NEW DAY - Chapter 15 (PG-13)

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Penina Spinka
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NEW DAY - Chapter 15 (PG-13)

Post by Penina Spinka »

This story is not meant to infringe on any copyrighted characters. Within the story, the characters are all mine except when Mick and Josef are referenced. Sam is having a day without Francis and finding someone special.

New Day (2365 words)

Chapter 15


Francis was gone when Sam awoke, but this time there was no confusion. They had made plans to meet up at the Tigress Theater at 7:30. If there were a problem, Francis would call. The empty afternoon gave Sam time to catch up with his friends and his rehearsals. He called his band mates. Then, he called Nguyen. “Hi. It’s Sam. Have you had breakfast yet?” he asked.

“It’s lunchtime. I should think so. You mean you haven’t?”

“Musicians’ hours,” he reminded her. “If you don’t have plans for lunch, would you like to go with me?”

She hesitated a moment. “It’s a date. Wait. Is it a date, or are we just two neighbors going out for a meal together?”

Sam hesitated. He hadn’t thought that far ahead with Nguyen. He just wanted to see her and he was hungry. “Well, I asked you, so I’m willing to treat, but if you want, we can start out as two neighbors. There’s a café I like. We can walk there. We’ll eat and get to know each other, and not worry whether it’s a date until later, okay? You’re in apartment 510, right?”

In the restaurant, Sam learned that Nguyen’s proper name was Qui An Nguyen. “In Vietnamese Qui means turtle. An means peace. I guess my name means I’m a peaceful turtle.”

“In my tribe, I’m a member of Bear Clan. Turtle and Bear are compatible, so that’s good. My name is Hebrew for Asked from God. Don’t ask me how my family got into Biblical names. Probably they got it from the Protestant missionaries who came to civilize us, like your Catholic padres.”

She snorted. “They’re weren’t my padres. I’m sure my father’s people would have been much happier if the padres and the conquistadors never left Spain. My dad asked my mother to give me my name because she was home sick. He fought in Vietnam. Later, he brought her to Satwiwa, the Chumash reservation in Thousand Oaks. That’s in the Santa Monica Mountains up the coast north of Los Angeles. My father’s tribe once owned all the coastland from Malibu to Santa Barbara. These days, we aren’t even allowed into Point Magu, the Chumash capitol. It’s a Navy installation.”


“Human history sucks, doesn’t it?”

“Is there another kind of history?”

Sam grinned. “I could tell you some stories. Maybe I will some day. How would you like to hear me and my buddies practice some of our act this afternoon before you have to leave for the theater? We need to prepare for tomorrow night’s show. I’m off tonight to see your performance. Would you like to go out to supper after the play?”

“Will your brother come with us?”

Sam cocked his head. “I hope you don’t mind. We can only get together a couple weeks out of a year. He lives in Bucharest and works for his government. He’s at his office at the UN now. He won’t be in New York much longer so except for when he’s at work, I don’t want to miss any of his time here.”

“I don’t mind at all, but…there’s something I was wondering about Francis.” She seemed to have trouble going on.” Sam waited. “I hope you won’t take this the wrong way. I don’t mean to sound rude, or like I’m prying or anything, but you said several times that Francis is your brother. He doesn’t look anything like you. Is he Mohawk? Is he even Native American? Or, is it a tribal kind of thing and he’s a blood brother?”

How had he not guessed this was going to come up? “Well, he is kind of that too, but um…well, to tell the truth, we were brothers in a different lifetime. If you can accept that,” he was quick to add. He looked at her curiously, waiting to see how she would take this information. He hoped she wouldn’t laugh.

She took the time to consider what he’d said. “All right,” Nguyen responded. “I can accept that. Seriously.” When Sam looked at her, she added, “My mom taught me Buddhism. I willing to believe that we’ve lived many lives. Between that and what my father’s people teach, it is certainly possible. You’d both have to be very old souls to realize it, but since you and Francis feel that you were brothers in real life, and you’re blood brothers as well, you should definitely make time for him while he’s in New York. I’d never get in the middle of something so important to you.”

“So you actually believe me? I didn’t think you would.”

“I haven’t made my mind up yet about a lot of what I’ve heard. I studied the ways of Christian thinking as well as my father’s and my mother’s. I don’t know if one is right, or if it’s an amalgam of all of them. As long as we’re talking about the supernatural, do you believe Fate guides us so we’ll end up where we’re supposed to, or does everything happen by chance? I’m pretty much going with Fate.”

He grinned. “I agree.” He paid for their meal.

# #

Francis met Sam at the theater marquis by the ticket office. They found their place in line. “Black slacks, white shirt,” Francis said gesturing toward himself. “I hope this isn’t too formal; or is it too informal?” Francis touched his neck to indicate his lack of a tie. The first two buttons were undone. “I don’t know what people wear to these plays off Broadway. In Bucharest, everyone dresses up for the theater. I have a tie if I need one, in my case.” He looked over Sam who wore his usual jeans and a denim vest with fringes, over a tan turtleneck. “Never mind the tie then. I suppose anything goes these days, right?”

“It’s not that important what you wear; you look fine. You always look fine to me. What happened in Mosul?”

“The hostages are on their way home. I had something to do with the resolution of the problem. Remember that Mosul is across the river from the ruins of Nineveh. After two days and a night in that place, I’ll never forget it. I’ve been to Mosul, but I didn’t cross the river. Just looking at what was once that city made me shudder.”

“But what happened with the negotiations? Are you allowed to say anything, or is it top secret?” Sam looked around. There were crowds in the lobby, picking up tickets at the Will Call, milling about, and going inside.

