Friends Old and New P2


They nodded. Xander and Electra cheered. She ran across the floor to show him where the coloring books were stored for guests.

When he was engaged, Chrissy asked about sleeping arrangements, and where she could put Raven.

“I borrowed a crib from my cousins,” he said. “It’s in the spare bedroom. Top of the stairs, turn right.”

As they gathered the diaper bag and blankets, Conrad leaned forward. “Now, I also have a baby monitor. So if you guys want to sleep in the main bedroom, that’s available.”

“What?” Delli blurted from the coffee table where she’d been sitting quietly. “Where will we sleep?”

“What she means,” Cher said, “is to ask if we’re sleeping with the guests in the main bedroom?”

“My plan,” Conrad said, “is guests in the best and biggest bed; baby in the spare bedroom; sylphs numbers two and three in the living room in the set; me on the couch; Xander and sylph number one in a pup tent out in the back yard, also borrowed from my cousins.”

“OOoooh, Xander!” Electra shouted as if this was a surprise. “You wanna camp out tonight?”

“Yeah!”

“Well, then we’ll set up the tent in a little bit,” she said. “Before it gets dark.”

He paused. “How dark does it get?”

“We’ve got a flashlight that’s bigger than I am!” Electra promised him. “If you need to go to the bathroom or need a nightlight, we’ve got batteries to keep it on ALL NIGHT!”

“Okay…” he said slowly.

“And if you don’t like it,” Conrad said, “you can bring your sleeping bags in here in front of the TV. And I'll be right here the whole time.”

“You’re a giddy couple of godparents,” Cher told Electra while Conrad pulled out the borrowed tent and sleeping bag.

“Does it show?” she asked.

-----

The next day, Electra entertained Xander with coloring, her gym routine, and some television.

Conrad watched Raven poop and pee and eat.

When he made lunch, Cher and Delli offered to entertain her. They didn’t do much, just bounced a tiny, colorful beach ball back and forth as the baby watched, but she was entranced.

When Chip and Chrissy returned, they revealed the way they’d spend part of their adults-alone time.

They’d bought a sylph.

“She’s not quite a rescue,” Chrissy said, putting the carrier down on the coffee table. The three sylphs and Xander stared silently through the windows.

“Not quite?” Conrad asked.

“She used to work for an exterminator.” She opened the carrier and let the sylph step out. The little woman was a grizzled veteran. She had a number of scars across her arm and legs, all visible as she wore matching Army-green shorts and tank-top.

And she only had one arm. The other had been lost relatively recently. The stump of her left arm ended in red scars, though there was no gauze, and no stitches.

“Hello,” she said in a rough voice. “I’m told I belong to someone here?”

“I’m Xander,” he said. “What’s your name?”

“Well, Xander, no one’s told me yet. I mean, I used to be named Khe Sanh, because my owner named all his sylphs after battles.

“But I guess you get to name me?”

“What do you want to be named?” Xander asked. Khe Sanh’s expression, which had been rather stoic so far, suddenly cracked. She looked shaken.

“Excellent question, Xander!” Electra cheered.

“I don’t think anyone’s asked her opinion in a long time,” Conrad said. “Probably better give her a minute or two to think about it.”

“Ah,” Chip said. “Hey, Xander, come out to the car, help me bring in the sylph stuff we bought.”

Xander followed his dad, but kept looking over his shoulder at his new pet. She watched him go, finally giving him a small wave just before he went down the hall and out of sight.

Chrissy brightly asked Conrad how Raven had been. He followed her out to the kitchen to discuss peeing and pooping and eating.

“Is this for real?” Sanh asked.

“Amazing but true,” Cher said.

“You’re probably getting the second best sylph family I’ve ever heard of,” Delli said.

“They said,” Sanh said slowly, “that I was their first sylph.”

“You are,” Electra assured her. “But they’re very… Um, respectful? Of sylphs?”

“What do you mean?” the exterminator asked.

