Love Is Strange (A Paranormal Romance) (33 page)

“Gavin, it’s the right thing to do. It’s the
only
thing we can do. That new bridge the Mayor wants to shut down... My dad is totally committed to the property values on the far end of that transportation channel! My family’s not like your family... We didn’t do that ‘wealth management distributed investment’ thing, like you Tremaines did. Because we believed in Seattle, we were solid boosters for Seattle, and if the city does this crazy moonbat global-warming hoax... Then, the city will shrink! Not grow, shrink! They will kill all the cars, they will make us ride bicycles!”

“I think you’re right about that,” said Gavin, heavily.

“My family will go broke, Gavin. I mean we will really, truly go broke from that. We are not old-money people. We’re just American people. We’ll go rags to riches to rags in three generations. These crazy policies are going to
destroy
us. They’ll destroy the America we knew, and we’ll be in a socialist America that looks like Sweden. Or something.”

“Baby, America will never look like Sweden. Canada might, maybe. America, there’s no way. Mexico would look more like Sweden than America.”

“Gavin, why do you take Seattle’s money and put it in other countries? Italy, Gavin. Italy, why? Aren’t we good enough for you? You’re never here any more. You’re always somewhere else. You’ve changed.”

“I work in a global investment firm,” said Gavin. “The business opportunities are in other markets. Brazil’s growth rate is eight percent. That’s in black and white. Any accountant can see that.”

“Gavin, why do you
look
at those numbers? Why would you look at
Brazil
? What is wrong with
us
? You’re looking at Italy and Brazil!”

“There are times when I don’t like that any more than you,” Gavin said. “But, well, my family is in big trouble, too. We have this business deal in Brazil... More of a government deal, than a business deal... But, if I could pull that deal off, then my family would be okay. We’d be more than okay. We’d be pretty much where we were back when aerospace was booming in Seattle. It’ll be like my Dad’s good, old Space Age days.”

Madeleine blinked. “Are you going to do that?”

“Maybe. I’ve been working hard to do it. Traveling a lot. I just got back from doing it, and I’m much closer than I was. Really close now. It’s one of those deals that could close fast, if it closes at all.”

Madeleine’s face grew thoughtful. “Why don’t you tell me all about it? Maybe I could help.”

“Well, I can’t tell you.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s classified. I mean, literally, it’s a classified defense deal. I have a security clearance. So, I can’t possibly tell you.”

“This is a secret aerospace military deal with the government of Brazil?”

“Look, don’t even say things like that, because that makes me think that I’ve said too much already. My dad has a security clearance, too, because he was a big wheel in Boeing once. So, I can’t divulge that information to you. That is illegal, unethical and immoral. So, I just can’t say the words. It’s never, ever something I would do.”

“It must be pretty easy,” said Madeleine, “to make a whole lot of money when you know secret things and don’t even have to compete in the free market.”

“That’s how the defense business always works,” said Gavin. “And no, it’s not easy at all. It’s just secret. It’s very secret, for good reasons, and I can’t say anything about it. All I can do is to try hard to get it done. As best I can.”

“My family is going down the tubes right now,” said Madeleine, “and your family is going to make a ton of money selling secret airplanes to the government of Brazil.”

“It’s my duty,” said Gavin. “It’s my heritage, it’s an old story. Maybe that story doesn’t sound good to you. Maybe it isn’t much good. But, there is one other thing. An important thing, for us.” Gavin drew a breath. “It’s time for you to leave your family, and join
my
family.”

“You’re proposing to me.”

“Yes. Yes, I am. I want you to marry me, Madeleine. I think that we should get married. Give up these other things you are doing, and come be with me. Come and be my wife. Please. I am asking you, formally. I am asking you for your hand. I should have brought you a beautiful ring for your hand, but there’s no time for that, sorry. It’s very important. Say yes.”

“No.”

“Say yes, Madeleine, come on.”

“We’ve discussed this before. You know what our situation is supposed to be, before we ever get married.”

“We’re not going to call the social pages in the Seattle newspapers. There barely are any newspapers left now. Forget our fairy-tale Swedish Methodist church wedding with the crowd of our thousand best friends. We don’t have the money, or the time, to do that kind of thing any more. We need to... go to
battle stations
and get married. Because we’re both in trouble.”

