nineteen #3
“What… what do you mean by that?”
He cocked his head. “We haven’t really talked about our guests in a while. It’s just dawned on me that you might not get along with some of them. Although…”
He tried to look at Mira, but the group of old friends had moved to the middle of the dance floor while they waited for their table to be ready.
“I see you two talking sometimes. I figured you were getting friendly.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Jeez. Nothing.” He laughed, arms folding on the table. The tapping stopped. “What’s with you? I know you don’t get into town often, but isn’t it normal to make friends?”
“Friends.” Sulim would go with that. “I guess we’re friends. She’s rather strange, though.” She let the stress leave her body, tension melting from her shoulders and settling in her stomach. At least he can’t see it frozen there. Not like her stiff arms and scrunched neck.
“Aren’t all julah?”
“How many have you known?”
“Er, you got me there. I’m going by stereotypes. I guess you’ve known more than me.”
“What I mean is that she likes to get into trouble. She smokes a lot. So, if your mother gets on someone’s case about it, it’s probably her.”
“Good to know.”
Sulim matched his energy on the table, turning her gaze to the frosted windows that were finally capturing some of the oncoming twilight. Once it starts getting dark, I guess it really goes for it. Such was early spring. “Guess we should eat so we can get back before it’s really late.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Sonall said. “I told my mother we were coming into town for a while and not to wait up for us.”
“Yeah, but—”
He cut her off with a click of his tongue. “I implied that if we’re not back by her bedtime, then we'll get a room and will be back tomorrow.”
Sulim swallowed. “Oh.”
“Makes sense, right? I’d like a couple of drinks, anyway. But I don’t fancy tipsy horse-riding in the dark.”
“Sure.”
“I just figured…” He shrugged. “Maybe you really needed to get out of the house. I know I did. It’s so cramped. I can’t cough without people knowing about it, let alone anything else.”
She had a feeling she knew what he meant by that. “It’s a lovely thought. Thanks.”
“Too much?”
Sulim shook her head. “You have to remember, I grew up in the kind of brink-of-poverty where my aunt would have had an aneurysm thinking about staying the night in an inn in Yarensport because she stayed out too late.
It’s never occurred to me that it’s something we might do when we only live a forty-five-minute trot away.”
“Only,” she says.
“I’m used to an hour-long toptik ride into town.”
“It’s funny how you and I grew up so similarly yet differently.”
“Yeah, well, it’s funny how some things never change.” Back on Qahrain, Sulim was a foster. I never quite belonged, especially if I didn’t pull my weight. Sounded familiar to her now.
Their drinks arrived before the silence could get too awkward between them, and Sulim was grateful for something to occupy their mouths with.
Great Void, this is more than a date. Her thoughtful, in-love husband didn’t want to just take his wife out to dinner and treat her to some new books or whatever else she fancied—he wanted to take her to an inn, a chance to get away from the in-laws and all of the guests in the main house.
Oh, boy. Any other young wife would probably be ecstatic, but Sulim would rather stare at the woman across the dance floor.
But she didn’t know which was worse: Mira catching her and coming over, or Sonall catching her and figuring it out.
Eventually, decisions were made on her behalf.
One of Sonall’s childhood friends spotted him from the stage.
Well, one hello turned into a how are you, man?
and the next thing Sulim knew, the guy bounded over to talk to Sonall about business and how he liked to moonlight as a musician when he wasn’t working a day job the next town over.
“I got an automobile, man,” he proudly said as Sonall expressed how impressed he was, since even he and Sulim didn’t have their own dedicated vehicle due to taxes and tariffs levied by the Arrahite government to preserve the clean air.
“You can fit four fillies in that thing!” He meant women, not horses.
Sulim took the opportunity to slip out of her seat and meander across the restaurant. When she reached Mira’s table, she was greeted with a sweet grin from the woman in question and a quizzical look from her older male companion.
“Well, well, speak of the Void, and it awakens,” Mira quoted from Temple proverbs. “I wasn’t expecting to see you here tonight. I didn’t even know they let you off Gardiah grounds.”
“It was a last-minute decision. What are you doing here?”
“Rude,” Mira whispered with wild amusement in her sparkling amber eyes. “I’m visiting an old friend who is staying in town. Oh! Sulim, I must introduce you to Master Ramaron Marlow. He’s assisting my mother with her research here at the local Temple.”
Sulim did a double-take when she realized where she knew that name.
“Huh?” She didn’t know what to expect, since Lady Joiya was quite young looking and the High Priest always looked immaculately youthful but wise on broadcasts, but the thought of the Master Ramaron Marlow, son of famed author Rene Marlow,
looking more like Mira’s older brother than someone old enough to be her father was something else.
Even with the facial hair and that silly hat.
“Pleasure to meet you,” Ramaron Marlow said in flawless Basic, like every other julah that Sulim knew.
“H… hi…”
“Uncle Ram, this is Sulim Gardiah. She’s married to Young Lord Gardiah.”
Those blue eyes boring into Sulim suddenly widened in understanding.
I can’t get over you calling him “Young Lord Gardiah.”
Hearing julah titles transferred over to human nobility was always a trip, especially since swapping “Master” for “Lord” sounded like a downgrade in Basic.
Guess they have to always keep their hierarchy with us.
“My, I certainly see why you’ve gotten yourself into a spot,” Ramaron said to Mira, who held a finger before her lips while he kept talking… in Basic, no less. “If you’re going to blow up your life with a human, make sure she’s beautiful.”
Sulim was stunned into silence. When she looked to Mira for answers, the woman in a simple Temple tunic said, “Well, I had to tell someone. Look at you. Gorgeous!”
It was not Sulim’s luck that the tavern was stuffed with nosy humans; it was to her benefit that it was so loud that nobody heard Mira announce that they were having an affair.