Florrie brought her hand down fast and slapped his forearm, surprisingly hard.
11OW-F,
"Don't you laugh at me!"
"What'd you do that for? And I wasn't laughing at you, I was just-"
"Don't change the subject!"
"What is the subject?"
"You toyed with Fox's affections and then you broke her heart."
"Now wait a minute-"
"You counseled her-"
"Counseled her! Christ on a couch, I listened to her bitch about her family!"
"And you let her sit in on your seminars-"
Stephen Thomas tried to think of a seminar Fox had sat in on. The impromptu discussion on the hillside? Not that it made any difference.
"I let anybody sit in on my seminars. That's what seminars are for. You sit in on my seminars."
"Don't patronize me!"
She raised her hand.
Stephen Thomas lifted both arms to ward off the blow he expected.
"Don't hit me again!"
"Why shouldn't IT' Florrie clenched her fragile fist. "Because you're too good for anybody to touch you?"
"Because it hurts!"
The rest of the company had tried hard to pretend nothing unpleasant was going on. This was too much; they had to notice. When the hush fell, Victoria glanced inside. A moment later she and Satoshi were hurrying across the room.
"Florrie, stop it!" Satoshi said. He got between her and Stephen Thomas without actually shouldering the old woman aside.
"Aunt Florrie, what are you doing?" Fox was still carrying the two glasses of beer, but her hands shook. Foam dribbled down the sides of the glasses and splatted on the floor.
"I'm giving Mister Stephen Thomas Gregory a piece of my mind, that's what." "You're making a spectacle of yourself, Ms. Brown." Victoria's calm voice held the coolness that meant fury.
"Florrie, how could you?" Fox cried. "I told you what I told vou because . . . because
"I thought you wanted my help!"
"I only wanted you to listen. What could you do to help? He already said no!"
"Sometimes . . ." Florrie's voice faltered for the first time. "Sometimes people say it and don't mean it."
"I don't say it unless I do mean it," Stephen Thomas said. "Fox, I thought you understood that you shouldn't take it personally-"
"Personally? Why should I take it personally? All you did was tell me to fuck off and die!"
"I told you I don't sleep with graduate students."
"And now I'm being humiliated in public-"
"Not by me!"
Tears streamed down her face. She looked around, distraught, at her fellow students, and her major professor, and her professor's partners, one of whom she loved.
Lehua tried to change the subject. "About time to pack this party in," she said. People began to edge toward the door.
"Don't anybody leave on my account," Fox said.
As Fox turned to flee, Florrie snatched at her arm.
"Fox, my dear, let me-"
Fox turned back angrily, trying to speak. The beer sloshed out of the glass in her free hand and splashed down the front of Florrie's black tunic. Florrie gasped and stepped away. The glass slipped out of Fox's hand and shattered on the floor, gouging the smooth rock foam. Droplets spattered on Stephen Thomas's bare calf.
Fox looked at Florrie, looked at the broken glass, looked at the full glass in her other hand. It was as if nothing she could do could possibly make things any worse. Stephen Thomas saw it coming, and did not move.
Fox splashed the second glass of beer in his face, flung the mug on the floor, and fled to the explosion of shattering glass.
"Are just going to let her run out of here?"
Florrie sounded so mad that Stephen Thomas had no idea whether she meant someone should go after Fox to comfort her, or go after her to berate her for bad manners.
Stephen Thomas started to rise, painfully. Cold beer dripped down his front and plastered his silk T-shirt and his running shorts to his body. "I guess-- "
"Don't, you're barefoot!" Satoshi said. "There's glass all over."
"I don't think it's a good idea for you to go," Victoria said.
"So you'll just let the child run all alone into the dark-"
"Ms. Brown," Victoria said patiently, "there aren't any wolves out there."
"This is no time for humor. You're a very cruel young woman."
Victoria turned her back on Florrie Brown. "Satoshi?"
Satoshi had already started for the door. "I'll try to find her. I wish I knew if she's even speaking to me. . . .
"I'll go with you," J.D. said.
"Thanks."
Stephen Thomas sagged gratefully back into the squeaky bamboo chair, surrounded by shards of broken glass. What he would have said to Fox, if he found her, he had no idea. He was damned if he would apologize for doing what he thought was right.
J.D. and Satoshi and Zev crossed the yard. Starfarer's bright night turned the blossoms in the grass and on the banks to pale shadows on dark shadows. J.D. hesitated at the break in the garden wall. Satoshi stopped beside her. "Any idea where she might've gone?"
"Home, I guess," Satoshi said. "I don't know." He sounded resigned. "She didn't exactly tell me her secrets. She kind of gave up on me when I couldn't get her a waiver to come on the expedition."
"I didn't think anybody under age got one."
"Nobody did."
"I did," Zev said.
"Chandra invented you a new name and a new occupation and a new family, and changed your subspecies!" Satoshi said. "If she didn't add five years to your age, too, she's not as smart as I thought she was."
"Oh," Zev said. "Yes. She probably did that too."
"Fox's family's so wealthy," J.D. said. "And so powerful . . . She's probably used to getting her own way. Except about the expedition."
"And Stephen Thomas."
"And Stephen Thomas." J.D. knew more or less
how Fox felt, though she had not compounded her problem by telling Stephen Thomas. Or Florrie Brown.
"We'd better try her house-"
"She's over there," Zev said. He pointed.
"Are you sure?"
"I can hear her."
They went with him down the path.
"She's crying," Zev said.
"Fox?" J.D. called softly.
She heard no answer, but a moment later someone came toward them through the darkness.
One of Stephen Thomas's grad students-J.D. tried in vain to remember his name-appeared from between the small young trees. J.D. had met him at the party, but she had not seen him follow Fox.
"She doesn't much want to see anybody," he said apologetically.
"I'm worried about her, Mitch," Satoshi said.
"Yeah, she's pretty upset. Embarrassed, mostly."
Satoshi hesitated. "I'd better talk to her."
"I'll stay with her. She'll be okay, honest. I promise."
"I'm sure that's true," Satoshi said, "but I still have to talk to her." Satoshi stepped around Mitch and entered the deep shadow of the tree. Fox sat against its spindly roots, her head buried against her folded arms. "Fox." Satoshi knelt beside her.
She raised her head. Her face was blotched and tearstreaked.
"You're not speaking to me," she said.
"Of course I am. You haven't made it easy, though, the last few days."
"I didn't want her to do anything!" Fox exclaimed. "I just wanted to .
. . to tell somebody how I felt."
"I know."
"I really do love him." She stopped, as if she had just realized who she had said that to. "I'm sorry, but I do."
"I know you do," he said. "It's . . . hard not to."
She smiled, shakily. "You're so lucky. You and Victoria."
Satoshi turned the conversation away from the partnership, back to Fox. "Please try to understand how he feels about what you offered him. He won't-he can't-accept."
"He told me why, but it doesn't make sense. He didn't ask me-and there weren't any conditions!"