Dining On


Magic was with us for about a week when we had a meeting scheduled. Some representative from a company called First Coast Animatronics wanted to meet ‘the people who make decisions’ around here.

All we knew about FCA was that they had a Florida phone number.

Conrad shrugged and let Lisa set a date.

At the appointed time, he picked me up, and made sure the others were comfortable in the viewing room.

Really, that was just a corner of his desk with pillows and a TV monitor so sylphs could watch whatever was going on.

I started to pace the conference table when Conrad set me down. He just stared off into space.

He doesn’t mind waiting nearly as much as I do. And he wouldn’t set up the gym for me to burn off any energy. Said it kept me attentive, which is a blatant lie. I could hold a conversation while flipping back and forth more easily than he could walk and chew gum.

But he was the giant, so we played by the giant’s rules…

Then we were both pleasantly surprised by the rep. We knew him. Or them.

Ray Foster came into the room and put his sylph, Annie, on the table next to me.

I squealed a happy greeting and hugged my friend from the Sylph Center.

She and her co-pet, Pet, had been on my premiere show. So of course the first thing I did was ask about Pet.

Annie assured me that she was fine. We spent some time catching up. She looked great, having benefited from an undine’s youthing ceremony. Since she was a close friend of the very first undine, I suspected that she was at the very first youthing.

Over our heads, Conrad shook Ray’s hand. “So formal, Mr. company rep. Are you shilling for FCA, now?”

“Kind of,” he replied. They sat down and watched us sylphs for a bit. They probably thought of themselves as being indulgent. Annie and I agree that they were just acknowledging that the superior life forms held control of the agenda.

Finally, Ray said, “So, you know about the remotes?”

“Oh!” I said. “Now I remember where I’ve heard that company name before!” Then I remembered what else I knew about remotes. “You guys drive people crazy.”

“Not anymore,” Annie said, hand up in the scout’s salute. “We fixed the software problem that caused Alice In Wonderland syndrome.”

“Are you sure?” Conrad asked.

“Actually, the Sylph Center is invested in the remotes,” Ray said. “So, more to the point, Amelia and Samantha are convinced that the problem is fixed.”

“Well, that’s good enough for me,” Conrad said. “So, what about the remotes?”

“As you know,” Ray said, “and as Electra just brought up, everyone associates the remotes with a distinct risk of insanity.”

“Of course,” Annie put in, “for some people suddenly seeing the world from a sylph’s point of view would be an enlightenment, not a diagnosis.”

“But either way,” Ray said, “that’s behind us. We, by which I mean the company that makes the remotes, and the Center, which is invested heavily, both for the money AND for the possibilities of enlightenment, want to do something to improve their image.”

“Have you considered make-up?” Conrad asked. Ray looked confused for a second. Lots of people respond to Conrad’s sense of humor with that look. They’re not always sure if it was meant in jest.

Annie, on the other hand, laughed immediately. She got the joke. Her laughter told Ray it was a joke, and as she was his familiar, she probably helped him ‘get’ the joke. He barked a laugh.

“Yes, we’ve tried makeup, and skirts, and stylish shoes. No, we were hoping to have a sort of special.”

“A TV special?” Conrad clarified.

“Duh,” Annie snarked, “we came to a TV studio, with the loveliest sylph on seven networks.”

“Don’t antagonize our hosts,” Ray told her.

“She called me lovely,” I pointed out. I wrapped an arm around her waist. “She can antagonize me that way all day long.” She smiled and took my waist, too.

“What did you have in mind?” Conrad asked.

“You remember the show, Sylph Straits?” he asked. Conrad nodded. “I was thinking, something like that. Maybe the Sylph Straits set, if we can find it.

“We get some celebrities to come and use the remotes, going through some of the obstacle courses that they used to have on that show.

“We film that, and interview the people afterwards.”

“That sounds cool,” I said. But then I hesitated. Something felt wrong.

“I’d recommend against that,” Conrad said.

“Why?” Ray asked.

Conrad was shaking his head. “You don’t want the remotes associated with obstacles. Not if you want people interested.” He leaned forward. “What -I- would to, I’d go to people’s homes. People who own sylphs. We… Wait, how much equipment is required to operate a remote?”

“Basically, a virtual reality helmet.” Ray pulled out a photograph of someone wearing a motorcycle helmet, laying on a couch. “They lay down and turn it on, then they’re basically ‘in’ the remote.”

