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Why I Think I'll Be Staying Home Tonight
by William Shunn
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Science Fiction

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www.Fictionwise.com

Copyright ©2004 by William Shunn

First published in Electric Velocipede #6, Spring 2004

NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Making copies of this work or distributing it to any unauthorized person by any means, including without limit email, floppy disk, file transfer, paper print out, or any other method constitutes a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines or imprisonment.

You're sure you want to know? Understand, I'm going to be completely honest, just like you're asking me to be, so there's no call to get all upset if you don't like what I say. Agreed?

Well, all right, then.

It started one morning a couple of weeks ago, when I came about this close to rear-ending some guy. How it happened is, it's gray out, I'm late for work, and I haven't even made it three blocks from home yet when all of a sudden the guy ahead of me slows down to a crawl. I caught his brakelights just in time. I mean, even standing on my brakes I nearly ran right up his tailpipe. I tell you, it was a close call, the kind that leaves your hands shaking.

Now, I'm honking my horn, and the guy up ahead's finally moving, but his head's craned way over to the right and he's still not going all that fast, so I look off that way, too, since it's pretty obvious he's checking someone out. We're on Commerce Street at about Forty-fifth, so there's that little park there off to the right with all the fir trees around it and the duck pond in the middle. It's still fairly early, so there's some mist floating off the pond, and the whole scene looks like one of those soft-focus photos you'd see in some ad for scotch. And there, standing under one of those fancy lampposts maybe twenty, thirty feet from the street, is ... well...

You wanted me to be totally honest, right? Okay, then. Standing there was quite simply the most beautiful woman I've seen in my life.

No, I almost wish it were an exaggeration, but it isn't.

Now settle down. You're the one who keeps insisting on honesty here.

Well, if you'll stop interrupting every two seconds, I'll tell you. She was fairly tall, and she had olive skin with this long, thick, incredible black hair that went to the middle of her back. I expected to see stars in her hair, it was so black. And her eyes were black, too, and she had this aquiline nose that—oh, go look it up—that would have looked out of place on most women but looked just right on her. She had the same kind of grace you'd expect to see in a marble statue, and I don't think she was wearing any makeup. Some women are so naturally lovely they can get away with—

No, I'm not saying that at all. You're very lovely. It's just that—

Oh, hell, it's not like you even care about what I'm saying. You only care about this damn party of yours.

No, no, wait, I'm the one who should apologize. I didn't really mean it, either. Maybe if you'll let me finish the story, then I'll think about ... well, you know.

Anyway, like I was saying, this was a very striking woman. She looked like some kind of Indo-European mix—like, say, Burmese and Greek. Very exotic. And she's just standing there, chin tilted up, wreathed in these streamers of mist, looking—I don't know—regal, but not haughty or arrogant at all. She's got on this long, bone-white overcoat, and in the second or two it takes me to drive by, she flicks back the sleeve and checks her watch. It's like she's meeting someone there, and the someone is late. Heartless cad.

Well, needless to say, the sight of this woman piqued my interest, and—

I can do without the sarcastic commentary, please. Now, like I was saying, just that one brief glimpse of this woman was hardly enough to satisfy me. The sight of her was like one of those potato chips where you can't eat just—

Hey, that hurts!

All right, I'll drop the similes from here on out! Jeez. Now, where was I?

Oh, yeah. So at the next corner I hang a right and slide back around the block. That way I can get a nice, long look at her as I drive by again, because I'm ready for it this time. And let me tell you, second time around, this woman was every bit as incredible as she had seemed the first time. And I wasn't sure at the time whether I was imagining this or not, but it almost seemed like she noticed me as I passed by, and smiled a little to herself.

I wish? Well, if you think that's so improbable, then I'd like to know what the hell you're doing here.

Yeah, I thought so. You know, I'm starting to feel like maybe staying home would be the best thing for me tonight.

Well, then just let me tell the story, please.

Okay. Downtown, the traffic got nothing but worse, and after this little episode I ended up strolling into work forty-five minutes late. I got my ass chewed out really good, let me tell you. I've still got the scars to prove it.

No, you can't see them. Good grief.

