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By any stretch of the imagination, no one could call it a good show.
The stories that weren’t clumsily obvious were hopelessly silly, the acting was semi-tolerable at best, and the dialogue was about one-quarter catchphrases. It was mental junk food, the television equivalent of the warbling musical trash that slopped out of department store speakers.
You clung to it like shipwreck driftwood. What else did you have?
More often than not lately, Pearl took charge of things. After that fiasco in the snow she’d warmed to little Steven, but not to you. She’d devoured books on childcare, and she was tireless. Absolutely, inhumanly, brutally tireless. You wanted to pitch in, you needed to, you were ENTITLED to — he was your son, dammit! — but you had to sleep some time. You had to work. You had to eat. Shower with the car-wash hose, maybe, when you remembered to. There was Vidalia, but she had kids of her own and it was getting awkward leaning on her over and over. So every time you let your guard down, Pearl was there, doing the work of five parents with the precision of a car-factory robot arm. And the more she did, the more often empty hours rose up before you like a silent and disinterested concert front-row.
Garnet was no help, either. She used to offer odd, oblique little hints that somehow made everything turn out smoother. Now she was quieter than she’d ever been before, hesitant in ways you never thought she could be, and it made your guts feel icy how lost she seemed without-
It was a simple sitcom with a zany premise. A tiny butler was adopted like a lost puppy more than an orphan child. Idle rich idiots got into hijinx, and sometimes they made you think of your aunt and uncle. Happier family times. Or at least, earlier times. One of the daytime channels that only showed commercials aimed at the elderly aired it several times a day, and you’d recorded everything they had. It was so calmingly bland, so soothingly crappy. Low-brow and unchallenging and irrelevant. Like flat soda and dry toast after stomach flu. You couldn’t turn to your music, not for this. Music was your passion. You didn’t want to feel, right now. God, you didn’t want to feel.
So you’d sprawl in your van with the TV-VCR hooked up to an extension cord leading back to the car wash, and run through the tapes again and again and again. It was that or start drinking again like the old days, and that wasn’t gonna happen. So with your son sound asleep or safe in supernaturally perfect hands, you’d wile away the looming, gnawing hours to harpsichord and laugh-track and outdated ads for comfier catheters.
You were fine that way. You didn’t seek out company. Amethyst found you all by herself. Scratching at the van’s rear doors with tiny cat-claws sharp and hard enough to take the chrome off the bumper. You opened the door and hoisted the purple cat inside, and plopped her down beside you just in time for the next episode to play.
You both sat, watching. Not speaking. Not feeling. At some point, she was her humanoid self again. All shaggy mane and ripped leggings, riffing on the way you’d looked in your prime. The way you’d been when you’d first-
So, anyway, Money the cat ran away, and the family was beside themselves. And Lil’ Butler told them that’s not what he meant when he said they had too much money, and the audience blended poignant awwws and rueful laughter and it was seriously the worst thing ever put to film.
And Amethyst laughed. She laughed her deep, hoarse, rasping guffaws, echoing in the cramped, messy van. And you laughed too. Amethyst got it. She had a taste for garbage. The things she ate made your terrible diet look like health food. You didn’t have to try and put it into words, she just got it, right away. She sprawled right next to you, and watched with you, soaking by your side in the lukewarm bath of unforgivably terrible television.
And you didn’t feel.
☆ ☆ ☆
Maybe you wanted to yell at him. Or make him yell at you. Maybe you wanted him to get mad at you, like Pearl was mad at him. Angry made sense, at least. Angry felt clean and real and hot, not cold and squirmy and splashy like the other feelings. Those ones were no good. They stuck to you like the sand when you came back from being a fish, and they itched even worse.
You could GRIP anger, like the burning-hot handle of your whip, and pull it out to lash everything around you. Sometimes you came at Pearl with all the slobby habits she hated, just to build up some nice, simple anger. It was super easy to get her going, when she wasn’t busy with-
So, it was this Human stage-play thing, like back in the olden days when they used to perform in wooden theatres and the crowd stood on crunchy, tasty nut shells. But now Humans knew how to record stuff, so it could show any time, over and over. It was always there, and it never changed. Or if it did, you could just go back, and everything would be the same again. They even had people laughing, so you knew where the jokes were. Awesome.
His van was kind of like your space in the temple. He appreciated junk. It was crowded and messy, crammed full of debris, like your old home in the canyon. Snug, like the hole you were born out of. He liked salty crunchy snacks and burpy bubbly soda and dry chewy jerky. And he didn’t want to talk about feelings, or plans, or what we’re gonna do with ourselves, now that-
Now, the little butler guy, he usually said this line about money, but the cat was ALSO called Money, and there was a joke in there somewhere — the people laughed. So you laughed. And then he laughed. And maybe you didn’t have to fight to forget everything. Maybe you didn’t have to do anything. You could just sit there, and watch the play in the little recording box. For a long while, everything was fine.
