=========================================================================== Archivist note: Kellie Matthews-Simmon's email address is now matthewk@ucsu.colorado.edu =========================================================================== From JULIA@Jetson.UH.EDU Mon Aug 30 14:32:38 1993 Return-Path: Received: from orion.cis.ksu.edu by depot.cis.ksu.edu ESMTP (8.5) id OAA05541; Mon, 30 Aug 1993 14:32:36 -0500 From: JULIA@Jetson.UH.EDU Received: from Rosie.UH.EDU by orion.cis.ksu.edu SMTP (8.3) id OAA06824; Mon, 30 Aug 1993 14:10:18 -0500 Received: from Jetson.UH.EDU by Jetson.UH.EDU (PMDF V4.2-11 #3125) id <01H2CXU468R48Y5XMR@Jetson.UH.EDU>; Mon, 30 Aug 1993 14:08:36 CDT Date: Mon, 30 Aug 1993 14:08:36 -0500 (CDT) Subject: A'la Q, Part 1, by Kellie Matthews-Simmons & Julia Kosatka To: jfy@cis.ksu.edu Message-id: <01H2CXU471OY8Y5XMR@Jetson.UH.EDU> X-VMS-To: @ARCHIVE MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Status: O While this story contains a small amount of PG-13 Sex, we do not consider it to be the main focus of the story. If there isn't enough sex in it for you, go read Points of View, or The Delightful Education of Julian Bashir. :-) If sex in a Trek story offends you, have one of your more open-minded friends read it first and black out all the good parts! Other than that, it is a Star Trek: The Next Generation story, and it violates all kinds of copyright laws, so you shouldn't be reading it anyway! :-) Paramount had nothing whatsoever to do with this story, other than by hiring actors and writers to create some of the characters in the first place. Many thanks to our technical advisors Sandra Guzdek and Janis Cortese, without whom certain things celsius and metric would have been hopelessly incorrect. Thanks also to Sandra Guzdek for invaluable editing help. Any remaining errors are ours alone. c. 1993 by Julia Kosatka and Kellie Matthews-Simmons jkosatka@jetson.uh.edu // matthews_k@cubldr.colorado.edu ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A la Q (or,"You Want Fries With That?") Kellie Matthews-Simmons & Julia Kosatka "Q!" Jean-Luc roared, looking around desperately. "Damn it, Q, where *are* you?" He stood in the middle of a road, a level black surface that was slightly sticky in the heat, stretching off into the distance in both directions, its surface broken only by a dashed line of orange-yellow paint. Surrounding him was a wide expanse of what appeared to be corn fields. The blue sky above was cloudless, and the sun beat down with merciless intensity. The humidity was so high that the lightweight blue shirt with which Q had replaced his uniform tunic was already damp with sweat. His legs were encased in a trousers of a similar, though heavier fabric. The trousers looked worn, the dye faded almost white in spots. Q was nowhere to be seen. He sighed. It was a typically Q maneuver, to spirit him off somewhere to prove a point. He wasn't precisely sure what the point was, but he was sure he'd find out. Their argument had concerned the nature of work. It had to have *something* to do with that. He wondered where the hell he was. The blue sky and corn could easily mean Earth, but it could just as easily be somewhere else. The yellow- striped road rang bells too. He chuckled, realizing what his subconscious was trying to remind him of. The yellow brick road from a classic children's story. He had read it, and seen both of the famous film versions as well. "Damn!" he muttered, realizing that most likely Q had no intention of responding. "What is it you're after, Q? There's no need for these constant games! I have no intention of performing for you!" Behind him, Jean-Luc heard a low rumbling. He turned to see a vehicle of some sort rapidly approaching on the road. He quickly stepped out of the way, coughing as the machine roared past in a rush of hot foul air and dry dust. He stared after it, startled, realizing that the thing was bigger than a shuttle. As he stared, it emitted a loud screeching sound and slowed to a halt. Then it backed up toward him. He took another step back, wondering if it was trying to hit him, then a part of it swung outward and a human man peered out from inside. His face was weathered, but his brown eyes bright and friendly. "Hey! Wha'chew doin' out in the middle uh bumfuck nowhere? Nearest town's twenty miles from here! You wanna lift? Apparently he was being offered transportation to the nearest outpost of civilization. For a moment he was torn. If he moved from his present position there was no way his crew would be able to find him. On the other hand, there was no guarantee that they'd be able to in any case. Q probably hadn't left them a map, and he'd be dehydrated in a matter of hours at this rate. He nodded. "I would appreciate that, thank you." The man did a double take, eyes widening, then he grinned. "Yew're a long way from home, ain'tcha?" Picard smiled. No matter how one looked at it, that was no more than the simple truth. "Yes. As a matter of fact, I am." "Yew a limey?" "A... limey?" "English, yew know." That placed him. He had to be on Earth. That was some relief, at least. He shook his head. "No, actually, I'm from France." "Don't sound French," his rescuer said dubiously. "I learned to speak English from an Englishman. No doubt I picked up some of his accent." "Oh. Well, come around an' climb in. I got a schedule, y'know." Picard circled around the vehicle, noticing there were yellow letters stenciled on the green-painted sides of the conveyance. They read "Mayflower." He recognized the name; if he recalled his history correctly, the Mayflower had been a ship which had transported religious dissidents from England to North America in the latter's colonial period. Below the word Mayflower, was a smaller legend in yellow, reading "Coast to Coast." Neither of those facts were particularly helpful to him, however he spotted a small rectangular plaque at the rear of the vehicle which was more enlightening. It bore a series of large letters and numerals, and another set of much smaller letters read "Oklahoma is OK." A small sticker in the lower right hand corner of the plaque read "DEC" and a similar one on the left said "91." He was fairly certain now that he was somewhere in North America; and just as certain that Q had displaced him not only in space, but in time as well. "Yew git lost?" the driver called, voice barely carrying above the noise of the idling internal combustion engine. Aware that his ride might well depart without him, he found the door, pulled himself up into the cabin of the vehicle and seated himself. Instant relief from the heat flowed over him in a cold stream from air vents in the cabin. A quick look around showed various gauges, and a steering device shaped like a wheel. The man looked at him questioningly, obviously wondering about his delay. "Sorry, I was... admiring your vehicle." That earned him a broad smile. "Hell, she ain't no 'veehicle,' she's an eighteen wheeler, 'member that! But she is somethin' ain't she? She'll do a hunnerd up Vail Pass with a full load... if the cops ain't lookin' o' course!" He seemed to want a response. Picard smiled and nodded. "Of course. That's quite... impressive." "Sure as hell is!" He stuck out his hand. "Name's Nate Barker, what's yours?" Picard shook his hand, feeling the rough edges of callus in the man's broad palm. "Ca... Jean-Luc Picard." "Well, Cajun Luke, nice ta meetcha," he surveyed Picard curiously for a moment, then frowned. "Where's yer stuff?" "My stuff?" "Ain'tcha got a pack or sumpthin'? Changea clothes?" Stuff was apparently synonymous with luggage. He shook his head, hoping he looked appropriately forlorn. "I... lost it." Barker looked at him for a long moment, then scowled. "Somebody give ya a lift then take off with yer stuff?" Thievery seemed like a more logical explanation than carelessness, so he nodded. Barker's scowl grew fiercer. "Happens alla time. Damn shame, treatin' furriners like that. Gives 'murricans a bad name. Well, let me tell ya, *I* ain't like that!" "I can see that," Picard hastened to reassure him. Barker reached behind the seat, pulled something out from behind it, and brandished it at Picard. "Here, this'll come in handy when yer hitchin'. "'T'hout a hat the sun'll fry ya faster than a lizard on a griddle." Contemplating that unpleasant image, Picard took the object. It was a billed cap the front of which was made of some spongy material, the back formed of some plastic-feeling mesh. It was green, and bore the same yellow lettering as the sign on the truck, but in addition this one also said "Barker Trucking, Midland, OK." The words were followed by a string of 11 digits, some of which were contained in parentheses, the rest connected by a hyphen. "I can't take this..." he began, only to have the other man interrupt. "Sure y'can. Got a hunnerd of 'em. Advertisin' y'know." "Advertising?" "Yep. People see that, and know t' call me if they need a rig." "Of course," Picard acknowledged, only half-understanding, though the flattened vowels, nasal consonants and clipped endings of the man's speech were becoming more intelligible as time went on. "Thank you, it will be... handy." Barker nodded dismissingly. "No problem, Luke." He moved the large lever between them forward and the "rig" began to move forward, slowly at first, then with increasing speed. After a few moments Picard guessed they were traveling well over a hundred kilometers an hour. He wondered if that was what Barker had meant when he said the truck would do "over a hundred up Vail pass." Apparently satisfied with the vehicle's velocity, Barker reached behind the seat again and opened a small blue container with the word 'Igloo' embossed on the lid. He rummaged around inside it for a moment and then came up with two bottles containing a chartreuse liquid. "Here y'go." Barker handed one of the bottles, dripping with cold water to Jean-Luc. "That sun'll take it out of 'ya, that's fer dang shure. Yew spend much time in this here part a th' country, yew'll learn. Yew gotta keep drinkin'. Ah recall a fella ah knowed once who dropped dead one day of a stroke. Doc says it was the see-gars, but I say it was de-hi-drashun. Lessee, it wuz Jake Sanchez down in El Paso. No, wait a bit. That wuz Carlos I knowed down there. Jake was the fella from Dur-ango. He was a caution, wuz that one..." Jean-Luc tried not to smile as he let Barker's voice fade into the background. He recognized the type and knew that all that was required of him was to look interested and nod once in a while. He turned his attention to the bottle his host handed him. He *was* thirsty, but now that he'd discovered where and when he was, what little he remembered about the dietary habits of this culture was not encouraging. The bottle's seal broke with a simple twist of the wrist and he cautiously sniffed the contents. It smelled unlike anything he'd ever encountered before, but didn't smell like alcohol, which is what he'd feared. For all of Barker's concern about 'de-hi-drashun,' Jean-Luc wasn't sure how much he knew about how to prevent it. Barker was obviously enjoying his drink with no apparent side-effects and even managed to drink and swallow with barely a pause in his monologue. He took a cautious sip. Sweet, almost overwhelmingly so, and after that he noticed a distinct lime taste. There was an undercurrent of something else, but mostly it was cold, wet and surprisingly refreshing. He drank down half the bottle before stopping to look at the label. It was something called 'Gatorade,' and boasted that it replaced lost electrolytes. He was surprised. Apparently Barker was more sophisticated than he looked. He couldn't help noticing that one of the primary ingredients in the mixture was glucose syrup solids, and farther on it listed sodium saccharine. No wonder the stuff was so sweet! His attention was pulled back to Barker. "So, how'd ya get the moniker Cajun Luke? Ya spend some time down t' Louisiana? Or is it 'cause yer French?" Picard rapidly searched his memory. Louisiana had once been a French colony. That made a certain amount of sense. He nodded, unwilling to disabuse Barker of the error in his name. He might have to come up with an explanation as to why he had almost prefaced his name with the title 'captain.' He managed to dredge up the name of a city in Louisiana. "I spent time in New Orleans." "Thought as much. Yew got any cash, or did they get that too?" Cash... that one he knew. Money. He shook his head. "No, I haven't any money." "Figgered as much. Here..." he let go of the wheel with both hands and started digging in his pocket. Picard watched in alarm as the truck headed for the side of the road. He was about to reach for the wheel himself when Barker used an elbow to straighten out the massive vehicle's trajectory with a grin. "Sorry, din't mean t' scare ya." Still searching his pockets he finally pulled out a wadded up piece of greenish paper which he handed to Picard, who took it, studying it curiously, fairly certain it was some sort of currency. "It's only a five, but it's all I can spare. It'll buy ya lunch, and maybe a snack later if you're careful." Immediately Picard tried to hand it back to him. "I couldn't possibly accept this!" "Course ya can! Don't want 'chew ta think all 'murrican's'r thieves. I'll drop you at the Double R in Ridge. Rena, she owns the diner there now that her folks is gone, she can prob'ly find yew a job so's you can earn enough to get back on yer feet. There's 'most always some kinda short-timer job around for a man who ain't afraid t' work. This time'a year there's harvest work, if nuthin' else." Somewhat reluctantly Picard pocketed the bill. "Thank you, you've been more than kind. I don't know that I will be able to repay you." Barker seemed embarrassed, and waved a hand as if shooing off flies. "Aw, don't mention it. Jus' think o' me as one o' them there Good Sam's. Allus liked that story." Good Sam? Picard didn't recognize the allusion, but got the general idea. He smiled. "Well, thank you again." "T'weren't nuthin'. I like ta think some soul might do the same fer me, someday. There's Ridge up ahead, ain't nuthin' but a wide spot in the road anymore, since The Bust back in eighty-two." "The bust?" "You know, the big crash. Oil industry went t'hell in a handbasket." "Ah, right." It was difficult to pretend he knew what the man was talking about. There were so many little economic crises in history that had been called virtually the same thing, and it had been years since he'd thought about 20th Century world history. He needed to find a library, hopefully Ridge would have one. Barker had slowed down a bit on approaching the town, and it did look rather like a wide spot in the road. A few large buildings lined either side of the road; a cluster of eerily alike houses surrounding them. It was as if they'd all been cut from dough with a cookie cutter. Many of them appeared abandoned, with broken windows, and yards overgrown with weeds. The occasional swathe of bright green, carefully manicured lawn made fairly obvious which houses were occupied, and which were not. One building near the edge of town had a tall, circular tower next to it. The sign in front read "CO-OP," which told him nothing. He wondered what function it served. A church, perhaps? He recalled that the United States in the early to mid 1900's had been quite fixated on religion. "The Double R's on the far end o' town, though that ain't s'far from the near end," Barker chuckled, pleased with his joke. "Anyhow, I'll drop y' there. Ask fer Rena Taylor if y'decide y'wanta earn a couple bucks afore y' move on. She'll know if anybody's hirin'." "You're not going to come in?" Picard asked, oddly ill at ease with the thought of begging work from a total stranger. "Nope, caint. Had a breakdown two days back an' I gotta make up the time. Schedules'r'hell, dontcha know? 