Seriously though, I think that day was the longest workday of my life. This software package I'd been slaving over for a month—some big quality-control thing for the internal auditors—they suddenly decide needs a major revision, and it has to be up and running before I leave that night. And as if that's not punishment enough, they send up this woman, this junior exec from Accounting, to walk me through all the specs. I mean, this is the same woman who humiliated me one day when I asked her out to lunch. She not only laughed in my face in front of everyone on the floor, she also couldn't stop telling everybody what a geek she thought I was for whole next week.

But damn, did she look good that day we had to work together. I mean, if most women dress to kill, then this one was dressed for genocide. She didn't come close to the woman in the park, of course, but she sure made me do some thinking. I mean, I used to think it'd be the greatest thing in the world if I could make any woman fall in love with me just by looking at her, but I as sat there that day under the lash of Miss Sak's Fifth Avenue, I realized what a hollow kind of a wish that was. I mean, this junior-exec woman was beautiful and all, but I couldn't see her, say, sitting down with my family for a nice Thanksgiving dinner, or driving out of town to look at the stars late at night, or even sitting all the way through some program on public TV. For all her beauty, she really wasn't worth my time.

But that's not important, I guess. What's important is that, by dint of a truly Herculean effort, I—

You know, Herculean ... as in Hercules, the Greek hero?

Well, no, never mind, forget it. What I mean to say is that I finally finished the project—praise the Lord—and only half an hour past quitting time, too—hallelujah. Just in time to get snagged in the worst of the evening traffic on the way home, of course.

It took me a few minutes shy of eternity to get out of downtown, I figure, and by the time I hit Commerce and had a straight shot home I felt like I'd been through the London blitz. I was in ... well, a foul mood, but then suddenly the same park from that morning was going by on my left, and I could hardly believe my eyes, because there, standing in the exact same spot as that morning—in the exact same pose, no less—was the exact same woman!

No, really. I got all giddy all of a sudden, and my hands started to sweat, and it was all I could do to keep from jamming on the brakes like the guy in front of me had done that morning. I kept my wits, though, and started looking around for a place to park. Up ahead, this car was just pulling away from the curb, so I angled over that way to grab the spot as soon as it was free.

So I'm just pulling in across the street from the park when I look off to my left again and see five or six ducks standing in a half-circle in front of this woman, and she's bending down a little and it looks like she's talking to them. I mean, I guess that's not so weird, but it sort of creeped me out. And then she looks up, and even across six lanes of traffic I can somehow tell she's looking straight at me.

And I panic. I mean, I plant my foot right on the accelerator and I kiss that parking spot goodbye and I squeak through a yellow light and I'm outta there.

To be honest, I'm not sure why. I guess I felt like she'd caught me spying on her—like I was peeking through her bedroom window while she took off her clothes or something—and I felt so guilty, so exposed, that I just wanted to get as far away from there as possible, as fast as possible. So I did. Inside of five minutes, I'd made it back to the building and I was on my way up the stairs. And you'll never guess who I ran into on the landing.

Now don't be silly. It wasn't her. It was you.

Yes, really. No, I'm not kidding. You'd just left your apartment, and you were on your way to one of those perennial parties of yours.

Jeez. It means there always seems to be one going on somewhere.

Anyway, what I remember is that you had on this lacy black minidress I'd never seen you wearing before, and black stockings with this diamondback pattern up the sides, and you had on your leather bomber jacket ... and as you came down the stairs I remember thinking to myself that I'd never seen you looking so beautiful. I mean, I was blown away. We said hello as we passed—you remember?—and I wanted to tell you how good you looked, but I didn't dare to.

What are you talking about? Of course I noticed you, I always noticed you, how could I fail to notice you? Every time I left my apartment I was hoping I'd run into you somewhere in the halls, and then if I did see you and you actually said something to me, I was in ecstasy. Really. I mean, I wanted to go out with you more than anything, but I never thought you'd be interested.

I don't know why. It's just that ... well, I could never really picture ... um...

Look, I don't want to make you late for your party. Lemme just get through the rest of this.

So back up here, I peel my shoes off, chuck a frozen dinner in the microwave, watch some TV, and read for a while, but I can't really concentrate on anything. I go rummaging around in the cupboards for something to eat, and I start scarfing down all this breakfast cereal, so pretty soon I'm out of milk. I can't very well wake up to no milk the next morning—that's no way to start off your day—so off I go to that convenience store down by the park to pick myself up half a gallon.

