The Judas Rose (45 page)

It hadn't been Daddy's decision to send her to Briary Marital
Academy, it had been her own. They had had plenty of money, she could have gone anywhere; he had told her she could choose and she had picked one that she thought she would like, from looking at the catalogs she'd dialed up on the comset. It had looked so pretty . . . she had chosen it for its pretty name, and for the pretty rooms in its dormitories, with their canopy beds, and for the way the rosebushes trailed over the stone arches of its handsome old buildings. Burgundy now, she had gone to Mary Margaret Plymouth, one of the very best—perhaps
the
very best—and she apparently majored there in Dirty Tricks & Deceptions. Cassie hates Burgundy fiercely, and envies her; she knows not a single woman in the circle of friends selected for her by O.J. who doesn't feel the same way about Burgundy that she does.

There are to be four couples at the dinner party. There are their hosts, Krol and Burgundy Coloridon; there are Doby Phalk and his wife Brune; there are herself and O.J.; like him, Krol and Doby are successful young psychotherapists. And like Cassie, Brune is wearing a simple spraysheath. Brune's is a silver and gold stripe; Cassie's is scarlet with a narrow band of white fur around the hem. Just right, both of them, for a small informal dinner party for four couples.

But Burgundy Coloridon isn't dressed like that. To the uninformed eye, Burgundy Coloridon is clothed only in miniature roses, palest yellow through delectable peach to deep rose-gold; Cassie wishes bitterly that the roses were real instead of holograms, so that they might attract real bees with real stingers. The dress is magnificent, and it is set off by a ruff of golden lace that rises high behind Burgundy's head and out of which she herself seems to rise, like a final perfect rose. She is wearing contacts that exactly match the tint of the most dramatic of the holo flowers, and the rose-gold eyes are glorious in her tanned face. She is exquisite, and Cassie wants her dead.

Brune and Cassie know that Burgundy has only rented the dress; Krol Coloridon is doing a little better than their husbands, but not so much better that he could afford to let her buy that dress. But that makes no difference, it's not the kind of dress that you could wear more than once a year anyway, and
tonight
it is Burgundy's, and that is all that matters.

It could have gone differently, if they'd been lucky, Cassie thinks. It could have happened that Brune's and Cassie's husbands would have decided that Burgundy's dress was overdone and exhibitionist and that they would have been sorry for Krol and proud of their own wives' good taste. But Burgundy has been very careful; not one other detail is anything but the most
classic conservative style, making her the single item of display and thus an acceptable ornament. The dinner table floating in its nook beside the tier of three reflecting pools is bare of any cloth—just the crystal acrylic, almost invisible with the lights from the pools glowing through it. Square acrylic plates with a single silver stripe around the border; glassware to match, and serving pieces to match, and flatware of massive sterling without any decoration but its flawless
shape
. No centerpiece . . . Burgundy is daring, she is not afraid to do things like omit the centerpiece at a dinner party, and she is right, of course, because through the bare central space of the table you can see the water lilies in the pools, and an occasional flash of color from the giant carp. A centerpiece would have ruined that. Burgundy has carefully spraycovered every room of the house to coordinate with the dining area; everything is silver and white, with just a touch here and there in rich genuine wood to set it off. And in the midst of all this understatement and elegance, there is Burgundy, wearing the full spectrum of shades of gold. It is
absolutely
perfect! Cassie knows that O.J. will expect her to top it sometime in the next month or two when they return the social obligation and ask the Coloridons to
their
place, and she is frantic just thinking about it—how do you do better than absolute perfection?

Brune is ashen, a color that does not go well with her dress, and her eyes are wide with a fear she is not able to conceal. Cassie knows that Doby makes Brune's life miserable, using a twisted vicious teasing that is much more ingenious than anything O.J. would ever consider doing with Cassie; she also knows that Doby treats Brune that way because what he would
really
like to do is hit her. Brune could report Doby to Family Court, and Cassie knows that she sometimes secretly records the interminable verbal battering she endures from him, just in case. But then what would she do, even if the court took her seriously? It would only make Doby worse, and the chances are ninety-nine to one that what the court would do is send
Brune
for counseling, not Doby. Already Brune's father blames many of his own problems in the House of Representatives on Brune's social failures—and that is ridiculous, but what can Brune do about it? If she turned in her own husband, who supports her in luxury and has never laid one harsh finger on her, even in the marriage bed, her family would consider themselves disgraced. And they would probably be right. The word would get around. Brune would find herself divorced and living in a Federal Women's Hostel before she could say, “But I just could not stand it any
longer!” If she were lucky. If she did not find herself in a tasteful mental hospital instead. Poor Brune. . . .