'Specially furniture. People get right nasty if you ain't on time with their stuff." Picard tried not to stare at him blankly, but he had absolutely no idea what furniture had to do with being on a schedule. He nodded. "Yes, it's always difficult to maintain a schedule, especially if you've had mechanical difficulties." "Shed-yool?" Barker asked, raising his busy gray brows. "Oh, y' mean *sked-yool* dontcha?" He grinned, and winked. "I think Rena's gonna like you. She's got a University degree! She's a good girl, comin' home t' help her folks out before they passed on." After a moment, Picard puzzled that out to mean that the woman's parents had died. The percentage of colloquialisms in Barker's speech was truly daunting. As they drove through the small town, Picard noticed that several of the storefronts lining the street were empty, with "for rent" signs in them. It was a rather depressing sight. Obviously the town was on its last legs. He had read about the economic depression rampant in the late twentieth century, but it had never been brought home quite so forcefully before. He was seeing history alive. Despite his irritation with Q's interference, he had to admit to a certain exhilaration at seeing the past so close. Not as an archaeologist or historian, from a distance, but close, personal, real. Barker slowed the truck to a crawl, and gestured to the right. "There she is, the Double R Diner. Best eats between Lake Charles and Houston." The building was unprepossessing. A small, two-story rectangle, probably no more than a hundred to a hundred and fifty square meters per level. It was built of blonde brick and wood, and the front of the lower level consisted almost entirely of windows, which were shaded by a worn-looking green cloth awning. Several trucks similar in size to Barker's, as well as numerous smaller ground vehicles were parked in a large graveled lot off to one side. Large trees shaded the rear and the well-tended lawn on the other side of the building, and flowers in large wooden tubs along the walk softened the spartan exterior. A slightly faded sign above the door announced the name of the establishment. Barker brought the truck to a stop next to the walkway. "Here y'go, Luke. Hope yer trip gets better from here on out." "So do I, Mr. Barker. Thank you again for your kindness. I'll try to leave a repayment of your loan here for you when I depart, since you seem to frequent the area." "Nate, call me Nate, an' don't worry none about payin' me back. What goes around comes around. Don't fergit, ask fer Rena Taylor." "I won't." Picard shook the man's hand, and exited the vehicle. The heat struck him like a blast furnace, he felt sweat forming in just the few seconds he had been out of the truck. He returned Barker's wave as he pulled away, then turned and walked into the building. Wonderfully cool air swept over him as he entered the diner, and brought with it an incredible co-mingling of scents. He realized suddenly that he was hungry. A long counter ran the length of the room, and every stool at the counter was filled. Freestanding tables dotted the central area and booths lined the windowed wall. He guessed the room would have a total capacity of about a hundred and fifty, and it was about half filled at the moment. A rather heavily-made-up young blonde woman in her early twenties looked up from pouring a glass of water, and smiled. "Be right with ya." He nodded, and waited. Moments later she put down the pitcher and came around the end of the counter. He was a bit surprised to see that she was in a rather advanced stage of pregnancy. Her smile was cheerful, though, as she pulled a plasticized folder from a holder on the wall by the door and looked at him attentively. "How many t'day, sir?" she queried. Her accent was similar to Barker's in some ways, but softer, rounder, less nasal. He found himself smiling back at her. A large badge pinned to the pocket of her blouse read "Sueann," apparently to encourage customers to call her by name. "Just one, thank you." Sueann's eyes got wide, and she put a hand against her throat. "Why, don't ya'll have jus' th' nicest accent? You must be English!" He almost smiled, thinking of Nate Barker's similar comment, and shook his head. "No, I'm not, but I learned English from an Englishman." "Oh, well that explains it then, don't it? Anyplace special you'd like to sit?" "Ah... would there be alright?" He pointed to an unoccupied booth in the back of the room next to the doors he assumed led to the kitchen area. No one sat in the booth next to it, or at the closest table, giving him a bit of privacy. Sueann nodded. "That's jus' fine." she led the way to the table, then handed him the plasticized folder. Once he had taken a seat, she ceremoniously placed a paper placemat and a thick cloth napkin rolled around a set of slightly beaten-up stainless steel utensils on the table. "There y'go. I'll be back to take your order in two shakes. Y'all want coffee?" Though his usual choice of beverage was tea, the coffee had been tantalizing him with its aroma since he entered the diner. He nodded. "Cream with that?" "No, thank you, black." "You got it, hon." Sueann waddled off toward the counter again. The folder bore the legend "MENU" in large block capitals on the front. He opened it and perused the contents. After a few moments he had recalled another fact about the twentieth century. Heart disease had been rampant, and the menu made at least part of the reason for that quite apparent. Nearly every item on it contained vast amounts of cholesterol. Eggs, bacon, red meat, fried foods, butter, cream. An amazingly deadly array of culinary delights. He studied the prices, and realized that stretching the five dollars Barker had given him to include more than one meal would be difficult. If Q was serious about leaving him here, he would definitely have to find gainful employment, and soon. Sueann returned with his coffee, and he ordered a cup of soup, which she assured him was made from "scratch" (which he hoped wasn't as awful as it sounded), and a salad. As she turned to go, he stopped her. "You wouldn't happen to have a..." he groped a moment for the word he wanted, then found it. "...a newspaper would you?" "You want the Ridge Star, or the Houston Chronicle?" "I wouldn't mind looking at both, if that's possible." "Well, the Star's free right now, but you'd have to wrestle Larry Cox for the Chronicle. I 'magine he'll be done soon, though, he just reads it for the sports, the comics and Dear Abby. 'Course, he'd never admit that last one!" She giggled. "Anyhow, I'll snag it for you as soon as it's free, and bring the Star with your salad. How's that?" "That would be fine, thank you." As she turned to go, he noticed a ring of discolored skin around her arm just above the elbow, and frowned. It looked as if someone had grabbed her there, leaving bruises. He realized as she walked away, that he could see a trace of bruising along one cheek as well, though it was mostly hidden by the heavy makeup she wore, probably with the intent of concealing the bruises. He watched her for a few moments, noticing that though she appeared bright and cheerful most of the time, when she thought no one was watching her expression became rather depressed. Another woman came through the kitchen doors, this one a small brunette in her early to mid thirties. She carried a deep tub into which she placed dirty dishes gathered from the various tables. He found his attention diverted from the blonde. She was quite attractive. Her figure was softly curved in all the right places. He had to admit that the close-fitting blue canvas trousers that virtually everyone wore served to emphasize certain portions of female anatomy quite nicely. He suspected they probably did the same for men. The woman's dark brown hair was cut quite short, and curled in soft ringlets around her face. Her mouth was generous, her eyes large and almond-shaped, her nose straight. But quite apart from her attractiveness, she had an indefinable intensity about her that intrigued him. She seemed to stop and speak to everyone at least once, and as she passed Sueann she patted her shoulder encouragingly. Picard was fairly certain that she was the woman he'd been instructed to speak to about a job. She looked altogether too busy at the moment to approach, but he resolved to wait it out. It was several minutes before Sueann came back with his food, and a thin sheaf of folded paper. She set the two bowls down carefully and placed the paper to one side with a smile. "There y'go. Enjoy!" "Thank you, I'm sure I will." He regarded the food for a moment, half expecting it to look different from what he was used to. It didn't. There were several types of greens, in the salad. He recognized spinach and romaine, but a third variety he didn't know. Carrot wheels and shreds of purple cabbage ornamented the plate, as well as several small pear-shaped yellow tomatoes and sliced cucumber. He picked up his fork, stabbed a leaf of lettuce from the plate, and bit into it tentatively. It tasted good, far better than he had expected, somehow having prejudged the century as having bad food. The dressing was some creamy white stuff that tasted vaguely of buttermilk. He'd had worse in his own time. Encouraged, he tried the soup, which was a surprise. It was superb, a rich clear broth that tasted strongly of chicken and herbs, and just a hint of white wine. Lengths of pasta that were obviously hand-cut, judging from their irregular thicknesses, and large chunks of various vegetables enlivened the broth. He discovered a little plastic packet containing two thin crackers tucked under the edge of the bowl, and even they weren't half bad. So much for his 24th Century gastronomic prejudices, he acknowledged ruefully, wondering what other preconceived notions would have to go by the wayside. He finished his food rather more quickly than he should have, pushed the dishes aside, and picked up the paper. The date in the upper left corner of the header was September 10, 1991. In the upper right, he discovered where he was; Ridge, Texas. That told him enough to place him in the southwestern United States, though not enough to fully satisfy his curiosity. He paged through the eight sheets of print quickly, learning that several young people from the community had recently gone off to college, someone had sold a "prize steer" for a large sum of money, and a local woman had won a contest at a state fair with her apple pie. Apparently the local paper was geared more to subjects of interest to the native populace than to world events. He also noticed a large advertisement for a "going out of business sale" at a local women's clothing shop, and a long list of bank foreclosures. The town was obviously in trouble. "Excuse me..." Jean-Luc looked up to find a man standing next to the table, a much thicker sheaf of papers held carefully in gnarled hands. He was a lean, brown man with thick white hair, blue eyes, and a face lined and worn from the years of exposure to the elements. He smiled tentatively. "Sueann said you wanted t'see the Chronicle once I was done. Well, I'm done now, so here y'go." Jean-Luc accepted the paper, trying not to stare at the man's hands. It took him a moment to realize what he was seeing. Arthritis. The man had arthritis in his hands, the deterioration making them knotty, and painfully curved. He had studied ancient skeletons so afflicted in his archaeology and anthropology courses, but had never seen a living person actually stricken with the disease before. Realizing he had almost let the pause go on too long, he quickly spoke. "Thank you, very much. I appreciate your bringing it over." The man waved a hand at him with a grin. "Oh, pshaw, t'weren't nothin'. Say, are you from England? I was there once, when I was a kid, fightin' in The War." Picard stifled a sigh. Three. That made three people who'd asked him that already. What was it with these people? He forced a smile, since the elderly gentleman was obviously well intentioned. "No, sir, I'm not British, I'm French, but I have been told that my accent is more British. Probably due to the gentleman from whom I learned to speak English." "Ah, well, that explains it, then, don't it? I was in France too, y'know, and Belgium. We were all over the place, makin' sure them Jerry's didn't win the war." Picard suddenly realized the man was referring to World War Two. He sat up straighter, intrigued. He was actually speaking to someone who fought in one of the most famous of Earth's myriad wars! As a young man he had visited many of the sites where famous battles had been fought, and also the museums of the concentration camps where so many had died. "You fought in World War Two?" he queried, realizing his voice sounded somewhat amazed. The other man nodded, a grin lighting his weathered face as he realized that Picard was actually interested. "I sure did! Why I remember..." "Dad?" They both looked at the woman who had interrupted him. She was a thin woman in her mid-forties, and she had the largest hair Picard had ever seen. Her bright yellow-blonde hair had been teased and lacquered into a virtual helmet of hair. She had a slightly patronizing expression on her face as she laid a hand on the older man's sleeve. "Come on, Dad, we need to go," she turned to Picard apologetically. "I'm sorry, he does tend to go on, sometimes!" The man's face fell, his disappointment obvious. Picard felt a touch of annoyance at the woman's attitude. "I *was* interested in what he had to say." "Well, that's right nice of you to say so, but we really do need to go." Her father nodded forlornly, his shoulders sagging. Picard stood, and held out his hand. "I am honored to have met you sir, and wish we could have had a chance to talk longer." The man straightened, and put his hand in Picard's, his grip surprisingly firm, considering his affliction. He shot a glance at his daughter, and his expression was almost merry. "Thank you, son, it's nice to have met you too. The name's Cox, by the way, Larry Cox." Picard nodded, "I'm Jean-Luc Picard." "Well, you have a nice day, Mr. Picard," Cox said, ignoring the tug on his sleeve. "And enjoy the paper." "I will, thank you sir." Cox shrugged off his daughter's hand and preceded her from the diner, his bearing regal. Picard sat back down, but not before he noticed the brunette with the dish-tub watching the two leave with a half-smile on her face. After they were gone she turned and looked at Picard, and nodded at him approvingly before disappearing back into the back room. He smiled to himself as he picked up the larger paper. It never hurt to make a good impression on someone you were going to have to ask a favor of. His glance flickered across the page and stopped, his attention riveted by the words in bold typeface on a small square of blue color near the bottom of the page. "Are we having fun yet, Mon Capitain?" The words were spoken as well, just behind him, in a soft, mocking voice that he knew all too well. "Q!" he hissed, as he turned and stood simultaneously, banging his knees painfully on the edge of the table in the process, only to find