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  When she waved her hand over the sensor pad, the door slid open and the aroma of fried fish engulfed her. Trisha was in the kitchen, seated on a high stool and chatting while Ruven flipped the fish over. “Jilli! Look what Ruven brought!”

  “I brought food too. Leftovers from Romuela’s.” Jillian dropped her bag on the counter and retreated to the living room, where she sank into the couch and toed off her sensible shoes. They hadn’t been nearly sensible enough for a full day on the tiled floor of the café. And she felt unreasonably resentful of Ruven. Why did he have to bring fresh fish today, outclassing her humble offering? Who was ultimately responsible for taking care of this mini-family, him or her? And why couldn’t he have been a little later, giving her time to shed her disguise?

  “Trisha told me you got a new job, but I didn’t realize it was at Romuela’s. Why did you leave the holostudios?” Ruven had ceded the frying pan to Trisha and followed Jillian into the shady living room.

  “They’re closed. Until further notice.”

  “When did that happen?”

  “The day you took me out to eat.”

  “Then – oh.” Ruven had more tact than she would have credited him with. He had worked out why she hadn’t said anything then, and he wasn’t going to keep on about it. “Well, I’m overwhelmed. A few fish out of the river can’t compete with Romuela’s Greek Fusion cooking.”

  “You’re just saying that to make me feel better.” Jillian laid her aching head back against the couch and closed her eyes.

  “Nay, I’m doing this to make you feel better.” Ruven’s broad fingers brushed her neck, then busied themselves about her edifice of heavily pinned braids. As the hairpins came out, Jillian’s headache receded. She even leaned forward so that he could reach the braids coiled at the back of her neck. One after another, the tightly plaited strands leapt free in his hands, and as he finger-combed them out, the pinching pain in her scalp receded.

  “Is that better? I always thought that tight, skinned-back hairstyle must hurt your head.”

  “Always thought?” Jillian looked up in surprise. “What do you mean, always? I’ve never worn my hair that way – well, not since long before you came to the city.”

  “Nay, but you had it this way in Her Secret Sin. And if I’m not mistaken, that’s the dress you wore for that part as well.”

  Jillian was startled. “That’s… a really obscure holo. I was just an inexperienced kid then. It was my first speaking part ever! If you were going to waste your time on what you call ‘sentimental mush,’ I wish you’d watched my later work.”

  “Aye, well, I’ve done that too. All of it.”

  Jillian narrowed her eyes. “All thirty-four episodes of Love for Living? That’s a lot of time to waste on a show you don’t even like.”

  “Maybe I don’t care for the writing,” Ruven allowed, “but there are other compensations for watching it. As you know.”

  Was he trying to flatter her?

  If so, it was working.

  “I bet you haven’t seen Star Bright,” Jillian challenged him. That had been her first part: no lines to speak, only a fleeting appearance in a few scenes, and she hadn’t even been included in the cast list.

  “You were very moving as the Girl in the Crowd.”

  “I think he means it,” Trisha called from the kitchen. The lights in both rooms sizzled briefly and went out. “Stupid power cuts…”

  “I think he’s pulling my leg.”

  “Well, come and eat while you argue. I’ll be very annoyed if you let this wonderful fish get cold.”

  Jillian brought out candles so they could see to eat the meal; short, scented ones that Trisha had collected during a short-lived attempt to cure her nausea by aromatherapy.

  The fish was indeed good. Trisha had concocted a sweetish lemon sauce to go over it, which was an excellent counterpoint to the bitterness of the wilted greens she served with the fish. “Where did you get fresh greens?” Jillian asked.

  “Picked them,” Ruven answered. “Bitterleaf - we eat it back home, only here it’s considered a weed and nobody seems to know it’s edible. But it’s good for women in Trisha’s condition. She should eat some every day.”

  “Show me how to recognize it,” Jillian said with a grin, “and we’ll have weed salad on a regular basis.”

  Trisha made a face. She’d never cared for bitter food, and since becoming pregnant she complained that greens tasted worse than ever. Jillian suspected she’d only cooked these because Ruven had brought them.

