#024: Sauce 

Karen looked positively devastating in a white wraparound skirt over the yellow bikini, sandals, a white carnation in her burgundy hair. She walked with a lively bounce and held my hand as we giggled our way across the patio to join the Kalinskys at brunch.

It was a beautiful autumn day, temperature just right, hardly any smog, sun playing peekaboo among fleecy clouds.

Marcia watched us all the way. As we were seating ourselves at the poolside table, she remarked, a bit archly, "Well, aren't we the young lovers. Karen, honey, you look absolutely smashing."

Karen smiled prettily and replied, "Thanks. I'm feeling great. Better than I've felt in my whole life."

"Not to put a damper on anything," Kalinsky half growled, "but all this gaiety is a little out of keeping with the moment, isn't it?" He gave me a mildly irritated flash of eyes and added, "Or is that the whole idea?"

"It is," I replied. "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, cry too much and your cheeks will rust."

Karen giggled. Marcia seemed a bit offended, but kept her thoughts to herself.

Kalinsky signaled the waiter and said, sarcastically, "Yeah, that's the spirit."

I showed him a level stare and inquired, "What do you want? Sackcloth and ashes, for God's sake?"

He dropped his gaze, replied, "You're right. Guess I'm just envious. Can't seem to bring myself to that level." He forced a smile, swept it toward Karen, said, "You do look great, honey. I'm glad. Stay that way. We're going to put this whole mess behind us very soon, now."

She said, brightly, "It's already there, TK."

He stared at her for a sober moment, then flashed another smile and said, "That's great."

I scratched my nose with my left hand.

Karen brought a sandaled foot up to rest on the tabletop, fixed Kalinsky with a direct gaze, and asked him, "What's the situation in Addis Ababa?"

He stared at her rather stupidly for a moment before replying, "I guess it's okay."

"What do you mean, it's okay? It'd damn well better be better than okay!"

I could count the confusions in his eyes. He told her, "Well, yes, I think it is. We got out before the damage was done."

I scratched my nose with the other hand.

Karen's foot came down. She leaned toward Marcia and sweetly confided, "I found the yellow bikini. It was right where we left it."

Marcia was looking at it. She said, "So I see. But I saw it on you last night, too, just before dinner."

I scratched the top of my left hand.

Karen scowled at Marcia as she replied, in a harsh tone, "Damned lucky for you that you did, too, but no thanks to your buddy. He fucked my mind, Marcia. He really fucked it over."

Marcia's shocked gaze fled to me, than to Kalinsky, back to Karen. "What?" she managed in a weak voice.

Kalinsky scraped his chair back and growled, "What the hell is going on here?"

I scratched the other hand.

"Shut up!" Karen loudly commanded him. She pushed away a waiter who was trying to transfer food from a serving cart, returned her foot to the table, and told Kalinsky, "On balance, you've done a pretty good job, TK, but you're getting just a little out of hand, don't you think? Don't ever forget where you were and what you were before you came here." She pointed an accusing finger at Marcia and continued, "You too, honey. You're getting to be just a bit too much the whore, don't you think?"

Marcia's chin dropped. She gasped, "Oh my God!"

Kalinsky leaned toward me and whispered in my ear, "What the hell is this, Miss Naru? It's Karen's voice, but it's pure JQ coming through."

I just shook my head and scratched my nose.

Karen stood up and gave the hapless waiter a dazzling smile, said, "Oh, I'm sorry, Charlie—go ahead, please," then did a little pirouette beside Marcia and sang out, "Oh, God, I'm so happy!"

Marcia got to her own feet and embraced Karen a bit awkwardly, gave Kalinsky a baffled look, sat back down, lit a cigarette, looked at me with something approaching anger, said, softly, "Jesus."

I kept it going for another ten minutes or so, totally destroying the brunch while moving Karen alternately across the range of personalities—JQ, Elena, Karen—with rapid-fire changes. A disconcerting array, to say the least—even for me, and I knew the game, though the lines were all spontaneously Karen's, or through Karen, at any rate.

It was destroying Kalinsky too. He had sat unmoving, hunched forward in his chair, staring fixedly at Karen for several minutes.

Marcia, on the other hand, seemed to be paying more attention to me than to Karen—and that was the giveaway—it was what I was looking for. And I had seen enough.

I put a hand on Karen's and said a single word, softly: "Marcia."

Karen turned on her with a fury that surprised even me, crying "Bitch! You rotten bitch! You did that to me!"

Marcia staggered to her feet, wary eyes moving rapidly between Karen and me, finally settling on me as she croaked, "Cute, really cute." She jerked an earlobe and scratched her nose at the same time in a rather discoordinated fashion, then lurched away as Kalinsky came unglued from his chair.

He tried to get a hand on Marcia, but she jerked away and flung herself across the patio, almost colliding with the serving cart at which Charlie, the waiter, had been trying valiantly, amid all that uproar, to prepare a flambé dish. He had just lit the flame when Marcia brushed him.

I will not say that I absolutely saw a tiny energy pulse hit that dish—but I would almost bet my immortality on it. All I can say for sure is that the whole thing exploded at just that moment, sending Charlie sprawling into the pool, wreathing Marcia and the umbrella above the cart in flames.

I did not hear a sound from Marcia. I doubt that she even knew what hit her. The flaming umbrella immediately collapsed and wrapped itself around her. Kalinsky and I both suffered a few minor burns trying to beat the flames out. We finally pushed the whole blazing pyre into the pool, but it was too late, entirely too late.

I left Kalinsky weeping in the pool, and led a zombied young lady to the Maserati, where then and only then I brought her back to her own true self and took her away from that terribly unhappy place.

Karen's nightmare had ended.

And, though it may sound a bit harsh, some sort of cosmic justice had been served.