there was no one there, not a soul. Several people looked up from their meals, obviously wondering what he was doing. Embarrassed he sat back down and studied the paper intently, as much to close out any stares as for any more literary reason. The sentence which had caught his eye was gone, the blue square where it had been now listed the average monthly rainfall and temperatures for the city of Houston. It had definitely not been there before. Q was up to his tricks. In a way it was reassuring. He had begun to wonder when the entity would pop up again. Apparently whatever he was supposed to be doing was progressing as Q wished. ### From JULIA@Jetson.UH.EDU Mon Aug 30 14:32:41 1993 Return-Path: Received: from orion.cis.ksu.edu by depot.cis.ksu.edu ESMTP (8.5) id OAA05550; Mon, 30 Aug 1993 14:32:39 -0500 From: JULIA@Jetson.UH.EDU Received: from Rosie.UH.EDU by orion.cis.ksu.edu SMTP (8.3) id OAA06829; Mon, 30 Aug 1993 14:10:33 -0500 Received: from Jetson.UH.EDU by Jetson.UH.EDU (PMDF V4.2-11 #3125) id <01H2CXVUGZKM8Y5XMR@Jetson.UH.EDU>; Mon, 30 Aug 1993 14:08:55 CDT Date: Mon, 30 Aug 1993 14:08:55 -0500 (CDT) Subject: A'la Q, Part 2, by Kellie Matthews-Simmons & Julia Kosatka To: jfy@cis.ksu.edu Message-id: <01H2CXVUGZKO8Y5XMR@Jetson.UH.EDU> X-VMS-To: @ARCHIVE MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Status: O When Picard looked up from the paper again, the restaurant was deserted save for himself, which seemed odd, since only a few minutes earlier it had been packed. He glanced at the clock, which told him it was fifteen minutes after one. He signaled the waitress, and she came over with the coffee pot in her hand. "'Nother refill for you there?" "No, thank you, I've finished. I was wondering if I could speak to a woman named Rena Taylor. I was told she might be able to assist me." "Sure thing, hon." Sueann half-turned away, and yelled "REEEENA! SOMEBODY TO SEE YOU!" Picard winced, but since there was no one else in the restaurant it didn't disturb anyone. A few moments later the kitchen doors swung open to admit the petite brunette. She was drying her hands on a towel tucked into the waistband of her trousers, and she approached with a slightly distracted air. Reaching the table she touched the waitress on the shoulder. "Thanks, Sueann. Would you mind asking Billy Ray to clean the grill before he gets started on dinner prep?" "No problem, Reenie," she winked at her employer and lumbered off to set down the coffee pot before entering the kitchen. Picard watched her, wondering it was wise for her to be working such a physically demanding job when she was obviously close to term. The other woman's low, pleasant voice pulled his attention to hers. He noticed her voice was less heavily accented than most he had so far encountered. She really was quite attractive, he noticed again. Her expression was frankly curious as she regarded him. "Hi, I'm Rena Taylor, what can I do for you?" "Nate Barker told me you might know where I could possibly find short- term employment around here. Is that true?" "Well, Mr...." she paused, obviously waiting for him to supply his name. "Picard. Jean-Luc Picard, and no, I'm not English, I'm French." he said, forestalling the inevitable. "However my language instructor was English and apparently I picked up his accent." She stared at him a moment, then started to smile, after a few seconds the smile became a giggle, which she tried to hide behind one hand while she waved the other one in the air, apparently asking him to wait on her recovery. Finally she got herself under control. "I'm so sorry, really, it's just there this commercial... oh, never mind. I take it you've already been quizzed about your accent a few times?" He wondered what a commercial was, and why it would cause her to laugh, apparently at his name. Then he realized what he'd done, and felt a slight flush color his face. "Ah, yes, I have been asked about it several times already. Really, I feel I should apologize as well, I shouldn't have assumed you were going to ask me that." She smiled. "Well, I probably would have, eventually, so there's no need to apologize. Well met, Mr. Picard. You were saying you wanted a job? I'm afraid I don't..." A loud crashing noise and a cry of pain spun both of them toward the kitchen. "Damn it," Rena swore, fists clenching, as it became apparent that Sueann was crying, and fighting with someone in the back. Without a word to him she took off across the restaurant like an avenging Fury, despite her lack of stature. "Billy-Ray Wheeler! Damn you, I thought I told you never to lay a hand on her again!" Picard hesitated for a moment, then followed her. Old habits die hard. The scene in the kitchen shocked him. Sueann was cowering in a corner, a towel held to her bloody nose, and a huge, literally huge young man towered over her. He was every bit as big as Worf. He had blonde hair cut in quarter- inch bristles, and a sunburned face, currently twisted into a vicious scowl. "Oh yeah?" he snarled, sarcastically. "Who's gonna make me?" Rena picked up a knife from a counter, holding it slightly awkwardly. The expression on her face was chilling. Utter determination. "I will if I have to, Billy-Ray." The hulk grinned. "Come on then, give it a try, missy." Rena took a step forward. Picard was getting angry. It was obvious that neither woman was trained in combat, and the man was easily twice their size. Not only that, but Sueann was pregnant enough that if he knocked her to the floor, or against one of the counters, she could be severely injured. He decided it was time to intervene, and moved between the would-be combatants. "Hey!" Billy-Ray said, focusing on Picard. "What do *you* want, shrimp?" The epithet took him back years, to Robert and his best friend taunting him. Remembered anger augmented current, but he strove for calm. "Don't you think you should stop this before someone gets seriously hurt?" Billy-Ray's pale blue eyes widened, showing bloodshot whites. This close Jean-Luc could smell the stale reek of alcohol, and some other repulsive odor he couldn't at first identify, though he knew he'd smelled it before. "Oooh! Well ain't you fancy! I'm sooo scared!" Billy-Ray's tone was clearly mocking. Picard's jaw tightened, but he refused to give in to the urge to wipe the floor with the young man. "Why don't you go outside and cool off for a few moments?" "Why don't I just git you out of the way and let Miss Rena finish what she started?" Billy-Ray growled, lunging for Picard's shirt to yank him closer. He never touched it. Picard locked his hand around the other man's arm, found the leverage point, and used Billy-Ray's momentum to throw him over his shoulder to the floor. In mid-motion, he remembered that Rena was directly behind him, and twisted to one side to make certain Billy-Ray didn't land on her, or the knife she held. He felt muscles protest, and knew that he was going to regret that move. Billy-Ray slammed into the floor with a crash, and lay there, stunned. Picard spun to face him, in a defensive stance. "Would you care to try that again?" Picard inquired quietly. Billy-Ray stared at him for a moment, then his face darkened and he rolled to his feet, moving quickly for such a large man. Fists clenched, he lashed out, but Picard avoided him easily. He was big, and fairly fast, but he had absolutely no idea how to fight. Unfortunately, he didn't seem to know that. He kept trying. Picard kept avoiding him. Finally, tired of the game, Jean-Luc realized his opponent was not going to stop until he had to. He executed a quick series of an-jitsu moves that left Billy-Ray dazed on the floor, with a bloody nose to match the one he'd given Sueann, a cut eyebrow, and possibly a bruised rib or two. He lay there, clutching his side and groaning loudly. Rena and Sueann stared at Picard, openmouthed, then Rena quietly put the knife back on the cutting board, and put her hands on her hips. "Get up, and get out, Billy-Ray You're fired. Send your brother tomorrow and I'll give him your pay, in cash, but you are never to set foot in here again! You hear me? If I see you within a hundred feet of the Double R, I'll call Sheriff Kulik and file assault charges so fast it'll make your head spin!" Billy-Ray stopped moaning and looked up, his expression almost comically surprised. "Fired?" "You heard me! Now move your sorry ass outta here!" "But, I'm hurt...," he complained. "And who's fault is that? You always were dumber than the north end of a southbound mule! I've had it! You're history!" He got slowly to his knees, then stood, wiping the blood off his face with his sleeve. Then he scowled, and turned to look at Sueann, his eyes narrowed. "Come on, Sueann, you heard her." Rena seemed to gain stature as she bridled angrily. "Oh no you don't! Sueann, you stay right where you are. Don't you dare move an inch! You may have the world's worst taste in men, but we both know you're not stupid. If you stay with Billy-Ray, one of these day's he's gonna kill you." "But what about the baby?" Sueann asked in a quavery voice, hand curved protectively over her belly. "What about it? You want him to kill it too?" Sueann flinched. Picard felt extremely uncomfortable, realizing he had intruded into something intensely personal. Billy Ray clenched his fists, then shot a glance at Picard and let them open again. He gave an exaggerated shrug. "It's not like it's mine," he said flippantly. "Why should I care?" Sueann began crying again, burying her face in the bloody towel. Rena stepped over to her and put an arm around her, patting her hair as if she were a child. "Sueann, you know I'll help you, I told you I would. You don't need Billy-Ray. You don't even need me, really, you just need to learn to believe in yourself." Sueann made some muffled response, and Rena seemed satisfied. With her arm still around the younger woman, she looked back at Billy-Ray. "Go on, get out." He glared at her for a long moment, then finally yanked off the dirty apron he wore, threw it on the floor, and stomped out. The only sound in the room for several seconds was the slightly tinny music coming from a small black box on a shelf near the door, then Rena broke the quiet. "Suanne, I want you to go upstairs and lie down for a bit, alright? Is your nose broken? Do I need to call Dr. Lacey and get you an appointment?" Suanne shook her head, and wiped her eyes with a clean corner of the towel. "No, it's ok. He didn't break it this time. I'll just go lie down, like you said." "Good girl, go on now." Rena watched her go, then ran a hand through her hair, looking around the kitchen. Picard recognized her mood, he'd felt it too many times to not know it. There was no name for it, but it loosely translated to "I'm in charge of this, and what the hell do I do now?" He found himself smiling sympathetically. She looked back at him and caught it, and smiled back, ruefully. "Well, you've had quite an introduction to Ridge, haven't you?" "You could say that," he rubbed his shoulder, feeling the ache of strained muscles. He didn't think they were torn, but he had definitely damaged them. Rena noted the gesture, and her expression immediately became concerned. "Are you alright? I didn't think he touched you..." "He didn't, but I went into that throw wrong, and I'm afraid I'm going to regret it." She studied him a moment, then smiled and shook her head. "You know, I've never seen anyone do anything like that outside of a movie before. I don't suppose you could teach me?" Picard shook his head. "It takes years of study, and I don't think I'm going to be around long enough." "Ah well, c'est la vie." He brightened. "Parlez-vous francaise?" She laughed. "Oh, no. I had some French in high school, but I've forgotten almost all of it, sorry. I just know a few standard phrases that everyone knows. You know... deja vu, c'est la vie, ou est la toilette, that sort of thing." He couldn't help laughing in return. "That is a rather eclectic assortment of phrases, you know." "I know," she looked around the room again, and sighed. "I guess I'd better get started on dinner prep, since it looks like I'm going to be doing the cooking again." Suddenly she looked back at him, her eyes narrowed speculatively. "You asked me if I knew of any jobs locally, didn't you?" "I did. I'm afraid I'm stranded." After a moment's consideration he decided to tell her the story Barker had assumed, slightly modified. "I was travelling with some friends, and we became separated, then my pack was stolen. I have the clothes on my back, a bit over a dollar in cash after I pay for my lunch, and a pair of willing hands." She looked appropriately distressed. "I'm so sorry! That's terrible!" Then she bit her lip, hesitated a moment, and plunged ahead. "I don't suppose you can cook? It seems I suddenly have an opening..." she let the sentence trail off, gazing at him hopefully. He stared back at her, trying not to grin at the idea. It was utterly ridiculous. Totally preposterous. But, he was surprised to find he was actually considering it. "I... well. Not like this," he gestured around the kitchen. "I learned to cook as a child, of course. Maman made sure of that," he smiled, remembering. "She said no self-respecting Frenchman should neglect that part of his education. But I've never cooked for more than a small dinner party, and even that I haven't done in years." "It's like riding a bicycle... you never really forget. And as for this type of short-order cooking, I could teach you. I just can't manage everything myself, and if you'd be willing to help me out for a week or two until I can hire a real cook, I would... well, I'd pay you, and on top of that I'd be eternally grateful!" "I..." he almost accepted, then realized he couldn't make that kind of promise. He had no idea what Q would do next, or when. "I'd like to, but I don't know how long I will be able to stay." "Then just until you have to leave, however long that is." He considered. She looked so hopeful... "Please?" she prompted. "I'm afraid I'm desperate! And if Billy-Ray comes back..." Again she failed to finish her sentence, but the implication was obvious. Somehow she had managed to say the exact thing guaranteed to push his acceptance. He was about to say yes, when she upped the ante. "You'll need a place to stay, I have two spare rooms upstairs, and you're welcome to one." He sighed. "I do need work, and a place to stay. I'll give it a try, but I can't guarantee I'll be any good at it." She grinned broadly, knowing she'd won. "I'll accept that, but you look like the kind of man who's good at whatever he sets his mind to." He smiled back. "Not *everything,* no, but most things." "Name one thing you haven't been able to master," she challenged him, crossing her arms over her chest and leaning back against the counter. He barely had to think about it. "Painting." She looked startled. "Painting? As in art, not houses?" He nodded. She lifted a hand and tapped her lower lip with a finger, then shook her head. "You surprised me with that one, Mr. Picard. That's not an answer I would have expected from your average hitchhiker. So, you've actually tried?" "Oh, yes, much to the amusement of my cr... friends." He barely caught himself on that one. Crew he would have had to explain. She smiled again, "Well, the fact that you've at least tried puts you ahead of most people. Have we got a deal?" He nodded. "We do." "Good," she held out her hand. He clasped hers, and they shook hands. He was surprised at the firmness of her grip. She had big hands for a