"Hey Carol," Fletch says, lounging in an actual genuine public phone alcove in a spaceport. "Do you know any nice girls I can set my squadmate up with?"
"Hi Fletch." Carol used to be the squadmate to Fletch's rookie; got out, settled down. "What was the rest of all that?" she adds dryly.
The line ain't that bad. This is what people refer to as a gentle hint that Fletch is probably out of line. Life would be so much work if Fletch could detect those. "Need you to set my squadmate up with a nice girl," xie repeats cheerily.
"Does she want to be set up with a nice girl?"
"She needs one," Fletch says.
There's a long pause on the line.
"You sound very serious about that," Carol says, in a weird tone that Fletch actually genuinely can't figure.
"There's this ex-wife," Fletch confesses. "Won't fuck off. Every time she turns up, Beeper folds up like a free toy out of a burger meal. I gotta keep seeing her all small, I'm gonna shoot the ex-wife in the face."
"This doesn't sound like a nice girl is the problem, Fletch—"
"You want me to shoot the ex-wife in the face?" Fletch twists the phone cord round xer hand. "I'll do it."
"Why don't you set her up with a nice girl?"
"I don't know nice girls. I know mech pilots. I guess I know some girls that are nice to mech pilots. Wrong kind of nice."
"How do you know me again, Fletch?"
"You don't count," Fletch says in a conciliatory tone. "You married a librarian. Librarians know nice girls, right? Librarians are nice."
"You got a thing for librarians, Fletch?" Xie can practically hear Carol's teasing raised eyebrow. "Do I need to worry about having you over for the holidays?"
"Yeah you should worry." Fletch grins, not that Carol can see. "Gonna eat all your mince pies and kick your ass at Scrabble. And bring Beeper. Can I bring Beeper? So you can set her up with a nice girl."
There's another long silence. "You sure you want me to do that?" Carol asks, in a weird voice again.
"You're right," Fletch says. "I should check with Beeper she doesn't have plans. Might be, I dunno, some kind of secret religious that wouldn't like your house with all the tinsel."
"Fletch," Carol says in the Fletch-why-are-you-stupid voice, then sighs in the no-never-mind way.
"I can bring her if she's not busy, though, right?"
"Are you sure this okay?" Beeper says for like the millionth time.
"Yeah," Fletch says soothingly. "...Carol's wife is gonna set you up on a date, though. You know what nice married types are like."
Beeper gives xer an alarmed look, which is why Fletch is saying that when they're already on leave and about to touch down on-planet.
"It's okay!" xie says, holding xer hands up. "You can go on one date with a nice girl. Easy. You're smart." It doesn't look like it's helping. "Hey, if it doesn't go okay, you can do the thing nice girls do: say 'This was a really nice time, but the chemistry just isn't je ne sais quoi. Such a shame. You're so nice.'"
Beeper doesn't look like she knows what Fletch is talking about. "You hear that a lot?" she says, in a dubious kind of way.
"No. Told you," Fletch says cheerily. "Low value target; they bail out of the bathroom window."
"Uh-huh." Beeper looks out of the window, at the approaching runway. "Are you sure this is okay?" she says again, sounding even more dubious, not less.
"Yeah I'm sure."
"Carol used to be the other half of Dingo, right?" Beeper persists. "How come she invited me?"
"I might have asked her," Fletch says, and Beeper turns her head with a look that says she just knew it. "Look, Carol invites me every year, and every year Val gets closer to trying to set me up with a date, and I don't wanna get disinvited. You know me and nice girls." Fletch pulls a hangdog face. "Hot ablative singles in your area are taking one for the team?"
"This whole thing was your idea," Beeper sighs, and goes back to looking out of the window for the landing.
Beeper and Carol get along instantly; xie knew they would.
"You can't put her on the couch," Fletch says. "Your guest room's nice, it'll fit two in the bed—"
"No," Carol and Beeper says together, and share an understanding look that leaves Fletch giving Carol's wife xer hangdog look for support.
