Gilded Latten Bones

65

The woman tried hard to drown me but I was too crafty. Whenever she shoved soup into my face I swallowed it. It was Dean Creech wonder soup. Every spoonful hit bottom, then declared itself throughout my body. Energy came back fast, along with confidence and a sense of well-being. It wasn't long before I found my voice.

"Something I've been wanting to bring up all evening, darling. I never got to it because so much was going on."

Wow. I made a miracle comeback. Almost as good as shaking that awful cold overnight. Though I hadn't, really. A host of unpleasant symptoms were back now that Old Bones was asleep.

I could not help feeling uncomfortable about how my sidekick had begun operating without consultation. Strafa had put me away drowning in my own snot. Next morning the mess was gone and almost forgotten.

Maybe Old Bones didn't think I had time to be sick.

Tinnie developed a mild glower while I rambled through distracting thoughts. "Let's have it, Malsquando! Good or bad, let's get to it."

I was nervous. When Penny and Kyra got upstairs they would see that somebody had used that bed.

The guilty flee where no man pursueth.

We could see some interesting action when Strafa returned.

"All right. Here we go. Before the good goes away and the mucus comes back. Jon Salvation has been bullying me to get you to act in his next play. He wants you bad. Did he talk to you about that?"

"He tried to talk to me about something but I didn't pay attention. And he kept hemming and hawing."

The woman can have that effect on the male of the species.

"He has a new play about fairies. He wants you to be in it."

"I'm done with that stuff." Stated entirely without conviction, damned near begging to be talked into changing her mind. "I wasn't able to be that kind of woman."

"What you weren't able to do was stop being a self-involved pain in the ass. You were Tinnie Tate to the third power."

Had to be the soup. Something in the soup was worse than alcohol for loosening the tongue.

"Garrett?"

"Let's just say you wouldn't have put up with half of what you dished out if you'd been doing Salvation's job."

Her mouth opened and closed. No words came out. She reminded me of a freshly caught trout, with distractions. Say, better, a freshly caught mermaid.

"He wants you for the lead role, darling. And he's sure this will be his biggest play yet."

Her eyes got huge. She drifted off into fantasyland, harkening to dreams she'd had before she alienated everybody.

"Really?"

"Really. I tried to talk him out of it. He insists you're perfect. I'd bet he used you when he created the character. Who you might not like much if you do get involved." Tinnie had no patience with women who had quirks like hers.

Jon Salvation had a reputation for drawing his characters from life, and writing them true.

"What?"

"What I'm saying is, we don't see ourselves the way other people see us. Not saying that what they see is any less subjective. But the way you were at the World. ."

"Stop!"

She did not carry the argument forward.

I had unearthed ambitions my honey had kept hidden. She felt vulnerable, now. Maybe secretly ashamed.

She knew she had been a jerk back when she got kicked out of that select pool of cuties who could act without having to entertain the punters in private after the show.

She had been good but her uncles never approved.

She got all starry-eyed and lost in her imagination.

"Tinnie?"

"I'm sorry, Malsquando. This. . It's. . It's a lightning strike from a clear blue sky. He really said he wants me?"

"Like I told you, I think he used you to create the fairy queen. You wouldn't even have to act. You could just be you. As long as that you isn't the Tinnie that got everybody so mad. ."

She jumped up and down like she was Kyra's age. "I know what you mean. I learned my lesson. I'm not that Tinnie anymore. Garrett, sweetheart, you know what this means?"

"It means you need to get together with the Remora and convince him that you aren't that Tinnie anymore."

"No, dumbhead. It means that if I don't mess this up I can tell my uncles to go to hell. They can find somebody else to keep their damned books."

Epiphany! Though she hid it well Tinnie didn't like her life much. "They'd have to pay somebody."

"Yeah!" She had been trying to be what they wanted her to be. I had suffered because she tried to make me into the man they thought she ought to have. "If you're running some practical joke on me, Malsquando. ."

"He's been trying to get hold of you for days. You wouldn't let him."

"I thought. . Never mind." She bounced up and down again. And didn't turn sour when I suggested that she move into a better light so I could more fully appreciate the view.

I was, for the moment, content. We were rolling along just the way we ought. Only one teensy gnat in the ointment.

Old Bones and I needed to have a sit-down when he woke up. He needed to make his thinking clear. He was the serpent who could slither the deepest cesspits of the human mind. He could explain why he preferred Strafa Algarda to the woman who had been closest to me for an age.

Kyra galloped in. I was sure she would want to know who had been using the guest room bed. Instead, she said, "Our coach is here."

Tinnie said, "It is way late. I need to get Uncle Oswald and Artifice home so they can be treated."

I struggled into a sitting position. "We all need sleep. Kyra, can you see if Dean needs any help? He's got to be half dead by now."

She went. Tinnie asked, "What about you?"

"I'll manage."

"You need to rest, too. But somebody has to let Singe in when she gets back."

"Dollar Dan can handle that." The ratman was in Singe's office, staying out of the way.

"That sorceress will be here, too."

"She might be," I admitted.

Tinnie took a first step in changing the rest of her life. She let that go. She didn't ask questions. She didn't try to manipulate me by telling me how much she trusted me.

Old Bones had had some impact after all.