small woman, strong hands. As she let go, she chuckled softly, and shook a finger at him. "You, Mr. Picard, are far too trusting. You never asked me *how much* I was going to be paying you." He lifted an eyebrow at her. "And you, Ms. Taylor, are also a bit on the trusting side, to be letting a man you met ten minutes ago share a room in your house." She cocked her head to one side and studied him, her green eyes bright and amused. Her gaze swept down him, back up, and then held his own eyes for a moment before she replied. "True, true, though it's been at least fifteen minutes. But not only did Nate Barker send you here, I pride myself on being a pretty good judge of character as well." "As do I." "We're even then. You'll acquit me of being a skinflint and I'll acquit you of being a serial killer, ok? Now, let's get to work." "On one condition." "That being?" "You must stop calling me Mr. Picard. I keep looking around for my father." Not to mention feeling like a lieutenant again, he thought to himself. He wasn't sure which was worse. "What shall I call you then?" "Jean-Luc." She grinned, and shook her head. "I'm not sure I can do it without laughing, and I doubt anyone else around here will make the effort. How about Luke?" There she went again, laughing at his name. He was beginning to feel a bit offended. "Luke would be fine, but would you please tell me what you find so amusing about my name?" "It's hard to explain. Have you watched much tv since you came to the U.S.?" "Teevee?" "You know, television, surely even the French call it tv." Television... that was an early broadcast entertainment medium. "Oh, of course. No, I can honestly say I haven't watched any television since arriving here." "Well, then you won't have seen it. You'll catch it one of these days, and you'll understand. But if I'm to call you Luke, you've got to call me Rena, not Ms. Taylor, right? I don't like sounding like my mother any more than you like sounding like your father, I suspect." "As you wish. What should I do?" She pointed at a large appliance which gaped open, exposing rows of dishes. utensils, and assorted pots and pans. "You can start by helping me load the dishwasher. We've got to get lunch cleaned up before we start on dinner." "Show me what to do, and I'll do it." ### Nine hours later, he was almost regretting having accepted her offer. He couldn't remember the last time he'd felt so tired. His feet hurt, his back hurt, he felt like he was covered with a thin layer of grease, on top of that his shoulder ached from his encounter with Billy-Ray, and he had an assortment of little nicks and burns on his hands. He had, however, gained a vast feeling of respect for Rena Taylor. From what he had learned from the talkative Sueann, she had been running the place almost single-handedly for two years. Billy-Ray had been a new addition, hired to help out when Sueann's pregnancy became enough advanced that Rena had needed to help with the wait duties. There had been another waitress for awhile, but she had decided to move to Houston, where there were more opportunities. Since then the Double R had been operating with a staff of three. He didn't see how they did it day in and day out, especially not Sueann. She said she was only seven and a half months along, but she looked a lot closer to term than that. Of course he was judging that from his experience with Elines' two pregnancies, and since that entire incident had taken place in his mind, in reality he knew little about pregnancy. He was putting another load of dishes into the dishwasher when Rena came in from the dining room, rubbing her forehead, looking every bit as exhausted as he felt. She leaned against the door of the big walk-in refrigerator for a moment, then straightened. "I've got to run Sueann home in the pickup, I'll be back in about ten minutes. I'll show you where you're staying as soon as I get back." He nodded, and she grabbed a set of keys off a hook by the door and left. He finished with the dishes, wiped down the counters, then tossed his apron and several dirty towels in the big cloth basket near the back door. For a moment he stood looking outside through the narrow window in the door. It seemed quite bright, the moon was about three-quarters full, so he opened the door and walked out into the night. It was still quite warm, though not blast-furnace hot as it had been at noon. He guessed that the temperature was still close to twenty-five. For ten-o-clock at night, that was pretty hot. No wonder these people used their air-cooling units constantly. He wished he had a map, so he could figure out exactly where he was. He knew *when* he was, and he had a general idea of where, but he wanted more exact information than that. Perhaps Rena would have an atlas he could borrow. He noticed a small building nestled in the trees. Almost a shed, but better constructed. The monotonous hum of an air-conditioner told him it couldn't be just a storage unit. No one would waste the cooling on that. He wandered over to investigate it. It was small, about three meters square, and had a large window high on one side, as well as a skylight. He couldn't really see inside, and the door was padlocked, but he got the impression of a work surface, and several amorphous shapes shrouded in white. It was obviously a workshop of some kind. He heard a vehicle enter the parking lot, gravel crunching beneath its wheels. The engine stopped, and a door opened. Guessing it was Rena, he walked around to that side of the building and stopped, watching her. She was standing beside her 'pickup.' The door was open, and her folded arms were rested on the sill of the open window as she stared at the restaurant. Her expression was bleak and drawn. He took a step toward her, wanting to offer help, then stopped. It was none of his business. But, that was just a meaningless phrase, wasn't it? Twice today people who shouldn't care a thing about him had offered him assistance without hesitation. He moved into the circle of light thrown by one of the tall lamps in the lot. "Can I help?" She turned quickly, with a gasp, obviously startled, then relaxed when she saw who it was, and shook her head. "No, I'm fine. I was just... missing the stars." His gaze narrowed, wondering just what she meant by that. "Having grown up here, I never realized what I was missing until I moved to Santa Fe. You can really see the stars there, even the Milky Way. Down here you never can, too much humidity I guess. I look up, and I can't see the stars. It reminds me of things... oh, you don't want to hear this. It's just... I get a little down sometimes." "I would like to hear, if you want to talk about it." he prompted, taking a page from Counselor Troi's book. Usually he hated being asked that, but it seemed to fit at the moment. Rena closed the door of the vehicle and stepped away from it, toward him. "It's nothing you can help." "Sometimes talking helps, even if it offers no immediate solutions." She sighed, and ran her fingers through her hair, a gesture she made frequently, then rubbed her hand down her neck, obviously massaging sore muscles there. He waited, and after a moment she shrugged. "Oh, hell, why not? Did we throw out the coffee yet, or have we still got some?" "I think I threw it out, but I could brew more," he offered, the coffeemaker being one of the few things he'd mastered. That, and the dishwasher. She shook her head. "No, that's ok. I don't need all that caffeine. Let me nuke some water and fix a cup of tea. Would you like one?" "I would, thank you." Together they walked back into the restaurant. Rena locked the front door behind them, and turned out all the lights except those in the kitchen area. She filled two cups with water and set them on the turntable in the microwave, then opened a cupboard to display an assortment of boxes and tins, then turned to him with a smile. "This is my secret vice. No one around here drinks anything but Lipton, but when I lived in Santa Fe I got to be a bit of a tea snob. Of course, if I was a *real* tea snob I wouldn't be nuking the water, but you have to make concessions to practicality sometimes. What would you like?" He scanned the labels, and smiled. Several of his own favorite teas were among the choices. Lapsang Souchong, Gunpowder Green... Earl Grey. He went for the familiar. "The Earl Grey, please." She nodded and pulled down that tin, then chose something called Tranquilitea for herself. She measured a spoonful of the Earl Grey into an infuser and unwrapped one of the small filter bags of her own blend, just as the microwave beeped. Pulling the cups out she set the teas to brewing and leaned back against the counter. "Y'know," she said, looking authoritative. "You shouldn't drink Earl Grey if you're going to be out in the sun much. The bergamot oil in it can make you photosensitive." "I'll keep that in mind," he said solemnly, hiding a smile. For just a moment she had reminded him of Bev Crusher. That made him wonder when Q was going to tire of the game and send him home. He was a bit surprised that the entity hadn't yet made a real appearance to taunt him. Rena picked up one of the little plastic bears whose presence on the supply shelf had puzzled him. Pulling off its little red "hat" she upended it over her cup and squeezed. Slowly a thin stream of amber fluid drizzled from it. He stared at it, wondering what it was, and why she was putting it in her tea. She saw his expression and laughed. "It's just honey, Luke! What did you think it was?" "I had no idea. Ah... why do you keep honey in a container shaped like a bear?" She regarded him blankly for a moment, the frowned thoughtfully "You know, I've never thought about it before. We've just always done it. It never occurred to me to wonder why." "Then I suppose I'm just going to have to go curious." "I guess so... oh! Of course!" A big grin spread over her face. "Winnie the Pooh!" "Winnie the what?" He asked, not sure he'd heard her correctly. "The Pooh! Don't tell me they don't read Winnie the Pooh to little French children! What a loss! I have a copy you can borrow if you like. I even have the Disney version on video." "It's a children's story, then?" "A classic of children's literature, you really must read it!" "If you say so." "I do, come on upstairs, I've got to get off my feet, and so do you. We can talk in the living room." ### He followed her up a set of narrow stairs through he door at the top, which opened into a small sitting room. All the furniture was nondescript, but comfortable-looking. An art-nouveau style stained-glass lamp cast a warm glow over the couch. Three of the walls held built-in book shelves, all of which were full. Nearly every other available surface was taken up with what appeared to be a collection of sculpture. He stopped and studied the one nearest to him, a small cold-cast bronze bust of an older woman's head and shoulders. She looked somehow familiar to him, which was impossible, of course. The work was very good, the detail exquisite. She almost looked as if she might speak. He looked at the one next to it, a tree. The style was quite different, almost abstract, the finger marks quite visible, yet somehow it was reminiscent of the first. Another life study of a young man sat just behind those two. He looked up at Rena and found her watching him with a very peculiar expression on her face. Still, quiet, curious, hopeful, yet simultaneously almost fearful. Suddenly something clicked. The little workshop out back, the sculptures in here.... "These are all your work, aren't they?" She blushed, and nodded. He shook his head, almost speechless. "These are wonderful! Why on earth are you running a diner, instead of concentrating on your art?" She looked away, not meeting his eyes. "I'm needed here. I can't just close the place down and leave. It wouldn't be fair." "To who? It looks to me as if you're not being fair to yourself." Rena looked frustrated, and put her hands over her ears for just a second, then let them move back to clasp behind her neck as she struggled to find words to express her feelings. "You don't understand!" she finally said, reaching down to pick up the first piece he had looked at. She ran a finger down the nose, over the cheek then simply held it, staring at it, unseeing. "No, I don't. Your work is good, really, I've seen more art from more places than you could possibly imagine, and I know your work is good. More than just good, it's wonderful," he eyed the little bust for a moment, and suddenly realized why it looked familiar. The contours of that face were very similar to those of the living woman who held it. "That's your mother, isn't it?" She looked up, surprised. "Yes, how did you..." "I can see the resemblance. You're very like her." "No, I'm not. She was taller, blonde..." "Those things are superficial. You have her bone structure." She looked from him, back to the sculpture, a peculiar expression on her face. "Do you think so?" "Yes, I do." She laughed, shaking her head. "You're the first person who's ever told me that... besides her. She told me that too. I never saw it. I always thought I looked like my dad... short, dark, round. That's the Acadian blood in me. He was from Louisiana," she looked up and smiled. "I'm named for him, sort of. His name was Rene, though everyone around here called him Renny. Mom thought I might get teased, so she changed it a little." "I have a nephew named Rene," he said, for no reason other than to acknowledge her words. "In France?" He nodded. There was no point in telling her it was a France that didn't yet exist. "Do you miss them?" "Occasionally, though we've never been very close. My brother and I... well, we fought a great deal. I'm afraid both of us have more than our share of arrogance." She laughed. "Well, that's one commodity that's in short supply around here. Gabe and I... that's my brother, anyway, we always got along fine. He's a forest ranger in Alaska. Spends most of the year alone in a fire tower watching for forest fires. I don't know how he does it, being alone so much." "Being alone is an art, it can be very pleasant." "It can also be very lonely," Rena said, putting the sculpture down carefully. She yawned widely, then shook her head. "I'm sorry, I meant to stay up and talk, but I'm not going to make it. Let me show you where you'll be sleeping," she motioned for him to follow. She led him through the door at the opposite end of the "living room" which opened onto a narrow hallway. She stopped at the first door, her hand on the doorknob. "This was my brother's room. You'll be staying here. The bathroom is at the end of the hall," she pointed. "I'll get you some towels. I think I might even have a spare package of razors around, but I'm afraid I don't have a spare toothbrush. Maybe you can pick one up at Tucker's in the morning," She opened the door and proceeded into the room. Picard stared at her back for a moment. Razors? Toothbrushes? He hadn't thought about those things. His beard repressor was good for another few days, but if Q didn't send him home before that he'd need to start shaving, which was an unpleasent thought. He realized that taking care of one's personal hygeine in the 20th century was quite different from doing so in the 24th. "Luke?" Rena prompted softly. "Hmm? Oh, sorry, I was thinking," he stepped into the room. It was a small room, about half the size of his stateroom on the Enterprise, but it looked comfortable. A narrow bed with a bright patchwork quilt snugged up against one wall, a