Nobody Left Behind 10

Rafe said his wife is sick, and he sounds worried that he won't always be able to take on new book projects. I'm worried for them both, and I hate the prospect of anyone else ever doing one of my audiobooks. Ugh, what a year!

Oh well, nothing I can do about it.

After Sarsuk embarrasses himself in front of Ashiok...

Nobody Left Behind 1
Nobody Left Behind 2
Nobody Left Behind 3
Nobody Left Behind 4
Nobody Left Behind 5
Nobody Left Behind 6
Nobody Left Behind 7
Nobody Left Behind 8
Nobody Left Behind 9

———

The yellow krakun sat on the dirty concrete curb, sobbing. She tapped his shoulder, asking, “You okay, Sursark?”

He glared up at the green krakun. “It’s Sarsuk.”

In her claw, she turned a paper cup about, taking a moment to recheck what the barista had written on it. “Huh,” she said, “seems I’ve stolen Sursark’s javea by mistake. Oops.”

Sarsuk wiped his eyes with his wrist, then accepted the cup and warmed his claws on either side. “Ashiok may be cute,” he grumped quietly, “but he doesn’t pay attention. Instead of asking you to repeat your name, he just writes down whatever he thought he heard.”

She looked at her cup, then turned it to him so he could read “Dennydr” marked on the side. “Got mine right.”

“Just me then,” he sighed. “Wouldn’t notice me if I fell on him.”

“You could try talking to him,” suggested Dennydr.

Sarsuk stood and dusted off his tail before walking off toward the space elevator down the street. “Thanks for rescuing my cup.”

She fell into line beside him, despite how purposefully he ignored her. “I’m serious,” she said.

“I’m sure you are.” When she said nothing, he added, “I can’t talk to him.”

“Why not?”

He was so surprised that he had to stop for a moment to glare at her. “Why?” He shook his head as he resumed walking. “Because I’m twice his age. Maybe older. He’d be revolted, and I’d die of shame. That’s why.”

“Older guys are sexy,” said Dennydr.

He huffed into his Sulfusion, launching a small twist of foam onto the end of his snout. “Rich guys are. Famous guys are.” He licked away half the foam. “Handsome guys are.”

She laughed. “He works at Solar Bark for crying out loud. Compared to him, you’re the CEO of a rock band.”

When he looked at her, she ran her thumb across his snout, clearing away the remaining foam. “And you’re not as ugly as you might imagine. You’re just…”—she gestured at his yellow scales—“a little plain, perhaps.”

His frown curled ever lower. “Thank you for your advice, but no. I doubt the little pride I have remaining after this morning could survive if he turned me down. Besides, I wouldn’t know what to say.”

Dennydr sang a quiet, “I could teach you.”

Sarsuk sipped from his cup without looking her way. “I can’t afford it.”

They walked. The elevator loomed closer.

“Tell me, Sarsuk,” she said, “do you date gals, or just guys?”

With an offended sneer, he growled, “I date females. I mean … I would. I mean…” He frowned even harder. “I’ve done it with a gal … if that’s what you’re implying.”

“I wasn’t,” she assured him with a flick of her free claw. “Okay, tell you what. I’ll give you a we-shared-a-really-embarrassing-moment discount. You take me out to dinner; I’ll teach you how to talk to Ashiok.”

Sarsuk sighed. “I can’t afford a fancy restaurant.”

“Not a fancy restaurant,” said Dennydr. “Just a regular one. What do you say?”

# # #

She stared down at her lap for a long while until Sarsuk could wait no longer. “What?”

“I’m confused,” said Siki.

Why are geroo so dumb? he wondered, rolling his eyes. “It’s very simple. Dennydr offered to teach me in exchange for dinner.”

“I’m confused,” she repeated, more insistent this time, “why when I asked about your friends, you excluded Dennydr. Is there some reason you didn’t want to talk about her then, but you do want to talk about her now?”

Sarsuk blinked. “Dennydr? She’s not my friend.”

“No?”

“No!” He peeled back his lips to show his huge teeth.

The geroo covered her mouth with a palm for a moment. When she removed it, she asked, “You said you have no friends. What precisely do you feel a person needs to do to qualify as your friend?”

“What?”

“Or the reverse, I suppose?” she said. “Consider all the people in your life and tell me what disqualifies them as friend material.”

“There aren’t any people in my life!” groaned Sarsuk. And he began counting them off on his invisible fingers. “My neighbors? We avoid each other and don’t talk. The captains of the ships I command? We have an adversarial relationship at best. My coworkers and I are all terrified we’ll show a weakness to one another. Ashiok doesn’t know my name. My cleaning crew…”

After his voice trailed off, Siki waited, then asked, “Your cleaning crew…?”

