Lovelock (22 page)

The task of making the fellows assignments was just about the only official function of a village’s mayor; it was no coincidence that Penelope picked its most exalted citizens for her own route.

“We need to visit you at least bimonthly, just to see how you’re doing,” Penelope explained. “A visit doesn’t count unless Dolores and I are together. You’re assigned to both of us.”

Dolores stretched the bark of her face into a smile. I thought about the husband she had left on Earth, and wondered if he had retained any capacity for pleasure after years of marriage to this stolid tree of a woman. I hoped he was living it up.

“Aren’t you going to invite us in?” Penelope wedged her foot between the door and its jamb so Carol Jeanne couldn’t shut her out without causing bodily injury.

“Sure we are.” Red’s booming voice startled me, and the women as well. “We’re always glad for company. Open the door and step aside, Sweetheart, so our visitors can come inside.”

The family gathered in the living room, unsure of what constituted an official fellows visit. Mamie poured coffee for each of the adults, making a show of telling Carol Jeanne she had served the coffee just the way Carol Jeanne liked it, even though Carol Jeanne and I both knew that she didn’t even drink coffee except when she was working late and needed the caffeine. Just one more effort to make it seem as though the whole household was centered around catering to Carol Jeanne’s every wish.

Apparently an official visit consisted of gossip. Penelope’s fanny hadn’t even warmed the sofa cushion before she told the family that Cyrus Morris was dating already. Odie Lee was barely cold in her grave (never mind that she’d been recycled), and Cyrus had already been seen three times with his executive assistant at work, a woman noted more for her feminine pulchritude than her professional accomplishments.

Carol Jeanne’s eyes glazed over and Red wore his professional nice-guy face, while Mamie, who really loved this stuff, tsk-tsked at the appropriate places, shaking her head in mournful delight. Penelope blessed her with a beatific smile before continuing her litany of rumors.

George Bowman, who was only familiar to me as a name on Mayflower’s roster, was having some trouble with alcohol. Another stranger, Etta Jenks, appeared to be sleeping with the itinerant handyman who served Mayflower and a half-dozen other villages. Dolores was certain of this. As Etta’s next-door neighbor, she had seen Franklin Jaymes go inside the house twice without his tool kit. And Liz and Warren Fisher were arguing again; their neighbors could barely sleep at night.

At this, Carol Jeanne could stand no more. “Why are you telling us all this?” she asked. “Liz is my friend, and we don’t even know the other people.”

Dolores didn’t miss a beat. “If you don’t know what others are struggling with, how can you
pray
for them? You do want to
help
, don’t you?”

“
I
want to help,” Mamie said fervently.

“We
all
want to help,” said Red, but he wasn’t speaking for Carol Jeanne.

“But isn’t there something
else
we do?” asked Mamie. “I want to be a
friend
to these people. I want to be a part of this village.”

Here was the perfect opening for Penelope to bring up Mamie’s refusal to work. As the mayor of Mayflower, surely she knew about the villagers’ dissatisfaction. Dolores must have expressed her contempt for drones to Penelope, since she had certainly spoken of it to her children. Penelope must have realized the best way Mamie could blend in with the Mayflowerites would be to get a job like everyone else. But Penelope had other fish to fry.

“Well…I
do
have a suggestion.”

Mamie beamed.

“The town desperately needs a new set of fellows. Odie Lee’s death left a big hole among the prayer partners, and we need someone extra special to take her route. As the mayor, I was hoping you and Carol Jeanne could take over her circuit.”

Mamie’s “Oh, yes!” was overlapped by Carol Jeanne’s equally fervent, “We couldn’t possibly. My work takes far too much time for me to accept an assignment like that.”

Red shot Carol Jeanne a look of disgust. Mamie’s lip quivered, and I thought she might burst into tears. Even little Emmy looked away diplomatically, but Penelope and Dolores only stared. Penelope apparently wasn’t used to having people tell her no.

“Well, of course you’ll have to think about it,” Penelope said. “We’ll get back to you in the next couple of days.”