Francis walked Sam a small distance from the rush of theatergoers. He shook his head and sighed. “It is top secret, but I don’t keep secrets from you, not any more.” He learned close to speak into Sam’s ear. “A Rumanian journalist, his cameraman and translator were taken hostage 3 months ago. That’s what the emergency meeting was about. They were going to be executed Sunday if Romania didn’t withdraw its troops from the war in Iraq. There was Saudi pressure to kill them. Everything about their captivity and supposed crimes was shown on Al-Jazeera television. They would have shown the execution too.

“The Russian diplomatic service worked with us on this, which is why my involvement shouldn’t be mentioned. Officially, they were the ones who arranged the release, but I negotiated between Romania’s President Basecu and them.” He raked his fingers through his curls. “Barbarians weren’t invented for stories and plays. The Sunis were going to saw off their heads. A good, clean sweep of a sword would have been kinder.”

Sam shuddered. “You call that kind?”

“None of it is kind. It is better than a den of lions or wolves. Some people will never be civilized, and if you count those who would have watched it, there are more of them than there are of us.”

Sam stared at him. “When you said ‘us’, you put yourself on the human side. Do you realize that?”

“I put myself on the civilized side.” Francis still looked haunted at what might have happened. “I don’t like to see innocents killed. Our people are safe now. They’re on the plane, on their way home to Bucharest, as we speak.”

For a moment, Sam could not speak. Several moments passed while he tried to put his thoughts into words. “What you do is important. It always has been no matter where you lived or when. You save people and empires. I make music. I even disappointed my grandmother. Compared to you, I’m feeling totally worthless and selfish, going through my life pleasing no one but myself.”

Francis put his arm around Sam. “Listen to me. I don’t love you only because you were my brother. You’ve done things to be proud of before and you will again. You are young in this life. Give yourself time. I have confidence in you.”

“You’ve said that before,” Sam said doubtfully.

“With good reason. Serali saved my life. Without you, I couldn’t have saved Babylon. Does that make you feel better? I’ll tell you the rest of how that happened later tonight. For now, help me celebrate my small triumph by enjoying the play and the evening. I’m leaving at 10 o’clock tomorrow night. I’m yours until then. After that, you’ll have all the time you need for Nguyen. Make the most of it.”

“I didn’t say anything about her.”

Francis slipped his arm through Sam’s. “You didn’t have to. I can’t hear your thoughts all the time the way you can mine, but I can read you, my brother. Nguyen and you would be a good thing. You should take her home to meet your family.”

They walked through the lobby together. “Do you really think…?” Sam didn’t finish the sentence. It wasn’t necessary. “Her family lives near Los Angeles. When I go to meet them, it won’t be very far from Mick and Josef. Nguyen said she understands about us being brothers, in a Buddhist kind of way. Also, in a blood-brother kind of way.” Francis smiled.

The orchestra played the overture. Sam found himself moving his hands to the rhythm, as if he were holding drumsticks. The first act in The Apple Tree was about Adam and Eve as Mark Twain pictured their conversations in the Garden of Eden with each other and the serpent. “That was a little before your time,” Sam whispered with a smirk. “Nguyen isn’t in this act, just Adam, Eve and the serpent. She’s in the next one.”

The second act was The Lady or the Tiger. “Nguyen is the lady. She’s doesn’t get to speak, but she sings in the chorus. She is going to be spectacular in that costume. There’s a picture of her in the playbill.” The makeup and dress were supposed to make her look tempting, and did. The slits on both sides came up her thighs nearly to her waist. She winked coquettishly at Sanjar the prisoner.

Sam rested his hand on Francis’s arm, but he stared forward. The music grew louder and more frantic. Would the barbarian princess direct Sanjar, who was condemned for being her lover, to the lady who would make him forget her? Could she bear to see him torn apart by the tiger? How could she choose? Each way she’d lose.

The story ended on a note of indecision. The princess was done with her deliberation. She made her choice knowing Sanjar would pick the door she pointed to. The music stopped when the condemned prisoner reached out to open the door. The music reached a crescendo of tension and stopped. The action froze and the curtain closed. Not cheers but sighs were heard on all sides of them. “We’ll never know which door he picked,” Sam said. “What would I do? What would you do? Could I bear to have the one I loved wed another?”

“You know what I would do. I’d let you chose someone else. The most important thing is your happiness.”

“I wonder if I could be that civilized.”

Francis turned in his seat to look at Sam. “You’d let someone you loved be torn apart? I don’t believe it.”

“Well, no.” Sam hesitated a moment. “But I wouldn’t be happy.”

“Now that, I can understand,” said Francis. Sam put his hand over Francis’s and gave it a small squeeze.

The curtain rose on the last act. It was a piece of fluff with a moral about Ella, a chimney sweep who wanted to be a movie star. She had the sniffles, and soot on her face from cleaning chimneys. Ella’s fairy godfather, who lived inside her television, could make it happen. He could make Ella into Passionella, a voluptuous, popular movie star, but was it the right thing to do? Passionella and the rock star she fell in love with agreed that their fantasy lives were not real. Maybe it is better to accept yourself as you are. The audience loved it.

They met Nguyen after the play and took her to dinner. She floated, on a bit of a high after the reception the play received. “I’m hoping for a chance to do the main part one of these days. I’ve practiced it.”

“You’re her understudy?” Sam asked. “When you do it, you have to tell me. I need to see the play again to compare your version to the one we saw tonight. You’ll be good. I know you will.”

She smiled her gratitude for his confidence and took another bite of her steak. “Francis. I hear you have to go home to Bucharest soon.”

“My work here is nearly done,” he said. “I wish you great success with your stage career. Sam will keep me posted.” She looked at Sam and he looked back at her. They both began to smile. It was as it should be. Francis bowed his head.
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