One short story. People and place is fictional.
Dark Blue, Dark Blue
It was an exceptionally cold and gloomy evening, oddly damp though it was in the thick of December. Carter was strolling the foggy, haphazard streets with fullest intention; out of the corner of his eyes, he could see city filth skulking in the protective shadows and he bristled. Like some covert assassin, he made his footfalls shifty and his senses keen.
Tonight, he was headed for the Mauntery of St. Clara; while not a particularly religious man, Carter was a sophisticate, and by dint of this he had a displaced affection for the frescoes that adorned church walls and smoky prayer dens. So it was with a personal conviction that he walked confidently against the current of worshipers as they exited the chapel. Admittedly, Carter was struck by the marked diversity of the crowd; virgin girls, effeminate-faced boys and, lagging far behind, the seniors. All devout to a martyred saint. He approached an otherwise attractive young maunt, though her heavy robes and veiled headdress prevented her beauty from taking up any real space.
"Sister, oh Sister!" Carter called cordially. She turned and seemed to shrug away from him. But nonetheless, he had her attention. "Sister, would you be so kind as to point me in the direction of an idol of St. Clara?"
The sister looked him over carefully: it was evident in his glamorous business dress that he was a man of material possessions and that there was little spiritual satisfaction to be gained from his clientele. On the other hand, it might look good to her superiors should she lead such an attractive and well-to-do patron to a cubicle of worship. The sister nodded and spoke faintly, "Of course."
Carter followed her to the end of the chapel and down a hatched hallway, flanked by two archways. Both of them were occupied. Without a word, the novice left him to wait for a cubby to free up. After a time, he became restless. Seeing no harm in merely taking a peek, he meandered over to one of the curtained doorways. Gently, he pushed a fold of crimson, moth-eaten fabric to the side, revealing the beautiful fresco he'd been seeking. St. Clara, in all her martyred glory, stood tall and elegant, immortalized by oil and canvas; even in the dim light of the stubs of candles, she glowed.
But without warning, Carter's attention was stolen from the marvelous fresco of Clara and drawn instead to the cloaked figure before him, hunched in silent prayer. Something about the body's posture, the arch of the ruddy knuckles gripping several strings of prayer beads so tightly...it was ghastly and familiar. The fingernails were soft and fragile, though not brittle. The skin was so, so pale...porcelain perhaps, definitely just as breakable.
And then it hit him.
"Spencer?" he breathed softly into the musty air of the mauntery. "Spencer, is that you?"
She turned her head slowly over her shoulder, not as if she had recognized him but more as though he were an annoyance. And perhaps he was annoying her, but he gave little care. Then, without an answer, she turned her head back into a sloped bow, ignoring him.
Carter wouldn't have it. "Spencer, how glad I am to see you! It's been since...why, since you left us all behind!" He couldn't dam the enthusiasm as it had been four years since they had last seen one another.
This time, she turned to him and in a voice much softer than he remembered, she said, "Sir, you have me mistaken. Please, leave me to my devotions." But the sass that lay just beneath the surface of her courtesy only convinced him that it was indeed his long-lost companion.
"I never remembered you as being religious, Spence." He didn't bother to whisper anymore. "But I suppose the times have changed us both!"
The spirit of his exclamation intensified her dislike. She turned to him again, this time looking straight at him and growled, "Sir, leave me and I shall be through in no time."
With a huff, Carter hung back, waiting. She has to come out sometime, he told himself. He waited. He waited a long time, wondering what was taking her so long. When he went to see if she was finished though, she had disappeared. Carter dashed into the tiny cubicle and searched his way across the walls with his hands till he found the exit she'd used – an archway, hollowed out and hidden by some saintly icon.
She hadn't gotten far, though. At the end of a partitioned street, Spencer was shuffling through the cloudy, misty cold, her black tumultuous cloak billowing behind her. Skillfully, quietly, Carter chased after her. It was evident by the way she ducked and shied away through alleyways that she knew he was following. A part of him sorely hoped that she wanted him to catch her. They took a circuitous route amongst the shadier streets of the city as he followed her into one of the lowest districts.
Finally and suddenly, the chase ended by the edge of a canal. Spencer turned briefly in time to see that Carter was still sharp on her trail, then darted into an archaic, old flat, pushing the door shut noisily. The sound of it echoed hauntingly across the entire street, dissipating over the waters of the canal.
Still, Carter didn't give up. He pounded on the softened wood of the door, speaking through it. "Spencer, I know it's you. Let me in – or at least come out here. Meet me. See me. Let us catch up on four years' mishaps and successes."
There was quiet. A hardened and painful quiet.