Pointedly, Dolores added, “
Everybody
takes a fellows assignment.” If that were true, of course, then everybody would be visiting just one other household, and I knew that wasn’t the case. But Carol Jeanne didn’t bother to argue.

“I don’t need to think about it. My responsibilities to the Ark as a whole won’t allow my being distracted by local matters. I understand and respect the purpose of the fellows program, but I was told already that administrators at my level are exempted.”

“If they want to be,” said Red quietly.

Carol Jeanne stiffened at his disloyalty.

Penelope looked wounded. “Don’t you have time for our little village?”

“I’m afraid I don’t right now. Why don’t you find another companion for Mamie? I’m sure
she’d
enjoy being a fellow, since she’s a little lonely without anything else to do.”

I almost cheered—it was the first time I could remember Carol Jeanne actually being catty. “A little lonely” indeed. What a deft reminder that Mamie hadn’t been able to hold on to her mate, and that she was bored because she flatly refused to work.

Mamie glared, until she remembered herself and changed to an expression of patient suffering. Dolores smirked. Penelope’s eyes rounded. Finally Mamie ended the silence by saying, in her sweetest, meekest voice, “I’d be glad to serve as a fellow even
without
a companion, just so I can help the wonderful people of Mayflower.”

Mamie might have been a drone as far as employment was concerned, but now that she understood that fellowing meant pious gossip, she would be the queen of community service. She would fellow every family in the village if she were called to do so, loudly moaning about her heavy burden even as she relished the task and assiduously spread every scandal she heard or guessed or invented. If Odie Lee were still alive, Mamie could out-Odie her in glorious martyrdom. And it only sweetened the prize that Mamie would make Carol Jeanne look bad in comparison every time she made her rounds.

“You can be sure we’ll find a companion for you, since
you’re
so willing to serve,” said Penelope.

We endured the rest of the visit. Mamie, smug as a cat, vowed to pray for Mayflower’s sinners, and once again Dolores stretched her lips into a grim smile. Even with her husband gone, there was clearly a chance for Mamie to penetrate the inner social circle of Mayflower. Carol Jeanne’s chances were dimming moment by moment. By the time Mamie became a brahmin, Carol Jeanne would be untouchable.

It was only after Penelope was on her way that I realized she hadn’t broached the subject of drones, even though she would have been aware of the official complaint Red had filed immediately after the incident. Penelope should have commiserated, at least. Her silence told me that despite what she had said to Peter about causing Mamie’s divorce, she was secretly glad that he had sent the message with the animated bees.

The door had barely shut behind Penelope before Red and Mamie started in on Carol Jeanne.

“Are you deliberately
trying
to sabotage us here in Mayflower?” he asked.

Mamie chimed in. “If you’ve ruined my chances to be a prayer partner I’ll never forgive you. I’m bored
stiff
on this spaceship, and
finally
I had a chance for something to do.”

Carol Jeanne chose to answer Mamie rather than Red. “You could get a job.” Her voice was quiet, yet it reverberated in the silence that followed.

A tear came to Mamie’s eyes. “So you’re the one who goaded Stef about working,” she said. “You’re the one who made him feel that he needed a job more than he needed a loving home.”

Maybe Carol Jeanne would have said something nasty about Stef’s lack of a loving home, but Red didn’t give her a chance. “The
hell
with the job!” he thundered. “Nobody’s worried about the job except you, Carol Jeanne. I wouldn’t be surprised if you had Lovelock put that damned bee animation on the computer!”

Carol Jeanne could have answered him—she knew as well as I did who the source of the animation was. But she was so near tears that she couldn’t speak without crying. And rather than shame herself by showing such weakness in front of her husband and mother-in-law, she simply left the room.

I had no doubt that Mamie would now spread the rumor that Carol Jeanne was the one who had broken up her marriage by her nasty insistence—including a vicious animation on the computer—that Stef had to get a job in order to be a real man. Mamie, the classic castrating female, was going to give Carol Jeanne the reputation that Mamie herself deserved.

