Charity Squares P4: Groping In The Dark


Circle went for Kerri.

“Kerri, in performance lingo, what is the term-?”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Kerri protested. “Performance lingo? DO you mean, the jargon people talk when they make movies?”

“Or plays, or TV shows, yes,” Sam said.

Kerri looked angry. “Nine people in these shoe boxes. She pointed to her right, where Thog sat. “He’s a ‘performer.’” She went around the squares clockwise. “Supersylph’s an actress. Nemesis an actor. Sally an actress. Skippy an actor. Froggie…” She paused.

“I hung out with performers!” Froggie supplied.

“Thanks. IQ is an actor. Electra’s a TV hostess.”

“Huh?”

“STIFLE IT!” she shouted. I shut up and hid a grin. Kerri went on with her rant. “EIGHT SYLPHS with TV or MOVIE experience and you give ME the trivia question about TV or Movie jargon!”

“Um, yeah,” Sam said, looking at her card. “It’s your question.”

“Fine. What is it you want to know?”

“In ‘TV and movie jargon,’ what is meant by the term ‘a walk-on?’” Sam had the grace to look sheepish as she finished the question.

Kerri sat silently for a moment, tapping her fingers on the desk. “It’s when the main character WALKS ON to the stage and delivers his monologue. See also, Johnny Carson.”

Circle agreed. “Sorry, it’s a small acting part with no lines. All you do is walk-on to the stage.” X got the square. She went to Supersylph for a win.

“Supersylph, what is the subject studied by the science of horology?”

“I can see why you didn’t ask IQ this question,” was her immediate reply.

“Or me,” Nemesis smirked.

“Okay, well, Horus was the god of the sky, but you’ve been asking me questions about time, so I’m going to say that horology is the study of time.”

X didn’t have any children, so she didn’t hesitate to disagree. She thought it was the study of the sky.

“Nope, it has nothing to do with Horus, it’s from the Latin Horologium, which is from the Greek ‘Hora,’ meaning ‘time.’ Supersylph was right. Circle gets the square.”

Circle went to Thog.

“THOG HERE!”

“Thog, you’re a fan of Electra’s show, right?”

“Huh?”

“False alarm, Electra. Go back to woolgathering.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“Thog love Electra show. Friday nights on channel six! Thog smash anyone block TV on Friday nights!”

“Yes, well, what location did Electra use to broadcast the premiere from?”

“Channel six, Samantha.”

“No, Thog, what location?”

“Channel six IS location, Samantha. Station constantly telling Thog they broadcast from two one three seven Hilton Haven Drive, Los Angeles. That location!”

“Alright, it’s a location, but where was ELECTRA when Channel six broadcast her premiere?” Sam stressed.

“Channel six. Right between Five and… And not six.”

“I’ll disagree,” Circle said.

“We all disagree,” Sam sighed. “So, Thog’s square is circled once again.”

“HA!”

And X picked me. Sam got up from her desk, the camera following her as she stepped over cables and ducked around lights, little sylph crewmen scattering out of her way.

None of them actually had anything to do where she was walking, but Nolan thought it would add to the scene.

At the table with the squares, she leaned down and flicked a finger at the side of my shoebox. The whole stack shook but the noise was loudest in mine.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAA!”

“You with us, Electra?” She leaned down, her smiling face filling my view (but not blocking my camera).

“I am NOW!” I cried.

“Good, I have a question for you.” She went back to her side of the stage. They followed her, with cuts back to me, breathing hard and wiping sweat from my brow.

“Still with us, Electra?” Sam asked as she sat down.

“God, yes!”

“Goooood. Okay, to your knowledge, has anyone ever sylphed while pregnant?”

“Sure! You’ve met Pet.”

“So have I,” Kerri said.

“Yeah, and she was born a month after her mother sylphed. And I’d also like to point out that it’s total BS, the stories about a woman sylphing while the baby in her tummy did not. That’s a cruel and evil myth.”

“I’ll agree,” X said, thus blocking Circle.

Now X could win if she got Sally’s or IQ’s squares. Circle bit his lip for a moment, then went with IQ.

“IQ, Parcheesi is the national game of what country?”

“Well, the Parcheesi board is in the shape of a cross, which is a clue. And while many nations have an official state religion that’s one of the various Christian traditions, few people realize that the Vatican is actually an independent state.

“Parcheesi, or in Italian, Ludo, is the official game of the nation of The Vatican.”