  With the soft candlelight replacing the overhead lights, and no need to hurry over the meal, the evening became something like an island of refuge. Outside these rooms, the city might be crashing and collapsing, their whole way of life falling apart; here there was the ease of old friends chatting, the safety of home. Ruven confessed to having watched every holo Jillian had ever appeared in, ‘some of them twice.’ When she asked why, he simply said, “Nay, my girl, you know why. Don’t go fishing for compliments; you’ve no need of that, surely.”

  “Not from other people, maybe,” Jillian retorted, “but I’m still recovering from your characterization of Love for Living as sentimental mush!”

  “Why? You didn’t write that trash.”

  “No, but I liked it well enough – until you – well. I’ve been reading over the old scripts. Some of the lines do seem, oh, just a little bit overblown.”

  “Was that what you meant, Jilli,” Trisha piped up, “when you told me yesterday that once the studio opened again, you didn’t know how you’d deliver Ditani’s lines with a straight face?”

  Jillian aimed a mock blow at her. “Stop embarrassing me in front of company!”

  They lingered over the meal; Ruven apparently had no fear of the streets after dark, and he told more stories about life on the cooperative that had both girls giggling helplessly. Jillian retaliated with some of the gossip about the rich and famous that was always floating around the studio. But Ruven interrupted her in the middle – actually, more like the beginning – of a scurrilous story about the Deputy Minister for Education and her peculiar tastes with very young boys.

  “Nay, spare my blushes!” he said. “And any road, if what you were beginning to say is true, it’s not much of a joke. Why has no one stopped her?”

  “I suppose,” Jillian ventured, “she takes them from the crêche, and the parents never know.”

  Ruven gave her a long, cool, analytical look. “And yet it’s ‘common knowledge’ in your studio? And no one there thought to do anything? Seems wrong either way, my girl. If the stories aren’t true, it’s shameful to spread them. If they are, everybody who knows should be ashamed of doing nothing to stop it.”

  “Spare me your muddy farmer morality!” Jillian flashed. “You don’t know the first thing about what it’s really like to live in this city!”

  “And I’m the better off for it,” responded Ruven, getting to his feet. He was so tall that he made the room seem too small to hold him – or perhaps it was the impression of anger crackling around him that made Jillian want to give him more space. “With your permission, Mistress Trisha, I’ll take my leave before I wear out my welcome!”

  A moment later his boot-heels sounded on the syncrete stairs outside.

  Trisha burst into tears. “It was all – going – so well!” she cried. “Why did you have to make him angry?”

  “Trisha, he insulted me. Us,” Jillian corrected herself. “Did you expect me to put up with that?”

  “Yes – no – I don’t know!” She blew her nose on a napkin flimsy. “But he must be crazy about you, watching every one of your holos like that, and I thought if I started carrying in the dishes and left you two alone he might kiss you before he left, and I did want somebody to be happy!”

  Jillian patted Trisha’s shoulder and told her that she was happy, that all she wanted was to keep her and the baby safe.

  “Y-yes, but when Tomas comes back for me you’ll be left all alone, and I can
’t bear it!” Trisha wailed.

  Jillian persuaded Trisha to drink one of her nasty herbal teas and go to bed. “You have to think of the baby,” she kept saying, as calmly as possible, “the important thing is for you to stay calm and healthy for the baby.”

  After Trisha was asleep, Jillian had rather too much time for her own thoughts. She went ahead and washed the dishes by candlelight instead of piling them in the cleanser and hoping the power would come back on soon. It wasn’t much of a distraction. Her feet still hurt, and now her heart ached too. That damned man had far too much of an effect on her for someone who’d only drifted into her life and who would soon drift out again. Very soon, probably. He hadn’t sounded like somebody who planned to come back to see her again.