We went to Carol Jeanne’s office, which wasn’t a public meeting place the way her bedroom seemed to be. I was glad of that, since it gave me a computer to use as my voice. Carol Jeanne sank into her chair and leaned her elbows on the counter. I slid the keyboard out to where I could use it. Her shoulders were heaving, so I knew she was crying though she made no sound. I was going to write her a message. I can’t remember now what it was I was going to say. Perhaps I was going to comfort her. Or reassure her that she was within her rights, so screw Penelope and Mayflower too. Or perhaps I had thought of some subtle inoffensive way to tell her that her neglect of the village was going to hurt her in the long run. This much I’m sure of: I still felt a great deal of love and responsibility toward Carol Jeanne, and so my message was going to be an assertion that I was on her side.

Whatever it was going to be, I didn’t get to write it. No sooner had I slid the keyboard to where I could reach it than Carol Jeanne reached out and slid it back under her own hands. There were tears still streaming down her face as she logged on, entered the mail program, and composed a note to Neeraj.

“I’ve got to see you. Please.” She sent it, then immediately had second thoughts and tried to cancel it. But the message had been sent. She got up from the chair and paced to the window. Then she sat down again and composed another message to Neeraj, saying, “Never mind. Everything’s fine.”

I, of course, was now certain that I knew exactly what had been going on when she sent me away from the office during the day. Neeraj was more than the perfect assistant. And the charm that he had used on me apparently worked just as well on Carol Jeanne. She had a friend, and it wasn’t me.

Two friends, apparently. Because now she composed a message to Liz. “Can we talk? Do you have time today? I hope so, because I’m going to take a walk now and I think I’m going to end up at the children’s park and I hope you’ll come join me. I know you can see the park from your window so if I’m still there, please come.”

She sent the message, then stood up and wiped her eyes on her sleeve. “Do I look like I’ve been crying?” she asked me.

Her eyes were red and puffy and her hair was a mess. I nodded largely.

“Well, that’s just too damn bad,” said Carol Jeanne, and she stalked out of the room. I followed. I wasn’t going to miss this little meeting for the world—if Liz got the message and came.

Carol Jeanne didn’t run into anybody on the way out of the house. Mamie was apparently in her room, and I dodged into the kitchen to see Red typing at the household computer while the girls played on the floor. He, too, was composing a message to somebody. Apparently they both had friends they turned to in their time of need.

On the way to the children’s playground, we passed on the other side of the church. I parted with Carol Jeanne long enough to run to the garbage can where Red had dropped his aborted offering. Unfortunately, the Sunday school had apparently given chocolate treats wrapped in wax paper to the children, so the can was full of sticky smeary paper that I had to plow through to get to the bottom. But I’m a monkey, right? I play with my own feces. What do I care about getting filthy in service of my insatiable curiosity?

His message, crumpled as it was, was easy to read. “I will be faithful to my wife.” Well, well, well. That was fascinating, wasn’t it? I recrumpled the message, dropped it back into the can, and scurried back to Carol Jeanne as fast as my little legs could carry me. I must have looked cute to her as she saw me scampering along the path to where she sat on one of the swings in the playground. All the while, though, I was trying to decide whether Red’s offering meant that he was merely contemplating adultery or had already begun an affair and was trying to stop. I also was wondering whether the fact that he discarded the message meant that he had decided
not
to give up on adultery, or had merely decided not to mention it in the offering, which was read by a minister who may or may not have been the soul of discretion. Who was it that Red was writing to when I left the house? Such fascinating mysteries these humans provided for me.

Carol Jeanne and Neeraj. Red and…somebody. Perhaps they, too, were going to lead their children into the wonderful world of marital collapse and family instability. It couldn’t happen to a nicer pair of children. The sexual behavior of us lesser primates wasn’t looking so bad. Sure, we male monkeys masturbated our brains out in public—if we weren’t programmed not to. Sure, male chimpanzees kidnapped ripe females if they could and raped them to exhaustion in some secluded little rendezvous. Sure, male baboons made friends with babies in order to weasel their way into acceptance in the troop. But by and large they provided a healthy environment for their offspring. Humans acted more like male lions, who killed the younglings when they defeated an old male and took over his harem. Hang the children, they’re in the way of what
I
want. If I ever had a mate and children, I vowed right then, I would be more loyal to them than this.