Date: Fri, 2 Apr 93 16:34:58 CST From: Ingrid de Beus Subject: Enemies:part four Message-Id: _Enemies_ by Ingrid de Beus (c)1993 Ingrid de Beus Part four: The first guests to arrive are office-mates of Gerald, all of whom have names on Al's handlink. As he welcomes an increasingly blurred string of guests into the house, Sam becomes increasingly grateful for Al's running commentary on the group collecting in the living and sitting rooms. "Oh, and this is Alan. " drawls Al, gesturing with his cigar at yet another young man. "Alan is an engineer who drove a mercedes here, probably paid for in part by Jeffrey's wife -- she's the blonde pink, Sam. I always tried to stay away from women with nails that long.. oh and this is Sherryl and Lance -- sounds like they belong in a revue, doesn't it, Sam? " Sam manages to keep a polite smile on his face as he ushers in a couple in the mid-thirties, fashionably dressed, which for 1979 looked a little weird to Sam's eyes. "Of course, I try not to be too strict in my standards.." Al continues, his eyes following the afore-mentioned blonde around the room. Sam rolls his eyes heavenward and leans against the doorframe, glad of a break between arriving guests. He watches Al wander partways into the living room, prowling amongst the females. The catering trucks have long since arrived and plates of hors d'oeuvres are appearing on coffee tables. "Excuse me, Gerald? " Sam turns around to see a fortyish man with thinning black hair and a dark tan standing in the door. He puts out his hand, which Sam takes automatically. "Hello, " Sam says, smiling, casually omitting a name, "welcome to my mother's birthday party. " The other man has a firm handshake, and looks Sam straight in the eye as he speaks to him. "Thanks very much, Gerald. I know this party means a lot to your mother, so we'll all try to enjoy it as much as she can stand, huh?" the man responds solemnly, a smile crinkling around his eyes. Sam grins back at him, recognizing the newcomer's valuable sense of humor. In the flood of new people, he was beginning to despair of meeting anyone real, but he likes this man almost immediately. He releases his hand and waves him into the living room. A squawk and muffled curse interrupts his thoughts and Sam's attention focuses again on Al, who is standing in the middle of the center coffee table, shaking the handlink. Noticing Sam's attention, Al walks towards him. "Sorry, Sam, " he says, looking annoyed, "but Dr. Beeks wants to talk to me. I'll be back soon, okay? " Sam looks a little crestfallen, but nods his assent. Al punches a button, and disappears into the Imaging Chamber door. Sam walks into the party, determined to be a friendly host. He soon discovers, however, that an outgoing manner is unusual behavior for Gerald Fundikker. Either that, Sam decides, or the man has the worst reputation at parties this side of Genghis Khan. After observing two separate conversations die around him, he decides to get something to drink in the kitchen, and regroup his thoughts. The kitchen is bursting with catered goods. Sam succeeds in navigating to the refridgerator when the back door opens, and Danielle Layton enters through it. She is wearing a blue party dress, and her shoes are discreetly muddy. Her manner, while not precisely furtive, is certainly subdued. Sam immediately scans her face, and sees that the bruise he saw during his first nightmarish minutes in this leap has faded a little, but is still clearly visible on the side of her face. She had been struck at least once, Sam's physician voice commented from the back of his mind, by a something large and non-abrasive. Sam becomes suddenly very aware of his hands, as they reached into the fridge on auto-pilot, grabbing the first tall container they encountered. "Hello, Gerald, " she says, her eyes flicking fitfully in his direction. A cold edge in her young voice dries up whatever pleasantry Sam might have uttered. Idiotically, he extends the pitcher in his hand towards her. "Hi, " he manages, " like some cider? " His voice sounds false and toneless in his ears, an opinion he can see mirrored in the girl's expression. "No, " she responds, turning sharply away from him. "Now, my dear, " comes a gushing voice, " is that any way to act? You must have been better brought up then that.." Sam sighs, glad, for the first time, for Mrs. Fundikker's presence. The lady of the house swoops down upon the girl at her back door and takes her by