“As usual, I’ll agree with his answer, though I doubt his justification,” Circle said.

“Sorry, Parcheesi is the national game of India. I don’t think much of anything he said is true.”

“Some of it!” IQ insisted.

Circle did not get the square, but neither did X. X, however, didn’t like the way IQ was answering questions, so he went with Sally for a win.

“Sally, Michael Jackson once considered buying Marvel Comics so he could play a superhero in a movie. What hero did he want to be?”

“The Werewolf,” she replied. Then she leaned over and looked down. “Sorry, Kerri.”

“Sorry for what?”

“Well, he wanted to have his character change into the werewolf by first doing his ‘moonwalk,’ and changing a little with each step.”

“Arrrrrrgh,” Kerri snarled.

“It didn’t happen,” Sally continued, “but he DID become a sort-of-werewolf in the Thriller video.”

“That sounds entirely too plausible,” X said. “I’m going to disagree.”

“Good, because it’s wrong. He wanted to play Spider-man.”

So X won, they closed out the charity description, thanked the companies that had donated money for the cause, we all waved goodbye, and we were done.

The activist celebrities all shook hands and congratulated each other, then left.

At no point had they come over to the squares to thank or meet the sylphs. They’d never shown up in the suite, either.

Eh, their loss.

The Sylph Straits show, which had provided the crew and Thog, were cleaning things up rapidly. They were scheduled to fly out that evening. Probably the next plane scheduled after the activists all departed.

Cher, Delli, and I weren’t in as big a hurry to break down the squares, so we all congregated at the foot of the tower with the other celebrities.

Sam brought Amelia over and they thanked each individual sylph, with a special goodbye hug for Thog.

The big lug was crying. “No one ask Thog to lift anything,” he muttered.

“Aw,” Amelia pat his arm. “Do you feel left out?”

“The opposite,” Cher said, slugging Thog one on the shoulder. “He was treated just the same as everyone else, not like a freak or monstrosity.”

Thog smiled and slugged my hairdresser on the shoulder. Cher fell to the table and whimpered.

We all heard a folding chair tip over and suddenly Conrad was at the side of the table. “Is everyone alright?”

“Fine,” Cher wheezed, forcing himself to his feet. Everyone stepped away from him, fearing an overreaction by the owner.

Everyone also stepped away from Thog, too, for the same reason. Everyone except me. “YOU remember when Chip used to slug you on the shoulder? It was a buddy thing, right?”

“Right, but it still hurt.”

“THOG slugged CHER in an emotional moment of buddyhood and manly commeraderie.”

“Oh,” he said. “So… I should go help with the chairs and stop acting crazy and threatening around our guests.”

“I would think so,” I said. He walked off.

“Thog did not mean any harm,” Thog said softly.

“Don’t worry, Thog,” Amelia said. “Electra has her owner very well under her control.”

“Two more payments and he’s entirely mine!” I said proudly.

-----

The Sylph Straits handler gathered up her charges and their equipment and left. We all noticed that she gave Nolan a significant look as she walked out.

Everyone turned to Kerri. “Did they…?”

“He told her about a shop with rustic furniture and she bought a Grandfather clock made out of deer antlers,” Kerri said. “And she finds Nolan ‘cute,’ so there’s no accounting for taste in either case.”

“Uh…huh,” Sally grunted.

“I’m probably next,” Froggie said into the silence that followed. “We have a book ‘signing’ in Chicago tomorrow.”

“You said that with eagle claws,” IQ said.

“My ‘signature’ is that Donald inks my boobs and I press them against the title page. Nicki Knox’s Natural Knockergraph, he calls it.”

“Eugh,” most of the female sylphs said. IQ, Nemesis and Skippy were obviously interested but diplomatically silent.

Delli burst out laughing.

“What?” Froggie asked her.

“Just imagining how well some people might have done in History if Betsy Ross had ‘signed’ the Declaration of Independence…”

Froggie’s owner and IQ’s handler showed up just after that, caged their sylphs and went out to catch a cab together.

After that, we all pitched in to break down the boxes, or at least the cameras and microphones left behind.

Then we were carried to the suite as the hotel staff started folding tables and sweeping the floor.

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In the room, we were kind of hesitant to make plans for our last night. Some kinda wanted to see Sun Valley, but a lot of us just wanted to hang out with friends, both old and new.

