[Anthony] Friendship

[writemagic]

I stand in line at the grocery, one eye on the line in front of me, the other firmly in my book when I hear a voice I recognize behind me.

“Julia?”

I turn to see my neighbor pulling her cart in behind me. “Hi, Nancy.”

Nancy is a small, no-nonsense looking woman in her fifties with short brown hair and a collection of hideously ugly seasonal sweaters. This one is brown with red and orange blobs that after a moment I realize are intended to be fall leaves. Her husband runs a large appliance repair shop next door. “Wow, that's a lot of food! I didn't realize that you cooked so much in that little kitchen. Or are you stocking up for Thanksgiving?”

Shit. Thanksgiving. That's next week, isn't it? “Er. Thanksgiving. Right. Yes.”

Nancy gives me an odd look and I don't blame her in the slightest. “Oh. I didn't realize... oh. Bob and I were going to invite you over for the holiday, since you said you didn't have any family. But...” she trails off, confused. I recall that I did tell her that, a few months ago when I set up shop and she brought over a plate of biscuits and I invited her up for tea. Nancy would know everything about me if I weren't careful.

“I have a, er, cousin. He's up for a few weeks, staying with me. For the holidays.” I can feel the heat rising in my cheeks.

“Oh, of course.” She gives me a brilliant smile. “The invitation is still open. For the both of you.”

I'm next for the checker, and it saves me from having to respond immediately. While I watch my grocery bill add up, Nancy makes polite chitchat with the woman behind her, then turns back to me while I pay in cash.

“You know, Bob and I have a little side business scavenging old appliances, fixing them up and selling them.”

I glance over and she's giving me a measuring look. “You've told me.”

“Bob can't see as well as he used to and he has a hard time with some of the smaller stuff. Do you know of anyone who might be able to take over some of it? We'd be happy to pay them.” She looks at the total on the checker's stand shrewdly, then looks back to me while he hands me my change. I put it in my pocket, not bothering to look at it, putting the grocery bags in my cart.

“I...” Don't do it, Joule. Don't do it. “I could take a look at some of it. My da- er, my dad was pretty handy at that stuff, and I'm okay at it.”

Nancy gives me another brilliant smile. “I'll give you a call and we can arrange it. Take care!” She waves at me while she strikes up a conversation with the checker, whom she has apparently known since he was five.

-=-=-=-

Anthony and I have settled into as much of a routine as we can reasonably have after only a few days. I change his dressings in the morning, cook breakfast, work on whatever I have in the shop for a few hours, or tinker with my own car if I don't have any real work. We eat a light lunch and spend the afternoons in the loft where afternoon light comes in through the high south window. We read and sometimes we talk. I made a lentil stew without meat that has turned out to be surprisingly good, and we eat again, later in the evening. Sometimes we talk about books. More often, we remain in companionable silence until I check his dressings and change the ones that require it.

On Wednesday, I get a call from Nancy as she promised. We wind up in a somewhat lengthy negotiation over her collection of small appliances and finally agree on a price and time frame that seem fair. That afternoon, she brings the first batch by and I'm surprised by the number of blue plastic totes that she carts in - four large Rubbermaids that are filled to their brims with toasters and hand mixers and blenders and some things I'm not certain what they are intended to do, but look like they belong in a kitchen.

“I was hoping I'd get a chance to meet your... brother, was it?” she says as she unloads the last tote into the office, brushing the snow from it.

There's a moment where I hesitate and then remember what I told her. “Cousin,” I correct her faintly.

“Right, right. Cousin. Well, let me know about Thanksgiving.” And then she's off, leaving me with my new collection of bulky blue totes.

As I bring the first heavy tote up the stairs, Anthony gives me a frustrated look, but sits quietly, watching. It's only when I bring the last tub up that I realize that I haven't told him anything about my newest job as kitchen appliance tinker.

“Work,” I tell him. “But not my usual kind.” I open the first and start laying out its contents on my freshly cleared work table. Anthony marks his page with a finger, watching and waiting with Zen-like patience. “I ran into Nancy - that's my neighbor on the east side,” I point with a thumb over my shoulder to the repair shop next door, “at the grocery. Asked if I knew of anyone who could do a bit of tinkering.” I pick up an electric mixer that has seen better days and has a layer of something that looks like cake batter crusted over the seam of the case. “She collects appliances that folks throw out and sells them, but Bob - her husband - can't see as well as he used to.” I think about what I've said and realize that I've given him almost no helpful information. “I said I'd take a look at what she had and see if there was aught I could do. I didn't realize what sort of store she had built up.” I wave at the rest of the totes before pulling my table a few feet closer to Anthony's bed and hook my chair with my foot and bring it with me.

