Summer of Love, a Time Travel (23 page)

“I’ll
be damned,” Ruby muses. “Pimps on
Star Trek.
I had no idea.”

But
Susan is appalled. She cannot believe she ever watched the episode in her
parents’ den and went to bed without a second thought.

“Oh,
Ruby,” she cries, “I want a Venus drug.”

“
What?
”

“I
could never look like Eve or Ruth or Magda. Or Twiggy. I could never get my
thighs that thin if I took dexies for a whole year.”

“Why
would you want to look like Twiggy?”

“Doesn’t
everyone? Isn’t she the ideal of beauty everyone adores?”

Ruby
guffaws. “You girls from the burbs are from another planet! In the first place,
they pile so much makeup on that girl,
she
doesn’t really look like
Twiggy. And her legs? You want to know what Twiggy looks like to me? A junkie.
Or a speed freak. Or both. You want to look like a junkie speed freak?”

“I’d
do anything to look like that.” Sadness spills from Susan’s heart. Why does she
feel like she’s not good enough, no matter how hard she tries? “I’d take the Venus
drug in a second. I don’t care if it’s illegal. Maybe Stan would have loved
me.”

Ruby
slaps the TV off as the trailer music is playing. She slides next to Susan,
reaches over, and kneads her shoulders. “Listen to me, Starbright. Stan loves
no one. And you’re wrong about the Venus drug. In the end, Eve realizes she’s
beautiful without it. She really
is
beautiful. The Venus drug is an
illusion. Think about it. Right, am I right?”

Susan
thinks about it. “But Captain Kirk still doesn’t love Eve. He flies off without
her.”

“Oh,
Captain Kirk is a swinger. He will never ever settle down.”

“Captain
Kirk is not a swinger. He’s dedicated to the
Enterprise.
”

“That’s
what all those space-age swingers say. I’ve heard that before. Warping around galaxies,
bumping into ladies on exotic planets. Lovin’ ‘em and leavin’ ‘em. Uh-huh.”

“God.”
Susan thinks about
that.
Captain Kirk—like Stan the Man? No, no, no.
Captain Kirk is a hero. He’s the
captain.

“And
so are you, Starbright. You really are beautiful.”

“My
mother thinks I’m ugly. She made me eat nothing but hard-boiled eggs ‘cause she
said my breasts were getting too fat.”

Ruby
shifts again, sitting on the mattress in front of her. She gives Susan the
up-and-down. “Do
you
think your breasts are getting too fat?”

“Don’t
you? I ate nothing but dexies for ten days, and they still wouldn’t go away.”

“You
have very nice breasts. Talk to any woman who’s flat-chested, and I bet she
would love to have your breasts. I bet Twiggy would kill to have breasts as nice
as yours.”

“My
mother looks at them like they’re ugly.”

“Uh-huh.
What else about you is ugly?”

“My
hair. My mother hates my hair. She’s always threatening to cut it off. It’s not
white-blond and it’s not straight, like in
Life
magazine.”

Ruby
strokes Susan’s hair. “Starbright’s hair is golden-brown like wheat or wet sand
or new-baked bread. And wavy, with little curls like those high fine clouds
they call mare’s tails or the curlicue leaves on Queen Anne’s lace. Why would
you think your hair is ugly, little one?”

“Oh,
Ruby,” Susan whispers. Her heart swells, in a good way now.

Ruby
slides Susan’s overnight bag over and digs inside. “Let’s have a look. Uh-oh.
White lipstick. White eye shadow. You want to look like a vampire
and
a
junkie speed freak?”

“It’s
mod,” Susan says, depressed. The tubes and cakes look like ground-up termites
or chalk sludge.

“You
have rose-colored lips and big dark eyes. Throw it out! Out, out, out!”

They
take turns tossing white lipstick and hair straightener across the room into
the wastebasket. “Out, out, out! Throw it out!”

Ruby
brushes back Susan’s hair. “You’re beautiful, Starbright. Don’t let anybody
tell you different.”

Overcome,
Susan flings her arms around Ruby and hugs her. “Oh, Ruby, I love you.”

Ruby
hugs her back, then gently pushes Susan away. She smiles, but a sadness haunts
her eyes.

