“I’m very busy right now,” Stewart said from the phone. “Can’t this wait till tomorrow?”
“Hutchins stay here,” Ohghhifoehnnahigrheeh said. He slid open his door and ducked inside with the shopping bags and the tent before Chris could even get a glimpse of what was inside.
“Just a minute, Stewart,” Chris said, and pushed the hold button. “Mr. Hutchins, what is it you want with Mr. Ohghhifoehnn…” She had to stop and read from her hand. “Mr. Ohghhifoehnnahigrheeh?”
He twisted around to get a look at her hand. “Had to write it on there, huh?” he said. “I can’t pronounce it either, so I just call him Okeefenokee. And you can call me Pete.”
She closed her hand. “I don’t know what Mr.… he told you, but he doesn’t speak English very well, and…”
“I really appreciate Okee doing this. I just came up on the shuttle today, and I’m shot. So if you could just show me to my room…”
“Excuse me. Is this where the John is?” a woman with an elaborate topknot of brass-colored hair said. She was holding a skimpy hapi coat closed with one hand and carrying a makeup case. “The little kids said it was in here. I’m Charmaine. I just moved in. Top half of the stairs, but I don’t mind. The seventy percent gravity’s great for me in my job. And I’ve never seen so many cute guys in my life. Do you live here?” she said to Hutchins.
“Yes,” Hutchins said.
“No,” Chris said. “There’s been some misunderstanding.”
“About the John?” Charmaine said nervously. “Mr. Nagisha told me I had bathroom privileges.”
“No, I mean, you can use the bathroom, Charmaine. There isn’t anybody in there.” She turned back to Hutchins. “Mr. Hutchins, I don’t know what Mr. Ohghhifoehnn…”—she resisted the temptation to look at her hand—“…ackafee told you, but he sometimes has trouble understanding…”
“ ’Scuse me,” Charmaine said, and slithered past Hutchins, making no effort at all to stay away from him. “I gotto go do my makeup for my show. I’m a specialty dancer down at Luigi’s. You oughta come see me.” She waggled her fingers at him as she slid the bathroom door shut.
“Aren’t you off the phone yet?” Molly said from the doorway. She had her dimpled arms folded across her yellow-ducked middle and was tapping a black-patented foot. “My mother thayth to tell you that my agent hath very important newth. He’th thyure Thpielberg ith on Thony and…”
While she was talking, Bets was sidling past Molly and behind Hutchins, holding something behind her pink-sashed back. Chris reached around Hutchins and made a grab for it. She got hold of the curling iron by the cord and took it away from Bets.
“Electrical appliances are not allowed in the bathroom,” Chris said. She wrapped the cord around the curling iron and put it on top of the piano. “I told you last time I was going to take it away from you if it happened again. You’re supposed to use the outlets in Mr. Nagisha’s apartment.”
“We can’t use the ones in Mr. Nagisha’s apartment. He blew a fuse, and our agent’s calling us at eighteen o’clock!”
“Not on my phone he isn’t,” Chris said. “The phone! I forgot all about Stewart.” She punched the reinstate button, wondering if he’d already hung up. Hutchins and the little girls backed up as the holo-image spread, but they were still in the way. Hutchins seemed to be standing in the middle of Stewart’s desk. Molly and Bets’s face were covered with blurry brown. Chris hit the flat-image button, and Stewart retreated to the screen. “I’m sorry, Stewart,” she said.
He was writing busily. “Can this wait till tomorrow, Chris?” he said without looking up. “We’ll have lunch and you can tell me all about it. The Garden of Meditation. In the ginza. Thirteen-thirty.”
Hutchins was watching the screen. “All right, Stewart, but…” Chris said.
“Till then just go along with whatever Ohghhifoehnnahigrheeh says. The negotiations are at a very delicate stage. Anything could break them off. Let him do anything he wants. I love you, darling. See you tomorrow,” he said, still without looking up, and blanked the screen before Chris had a chance to say anything.
