Chapter 17

Danielle stuck the letter in her pack. She'd spent the early evening chopping vegetables and whacking patties of meat with a little hammer. Flattening the meat to a uniform thickness tenderized it, and also meant that it all cooked in the same amount of time.

So much of the prep work she was learning was designed to help the chef on the timing of cooking. It was the difference between serving a plate of hot food, and food that was lukewarm or even cold.

The other trick was in judging cooking times. Chef Paul was always poking at the food to see how done it was. Some foods, she'd learned, continued to cook after you took them from the stove. Chef Paul called it "letting the food rest", but it still had residual heat, and you had to learn how much more it would cook after you'd put it on the plate. That had been simpler than she'd thought; he stuck a thermometer into a piece of meat and she watched the temperature change. After seeing that done with a number of different types and cuts of meat, she'd begun to get the hang of it. A lot of cooking, she decided, was accumulated practical wisdom.

Jenny had never said whether she had gotten the job or not, so Danielle was a little surprised when she put an order up and Jenny come get it.

She tried not to look at her cousin, but it was hard to ignore her. The counter was high enough she was only visible from the neck up, which helped, but she'd seen her from behind a couple of times, and there was no doubt Jenny was naked. And she seemed as unconcerned about it as everyone else.

She asked her about it when they rode the cable car back up to Valley's End.

"That's the difference between us," Jenny said, "or at least one of them. People go nude here, at least in places like the pool and a few others, and always have. After a while it's no big deal. Oh, I'll try to take in as much as I can about some boy who's looking buff and so on, but I've seen it before.

"You, on the other hand, come from a place where nudity means sex, and people try to show off without really showing off. Someone like Fie can fit in here with only a few problems. I doubt if she could fit in back in Tiburon without a lot of problems."

"I ... You could be right, especially about Fiona," Danielle said. "Do you like going naked? When I go to her place for tutoring, the first thing she does is strip down. That was ... It took me a little while to get used to that, and sometimes I still have a problem."

"That's because where you came from it was "cover up, cover up, cover up". Fie doesn't flaunt her nudity. She isn't spreading her legs and pointing to it. Being nude is part of who she is, but she doesn't make a fetish of it."

Danielle nodded. Since reading two of the books in Aunt Jessica's library she had begun looking at things in a different way. Nudity was part of how Fiona defined herself. Other girls, like those back in Tiburon, did the same thing with clothes and friends, much like she had. Fie was more centered, but not in a bad way.

"The one trouble you'll run into," Aunt Jessica told her the next day as Danielle prepped some of dinner, "is that pretty soon you'll start looking at everything that way. That's both good and bad. The good part is that you'll be making your studies a part of you. The bad part is that sometimes you'll be too uninvolved with something because you'll be studying it rather than participating.

"How did you cope with it?"

"It took a while, but I Jack and didn't looking at it as a "courting ritual" and just enjoyed the emotional experience." She smiled softly. "I think that was one of the things I enjoued about him."

"I take it you're suggesting I should date more."

"Only if you want to, dear. I know some of your experiences in Tiburon, and I know how hard it must be for you."

"It's not something I felt comfortable with," Danielle said, "but I figure that sooner or later I'll be able to overcome that."

"Understandable. Well, if you need someone to talk to, I'm here."

Danielle gave her a half-smile. The trouble was that she didn't talk with her mother. She'd been afraid to, worried that whatever image her mother had of her would be destroyed. She didn't think that was the case with her Aunt Jessica. It didn't hurt that she really didn't have that much to hide from her aunt, either.

She saw Jenny the next afternoon as she walked home from school. Jenny's cheeks were flushed and her eyes were alight.

"You're in a good mood."

"We're going to be spending the weekend together, well, except for work."

"Is he the one?"

Jenny laughed. "I think it's way too soon to decide that, but..."

"But... ?"

"I wouldn't mind spending a lot more time with him. By the way, Mom said something to me this morning. She said that if I saw you, to tell you she has news of your parents."

"Did she say what?"

Jenny shook her head. "She wouldn't even tell me, not even a hint."

Aunt Jessica wasn't home when Danielle and Jenny got there. Jenny changed and went over to her boyfriend's, saying she was having dinner there. Danielle opened her books and began doing her homework. She'd decided that the earlier she got it done, the better; of course she secretly figured that if she got her homework done too early, she'd just end up with more of it.

Aunt Jessica still wasn't home by dinner, so Danielle decided to make it.

After a brief study of the pantry, she decided they were going to have something she'd seen Chef Paul make: beef and gravy in pastry shells. She had all of the ingredients, and it was easy to make. She sliced up some vegetables and started them on a low simmer; she'd serve them in butter sauce. She peeled and poached the potatoes. While that was going on she started the pastry shells. She grilled the beef chunks, and then made the gravy.

Aunt Jessica looked a little harried when she got home. "Oh thank you," she said when she came into the kitchen. "Everything looks good."

"I think it's horribly under seasoned," Danielle admitted.

"I could tell you to season to taste," Aunt Jessica said, "but we'll work on that tomorrow night."

Aunt Jessica, when pressed, finally explained what had happened. "One of our people is imprisoned in Florence. The Security Commission is going to send in a team."

"What were they arrested for?" Danielle asked.

"Heresy. That's the official charge, but the authorities there are in that phase of any revolution by fanatics where people are arrested pretty much at random. Their execution is scheduled for tomorrow."

"Tomorrow? But—but what about getting a fair trial and stuff like that?"

Aunt Jessica shook her head. "It doesn't happen with what's going on right now. It's like there's a collective frenzy, and they keep killing more and more people until people get tired of it and put an end to it. Some revolutions reach that point fairly quickly. Others, though, turn into bloody nightmares that last for years."

"So what are they going to do?"

"The Security Commission is sending in a team. They'll try to break them out of prison. I imagine they'll succeed, they're very good at this sort of thing. The only question will be how high the body count will be, and how they'll cover it."

"Cover it? How do you cover it if there are a lot of dead bodies?"

"I don't know. They have their ways. If I was doing it, I'd find someone to make it look like some foreign power did it."