He looked down at the little geroo, and his lips dithered, toying with the shape of different words before he finally settled on, “They’re terrified of me,” and looked away.

“But not Dennydr,” said Siki. “You tried to avoid her, and she sought you out. You have a cordial relationship with her, and you admitted weaknesses to her. She didn’t sound frightened of you. So, why isn’t she your friend?”

He glanced at the ceiling in exasperation. “She was trying to sell me something. I was her customer, not her friend, and anyone who can’t see that is a sucker.”

“If you’ll pardon the pun,” Siki said, “I don’t buy that. All she wanted was to go out to dinner, and all she promised you was conversation. How’s that any different than a date?”

“The difference…” he barked, but then wasn’t so sure how to complete the thought. Was there a difference? Was it that she was only trying to keep him on the hook for more lessons whereas a date might be feeling him out for… Why do people date anyhow? Is it just searching for sex? For someone to make them feel less alone? “Okay, I’m not sure precisely, but I’m confident that she didn’t care about me, that she just wanted me to pay for a dinner—”

“Is that why she asked if you dated females?” interrupted the geroo.

“But… Well…” He let his head hang limp from his neck. Had she been a friend, and I just missed it somehow?

“Did you go out to dinner with her?”

Sarsuk nodded, not trusting his voice just yet.

“Will you tell me about it?”

# # #

Dennydr resisted the urge to order something expensive, but she did request a moderate vintage of wine. Sarsuk glanced at the wine list to find the price and didn’t look happy, but oh well. Even with the wine, he was getting a bargain for her time.

You’re out to dinner with a guy… He’s picking up the tab… she said to herself. That’s kinda like being on a date, right?

She sipped from her glass and enjoyed the moment. The restaurant was a bit loud for her tastes, and the tablecloth a tad shabby, but the scent of a dozen different meals overlapped in a pleasant quilt. Gesturing with her glass, she said, “So, when you go to Solar Bark tomorrow, I want you to talk to Ashiok.” She stared at Sarsuk in the eye. “Not just give him your order, but actually talk to him.”

He frowned harder, and he admitted, “I don’t know if I can. Ugh. Why is this so hard?”

He rested his chin on the backs of his claws and sulked for a moment. “At work, I’ve seen geroo meet a complete stranger—someone they’ve never seen before in their entire lives—and two weeks later, they’re living together.” He sat up once more and threw up his claws. “How is that possible?”

When he wasn’t frowning, Sarsuk was kind of cute—in a simple sort of way. Ever since she saw him playing with the sugar and honey dispensers, she felt it, that innocence of his, though he’d clearly buried it deep beneath a mountain of shame and disappointment. She wondered if he’d ever be able to share it willingly.

Dennydr started to say something, but Sarsuk spoke over her, “You know how they do it? Fear.”

“Fear?” she asked in surprise.

“Yeah. They live such short lives that they’re constantly afraid of wasting any of their precious moments.”

She swirled her cup and watched as the vintage streaked the glass. “Really? Do they seem like they’re always afraid?”

“Well, maybe they don’t show it, but they’d have to be, right?” he asked. “They only get sixty years. What’s that? It’s nothing.”

Perhaps, if you talked about yourself, he’d forget this silly boy-crush of his? she wondered. He’s already talking to you. If he can’t talk to Ashiok, then perhaps he’d be better off… She raised a talon and offered, “I once ate acacia fruit for twenty years.”

Sarsuk wrinkled his snout in displeasure. “Just acacia fruit?”

She laughed. “No. I mean, a friend of mine would have one every day for breakfast, and I said I could never eat one of those.” Dennydr shivered and stuck out her tongue at the unpleasant memory. “They’re too sour—”

“Way too sour,” he agreed. “Bitter too.”

“Right?” she asked, setting her claw atop of his. She leaned closer. “And she said that you just have to get used to them. You eat one every morning for twenty years, and then you’ll love them. You won’t want anything else.”

The yellow krakun looked revolted. He asked, “Do you love them now?”

“No, I hate them! My friend was totally wrong,” she said with a musical laugh. “But yeah, my point. I was agreeing with you. What’s twenty years? It’s nothing.”

He gestured with his free palm as if to say, “You see?” then sighed. “It’s a third of a geroo’s life.”

“Crazy, huh?”

Sarsuk nodded. “So yeah, fear must give them their strength. We don’t know that kind of fear,” he admitted. “I feel shy, and I think, ‘I’ll just talk to Ashiok tomorrow. There’s no rush.’ Slaves can’t do that.”

She rubbed the back of his claw. It felt nice to touch another person. How long had it been? How many years? With a quieter tone, she asked, “How long have you put off talking to him?”