Anthony smiles and nods, slips a proper bookmark into his book instead of his finger while I sit down. He begins the process of stretching, something he has done every day while he has been here, and something that I'm profoundly grateful he does on his own. I don't know the first thing about the sort of therapy he needs, but he evidently does.

I flip open my toolbox and take out a few pairs of pliers in various sizes and a couple of screwdrivers with changeable heads, a bottle of rubbing alcohol and a box of q-tips; I lay them out like a surgeon's tools. I inspect the case of the mixer again and find where I can pry it open. “Now, mostly appliances get dirty,” I tell him, giving him the wisdom my da taught me. “We don't take them apart to clean them, so they stop working and no one thinks that maybe the problem is just dirt.”

Anthony looks over one shoulder, twisting gently at mid-chest level. “Just one more way machines and human bodies are alike.”

Having pried the case apart without destroying it, I start cleaning the contacts. “'S'truth, of a sort. Also have to keep exercising them both, eh?” I glance up at Anthony to see him reaching up with his metal hand to support his right shoulder while he stretches his arm gently.

“Something like that, yeah. In the course of everyday use, bad stuff builds up inside them. Most people don't even think about that as the reason their joints get stiff, their breathing is harder, or they can't run as far as they used to. Bodies need cleaning just the same.”

“Problem is, you can't take 'em apart like you do a mixer.” One more way that machines are easier than people.

“Cleaning procedure's a little different, yeah.” He rests his right arm on the headboard where, until half a week ago, I kept a collection of tea cups and awful novels. He begins kneading his forearm carefully, with long lines up the muscles.

“Somewhat less invasive, one imagines.” I glance up to him again, then turn the mixer over to clean the other side. My cake batter theory is holding up thus far.

“A little.” He moves from right arm to chest, walking metal fingers over his collarbones and upper chest at precise points. “Are you fixing all this just for extra work?”

I shrug. “It's a lean season. I've enough to get by, but a little extra never hurts. And it's good to keep my hand in the tinkering.” It's all true to a point. I didn't get the never-empty bank account when I awakened, and caring for a second person, even for a short period, isn't helping my lean funds. Help could be a phone call away, but...

“The bug never leaves you alone for long, does it?”

I smile a little at that, run my fingers over the motor in the mixer. “No, not really. I prefer autos, but I'll take what I can get. My da was the real tinker, though. I don't have quite the patience for it that he did.” This sort of work always puts me in a bit of an introspective mood. I remember my da sharply, think of my awakening, the parts that I remember. I remember the never ending piles of things that needed to be repaired, the knowledge that if I just fixed enough of them, I would ascend to something greater. I look to the pile on my table, the broken mage in my bed, the warehouse around us. Or not.

“What was his favorite fix?” he asks.

I can't tell if he's just being polite, but for the moment, I don't care. “He was an auto man, himself. But he was a jack of all trades type, you know?” I smile at the memory, of my da at his work bench hunched over his pet projects and my mum rolling her eyes at him when she called him in for supper. I lean down to get a good look at the gears that make this thing run, to see if any of them are broken.

“Watches, cars, and household appliances, huh? I've met a few of those types.” Anthony twists his metal arm slowly in a series of graceful movements.

“Mm. My da wasn't an educated man. He was just good with his hands, made money the best way he knew how. Sometimes it was being a mechanic. Sometimes it was fixing the neighbor's sink or their toaster.” I hold up my mixer to the light, turn it over in my hands. Unless I miss my guess, it should be reasonably functional at this point.

There is a moment of strained silence before he murmurs, “I never actually got to ask you... you said a few of my clothes were salvageable. Did you, by any chance, manage to save the scarf?”

There's something in his voice that is worried and uncertain. “I did. It's in the box at the end of the bed. Would you like it?”

He smiles, but it's tinged with sadness. “No, that's okay... I just wanted to know if it made it through.”

“Good as new,” I frown at him. “Are... er. Are you all right?” Of course he's not. He's not all right and probably hasn't been for a long time.

He considers the question before half-shrugging. “Mostly, yeah. My family is... a strange sort of topic.”

I rest my elbows on the table, lean forward a little. “How so?”

“Well... I haven't seen them in quite a few years. Any of them. And before that... well, Mother and Father split up just before I left, and my sister had to pick up the pieces.” He looks a touch surprised, as if he doesn't quite know why he answered me.

“I'm... sorry. I didn't mean to bring up something unpleasant.”

Anthony holds his left hand up, conciliatory. “No, not a problem. I just... it's been a while since I really thought about it.”

I shake my head. “I'm...” What do I tell him? I want to know what he thinks, what is inside that head of his that makes him like he is. I finally shrug. “I'm not much good at this stuff.”