the arm, not un-gently. "Your father's already joined the guests, my dear, " she continues, blithely ignorant of the tense atmosphere, "why don't you go and find him? " Danielle immediately stalks out of the kitchen, trying to keep one step ahead of Mrs. Fundikker's arm and perfume. Sam waits one more heartbeat, and then pours himself some cider, and tries not to think of a bruised and terrified face above a torn blouse. He spends the rest of the morning wandering through the party, trying to avoid any contact with Danielle, without being too conspicuous about it. The consistent unwillingness of the party guests to have much to do with Gerald helps him in this regard, because he's able to drift from conversation to conversation without upset. The effort, however, leaves him feeling drained by afternoon. Inwardly, Sam finds himself wondering at the amount of energy Danielle must be expending in maintaining a black mood for the same amount of time. She participates in very few conversations, preferring to pick constantly at the hors d'oeuvres. Sam decides to sit down and watch the party for a while. He chooses a chair in the living room, well behind the center coffee table and its couches, where Danielle is sitting, currently surrounded by a conversational set Sam had mentally dubbed earlier as "the pretzel gang", for their collective beer-guts. Apparently, one of their wives had dragged her husband to a production of "Hamlet" a few nights earlier. "It was one of those modern shows, " the husband was expounding, waving his beer-glass in a circular motion. "You know, the kind that are supposed to make the audience feel like 'part of the show', or something. It confused the heck out of me -- I couldn't even see some of the actors properly." He takes a drink from his glass, and grins at his friends, as though he's made a good joke. "Theatre in the round, " comments Danielle, from the depths of the couch. One of the pretzel gang focuses on her, as though he hadn't known she was there until she spoke. "Is that what they call it? " he asks, jovially, reaching behind him for his own glass. The self-pitying husband glances at her, perhaps annoyed at losing the spotlight. "Yes, " responds Danielle, not looking at any of them. "It's a way for a director to find a new approach to an old play, because theatre in the round demands a unique stage and lighting design, as well as a special environment for the actors, who have to deal with an audience on three sides, instead of just one like in a proscenium production." Sam finds himself leaning forward to hear what Danielle is saying. He'd been hoping he could find a little more about Danielle, all day, but hadn't been able to think of a good reason to talk about her with anyone. "A proscenium production? " asks one of the pretzel gang, a slightly patronizing tone hanging on to his voice. Sam smiles to himself as Danielle sits up a little straighter. She's no fool. "That's what you'd call a normal production, where the audience looks through a fourth wall onto a set scene. The proscenium arch is the 'frame' of the stage. " Danielle is looking almost animated, now. "Where'd you learn so much about theatre, huh?" asks the first speaker, sounding both curious and affronted. "Oh, you can pick up a lot from watching, you know. It's really easier to learn then you'd think, " Danielle responds, a wistful note creeping into her voice. "I always knew it didn't take much brains to be an actor.." laughs another pretzel gang member. "No, that's not true, " Danielle protests, too loudly. Her outburst creates a small silence around her. Sam's smile broadens. Danielle's posture has become emphatic, and attentive, a far cry from the timid and angry creature that had been lurking around the party all day. Danielle leans forward and grabs a cocktail napkin, and nabs a pen from one of the pretzel gang's jacket pockets. Sam resists the urge to stand up, so that he can see what she's drawing, but reminds himself she might notice his attention, and be frightened by it. Before the silence can bleed into more conversation, she completes her sketch of a stage, top-view, and taps it with her pen. Sam feels a small pang of envy, as he remembers how hard it was for him to command an audience when he was ten. "I saw that play, too, with my parents, " continues Danielle, her words spilling out like an over-turned resevoir. "The reason a good play works is because its a microcosm of life. The actors