Only owners and sylphs were in the suite, the handlers had already headed out for dining and shopping again.

“Well,” Nolan said, “I wanted to check out this place that serves elk steaks.”

“That sounds good,” Conrad said. He looked around the room with a questioning expression. I noticed that his gaze swept the faces of sylphs too. He may watch Supersylph while 60 Minutes is on, but he is dependable where people are concerned.

“Interesting,” Samantha said. “Are we all going?”

“Not me,” Jerri said. “Donald and I partied a little much last night. I was gonna crash in the room.”

“Aw!” Sally protested. “Can I stay here?”

“Well, the crew’s gone home,” Conrad told Jerri. “Just move into that room.”

“We’ll help move bags,” Nolan said.

Samantha turned to the sylphs. “Does anyone want to come out with us, or are you all going to stay and party among yourselves?” She didn’t sound dismissive. All the owners seemed to understand the desire for another sylph evening.

“I could probably stay awake long enough for room service to be delivered,” Jerri offered.

“To the menu!” Sally shouted. Soon, Amelia was walking across the menu (sorry, Kerri), reading off the choices. Factions formed, finally coming down to two blocs. The turkey was outvoted in favor of salmon, but then the turkey fans got to pick the dessert.

Jerri ordered right away, even while the guys were still carrying her suitcase and the carrier over. She was in a hurry to lay down. We didn’t mind at all, sylphs never mind an early dinner (as long as there’s a snack later, and we had provisions for that, too).

But what this meant was, after dinner and some time during our screening of Tim Burton’s version of Gulliver’s Travels, the sun went down.

The bay windows looked out on the wild mountains, so there were no street lights out there. There were no lights on in the room.

And no one who could reach the light switch was vertical. The film ended and the room was dark.

And the stars were out.

Kerri looked out the window and said, “Wow the stars are clear!”

Amelia turned off the TV and they got clearer. We all started walking over to the windows.

“How high up are we?” Sally asked.

“Sun Valley’s higher than Denver,” Cher said. “Nearly 6000 feet above sea level.”

We spread out across the window sill, looking out and up at the sky.

“I feel so insignificant,” Supersylph said.

“This is why I like scenic lookouts at canyons,” I said. “You get close enough to the edge, any sense of scale drops away. It’s just you and the universe and you’re just like every other life form in the universe.”

“Even whales,” Skippy said softly.

“What?” Nemesis asked.

“Compared to the stars… I guess even a fucking WHALE would be an insignificant speck on the surface of a dust particle…”

As I said, we had sort of spread out as we walked over to the big bay window.

If everyone shut up and just contemplated the universe, you were alone. As along as you ever could be.

Mostly.

I mean, about that point I heard a Velcro seam parting. Someone was undressing. I hoped it was Supersylph and Nemesis, and I really hoped they’d be finished before someone came home and turned the lights on. Fingers crossed, I sat down and tried to find a constellation I could recognize.

After a moment or two, I heard movement somewhere near me. I coughed a bit, just so they’d know I was there. They could join me or pass by, I just didn’t want anyone tripping over me in the dark.

As it turned out, they sat down beside me. “Looking for Electra?” Skippy asked. “I mean, the star?”

“That star’s not visible in August,” I said. “But Taurus is about the only constellation I know. And I only know it BECAUSE Electra’s in it.”

We were speaking softly, so as to limit intrusion into anyone else’s private moment. Or moments. If I wasn’t mistaken, I could hear Delli whispering sweet nothings to Cher somewhere to my left.

“I’m the same way,” Skippy was saying. “I wasn’t a Trek fan when they bought me for the Inflict show, but now, everyone assumes I’m a Trek fanatic. I have to learn about the show just for when fans tap on my cage at conventions.”

“That must suck,” I sympathized.

“It’s mostly the look of disappointment when I don’t know something. It’s like I shot their Tribble, or stole the battery out of their phaser.”

“Don’t spend any time talking to Conrad, then,” I warned him with a small laugh.

“Well, Conrad’s not the Loudon I’m interested in,” he said. He lay one hand on my thigh.

“Well, that was a decent segue,” I said. “It seems like a natural part of the conversation, not something contrived or forced.”

“Thanks,” he said. I could almost hear the confusion on his expression. This wasn’t what he expected as a response. Probably a kiss or a slap.



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Index

142. Charity Squares P3: It's How You Look At It

144. Charity Squares P5: An Understanding