Sense and Serenity

[tamcranver]

11.

After dinner, Zoe was feeling well enough to go downstairs to the sitting room with Banning and Cabbott. When Kaylee brought this up, though, she shook her head firmly. “Not gonna happen,” she said. “I feel better, but I don’t feel like inflicting those harpies on myself. My head’s only just stopped hurting.”

“Oh, come on!” said Kaylee. “I’ve had to spend all this time with them—wouldn’t kill you to sit with me for a little bit. ‘Sides, I bet Wash would like it if you showed up.”

Zoe grumbled but was finally convinced to venture out of her room with Kaylee. Banning and Cabbott fell all over themselves to assure Zoe how glad they were that she was feeling better, and they actually managed to keep a fairly interesting conversation going about the new line of holographic vid entertainment systems that Blue Sun was coming out with in the next month or so. As soon as Wash and Simon came back from their meeting with friends, however, the women seemed to forget about Kaylee and Zoe, and before Simon had made it too far into the room, Banning was already no more than a step from him.

Somewhat uncomfortable, Simon stepped away from her and nodded politely at Zoe. “How are you feeling?” he asked.

“Not too bad,” Zoe replied. “Thanks for looking after me, Doc. I’m much obliged.”

“Not at all.” Simon glanced quickly at Kaylee, giving her a nervous smile. Returning his attention to Zoe, he said, “I’m just happy you’re feeling better.”

“Me, too,” Wash said eagerly.

Before long, Wash had sort of hijacked Zoe, asking about how she felt and if she wanted something to eat, telling jokes about puppets and ducks. Kaylee found a trashy romance novel on the cortex and curled up on the opposite end of the couch from Wash and Zoe; she noted with a bit of amusement that Dr. Tam and Banning had sat down next to each other with two volumes from the same set of books. She had a sneaking suspicion that Banning hadn’t picked her book because she was partial to neurosurgery.

After a while, Banning got bored with her medical textbook and said, “Wash, what were you thinking, telling that...that girl that we would throw another party here? You ought to have considered Simon’s feelings. You know how he hates parties.”

“I asked Simon,” said Wash, looking away irritably from Zoe. “If he didn’t want me to throw a party, he should have said something then.”

Banning shook her head, sniffing. “I really feel like I’d enjoy parties more if people talked more. There really isn’t enough civilized conversation around here, and I think the people need that more than they need dancing.”

“I bet you throw a real fun party, Banning,” Wash said. “After the conversation, do you sit around sorting your socks or something?”

Banning didn’t even deign to respond to that. Instead, she stood up, straightening out the pleats of her immensely expensive gown, and walked slowly about the room. Wash and Zoe looked at her as if she’d lost her mind, but Simon, for whom her sensual walk was intended, didn’t even look up from his book.

Frowning, she turned to Kaylee. “Miss Kaylee, you’ve been sitting like that an awfully long time. Why don’t you put the reader down and take a walk around the room with me.”

Kaylee couldn’t fathom why Banning wanted to walk around the room, especially when it was such a nice day outside and Wash and Simon’s house had such a beautiful floating garden behind the ballroom. “Aw, no, I’m fine,” she said, hoping Banning would let it be and maybe even go outside.

“No, really,” Banning said, “it’s really quite fun, and it will only take a minute.”

Kaylee sighed and put her reader down. Apparently Banning would do anything to catch that fancy doctor’s eye, even walk around with a hick like Kaylee. As she stood up, Simon looked up from his book.

Triumphant, Banning took Kaylee’s hand and squeezed it rather too tightly. “Simon!” she said after a few turns around the room. “Why don’t you join us?”

“You’re walking around the room,” Simon said. “Either you’re really bored, or you’re having some kind of private conversation, or--” He cut himself off there.

“Or what?” Banning asked curiously.

Simon shook his head. “Nothing.”

“No, what?”

Kaylee surreptitiously turned to Wash and Zoe to roll her eyes. Wash snickered; Zoe pressed her lips together and raised her eyebrows. Turning back to Banning, she said disgustedly, “Just leave it. If it was anything he thought you’d wanna hear, he’d ‘a said it.”

“Oh, but Simon!” Banning said with a pout. “It isn’t very polite to keep secrets.”

“It’s not really a secret,” Simon muttered, embarrassed. “I was only going to say that you might be walking around to—-well, you know, show off your clothes or your figures, in which case I can see you perfectly well from here.”

