“Me?” She looked down at herself. “What?”
“Look at you. Little bit of a bra and thong panties. What would the world say if they could see you now?”
“They’d want to know about stuff like this?”
“Em, they want to know everything about you.”
“What kind of things?”
“Anything. Like, you don’t drink coffee or pop but love beer, or that you always have mangled fingernails, or that you love chocolate but hardly ever eat bread, or that you recycle gift-wrap, or that
you always close your eyes and count out loud when you do sit-ups.”
“The counting helps to breathe properly,” she said.
“Or that you use reading glasses, or that you’re a neat freak, or that you do have a couple of grey hairs.”
“A couple?” She raised her eyebrows. “Now I know love is blind.”
“Or that you crack walnuts with your teeth, or—”
“Do not!
“That is the sort of information the public would eat up and they would emulate you.”
“You’re not serious?”
“Don’t be naive. You know how celebrities are treated and you are the biggest celebrity of all. The reporters will never give up.”
“I should have known. I’m sorry. I’ll take care of it.”
“No Em. Leave it alone. I can handle it.”
“But Ron, that’s way more than you asked for when you agreed to the movie.” She frowned and bit her lip.
Ron grinned at her. “Another one of those conversations in the works?”
“Hey!” Em slapped his shoulder. She was sure her mind shifts amused him, but drove him crazy. Hell, they drove her crazy most of the time and hard as she tried to stop, her mind kept jumping. Powers pushing her. Always pushing.
“Boorstin defined a celebrity as someone who is famous for being famous. In The Image he wrote that society is developing an unprecedented need for stimulation and that we expect the media to quench it.”
“Em, it’s okay. I’m not about to tell them anything. Please don’t worry. Now, hurry up and dress, woman, or we’ll never get to dinner and I’ll be so weak there won’t be any more sex.”
“If you’re trying to motivate me, it’s working.” Em pulled on her jeans and reached for his shirt. He helped her button it and roll up the sleeves. He seemed enormously pleased that she had chosen to wear it.
Over dinner Ron asked about her work. Em didn’t want to talk about the blood and gore but she
did expound on her political thinking. What was worse—organized religion or tribalism? “People hold grudges for centuries and the worst of it is they don’t want to change.”
“Change is hard for most of us,” Ron said. “We’re all creatures of habit and don’t like to be pushed out of our comfort zones, not even in small ways, so how do we break the patterns of lifetimes?”
“That reminds me of a story.” Em chuckled. “True I assure you. Once, several years ago, I was standing in line waiting for the elevator to go to the top of the Eiffel Tower. It was about four in the afternoon on a cold December day. I know. I know. Who the hell would visit Paris in December? I was on my way to Bamako and had stopped over for a couple of days. Anyway, everyone huddled together trying to keep warm while we chatted and waited. Finally the elevator came and as the people got off on the other side, we all surged forward, anxious to get warm. A British woman standing next to me with her two kids, about ten and eleven, said to them, in quite a huff, ‘The French are so pushy.’ I pointed out that we were all tourists and there were no French people in the crowd. She looked at me, looked around at the others and then told her kids, ‘The French are still pushy.’”
Ron chuckled. Then tensed. A story from her past. Did she realize it? Should he say anything?
“Explains the Hundred Years War, eh?” Em said.
“No kidding.” Ron opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again. “Um, Em...”
*
“Good Guardian, Yves.” Elspeth's grip on my arm tightened.
“He won't say anything.” I said. “How can you be so sure?”
“He won't want to raise her conscious awareness of what she said. He doesn't want to risk losing her to her other life.”
“But, he's a good man,” Elspeth protested. “He'll want to help her find herself.”
“Yes, but he won't be able to make himself do it.”
I saw disappointment and sorrow wash over Elspeth's face. “He's a coward then.”
“Can’t say as I blame him for chickening out.”
“Then you're a coward too.” Elspeth stalked away and didn't look back when I called out to her.
*
“Yes? Ron?” Em gave him a little poke. “You started to say something.” His face reddened. “Ron, are you okay? You're not sick or anything, are you?” Still he didn't speak. “Ron!” Em shook his shoulder.
“Sorry,” he muttered. “I'm okay.”
“You sure? A minute ago you were beet red. Now you're white as a sheet. Let me get you a glass of water.” She waved the waiter over. Ron drained the glass. “There, you look better now.”