desk and chair were stationed beneath the window. Beside the door was a dresser with a lamp on it. "I'm afraid it's a bit small..." she began, apologetically. "No, it's fine, thank you. It's very nice," he smiled. "Believe me, it's better than the alternative." She laughed. "I suppose it is, at that. Well, let me go get those linens and I'll make the bed up for you." "If you'll just show me where they are, I can manage." She looked at him blankly for a moment, then shook her head, her cheeks flushing as she smiled ruefully. "Of course you can, I don't know what I was thinking. I guess I just got used to doing it all. Come on, I'll show you where the linens are kept." They went out into the hall again, and she pointed out the linen closet which was next to the bathroom. He accepted the armfull of linens from her and took them back down to "his" room and quickly made the bed. The temperature of the living area was quite a bit warmer than it had been in the restaurant, and he felt slightly sweaty. He unbuttoned and untucked his shirt to let the air at his skin, and picked up the towel she had given him, thinking longingly of a shower. The day's events had left him feeling rather grimy, and it wasn't a feeling he liked. Not only that, but the prospect of a real *water* shower rather than a sonic one was even more tempting. It had been a long time. He opened the door, took a step forward and ran smack into Rena who had her hand lifted to knock. He caught hold of her as much to save his own balance as hers, and was surprised to feel an surge of physical response to her nearness. He quickly let go of her, and stepped back, hoping she wouldn't notice. She seemed a bit flustered, but was also laughing. "I'm sorry, I wasn't expecting you to..." she paused, her eyes flickering down, then back up, and her flush deepened. "I mean, oh, well, whatever. I guess neither of us was expecting to run into the other. I was just coming to tell you to feel free to borrow any clothes you need from Gabe's stash. He left most of his clothes here, since he doesn't need them as a park ranger. You and he are about the same size. Of course, I don't expect you'll be wanting to wear his Metallica tee-shirts, but there are a few more... conventional items in there, too." He felt even more unsettled, and shook his head, frowning. "I don't understand why you're going to so much trouble for me." She opened her mouth to answer, then closed it again, looking almost as embarrassed and perplexed as he felt. Finally she shrugged. "I guess I'm just one of those people that can't stand to see anyone in need. I have to help out. But, remember, you're helping me, too." He realized that was all the explanation he was going to get and accepted it at face value. "Well, despite that, I can't thank you enough for all you've done." She looked embarrassed. "Oh, stop it! Just forget it, ok?" "As you wish." She shot him an amused look. "Wesley you're not," she said drily. That rattled him for a moment until he realized that she was making a cultural reference he didn't understand, not referring to Bev's son. "Wesley?" he ventured. "You know, from the Princess Bride... oh, you probably never saw that, either. I'm afraid I'm being an American chauvinist pig, aren't I? One of these days you're going to have to sit down with my videos and be a vegetable. Then maybe you'll understand what I'm talking about. Anyway, like I said, feel free to borrow Gabe's clothes." "I will, thank you." She shook her finger at him chastisingly. "I told you, no more of that. Now, goodnight, Luke." "Goodnight." As she walked away he thought he heard her mutter something that sounded like "Thank god my name isn't Laura." He had no idea what she meant by that. ### Rena closed the door to her room behind her, then leaned back against it with a deep sigh. He would never know how close he had just come to being tripped and beaten to the floor. What on earth was the matter with her? She hadn't reacted to a man like this since... well, ever. And she had known him barely half a day! Was it just that she had been deprived of sophisticated company for so long that anyone with an ounce of intelligence looked good? No. It wasn't. She knew that for certain. There was a kind of aura about him that she was almost irresistably attracted to. He was just about perfect; elegant, intelligent, self-confident, gorgeous... and that voice! It made her knees weak just to hear him speak! Damn, she wished he'd quit asking her why she was being nice to him. Her ulterior motives were sure to slip out one of these times. She began to undress, still thinking about her guest, feeling guilty for having manipulated him into staying. At the same time she was feeling for all the world like a junior-high-schooler with her first real crush. It was maddening, not to mention disconcerting, to find out at 34 that one's hormones could still overrule one's mind. She thought she'd long ago learned how to control herself. Of course, that control had never seriously been challenged before. She was lucky she hadn't broken half the dishes in the diner the way her hands had been sweating. She chuckled softly at herself, shaking her head, as she dropped her dirty clothes into the hamper and searched her closet for something to put on. Despite her inclinations, since she had moved back to Ridge she no longer slept in the buff, just in case something came up during the night that she would need to deal with. Living above the restaurant had its drawbacks, and the occasional nighttime interruption by a desperate traveller was one of them. Normally she wore an old oversized t-shirt and a pair of soft old shorts, but tonight she found herself holding the cambric nightdress she had bought in a fit of romanticism and money-wasting from a mail-order lingerie place. Not that he was going to see her in it, but it just felt... right. She pulled it on, posed in front of her mirror, and sighed morosely. She didn't feel right, she felt stupid. She took it off and changed into her usual sleeping attire. ### From JULIA@Jetson.UH.EDU Mon Aug 30 14:32:45 1993 Return-Path: Received: from orion.cis.ksu.edu by depot.cis.ksu.edu ESMTP (8.5) id OAA05571; Mon, 30 Aug 1993 14:32:41 -0500 From: JULIA@Jetson.UH.EDU Received: from Rosie.UH.EDU by orion.cis.ksu.edu SMTP (8.3) id OAA06832; Mon, 30 Aug 1993 14:10:50 -0500 Received: from Jetson.UH.EDU by Jetson.UH.EDU (PMDF V4.2-11 #3125) id <01H2CXW7H1HO8Y5XMR@Jetson.UH.EDU>; Mon, 30 Aug 1993 14:09:13 CDT Date: Mon, 30 Aug 1993 14:09:12 -0500 (CDT) Subject: A'la Q, Part 3, by Kellie Matthews-Simmons & Julia Kosatka To: jfy@cis.ksu.edu Message-id: <01H2CXW7H1HQ8Y5XMR@Jetson.UH.EDU> X-VMS-To: @ARCHIVE MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Status: O Jean-Luc woke up fast, instantly alert with the sort of adrenalin rush that happens when your subconscious thinks something is wrong. Where the hell was he? A small room, cluttered with old-looking furniture. Wooden doors with handles on them, sunlight streaming in the window. Sunlight? He stood up and moved aside the gauzy curtain that veiled the window, and remembered. Q. Texas. Rena. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, willing the shakes to go away. In his sleep he had totally forgotten about his little adventure a la Q. What was Q up to? Why hadn't he shown himself, like he usually did? It was strange. It was also full morning. Why hadn't Rena woken him? Quickly he pulled on his jeans and buttoned them ("Buttons," he thought, "how archaic!"), and picked up his shirt. It was rather the worse for wear, and recalling Rena's comment about borrowing her brother's clothes, he opened the closet. The sharp, resinous scent of cedar filled his senses as he sorted through the garments. He found a short-sleeved shirt in a khaki shade that looked appropriate and tried it on, finding it a bit large, but comfortable. He reached for his shoes, and wondered where he could find clean socks. Taking a wild guess he opened one of the dresser drawers and found it full of short-sleeved shirts with loud artwork printed on them. He chose another drawer at random, and found what he was looking for. Pulling out a pair of socks he put them on, then donned the white athletic shoes which Q had furnished. He was grateful for their comfort, considering the amount of standing he had done the day before, and was likely to do again today. He made a quick check in the mirror to make sure he hadn't buttoned anything one-off, and left the room. Hurrying downstairs, he found... no one. The restaurant was quiet and dark. He stood there for a moment, feeling foolish. He had assumed the diner served breakfast, but obviously he had assumed incorrectly. Rena hadn't woken him because she wasn't up yet, herself. He had time to kill, and he knew exactly where to do it. Quietly he went back upstairs, and headed for the bookshelves. Much of what he found was fiction, but one shelf-unit seemed dedicated to reference type materials. Dictionaries, a set of encyclopedias dated 1962 with "year-book" updates through 1975, and an atlas, were among his finds there. He pulled out the atlas and looked up Texas, finally locating Ridge. It was quite near the Gulf coast east of Houston. He closed the atlas and returned it to its place. A bit further on he found what appeared to be textbooks on various subjects ranging from astronomy to art history, but they were all several years old, and would not bring him up to speed on current events in any case. He spotted a promising-looking stack of thin, glossy folios with the word "Newsweek" blazoned across the top. He picked up the top one, and found it was dated only a few days previous. He smiled, picked up the stack and sat down on the couch with them to read. ### Rena pushed the snooze delay on the alarm clock again, but the radio didn't go off. She moaned into her pillow, realizing that meant she had already hit it twice. It was morning. She hated mornings. With a sigh she turned onto her back and stretched, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. Get up, get showered, put on some clothes... the usual routine beckoned. She yawned and maneuvered herself into a sitting position. Coffee first. She had to have coffee. That meant going downstairs, not an easy task first thing in the morning. She combed her fingers through her hair and managed to stand, her feet feeling puffy as they always did in the mornings. "Feet, move," she commanded. They obeyed, sluggishly. She wandered down the hall and into the family room, heading for the stairs. Halfway through the room she suddenly became aware that she wasn't alone, and froze in place for a moment, feeling quite alert as a rush of panic swept through her. Half-afraid to turn, her suspicions were confirmed when the other person spoke. "Good morning." Oh, god. She turned slowly, her face fiery with embarrassment. She had totally forgotten about him. The slightly amused manner in which he was regarding her over the top of an old issue of Newsweek fanned the conflagration in her face to spread lower. She could almost feel her toes blushing. He was dressed, damn him, and looking completely composed and at home on her sofa, his feet propped against the footstool, and his lap full of magazines. "Uh..." she said articulately, "..hi." "How are you this morning?" he asked, lowering the magazine. "Not awake," she said with a rueful grin. "I forgot you were here." He smiled. "To be honest, I forgot I was here too, for a few moments. When I woke, I had no idea where I was. Then when I remembered, I thought I must be late to start work, but then I went downstairs and realized you must not open for breakfast." She felt even stupider, if that was possible. "Oh, god, I'm sorry! I never thought to tell you our hours! We only serve breakfast on weekends any more, since we didn't get enough weekday traffic to make it worth my while getting up that early. I am *not* a morning person." "I can tell," he said, deadpan. "Can I do anything for you?" For a moment she was tempted... too tempted. She started to blush again. "No, thank you. I was just going to go start a pot of coffee. I'm afraid I need a jump-start in the mornings." His eyes narrowed, and after a moment he shook his head. "Jump-start?" She realized he didn't understand the metaphor, and hastened to explain before he jumped to some unsavory conclusion. "You know, like a dead battery. You hook up cables to one that's good and get the car started, then it starts charging." He thought about that for a moment, then nodded. "I see. Can I make the coffee for you? I think I should be able to manage it by myself, if you can bring yourself to trust me down there alone." She let herself be infected by his good humor, though it wasn't her normal morning mood. She grinned "Oh, I suppose I could trust you *that* far. And that would be really nice, thank you. I'm not sure I could make it down the stairs in one piece, since my legs don't fully wake up until after the caffeine hits the system." "It would be my pleasure," he said, and carefully moved the stack of magazines aside and stood up. She moved to let him by and watched him descend the stairs, admiring the view for a moment, then turned and raced down the hall to the bathroom. One glance in the mirror confirmed her worst fears. She looked exactly like she had just woken up from a coma. And the sloppy-looking t-shirt and shorts didn't help matters at all. If only she had left the nightgown *on* last night! Her one chance to look all sleepily romantic, and she'd blown it. Damn! She studied her face in the mirror, noticing she had wrinkle-marks on one cheek from the sheets, and sighed. She would probably have looked like a romantic coma victim in that nightgown, anyway. She turned on a trickle of water in the tub to let it warm up, and brushed her teeth while she waited. ### Picard measured ground coffee into the paper filter in the basket of the coffee-maker and turned it on, watching to make sure the water was dripping into the little opening at the top of the pot below, instead of hitting the rim and running off down the side. The first time he had used the machine he had learned the hard way to make absolutely sure the pot was in the right position. Today, it was. He replaced the big canister of coffee in the refrigerator, and noticed a bowl of somewhat sad-looking strawberries left from the day before. On impulse, he picked up the bowl and took it to the sink, where he washed, hulled and sliced the berries. Sprinkling a little sugar over them, he stood for a moment, wondering if he could remember the recipe. It had been years, even decades. The last time he had done it, his mother had still been alive. He scanned the kitchen, looking for ingredients. Rena and Suanne had done their best to familiarize him with where everything was kept, and he remembered most of them. He found two large bowls, a wire whisk, butter, eggs, sugar, milk and flour. Taking an orange from the plastic crate in the pantry, he rolled it lightly on the counter and sliced it in half, squeezed half the juice over the berries, and half into a cup. He found a grater and managed to produce a spoonful of fairly serviceable orange zest. At that point he stopped for a moment, hoping the attempt wouldn't turn out to be a disaster. He recalled Rena's words about him looking as if he could master anything he set his mind to and laughed softly. That, so far, was an unproven theorem. ### Showered and dressed, Rena stood for a moment in front of her closet, eyeing