The fourth couple is not here yet, and Burgundy has refused to tell them who is coming. It's a surprise, she says charmingly, raising one luscious shoulder high and turning her lovely head to shelter in it. Burgundy is the only woman Cassie knows who is able to carry off that particular piece of bodyparl, although every woman who attends a marital academy is required to learn it. Most women who chance it only look like they're trying to check their armpits. But not Burgundy. When she does it, it works, it is alluring, delightful, exchanting; even hating her as they do, Cassie and Brune can admire her skill.

The men are on their best behavior until they find out who they are sharing this evening with. If it turns out to be someone they know well, the Coloridons will bring out the innocent-looking fruit drinks laced with forbidden chemicals for which they are famous in their social circle and soon Doby and O.J. will abandon all pretense of good manners. But not yet. Not while for all they know the fourth husband invited is an important client, or the head of a famous clinic, or a celebrity with enough public clout to do their reputations harm. Krol and Doby and O.J. have not gotten where they are, young as they are, by risking their reputations.

The men are standing by the oval window, talking shop talk, and Cassie thinks how unfair it is. When they go to their offices, they wear their white labcoats and the antique stethoscopes and they are impeccably attired; when they go out in the evening all they have to do is switch to black labcoats and pin miniature stethoscopes to their neckties, and they are impeccably attired; even the most formal occasion requires of them nothing more than a silk shirt beneath the black labcoat, perhaps with vertical tucks, perhaps with a narrow black cummerbund. They have no decisions to make, they have no conception of what a woman goes through. She wonders how they would like it if they could never set a foot outside their homes, or invite guests into their homes, without the obligation of earning points for their spouse by being the best-dressed person present.

“There can only be
one
best-dressed woman in any group of women, O.J.,” she had pointed out to him once when he was complaining about her own performance of this obligation, “and
all
the rest of the women have to be the losers and go home and be tormented about it.”

“Please,” he had said, turning his back to indicate that he
couldn't bear the sight of her. “Do not make yourself even more ridiculous by attempting to express mathematical concepts.”

She is aware of Brune beside her now, and she turns her head to smile thinly at the other woman. At least they are failures together. At least Brune has not worn anything enough better than what Cassie is wearing to let her try any sort of alliance with Burgundy.

Brune says, “I could kill her, you know.”

“I could help you,” Cassie agrees. “How will we do it?”

“Slowly! Very slowly, with lots of little tiny pins, so she is completely spoiled a long time before she is dead—so she has time to know it and think about it a long time before she is dead.”

“Brrrr. . . . Brune, don't!” Cassie knows Brune is not serious; she has seen Brune carefully carry a spider outside her atrium area and set it down gently in her yard in a safe place. Brune is gentle; still, Cassie does not want to hear the vicious talk with the ugly pictures that it makes in her mind.

“I'm sorry. Maybe. But you know she did this on purpose. She knew what it would mean for you and for me, and she did it on purpose all the same, curse her!”

Cassie shrugs, trying to seem indifferent; sometimes Brune is a little melodramatic. “Oh, well,” she says. “That's what women
do
, Brune.”

She is conscious that she might not be so calm if she had Brune's problems to deal with. O.J. has told her about Doby Phalk being recruited for colony placement by the Department of Health, and about the game he is playing—pretending he prefers to remain here on Earth, so they'll offer him better terms; O.J. tells her that Doby is sure to get what he wants, because they want
him
badly. “Ideally suited for colony placement,” is what they say about Doby. Cassie will be sorry to lose Brune, but maybe Doby will be kinder to her when they get out to the colonies; she hopes so. She doesn't like always having to feel sorry for Brune; it distracts her, and it makes her feel uneasy and insecure.