“I mean, they, uh, they see and treat all sylphs as real people.” She looked to Cher and Delli for confirmation.

“Let me put it this way,” Delli said, “they picked Electra as their son’s godmother.”

“That’s… Heartening,” Sanh allowed. “And you…” She looked closely at Electra. “Oh. You’re you!” she said calmly. “You’re the you from TV!”

“Yes,” Electra nodded.

“You’ve seen the show?” Cher asked.

“The office doesn’t open until ten,” Sanh shrugged. “They let us watch TV in the mornings. We always watch your segment.” She looked around. “And you must be Cher and Lindt!”

“Delli,” Delli said with a smile. “As in Ghirardelli, not India.”

“Huh,” Sanh grunted, looking them over. “Well, isn’t that a kick in the teeth.”

They all turned as the door opened. Chip carried a couple of bags to the stairs and towards their room. Xander followed with another bag, but his eyes were locked on the coffee table and the sylphs. They waved.

“So, first things first,” Electra said. “How did you lose the arm?”

“What?” Cher protested. “You know not to ask that!”

“I think,” Sanh said, eyes on Electra’s face, “she wants to know what I’m going to tell Xander when he asks about my boo-boo.”

“No nightmares about rats in the walls,” Electra nodded. “Not for my little buddy.”

Sanh nodded back. “Okay. I scratched my arm on a nail and didn’t tell anyone and tried to tough it out and it got infected and I still didn’t tell a grown-up, and to save my life they had to cut off my arm. ‘Kay?”

“Well, I’m sad, now,” Delli said.

Sanh smiled for the first time since she’d arrived. She waved her stump. “It was bad, Delli, but everyone on my team got out alive.”

“Oh, that’s cheery,” Cher muttered.

“Low threshold for good news,” Sanh shrugged.

“Quick thinking, empathy and candor,” Electra nodded. “I think you’ll do.”

“And no swearing,” Delli said, “not like some potty mouths I know.” Electra stuck her tongue out at her friend.

A small avalanche came down the stairs. Chrissy and Conrad came out of the kitchen and sat down.

Xander knelt at the side of the coffee table. “So’dyoudecidedyet?”

The new sylph glanced at the others, then stepped towards Xander. “I don’t know, buddy. I could use some help deciding.”

“Okay,” he said. Chip caught up with them and sat by Chrissy. They watched the interchange closely.

“Well, I don’t want to pick the same name as anyone in your family. So who are your relatives?”

“Dad and Mom and Grandpa Sam and Grandpa Mort-“ He paused when Sanh waved her arm.

“I’m not going to be Mom, Xander.”

“Or Mortimer, we hope and pray,” Cher added.

“What’s your mom’s first name?” It took a while to get all the women’s names in Xander’s family, but his new pet was patient.

Raven woke up in the middle of exploring Chrissy’s side of the family. Conrad went up to see to her so Chrissy could monitor Sanh’s registration.

They even made sure to list all known pets, to avoid any confusion. “Then I guess…” she finally said, “there’s no problem with me…” She paced back and forth, everyone’s eyes on her. “Maybe…” Xander held his breath, bouncing slightly on the carpet. “I could be…” She glanced around to see that Xander and Electra were both biting their lips to keep from yelling. “How about Brandy?”

“Yay!” Chip said. “Grandpa Mortimer loves brandy.”

“Yay!” Xander said. Electra stepped forward to formally introduce Brandy to Xander, then Chip and Chrissy welcomed her with a shake of their finger.

“Now THAT’s over with,” Delli shouted, “Tell me you got her something better to wear!”

“Nope,” Chrissy said.

“No?” Electra asked, shocked. “You’re not going to keep her naked, are you?”

“No, we just wouldn’t dare bring clothes into this house without Delli’s approval,” Chrissy told Electra. “We were going to ask for some tips, guidelines…” her voice trailed off.

