Not Unexpected, But Not Understood

Not Unexpected

Month 9 Day 13

Shore Leave Day 14

1746 Hours

Bugalu

Bugalu looked up from his book when the hotel room door opened and a short, plump brunette walked in. He raised his eyebrows when she leaned against the closed door to expel a deep breath. “What happened?” he asked.

“He was there,” she growled

“Told you he would be.”

“You said he might be.” She released her bag to the floor.

“I said, I wouldn’t be surprised if he was there,” Bugalu corrected. “It’s why you decided to go in disguise. Did he see you?”

“Oh, he definitely saw me!”

Bugalu’s forehead creased a little. “Did he recognize you?”

Now she frowned, and expelled another deep breath, that might have been a sigh. “No. Not the way he was acting.”

“Well-“ His stomach growled, reminding him he’d had lunch several hours ago. “Let’s go have supper. You can tell me all about it.”

Her eyes grew huge behind her tinted glasses. “Looking like this? No thanks! Besides, I don’t think I want to leave this room until it’s time to go back to the ship. And I’m not too sure about that, either.”

“I thought you liked being on the Fireball.”

She visibly swallowed. “I love being on the Fireball.” Now she frowned, her gaze lowered to the floor. “But after today, I don’t know how I can possibly face him again.”

“You said he didn’t recognize you.”

“I don’t think he did. I mean, he was nice to me, and that’s not normal. Space, he might even have been flirting with me! I’d never know it because if that’s what it was, it bore no resemblance to the heavy-handed stuff most men throw at me. I’ve never experienced any other kind.”

Yes, she has, but do I tell her? How else is she going to learn? He sighed and tossed his book aside. “Yes, you have. Tall Bear has the lightest touch at flirting I’ve ever seen, and it stays that light unless the woman indicates she’s interested. So if you learn from him, then you’ll know the lightest version of flirting. You already know the worst versions. Then you can decide if a guy is flirting or just not thinking.” He stood up. “Look, if you don’t want to go out for supper, then let me go get something and bring it back, because I’m hungry. While I’m gone, you can shower that brown stuff off and change your clothes. It could get hard to talk to you like a sister if you continue to not look like my adopted sister.”

“Sounds good,” she answered, stepping away from the door. She reached up to pull a couple pins from her hair and tossed the brown wig onto the desk. “Make it a big, thick sandwich or something. All I had for lunch was a salad.”

“Okay, one salad sandwich coming up.”

“Bugsy!”

He grinned as he opened the door. “Just teasing.”

But Not Understood

Month 9 Day 13

Shore Leave Day 14

1831 Hours

Bugalu

When Bugalu returned to their hotel room, Mac sat at the desk, no longer looking like a brown stranger, though her hair was wrapped in a towel and couldn’t be seen. She had her datapad out and was manipulating the keyboard. “That looks like the Mac I remember from the Academy; going through her notes, making sure she understood everything.”

“Well, I didn’t,” she answered. “Hopefully, things will clear up once I get a chance to follow the clues Smit gave me.”

Bugs put down the sack he carried and turned his full attention to her. “You said he saw you, not that he talked to you.”

She still didn’t look up from her datapad. “It would have been hard for him to be nice to me if he didn’t talk to me, wouldn’t it?” she answered.

He considered that as he pulled the spare chair over toward the desk and sat down. “Well, other than being polite, how was he nice to you?”

“He gave me clues when I got confused.”

“He interrupted the talk to give you clues?”

“Interrupted? No, he whispered them to me. He was sitting right next to me.”

How did that happen? Dig for details later. It’s a wonder she was able to think at all, with him at her elbow.

“And he bought lunch. That was unexpected. When the talks stopped for a lunch break, he said we’d be given a table more quickly if we entered the restaurant together, rather than separately. I thought we were each paying for our own ; that’s why all I had was a salad and iced tea. I’d already dipped into my credit line paying for the seminar, the clothes, the wig, the makeup. But when the bill came, he paid the whole thing, never gave me a chance to protest.”

“That’s not-“

“Of course, I did pay for his meal, once, on that first shore leave, so maybe he thought he owed me.”

She paid for his... dig for details later. “He... didn’t know it was you, today,” Bugalu pointed out. “Or so you said.”

She made a face. “Right. So, see? He was just being nice. At least we weren’t yelling at each other. In between talks, we even engaged in small talk...”

“What about?”

“Nothing special. Where I got confused during the last talk, mostly. And then, at the very end, he gave me a lingering handshake, and made sure I took down his contact information. Said he’d be happy to explain anything engineering I didn’t understand at any time.” She paused with a slight wrinkle on her forehead, her eyes unfocused for a moment. “I thought that sounded pretty flirty,” she finally said as her cheeks went rosy.

“Maybe,” Bugalu reluctantly agreed. “Except it seems pointless to flirt if there’s no chance to follow up. And it could be years - or never - before the Fireball gets back here again.”

She gave a deep sigh and pushed her datapad aside. “Well, if he wasn’t flirting, what was he doing?”

“Smythe really enjoys his field. And it makes him happy to see others also like engineering. So it’s possible he was simply trying to encourage someone he thinks might have potential.”

“Well, that wouldn’t be me. So he was being nice, in other words.”

“Could be.” He pulled the sack holding their supper closer, got out a fat, paper-wrapped sandwich and set it down in front of her. “Here is your salad sandwich. I couldn’t keep them from putting some roast beef in it, too. And here’s some multi-colored potato salad to go with it.”

“Thank you, Bugs. I’ve been meaning to try that potato salad.” They ate in silence for a few minutes, and then she suddenly demanded, “What is wrong with me?”

“What?”

“Okay, I didn’t have the answer for his question that first day. He decided he didn’t like me, and he won’t give me a 2nd chance! He gets along with Ivy. Abdulla. Della. Practically every woman aboard ship. He even gets along with a meek, overweight woman who never got around to giving him a name during the entire seminar, but all he does is yell at me! Why?”

Sexual frustration? Nope, not going to say anything like that to her. Not sure about it anyway. Besides, there’s been times she started it. “I don’t know.”

“Men make a lot less sense than engineering,” she stated, and went back to eating.