“Simon!” said Banning, her tone scandalized but her smile bright. “Is that any way to speak to a lady? I declare, Kaylee and I ought to punish you for that! How shall we do it, Miss Kaylee?”

Kaylee was uncomfortable with the doctor staring at her. Sure, he was being polite about it, not like that other time, but he was surely coming up with bad things to say about her clothes (a greasy jumpsuit), her hair (mussed) and her shoes (dirty boots). Trying to hide her unease, she said, “Just laugh at him. He’s gotta think pretty highly of himself if he thinks we’re walking around just so’s he can look at us, and laughing at fellas like that’s the best way to take ‘em down a peg.”

“Oh, but what’s there to laugh at?” asked Banning, fixing Simon with so nakedly flirtatious a gaze that he looked down at his medical volume and blushed. “He’s an intelligent, well-to-do, calm man—-I’d feel silly laughing at him.”

“Well, that’s a shame,” said Kaylee. “Near as I can tell, just about everyone has somethin’ about him worth laughing at.”

“Miss Miller’s exaggerating,” said Simon. “Of course I have—-flaws and so on. I just don’t like being anyone’s laughingstock.”

“Well, what do you s’pose makes a man a laughingstock?” Kaylee said, feeling reckless. “Maybe being stuck up?”

Simon was flushing now. “Well, I guess so. But how do you tell the difference between being stuck up and just being proud? I mean, if you have something worth being proud of, then—-then I don’t think that’s something to laugh about.”

“So I guess you just don’t have anything wrong with you at all, then.”

“No, that’s not what I meant,” Simon said. “I—-I definitely have flaws. I said that already. I mean, I...I judge too quickly. I don’t give people the benefit of the doubt. I don’t always…think about what I say before I say it. And I have a hard time forgiving people.”

Kaylee raised her eyebrows. “Guess I can’t laugh at that. That’s not funny, just sad.”

Not wanting Kaylee to think of him as an object of pity, Simon said, “No, I--”

But before he could finish his objection, Banning, who was getting bored listen to Simon and Kaylee talk, said, “It’s so nice out, why don’t we all go for a walk!”

Zoe was more than willing to go outside for a spell, and Wash was more than willing to walk with her, so outside they went. Simon was glad for the interruption; he didn’t want to look any worse to Kaylee than he already did, and if the conversation had gone on much longer, things might have come out that he didn’t intend.




12.

At long last, Kaylee and Zoe managed to convince Badger to spring for cab fare back to the home. Wash, clearly unhappy about Zoe’s departure but hiding it as best he could, offered to drive them himself, but Zoe figured it might give him the wrong idea and politely declined. For Simon’s part, he was happy that the women were leaving. His growing attraction to Kaylee embarrassed and discomfited him; he didn’t understand it. He liked Kaylee fine, and was more than willing to admit that she was a very nice girl, but he was baffled as to why being around her, an engineer from some backwater rim planet, made him such a stuttering idiot. There was no hint of confusion in Banning and Cabbott’s happiness at having the house to themselves again.

Zoe and Kaylee arrived back to find things basically as they had been when they left. Emma was helping Book with his sermons; Chari and Petaline had been picking up gossip on the streets. Apparently a new squad of Alliance troops had landed on Persephone and were doing an awful lot of socializing in every part of town, from Dr. Tam’s circle on down to Badger’s.

Badger had been practically bouncing with excitement when they returned, but his excitement quickly turned to a simmering anger when Zoe would give him no firm answers about her relationship with Mr. Washburne. He stalked around the home, glowering and snapping at anyone who approached him. Book, on the other hand, seemed to be thinking about a joke to which only he was privy. He had a secretive smile on his face and seemed almost perpetually amused.

The day after Zoe and Kaylee returned home, Badger announced at the breakfast table, “I hope all of you ladies are prepared for company, because I have reason to believe that we’ll have a visitor for lunch.”

“Wot?” Badger asked, frowning. “’oo? You fink Sir Warrick and that Nandi of his are droppin’ by?”

“No, no,” said Book. “You wouldn’t know him, I think. I’ve never actually seen him myself, except on the Cortex.” After the curious women (and the even more curious Badger) had questioned him for quite a few minutes, Book finally relented. “It’s one of our donors, actually. A Mr. Jayne Cobb. And you all had better be polite to him, because if he doesn’t like what he sees, he could stop giving us money any time. Since he’s one of our bigger donors….” Book’s shrug was very eloquent.