her "city" clothes regretfully. She wanted very much to dress up today, but it didn't make sense. What made sense was what she had on, her usual daily uniform of jeans, and a man's white v-necked undershirt (Sold in packs of three for seven dollars at K-Mart), and her tennis shoes. To wear anything fancier while cooking, cleaning, and bussing tables was madness; but oh, how she wanted to be mad, just for awhile. It seemed like she hadn't done anything strictly for herself for almost four years now. And she wasn't going to start now. She sighed and made a last swipe at her hair with her brush, and headed downstairs to get her coffee. She smiled, surely even Luke, who seemed to have never seen a kitchen appliance before, would have managed to make a pot of coffee by now. As she opened the door to stairwell she smelled the distinctively silky scent of coffee, and something else besides. Something... sweet, orangey, breadish... she couldn't quite identify it. It made her hungry, whatever it was. She took the steps a bit faster than normal, and rounded the corner into the kitchen to find Luke standing in front of the stove, one of her omelette pans held in one hand just above a low flame. As she watched he made a motion with his hand, and flipped the contents of the pan like a pro, and chuckled. She stared for a moment, feeling herself smile in response to his laughter. Leaning against the doorframe, she assumed a nonchalant pose. "Having fun?" she queried. She had to give him credit. He didn't jump or flinch, or drop the pan, though he did turn quite quickly. Good reflexes. She saw his gaze move down her, then back to her face, and wished again she were wearing something more interesting. Of course, it was probably just an automatic reflex, and he would have done the same had she been male. He grinned at her. "Yes, as a matter of fact, I am. I haven't done this in years, I had forgotten how much fun it can be. Have you any brandy?" She blinked, puzzled. "Brandy?" "Yes, you know, brandy. It's a liquor, it generally comes in a bottle, about 100 proof, amber colored..." She rolled her eyes, shaking her head. "I know what it is, I just wondered what you wanted it for." "You'll see... if you have any, that is." "A secret eh? Well, as long as you're not planning to swill it while you cook..." "Ms. Taylor, I am offended!" he said melodramatically. "One never swills brandy, it just *isn't* done!" "Well, in that case let me see what I can find. I have an assortment of liquor from my Santa Fe days that I think might include some brandy. Of course, you have to promise you won't tell Mrs. Sewell on me. She'd have the minister over here to talk to me about the evils of drink." "I promise," he put his hand, the one with the spatula in it, over his heart and looked quite serious. She giggled and went back upstairs to look for the brandy. It was exactly where she remembered, and covered with a layer of dust. She took the bottle into the bathroom and wiped it down with a damp washcloth, then took it downstairs to him. He took it from her hand and steered her out to a table in the dining room where a cup of coffee sat steaming. He had set a small metal pitcher of cream beside the cup. Rena was touched that he had remembered she liked it white. In point of fact, she'd been teased all her life for using coffee as an excuse to drink warm milk with sugar in it. As she made adjustments to the coffee he disappeared back into the kitchen. She drank slowly, savoring both the beverage, and the unaccustomed pleasure of having someone waiting on *her* for a change. She was almost finished with the cup when he reappeared and set a plate in front of her. He had arranged four crepes on it, and a fan of orange slices. A drizzle of deep pink crossed the crepes in an artfully random pattern. She looked up at him in surprise. "You expect me to eat this? I couldn't possibly! It would ruin it!" "You have to eat it, this is the first time I've made it in well over ten years. I have to know if I did it right." "Didn't you taste it?" "Yes, but I need an unbiased opinion." "Well, then, I guess I'll have to destroy this work of art. I'll do it, but only on one condition." "That being?" "You have to join me." "I will, I dislike breakfasting alone." She waited for him to join her before picking up her fork. Slices of white-hearted strawberries spilled from the golden casing as she cut into it. She forked up a bite and closed her eyes in bliss as she chewed. When she opened her eyes again, she found him regarding her quizzically. Her quirky sense of humor got the better of her. "Not bad," she allowed, teasing him. "Mmmhmm," she took another bite, and managed to refrain from moaning as she ate it. "Not bad at all. Of course, if you smothered it with cool whip and jacked up the sugar content about a hundred and fifty percent, we might even have a best seller." He looked appalled, and she couldn't keep her face straight any longer. She laughed and put her hand on his. "I'm teasing you, Luke! For heaven's sake, grant me a modicum of taste! It's wonderful! The subtle hint of orange is lovely, and is that coriander I taste?" He looked unutterably relieved as he nodded. "Oh, thank god, I thought for a moment that you were serious! And yes, it is coriander." She nodded. "I thought so. You'd better not do this every morning or I'm going to get spoiled." He looked as if he was going to say something, then he stopped himself and shook his head. She suddenly realized she still had her hand over his, and snatched it back, feeling embarrassed. She tried to cover it with a joke. "Sorry, I forgot it was there. Are you going to report me for sexual harassment now?" He looked up at her in surprise, his eyes wide. She realized for the first time that they weren't brown, but hazel, in fact at the moment they were almost light enough to be called gray. "Sexual harassment?" he queried, sounding astonished. "Was that your intention?" "I... ah..." Rena stared back at him, half tempted to admit that if she weren't quite so ethical she might just consider it. Then she realized they were having a culture clash again. He had no idea what she was talking about. She hastened to explain. "Oh, heavens no! I was joking again! Damn, I keep forgetting that you come from a completely different community. I guess they don't have that problem over there, or at least, it doesn't make the news." "What problem?" "Employers extorting sexual favors from their employees... oh, let's just drop it, I never was much good at telling jokes." "No, wait," he stopped her, looking incredulous. "Is that really a problem here?" "Sometimes, in some places. Usually it's men hassling women, though." "You're not joking now?" "No, absolutely not." "But that's barbaric!" She was so pleased by his reaction that she almost smiled, but she was afraid he would misinterpret it, so instead she nodded. "Yes, it is. But slowly, but surely, things are changing. I hope, anyway. They have to." "They will," he assured her. Oddly, she believed him, though he could be no more certain of the future than she was. She looked down at her plate and realized she was letting her breakfast get cold, and it was too good to waste. She picked up her fork again, and gestured for him to do the same. "Eat, eat! You're gettin' skinny!" she told him, in her best Jewish- Mother accent. He looked a bit puzzled, but smiled and complied. They finished the meal in a companionable silence. ### As he ate, Picard reflected on the fact that he was growing rather fond of Rena Taylor. She seemed to be a woman of uncompromising good sense, she was intelligent, well spoken, strong-willed and had a good sense of humor. The fact that he also found her physically attractive was an added bonus... or detriment, depending on how he looked at it. He had no idea how long he would be stranded in this time. It could be as short as minutes, or as long as decades. Q was completely unpredictable. He couldn't get involved with someone... not when he didn't *know*, and couldn't explain. He wondered if this attraction was part of Q's script, but had no way of knowing. The whole incident might not even be real, it could all be in his head, like his time with Eline, or the time Q had let him relive a part of his youth. In point of fact, he was having a hard time convincing himself to be wary and tense. The whole incident was almost like a glorified holodeck adventure. Earth's twentieth century was not a period he would have chosen on his own, but it held its own appeal to the historian's eye. It was the birthplace of many of the ideas which had come to final fruition in his own time. He was actually *enjoying* himself! He suspected that wasn't what Q had had in mind when he had sent him here. He had enjoyed the simple activity of cooking, the absence of need for constant decision- making. It was wonderful! Even the altercation with Billy-Ray had been fun, in a rather primitive, hormonal sort of way. He almost laughed, knowing how annoyed Q would be when he realized he'd given his nemesis a much needed vacation. Picard's eyes and thoughts came back to Rena, and the one thing about her he found perplexing. Despite her obvious intelligence and education, she appeared to have a bit of a problem with self-esteem. Her earlier comment about becoming "spoiled" had been an indication of that. He had almost told her that she was entitled to a little spoiling, considering the amount of self-sacrifice her last several years had entailed, but he had thought better of it, suspecting it would earn him an argument. Despite the almost instant closeness he felt with her, he was a stranger, and had no right to go telling her how to live her life, no matter how much he wanted to. Like her art. He couldn't believe she was just letting her sculptures collect dust in an upstairs room where no one could see them! The very least she could do would be to display them in the diner for others to enjoy. He wondered if he could possibly talk her into doing that much, before he had to leave. That thought reminded him of how uncertain his time was. He took a last sip of his tea, and took a breath to speak, but Rena beat him to it. She pushed her plate away with a regretful sigh. "Well, this was lovely, but we've got to get busy or we won't be ready for the lunch crowd," she ran a finger through the strawberry juice on the plate and licked it off. The way she did it, eyes closed in enjoyment, caused a surprisingly sensual reaction in him, but a moment later she picked up her plate and cup and took them into the kitchen, which gave him a moment to recover before he followed with his own detritus. As he came through the doors she looked up from rinsing her plate and grinned. "Now that I know you know your way around a stove, you get to learn the ins and outs of being a fry-cook. You should have let me go on believing you were a rank amateur, you know. I'd have been easier on you. Would you start water boiling in the big stock pot, and throw in the bowl of chicken scraps from the refrigerator? The soup has to be the first thing started, and it's my 'speshee-ally-tee della masson,' as it were," she waved a hand regally, grinning as she said it to make certain he knew she was deliberately mispronouncing it. "Why, folks come from miles around for my chicken soup, even in the summer." "I can understand that," he said, intending to complement her on it, but she laughed, interrupting him. "Yep, so can I. I'm the only restaurant in the county!" He couldn't let that pass. Setting down the big pot he had just picked up to fill, he put his hands on his hips, his expression grave. "I realize this is a touch presumptuous of me, Ms. Taylor, but there is absolutely no reason for you to belittle yourself! No matter how much you try to disguise it as humor, that is what you're doing, and it's completely unwarranted! You're plainly a fine businesswoman, otherwise this place would not still be open. Why can't you accept that?" She stared at him, her eyes wide and a little hurt, and he started to regret having said it. Then she sighed and shook her head, running a hand through her hair in an already-familiar gesture. "I... don't know why, I really don't. I guess... I just don't *feel* competent at it. This isn't what I had planned to do with my life; I just ended up doing it by default." "What did you plan to do?" She glanced ruefully toward the back door, and he knew what she was going to say before she said it. He wasn't wrong. "I planned to be a sculptor, and I had a pretty good start at it, when everything fell apart here. When the oil boom went bust, the town started to die, and it took Dad with it. Mom was a wreck, she couldn't handle things by herself after he was gone. Then when she died too... there were too many people counting on me to keep things going. I couldn't just quit and go back to Santa Fe, it wouldn't have been right." "For whom?" he asked quietly, "Who is this amorphous 'them?' Your parents?" She laughed, a short, unhappy laugh. "My parents are dead." "But are they? You seem to be living their dream, not your own. The dead can be very powerful." He knew a lot about how influential the dead could be. It took little effort to summon to mind people whose deaths he had been directly, or indirectly responsible for. Rena's eyes focused on something distant, and after a moment she shook her head vehemently. "I can't talk about this right now. I've got a diner to run," she brushed past him on her way to the pantry, and he almost reached out to catch her arm and force her to listen to him, then thought better of it, reminding himself for the second time that morning that he had no right to interfere with her life. He wasn't her keeper, in fact he wasn't her anything. He was simply an employee. He let the subject drop and turned to fill the stockpot with water. ### Rena spent the day in a kind of self-induced schizophrenia. She kept busy bussing tables, waiting on customers during Sueann's frequent breaks, and teaching Luke the ins and outs of burritos, burgers and chili. But all day long her mind was only half there, the other half of it was worrying at Luke's words like a dog at a bone. Why *was* she still in town running the Double R instead of back in Santa Fe? It was a question she had avoided asking herself for two years, yet Luke had zeroed in on it with unerring precision. It wasn't until late in the afternoon that the answer finally began to percolate through the filters of denial. She was spelling Luke in the kitchen so he could have a break, and watching him perched on one of the counter stools next to Larry Cox involved in a lively conversation about strategy and tactics in World War Two, when it came to her. She *liked* Ridge. Well, parts of it anyway. She liked the small-town nature of it, the fact that everyone knew everyone else, and watched out for each other. She had never had that in Santa Fe. She had known her own small circle of friends, but aside from that it had been just another city. She liked the... human-ness of it. Unfortunately the one thing she had then, she didn't have now. Friends. People who were her peers, not her dependents. She finished cleaning off the grill and stood at the sink. washing her greasy hands and contemplating her epiphany. She really did miss having friends, but most of her contemporaries had moved away from Ridge years ago, when the oil industry fell apart. Even if they had stayed, most of them weren't people she could be friends with. She thought of Shelly, and Mario, and