He resumes his careful kneading of his chest and stomach, his expression somewhere between thoughtful and amused. “I'm not exactly a whiz. Don't worry too much on it. I might have to... to go look into a few things. Once I'm well enough to go.”

I nod without any sense of what I'm supposed to say here. Instead, I rise from the table to fetch a power strip and run it from an electrical outlet that's closer to the table. I sit down again with a sigh. "Do you... er... want to talk about it? Any of it?"

He gives the air of thinking about it for a few moments, working his hand carefully down his abdomen and skipping the bandage taped across his stomach, moving to his thighs. After a long moment, he shakes his head slowly. "Not... not yet. Maybe some time later, but... I have some thinking to do before I talk about it."

This surprises me a bit - not that he doesn't want to talk about it, but that he thought about it all; but then I have an inkling that perhaps he's never talked about it, not to anyone. I plug in the mixer and turn it to the lowest setting, delighted that the motor whirs gently to life. "When did you awaken?" I ask, suddenly curious to know. If I were to take a guess, I'd say we're of an age - I'm perhaps a little older, which isn't very old at all.

He blinks, and I know that I've surprised him. After a moment of silence, he tells me. "Four years ago."

I turn the mixer off, start putting the case back on. I desperately want to compare notes with someone who is similar in some respects and so very different. I've never known anyone who awakened when I did - either they've just awakened, or they've been among society for decades. There doesn't seem to be much in between. "So did I. March."

He smiles his familiar, quiet smile. "August. Seoul."

"Sheffield. Where I grew up." I'm about to tell him about Sheffield and my awakening there, and realize that he probably doesn't much care or want to know. I blush and look down, concentrate on getting the tiny little screws back into the case.

Anthony makes a noise and I glance up, shake my head apologetically. "I'm sorry. I was just about to natter on about... well, nothing, really. Home," I finish lamely.

"I'd love to hear about your home," he says quietly, and, I think, warmly.

There is a long moment when I regard him, wonder for not the first time what sort of man he used to be and what sort of man he is now. "Have you ever been to England?"

"Once or twice, when I was young. I remember it raining a lot, and London being crowded. The countryside was awfully green, with lots of sheep that looked pretty philosophical about the rain."

I chuckle at that. "I'm from the north, Yorkshire. Where in the country you've a lot of philosophical sheep. I'm from Sheffield, though. It's not a pretty place, doesn't get a lot of tourists. It's an industrial city, mostly."

He nods slowly. "Yeah... the cities, I remember being full of history, but also very crowded and very dirty. I only really saw London and Edinburgh."

"Sheffield's not so crowded, not any more," I tell him, remembering the long, nearly empty streets of the industrial districts where I grew up. "It's mostly just dirty, though. I never saw the country until I was nearly ten." Anthony is silent and I pick out my next project, a blender. I wonder how much of my desire to tell him about my family is because I've never told anyone about it, really, not even Yoav. I wonder more if it's out of some hope that he will reciprocate and assuage some quantity of my curiosity. Regardless, I carry on, march forward. "My mum was diagnosed with cancer, so she took me and my da with her to see her family. They were about as keen on my da as they were the first time they met him, and weren't happy to see us. I look too much like my da, I think, to suit them."

It was a long time ago, years and years before. I remember watching green hills out the window of a train as it trundled through the country, my nose pressed up against the glass. My mum's family was affluent, lived in a big house, which, at the time, seemed the sort of thing a fairy tale princess would live in. It was only later that I understood what my mum had given up, the life she turned her back on to marry my da. I remember what my grandmother said about him and about me. "Little better than pikeys, that lot. Bad enough you marry one, but you had to breed with it, too? Do you think it will be able to breed true, or will it be like a mule?" At the time, I didn't understand what she meant. Later, when I did, I knew that my mum had made the right choice. I smile and shrug, inspecting my blender.

Anthony seems to think about it all for a little while, smiling enigmatically. "I was about to say I couldn't understand the country thing, but I grew up near Hollywood, and I never saw anything of California until my late teens." He shrugs. "As for your mother and father... points to them for toughing out the rough patches."

"They loved each other a great deal. " I turn the blender over to examine the bottom and pick up another screwdriver to take the bottom plate off. "Sheffield's an ugly sort of city... it's been built and rebuilt over centuries, but most of it's expansion happened in the fifties and sixties. I grew up in an area that's all rails and warehouses."

"Rough sort of neighborhood?" He asks the question gently, and I'm surprised that he understood the implication at all. Anyone who's never lived there won't understand. The number of times I described Sheffield to classmates is legion, at least until I learned to speak properly, and questions about my childhood ceased along with even feigned interest in me.