Not to keep you in suspense, I ended up suffering through dry cereal the next morning anyway, because I never did end up getting the milk. I was on my way down Commerce—it's pretty late by now, there's this really cold wind blowing down from the north, and all the clouds are gone—and as I'm going by the park I can't help but glance over to where that woman had been standing all day, and damn me, the woman was still there.

No lie! Cross my heart and hope to die. She's still there, and suddenly I'm feeling extremely annoyed with whatever kind of a jerk could let a woman that beautiful stand around in a frigging park for twelve, thirteen hours or more. So before I even know what I'm doing I've pulled over to the curb, and I hop out of the car and I walk right up to this magnificent creature, and I say something amazingly suave, like, “Do you, uh ... do you by any chance need a ride or anything?"

She's just then checking her watch, and she looks up at me with this distant smile on her lips and this faraway look in her eyes, and she says with a really far-out accent in this dead kind of voice, “No thank you—I'm meeting a friend,” and then just stares straight ahead, like I've been dismissed.

But now that I've opened my mouth I can't seem to shut it again, and I say, “But you really shouldn't be here so late at night. It's dangerous for someone alone, it's cold out, and besides, you've been waiting here all day. I don't think your friend is going to show."

Even with my jacket on, I'm shivering, but the wind doesn't seem to bother her at all. She turns to me again, only this time her eyes are wide and really intense. She stares at me that way for a few seconds—but not really at me, it feels more like into me—and then her eyes kind of fade back to normal and she gives me this ultra-warm smile, and now her voice is as smooth as cream and she says, “I am very flattered that you have taken notice of me, Bill"—yes, she knew my name, don't ask me how—"but,” she says, “my friend will be here sometime in the near future. It is, however, difficult to predict exactly when with any degree of precision, which is why I have stationed myself here since early last evening.” Then she turns away again.

Well, I hardly know what to say after she lays that one on me, but true to form, I come up with something totally brilliant. “Well, you've got to be hungry after all this time,” I say. “I could maybe buy you some dinner, what do you think?” And when she doesn't respond right off, I add something like, “Or I could save your friend the trip, take you where you need to go."

So she smiles at me again and I want to smack myself on the head for stupidity, because I figure I just blew it all right there. But at the same time I feel like I'm melting inside, and she says to me, “You are a very sweet man, but I must travel farther than you would be able to take me.” Then she goes back to that regal pose of hers, only this time her chin's tipped up a little higher than before, so it looks like she's watching the sky for something.

So, not knowing what else to do, I look up too—and I'm absolutely amazed by how many stars are out. I mean, it's like someone took a whole big handful of diamond dust and flung it out into space. I don't think I've ever seen stars so bright before without leaving the city, and I say, “The stars certainly are beautiful tonight."

And she says, “Yes, they certainly are. But at the same time they are all so ... unfamiliar to me. Yet familiar, too."

I look over at her now, and I'm thinking to myself that there's more that's beautiful and unfamiliar out tonight than just the stars, but of course I don't say so out loud. Instead I say, “So ... are you from the Southern Hemisphere, or what?"

She thinks about that for a minute, and then she says, “I come from very far away, if that is what you mean."

I shrug and figure if she wants to play the mysterious stranger then that's all right by me. So I ask what brought her to the States, and instead of answering, she says, “How can I put it in such a way that you will best understand?” and for a few seconds she does that thing again where she stares into me instead of at me, and then she says, “It is to explore strange, new worlds—to seek out new life, new civilizations."

Well, that's such an off-the-wall answer that I bust out laughing right there. She starts laughing, too, and then I start laughing some more, and pretty soon we're both laughing so hard that there's tears rolling down our cheeks and stitches in our sides. And then when we've had a chance to settle down a little, she looks back up at the stars and asks me to show her what constellations I know.

So I start pointing out some of the major ones, like Orion and Taurus and Perseus and Cassiopeia, and she's eating it all up, especially when I tell her the myths that go along with each one.

Oh, you better believe I did. I mean, the Big Dipper's about my favorite constellation of all. I showed her how it's really just part of Ursa Major ... how it pours down into the Little Dipper ... how the second star in the handle's really two stars very close together, and the Indians used to use them as a test of eyesight ... how you can find Polaris by sighting off the last two stars in the bowl...