And then one night he did the sleep thing, and before you could shake him out of it to watch one more with you, he got all weird. He wriggled, and he cried, and he said her name.
Rose.
He hadn’t in a while, but he said it. Even though she was gone, and you had this thing. This was supposed to get you away from that. Away from Garnet talking to herself and Pearl crying to herself or dangling little rattles over the little thing that Rose had become. Why was he doing this? He was messing it all up! Just like always, it was all about Rose. About giving her what she wanted, even when she wanted to disappear forever and leave a baby behind.
Sometimes you acted without thinking. It was a Quartz thing. Rose understood that. You were a doer, not a thinker. That was for other Gems. So really, you had no idea why you did what you did.
And you had no idea why he did what he did, either.
☆ ☆ ☆
The show was supposed to help with the dreams, but that was the worst one since the night after Steven’s birth.
No distortions, no surreality, just replaying things over and over. The big moment. Beautiful light so bright it seared your exposed skin, a last knowing, longing, loving, maybe even apologetic look, and then the dim temple felt pitch black in the aftermath and the only sound was Steven crying. And she was gone.
She’d wanted it more than anything. More than life itself. You couldn’t refuse her. Not that. Not anything. You’d have walked into the sea for her. And even as it felt like that blinding light had burned your heart out, you still felt it flutter with instant, bottomless love for that wriggling, crying, wrinkled little treasure. It was just the two of you, now. Well, you, and the Gems. And that had worked out great, so far. Steven nearly made it a month before they kidnapped him and stole your van.
That vapid, goofy, awful show had helped distract you. Helped you nod off without thinking, so you could steal some dreamless shuteye here and there. So you could let time try and heal you a little. But a few weeks into hanging out with your new Lil’ Butler buddy, the dream came back with a vengeance. Over and over. Beautiful and agonizing. The best, worst day of your life. Seeing it outside yourself, like a spectator. Like a studio audience. You called out to her, pointlessly. You cried for her. Feeling her absence like the sun went out. Aching for her, desperate to be with her, just one second longer. Begging her to come back.
And this time, she did.
Half-awake, drunk on exhaustion, you saw her. Silhouetted by the moonlight streaming into the windows. Those vast, luscious, goddess curves. That mountain of springy ringlets. That gossamer dress. Pressing toward you, barely able to fit in the confines of the van. Firm, smooth hands on your chest, leaning over you. It was impossible. Any explanation threatened to stir up trouble. You didn’t want that. You wanted Rose. You were so tired, so alone, so full of doubt and fear and uncertainty, and you wanted her so much. Just one more time. Please, just once. You threw away focus, ran from wakefulness, and dived back into the merciful nightmare, face first.
☆ ☆ ☆
He kissed you.
You weren’t dumb, you knew about that stuff. You’d seen plenty of it, over the years. Rose had played around with lots of Humans. She’d figured it out fast. One broken pelvis, total, and she’d even fixed it herself. But you’d never-
He held you. Pulled you close. You were huge, or well, Rose was huge, and the mass made you even stronger. You could have picked up the whole van and thrown it, maybe. He was as weak as a jellyfish compared to you.
You let him pull you. Wrapping those warm, squishy, hairy arms around you, and mushing his scratchy mouth against the bee-stung pout you’d made from thousands of years of memory. You pulled him tight. Squeezed him until he made that same warning groan he’d made with her, after the first time she’d almost cracked a rib. You couldn’t hold him like this, not usually. You weren’t this big. And he never held you. Nobody did, anymore.
He kissed, and you kissed back like you’d seen Rose do it. He pawed at you, squeezed you, trembling like he was going to fall apart. Like he was going to disappear too. You hugged him back. Touched him back. Carefully, like he was a glass bottle for your heap of Special Trash.
His lips moved, across Rose’s high cheek, across the slope of her neck, wreathed in giant curls. His scratchy whiskers tickled, like urchin needles.You tried to remember how Rose sounded, when you’d overheard. But then it just happened, all by itself. A low, breathy sound, from deep in your chest. And your gemstone warmed like it did when you were kicking butt, spreading rough and ready heat through the solid light of your body. You clutched him close as his mouth wandered, kissing and tickling, down to your collarbone, touching your flashing gemstone. You hissed in air, limbs tensing.
He started struggling. You held tighter.
☆ ☆ ☆
It was in the wrong place.