"A bit," I agree. A screw on the bottom is stripped and I suspect this isn't the first time someone has tried to repair this blender. "I don't think I realized how bad it was until I came home from uni the first time." It's true. So very true. For the first time in my life, I realized how dirty the city was, how tiny and dingy the little flat over the garage where I grew up and my da still lived, was.

"It's an easy thing to be ignorant of your surroundings, until you have something to hold them up to." A pause, then: "Where did you go to university?"

There's something in his voice, a catch perhaps, something that tells me we've landed on a bad subject again, but this time I answer anyway. "Oxford. It's a world away from Sheffield." I look at Anthony for a moment, before lifting the bottom plate from the blender. Inside, some sort of caked, black substance has filled most of the case. "Why?"

Anthony glances up, embarrassed, but I don't know why. "I never did. I was taking time off before college, and, well... things happened. Like they do."

He's bright enough, and I'm suddenly curious why someone who has the potential wouldn't pursue it. "Why?" I ask him, then it occurs to me that I'm a bright little mage who is toiling away in a warehouse in Montana. I know I color as I say, quickly: "I'm sorry. You don't have to answer that."

He looks down into his lap and I could strangle myself and my awful habit of asking questions without considering what the question - and more importantly, what the answer - will do to someone. I knock the blender against the table a few times until the black, carbon flakes are rapped free. It's another moment before he speaks again.

"I didn't go, because... I had a very odd time in China. I Awakened, and was almost instantly crippled... and was a couple years in the healing."

My stomach clenches as I imagine the possibilities. Over the last few days, I've considered what would make such a horrible scar, what could take off his arm and leave him... leave him. My embarrassment is hot on my cheeks, all the way to the top of my head. "I..." I can't quite look at him, so I look at the broken pieces of human experience across my table. Not better.

Anthony's voice is firm. "Don't be embarrassed. I'm not, not about... what happened." A pause. "You seem to be my friend now, Joule. And you can tell your friends these things." There is a questioning note in his voice, as if he's testing out the words.

I look up. "I... I don't mean to pry. I really don't. I'm... I'm just curious, and I ask too many questions." I'm not embarrassed for you or your arm, or what happened to you. I'm embarrassed that I can't keep from running directly into awful subjects, each one seemingly more painful than the last. A gift, really. Something occurs to me, then. "You... haven't had many friends?"

"Not for about five years now, no." He smiles ruefully. "I've either been in training or recovery since I Awakened, outside of the past year or so. And during that time, friendships weren't really encouraged. I have... a few people I'd call friends, I suppose. But it's sort of a rarity."

I nod, try to find a way to explain that I understand. "I have... one, really good friend. And a few people I know, and a few people who owe me favors, and a few I owe." I study my guest and patient, wrapped in the warmest green robe I could find, with one arm in a sling with pink posies and the other made of gleaming metal. I can't imagine what he would look like without it, without the scar that he's self-conscious about. But here, he's named me friend and it's not a bad word. It's even something that I want to name him, even though I'm not certain that I should. "Are you a friend?"

Anthony gazes at me with uncomfortable intensity, but I do my best not to squirm. He's weighing me, seeing into me and it's profoundly disconcerting. "Yes. I thought in the beginning I was just going to owe you a big favor, or several. But... you've been a friend to me, not just a host. I like you in ways that surprise me, and most people are awfully predictable."

I don't even know what to say to that, and I'm afraid I look a bit like a fish out of water, what with the gaping. I grasp at the first thing I can find that will be articulated from my mouth, suddenly dry. "How's that?"

He smiles, glances down to his lap. "You're... I don't know how to say this, really. You're uncomplicated. You're apart from the bickering and the ebb and flow that I've been subject to for the past year.

You're down-to-earth enough for me to relate to. It's... I don't even care that you're curious about my arm. Most people treat me like a lab animal, or actively want to pull me apart.It's the difference between just pulling me out of the snow, and your bringing me this," he says, smoothing a hand over the green robe.

I meant how are people predictable... But all the same, I flush with pleasure, duck my head and let my locks fall forward. I rake them back out of my eyes and meet his. "I like you." Even as I say it, I know it's true. I've liked Anthony-Like-the-Roman since he came into my shop the first time.

Anthony turns his head a little, turning so I can't see the scar as well, and smiles warmly. I resist the impulse to tell him not to turn, that the scar is part of him, that he wouldn't be himself without it. "I dunno about your taste in friends, but I'm not going to argue."

I wrinkle my nose and grin, a sudden warmth of affection rushing though my body, warming even my constantly cold toes. "Don't think this means you don't owe me."

His eyes narrow in surprise and then he laughs freely, a sound that I've heard rarely and one that I love for its pure joy. "I will never forget this as long as I live. Don't imagine for a second that I would."

I grin, then. Friend, I think, testing the word. "Then friends we are."