“They’re home!” Hutchins said. “We can’t let him find us in here!” He dashed back into the aisle of boxes. Chris scrambled to pick up the bento-bako boxes and stack them on the bed again. Hutchins jammed the golf clubs back into the bag and came to help her.
“I gotta be at work at nineteen o’clock, Mr. Fenokee,” Charmaine said, sounding so close she could have been using a subvocalizer. “We better get all this stuff put away.”
Chris and Hutchins dived out the door and slid the shojii screen shut. “Where’s the key?” he said.
Chris pulled it out of her pocket and fumbled to lock the door. The lock seemed to take forever to read the key. She pulled it out.
“Can you get the door, please, Molly?” Charmaine said, there was a long pause, and the door of the apartment slid open. Chris put her hands behind her back.
“ ’Scuse me,” Charmaine said. She was carrying an unsteady stack of boxes and a shopping bag. Hutchins took half of the boxes for her. “Gee, thanks. Would you believe that rotten kid wouldn’t even open the door for me? She said after tonight she was going to be a star and wouldn’t have to do anything anybody told her.” She bent over in her red strapless dress to put the rest of the boxes down.
“Where’s Mr. Okeefenokee?” Chris said.
“He stopped to talk to my ex-boyfriend,” she said. “Look, I gotta be at work in half an hour, and I don’t even have my cherry blossoms on yet, so could you guys help put this stuff away?”
“Sure,” Hutchins said. Charmaine grabbed a small sack out of the shopping bag and disappeared into the bathroom.
“Chris,” Hutchins said. Chris pretended not to hear him. She put the key in her pocket and started for her room.
“Did you take our chip recorder?” Bets said indignantly from the door. She was wearing an aproned blue dress. Her yellow curls peeked out from under a turned-up Dutch cap. “It had ‘Tiptoe Through the Tulips’ on it.” She stamped her wooden shoe. “You better give it back.”
“I don’t have it,” Chris said, and amazingly, Bets turned around and stomped out. Chris heard her say loudly, “She says she doesn’t have it, but I’ll bet she took it. She’s always doing mean things like that to us.”
“Chris, listen,” Hutchms said, putting out his hand to keep her from passing. “I should have told you the truth to begin with.”
“Yes,” she said. “You should have.”
“The first thing I heard you say to Stewart was that you didn’t have any room for the piano.” He looked thoughtfully at Mr. Okeefenokee’s door. “I didn’t see the piano in there, did you?”
“No,” Chris said. “So you figured if I didn’t have room for a piano, I certainly wouldn’t have room for you, and you were going to have to romance the landlady into giving you a place to sleep. So you fell asleep on my shoulder and brought me Charmaine’s shoes and fed me a tempura dog.”
“Now you and Hutchins get married,” Mr. Okeefenokee said, carrying two shopping bags full of boxes and Mitsukoshi sacks. His wispy orange-pink hair was flying out in all directions. “Go on hahnahmoon.”
“Mr. Okeefenokee, I thought I explained…,” Chris said.
“We’re thyure you took it,” Molly said, with her hands on the hips of her Dutch dress. “If you don’t give it back, we’re going to tell our interviewer all the thingth you did.”
“Fine. Mr. Okeefenokee,” she said again, but he had already disappeared through his door.
“I hope we didn’t miss any bento-bako boxes,” Hutchins whispered to her. The door slid open and Mr. Okeefenokee emerged, picked up the packages Charmaine had left on the floor, and disappeared into the room again.
“You’ll be thorry you were mean to uth.” Molly slid the apartment door shut with a crash, and Chris and Hutchins were abruptly alone.
“Thanks for not spilling the beans to Okee,” Hutchins said.
“What would you have done if I’d tried? Bought me another tempura dog? Fallen asleep on my shoulder again? You’re no better than Charmaine’s prospective buyer, you know that? Talk about your real-estate deals.”
“What do you think of my cherry blossoms?” Charmaine said, emerging from the bathroom with the red dress over her arm. “Do you think that pink’s too dark?” She peered over her shoulder. “It always looks different on your—”
“It looks fine,” Chris said.
“Omiko said to tell you guys to come to the show tonight, and she’ll see that Mr. Fenokee catches her orbiting colonies’ tassels,” she said, and clattered out. Chris watched her red high heels.
(Chris, listen, I wasn’t romancing you for a place to sleep,) Hutchins said in her ear. (I was—)
She turned around furiously, yanked the receiver off her ear, and handed it to him. “It doesn’t matter,” she said, fishing her subvocalizer out of her pocket and putting it in his outstretched hand. “You can stay. I won’t tell Mr. Okeefenokee who you are. Just leave me alone.” She pulled the door of her apartment open. “I’ll go ask Charmaine if I can bunk with her tonight.”
“You don’t have to do that,” Hutchins said, looking down at the subvocalizer in his hand. “I’ll sleep in the bathroom,” but she went on out anyway, slamming shut the sliding door with almost as much force as Molly.
Charmaine had already left. She tried to catch her, brushing past Molly and Bets, who stopped in the middle of singing “Tiptoe Through the Tulips” to glare at her from the landing, and practically stepping on the old man in the baseball cap, who was, amazingly, sleeping through it, but by the time she got to the door, Charmaine had already disappeared into the crowd.
She came back up the stairs. Molly and Bets stopped for her again, folding their arms and tapping their wooden shoes impatiently, and then started up again as soon as she was off the landing, singing their own accompaniment in piping, slightly flat voices. Hutchins was at the end of the hall, talking earnestly to Charmaine’s lawyer and frowning.
Chris slid her door open. “Why did you refuse to sublet your apartment to Molly and Bets?” the redheaded man said. He stuck a chip-cam in her face. She tried to brush past him. “So you admit you refused to share your apartment with two innocent tykes and then blatantly rented half of it to—”
She got the door shut with some difficulty since his foot was wedged in it, went in the living room and shut and locked that door, too, and then leaned against it, feeling as tired as if she had just come up on the shuttle.
Chris spent the evening huddled on the couch under a blanket.
“I brought you some supper,” Hutchins called through the door about nineteen o’clock. “No tempura dogs. I’ll leave it outside the door.”
Chris opened the door. “I’ve changed my mind,” she said, not looking at him. “I’m sleeping in here. You can sleep with Charmaine,” and then was afraid he would say, “I don’t want to sleep with Charmaine. I want to sleep with you,” but he only said, “I’ll sleep in the hall,” and handed her a pastrami sandwich and a packet of milk.
He knocked again at twenty-thirty and called out, “Molly and Bets’s interview is on. Mr. Nagisha’s got his TV set up on the landing. The little girls told me to tell you because, and I quote, ‘Thith ith what thyee getth for thtealing our recorder.’ I thought maybe you might want to come see what revenge they’ve cooked up.”
“No, thank you.”
“Okay,” he said, and knocked again immediately.
“Go away,” Chris said.
“You and Hutchins get married tonight,” Mr. Okeefenokee said. “I must talk to you about closing.”
She opened the door. Mr. Okeefenokee came in, wearing his solemn expression. “Why are you not wearing your thuwevrherrnghladdis?”