and director and everybody involved have to work together to bring that truth to their audience. " She continues to add to the sketch as she talks, delineating figures in the audience, and parts of the set. "The director of that production of Hamlet was good, but he got too caught up in the dynamics of the characters, and didn't consider the dynamics of the audience in his stagings. See.. " the pictures is waved about the coffee table "it's as though he's spent all his rehearsals in the best seats in the house." "You can't blame him for that, he's the director, " jokes the man next to her. The others laugh, a little loudly. They're embarassed, Sam realizes, to be listening to a little girl. "No, you don't understand.." she continues, her voice straining to keep their attention focussed. "Now that's enough of that, Danielle." The dark-haired man that Sam spoke to earlier in the day reaches over and gently takes the pen from her hand. Danielle looks at him with dismay, but receives no response from him. She immediately clams up, and draws her feet and hands away from the coffee table. The conversation around her veers into the subject of famous hollywood directors, and their rumored peccadillos. Danielle sits very still, her mouth set in a tight frown, staring at her drawing on the table. Sam watches her closely for a few minutes, wondering if she would make a scene over the boorish behavior around her. Gradually, that tension disappears, to be replaced by a new one as he realizes that she has walled herself off completely with her temper, unwilling to accept her external environment, and unable to change it. The stony set of her face twists his gut. "Quite an attention-grabber, isn't she? " says the dark-haired man, drifting towards Sam's position. His tone is part pride, part wry observation. Sam hastily clears his expression and smiles at him. "Yeah, she, uh, knows how to speak, " he says, " to a crowd, I mean. " "I'm going to be very proud my little girl one day, I think, " muses the man aloud. A note of worry creeps into his voice. Sam takes a deep breath. This must be Henry Layton, Danielle's father. "Do you know how she got those bruises on her face?" he asks. Layton looks at him in surprise. "Yes, of course? didn't you ask her? " Layton's face creases into a relaxed smile. "She was running, with her swimming trophy in her hands, and she tripped. She didn't use her hands to break her fall because she didn't want her trophy to get broken, so she stopped the ground with her face." Layton pauses to sip from his neglected glass. "'Stopped the ground with my face'," he repeats, grinning. "Nice turn of phrase, huh, Gerald? She ought to be a writer when she grows up. " The notion, and the image of his daughter's priorities, seems to amuse Layton greatly. Sam returns his grin. After a moment, Layton's worried look returns. "She's not having such a great time at this party, is she, " Sam ventures. Layton's eyes search out his daughter, again. Danielle has levered herself out of the couch, and is hunched in a corner, next to another plate of hors d'oeuvres. An intense frown mars her face. "She's probably just tired, " Layton comments, sounding more concerned then that. "Excuse me, Gerry, " he says, and starts to walk towards Danielle. Sam decides that he needs a little fresh air, and heads for the back door, through the kitchen. Mrs. Fundikker's house has a large back lawn, rimmed with carefully tended flowerbeds. Some light rain has come and gone, leaving a heavy mist in the air. Sam gladly gets his feet wet on the grass, throwing back his arms and head in an attempt to loosen up his shoulders. Just as he's beginning to feel a little relaxed, he hears the IC door behind him. "How is it, " he asks the mist-covered flowers in front of him, "that you always appear behind me? Did you reprogram the Imaging Chamber just to startle me, Al? " "You might be concentrating on something in front of you, like the road if you're driving, " responds Al, sensibly. Sam turns around to look at Al, who is standing nonchalantly, his hands in his pockets, as tendrils of mist move through him. Sam silently thanks whatever powers that be that Al is without his cigar for this moment. The mixture of fog, hologram, and clouds of smoke issueing forth from his mouth would have been ghastly. "Any news on Danielle? " he asks, trying not to imagine Al blurring around the edges. Al fishes the handlink out of his pocket and glances at it, and