Buena Vista owns the toys.  (I just wish they'd make more of them!) 
This is dedicated to anyone who ever felt like a minor character in
someone else's story.
 
Out on the Town
by Nancy Brown (nancy@rat.org)
copyright 1996
 
 
 
     "Are you ready yet?" he asked for the fifth time, poking his
head into the bathroom.
     "Almost," she replied again, and half-heartedly shoved him out
of her way.  She checked her hair in the mirror for strands out of
place, and found two more.  With a practiced hand, she smoothed
them down and added a touch more hairspray.  Then she smiled at her
reflection.  "Perfect."
     "It's about time," Brenden muttered.  "If you spent less time
on your hair ... "
     "I'd have to spend more time with you.  Given the options,
I'll take my hair, thank you."  She brushed past him, grabbed her
coat and the small purse she'd bought for tonight.  "Coming?"
     He sighed, and she felt herself tensing.  She hated it when he
pretended to be so put-upon.  "I'm coming."  She went out the door,
not waiting for him to follow, and got into the car.  Then she
pointedly stared out the front window as he got in on the driver's
side.  He turned the key, letting the car roar into its artificial
life.
     Brenden turned on the radio and fiddled with it while the car
warmed up, settling finally on a station playing a Michael Bolton
song she knew that he knew that she hated.
     "Can you at least find something decent?" she said, looking
out her own window.  He pulled the car away from the curb and got
into traffic.  After another minute of Michael singing about a
cage, she turned on the cd player, letting Kenny G fill the almost
soundless interior of the new car.
     He said nothing, but continued to drive towards the theatre
leaving her alone to think.  The idea of seeing "Les Miz" again
brought a smile to her lips.  It had been the first play they'd
gone to together.  That was why they were doing this tonight in the
first place; they needed to recapture whatever it was that had
slipped out of their lives these past few years.
     She remembered occasions when she'd come home from the office
to find that he'd brought flowers from a vendor along the street
for no reason at all, and other times when they'd walked all the
way to the Village hand in hand for a cup of latte.  Lately, it had
just been so much easier to flip on the tv when they got home,
rather than go walking or to the club.  They didn't seem to talk
much anymore, and when they did, it was usually to discuss grocery
lists or worse, trade barbs.
     The next-to-last straw had been the hold-up in the bank. 
They'd both frozen, and she'd known that he would have left her to
save himself.  He'd even hidden behind her!  She could see in his
eyes that he *knew* she would do the same to him.  They hadn't been
harmed, thanks to ... well, never mind to whom (or what, but best
not to think too deeply on that, either) they owed their thanks. 
They had reached an unspoken agreement not to mention nor even
think about the creatures that seemed to follow them at the oddest
times.  Very quietly, she was half-afraid that he wasn't seeing the
same things she was, and that would be worse, much worse.
     He pulled into a parking space two streets down from the
theatre and killed the engine.  "Margot," he said in a low voice,
"let's pretend that we like each other tonight.  All right?"
     She thought of a reply, but instead, simply nodded and got
out.  In silence, they walked to Sophia's, where she'd made the
reservations.  It wasn't until after the waiter took their orders,
seafood salad for her, fettucine for him, that she spoke directly
to him again.
     "Scott and Mark have invited us up to the cabin this weekend. 
I told them I'd talk to you about it."  She took a sip of her water
and waited.  It had been ages since they'd been to the cabin in
winter.  Some of her happiest memories were snowy mornings with
Brenden in front of a warm fire, the two of them trying to be quiet
so that the other couple could sleep in a little longer.
     "Whatever you want," he said, and checked his watch.
     "You think you might get a little more enthusiastic?"
     "I'll do whatever you want to do.  You decide whether we go or
not."
     "Fine.  I'll tell them we're busy."
     "Fine."
     Damn him!  He was doing this on purpose.  She was certain of
it.  He was trying to get her goat by not doing anything at all,
and it was working.
     They sat in an awful silence until the waiter brought their
food, which Brenden attacked with relish.  She picked at her salad,
spearing the calamari, then sliding them limply off the fork.
     Brenden checked his watch again, and after entirely too long
said, "We should be going."