Susan
is still laughing. This is fun! Ruby is wonderful. Ruby’s so beautiful. She
never wants to stop laughing and hugging her. Body heat, oh the comfort of
arms. “You’re my best friend in the whole world,” Susan cries. “Nobody’s ever
been so good to me, except maybe Penny Lane. But that was when we were little
kids.”

Ruby
heaves herself to her feet, walks unsteadily across the mattress, and sits on
the floor, propping her back against the wall.

Susan
stops laughing. She’s not sure what just happened. Not sure how to read Ruby’s
face. “Ruby? Is something wrong? Did I say something wrong?”

Ruby
pours herself another glass of sherry and shakes her head. “Nothing’s wrong,
kid. Everything’s fine. You’re just fine.”

“I
do
love you, Ruby. You’re the best!”

“I’m
the best, and don’t I know it.” But her smile is wistful.

They
sit in the sun a while, sipping sherry.

“Listen,
Starbright, you want to know a secret? Beauty is a fine thing. A beautiful
woman is a joy to behold. But don’t go looking for your beauty in magazines or
on that damn devil box. And remember this. Beauty isn’t everything. You got to
get on with the important business of running your life. Before anything else,
you got to use your brain. Doesn’t your school in the burbs ever tell you
that?”

Susan
shakes her head. She thinks of Bernie MacKenna and Allen Weisberg. Has either
of them ever cried before a mirror? Does everyone try to make them feel
worthless? They would probably think she’s stupid, feeling worthless because
she doesn’t look like Mudd’s women or Twiggy.

The
Summer of Love is like that. Things that seemed stupid become important, and
important things become stupid.

“My
school doesn’t tell me anything except that I’m in the ninety-eighth
percentile. I just feel weird, so I shut up. What I think isn’t important. I’m
just a girl.”

Ruby
sucks in her breath. That dangerous coiled-up look pops into her eyes. “Stop
it, Starbright!” she practically yells. “You are important!”

Shock
ripples down Susan’s back.

Ruby
springs to her feet and paces. “Doesn’t your pa tell you these things?”

“He’s
always yelling at me. Nothing I do is ever right. And it’s always my fault.”

“What
about your ma?”

“I
told you. She
looks
at me. Like I’m all wrong.”

Ruby
looks at her. Not with cold, disapproving scrutiny. Not like her mother, at
all. “Kid, I’ll tell you another secret. Something no one will ever tell you.
Not your pa, not your school, not your friends. You know what I think about
your ma? It’s the green-eyed monster. Your mother is jealous of you.”

Susan
stares, a familiar anxiety chilling her heart. “Jealous! But why?”

“Well.”
Ruby thinks. “When a woman has a child, she gets a lot of attention. She’s the
star of the show. And the child is her possession. Look at what
I’ve
made, look at what
I’ve
done. But you’re not your ma’s little dress-up
doll anymore. You’re your own person. You’re a young woman now and you’re the
star of the show. You got things to do. Maybe your ma’s having trouble
accepting that. She’s got to bow out.”

“But
why does she put me down all the time?”

“Because
you’re young. Just because you’re young.” Ruby winks. “And smart. And
beautiful.”

Susan
nods. Does this finally make sense? That terrible, nameless thing her mother
holds against her? That cold disapproval she never could place?

The
sherry wears off. A dull ache throbs in her belly.

“Ruby,”
Susan says, “it hurts.”

8

Ball and Chain

Like
a ghost tapping on his shoulder, an impulse strikes him. Chi turns in time to
see the girl at the kitchen window. At last! They’re back at last! He waves,
overcome with relief. She hesitates, then waves, too. He flings the shovel
down, shakes sweat from his face, brushes dirt from his hands on his jeans. He
dashes up the stairs to the kitchen.

But
they’re gone again. He hears Ruby’s voice upstairs, Starbright murmuring. A
laugh. Other voices. The television? Impossible. Ruby never watches TV. Then
soaring music, a reedy soprano. It’s the opening tune to the program Starbright
loves. She and Ruby are watching
Star Trek?

He
calms the pounding in his chest. Damn them, stealing out before he woke. But
she’s safe. The girl is safely tucked away upstairs.