“Just take her shopping with you,” Conrad said, coming back down the stairs with Raven.

“If that’s okay with you?” Chip asked the dressmaker.

“Baby, ‘okay’ is not the WORD!” she enthused. “So! What’s your budget? No, no, nevermind, we’ll go with wherever you shop. I can make it work.” She turned to Brandy. “Anyone ever tell you if you’re a Fall color? We’ll have to find out. Xander? Can I take Brandy to my office and find out her color?”

“She’s white,” Xander said.

“I’m part Indian,” Brandy said.

“Really?” Xander’s eyes were wide.

“My grandmother grew up on the Apache reservation,” she said.

“That’ll be much cooler than exterminator stories,” Conrad said softly. “Good choice, guys.”

“I think we lucked out,” Chip said. “Now, did I see a sylph boutique next to that steakhouse on Broadway?”

“Ooooooooooh,” Delli moaned.

“You’re going to take her to Sylphs Be Wee?” Cher asked. He turned to Brandy. “You’re going to try on SO many clothes.”

“I heard steak,” Brandy said. “Was that significant or a landmark?”

“Do you like steak?” Xander asked her.

“Xander, Brandy hasn’t had a steak in ten years. If I remember correctly, they’re pretty darn tasty.”

“Grandpa Sam says you have to eat them rare,” Xander said. “He always says wipe it’s butt off and send it out!” He laughed and Brandy laughed with him.

-----

That night, Xander was an old hand at camping in the back yard. He made sure Brandy went potty before they went outside, and brushed her teeth and had a drink of water.

Chip gave her the night’s dose of painkiller while Xander was brushing his teeth.

Then Xander made a little nest of rags for her and Electra and climbed into his sleeping bag. Electra told a bedtime story about Bugs Bunny getting the better of the Mad Scientist. Brandy told a story about Coyote getting the better of the White Man.

Xander asked, first, if Brandy’s arm was going to grow back. She shook her head sadly and said it would not.

“And the saddest part about that is I can’t teach you to make shadow puppets worth a darn.”

“How did you lose it?” he asked. She repeated the story she’d told before. He nodded, then sniffled a bit and pet her gently. “Well, you can tell me and Mom and Dad anything that hurts and we’ll get it better, okay?”

“Okay, Xander,” she agreed.

“Are we going to be friends?” he asked.

“Xander, we shared a STEAK! That’s a lifetime COMMITMENT!” She looked to Electra for confirmation. “Isn’t it?”

“Yep,” Electra agreed. “You can give food away to be generous, which is a nice thing to do, but sharing? Sharing is caring and friends share.”

“Okay,” he said. He yawned and snuggled down into his sleeping bag. “Are you two gonna be friends?”

“I don’t think anyone’s not a friend of Electra’s,” Brandy mused. She climbed up onto the pillow and crawled over to his face to kiss his nose. He smiled and was asleep in moments.

She returned to the nest and sat down. “Nice kid,” she said softly.

“He’s the best,” Electra said proudly. They sat in a comfortable silence for a bit.

“So, what’s out there?” Brandy asked.

“I dunno, grass? Trees? A fence?”

“I mean, what’s to stop us running away?”

“Do…” Electra swallowed. “Do you want to run away?”

“No. No, I’ve been… Wild.” She glanced down at her stump. “It’d be… It’ll be a while before I’m confident I can do that again.

“No, it’s just, there’s been no lecture.”

“Lecture?” Electra asked.

“You know. ‘You should know that there are coyotes in this area’ or ‘your registration chip can be pinged up to five miles away’ or ‘there’s an invisible fence around the building and if you cross it, your registration chip will heat up like it’s in a microwave…’ All the usual stuff.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Electra said. She glanced towards the living room. “Maybe the others have had this lecture…?”

“What? What did Conrad say when he bought you?”

“Conrad was sitting next to me when I sylphed. He was talking on the PA system and told the whole school ‘Jennifer Beatty has sylphed and I’m going to name her Electra because I can, bwahahaha.’”

