Page 55 of Tango

“Speaking of Alabaster,” Chanti sat next to Piper, setting her groceries between her feet, “do you have something for me?”

“I do.” Piper leaned onto her hip, pulled the thumb drive from her pocket and handed it over. “Ta-da. I stuck it into the computer. I waited for a green light. I pulled it back out. So everything from there is up to your coding.”

“Perfect.” Chanti dropped the thumb drive in with her groceries. “Why are you out here on the stoop? Were you waiting on the dress like Cinderella?”

“You know when your boss sometimes has a pizza party for your office to promote camaraderie? This is a version of that, I guess. My lab assistant, Vivian, asked me to go on a picnic tonight with her, her fiancé, and some guy named Wade who’s moved into town. He lives somewhere nearby, and Vivian thought it would be nice if he knew someone in the neighborhood.”

“Like a blind date?”

“I hope that’s not what they’re thinking. It would make things really awkward at the lab.” Piper handed Chanti the paper bag. “Would you mind taking this up to your apartment? I told Vivian I’d meet Wade on the front stoop.”

Chanti moved the bag onto the step next to her groceries. “So was that look on your face when I walked up about the limo, the white bag, the speech, or the picnic?”

“If it was a look of confusion, it could have been any or all.”

“More like derision, or like you were sniffing dog poo, to be honest.”

“Ah, okay. As the dress pulled up to the curb.” Piper patted the bag. “I was contemplating a dream I’d had last night.”

“Oooh, I love these. You have the best terrible dreams. Okay, tell me.”

“In this dream, I was in a capacity of being a helper, a teacher in some kind of setting that seemed academic. The people had gone, and I was in the room that had been left a complete mess. I thought, ‘Oh, I’ll go get a broom, and I’ll come back to sweep and rearrange the desks and make it all nice and neat, and that will be my contribution.”

“Such a goody-two-shoes.”

“The tarot guy, John, said that, too, and I don’t know what that means. I mean, I get the gist of what it’s saying, but why two shoes? Why not a single shoe or even a boot? There has to be a reason, and I don’t want to look it up.”

“Neither do I,” Chanti said. “So did you clean it all up?”

“I went to find this broom, and it was kind of a difficult—not harrowing, but difficult.”

“The quest for a broom, classic.”

“When I finally found the broom,” Piper said, “It was like a stick with some plastic, fringy kinds of things. It wouldn’t be very helpful, but it would be something. I went back to the classroom, and someone was in there. And they looked at my poor, pitiful fringe thing. I was embarrassed that I brought so little to the cleanup. Then the dream switched. I’m now the teacher person, and they know it because I’m wearing a symbol.”

“Like a scarlet A on your chest?” Chanti asked.

“Very similar vibe,” Piper said. “I was a teacher. And I was also a subordinate. Everyone in the classroom left the room, and we were walking along, and everybody was getting really thirsty. And for the longest time—hear that time frame as almost all night long—I had to listen to them moaning about how thirsty they were. I felt like I should solve the problem, so I pointed out the ripened blackberries along the side of the road. I picked some berries, ate them, and said, ‘Hey, if you’re thirsty, there are blackberries. They’re bitter enough that they’ll stimulate saliva in your mouth so that your mouth isn’t so dry, and it will give you a little bit—you know, it’s not like drinking water—but it’ll give you a little moisture in your mouth. You’ll feel hydrated even if you really aren’t.”

“Huh.”

“Yeah.” Piper put her elbows on her knees and slouched forward.

“And that was the end?” Chanti asked.

“Everybody turned to me, and they looked at me with such disdain—that’s where you got the disdain from. Good face reading.”

“Thank you.”

“They all looked at me, and I could read their minds. They were thinking: How dare she offer a solution? Who does she think she is to suggest anything to them? And I thought, ‘You know, maybe I should just be quiet and walk on,’ and yet there was this problem, and you know, the solution was within reach, and even pointing it out to people, they were dismissing me.”

“Sounds frustrating,” Chanti offered.

“That’s it? That’s all you’ve got?” Piper asked, moving her hands to her knees.

“There’s not much mystery there. It’s symbolic of what’s going on with this whole Amanda-and-Lionel weirdness. The first part was about how you don’t think you have the tools to clean up your mess. The second part says that even if you had the tools, you doubt whether people will listen. Simple.” She shrugged.

“Simple for you. I thought it meant I wasn’t taking proper care of myself. It sounded to me like I need more exercise, water, and fiber.”