Chapter 40

Friday, May 17, 2002

It was with a real sense of relief that Dave drove to New York towards the end of the second week of May, and spent much of the day hauling stuff out of Shae's apartment and loading it in their cars. There was still quite a bit left behind -- she wasn't moving out all the way, and they would both still be using the apartment from time to time over the next few months. The heavy furniture would have to come later, but there were several pieces that would go well in the new house.

Moving Shae's stuff was the primary reason for the trip, of course, but while he was in town, Dave made a point of dropping by the Dunlap and Fyre offices, still in the Ford building and somehow more crowded than ever. No decision had been made yet about what would happen in the personnel shuffle, although Dave got the impression that Rayme and others thought his getting promoted was all but a done deal.

With that news, Dave decided it was time to come out of the closet a little. "Michelle," he told his supervisor. "I've got a little favor I'd like to ask of you."

"I owe you a few, Dave," she said. "What do you have on your mind?"

Dave reached into his briefcase, and pulled out a CD jewel case. "I'd like you to look this book proposal over," he said. "It's sixteen chapters, somewhere around twenty percent of the whole thing, and there's a synopsis of what happens afterwards. I think it's pretty good, but for reasons I don't want to get into right now, I don't feel I should be the one to make a buy-or-bounce decision. This hasn't been shopped around; other than me, you're the first person to see it."

"Yeah, I'll have a look at it myself," she said. "Maybe I'll have someone in the department look it over, too, if it's one of those sensitive things."

"It is, sort of," Dave said. "Briefly, it is fantasy, but it's rather dark and has a bite to it. Like I said, the editor in me thinks it's pretty good, but I shouldn't be the one to judge it."

Dave was just about dead certain Michelle could read between the lines and tell he was the one who wrote it, though he'd talked around who the author was, and nothing in the file would indicate it. He thought the story was pretty good, but if Michelle thought it was a flat bounce, he might just put it on the shelf and not mess with it any more. He wished he'd had a few more weeks to work on it, but he didn't know how long it might be before Dick's retirement came through. If he was to have the book published at Dunlap and Fyre, he wanted it to be established before Rayme had the job.

After a few more minutes talking with Michelle, Dave headed out of the building and back to the subway for the trip out to Shae's studio. Whatever happened, it was out of his hands now.

On Sunday morning, Dave and Shae set out together in their two loaded cars, heading for Bradford. The trip was familiar by now, and that made it go a little more quickly. As the days were getting pretty long now, there was still plenty of light when the two of them pulled into the yard of the house in Bradford -- their house as far as Dave was concerned, and he was pretty sure Shae felt the same way. They took a while getting everything unloaded, in fact, did not finish that evening.

The next morning Aunt Shae walked the boys to school for the first time, while Dave headed down to the Courier. Janine, Emily's former sidekick at the Spee-D-Mart, had been working at the paper nearly full time for a month, and she was getting the hang of things, but it was still going to take a while, and Dave could still be useful. "So, how was New York?" Emily asked as he walked in the door.

"Still there," he shrugged. "At least this time I brought Shae back with me."

"I'll bet you're glad to not have to make that commute every time you turn around," she smirked.

"It's not over with," Dave shrugged. "I still have to head into the office every month or so for a while yet, and Shae's going to have things she's going to have to go back for, too. But we can get it down to once a month or so and go together, which beats the hell out of one of us driving the round trip every other weekend."

"Yeah, that could get old," Emily shook her head. "You have to wonder how someone like Dean Sallows can be out driving like that all the time. I like driving long distances once in a while, but it could get old in a hurry if you let it get out of hand. Anyway, since you've got Shae in town now, Kevin and I will have to have you over for dinner. We haven't had Shae for dinner since around Christmas sometime."

"Sure," he said. "I know she'd like to see you, too. But it's no big rush; it's not like we're going anywhere anytime soon."

"How about if we hold off until toward the end of the week?" Emily suggested. "That way, we can get the paper out, and she'll have had a couple days to settle in."

Dave was no stranger to the Holst household, and the boys were even less so, since Kayla had spent so much time watching them. He was in fact over there a couple times a week on average, and every week or two he and the boys had been invited for dinner. But, Shae hadn't been there -- blowing in late Friday evening and having to be heading back on Sunday had cut into socializing with friends ever since Christmas, but those days were over with, at least for a while. Ducking her head under the doorframe and walking into the Holst living room was in several ways the start of a new life.

Kevin, along with Kayla and JJ were in the living room when they arrived. Emily had dinner in the oven; it wasn't ready yet but wouldn't take long to serve when it was, so Emily sat down in the living room to catch up on things. "So, Shae," she asked. "Are you really back to stay?"

"Hard to say at this point," Shae said, knowing full well that Dave had been keeping Emily posted on the Avalon situation. "I may have to make a trip or two back to the city to do some looping and take care of business, but I'm pretty much planning on staying with Dave and the boys for a while. We're going to see how I get along in Bradford."