He shrugged and pulled his claw away, ignoring how intimate the contact had been. “I don’t know … a couple hundred years now?”

Dennydr put both palms down on the white tablecloth and leaned over the candle to stare into his solid green eyes. “Right. So, tomorrow’s going to be different.” She grinned. “Tomorrow, you’re a geroo—”

He recoiled slightly. “Ew. That’s disgusting.”

“I know, but you don’t have to pretend for sixty years,” she said with a smile, “just tomorrow morning. You walk into Solar Bark, and you pretend you’re a geroo.”

He pulled his wrists close to his chest and bobbed once, pretending to take a little hop. With a smirk, he said, “Please ignore my pouch and my freakish external genitalia.”

She grinned at his joke, then sat back into her cushions and picked her wine back up. She spoke to it, as if the wine represented his future. “You think, ‘This is my only chance. I’m gonna die like … tomorrow. I gotta do it now.”

Sarsuk frowned again and lowered his claws, fiddling with the table’s edge.

Dennydr sighed. It’s so simple! she wanted to scream at him. All you have to do is ask one of us out, and the rest will just happen. “What will you say tomorrow?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted and shrugged. “Something that’ll impress him?”

“No!” she groaned. She rapped her knuckles against the table, drawing his attention. “He’s already going to feel impressed because you’re older and more successful than he is.”

Sarsuk nodded slowly. “So, I should remind him that he’s just a nobody?”

She covered her eyes and shook her head. “No! Oh jeez, please don’t do that.” When she uncovered them, she put her claw over his once more. “You want him to like you, right?”

“Yeah.”

“So, you need to de-emphasize that you’re more successful,” Dennydr explained. “You want him to be comfortable around you, to forget that he’s not in your class.”

He took back his claw and gulped from his water glass. He asked, “Am I making a mistake … being interested in someone beneath me?”

Dennydr sat back, contemplating the question. Yes, he’s paying me to encourage him—despite how modest a fee this dinner is—but it would be so simple to sabotage this, she thought. I could just say, ‘Maybe,’ and I’d scuttle his desires and insert myself instead…

But instead, she asked, “How many people have you dated since you started crushing on Ashiok?”

He didn’t answer. He looked down, and the twitch in his shoulder admitted that he hadn’t gone out with any.

She drew a breath and sighed. “Then no,” she said, “it’s not a mistake.”

Dennydr took two un-lady-like gulps of wine. “Remember, tomorrow morning, you’re a geroo,” she reminded him. “Tomorrow’s your only chance.”

Sarsuk didn’t acknowledge her inner turmoil, but he finally looked in her eyes. “Okay, so I go up to him…”

“You go at a time when there isn’t any line,” she said, pointing at his chin, “when he’s not going to rush to get rid of you so he can get on to the next customer.”

“Got it.” He looked down as if filing that away.

“And you say…”

Sarsuk threw up his claws in frustration. “I’ve got no idea!”

She groaned. Why was he so flustered over this barista? “You can do this! You’re talking to me, right now. It’s easy. Just treat him like he’s an equal,” she said, “like a coworker or a neighbor.”

“Which?” Sarsuk actually smiled. “Should I stab him in the back or wait until he’s gone inside before I leave my apartment?”

Dennydr laughed and slapped the table, making the flatware jingle. “Oh, jeez.”

“I’m joking!” he laughed. “Kinda…”

She grinned. “Just say, ‘I don’t suppose you have any dinner plans tonight?’”

Sarsuk shook his head. “I can’t afford to take him out to a fancy restaurant.”

This time, she grabbed his claw and squeezed it hard. “You don’t have to! Just take him here,” she said. With a tightened throat, she added, “This is a great spot for a first date. Not too formal; not too fancy. It’s very relaxed—”

“He won’t be impressed.”

Dennydr growled. “You’re not trying to impress him.”

“I’m not?”

“No!” she groaned with another squeeze. “You’re trying to get to know him. You’re trying to spend time with him.”

With a smile, she added, “Try to figure out if you’d want him to move in with you two weeks from now.”

He recoiled and pulled his claw away, holding it protectively beneath his chin. “I could never do that!”

“I’m teasing,” she laughed. “Kinda.”

The green krakun drained her wine and signaled the waiter with the empty glass, requesting another. “Try being a geroo for a bit. Act like it’s now-or-never for a day. See what happens.”

With a touch of self-pity, she asked, “What have you got to lose?”

———

Reviewer's link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/15G14Ix_2wLmxDgVR_KEUEeuvO95z4hFJKvpKuwo3KYw/edit?usp=sharing

Thoughts?