Travis, and Jeannie, and Lanelle, all back in Santa Fe bemoaning their lives there as much as she had complained about her own in Ridge, and wondered if anyone was ever really happy with their lives. It didn't seem like it. With a sigh she shut off the water and dried her hands. Glancing out into the diner, she saw that Luke and Larry had apparently finished their conversation; or else Ruth had decided her father had finished, whether or not he had. She was tugging Larry toward the door. Rena smiled as she watched Luke usher them to the door and gallantly hold it open for them. Ruth preened, apparently unaware that the gallantry was not aimed specifically at her. Luke stood a moment watching them through the door, and Rena found herself studying him through the serving slot with a sculptor's eye. Even when he was relaxed, his compact frame held an intriguing sense of coiled tension, and he stood beautifully. His face was all planes and angles, the late afternoon sun highlighting the highest of them. She found her fingers itching for a cool, silky mound of clay, or a sketchbook, anything with which she could capture what she was seeing. Not for the first time she wondered who he really was, and what he was doing working in a two-bit diner in a dying town. She sensed that there were depths in him that she would never get to see, that perhaps no one would ever see. As if he felt her eyes on him, he turned away from the door and looked straight at her. She managed to smile and wave, and hoped her flushed cheeks would be attributed to the heat in the kitchen. He smiled back, and walked toward the kitchen. She watched the doors swing open as he walked through them, and felt an incredible urge to be reckless. She looked around for Sueann, and didn't find her, she was probably still upstairs on the couch for her mid-afternoon nap. Larry and Ruth had been their last lunch customers, and the dinner rush wouldn't start for at least an hour and a half. They were alone, not a soul around to hear her make a complete and utter fool of herself. Before she could lose her nerve, she did it. "Luke, would you pose for me?" She got the distinct impression that he very nearly looked over his shoulder to see who she was talking to. After half a second's hesitation, he touched his chest. "Me?" "I don't know why I didn't see it before, but I just now realized what a great model you would make!" "Me?" he repeated, somewhat incredulously "Yes, you! Do you see anyone else in the room?" "Ah, no. I just... why me?" "Because you're *interesting*, that's why! The way you stand, the way you hold yourself, your face... you'd make a wonderful subject." "I... never thought of myself as an artist's model before. I'm not sure I'm very comfortable with the idea..." "Nobody is, the first time, but really, it's completely professional. You said you'd tried painting, surely you work from life models!" "Well, yes, but..." "Then you know, when I'm working, I won't see *you,* I'll see a model posing." Picard eyed Rena dubiously. She might be able to do that, he doubted he could. "Please?" her tone was innocently wheedling. "Pretty please, with ice cream and chocolate sauce on top?" He had to smile at that, but he still couldn't quite bring himself to commit. "I don't know how long I'll be here, my... friend could return for me at any time." "I know. How about this... if you're still here on Monday, that's the only day we close the diner, you'll pose?" Her insistence was wearing, and he didn't really have a good excuse not to do it. With a sigh, he nodded. "Very well, if I'm here, I'll do it, but just once." She grinned, obviously elated, then just as suddenly frowned. "Once?" She shook her head. "Not enough. It usually takes several sittings." He started to protest, but she suddenly snapped her fingers, interrupting him. "I know. I've got dad's old polaroid. I'll take a couple of pictures to work from when I don't have you live. How's that?" Pictures? He wasn't entirely sure he liked that idea either, but if it would lessen the amount of time he had to spend posing... "I suppose that would be all right," he said reluctantly. "Great!" She smiled, then her expression turned mischievous. "By the way, Luke, from what I can see, you've got no reason at all to be so modest, Trust me." He couldn't help returning that smile. "Is that supposed to make me feel more at ease?" he asked facetiously. She winked. "Nope." With that parting shot, she turned and was gone through the double doors, tub in hand, to start bussing tables. He stared after her for a moment, still smiling, then shook his head and turned back to the stove and stirred the soup. He chuckled. None of his crew would ever believe *this* story. He wasn't sure he believed it himself. He kept expecting to wake and find it was all a dream. Rena in particular. Feeling an unaccustomed wistfulness, he found himself thinking of some of the women with whom he had pursued relationships. Why was it that he always fell in love with women he couldn't stay with? On second thought, he decided he would rather not know the answer to that. It probably would tell him more about himself than he really wanted to know. There were dishes to load, and at the moment that took precedence over introspection. ### It had been a long, long day, Picard reflected as he fell back across his bed with a sigh. Despite having just taken a hot shower, his feet hurt, his back hurt; hell, even his knees felt stiff! For the first time in his life he felt his age, and considering that in this century people died younger, that was relatively older than he really was. A convoluted thought, if ever there was one. He smiled wryly, and sat up, realizing that despite his physical tiredness, he didn't feel much like sleeping. His mind was wide awake, it was just his body that wanted rest. He remembered Rena's library, and the obvious solution presented itself. He would borrow a book and read until his mind was ready to sleep too. He pulled on his jeans, thinking absently that they were due for a cleaning, despite the white chef's aprons Rena made him wear. So far, though, he hadn't seen anything that even resembled a processor. He would have to ask Rena. Her clothing always looked immaculate, so there had to be something available. He ventured out of his room, casting a glance at Rena's door. No light showed beneath it, she was probably already asleep. Quietly, he crossed the few steps to the "family room" door, and opened it. To his surprise, the room was neither dark nor deserted. An object he had mentally dismissed as some sort of viewscreen emitted a thin, bluish light, and small figures moved on it. Rena sat before it, sprawled rather inelegantly on the sofa, staring blankly at the moving images. Curious, he studied the screen to see what she was watching, and froze, a gasp of astonishment escaping him. The individuals on the screen were wearing Starfleet uniforms! A decades-old design, granted, but it was instantly recognizable. His sound had caught Rena's attention, and she looked up, grinning sheepishly. "I know, it's an awful waste of time, but I just can't resist Star Trek. I suppose I've shocked you now..." He dragged his gaze from the screen long enough to shake his head, a bit distractedly. "No, not at all... ah, what did you say it was called?" "Star Trek. You don't mean to tell me you've never seen it!" He shook his head again, scrutiny riveted to the drama being played out on the small screen. "No, I haven't. What is it?" "It's a twenty-some year old science fiction television program, not to mention American cultural phenomenon. I can't believe you've never heard of it! I thought just about everyone in the world knew about Star Trek! Don't they show it on French television?" "I don't know, I... never watched much television there," he answered truthfully. She grinned. "Ah, the intellectual type, just as I suspected. Well, sit down and let me introduce you to an American institution;" she gestured at the screen. "Meet the stalwart crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise. The guy in the gold shirt is Captain James T. Kirk, galactic womanizer and general all- around-hero sort of guy. To his right, the one with the pointy ears, is the inestimable Mr. Spock, his coolly logical Vulcan first officer. On his left is the irascible Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy..." she let her sentence trail off as she finally noticed his expression. "Luke? Are you okay?" Sit *down*!"* He sat. suddenly realizing how peculiar his behavior must seem to her. He couldn't very well tell her the *real* reason why he had reacted as he had, so he quickly tried to compose a good fake one. "I.. ah, I'm sorry, I just thought for a moment that I recognized one of those men." She grinned. "I'd be surprised if you didn't! They're famous!" "No, I meant, personally. The resemblance is rather remarkable." "Which one?" "The... one in blue, Amb... I mean, Mr. Spock." "Oh, that's Leonard Nimoy." He looked at her, puzzled. "Excuse me?" She gestured toward the screen. "The actor who plays Spock. His name is Leonard Nimoy. Is that who you thought it was?" "Oh, no, it's not." Actors, that explained some, but not all. How on Earth was it possible that a mid-twentieth-century fictional drama could have so precisely predicted events which would not take place for more than two centuries? And the resemblances were uncanny! Especially the actor portraying Spock. Picard had met Spock twice in person, not to mention having shared one of the most intimate of all experiences, a mind-meld, with Spock's father Sarek. Yet, despite all that, had he not known he was watching an actor, he might not have realized it was *not* Spock. He sat back against the sofa, still tense, and watched in complete amazement as the dramatists enacted vignettes from a famous incident, one in which the original starship Enterprise had encountered a Romulan cloaking device in use for the first time. He had read about it during his days at the Academy, and, apparently, so had someone in this era. He wondered abruptly if it could be come sort of bizarre joke of Q's. If so, what exactly was it supposed to prove? A few moments later the story was interrupted by a series of advertisements, and Rena looked over at him. "So, what do you think?" "It's... interesting." "This one is sort of a remake of an old film called Run Silent, Run Deep. It looks awfully dated now, and the effects are kind of cheesy, but it's still a lot of fun. I understand there's a new Star Trek series out, but I haven't seen it. We don't get it out here in the boonies unless you have satellite, which I don't." Picard bridled slightly. Cheesy effects? Just because the technology was a bit outdated didn't mean it was "cheesy." Suddenly her last sentence sank in. "A *new* series?" he ventured, with some trepidation. Rena nodded. "So I hear. Like I said, I've never seen it, but from what I hear it's pretty good... better than the original, some people say, though there's a lot of quibbling about that. No one seems to argue that the old one was better acted, just that it was better plotted." "Does it involve the same characters?" Picard asked, despite his disquiet. "No, it's a whole new group, I think." Jean-Luc had a feeling he did *not* want to know who those characters were. It *must* be Q's doing, what else could it be? The program resumed. and over the next half-hour there were several more interruptions for advertising. He found that quite annoying, but Rena seemed to just ignore them, so he did the same and they ended up talking about the events portrayed on the show. It was an odd conversation since she saw them as metaphoric, and he as actual events, but it was also an interesting one. By the time it ended, they were basically ignoring the program in favor of their conversation. Both of them were surprised when the background noise generated by the ignored television suddenly degenerated into a static hiss. Rena laughed, shaking her head. "We talked right through the signoff! 'High Flight,' the 'Star Spangled Banner,' and all! I can't believe it! It's after midnight! God, we've got to get to sleep or we'll both be total wrecks in the morning. Come on, let's go to bed." He nodded and stood, waiting for her while she turned off the television, then preceded him down the hall toward the bedrooms. She stood in front of her door for a moment, looking at him, and he lifted his eyebrows questioningly. She smiled at him in a way that made him wish for just a moment that they weren't about to enter *separate* rooms. "Thank you, Jean-Luc. It's been a long time since I've had someone I could really talk to. It's a wonderful treat." He felt simultaneously embarrassed and pleased. She had said his name, for the first time. She hadn't called him Luke, but Jean-Luc, and there had been no trace of humor as she said it. He smiled back. "I've enjoyed it too, Rena." This time she looked faintly embarrassed. She opened her door, looked at him, and waved slightly. "Well, good night." "Good night," he echoed. She disappeared into her room. He opened his door, stepped inside, and stopped, staring in disbelief, which turned quickly to anger. "Q!" the sound escaped him in a whisper that was more of a shout. "What the hell are you doing here?" The entity was lounging on the narrow bed, seemingly at ease. In his usual human form, a mature, dark-haired man, attractive in an annoying sort of way. This time he had dressed for the occasion in ratty-looking cutoffs and an Iron Maiden t-shirt, with a pair of red and black high-tops on his feet. He was perusing a thick magazine with apparent interest. He proceeded to fold out a page and turn the publication sideways, looking at something. After a moment he looked up, eyebrows arched in mocking curves. "Why Jean-Luc! I'm shocked, really I am! I had no idea you were fond of such... sordid reading material." Picard took a deep breath and figuratively caught hold of his temper with both hands. "What *are* you talking about, Q? And what do you want?" "What am I talking about? As if you need ask! I'm sure you've already perused Miss February's nubile charms..." He turned the magazine around and displayed a three-page fold out of an attractive red-head wearing white lace stockings, a pink ribbon in a bow around her neck, and a lot of makeup. Nothing else. Picard studied it blankly for a moment, noting that the model was astonishingly well- endowed in the mammary department, then lifted his eyes to Q's face. "I cannot believe you came here simply to show me a photograph of an unclad woman, Q. What do you want?" "Come, come, mon Capitain! You deny that these haven't brightened your evenings?" He indicated a stack of similar magazines on the bed. Picard sighed, realizing there would be no gainsaying Q's whim, and shook his head. "I've never seen them before, what makes you think they're mine?" "I found them under your bed! Who else would they belong to?" Picard chuckled. "Probably the last occupant of this room, the brother of the woman to whom the house belongs. I can assure you that I don't spend a lot of time grubbing about under the furniture... though apparently you do." Q closed the magazine with a snap, leaving the page showing Miss February's legs hanging out. He looked quite aggravated. "You always have an answer, don't you Captain?" "No, not always, as you are well aware. Now, would you mind telling me what it is you want?" Q disappeared from the bed in a flash of blue light, and reappeared a