afternoon tea

[walk_ins]

Janet's apartment is a studio, but it takes the casual visitor a moment to realize that; she's set up almost-ceiling-high bookshelves to create the semblance of internal walls, partitioning off a closet-sized "bedroom" from the only slightly larger "living room" next to the kitchen. They've had full meetings here before, but not often; the abridged space can seat twelve people, but not comfortably.

When Greg arrives, stamping snow off his boots in the hallway, Tara's already ensconced on the couch with her hands wrapped around a mug of tea. "Todd can't make it," Janet says apologetically as she stands aside to let Greg in. "He called about a half-hour ago."

Comments

[walk_ins]

"Yeah," Greg says. "I never made the connections with Rose Red and It Grows On You, though. Just clean missed it."

"It's a good connection, too," Tara says. "Especially tying in It Grows On You. That's all about female sexual voracity. Just like the pink Bend of the Rainbow in Wizard and Glass."

"Rose Red is female appetite, too. At least with the added details in Ellen Rimbauer."

"Rimbauer is so problematic. Lesbians who kill all the men and recruit all the women? A literal magical negress? A Chinese fortune teller."

"Well, it's a Victorian pastiche... " Wince count: 5. "...yeah," Greg admits. "At least King didn't write it."

"Epistolary, though."

[walk_ins]

"So what about the house on Maple Street, the one that turns out to have a spaceship in the walls?" Janet pours more hot water into her mug, and gingerly picks up the still-damp teabag from its saucer on the table. "It's creepy and dangerous, but in a completely different way."

[walk_ins]

"Yeah, it's not getting bigger. It's changing. Taking off. Metaphor for puberty, I always thought--those kids taking on the evil stepdad." Greg nods.

"Which might tie it back to the Marsden and Neibolt houses," Tara says. "There's that Jerusalem's Lot story, with the rats in the walls. A menace growing out of sight... something woven through everything, like It, or the spreading vampire infection."

"I can buy that," Greg says. "But is it a different trope? It seems different."

"Kind of. But--spreading sickness, versus out of control growth. Either way, we're talking cancer, right?"

[walk_ins]

"When people forget how to be healthy," Janet agrees. "Though I always thought that line described AIDS better than cancer."

"I don't know," says Tara, consideringly. "With AIDS it's forgetting how to fight off disease. Is that the same thing as forgetting how to be healthy?"

[walk_ins]

"Point of order," Greg says. "Puberty isn't a disease. Scary, but not a disease. I think we have to put the rockethouse in the category of white magic."

[walk_ins]

Tara stifles a laugh and murmurs "Oh lord, bless this rocket house and all who dwell within the rocket house --"

"Well, yeah, obviously," Janet says, speaking over her. "It's removing an evil influence, right? I mean, it's not just two wrongs making a right, like feeding the speaking demon to the gatekeeper. It shows up right when it's needed and it takes care of their problem."

[walk_ins]

"Actually a very positive story, for Steve-O," Tara agrees. "Didn't he say it came out of a set of psychology illustrations or something?"

Greg nods. "Yeah. Make up a story about this image."

"Interesting where he took it, then," Tara says. "You know, I question the puberty thing. Only two of the kids are adolescent. There's four of them. Almost makes me think of Narnia."

He nods. "You know, we should save this for the next meet-up. I feel like there's a lot of perspectives we're missing. I'm no expert on coming of age narratives, I'll admit that. And the sheer imagery--I'd love to hear what Zee has to say about that."

[walk_ins]

"We're meeting next on what, the twentieth?" Janet peers at the calendar precariously tacked to the side of one of the bookshelves.

"Think so," says Tara. "And yeah, let's add it to the list. Did you want to add that other house book too, Janet?"

She nods. "We haven't got a lot on the agenda right now, I don't think. Aside from phase two of the Minnesota lakes project."

"And the perennial," Tara adds with a sigh.

[walk_ins]

"And our new career as pirates," he says. Six.

"Oh, hey, in probably-not-related-but-really-freaky news," he adds. "Did you guys see in the paper that they found that Mafia guy who missed his courtdate?"

"Maggio? Yeah?"

"Yeah," Greg says. A Vincent Price beat. "Well. Most of him."

[walk_ins]

Janet looks slightly nauseated.

"...If I ask very nicely, can you not tell me which bits were missing?"

[walk_ins]

"Way ahead of you," Greg says. Tara smacks him on the arm, although she looks like she's sitting on a line of her own. "Oh, and the It movie," he adds, as if it jogged his memory.

[walk_ins]

Janet nods. "The new one, yeah. I read where they're setting the adult sequence today, instead of in the eighties?"

"How is that even going to work?" Tara sounds dubious.

[walk_ins]

"Well, they'll have to move the rest of it forward, too, right?" He shrugs. "Maybe there'll be more information by then."

[walk_ins]

"Hope so." Janet puts down her mug and absently gathers the cat into her lap, scratching behind his ears. "Maybe it's significant, the time change."

[walk_ins]

"Something to do with Insomnia," Greg agrees. "And Patrick Danville, and the time cycle and everything. And what was it--Dreamcatcher?--had that Pennywise Lives."

He sighs. "I know it's thematic and all, but sometimes it seems like--"

"What?" Tara says.

"Number one superfan talking again, remember," he says, gripping his mug. (Seven is a nice round number.) "It seems like everything is either a rehash of the old days or... not quite real. Not quite as solid. Anybody else getting that?"

"You talking about the books?" Tara says. "Or... everything?"

"What do you think?" he says glumly.

[walk_ins]

Nobody needs to answer that.




"So I've got an interview with this temp agency next week," Janet says, apparently to the cat in her lap.

[walk_ins]

"Oh, hey, great," Greg says. "I, um. I haven't gotten any nibbles yet." He hasn't been trying as hard as he should, he knows.

[walk_ins]

"Yeah, I'm still temping off the books in my mom's office," says Tara with a smile and a shrug, in a voice that's meant to sound easy and almost makes it. "It'll keep me in groceries till I find something better."

Rent is another story, but not one she's about to get into.

[walk_ins]

Silence puddles around them again.


"So I was looking at the High Speech database this morning," Greg says eventually. "And I realized we don't have the taheen names broken down and included. Did we have a discussion about that or was it just an oversight, I can't remember?"

"That was my call," Tara says, bristling, but only minorly. (She's the only one with any linguistics background--an oversight, in retrospect.) "Why?"

The truth is, even Janet welcomes the ensuing argument, despite her attempts to broker the peace and eventual retreat into the kitchen. It--

Well, it feels like old times.