“Gavin, I don’t
want
to be in your family. I don’t
like
your family. They’re not getting any better, they’re getting
worse.
I’m supposed to spend the rest of my life in your haunted castle in Capitol Hill, full of gay, punk Gothic weirdos? I’d go crazy living with them! I like
you,
Gavin. I never liked your family.” Madeleine sighed. “And they don’t like me much, either.”

“My dad would get over that part. No man ever hates his grandkids. To tell the truth, I think my own mom and dad had a very similar story. It wasn’t easy that the Tremaine son-and-heir picked up some hippie drop-out chick to be his wife, but, you know, they
didn’t give up
, they made a go of their marriage! And here I am, I’m their son! That’s life! It’s just like John McCain said about Sarah Palin’s grandson! ‘Life happens.’ Life does! That was the best thing that John McCain ever said.”

“John McCain and his advisers betrayed and exploited Sarah Palin. You don’t know about that, but it’s all detailed in her book. I can lend that book to you. I underlined all the best parts.”

“Madeleine... please don’t do this to me. Please. Don’t abandon me. You don’t know what I’ll turn into... If I don’t have you to steady me out. To keep me happy. I’ve been happy with you. Really. We get along great. I don’t think we’ve ever had one really bad day.”

“We don’t fight,” said Madeleine.

“No. We don’t fight.”

“You’re such a sweet guy,” said Madeleine. “Very courtly. You’ve always remembered my birthday, and our first-date-iversary. All my friends envy me, about you. I don’t regret anything about you. We never had any problems.”

“Don’t, Madeleine.”

“I don’t have the time to get married,” said Madeleine. “I’m going to Wasilla.”

“You’re going to Carla Bruni’s home town? You actually
know
Carla Bruni? Already? Personally?”

“Her name is Sarah Palin,” said Madeleine, rolling her eyes. “And, of course, I know Sarah personally. My family were fund-raisers during the McCain campaign. We were Red Ribbon Pioneers.”

“Does Sarah Palin know that you’re broke now?”

“Now that,” said Madeleine, “was a very crude, tacky thing to say. Sarah Palin is a blue-collar, working class woman. Sarah doesn’t spend her whole life hanging out with Princeton-educated, limousine-liberals. Of course, I’ve met Sarah. It’s amazing how much Sarah has changed with the times, and grown as a national leader. Someday, Sarah Palin’s troops are going to run this country, just like Barry Goldwater’s did. Not because of money. Because of their passion.”

“I begged you to marry me, and you turned me down,” mourned Gavin.

“I didn’t say that.”

“You said ‘no.’ You said ‘no’, directly. Admit it, you did.”

“I changed my mind. It’s a woman’s prerogative to change her mind. If you love me — you will
follow me.
Gavin, you know so much about the Internet, and Sarah’s big on Facebook and Twitter! You can come and help out with Sarah’s campaign, and when our country’s on an even keel again... When I can see the real America when I look at the streets...
then
I’ll marry you. I’ll be happy to marry you.”

“You’re asking me to marry Sarah Palin? You are. What a strange and terrible fantasy.”

“Ha ha ha! You could dream, boy! Sarah’s
already
married, and he’s one heck of a guy! He’s funny, he’s charming, with a big sense of humor... He looks and talks like Clark Gable!”

Chapter Eighteen: Shadows of Flames

Farfalla was broke. It had happened just like that. Overnight, practically. She couldn’t understand it. All she had done was buy herself a bicycle, and a case of Nebbiolo, and a weekend trip to Geneva to see some World of Warcraft costume players. Those golden-brown fifty-euro notes had taken flight from her purse like so many clothes moths.

Farfalla was so broke that she was reduced to doing technical translations. Luckily, some lunatic had written in from Seattle, demanding that she translate some of Pancrazio’s circuit-design documents. Farfalla had never heard of this person, “Sally Scithers,” but she was willing to pay. Farfalla had done translation work in Seattle before. Seattleites always paid her. Being Americans, they paid on time, too.