Brandy stared at her for a moment. Thirty feet away, Delli was up late, finishing the alterations to Brandy’s new wardrobe. She heard Conrad’s snoring pause and he muttered, “Did NOT.” She wondered what that was about.

“Okay, maybe without the maniacal laughter,” Electra admitted.

“Actually, after six hours with the man, that’s the part I find easy to believe,” Brandy said. They shared a laugh.

After a moment, Brandy shook her head. “But everywhere, everywhere I’ve been, when the plunk down the money for owning a sylph, they make sure the sylph knows it would be futile to run away.”

“It probably never occurred to them that you’d want to,” Electra mused. “Were you… Did you appear happy? In the pet store?”

“I came from the vet with a prescription for pain killers every six hours,” Brandy said. “The pet store only gave me one dose a day so they wouldn’t have to refill it before they sold me. How happy do you think I was?”

“Well, knowing my friends, they asked you if you wanted to come home with them. And warned you they had two children. And probably asked if you were in pain?”

“Yeah,” Brandy said, staring. “You, uh… Your… friends?”

“Let me tell you how I graduated,” Electra said.

-----

The next day, breakfast was at the IHOP next to the freeway. Chip wanted to get an early start on the next stage of the vacation. Grandparents in Springwater were waiting to meet Raven and spoil Xander’s brains out.

“How are they on sylphs?” Brandy asked. “They’re not religious fanatics or anything, are they?”

“Um…” Chrissy said, looking at Chip.

“Way back when,” Chip admitted, “my folks were members of Humans First.” He shrugged. “Then they got to know Electra and mostly shut up about that shit.”

“CHIP!” Chrissy snapped.

“Sorry.” He turned to his son. “Don’t use that word, Xander.”

“What word?” Xander asked, looking up from the game of tic-tac-toe he and Cher were carving out of the top of his pancake.

“Nothing, sport. See?” Chip said to his wife. “No harm done.”

“I win!” Cher said, stepping back and holding his toothpick at port arms.

“Shit,” Xander muttered. There was a stunned silence around the table for a second.

“I want a lawyer,” Chip said. Chrissy glared at him frostily.

“They don’t blame this on the sylph?” Brandy whispered to Electra.

“Never occurred to them,” Electra whispered back.

“I’m not sure if I can live like this,” Brandy said. “Always waiting for the masks to come off…”

“Looks like you’re stuck with them,” Delli said. “Buck up. I hear Grandpa Sam is a soft touch for candy.”

“He is,” Electra confirmed.

Soon after that, everyone was back in the proper cars and headed either to Springwater or Castle Hill Avenue.

“So,” Cher shouted from the dashboard. “When’s the trip to see OUR grandparents?”

“Two weeks,” Conrad said instantly.

“I, uh… I was joking,” Cher protested.

“Be careful what you wish for, then,” Conrad replied. He paused at a stoplight and turned to face the sylph-mount. “Well, thank you guys very much for your help with the kids and Brandy. Anyone who wants to go back to naked sylph mode is welcome to.”

“Thank YOU!” Delli said, already down to her shoes.

The light changed and Conrad continued on. “Does Brandy know Indian sign language?”

“She didn’t say,” Electra said. “Why?”

“Oh, when they were getting in their car? Chip said they had to get to Springwater before the sun was above the yard arm or grandpa would be three sheets to the wind. She looked like she was translating it to sign languge.”

“That’s a signal they came up with last night,” Electra said. “If Xander’s confused about what the adults are saying, he looks to Brandy. She tugs her ear to say, ‘I’ll explain it later.’ It’s kind of a conspiracy.”

“So that means it’s a secret,” Conrad nodded. “Got it. I’m okay with secrets as long as they’re not secret from me.”

“So, you know about the garage?” Delli asked.

“Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!” Cher urged her.

Conrad ignored them and drove for home.



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Index