then re-pockets it. He shrugs. "Nothing that would make you happy, " he says. Sam nods tiredly. "She's got a lot of potential, you know," he says. Al nods. "She could do anything she wants. " "Well, what she wants is to be is a corporate vice-president, Sam, assuming everything works out, this weekend. " A slight edge appears in Al's tone, which makes Sam look at him sharply. "What is it, Al, " he insists. "Well, it seems to me occasionally you get a little caught up in what you think ought to be happening, instead of thinking about what is actually happening. " Al tries to sound dismissive. "Well, isn't that why I'm leaping about in time, so that I can change what is happening to what ought to be happening? " Sam responds angrily. "Within reason, Sam! " The two friends stare at each other in anger for a moment, and then Al continues, his tone intensifying "It true; leaping does seem to be tied into personal crises in the lives of the people you encounter, but foresight does not give you the right to shape people's lives, Sam! " Sam continues to meet Al's glare for a few heartbeats, and then retreats. He turns back towards the house. The lights and the forced gaiety feel very distant, like porthole on a ship far out at sea. "I've never seen so much anger bottled up in a child, before, Al. " he says, very softly. The Observer's eyes narrow slightly, taking in Sam's depression. Al feels his temper wane. "It's not your fault, Sam, " he says, quietly. "No, it's Gerald's, " Sam says, bitterly. A look of alarm darts across Al's face, and he moves in front of his friend, blocking his view. "I hate feeling this helpless, Al, " says Sam, not meeting Al's gaze. The Observer pulls out his handlink. "You can't save this one, Sam. Don't risk everything by trying to do the impossible." Sam frowns, and Al puts a little more urgency into his voice. "Listen, Ziggy gives an 83% chance that just having nothing to do with Danielle and sticking to her suggestions about her dad will get you to leap at the end of this weekend. It could be that if you do anything more to affect this girl's emotional stability, that you'll be stuck here forever, and forgive me if I'm way off on this one, Sam, but I don't think you want to be stuck as this world-class nozzle. " "I know, Al." Sam responds, exasperated. "Believe me, if this were something simple like I had to stop teasing her or..something, I would just lay low, but I can't. I can't just stand around and know that I--that Gerald-- is personally responsible for destroying a little girl's entire universe, and not try and give it back. " He looks helplessly at Al, who composes himself and answers calmly. "Sam, I know you're not going to believe this, but you can't. " "What do you mean!?" Sam resumes his pacing. Al watches him for a moment, and then drops his gaze to the ground. "Sam.. ah, what's the use. I don't know how to explain this to you." "What, do you think I don't understand how impossible it is to hand someone their self-esteem back? I did take psych classes in med school, you know, Al. " "That's not what I'm talking about. Look Sam, would you say that I'm an optimist? " Sam pauses in his pacing and looks, puzzled, at Al. "Well, you have a positive outlook, I guess. What does that have--" Al cuts him off with a curt gesture. "Just listen to me, Sam; do you know why you're so good at this leaping business? " "No, Al, what are you getting--" "It's because you don't have a 'positive outlook'; you're an optimist. Some people get taught early on that the world is a filthy, rotten place inhabited by filthy, rotten people, and that there's nothing you can do about it except suffer, or fight. But to you, Sam Beckett, life is still fair, can be fair, can be *made* fair, if you only try hard enough, in the right way, at the right time. Not everybody knows that, y'know." Al lets his compassion show through his grim features, as he watches Sam's countenance falter. "I don't understand, " Sam says. "No, you don't, kid, " Al takes a deep breath, and lets it out slowly. "And I'm glad, " he continues, almost under his breath. Sam looks away, his confusion and frustration showing in the tension in his shoulders. "Look, I, uh, I'm going to go back and talk to Ziggy and Beeks, " Al says, trying to sound casual. "Why don't you go talk to Henry Layton? Ok? " He punches a button on the handlink, summoning the Imaging Chamber door. "Ok, " says Sam, to a cold and empty lawn. to be concluded...