“Okay. So, yeah, I’d show people who have a happy relationship with their sylph. Then we give the sylph a chance to show them their world.”

“Like we did with you!” Annie cheered.

“Why not in the studio, though?” Ray persisted. I got the feeling he didn’t like to let go of an idea once he had it.

“You’re going to want people going ‘ooh’ and ‘aah,’ at weird giant stuff, which we can arrange anywhere, but we also get the stunned look on their face. When they say, ‘I walked down that hall every day of my life, I never realized how uneven the floor was.’ Stuff like that.”

“Or,” I said, “us showing off hiding places and secret stashes.”

“I like it!” Annie said, giving me a hug. “And maybe we’ll have sylphs that can finally convince their masters that the ramp up from the basement IS too damned steep.”

Conrad looked at Ray suspiciously. “Not me,” Ray said. “We don’t even HAVE a basement. Not in Florida!”

Conrad was scribbling notes on a sheet of paper. I wandered over and was unsurprised to see names. Or by the names I saw.

“Is there an age limit?” I asked.

“There’s a time limit,” Annie told me. “The body is stressed a bit, by not actually doing what the brain thinks it’s doing. OLD people have a certain time limit.” Ray snorted at her comment. “Young children and Ray have a different one. Their simpler minds are less in tune with their bodies and actually can last longer.”

I watched as my owner circled the names of our godchildren, Xander and Raven, and wrote ‘time?’ next to them.

“What about Kerri?” I suggested.

“What ABOUT Kerri?” Annie asked.

“She’ll want Nolan’s remote to have no legs… So he can really experience her life,” Conrad replied, already on my wavelength.

Ray nodded, too. “Nolan already asked about an amputated remote. It’s going to cut his stay-time in half, but we can make it.”

“She’s going to run him ragged,” Annie chortled.

“And he’ll love every lap,” I laughed back.

----

I don’t remember being a ditz on the first night. Really, I was sure I was my calm, rational, composed self at all times, just like every other broadcast.

Everyone else tells me I was in full ditz mode, though, and the camera… The camera never lies.

I think it’s an optical illusion, though. There was just SO MUCH stuff I had to explain that first broadcast.

It opened up on me, standing in front of a wall of blue tissue paper, on a blue platform.

“Okay! Okay! Right! Welcome to the first episode of Electra’s Sylph Hour where we are NOT in the studio! We’re not on a set! We’re… Well, you’ll see! Trust me!”

I may have bounced a little bit. Waved my arms a little excitedly.

“First of several changes, we’re using a mobile camera!” I ran from side to side across the plastic. The camera followed. “See? I’m not having to face fixed views as the interview progresses!” I walked further to one side where a hand mirror was leaning on the wall. We could now see the reflection of Magic wearing her camera-harness.

“You all remember Magic, my new co-pet? She’s now a fully-fledged member of the show. Wave, Magic!” She did. She only was willing to put up with this part because the camera covered her face.

I continued walking across the front of the mirror.

“Okay, so if you’re at ALL into sylphs, and, really, why else would you be watching this show? Anyway, you’ve heard about the remotes. You wear a virtual reality helmet.”

I was walking a little slower than we’d rehearsed. I was trying really hard not to go too quickly across the table, I realized no one could see what I was talking about, so I ran.

Next to the mirror was a remote helmet. Just beyond that was a remote on a stand.

“It’s a fully articulated waldo, or a robot that’s completely under the operator’s control.

“The people at First Coast Animatronics can talk for HOURS about the software that adapts human actions to sylph scale, but we won’t go into that.

“You just need to know, if you’re driving one of these, you can jump as high as a sylph, or duck as low, or drop from an end table to the floor. Just like a sylph.”

I turned and walked (quickly) back the other way. “Now, you’ve heard about some difficulties in the feedback in earlier versions. A five percent chance of developing Alice In Wonderland Syndrome.

“Well, that’s been fixed. Fully. AND the fix actually works as therapy for the people who suffer AIWS, whether it was caused by the remotes or not!”

I smiled at the camera right then. It was my ‘isn’t this so COOL?’ smile. Well, it IS cool!

“Now, I know everyone’s thinking, ‘of course the corporation will SAY that there’s no problem. But I’ve talked to the experts, including people who are NOT hired by FCA, and I promise you, that problem no longer exists.

“And to prove it, I want to introduce you to my godson and my goddaughter.” I smiled again. This WAS cool and I don’t care who says otherwise.