     "Fine.  You get the tip.  I'll get dinner."  She flagged down
the waiter while Brenden finished his coffee. If they were still on
speaking terms after the show, they'd go out somewhere else for
dessert, but she doubted it, which annoyed her.  For some reason,
she was craving chocolate.
     As she paid the bill, she saw a number of people turn to stare
at the entrance.  She looked, but saw only another couple waiting
to be seated.  Nothing unusual.  Well, the woman's tattoo was a
little out of the ordinary, but certainly nothing one should stare
at.  Margot suddenly had the oddest feeling she'd seen her
somewhere before, then shrugged it away.  This town was full of
semi-famous people.  She was probably just another actress who'd
made a splash and hadn't gone under yet.
     The other couple walked by them, and she could not help but
hear the man tell his wife something about a night she'd never
forget.
     Margot sighed.  It had been far too long since she and Brenden
had shared one of those particular evenings.  She looked fleetingly
behind her at the pair as she headed out behind Brenden, but the
couple was lost in a world of their own.  By the time she and
Brenden had walked across the street and down half a block to the
line forming in front of the theatre, she had forgotten their
existence.
     The line moved quickly, and they were inside before she was
even chilled.  They found their seats and waited for the overture
to start.  Brenden stretched out, while she read every word in the
playbill twice.  What had they done the first time they'd seen
this?  She tried to remember, and could only come up with a snatch
of conversation.  Come to think of it, she could remember very
little of the musical itself, because she had spent that first
night learning about the man beside her, who now seemed as though
he was going to drift off before Jean Valjean was even released
from prison!
     Javert began a monologue, and the words were punctuated by the
occasional explosion.  That was probably one of those things she
hadn't noticed the first time through.  The actor looked a little
shaken.  He was rather good, and she went into theatre-critic mode,
analyzing his take on the role as showing the pervading fear of the
French citizens at the events of the times.  As she became more
focused on meaning versus form, she felt better, more in charge. 
She might even enjoy dissecting this particular play.
     The first act went by quickly, more so than she remembered,
but she didn't mind.  During the intermission, they bought two
glasses of Perrier from the concession stand and stood in the foyer
watching the other members of the audience doing the same.
     Just as they were about to head back to their seats, she heard
another explosion.
     "They're probably testing for the battle," said Brenden.
     She nodded, and another one sounded.  "That was from outside!"
     The audience, in full crowd mentality, decided en masse to see
what was happening, and by some law of sociology or physics, or
perhaps both, they found themselves outside with everyone else.
     The first thing Margot noticed was the moon, and how it seemed
to be covered by small clouds that darted to and fro faster than
clouds ought.  The next thing she noticed was that some of them
were firing what appeared to be lasers.  A blast lit a mechanical
face, and she saw wings behind it.
     A rush of air moved past her, and she caught a brief glance of
something short and green, its wings spread out between its many
arms like a nightmare vision of a flying squirrel.
     Beside her, Brenden breathed a quiet, "Not again!"  She looked
at him, and as their eyes met, a single thought went between them.
     "The car!"  Forgetting the play completely, they hurried
towards where they'd left the new Jag.  Amazingly, it was fine. 
She thought back to the first time she'd seen one of those ...
things they didn't talk about.  Their first car had been on its
last legs and had died in downtown Queens.  They'd left it there,
too, after one of the things had come out of an alley chasing the
thugs who'd tried to rob them.  The second car had met an
ignominious end on Halloween when one of the things, possibly even
the same one, had knocked it into a streetlight, then stepped on
it.  They were running out of stories to tell the police, not to
mention the insurance company.
     She had a brief mental image of telling a detective, "Hi, we
think we're being stalked by a seven foot tall purple man with
wings."  And werewolves.  And terrorists.  And men in suits of
armor.
     "Margot?"
     "What?"
     "How about we forget the rest of the play and just go to the
club?  I could use a drink."  She glanced up in the sky again at
the skimming shadows and nodded.  They got into the car quickly.
     The ride to the club was practically silent, only the radio
spitting out news stories to blot the quiet away.  In this ten-
second sound bite, there was another breakthrough in the peace
talks in Bosnia; in that sound bite, a Vermeer from the
Metropolitan Museum had just been reported stolen.
