The Speed of Dark by Elizabeth Moon Page B

shelves of rice—rice in bags, rice in boxes, long-grain and short-grain and brown, and rice in combinations with other things, and she does not know where the kind of rice is that she wants—I look at Marjory. One of her eyelashes is longer than the others and darker brown. Her Page 45

    eyes have more than one color in them, little flecks in the iris that make it more interesting.
    Most eyes have more than one color, but usually they’re related. Blue eyes may have two shades of blue, or blue and gray, or blue and green, or even a fleck or two of brown. Most people don’t notice that. When I first went to get my state ID card, the form asked for eye color. I tried to write in all the colors in my own eyes, but the blank space wasn’t big enough. They told me to put “brown.” I put
    “brown,” but that is not the only color in my eyes. It is just the color that people see because they do not really look at other people’s eyes.
    I like the color of Marjory’s eyes because they are her eyes and because I like all the colors in them. I like all the colors in her hair, too. She probably puts “brown” on forms that ask her for hair color, but her hair has many different colors, more than her eyes. In the store’s light, it looks duller than outside, with none of the orange glints, but I know they are there.
    “Here it is,” she says. She is holding a box of rice, white, long-grained, quick-cooking. “On to the foil!”
    she says. Then she grins. “The cooking kind, not the fencing kind, I mean.”
    I grin back, feeling my cheek muscles tighten. I knew what kind of foil she meant. Did she think I didn’t know, or was she just making a joke? I lead her to the middle cross-aisle of the store, all the way across to the aisle that has plastic bags and plastic storage dishes and rolls of plastic film and waxed paper and aluminum foil.
    “That was quick,” she says. She is quicker to pick out the foil she wants than she was with the rice.
    “Thanks, Lou,” she says. “You were a big help.”
    I wonder if I should tell her about the express lines at this store. Will she be annoyed? But she said she was in a hurry.
    “The express lines,” I say. My mind blanks suddenly, and I hear my voice going flat and dull. “At this time, people come in and have more than the express lines sign says—”
    “That’s so frustrating,” she says. “Is there one end or the other that’s faster?”
    I am not sure what she means at first. The two ends of the checkout go the same speed, one coming as another leaves. It’s the middle, where the checker is, that can be slow or fast. Marjory is waiting, not rushing me. Maybe she means which end of the row of checkout stands, if not the express lanes, is faster.
    I know that; it’s the end nearest the customer services desk. I tell her, and she nods.
    “Sorry, Lou, but I have to rush,” she says. “I’m supposed to meet Pam at six-fifteen.” It is 6:07; if Pam lives very far away she will not make it.
    “Good luck,” I say. I watch her move briskly down the aisle away from me, swerving smoothly around the other shoppers.
    “So—that’s what she looks like,” says someone behind me. I turn around. It is Emmy. As usual, she looks angry. “She’s not that pretty.”
    “I think she is pretty,” I say.
    “I can tell,” Emmy says. “You’re blushing.”
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    My face is hot. I may be blushing, but Emmy didn’t have to say so. It is not polite to comment on someone else’s expression in public. I say nothing.
    “I suppose you think she’s in love with you,” Emmy says. Her voice is hostile. I can tell she thinks this is what I think and that she thinks I am wrong, that Marjory is not in love with me. I am unhappy that Emmy thinks these things but happy that I can understand all that in what she says and how she says it. Years ago I would not have understood.
    “I do not know,” I say, keeping my voice calm and low. Down the aisle, a woman has paused