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Fahrenheit or Centigrade?
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Date Posted: 23:40:00 03/25/01 Sun
In reply to:
BonnieBo
's message, "Bolt From the Blue" on 22:53:55 03/23/01 Fri
Nikita sat back and stared at the man. She couldn't help it. There was something about that soft certain way he'd spoken His voice penetrated through the ideas and things-to-remember orbiting around her head, and branded right into some private quivery part of her. For a long moment, she couldn't move, couldn't think. She felt just about as useless as a cross-thread screw. All she could do was stare at him and notice strange things: his ratty black scarf, the little scar just above his unbuttoned white collar, and the way the sun made the tips of his long hair seem almost red-gold.
Nikita kept staring at him, and all of a sudden, she was reminded of how Bubbe always warned her not to stare directly at the sun because it would burn her eyes and she'd never be able to see the same way again. Listening to this man was just like that. She didn't feel quite the same way any more. No, she felt funny and shaky inside like she'd had accidentally zapped herself with too much high voltage. Afterwards, there was that same dizziness, that aura of being there and being nowhere all at the same time. Of course, this could just be an anomaly. Anomalies happened.
But maybe (if she was being completely scientifically rigorous about this)... maybe this was real. Maybe she'd been breathing too fast and made herself tizzy. Or maybe it was carbon monoxide from the fire. It had to be that. Stuff! She always felt this way after a fire. She told herself that at least twice even though deep down, she knew that wasn't true. She had never felt quite this way before. She didn't like it. She didn't like it at all.
Say something. Anything. Don't be such a dumb widget.And as she struggled for a moment, all those useless conversational phrases she'd practiced with Miss Madeline floated around her head like annoying cobwebs - sticky but insubstantial. She couldn't bring herself to comment on their unseasonably lovely weather. She just couldn't. Nikita felt stupid and out-of-sorts, all discombobulated like a bunch of spare parts thrown into a crate. She felt at a complete disadvantage with this stranger. Friends, family, the townfolk, she knew how to handle. But him ... what made him so special? Who was he, anyway, and why was he here? There had to be a reason, some perfectly logical reason ... Then she got it. That had to be it. She snapped her fingers. "Well, are you the new delivery boy from the Golden Sheaf Bakery? We always get two cottage loaves on Monday. And don't try selling us that healthy Kellogg bread. Healthy, my foot! Those big clumps of chewy things always stick in your teeth. The last guy talked Bubbe into it, and it was horrible. Gut-busting horrible. We just want plain bread, thank you very much. That's it. Deliveries to the main house up the road, not way back here."
"I am not the baker," the man said gravely. "And today is not Monday. It's Thursday."
"Oh. So who gives a flip? It's all the same to me, give or take a couple of days. Days of the week don't require exact calibration because nothing much changes around here. It never does. So tell me, if you're not the delivery boy, then who are you? No one really comes this far out of town, at least not since Izzy went on her trip, and Marcus ... well, he doesn't count. He's such a pest. You could hardly call hima caller ... which reminds me, I figured something out for him. More capacitance. I must make a note of that, only youdon't have a pencil. That's really very annoying. If I don't write it down, I'm sure to forget it. Hertz help me. All I can do is die trying."
Shrugging to herself, she saw that the green-eyed stranger looked a little lost. He kept glancing back and forth from her to the tree behind her as if he needed to fix on some stationary object. "Oh, are you confused? You doknow who Hertz is."
"Waves. The electromagnetic kind."
She smiled brightly. "Well, go to the head of the class! Good for you. That's more than most people know. Then if it's not Hertz confusing you, it must be me. I must be confusing you. You know, I seem to have that effect on people. Or else it could be the fumes. I was working with a new solvent." She waited for him to say something, but he didn't. And when he didn't reply, she knew he must have an awful headache. He must be hurting something bad. Sometimes pain made you silent. Sympathetically, she squeezed his arm. "I amsorry. Don't worry. Those chemical headaches usually wear off in a few hours or so. Usually. Although once I had one that lasted for a week. But something went boom. I couldn't hear right either. So that was a little different. Never mind. It wasn't the same at all. Do you want some aspirin?"
His lips parted, then suddenly pressed together again. Another second passed before at last he said, "I'm fine."
"Good. I'd hate to think Imade you sick, not matter how indirectly. Well, let's see. Where were we? I was trying to figure out who you were since you're not volunteering the data. You don't talk much, do you? This is fun. Like playing Twenty Questions. Animal, Vegetable, or Mineral." She laughed suddenly. "But if you don't say something soon, I'll think you're a vegetable." She tapped one dusty finger against her chin and looked him over again. Now that she was looking closer, she could see that his shirt wasn't polka-dotted like some dandy's, but old white and splattered with oil. And the bottom of his face and his hands were faintly gray as if that same oil had been hastily wiped off. She recognized it immediately, because she often looked that way herself. That thick motor oil was the very devil to get off. Until recently, that is. She'd made up a special soap just for that problem, and it worked pretty well, if she did say so herself. The secret ingredient was tallow. Tallow and anise. Maybe she could sell him a tin of it. "I know. You're pretty grubby. Maybe you sell machinery. What are you selling?"
She looked around them and didn't see anything except for the old elm trees and the dirt tracks cutting through the wide waving fields. "And if you're selling, where's your wagon? I don't buy anything sight unseen, and definitely nothing stolen. Last week a tinker sold me a carburetor that used to belong to Mr. Smith's old car, so I was out four bits. Plus I had to fix that car in the bargain. Well, I didn't mind that too much, only Mr. Smith went on and on about he didn't want any of my infernal modifications. As if! He should be so lucky. It's fine with me if he only gets ten miles to the gallon. Just fine. Anyway, so don't sell me anything stolen. Don't even think about it."
"I won't," said the man, raising his right palm as if he was making a pledge.
"Good. I can't abide liars."
"Yes. But I am not a tinker."
"You're not?" She huffed a breath, blowing out her bangs. Impatient with her slowness, she frowned. "Okay, okay. I'm stumped. You've got me. I usually get it within a few steps. It's all logic, you know. The old cogit tabe ne.It's something with machines though. I'm sure. Even your fingernails are grimy. See, like mine." She grabbed his hand and held it next to hers: his long elegant fingers against her sturdy square ones. Side by side, they looked like a complementary set. Their dirty cuticles matched, and she felt the same calluses ridging his palm along hers. There was even that same funny knob around the base of his pinky where the Winkel spanner always rubbed. Why, she had it too.
Without even thinking, she gripped him even tighter as if her body was trying to confirm something by getting better information about him. His hand felt warm. And for some reason, she couldn't tell exactly how warm, and any thought of Fahrenheit, centigrade or otherwise fled her mind. His hand seemed to grow warmer. Too warm. Hot. She dropped it immediately.
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