     Brenden kept his thoughts to himself, while Margot found
herself staring outward and upwards to see if they were being
followed.  It was ridiculous.  She could understood that
intellectually.  No monsters were following them around, and none
ever had.  Whatever they had thought that they'd seen had just been
another member of this city's admittedly weird population.  Really.
     For no reason at all, a joke from her college days popped into
her head: 'I was walking through the woods, and I met these three
sisters.  Let me tell you, they were weird.'  'How weird were
they?'  'They were so weird, they made Weird Al Yankovic look
normal.'
     She shook her head as strains of "Christmas at Ground Zero"
threatened to take up residence there.
     Brenden pulled into the club's lot, found a well-lit spot and
parked.  Instead of getting out, he sat in the semi-darkness
looking at her.
     "It was nothing.  Just our imaginations.  Right?"  Was he
asking or telling, and did it really matter by this point?
     "Right.  Whatever we thought we saw was no more real than the
Loch Ness Monster."
     "Right."  They got out and walked side by side to the door,
where he showed the doorman their membership card.  She followed
him in, risking one more look over her shoulder at the bright moon. 
Nothing.  She shrugged.
     At the bar, he ordered a double martini.  She surprised
herself with her own order: a triple fudge chocolate shake, two
cherries.
     Brenden looked at the shake.  "Giving up on that diet, huh?"
     She ignored him and took a sip.  Heavenly!  It had been far
too long since she'd had one of these.  She smirked at him, and he
took a long draught from his own glass.  An evil thought struck
her.  She took one of the cherries from the shake, dabbed it in
whipped cream, then made sure that he was watching.  She began
licking it delicately, letting the sweet taste roll around on her
tongue as he stood transfixed.  Carefully, slowly, she removed
every trace of cream from the fruit, then placed it against her
lips as if in a kiss.  She eased open her mouth, slid it halfway
inside, then bit down hard.  He winced.
     She pulled the other from her shake and offered it to him. 
"Cherry, Brenden?" she asked sweetly.
     "Not in far too many years, Margot."  He moved away from the
bar without looking at her.  He caught sight of someone he knew,
and approached him smiling.  She remained behind with her shake,
ears turning red with anger and embarrassment.  She left the glass
mostly untouched on the lacquered counter, and went towards the
music.
     The dance floor was small, and mostly unoccupied.  That was
fine by her; it wasn't as if she had someone she wanted to dance
with, anyway.  She was here to listen to the music, perhaps drink
something to help dull the strange pain she'd been feeling around
her heart these past few months.  She found a table alone and
watched the few determined dancers on the floor pretend that their
lives actually meant something.
     She found her eyes drawn to a young woman, no more than
twenty-two or twenty-three.  Her hair was drawn back in a manner
much like her own, and she wore the same kind of pantsuit that
Margot liked.  In fact, if it weren't obvious that she'd tried a
little too hard on the makeup, she might have been her younger
sister, maybe even her younger self, dancing against the lonely
night in the arms of a young man who might have been mistaken for
Brenden from the back.
     'Get out while you can,' she thought bitterly.  'Hold him now,
have your fun, but if he ever mentions the word "love," get away
from him before you're drawn down with him.'  She wondered how her
own life would have been different if she'd walked away from him
that first night.  Would she be married to someone else now?  Would
she have a few kids running around, or would she still be stuck in
her career, thinking 'Next year I'll be financially stable enough
to do it ... '
     There had been an artist in her life for a wonderful, if
brief, time years back.  He'd been a dreamer, carefree, wanting to
change the world with his sculptures, and barring that, with the
endless marches and demonstrations he'd attended.  She'd gone with
him to some, wanting to feel the same fire she saw in him as he
chanted slogans for peace, for love, for acceptance.  She'd chanted
the same things, but never felt the power behind the words. 
Eventually, she'd left him to embrace the world by himself, and
she'd found her own path, a path that had led her to that one
unforgettable date, now so far into the past as to be no more than
a dream.
     The song changed to a much slower contemporary number.  Only
a few couples stayed to clasp hands and bodies, while the rest
moved away to the comparative safety of the tables.  One couple
rose from a nearby table and strolled across the floor to a dimly-
lit patch.  A sparkle of light flickered against the woman's face,
and Margot saw the same tattoo she had noticed earlier in Sofia's. 