"Done that in hotzones," Beeper says.
"Damn blanket-stealing starfish," Carol agrees.
"I'm outnumbered here," Fletch tells Val.
Val smiles and nods. "You are, honey," she says.
"Your dog likes me," Fletch says plaintively. "We're gonna run round the yard. C'mon, dog."
"There's pie in the oven," Carol says. "Fletch, kitchen recce."
They're having a board game night with a bunch of Carol and Val's friends, one of whom is conspicuously nice and single and this is Beeper, have you met Beeper? Her name is Kate or Jane or Hazel or some other name, and she is nice but Fletch has standards, okay, and xie needs to know Jane or Kate or Hazel is nice enough.
"Are you going to jump all over her every time she talks to Beeper?" Carol says in the kitchen, where they both know the pie doesn't need checking on for twenty minutes at least. (Fletch is also serious about pie.)
"I'm not jumping—"
"Jumping. Both feet. Real heavy, Fletch." Carol refills her wine glass, shaking her head, and calls, "Val, honey?" and then Fletch is outnumbered in the kitchen. "Honey, can you drive Fletch to the store for something we suddenly discovered we need? Just ten minutes?"
"Hey wait," Fletch says in a small voice, and Val hooks her arm through Fletch's and tows xer out of the door and into their truck and drives down to the store and then they wander around while Val tries to think what cheap excuse they're there for.
"Her ex-wife is stalking her," Fletch says suddenly, as they're looking into the ice cream freezer. "Whenever she turns up, it's like there's suddenly puppet strings on Beeper, and she grabs a handful and yanks and I — just want Beeper to stop looking scared so much."
"Oh, honey," Val says sympathetically, apparently deciding they're here for ice cream after all.
"I know I can't fix it," Fletch says. "I know going on a date with your friend isn't gonna help. I am pretending a little bit to be this stupid. I just. I'm sorry."
"Honey," Val says, and gives something uncannily similar to Carol's no-never-mind sigh. "We know you're not stupid."
"Oh, trust me," Fletch says, heartfelt.
"Got a date lined up with the nice girl?" Fletch asks later, a little shamefacedly, scratching the dog's head.
"She's great. No je ne sais quoi," Beeper says lightly. "...'Sides, we agreed you might cluster-bomb her house."
"I'm a scout mech," Fletch says sulkily. "I don't even pack cluster munitions."
Their leave's nearly up, and it's gift-giving day. A little flurry of polite, thoughtful things, mostly.
"Here," Beeper says nonchalantly, and then Fletch nearly chokes when xie tears the paper off.
"I've gotta make a joke right now about being too stupid to read," xie explains, with xer voice all wrong and actual tears in xer eyes, clutching a signed poetry collection to xer chest. "I gotta— shit, Beeper, I got you something silly."
"Yeah?" Beeper says, grinning and not sounding concerned at all.
"Yeah you know those day out experiences, they do a Mech Pilot For A Day one—"
Beeper snorts.
"—And I found this one where they just fitted themselves out with a Heron—"
"No," Beeper says, eyes wide, and Fletch flashes a watery smile.
"Yeah. If you're good, they let you fire the railgun off a couple of times."
Beeper cackles loud and wicked enough to startle the dog.
"You okay?" Carol says, and Fletch looks up from sitting on the edge of the porch, their last evening here, as the sun goes down. She has one thumbnail trapped betwen her teeth; the book of poetry open in the other hand.
Instead of answering, she holds the book up, and gives Carol her best hangdog look.
"Uh-huh," Carol says.
"Can't date her," Fletch sing-songs. "Fletch will cluster-bomb her house."
"Uh-huh," Carol says.
"Go on, just tell me I'm stupid."
"So damn stupid," Carol agrees, and stoops to kiss xer on top of the head. "Bring her back next year, okay?"
"You gotta promise not to tell her."
"Fletch," Carol says in the voice, "for crying out loud," then no-never-minds like she'll bust a gasket.