“Who do you suppose the other couple will be, Brune?” she asks softly, to change the subject. “Maybe the woman will be even more spectacular than Burgundy is. Could we get that lucky?”

“We could pray,” Brune says sullenly. “Dear Heavenly Father, may whoever comes through that door be an even worse bitch than Burgundy is.”

The door speaks immediately as she pronounces the last word,
making Brune jump, and Cassie giggles and pats Brune's hand a couple of times, reassuringly.

“Leonard Joseph Verdi,” says the door in the precise Irish accent that is so fashionable this year. “And Mrs. Leonard Joseph Verdi, born Elizabeth Caroline Chornyak.”

There is a stunned and total silence, which is what the Coloridons had intended, and Krol is grinning the satisfied grin of a triumphant man with a triumphant wife at his side as he tells the door to open and it slides silently into its case to let the new couple in.

Verdi! And Elizabeth Chornyak Verdi! If it had been only the man, it could have been a coincidence—after all, there are tens of thousands of people with names like Verdi and Jefferson and Noumarque and Hashihawa who aren't linguists of the Lines. But no Verdi who was not one of
the
Verdis would have a wife born a Chornyak; that is farther than coincidences can be made to stretch.

Brune has prayed for a bitch, and her prayer is answered. There in the doorway, handing her plain brown cape to the servomechanism, stands what is without any question a bitch of the Lines. A Lingoe bitch! Her straight pale hair is cut short like a child's and it is obvious that nothing has been done to it except to brush it. It just
hangs
there; it is shocking and ugly. She is wearing a garment of a good quality beige fabric, but it is only a straight tunic with square ample sleeves and a square neck; it reminds Cassie of the garments that are issued to women prison inmates. There are beige clingsoles on the creature's feet, she is wearing a wrist computer and narrow plain gold wedding ring, and that is absolutely
all
. Neither Cassie nor Brune would have gone alone into a dark closet dressed the way that this woman has seen fit to come to the dinner party at the Coloridons. (The man is not as interesting; he is dressed like any man, in a pair of dark trousers and a shirt and a jacket and a tie. His hair is in a moderate reagan cut. Nothing there to remark upon. But the
woman!
)

Behind her, O.J. grabs her elbow with his fist (she has not heard him coming up behind her) and hisses. “Close your
mouth
, Cassie, for god's sake!”, and she realizes that she is standing there gaping at the new arrivals with her mouth hanging open, and that Brune is doing the same thing, and that Burgundy is smiling the rapturous smile of a woman who has just tasted something delicious and knows that there is much more of it to be tasted. Burgundy moves forward as Cassie's mouth snaps shut; she welcomes the linguists into her home, taking the woman's arm and leading her into the room. And now the slots in the
walls are all glowing and the servomechanisms are moving swiftly, silently, to take the trays of appetizers and drinks from them. There aren't going to be any unusual chemicals in these drinks, Cassie realizes, and she is grateful for that; she hates the way O.J. behaves when he uses them and is—as he puts it—“nicely relaxed.” And it means that O.J. won't insist on putting the flyer on illegal manual control when they go home; Cassie is terrified without the automatics, especially after dark, and terrified that they'll be caught; it makes her furious that O.J. complains about the potential for disgrace when she doesn't come out first in some trivial social competition like being best-dressed, and then risks the
total
disgrace of being arrested for endangerment of traffic and flying under the influence of controlled substances.

Cassie's mind is racing . . . what does she say now? She knows Brune is thinking the same thing, and that for once their husbands are not precisely comfortable either. Lingoes! How could the fourth couple at this “informal dinner party” be a pair of
Lingoes?
Cassie knows very little about them, but she knows this:
they do not mingle socially with people outside their own families and business circles. It does not happen. Ever
. How has Burgundy pulled this off? And what should Cassie do? She sees herself assuming an expression of
very
wellbred distaste, inventing some sort of gracious excuse, floating elegantly from the Coloridon house with a quick smile back over her shoulder, showing them all that
she
knows what constitutes decent behavior, even if Burgundy doesn't . . . should she do that? Would that be the right move? What if that's not what O.J. wants? What if it would be a serious mistake? And what is Brune going to do?