That pulsing heat, like solidified sunshine. You remembered feeling it under your fingers. Against your lips. Against your stomach. But it wasn’t on Rose’s smooth, curved belly this time. It was on her chest. When your lips found it, the illusion shattered. You were ice-water awake, with no hope of recapturing that unthinking daydream bliss. The dream-bubble popped, and tense, seething shame poured out of it.
Stop, you told her. Let go. She still felt so much like Rose. Those big, casually powerful arms. No sense of flexing muscle or bracing bone, just easy, innate power, like a hug from a stone angel wrapped in satin. You could never get away from Rose’s hugs, if she wanted to keep you. Of course, you’d never wanted to get away.
You did now.
Stop! You shouted it, jaw clenching. Let go, you said again. Damn it, Amethyst, STOP!
She slackened, and you fell back into the opposite corner of the van. The metal wall banged the hair-padded back of your head. A VHS tape jabbed your shoulder beneath you. You stared at her in fury and horror and other things, and gasped to try and get your breathing under enough control to speak again. Hot tears stung at your eyes. You’d been sure you ran out after the first day or two. But here they were, again. You swallowed down the crazed storm of feelings and croaked out:
Why?
☆ ☆ ☆
You shrank under his stare, back down to your runty little self, and drew back a bit. He was no threat. You could whip him in half in a split second. Him and the whole van behind him. His stare made your gemstone turn cold.
I dunno, you offered. I dunno, I dunno. You looked away. You folded your arms in what Pearl always said was a defensive gesture, when she was trying to get you to confess to whatever you’d done now. Maybe it was true. Maybe you didn’t know. But if you didn’t, where’d the words come from?
I wanted to know, you offered. What it’s like.
That wasn’t enough. He kept staring. You could FEEL it, even without looking. Garnet could do that. Look at you so hard it felt like walking on the bottom of the sea. Like the whole world was crushing down on top of you. You hated that feeling.
What about you? You snapped back. What were YOU doing? Why’d you do that? That was another Quartz thing. Turn the tables. Seek higher ground. Take the advantage. Pearl called it impossible. Contrary. Bigger words. Whatever. You called it a way out of stupid, cold, squirmy lectures you didn’t want to have.
It was just a prank, man, you sneered. Why’d you make it all weird?
You finally looked at him, and you instantly regretted it. His stare was the coldest, the squirmiest. You could see his frown even through his stupid scratchy beard, and he said:
It it was a prank, why did you kiss me back?
Your gemstone heated up again, spreading light through you. Flushing you with warmth. Deepening your colours. On your cheeks, especially. You balled up your fists to keep from shaking.
I dunno!
It was all you had. All you ever had. Why did everyone always want to know that? Why. Why why why. Who cared? You did stuff, that was what mattered, didn’t it? Why was everyone so hung up on why? You just did things, sometimes. Was that so hard to get? That was what you thought. But then your stupid mouth was moving again.
I told you! I wanted to know what it’s like! Having … having …
He screwed up his face like Pearl did when she found your Squishy Stuff pile, and he said: Having sex?
NO!
You did something without thinking, again. You smashed open the back doors with your pounding fist. Both of them bent, and the lock tore in half. Night wind whistled in, freezing cold compared to the heat in the van. Your face could have steamed in that cold. Not that, you stammered. Having … having someone! Being there for someone, the way Rose was always there for us! Having someone look at me, need me … the way all of us … n-needed her.
You big dummy. You couldn’t even explain without your big stupid face starting up the waterworks. Big, tough Quartz butt-kickers like you didn’t cry. You especially didn’t cry in front of Greg. But you did.
☆ ☆ ☆
You’re not her, you told her. You can’t be her. Nobody could be. You wanted to be angrier, you wanted to make the words drip poison, after what she did. But you knew it was all just pain. Yours. Hers. All of you. And you were too damned, damned decent to lash out at someone in pain. You wanted to burn off the ache with anger, but instead those words sounded wounded. Bleak. Self-pitying.
You’d had something, you and Amethyst. An empty nothing to hide in, complete with theme music and laugh track. But that was all it was — nothing. You weren’t healing. You weren’t processing. You weren’t doing anything. Just hiding. Numbing. You hadn’t started drinking again, but in the end this wasn’t any different. And it wasn’t any help. For Steven’s sake, you knew. You told her.
This has to end.
Finally, you found a little edge in your voice. All of this, you continued. Never do that to me again. Never. She’s gone. And we both have to live with that.
Amethyst shook, and scowled, and for a moment you thought about how she was blocking the only easy way out of the metal box you’d trapped yourself in with her. But then she just snarled a hoarse, helpless snarl, and bolted. Ten steps toward the shore, she took off as an owl and you lost sight of her.
The TV had been playing the whole time. The commercials ended, and the next recorded episode’s jangly harpsichord opening theme got going.
You jabbed the power button and sighed.
“I’ve seen this one.”