Beyond my blue starting point were two overstuffed chairs. Xander sat in one, Raven the other. Each held a helmet in their lap.

And on their armrests, Brandy and Ace stood (Ace in her new leg! A prosthetic leg for A SYLPH! How cool was THAT?), right beside two remotes.

Xander’s was painted in camouflage, Raven’s was purple with red flowers all over it. It matched Ace’s purple-and-flower prosthetic.

“These are two of my favorite people in the whole world. Xander, who’s eleven, and Raven, who’s six.” They smiled. “I would not let ANYONE wear a remote helmet if it wasn’t safe enough for these kids.” I stepped closer to the camera. “And that’s not just because if they got hurt, their mom would tape me to a Frisbee and toss me out over the Snake River Canyon.”

The kids laughed. I introduced their sylphs, then asked if they were ready.

Magic videoed me as I put on my own camera harness, then Xander lifted me to stand by Ace.

Magic jumped over to stand by Brandy.

They put their helmets on and leaned back in their seats.

Then the remote beside me clicked, the face lit up, and Little Raven stood up, looking around.

The face-screen showed a view of her face and she just lit up. She looked around the room in awe, leaning over the edge of the armrest to look down. Ace grabbed her arm to brace her.

Conrad cut to Magic’s view and we saw Xander’s remote come alive. He barely glanced at the room, though, staring intently at Brandy. She smiled back at my little buddy.

“You’re… You’re beautiful,” he whispered.

“Took you this long to notice?” she asked.

“You’re… I just never saw HOW beautiful. Not up close.”

She glanced at the camera, then smiled at Xander. “So, wanna climb the biggest tree you’ve ever seen?”

“Um, yeah,” he said, still dazed. Then he smiled. “Yeah!” with more excitement.

Back to my camera, I watched Ace direct Raven on how to jump down to the floor. “Just do it. Don’t jump, just step off and let yourself fall.”

“Is that out you do it?” Raven asked.

Ace looked down at her artificial leg. “It’s how I used to do it. Just be ready to flex your legs when you hit.”

“Okay.” She stepped out into the air and shouted “WHEEEEE!” all the way down. I followed her fall. Ace called down to her, to wait and not wander off. Then we turned to jump down to Raven’s leg, her seat cushion, then slide down the front of the chair to the ground.

Xander had a toy Jeep that Brandy drove around the house and the yard. She sat his remote at the driver’s seat and taught him how the controls worked.

Then she and Magic grabbed the roll bars as he jerked the vehicle into motion.

The room swerved around the camera view as he mastered the controls and the physics of the little car.

We saw Conrad’s feet go by, where he was sitting at the controls of the camera feeds. Then Chip’s shoes as he opened the door to the yard. Xander waved as they went by, then overcorrected the swerve that caused.

Once outside, they headed across the lawn towards a cherry tree with a tree-house just visible in the branches.

Raven was jumping up and down when we caught up with her.

“Ace, did you see? Did you see? I jumped down from WAAAAAY up there!”

“I saw, Miss Raven!” Ace cheered. Raven froze.

“I’m not Miss Raven, Ace, I’m the same size as you!”

“That’s not how it works, Mistress,” Ace said with a smile.

Raven crossed her arms and stuck out her lip. “If I’m the Mistress, I can say how it works.”

“You cannot simultaneously be and not be my Mistress,” Ace said. “But we’re down here to have fun, right?”

“Right,” Raven agreed, though not happily.

The external speaker on my camera crackled and Conrad’s voice came out. That speaker, rather than using my headphones, meant this conversation was going to be part of the broadcast.

“Raven’s six. She knows the word ‘simultaneously’?” he asked.

“Sure,” I said proudly. “She probably learned it the same time you did.” Raven and Ace both covered their smiles with their hands.

After a moment of silence, Conrad spoke again. “Are you saying I knew a five-syllable word when I was six? Or are you saying that she and I both learned the word last year?”

I was silent. Raven leaned toward the camera. “Six syllables, Uncle Conrad.”

He sighed and turned off the speaker.

“So, you wanna see inside my dollhouse?” Ace asked after they finished laughing.

Ace’s home was a purple Princess Tower. The door was locked and the only way in or out was by a Rapunzel ladder.

Chrissy had found a wig the exact color of Raven’s hair and woven a braid out of it, dangling from the balcony to the ground.

I watched the two of them swarm up and out of sight.

Then Chrissy knelt to lift me and the camera up behind them. I videoed that, too, keeping the image full on her hand, not her face.