What a coincidence, she thought, then shrugged it away.  There
could be a hundred people who frequented both places regularly; the
only wonder was that they hadn't run into more of them.
     She scanned the crowd for Brenden, finding him at last deep in
conversation with two men they both knew on a nodding basis.  He
didn't notice her attention, and after a time, she focused on the
dancers again, specifically the new couple.  While some of the
other pairs seemed almost to be grappling each other in their
dance, the two seemed content with the lightest touches of hand to
waist and arm.  As they turned, she noticed how the woman's profile
swelled just enough at the abdomen to indicate either very heavy
bloating or a bun in the proverbial oven.  Considering the way she
was dressed, very casually in an outfit that would have cost half
of Margot's net income, she was betting on the latter.
     Unconsciously, she sighed.  Here before her was all she had
dreamed once upon a time: an obviously tender and affectionate
mate, a child on the horizon, and a tidy enough income to never
have to worry about paying for braces or school.  It was a fairy
tale come true, and she had believed in it with all her being when
she'd been much younger and much stupider.  Instead of some kind
Prince Charming, she had ... Brenden.  Oh, she'd admit that they'd
had their good times together.  Again she recalled the snowy
mornings at the cabin with a fond regard coloured with just a
little sadness.  Funny how she could not shake that image: the two
of them, with no one else in the world to disturb the sacred quiet
of the falling snow.
     *twitter*  Cellular, she thought instantly, moments before she
saw the couple break their dance for the man to reach into a pocket
and pull out his phone.  He mouthed something into the receiver,
nodded, and hung up.  He turned to his companion, said something
close to her ear, and together, they hurried off the floor and out
into the night.
     Her entertainment gone, she began looking for Brenden again. 
She spotted him and made a beeline towards where he stood, still
chatting.
     "Brenden, I think we should be getting home."  He looked up at
her, about to protest, but she knew what he was like after a drink
or two, and that she would win this argument.
     "All right."  He turned back to his companions.  "Great
chatting with you.  Haveta try to get together sometime."  The
others nodded and sidled away.  He turned to her.  "I hope you're
happy.  Those two could be very powerful contacts."
     "I'm ecstatic.  I'm also tired and would like to go home now."
     He muttered something unintelligible, but did not protest when
she held out her hand for the keys.
     Behind the wheel, she felt safer.  They would just go home,
where she could go to bed while he watched tv until he thought she
was asleep.  It would be a typical ending to their night.  Just
like all the other nights they spent together.
     The radio was off, and as she drove, her thoughts drifted to
a time in the not too distant future.  He would call to tell her
that he would have to work late.  She would suddenly find reasons
to spend time away from home, and him.  There would be mutual
suspicions, shouted accusations, and eventually, the condo would be
on the market for another young couple to try to build a life
within it.  She could actually see cardboard boxes stacked in the
hallway, the ones on the left labeled with her name, those on the
right with his.
     Her vision blurred, and she blinked the offending tears back
so as not to interfere with her driving.
     Something heavy landed on the roof with a thud.
     The car swerved, and suddenly she found it much harder to
steer as she slammed on the brakes and began praying desperately to
whatever deity was handy that they didn't crash.
     With a screech, the car skidded to a stop beside a parked van,
missing it by half an inch at most.  For an instant, she held very
still, wondering if she were still alive, and then, realized that
for better or no, she was.
     She turned frightened eyes to Brenden.  "Are you all right?"
     "Yeah."  He looked shell-shocked, and his seatbelt was tight
against his neck.  He was going to have a nasty bruise in the
morning.  Suddenly, his eyes focused on her and flooded with
concern.  "What about you?"
     He reached out his hand and gently pried her fingers away from
the steering wheel, where she had not even noticed her own knuckles
turning dead white.  He rubbed some circulation back into them.
     "I'm fine.  I think."  The car groaned, and they both looked
up, realizing in the same instant that whatever had hit them was
still there.
     "Stay here," he said quietly, unbuckling his seatbelt, "I'll
go check on whatever's up there."  He opened his door carefully and
climbed out.  She sat still for all of two seconds before she did
the same.