Now, she's looking pretty puzzled at that last one, and she asks me this really strange question: “Why Polaris? What sets it apart that you should be so eager to locate it? I know that it is the Cepheid variable nearest to Earth, but aside from that...?"

“Well, you know ... it's the North Star,” I say—and I'm a little taken aback when even that doesn't register. “It never moves. It's always right there in the middle of the sky. The earth's axis points straight at it. If you're ever lost, then you can use it to find true north."

Then all of a sudden her eyes get all bright and she says, “I see, I see,” and she starts going on about the precision of Earth's axis or something like that, and how she never realized it had once pointed at Polaris. Well, this is all pretty weird, but it's getting awfully late, and it's awfully cold out, and I'm starting to feel kind of protective towards this woman. “Listen,” I say, “we can't stay out here in the cold all night talking about stars. Why don't we at least get in the car where it's—"

But right then this bluish-white glow starts to appear in the air behind her, and—hey, don't stand up, this is the best part!—and she turns and she looks at it, and she checks her watch, and she turns back and smiles at me and puts both her hands on my shoulders and says, “I am sorry, Bill. I have very much enjoyed your company and I wish we had more time to talk, but the moment is here and now I must go. You have been more than kind to me. I will not forget it.” Then she looks into me again, and my stomach's all a-flutter because her touch is like nothing I've ever felt before, and she stands on her tiptoes and says, “May you have the fondest wish of your heart,” and she kisses me.

Talk about a sensual overload. Let me tell you, I felt that kiss in every last nerve ending of my body. Sometimes when I'm half-asleep I think I can still feel it. It was like fire and ice all at the same, everywhere, and it just about knocked me off my feet. I know I stopped breathing for a minute or two.

Now, remember I told you that silly fantasy of mine about being able to make women fall madly in love with me? It came to mind for just a second when she mentioned that bit about the fondest wish of my heart—but if she could read me half as well as I thought she could, then she knew what it was I really wanted right then, more than anything else in the world. I wanted her.

And the crazy thing about it is, I really believed it could happen. For that brief, timeless instant when she kissed me, I believed that she could actually see into me and grant my wish. I believed this. I mean, I not only expected my wish to come true—I wasn't prepared for it not to come true.

But the glow behind her had coalesced into more or less a rectangle of light by now, about the size of someone's front door. She stepped back, smiled at me again, touched me on the cheek—and then she slipped away into the light. I could still see her for a few seconds after that, flashing away down some axis that seemed to run at right angles to every solid thing around me. I can't even picture it now in my head, it was so bizarre. But then she was gone, and all that was left of her was this weird kind of afterimage on the backs of my eyes.

I must have stood there a good ten minutes, staring at some empty spot in the air. I only gradually began to feel the cold again, and to hear the sounds of the late-night traffic, and to see the soft lights of the city—and when I'd collected as many pieces of myself as I could, I got back in my car and drove home.

I don't know what more there is to tell, really. Oh, yeah, the woman at the office—the junior exec. I did get back at her. Turned her down for lunch the other day, right in front of everybody on the floor. She'd been leaving messages at my extension for a couple of weeks, but I'd never called her back. Of course, it was just corporate etiquette on her part, but still, it felt pretty damn good to turn her down. Never seen a woman rush away in such a fluster.

So, I guess that's it ... and the way you look, I guess you want an answer now, right? Well, I've been thinking it over pretty hard ... and, well, let me take a rain check on this party. There's a lot that needs doing around here, and—

Yes, I know I keep putting you off, but—

Well, keep trying. I'll have a free evening one of these days, I'm sure.

No, I'm not expecting anyone. Why—?

Oh ... those. Well, you know, the wineglasses are there for—well, you know, just in case someone drops by. I mean, you never know when ... when...

Listen, you want to stay for another minute or two and have a glass of ... ?

No, no, of course I understand. You'll be driving tonight. I should have thought.

So you're off, then? Well, have fun.

Yes, I'm glad you did, too. Any time. I'm always around.

Oh, here, let me help you with that. You know, that perfume you're wearing smells really lovely.

It does, really. And you look just lovely.

Of course I mean it. In fact, I almost—

No, wait—I've got too much to do. You go and enjoy yourself. I'll come along some other time, all right?

As for tonight ... well, tonight I think it'd be best if I just stayed home.

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