Hutchins was looking at her curiously. “Who is that guy?” he said.
“He’s my fiancé,” Chris said. Molly had climbed up on the piano bench and was kneeling on the keyboard, trying to reach the curling iron. Chris grabbed it away from her and put it behind her back.
“You better give my curling iron back!” Bets said. “I’m going to tell my mother you stole it.”
“Out,” she said. She escorted both of them out of her apartment, slid the door shut, and went into the living room. She lifted up the pile of folded blankets on the end of the couch and stuck the curling iron under it.
“You’re really engaged to that guy on the phone?” Hutchins said, leaning against the door, his hands in his jeans pockets.
“Yes,” she said, straightening back up. “Why?”
“Because ‘let him do anything he wants,’ covers a lot of territory. What if Okee decided he wanted to carry you off with him to Eahrohhsani, or wherever it is they came from, and make you his bride?”
“Mr. Ohghhifoehnn… he is a very nice man. Alien. Eahrohh. And he would not…”
“Earrose. They drop an e and add some h’s to make it plural.”
“Earrose. Mr. Hutchins, I don’t care what Mr.… he told you. You can’t stay here. There isn’t any space. The landlord has people living on the stairs.”
“Hutchins stay here,” Ohghhifoehnnahigrheeh said. He peeked around Hutchins and then disappeared back into the hall.
Chris went after him.
“Tall,” he said, smiling and nodding. “High ceilings. Stay here.”
“But there isn’t any space. Mr. Ohghhifoehnnah… where will he sleep?”
“My room.” He took hold of the handlebars of the bike and started pulling it toward his door. Chris backed up against the piano to get out of the way of the handlebars. “I keep in here. Lots of space.”
“ ’Scuse me,” Charmaine said brightly. She had put on her makeup, but not where Chris had expected it. She had the hapi coat draped over her arm.
“Where exactly do you work?” Chris said.
“Luigi’s Tempura Pizzeria and Sutorippu. That means strip show. I’m in the Fan Tan Fannie number,” she said. She turned around.
“I can see that,” Chris said.
“Cute idea, huh?” she said. “I just love my fans.”
“So do I,” Hutchins said.
Charmaine started edging out of the hall, this time trying hard not to touch Hutchins for fear of smearing her makeup. Ohghhifoehnnahigrheeh went on tugging at the bicycle. Chris tried to turn around to get out from the piano so Charmaine could get past and found herself nose to nose with Hutchins. She backed into the piano. The keys made a crash of noise as her open hands hit them. “Listen,” Hutchins said, taking a step toward her, and towering over her. He really was tall. “In all seriousness, there’s obviously been a mix-up. I met Okee on the bullet, and he said he’d sublet half of his room to me, and I said okay. I’d just gotten in on the shuttle, and I guess I wasn’t thinking clearly. I felt like hell.”
He rubbed his hand across his forehead. He did look tired. Chris remembered what she had felt like when she came up on the shuttle. Everyone had kept telling her how lucky she was not to be nauseated, but she hadn’t felt lucky. She’d felt bone-tired, so weary she had burst into tears at the thought of getting through customs, even in the zero gravity of Sony’s axis.
“As a matter of fact, I still feel like hell,” he said.
“It’s shuttle-lag,” Chris said. “Aspirin helps. And vitamin A.” She didn’t say he should be glad he wasn’t the kind to get nauseated. “And you should get some sleep.”
“Sleep,” he said, leaning against the piano. “You wouldn’t know of any good hotels, would you?”
She shook her head. “There’s only one hotel on Sony, and it’s full of Eahrohhs. So’s everything else. There are over four hundred of them, you know.”
“Four hundred,” he said, looking at Ohghhifoehnnahigrheeh, who had gotten the handlebars and the front wheel turned around so the bike wouldn’t budge. Hutchins helped him straighten it out. “Where are they putting them all?”
“All over. The officials, the headmen or chiefs or whatever you call them, and all the translators are staying at NASA. They’re negotiating a treaty. They’re going to give us a space program.”