He
wonders for the hundredth time: is Starbright the girl in the CBS News holoid?
There
is
some resemblance, but the match isn’t perfect. Her hair, her
face don’t look right. She’s heavier than the girl in the holoid. Her style of
clothing, even her posture--not even close. Since the footage was filmed
sometime before the program aired on August 22, any discrepancy in such a short
time frame can’t easily be dismissed. It’s like an optical illusion. The more
closely he studies her, the less sure he becomes.

If
she
is
the Axis, he must verify her identity and document her
authenticity as soon as possible. Verification ought to be easy, but it hasn’t
turned out that way. One evening, he crept up behind her while she was dreamily
washing dishes in the kitchen, clapped his hands as loud as he could, and
shouted, “Hey! Susan!”

She
dropped a plate and shouted, “Criminy!” She threw a handful of soapsuds in his
face. “God, Chi! Don’t scare me like that!”

“You
are
Susan, right?”

She
didn’t bat an eye. “I’m Starbright.”

Who
knew she would flat-out refuse to tell him her real name? Starbright. Man! A
typical juvenile street name. Completely untraceable, as the Archivists had discovered.

Ruby
is no help. “Who
is
Starbright?” He could get away with asking the
question twice before Ruby gave him a suspicious look. “Who wants to know?” was
her first answer. “Reach me down that jar of kava kava,” was her second. “How
about that accent,” he tried again. “She says her vowels like she’s got a
tongue depressor in her mouth.” That made Ruby laugh, at least. “Is she from the
Midwest? Like Ohio, some place like that?” “She’s from the moon, sonny.” He
doesn’t press her. Ruby distrusts him enough. He doesn’t want to give her any
reason to evict him.

As
for the girl, she’s positively compulsive. With single-minded vigilance, she
keeps her purse by her side, sleeps with it, takes it into the bathroom with
her and locks the door. “Why is Starbright so paranoid about her purse?” he
asked Ruby. “Maybe somebody ripped her off,” Ruby snapped. “Once bit, twice
shy.”

Plus,
she locks her overnight bag in the sitting room. One morning, he easily picked
the lock, searched the bag, and found only a poorly made fake ID that gave her
name as “Barbara Nelson,” her age as eighteen, her residence as Berkeley. Starbright
cannot possibly be eighteen, and the blurry photo looks less like her than the
girl in the holoid. He tried the scanner out on the doorknob, picked up half a
fingerprint. Then the door banged downstairs and Chi raced out, barely escaping
down the stairs before Ruby stalked into the living room. “Seen a ghost, man
from Mars?” she asked. Suspicious again. Just what he doesn’t need.

Later,
Chi displayed the scanner’s smudged half-print next to the crisp, inked
fingerprints of the Axis recorded in the Archives. The knuckletop couldn’t compute
a positive ID. Neither could Chi, comparing the whorls of black against the
gray smudges suspended in the lavender light.

It
makes him want to smash the knuckletop against the wall. Makes him want to
smash his hand
through
the wall.

Watch
her. Track her. That’s the best Chi can do. And
that
has been far from
easy. This morning, for instance. Where did they go? As for Starbright, she’s a
girl.
She spends hours in the upstairs bathroom with the door locked.
She ignores him as if he’s offended her. She’s sensitive about his
surveillance, no matter how casual he tries to be. “What are you looking at?”
she demands. “Are you following me?” Exactly. He’s not much happier about it
than she is.

Chi
keeps searching the Haight-Ashbury for a better match. But until he finds and
verifies the Axis herself, K-T has advised him that he must, at a minimum,
guarantee this girl’s safety until midnight, September 4, 1967.

At
midnight, September 4, 1967, the Hot Dim Spot will close. From jumpy errata and
widespread holes, the probabilities collapse into a timeline documented with
data as thick and rich as butter-cream. After midnight, September 4, 1967,
there is clear evidence that a young woman whom the Archivists identified
positively as the Axis was living with her parents in Shaker Heights, Ohio. The
Axis registered for the ninth grade at 9:30 A.M., EST, on September 8, 1967.
She celebrated her fifteenth birthday on December 5, 1967 with a gala dinner
for twenty at Stouffer’s Restaurant that got written up in the
Cleveland
Plain Dealer
. Her father gave her a laboratory-grade microscope, her mother
a necklace of amethyst beads. The father wrote a check; the mother charged it
to the May Company.