"Spencer!" Carter continued to pound relentlessly on the door until eventually, she shushed him.
"Stop it. Stop your noise-making and I'll let you in, but don't ask me to come out to meet you." Her voice rang harshly through the thick wood of the door and into his ears.
"Fine." He stood back and waited.
With marginal effort, Spencer slid the door open, but she was not visible behind the cover of the dark entryway. "Come in," her voice found him through the dark.
Carter stepped forward and followed her muffled form up a rickety set of stairs and into the upper hull of the building, long since abandoned.
* * *
"So you've been in hiding all this time? Why?" Carter sipped lightly at the heavy mug she'd given him full of warm cider; he was wary of the chipped rim.
She chuckled darkly, peering at the floor. "That's really none of your business," she murmured.
"Why not?" he asked blatantly.
She smiled at him, polite but strung with venom. "Because I value your life, Carter." Her words had their desired effect and he was shocked into silence. With a sigh, she slumped back into a dilapidated chair. "So enough of me. Tell me, what of our friends? How are Katharine and Claire?" She lit the end of a long, enamel pipe and puffed away, waiting for Carter to answer.
The acrid smoke clouded his head and he had to dig for words that, moments ago had been obvious. "Katharine married off and lives somewhere far west of here. None of us have heard from her since graduation." Remembering Claire, of course, was like remembering a rather unpleasant bout of the stomach flu. He'd never quite seen what Spencer had seen in her. "Claire is still as saintly and self-righteous as ever," Carter sipped too hard at the cider and burned his tongue. "She's married into high society, you know." He leaned forward conspiratorially, the piping liquid in the mug almost pouring out.
"It's funny," Spencer muttered, more to herself. "I always thought you liked Claire."
"Claire was pompous and self-appreciative and such a vain thing; I adored her, at the time," admitted Carter. "It was college, what more was there for me to chase after?" He observed her little one-room flat: books sat in lumpy stacks across the floor; cracked ceramics littered a poorly constructed curio cabinet. A metal tub and an ugly porcelain bowl stood in as a bath and sink. From the back window, he could see how she might procure water, but shivered at imagining how cold it must be in the winter.
After a good deal of awkward silence, Spencer spoke again. "And I must admit, I am curious to know whatever happened to nasty old Eric. Is he still so vile?"
Carter smiled. "I still talk to him; if anything, age has only added crudeness; he's holding his father's chair up at the Magistry – absolutely corrupt, of course – and he spends his days cheating on his stiff-lipped wife, who usually returns the favor with their stiff-lipped butler." Carter shook his head, sentimental about his friend. "But enough about me. Please won't you tell me about you? What have you been up to, Spence? What do you do?"
"What do I do?" she repeated. "I eat sometimes, I sleep even less. I write –"
But Carter cut her off. "No, what do you do for a living? I can see it isn't much, but it's something."
"I can't tell you. Now anyway," she shot him a glare to prevent any more interruptions, "Are you married? You don't look it." It was a complement.
"I am," he said, and for some reason wilted. "I don't see her that much, thank God." Running his fingers through flaxen strands of hair, he pushed out a long breath of air. "Aria can be difficult...but I love my children."
Spencer only smiled. "How many?" When she asked, her voice was smooth and teasing. It made him uncomfortable.
Scratching his head, Carter replied, "Four."
Spencer's articulate eyebrows arched gracefully toward her hairline. "Four? But you don't like your wife?" It was rare that so many syllables belonged to a question for her.
"It took me four tries to get a son," Carter asserted. "I don't like my wife. It isn't my fault that I'm trapped in an arranged marriage. But you're lucky," he said, fingering the mug's smooth handle. "You aren't married."
"Of course I'm married," she said with a slight huff, "just not to a man." And again, her words stunned Carter, this time into a full shock with facial expressions to boot. "You would take it that way," she teased. "No, I am married to my work, my cause." This was the first time she had initiated any mention of what she did for a living.
"What exactly is your partner?" Carter asked, deciding to play her game.
"Espionage," she spoke quietly. "Deceit, truth, patricide, suicide, all of it and the gallon of milk." She uncorked a bottle of malt whiskey and coaxed a large amount into her mouth.
"Is it a good marriage?" he asked, understanding that Spencer could only speak of this in epigrams. "Does it satisfy you in every way?"
"Every way but one," she spat.
"Your children?" he pressed.
"Are on their way. We're still in the pregnant stages." Thinking on this, she looked up again and pierced him with her almond eyes. "Every way but one," she repeated.
And with finality, Carter laid a sturdy hand on her knee and replied, "Me too."
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