  Which was, of course, only sensible. It wasn’t as if there was any future for them.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The young men catcalling and reaching out to touch her became a serious problem when they formed into a line blocking Jillian’s way to the café. “Trick or treat! Trick or treat!” the one who seemed like the leader called, and the rest of them took up the chant. Jillian briefly regretted the end of the short autumn rainy season. Nobody had been on the streets then except those who had to shop or work. The cold clear days of winter were apparently going to be much more risky.

  “I don’t know what you want, but I don’t have time to chat. I’m going to be late to work,” she said, in the faint hope that they’d let her walk on.

  “Oh, you know, all right, pretty girl.” The leader, a scrawny man with terrible acne under a stubbly attempt at a beard, tried to leer at her. In Jillian’s professional opinion, it wasn’t convincing. “We own this block now. And from now on, it’s going to cost you a mark every time you walk through our territory. Pay up or give us a treat!” The suggestive emphasis he put on the last word made Jillian shiver. No, it would never do to let them see she was intimidated. She drew on her character in The Lady of the Sword. The Swordlady never showed fear, no matter how badly outnumbered she was.

  Chin lifted, she looked down her nose at them as the Swordlady would have done. “I’m not pretty. And I don’t have a mark to give you. Get out of my way!”

  “Shoulda picked a better looking one,” one of the followers grumbled, “Not much of a treat here.”

  Jillian hoped that sentiment would be shared, but another gang member dissented. “Good enough for me, if you don’t want her.”

  Trisha was right. I can’t make myself look so ugly and poor that no one will bother with me. Jillian realized that she’d been overly reliant on her unbecoming makeup and hairstyle.

  And now she had no idea what to do next. She looked the jeering men over, hoping to find a weak point. One of them looked vaguely familiar, but she couldn’t place him. A neighbor? Not likely, not in Vista View, unless he was squatting in a vacant apartment.

  The line had become a circle, and they were moving closer.

  That morning, ironically, Trisha had been extra-careful about darkening Jillian’s hair and straining it back so tightly her scalp hurt. While making the braids and pinning them in place she’d been full of gossip from the neighbor with whom they shared an apartment wall. According to Verine, celebrity kidnappings were becoming almost commonplace. The latest victim had been a famous soccer player whose family had been unable to raise the ransom demanded. The kidnappers had allowed him the dubious mercy of a last comcall to his family. “And his last words were to his son. He said, ‘Riki, you must be a man for the family now, they’re going to kill me.’ Isn’t that just the saddest thing you ever heard?”

  “Um,” said Jillian. “And just how did Verine know this? Does she have access to a secret news channel that actually broadcasts the news?”

  “Better. She knows somebody who knows somebody who said the whole sad story is absolutely true and the Central Committee is censoring the news of the kidnappings so as not to cause panic.”

  “Well, Verine seems to be countering that effort very efficiently!” Jillian didn’t know – or care – whom to believe. She had known for years that the holonews was censored; the same people on the Hill who wanted her at their parties also liked to underline their importance by dropping little tidbits of information and adding, “not that you’ll see anything about it on the news, but I know I can trust you, Jilli dear.”

  On the other hand, Verine’s gossip always tended towards the lachrymose, and Trisha’s volatile nature meant that she took sad stories at face value and let them drag her down into a sort of enjoyable sorrow.

  “There!” Trisha jabbed the last hairpin into Jilli’s scalp. “Nobody will take you for a rising young holostar today, anyway! Did you remember to put the No.11 makeup stick in your bag?”

  Number 11 was the one that made Jillian’s smooth white skin appear coarse and dark. It had, however, only been designed to stand up to stage lighting and sweating performers; it was good for less than half a day of carrying dishes from Romuela’s kitchen. Jillian had to carry it with her to re-apply on her afternoon break and again just before leaving work.

  “Got it…. But maybe I should try to use it less. I don’t know what we’re going to do when it’s used up.”

  “Buy more,” Trisha said.

  “The cosmetics shops are probably closed. They can’t survive without the theatrical trade.”

  “Then break a window and steal some. Anything’s worth it when it comes to your safety, Jilli dear.”