Made the big giant presence more imposing, I thought. An impersonal hand picking me up and moving me around at her will, not mine.

Welcome to my world.

Inside, Raven was exclaiming at everything she found, every detail.

She knew when Ace had found that sticker, who’d given her that pillow, when they decided she could use a bottle cap as a wash basin, what shirt that face-cloth had been ripped out of.

Ace looked to be quite touched that Raven remembered that many details of her sylph’s life.

Outside, Xander had parked at the base of the cherry tree. Brandy was explaining how climbing the tree was different now.

“Your physics are different, gravity isn’t as scary as it used to be.”

“Okay,” he said, trustingly, though he was still staring up, up and up into the treehouse.

“C’mere, look.” She showed how to hold his hand against smooth bark, how it almost acted like a suction cup if you were careful.

Of course, the clamps on the remote would work almost as well as climbing spikes, and Brandy had a hook-hand she could attach for most of the same reason. “Which you can use if you have to. I mean, if the choice is falling or staying on the tree, go ahead and stab the bark.

“But ideally, you don’t want to hurt the tree any more than you have to.”

“Um, if I may?” Magic asked. The other two turned to face her and nodded, though she was actually asking Conrad if she could interact with the subjects.

He whispered permission and she showed an alternate way to grip tree bark.

“Lots of mountain climbing,” she explained, then stepped back. Brandy was really impressed with the new grip and climbed up about a foot, then jumped back down.

“Okay, let’s try it that way!” They started up. Magic stepped back to keep them in view.

Inside, we all three jumped down from the balcony and ran over to the TV. Up on the couch, Raven learned how to control the TV remote with her remote.

Then Chrissy lifted us up to the shelf in front of the aquarium. The angel fish was amazing. Like an actual seraph flying slowly past us. We goggled. “What’s her name?” I asked.

“Monique,” Raven said softly. “She’s beautiful.”

“She is, Mistress,” Ace agreed.

“Ace!” the girl protested.

“Mistress Raven!” the sylph insisted.

Chip lifted Magic up to a branch about four feet off the ground. If I recall correctly, it’s the second place Xander usually places his foot on the climb. Now she videoed as he and Brandy staggered up onto the branch for a break.

He didn’t need physical rest, though the concentration had been taxing. Still, the view took his breath away.

For humans, it wasn’t that big a yard. A few trees, some well-kept grass, a swing-set.

From six inches above the four-foot branch, it was a vast valley, a wilderness stretching from the alley to the back patio.

“Wow,” Xander was saying.

“NOW you see why I didn’t want you putting my hammock down?” Brandy asked him.

“Yeah, it would have been GONE…” he whispered.

The tree took an angle at that point, so there was a much easier slope to climb from there on. Magic could even keep up with them while operating the camera.

I’m not sure I could have, which is why the mountain climber was out in the yard.

They made it up to and explored the treehouse for a while.

Inside, Ace was showing Raven how the sylphs climbed up the back of the China cupboard to reach the snacks shelf. I watched, and videoed, from the kitchen table.

They were wrestling a cookie out of the reclosable seal when Conrad walked into the room. He cupped a hand under the shelf and moved the two explorers to the table.

“Okay, time is almost up,” he said, to them and to the camera. “And I have to take Electra out to the treehouse.”

Raven ran over to hug me. Conrad held the camera for me as I hugged her back. “Thanks for the remote trip, Aunt Electra. This is SO cool!”

“I know, right?” I squeezed back. Then Chrissy was carrying them back to the easy chair while Conrad carried me out the door.

“Is there a problem with Magic’s camera?” I asked.

“No, it’s a request.” We got to the tree just as that group reached the four-foot branch. Conrad set me down and Xander ran over.

“I made it!” he said. “I got to you before my timer went off and kicked me offline!” He hugged me as tight as Raven had. “Thanks so much, Aunt Electra. I’ve had a wonderful time!”

“So,” I asked, “you understand what it’s like for your sylph, now?”

“I won’t say for sure that I do,” he said with wonderful insight. “But I know that a lot of what I thought I understood was wrong.”

“Another mark on your carrier,” Conrad said, referring to how I used to track moments of ‘enlightenment’ among the people we met.

I was busy hugging my nephew. It felt weird, the casing, but it felt good, feeling an actual hug from this kid rather than hugging at him, or suffering through his grip.