moment later sitting cross-legged on the dresser, hands steepled together. "Why my dear Captain, you mean to say you haven't missed me? I'm devastated! I thought by now you'd be howling for me to come rescue you! Tell me, how are you enjoying Earth in the Twentieth century? Is the work harder than you're used to? Surely you're ready to admit that you have it pretty easy aboard your precious Enterprise, don't you?" Picard felt a wave of incredulity. Was *that* what this was all about? He shook his head. "I admit nothing, Q. It's like comparing apples and oranges! There are no grounds for comparison at all!" "Oh? So... you *enjoy* working as a common laborer? Spending your days in the heat and grease, serving your fellow man?" Picard felt a smile form despite himself, and told the truth. "Actually, it does have a certain appeal." Q's scowl deepened, and he disappeared again, reappearing beside Picard, close enough for his breath to warm his ear as he whispered. "Well then, since you seem to like it so well, you may stay!" Picard spun to face his tormenter, but Q was gone. The room was empty save for himself. He suddenly realized what he had done, and felt like a fool. He'd just given Q an excuse to leave him there. He should have protested, and demanded to be taken home! "Q? Damn it, Q, come *back* here! I need to get back to my ship!" Silence answered him. For a few moments, then a tentative knock sounded at his door. "Luke? Are you okay?" He closed his eyes in disgust. That was all he'd needed. Rena must have overheard him. Great, now she would no doubt think he'd begun talking to himself. What possible plausible reason could he have... his eye fell on the volume of Shakespeare he'd been perusing earlier, and he snatched it up, letting it fall open to an arbitrary page. He managed an innocently curious expression as he opened the door. "Did you need something?" he queried blandly. She looked past him into the room, then back to him, a bit sheepishly. "I...ah... I thought I heard you talking to someone." He feigned chagrin. "Could you hear me? I'm sorry... I was reading this passage aloud, for effect, you see." She looked at the book, dubiously. He knew he was going to have to do better. Chosing a passage at random, he began to read. "By accident most strange, bountiful Fortune, now my dear lady, hath mine enemies brought to my shore: and by my prescience I find my zenith doth depend upon a most auspicious star; whose influence if I now court not, but omit, my fortunes will ever after droop. Here, cease more questions, thou art inclined to sleep; 'tis a good dulness, and give it way; I know thou cans't not choose," he left off and chanced a glance at her. She was staring at him a bit bemusedly. He guessed that was enough, and finished up. "The Tempest, act one, scene two." "Oh," she said, looking faintly relieved. "Do you often read aloud?" "Occasionally. Sometimes you have to read it aloud to hear the cadences correctly. It can make a difference in the meaning." "That's true. Well, now that I know you're alright, I am 'inclined to sleep,'" she smiled a little, and turned back to re-enter her own room. He watched her go, noticing that the lace-trimmed white gown she wore tonight was a far cry from her shorts and t-shirt of that morning, and that the fabric from which it was made was very nearly translucent. Resolutely he closed his own door, swallowing heavily. Miss February had nothing on Rena Taylor, as far as he was concerned. ### From JULIA@Jetson.UH.EDU Mon Aug 30 14:32:23 1993 Return-Path: Received: from orion.cis.ksu.edu by depot.cis.ksu.edu ESMTP (8.5) id OAA05424; Mon, 30 Aug 1993 14:32:20 -0500 From: JULIA@Jetson.UH.EDU Received: from Rosie.UH.EDU by orion.cis.ksu.edu SMTP (8.3) id OAA06834; Mon, 30 Aug 1993 14:10:53 -0500 Received: from Jetson.UH.EDU by Jetson.UH.EDU (PMDF V4.2-11 #3125) id <01H2CXWK5KO28Y5XMR@Jetson.UH.EDU>; Mon, 30 Aug 1993 14:09:32 CDT Date: Mon, 30 Aug 1993 14:09:31 -0500 (CDT) Subject: A'la Q, Part 4, by Kellie Matthews-Simmons & Julia Kosatka To: jfy@cis.ksu.edu Message-id: <01H2CXWK5KO48Y5XMR@Jetson.UH.EDU> X-VMS-To: @ARCHIVE MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Status: O A soft knock at the door startled Jean-Luc awake. He experienced a moment of disorientation, and without thinking he sat up in bed and turned toward the door. "Come." As soon as he'd said it, he realized where he was, and that his response was not the correct one, but it was too late by that time. The door inched open and Rena peered in, tentatively. Fortunately he was at least mostly covered. Her gaze flickered down him, then almost immediately lifted back to his face, a slight flush coloring her cheeks. It wasn't the first time she'd done that, and he was beginning to wonder if she was either very inexperienced, or alternately, if she were as attracted to him as he was to her. Those were the only things he could think of that might account for her actions. It was probably the former, he reflected pessimistically. She smiled apologetically. "Umm... hi, sorry to wake you, but it's nine-thirty. I need you downstairs when you're awake and dressed." "Nine-thirty?" he was startled, and lifted the sheers to look outside. The sky was a uniform luminous gray, and everything looked a bit hazy. "I let you sleep as long as I could, after keeping you up all night last night, but I really could use some help." He felt somewhat chagrined that she had been required to come fetch him. "Of course, I'm sorry. I had no idea it was so late. Usually the sun wakes me." "It's okay, I should have shown you how to set the alarm. There was no chance of the sun waking you this morning! That tropical depression they mentioned on the weather report yesterday has arrived. I only hope it doesn't get any worse, half the crops are still out, and no one around here can afford to lose them!" "Tropical depression?" "Mmmhmm. They form out in the Gulf, and sometimes turn into tropical storms, or even hurricanes. They can be really nasty business, but this late in the season they rarely get bad. Come on, now. Up and at 'em!" She winked at him and closed the door. As he dressed, he found himself thinking about the past few days. Thursday had passed quickly, and with no further sign of Q, which worried him a bit. He was beginning to worry about what was happening on the Enterprise in his absence, but his work kept him too busy to really dwell on it. He and Rena had watched Star Trek again, and again that had degenerated into a discussion triggered by the episode. The only problem he had... other than the obvious one of his presence in the 20th century, was his own growing attraction to his employer, and the mixed feeling which that engendered. He had lain awake long into the morning trying to talk himself out of wanting her. He pushed those thoughts aside once again and joined Rena in the kitchen to start preparing for the lunch crowd. She was sitting on a tall stool at one of the counters when he entered the room, and she motioned for him to join her, handing him a mug of steaming tea, the scent from which told him it was his favorite. Her plate, and the one he assumed was his, held three puffy, golden-brown triangles. Between the plates was a plastic bear full of honey. He looked at her curiously, and she smiled. "It's my turn to provide breakfast. I heated up the fryer early today and made sopapillas. Ever had them?" He shook his head, sliding onto the empty stool next to hers. Her smile turned to a grin. "Well, you're in for a treat, then! They're the next best thing to sex..." she laughed and blushed again. "Well, sort of, anyway. They're the Mexican equivalent of doughnuts. They're hollow inside, so what you do is tear off a corner, drizzle honey into the middle, and eat." She demonstrated, then handed him the honey. He followed her example. The pastry was warm to the touch, and steamed gently when he tore off a corner as she had instructed. The honey, thinned by the heat, ran easily and coated the interior of the pastry. He took a tentative bite, and smiled. The wheaten flavor of the confection was perfectly complimented by they honey, and the crisp outer layer contrasted nicely with the almost doughy interior. "Like it?" Rena queried, a bit anxiously Recalling her comments about his crepes he was tempted to tease her similarly. He swallowed, and followed the bite with a sip of tea before answering. "You might have exaggerated *slightly* in your description, but it is delicious." She beamed. "Oh, good! I hoped you'd like them! Technically they're not breakfast, or even dessert as most people assume. They're supposed to be served with a meal as a sort of palate cleanser. Since Mexican food is often very spicy, the blandness of the sopapillas helps cool the burn. But to me, they're just about the world's most perfect breakfast, I've treated myself to them at least once a month since I discovered them." She took another bite of her own pastry, a blissful expression suffusing her face. He watched, fascinated, by her obvious enjoyment. It was becoming quite apparent that Rena Taylor was a bit of a sensualist, underneath her no-nonsense exterior. He must have watched her a moment too long, though, for she suddenly looked up at him with a lifted eyebrow. "I have honey on my chin, right?" He laughed. "No, Rena, you don't. I was just thinking how nice it is to see you enjoy yourself." Yet another wave of color washed across her face and her gaze dropped to her plate. "Oh. I...ah...." suddenly she laughed, shaking her head. "Oh hell, I don't know why that should embarrass me. I *was* enjoying it! And I intend to keep right on doing so," with that she took another bite, with exaggerated relish. "Good, for I certainly never intended to make you self-conscious about it." "Don't worry," she said around a bite. "You won't." ### '...You won't make me any more self-conscious than I already am.' Rena thought to herself wryly. She'd felt self-conscious since the first moment she'd laid eyes on him. It was beginning to wear on her. She finished her second pastry, swallowed her last sip of tea. and then took her plate and cup to the sink to wash and put away. A few moments later Jean-Luc joined her there, reaching for her plate and the dishrag she was using. "I'll do these, why don't you start the pintos? You know the pressure cooker intimidates me." She laughed and relinquished her place, her fingers sliding soapily along his as she passed the plate to him. She firmly ignored the spark of heat that flashed along her nerve endings at the contact, or at least, she told herself to do so. Her body didn't cooperate very well. She brushed a stray lock of hair out her face with the back of her hand and grinned at him. "Well, how were you to know that you shouldn't just take the rocker off when the time was up? I never told you!" He smiled wryly. "Basic physics should have told me that, whether or not you'd mentioned it. I wonder if you'll ever get all the beans out of the vent filter?" "I took it out and rinsed it this morning before you were up. It's fine now. But I *will* man the pressure cooker if you like, a lot of people are afraid of them, you're not alone." He lifted an eyebrow at her, drawing himself up ramrod straight. "I am *not* afraid of it! I simply... respect it." She studied him for a moment, then grinned sardonically. "Yeah, right. When you finish those you can start the soup-stock, you did fine with that yesterday." "Aye, sir," he said, and she got the impression he would have saluted her had his hands not been full of dishes. She wondered if he'd been in the military. That would explain his bearing, and some of his mannerisms. Did France have a military, she wondered momentarily, then realized what a stupid question that was, betraying her cultural bias. The only militaries she ever thought much about were the US and Soviet ones... or rather, the formerly Soviet ones. Of *course* France had a military. She dug several cups of dried beans out of the big burlap bag and tossed them in a strainer to rinse them, and watched him pick up the big stock pot and carry it to the sink to fill. She realized that although she'd told him a great deal about herself, he had told her very little about himself. Suddenly she had an awful thought, and before she could stop herself the question spilled out. "Jean-Luc... are you married?" He looked up at her in obvious surprise, but he seemed to hesitate for a moment, before he shook his head. "No, I'm not. Why do you ask?" "I... uh... was just curious," she said, suddenly paying close attention to picking field debris out of the beans. He had hesitated. There was more to that answer than met the eye. Did it mean he was lying, or just the more likely explanation of an ex-wife. If he had once been married, he might have kids... that thought startled her. But it was really none of her business. She finished rinsing the beans, dumped them into the pot and covered them over with water. Setting the rocker on the valve, she got them started. There was too much to get done to stand around wondering about her employee's mysterious past. ### "Rena?" "Yes, Sueann?" Rena didn't turn around, intent on watching the fries, not wanting to remove them until they reached just the proper shade of golden-tan. "I hate to do this to you, but there's a customer at table six who's just bein' the biggest pain, Ain't nothin' I can do t' please him, and I've tried and tried! Would you see if you can settle him down? Lifting the heavy chromed fryer basket out of the grease Rena set it to drain and turned around. She was a bit shocked by how pale and drawn Sueann looked. She had both hands pressed against her lower back, and she looked positively enormous! Rena frowned, forgetting about the unhappy customer for the moment. "Susie, sweetie, are you *sure* you're only seven months along?" Sueann's gaze fell and her pale cheeks turned a dull red as she shook her head. "No..." she almost whispered. "I lied about how far along I was so Billy Ray'd think it was his, cause I didn't start seein' him 'til late February." Torn between the urge to comfort the younger woman, and the urge to shake her till her teeth rattled, Rena sighed. "Oh, Sueann... you shouldn't have lied to *me*! "I know, Rena, but I had to!" "No, you didn't *have* to," Rena admonished sternly. "You know I wouldn't have told him a thing! So, how far along are you, really?" Shamefaced, Sueann stared at the floor as she answered. "Doc Lacey figgers I'm due in three weeks." Rena put her hand to her forehead, distractedly pushing aside her slightly damp curls. "Three weeks!" She exclaimed. "Three weeks? Sueann, I'd tan your hide if you weren't so far gone! You get upstairs right now, and lie down! After the rush is over I'll run you home. You shouldn't be working in your condition!" Sueann started to cry, fat tears sliding down her cheeks, leaving mascara trails behind them. "But Rennie! I gotta work! How else am I gonna be able to afford to pay my rent?" "I'll... figure something out. But you're not lifting another tray until after that baby is born, d'you hear me?" Sueann nodded dejectedly and wiped her eyes on her apron before essaying the stairs to the living quarters. Rena sighed, and turned to find Jean-Luc watching her. "Is something wrong?" "Nothing you can fix," she said, a bit bluntly. "I just sent Sueann upstairs to rest, and she'll be going home as soon as I find the time to take her. She just finally saw fit to inform me that her baby's due in three weeks, not two months!"