The idea of some fellow deciding that the home wasn’t good enough for him irked Badger and immediately disposed him towards disliking this Jayne Cobb. He said so.

Book shrugged philosophically. “No point in hating a man for what he might do, is there?” Taking out his pocket communicator, he said, “Do you all remember a man named Marco?”

Badger sniffed. “Crook, wasn’t he? Gave us a cut of his profits in exchange for jobs from the church.”

“A bit like yourself, actually,” Book said with a smile. Badger, a mix of wounded dignity and confusion, kept quiet. Book continued, saying, “Well, old Marco has moved on to a better place. It seems that Mr. Cobb has inherited Marco’s operation.”

“Marco didn’t like us,” Badger pointed out. “Bastard’s probably gonna shut us down without even givin’ a reason.”

“I don’t think so. Want me to play the message?”

Getting general assent from the women and a grudging nod from Badger, Book played the message. A burly man with sparse stubble appeared on the screen, dressed in a beat-up leather jacket. “Um. Hello. This thing on?” he said. He had a Rim accent. “Anyway. Name’s Jayne Cobb. Heard about the fight goin’ on between you n’ Marco. Always thought it was a damn fool thing to fight with a preacher, or leastways my mama would say so, so I was hopin’ I could maybe make it right. The boys ‘n me got a real sweet contract with a woman called Patience, so I got the time now to make a trip out to Persephone and go over the agreement between us. Patience is a real smart broad, an’ she says best way to make sure you ain’t gettin’ cheated is to meet in person. If you got no objections, I’m comin’ out there next week. You got a problem with that, call me up.” The screen went black.

Book put the communicator away and said, “I received notification this morning that Mr. Cobb arrived on Persephone about an hour ago on a ship from Triumph. He had some affairs to settle in town, so he should be here in about two hours.”

Zoe frowned. “You really think it’s a good idea, letting a man like that come here?” The reasons for her concern were easy to guess; Marco had led a dangerous bunch of men, willing to betray their employers to whomever could pay them more, and any man who was able to fill his shoes was undoubtedly the sort of man who could cause a great deal of trouble for the home and its inhabitants.

“Not especially,” said Book sighing, “but to be honest, I really didn’t think refusing him would be a very good idea, either.”

Zoe made a noise of reluctant assent and fingered the knife at her hip, as if to reassure herself that it was there. Kaylee looked back and forth between her and Book, concerned at what she saw on their faces. The rest of the girls were extremely bored with this exchange and went into the sitting room to await the arrival of their visitor. Badger felt that, as a fairly well-known member of Persephone’s criminal underworld, his reputation would be enough to keep him safe from any upstart of Marco’s.

Mr. Cobb arrived pretty much exactly when Book had said he would. He was even bigger in person than he was over the cortex, impressing a few of the girls and intimidating Badger. He had a rough and uneducated air covered with a thin veneer of civilization, as if he wished people to believe he was a gentleman but had very little interest in actually becoming one. He was frank in his admiration of the girls, and Book had to intervene in order to prevent a threesome between him, Petaline and Chari.

He was, in short, just Badger’s sort of person, and after getting over his initial anxiety, Badger greeted him with an almost fraternal joviality. “C’mon in, then!” he cried. “Have a drink before we settle down to business.”

“Ah, Patience says not to drink no alcohol before a business meeting, not if I want to make a good deal.” Mr. Cobb grinned then, an almost feral expression. “Then again, I never do turn down a good drink.”

“That’s a fellow!” said Badger, making as if to clap him on the back but thinking better of it.

Badger and Cobb settled down with some homemade hooch of Badger’s making. Book sat with them, a look of patient exasperation on his face. Chari, Emma, and Petaline clustered around, occasionally taking swigs from Cobb’s drink. Kaylee and Zoe poured themselves small glasses and settled in the corner, Zoe watching Cobb like a hawk.

The discussion was off to an amiable and very drunk start. “You wouldn’t want these lovely ladies to end up on the street now, would you?” asked Badger, gesturing wildly.

“’Course not,” Jayne said, leering at Petaline. “They could all come live with me.”

“Somehow,” Badger said wryly, “I don’t think that would really meet the needs this home was set up to remedy.”

“Oh, I dunno. I got something remedies a lot of needs.” As if to affirm his point, Jayne grabbed his crotch and wiggled it at Kaylee, who burst out laughing. Zoe’s mouth tightened, but she said nothing.

Book put his head in his hands. “Dear Lord,” he said, “please give me strength.”