Suddenly, he went limp, sprawling across my arms as a dead weight. “XANDER!” I cried.

“Timer,” Conrad said.

“Oh. A heh. Yeah, I forgot.” I blushed. I glanced over at Magic. She gave me a thumbs-up, indicating that she’d gotten my reaction for the show.

Dammit.

Conrad and Chip gathered up sylphs, remote and car, and took everything inside.

Both kids were on the couch with Chrissy, talking a mile a minute about their adventures. Chrissy kept saying, “Alright, don’t spoil it for me!”

And they, predictably, said, “Okay, but one more thing, have you ever seen a blade of grass THIS BIG?” or “Yeah, but Ace has a SCAR on her EAR! Have you ever seen her scar?”

Magic caught the last bit of this, then the kids charging over to thank Conrad and thank me, again.

Then Conrad put me down on the table and asked if they wanted to watch him edit their experiences. They cheered and followed him out to the kitchen and his portable studio.

That left me and Magic alone with Chip and Chrissy. “So,” I asked, “have you guys picked out your remotes?”

Chip picked the remote that’s referred to as 'The Jock' in the manual.

Chrissy went with the more demure ‘Elf.’ Feminine, but not as curvy as her real body was.

Chip expressed disappointment. “I thought you’d pick Cheerleader,” he said. “So I’d recognize you even at that scale.”

“I’m going to be the only other remote in the entire state!” Chrissy replied. “If you can’t figure out which one is me, you deserve to be confused!”

Then they lay back and turned on their helmets. I played hostess while Magic filmed.

First, of course, I had to hug each of them.

It was weird. It’d been about seventeen or eighteen years since I hugged Chip. A lot of water under that particular bridge, but we had been boyfriend/girlfriend once upon a time.

And we didn’t break up, really. I just sylphed and there I was, Conrad’s pet.

So it was a nostalgic hug. I remembered why I used to date this man. Back when I only had to climb up two steps of a staircase to look him in the eye.

He clearly remembered that, too. It was… Nice. Nice memories. Distant memories, but nice ones.

Of course, we didn’t get TOO nostalgic. His wife was watching and my boyfriend would be reviewing Magic’s video.

Finally he pat me on the back and I turned to Chrissy. I’d never hugged her. I never met her before I sylphed.

She squealed happily and grabbed me under the armpits, to lift me up into a hug.

And that was their first lesson of the differences between human and sylph musculatures. She hoisted me into the air, up over her head.

I managed to recover in mid-air, and landed on my feet, taking an easy knee on landing.

“Oh, my God! I’m so SORRY!” she cried.

“That’s nothing!” I said. I popped up to my feet, showing her that I wasn’t hurt. “Now, see how high you can toss Chip when you’re TRYING to!”

Her face on the screen looked stunned, then curious. Then wicked.

She bent and cupped her hands. Chip instantly gave her a foot and jumped. She heaved and he flipped head-over-heels, higher than she stood.

They threw each other around for a while. Magic and I just let them. They weren’t either of them practiced gymnasts, or used to this size, so they tended to crash down to Earth.

But they couldn’t hurt the remotes, and their resulting limps were entirely psychosomatic.

Finally, Chip called a halt. “I can only throw my wife around for so long before she decides to kick my ass,” he explained.

“I WAS kicking your ass,” Chrissy said. “I threw you higher than you threw me.”

“Like hell!” he spat. He turned to me. “Who threw the other higher?”

“We’ll check the tapes later,” I said.

Suddenly both remembered that we were on screen. “Oh. We said ass,” Chrissy said. “Is that okay?”

“Conrad will fix it,” I promised her. “Your children need never know that you’re worse potty mouths than I am.”

Chrissy’s image may have blushed, it was hard to tell for sure. Chip ran his hand as if wiping sweat from his brow.

“Anyway, you guys will be dining on this story for a while,” I said. “Now, who wants to see the inside of a carrier?”

“Oooh!” Chrissy said. “Your always looks so mysterious.”

“It’s just old,” I said. “Made a long time ago, when they were cages as much as carriers.” I lead them under the coffee table and inside our carrier.

They tried out the seats and check the window views. Chrissy noted the slip covers Delli made. Chip figured out which seat was Cher’s favorite.

“How’d you know?” I asked.

“This is the only single,” he said. “A guy can spread out to take the whole chair and not be accused of man-spreading.”

“Huh,” I said. I'd never figured that out. “And here I thought YOU guys were going to be doing all the learning.”