"Have you been out to see how the house is coming?" Emily asked. The new house was under way, although just at the very beginnings. Dave had been just about dead right; it only took a big yellow backhoe a few minutes to do what needed to be done to the remains of the old house. A bulldozer hadn't been necessary, since the backhoe could do the job and was needed for a few other things, like digging the footers for the new house. A separate contractor would be replacing the swimming pool over the next few months. So far, Dave hadn't spent much time out there, but dropped by once or twice a week just to see what was happening, and then got out of the way as soon as possible.

"Yes," Shae grinned as she settled into a chair. A lot of her height was in her very long legs; when she sat down in one of the living room chairs she seemed a lot more like normal size. "It's hard to believe it's happening. It's quite a mess out there now, but Jerry says they're right about the point where things look worst. Has Dave showed you the renderings of the place?"

"He has and I'm impressed," Emily said. "Steve really designed a very nice house there. I think it'll prove to be big without being ostentatious. I'm looking forward to you having us for dinner out there."

"I'm afraid it won't be for a while," Shae sighed. "Not till next fall, and maybe not then, if it winds up we have to go back to New York."

Emily shook her head. "I got the impression that wasn't going to happen."

"Really, nothing has changed," Dave said. "We're gambling they won't renew Avalon before August first. If they do, then we're probably going back to the city for the winter. If it happens, the plan is for all of us to head back in August, in time to get the boys in school. Back before we came here last fall, I registered them for this fall at a private school not far from Shae's apartment."

"Boyce Day Academy," Shae explained. "It's not bad at all. I've been over there a couple times to check it out. I went over dressed as Shaella Sunrise one time, and gave a little performance for the kids. They seemed to enjoy it."

"I'll bet they did," Emily said. "Does it mean you're planning on having your baby in New York?"

"That's one of those open questions," Shae shook her head. "I'm going to have to keep OB-GYNs on the line both here and in New York. In fact, it's part of the reason I'll have to make a couple trips back over the summer. If the show gets cancelled, I'll use one here, whoever they are. That's something I've got to work out in the next few days."

"I don't understand why they're canceling the show," Kayla asked. "I mean, I figured it was something like Sesame Street or Mister Rogers and goes on forever and ever."

"No," Shae shook her head, "I knew from the beginning it wasn't going to be that way. In fact, it's held on longer than I expected. What you have to remember is that Avalon only appeals to kids of a very narrow age range, say two to five or six. Cameron and Tyler are a little old for it, but they still like watching it for some reason."

"Because we like Aunt Shae," Tyler piped up. "We get to see her more that way."

"So what happens with you after the show ends?" Emily asked.

"We move here," Shae said flatly. "What I'm going to be doing and what Dave will be doing is a little up in the air, but we've both got that much worked out."

"Well, Shae," Emily said as she reached for a way to change the subject, "If there's anything we can do to make things go easier for you while you're here, feel free to ask."

"I doubt Arnie Perkins would think very much of someone coming over and taking a chainsaw to the door headers," Kevin smiled. "But if you want it done it can probably be arranged."

"Thanks for the offer," Shae grinned, glad as Emily of the change in subject. "I've been ducking my head under low doors for years, and I think I may finally start to be getting used to it. Part of the reason I wear heels most of the time is that it brings door frames down into my field of view so I can remember to duck them. I've still whacked my head more times than I want to think about."

"Mom told me you used to say that since you were a freak anyway that there was no point in stopping halfway," Kayla commented. "I haven't watched much Avalon," Kayla continued, "But it seems like a real neat way to provide the message that it's all right if people are different from you."

"I probably wouldn't have gone on Charley's House in the first place if that hadn't been one of the main underlying themes," Shae replied. "It's very difficult to deal in subtle messages when you're aiming them at kids younger than Tyler and Cameron. You have to make them broad and easy to understand, perhaps at the risk of oversimplifying them. Fortunately, kids understand make-believe in a way most adults don't. A little kid, not an adult, who's twice as big as they are, is something that isn't going to happen in the real world, but it makes a nice platform to get a message across that we have to be tolerant of differences in others." She let out a sigh, and continued, "We've made progress in that area as a society in this country in a lot of ways since I was your age, kids. But in a way things are getting worse, too."

"How do you mean that?" Kayla asked.

"Like I said, we've made real progress in making people more tolerant of differences in who and what people are," Shae shrugged. "I don't know if it's being a New Yorker, and having been touched so personally through Dave at what happened last September, but it seems to me that people are getting less tolerant of differences in what people believe, and what they were raised to believe."

"I don't know but what Shae is right," Dave nodded. "I think a lot of it is the fact we have become a global society more quickly than our various cultures have been able to adapt. Now we're paying the price in ignorant reaction, much of it disguised as religious fundamentalism. That excuse is being used in many societies, especially including ours, as a justification to keep people from choosing how they want to live their lives."

Shae shook her head. "I don't know if I totally agree with Dave on that," she frowned. "Really, most people choose to live their own lives their own way and are content to let others live the way they choose. But there will always be someone who thinks the way someone else lives is wrong and needs to be stopped. Their reasons can be religious, cultural, sheer personal prejudice, or whatever."

"Wow," Emily said. "This discussion sure got deep in a hurry. But I have to point out there have to be some limits."