  Jillian decided not to point out that if it came to that, she rather than Trisha would be the one risking her freedom for a couple of No. 11 cosmetic sticks. Anyway, she worried about Trisha more than about herself. It couldn’t be healthy for Trisha to be cooped up in their apartment most of the time. But with the elevator now permanently out of commission, getting out would involve a laborious journey down the ten flights of stairs. Including the bottom two floors of the building, which had been vacant so long that gangs had stripped them of their contents and vandalized the apartments. Jillian did not want Trisha to see that – or smell it.

  And she didn’t want Trisha to sit all alone in the apartment either, wondering why Jillian had disappeared. Which seemed all too likely, if she didn’t get away from this gang.

  One of the young men knocked the bag out of her hand and another pounced on it. “Nothing here,” he announced, tossing the bag down so that the precious cosmetic stick rolled out along with her few other possessions.

  A third man, the one Jillian had thought vaguely familiar, pounced on it. “No. 11 Coarse?”

  At the sound of his voice, she recognized the face behind the scruffy beard. “Pol? What are you doing here?” This was the last place she’d ever have expected to see the flouncing little cosmetician; no wonder she hadn’t recognized him at first.

  Pol stared. “You – you can’t be – ” But his trained eye picked out the good bones under the layer of coarsening makeup. “Jilli? You look terrible!”

  “That,” Jillian informed him, “was the general idea. But apparently I still don’t look bad enough.”

  Pol picked up her bag, restored the items that had fallen out, and gave it back to her. Then he took her hand. “Guys, this lady is a colleague of mine. By the Brotherhood of the Stage, I say she has a free pass through any territory of ours!”

  “You making that up, Pol? She doesn’t look like much of an actress to me!”

  Jillian lifted her chin and let go with Ditani Stavros’ most-repeated line, pitching her voice to resonate above the chattering gang. “Through death and into eternity, our love will endure forever!”

  The spotty-faced leader took a startled step backwards. “By discord and dissonance, our little Pol’s telling the truth! She’s Jillian Lisadel!”

  “For real?”

  “A holostar in our territory?”

  “Have to hand it to you, Pol. You must have performed a miracle of makeup to make that one look like a beauty!”

  In the end, Jillian was late for work after all. It
took quite some time to let them catch holos of her with each of the gang members.

  ***

  Jillian came home that night to a dark apartment, Trisha sobbing in some man’s arms. They broke apart and Jillian recognized Ruven. “I came as soon as I heard,” he said, as if that explained anything.

  Jillian just stared. He couldn’t know about her potentially ugly confrontation with the gang that morning, could he? No, of course not. Something else had brought him… Trisha was still sobbing.

  She sat down, carefully, as if moving slowly and precisely would somehow make her guess not true. “Tomas?”

  Ruven nodded. “It was on the evening news holo in our area. The new Minister for Security released names of the dead. It was a long list.”

  Jillian fastened on a trivial fact. “New minister? I hadn’t even heard there were elections.”

  “There weren’t. It seems to have been a coup; the lower echelons of Security against the administrators. The only public statement was that the street officers aren’t going to put up with being sent out to die any more. Then they read the names.”

  The electricity was off, and wouldn’t be back on until tomorrow; Vista View, Trisha said when she stopped crying, had had its four hours in the afternoon. “That was the first announcement. I was in the kitchen, trying to fix something for dinner that would keep until you got home, and just half listening. Then I heard Tomas’ name.” Her face crumpled. “I came back out here… They read the list three times. Oh, I forgot all about the casserole.”

  “Casserole,” and “soup,” had become their regular description for whatever food they could get, all cooked up together; the difference was only in how much water was added to it.

  “Doesn’t matter,” said Jillian. “We’ll… um… dilute it and call it soup tomorrow. I’ve got some vegetarian sarma from the café for tonight.” She was having trouble thinking. Her mind kept jittering and darting off on side tracks. Tomas. Ruven warned me this might be coming. Trisha should stop crying; she’d make herself ill. Tomas had told her to take care of Trisha. Tomas.