“Oh, we are!” Chrissy insisted. “This is SO new and exciting! I never really imagined the interior of a carrier. It was always just the box or the cage.” She pointed to one end of the sofa cushion. “You sit here, right? By the window. The side window, so you can keep an eye on Conrad.”

“At all times,” I said with a laugh. “What else?”

“Ghirardelli’s next to the chocolate stash,” Chip said, pointing to the cabinet next to the sofa. It wasn’t a question.

“And Magic sits right across from the door,” Chrissy said, bouncing in the exact spot Magic tended to ride. “So she can be first one out when the door opens.”

“I…” My mouth gaped open. I choked up a little bit.

“Oh, Electra! What’s wrong?” Chrissy stepped over to take my hands.

“You… You guys really pay attention. To me. To us, our family.”

“Well, you guys ARE family, silly!” she said. She gathered me into a hug. A real one this time. Chip turned to offer a hug to Magic.

Still a little skittish around strangers, she just shook her head and pointed at the camera. Good excuse, that camera. Good insulation.

We made our way to a potted plant over by the window and climbed that, then down to the ground to look under the stereo cabinet.

Chrissy crawled out with a quarter she’d found there, Chip found a Lego brick.

They wanted to see how high they could get on a bookcase, but I suggested they take the helmets off for a second.

“Might be a good time for a potty break,” I said.

They agreed. Conrad had been listening in and turned off their remotes. Chip sat up instantly, in a hurry to get a drink and get back to sylphing.

He sat up way too quickly and fell backwards, sprawling on the chair. Chrissy didn’t move quite as precipitously, but ended up sliding out of her seat to sit on the floor.

Magic shot the scene from the coffee table as Conrad came out to help her back up on the chair.

“Why am I so tired?” Chip complained.

“She told you you would be,” Conrad said with a nod to me.

“But the kids didn’t collapse!” Chrissy protested.

“The timer on the kids was set WAY within their limits,” Conrad explained. “Part of it was for a safety factor, and part’s because Raven’s too big to carry up to bed.”

“Am not!” Raven said as she bounced into the room. She and Xander each brought a glass of water to their parents.

Conrad suggested that everyone take forty minutes to think over their experiences, then we’d tape their impressions.

“Forty minutes, huh?” Chip smiled. “That’s about how long it takes for our favorite pizza place to deliver.”

“What a shocking coincidence!” Conrad said, his expression all innocent and forthright. He made a throat-cutting gesture and Magic stopped the camera.

Ray came out to collect the remotes and helmets. I heard Annie, Delli and Brandy out in the kitchen, calling for pizza. Between them, they knew everyone’s usual order. I have no idea how they negotiated the one for the sylphs, but I trusted the three of them.

It turned out to be a meat lover’s, which validated my faith in them all.

The kids did their post-interviews like it was homework, then they went off to play hide and seek with most of the sylphs.

Ace sat in Chrissy’s hand as the parents did their interview, rubbing at her overworked stump.

Conrad set up a bigger camera for the interviews and asked the questions himself. It made the humans look like people rather than giant forces of nature, and we could see their expressions. All in all, it looked like a successful episode.

And I successfully defended my title as the Queen of Hiding, though Magic came close. I think Delli threw the game every chance she got, simply because ‘found’ sylphs had to wait on the counter, next to the brownies…

-----

About the time I was exhausted (but triumphant) Chrissy apologized but said she simply HAD to put the kids to bed.

There were goodnights and kisses goodnight and they trotted up the stairs.

Xander made a point of leaving Brandy downstairs to visit more with us, as long as she promised to come up to his room later.

Chrissy promised that she’d bring the pet in when we all folded up our tents.

Raven was torn. Finally, Brandy suggested that Ace tell the bedtime story, then come downstairs. Chrissy offered to bring Ace down.

Chip broke out the more adult beverages and Conrad started a fire. We all sipped and relaxed, watching the inferno (or maybe watching the flames, if you weighed more than a pound).

Chip kept almost starting a conversation with Ray. Finally he asked about the price of four remotes and helmets. Ray told him.

We all choked on our wine, Coke or rum & Cokes. Then he asked about a single helmet. It wasn’t a lot better.

Then Ray offered a brochure. Chip and Chrissy could open a remote rental store.

“That would be so cool,” Chip said. But he was too smart to commit to anything without a lot more study. And Chrissy's input, of course.



-----
Index

149. Dinging Off

151. Landing On