She’d meant to ask Pancrazio about it, but when Pancrazio showed up in Ivrea, Pancrazio was busy being very Pancrazio. Pancrazio arrived from Brussels mid-morning, affectionately pinched her on the ass, demanded some lunch, ate it, had some hasty, gleeful sex with her, knocked back three cappucinos and charged into his lab to build robots. Or rather, the interfaces for someone else’s robots. Pancrazio was very big on building interfaces to things that might, or might not, exist, someday.

As usual, Pancrazio’s arrival in Ivrea was followed by a flood of packages. Everybody who used Pancrazio’s circuit boards wanted the great man to see what they had built. They sent their creations straight to Ivrea, as a cordial tribute to the world-famous electronics guru.

Those homemade things were generally crazy. Interactive goldfish bowls. Interactive flowerpots. Interactive joysticks for controlling toy airplanes. All kinds of airplane-control things.

Pancrazio’s geeks would rip these objects out of their package-service wrappers, and try to power them up and get them to function. Commonly, the gizmos didn’t work at all. Then, all the geeks would laugh mockingly. When the gizmos did work, all the geeks would laugh uproariously, and give each other high-fives. The geeks took pictures and videos of these rickety constructions, as they flew around the ceiling, and beeped and blooped, and rolled around on the floor. They uploaded the pictures to FlickR and Picasa and YouTube and Vimeo. So that everybody on the Internet could see.

The geeks were all going broke doing this. Nobody seemed to notice that. The geeks did not care. No, it was worse than that. To care for nothing was their Italian badge of honor. “I offer only hunger, thirst, forced marches, battles and death! Let him who loves his gizmos with his heart, and not merely with his lips, follow me!” Giuseppe Garibaldi said that. Except the part about the gizmos. That part was pure Pancrazio Pola.

In three days, Pancrazio had another conference on his calendar, and like that, he was gone again. Farfalla was just as broke as she had been before. More so.

So, Farfalla started translating the technical documents she found in Pancrazio’s files. Pancrazio had tons of these documents, because Pancrazio documented everything. It was much cheaper just to publish everything, and get famous, than it was to make some ridiculous fuss about how supposedly secret these technologies were.

There were tons of electronic documents on Pancrazio’s website that nobody ever read. Absolutely no one.

So, she chose to translate the documents read by no one. Documents with no readers at all. That would be a good lesson for somebody. At least it would pay.

Farfalla took some comfort in the brain-numbing work of technical translation. The pure drudgery of it hid her secret sorrows from herself. Translation work took up all of her brain. Not enough to brain left to think with. Or to feel with. Or to hurt with.

Until, a geek arrived and told her that package had arrived for her. This was not one of the hundreds of packages addressed to Pancrazio Pola. This package was addressed directly to her, Farfalla Corrado, care of Pancrazio’s factory.

What could this mystery package be? Farfalla never ordered anything on the Internet, because Pancrazio had cut up her credit-cards with tin shears. Farfalla had to stop work. She had unveil this package right away.

She found books inside the mystery package. Three novels by Princess Amelie Rives Troubetzkoy.

Three old books came from an Internet antique book-finding service. So the three books were wrapped up astight as bubble-packed mummies, but they were still very pretty.

Nobody made books like this any more. The books were a hundred years old, but they were still sturdy. The pages were sewn in signatures. The edges of the pages were marbled. The covers were made of gold-embossed leather. Their titles were
Shadows of Flames, Virginia of Virginia,
and
The Ghost Garden.

No return address, because Gavin Tremaine had never touched these books. But, he had sent the books to her by Internet. Books from that little adventure they’d had, down in the museum basement. Obviously, it was Gavin who had done it, even though, with gentlemanly modesty, he had left no trace of himself.

He hadn’t forgotten her.

Farfalla ran her hands wonderingly over the romance novels. Their once-bright, embossed surfaces gave off a fine but palpable dust. Look how ladylike and fancy these old-fashioned novels were. Somebody — (the princess-authoress herself, most likely) — had made a big fuss about making her books so fancy.

These books didn’t seem to belong in the world any more. They were unearthly books. They looked like they belonged in the boudoir of a drug-addled Southern aristocrat who had married a Russian-Italian prince.

Farfalla paged through the romance novels, to see if Gavin had enclosed some tender love-note for her. No. After the way they had parted in Capri, he would never, ever speak to her again.