“Thanks.” He squeezed her hand. “You were saying?”
“Pushing people to change—that’s what I have to try to find an answer for, according to
Powers.” Em snorted. “Operation essential harvest. Can you believe it?”
“God, Em, you’re an expert at shifting gears. Sometimes, I feel like I can never keep up.” Em started an apology, but Ron held up his hand and shook his head. “It’s okay. Really. I love the challenge of it. You take me places no one else ever has.”
“Now, who wouldn’t love a man who said things like that? Ron, babe, you are smooth.”
“What do you think people will say five hundred years from now when they look back at our century?”
“What do you think they'll say?”
“I think our times will be considered a Dark Age.”
“Like the Middle Ages?”
“Yep, but let’s change the subject. I need to go see some people. Would you like to come along?” Em had never invited him before and she worried that Powers would be mad, would interfere somehow, but the words were spoken and she couldn’t take the invitation back.
*
I fumed. Mentor told me to cool it. Said Em had the right to take Ron along. Humph! Not to my way of thinking.
Of course, Ronny boy was thrilled. Considered it his lucky day. It sure as hell is, buddy.
I mumbled some excuse and left to find Exelrud. Maybe shoot some pool with him. Take my mind off Em for a bit. Who was I trying to kid? Nothing would take my mind off her.
*
Settled in the car, Em asked, “How is everyone?”
“We meet regularly at Raûl’s. The family always joins us for part of the evening. Raûl senior and his wife Ana practice their English while Jamie
works on her Spanish. Raûl and his sister Marta translate for their grandmother.
“At every visit Grandma shares jokes, some pretty raunchy, but she never tells us which are hers and which are yours.”
“They’re all hers.” Em tried to say it with a straight face and pretty much failed.
“She’s so tiny and stooped. It’s painful to watch her with her canes.” Ron sounded distressed. He was likely comparing her to the good health of Gram, Em thought.
“Marta told us she has great difficulty with stairs. At the end of our first evening together I offered to carry her upstairs. She refused with a sharp shove of a cane in the center of my chest.” He smiled ruefully. “That’s a mistake I didn’t make again, believe me. She’s too damn independent to mess with.”
“Oh, that I know.”
“Learned the hard way too, huh?”
“Yep. Felt that cane myself.”
“Fortunately her temper cooled as fast as it rose and she forgave me with a benign gap-toothed smile and a joke Marta refused to translate.”
Ron stared at the floor, then seemed to gather his courage and raised his head to look Em in the eye. “The family puts us to shame. They’re always up on what’s going on in the world and their understanding of the implications is so superior to ours.”
“They’ve had to be hyper-aware to survive.”
Ron grunted agreement. “We’re so damn fortunate to have been born here, in the ‘have’ part of the world.”
“Boy, have you got that right.” Em thought of the children she’d just rescued from the cocoa plantations and the women she was working with, trying to set up cottage industries.
“But it wasn’t until Grandma asked questions about how we lived that we truly examined our own lifestyles,” Ron said. “We made a pact then to downsize, and gradually we have. We’re trying to convince others to do the same.”
“Dinners together are also catch-up time, a chance to discuss the pros and cons of current projects, commiserate over the raising of teens, and trade strategies on dealing with the media.”
“And talk about me?” Em knew she sounded wistful. She wished she had someone she could talk to about Ron.
“Of course.” He gave her hand a squeeze. “At first I worried that the others would treat me differently, be jealous of my time with you. To my great relief, that didn’t happen.”
“Well, of course not. They’re your friends.” Em sighed inwardly and wondered if she had friends like that in her other life. Friends she could trust so completely. God, she hoped so because if she didn’t ... well, what would that say about her?
“Amy phoned me a few days ago asking about colleges. She hasn’t said anything to her parents yet, but she wants to be a journalist. She has a favor to ask of you.”
“Of course.”
“She wondered if you could arrange for her to meet or talk to François Durocher.”
“I’ll check with him. What about you? What are you doing now?”
“Tia, Brad, and I are campaigning for water conservation and preservation. We’ve had some positive results and are slowly gathering a solid following. A UN group is trying to prevent future shortages and regional friction that could erupt into water wars.”
Em sighed. “There’ll always be an excuse for war.” She glanced out the window. “Oh good, we’re here.”