     One of the things was on the roof.  Oddly enough, this didn't
surprise her; who else was she expecting up there?  Big Bird?
     This thing was reddish-orange, with a long, off-white shag of
hair and a beak like a bird's.  She wasn't certain, but it *could*
have been one of the ones from the bank.  Its eyes were closed, and
it didn't appear to be breathing.
     "Do you think it's dead?" she whispered, afraid to touch the
creature.
     From the other side of the car, she saw Brenden stick out his
hand experimentally to poke its wing.  "I don't know.  We'd better
call the police."
     The thing's eyes opened.  Beyond screaming, Margot simply
watched in numb terror as it sat up and shook its head.
     "Ouch," said the thing.  Then it looked at her.  "Um, hi."
     "Hi," she squeaked.
     "Could you point me towards Times Square?"  She nodded slowly
and pointed back the way they'd come.  "Thanks."
     The thing jumped off the car to the top of the van, then leapt
across the sidewalk to the building beside it.  As they watched, it
climbed up about ten feet, then jumped, spread its wings, and
glided off.
     Margot watched until it was hidden by the city lights, then
turned back to Brenden, who was staring at the top of the Jag.  It
was dented, of course, and a quick check of the tires showed that
they would need replaced as soon as possible.
     His eyes, rounder than saucers, met hers.
     "You saw that, didn't you?"  She nodded.  "Good.  I didn't
want to be the only one."  He looked at the car again.  "I'm really
beginning to dislike these things."
     "I don't know," she said, running her hand along the hilly
terrain that had been a nice, smooth roof.  "Maybe they're trying
to tell us we need to go walking more often."  She smiled at him
then, and he chuckled.  After a minute, she joined him, and soon,
they were both gasping for breath, laughing away the hysteria, the
silent fear that had plagued them from the first night they'd met
these strange beasts.
     So much of her life had been ordered around making it in the
"real world," about getting ahead of the race and staying there,
about becoming one of the beautiful rich.  These *things* were
outside that world.  She tried to imagine the giant purple one
talking about stock options, and the image only made her laugh
harder.  They didn't need what she had spent so long in trying to
accumulate, and oddly enough, they seemed to be doing just fine.
     It was ironic, but it would only be bitterly so if she
couldn't see what was happening in time.
     She looked at Brenden, and as their eyes met, they started
laughing again.
     Minutes later, though how many she would never be able to
judge, they stopped giggling enough to get back into the car.  As
she put the key into the ignition, he placed his hand over hers and
held it for a moment.
     "I saw this brochure in the office the other day advertizing
a trip package to Europe.  It looked pretty interesting: London,
Paris, all the big cities.  It even has a day-trip to Loch Ness. 
It's up to you, of course, but if you're interested, we could call
our travel agent.  It might do us some good to get out of the city
for a while."  His tone was light, almost dismissive of the idea,
but his eyes were bright like a little boy's.
     She smiled.  "It sounds like a great idea.  Why don't you call
tomorrow?"
     He smiled back, and pulled his hand away from hers so that she
could turn the key.  As she began driving back towards home, he
fiddled with the radio again, catching another newsbite, this time
announcing that the stolen painting from the museum had just been
located in Times Square with a great deal of debris around it.
     "News," he muttered, and flipped it again to a station playing
a song by the Turtles.  She heard him singing along with the music,
and despite her best efforts, found herself doing the same.  The
bouncy music filled her with what threatened to be another giggle
fit.
     Maybe things would work out after all.  Maybe they could build
their own fairy tale, like that other couple that she'd been
watching tonight.  Maybe this trip would be the break they really
needed, both from the monsters, and from the monsters they were
both unconsciously becoming.
     She pulled into their parking space, turned off the car, and
then simply sat there beside him, thinking about a different future
than the one she'd seen before, one filled with children and bills
and time spent with and for each another.  Maybe they could even
start it this weekend.  The offer still stood with Scott and Mark. 
After the cabin, they could go directly on their vacation, and into
whatever the future held for them.  Together.
     Besides, she thought very quietly to herself, what were the
chances of running into one of these things at Loch Ness?
 
The end