To which Eugenie merely stared at her, eyes wide and wondering. This woman married to Roderigo Yrarier, this woman, his wife, mother of his children, this woman … She didn’t know? “Because I love him,” she said at last, almost whispering “I thought you knew.”
“Well so do I,” Marjorie replied shortly, believing that she did. “But even so, I would not have come to Grass had I not known why.”
Though Eugenie had not particularly appreciated Marjorie’s advice about pets, she had heard it. Normally she would have ignored it as a matter of principle because it came from Rigo’s wife and Rigo would be unlikely to appreciate his mistress taking his wife’s advice about anything. As it was, however, Eugenie could not afford to ignore anything that would alleviate the blanketing boredom which afflicted her. At home there had been restaurants and parties and amusing places to go to. There had been shopping and clothes and hairdressers to talk with. There had been gossip and laughter. And running through all that, like a thread of gold through the floating chiffon of her life, there had been Rigo. Not that he’d been around a lot. He hadn’t been. But for a long time he had been there, in the background, providing whatever she needed, making her feel treasured and important. Men such as he, Rigo had explained, with all his important work on committees and clubs and such, needed women such as she as a necessary relief from the tiresome but urgent works they were called upon to do. This made women such as she especially important. Eugenie thought of this often. Men had told her many sweet things about herself, but never before that she was important. It was the nicest compliment she had ever received.
And so she was here, and so was Rigo, and for all they saw of one another she might as well have stayed on Terra with some other protector—which she had, quite truthfully, considered. Had there been another man immediately available, she would probably have chosen to stay. Weighing the relative inconvenience, however, of finding a new man or submitting to packing and coldsleep, she had decided that finding the new man would be more trouble. Not so much finding him but learning about him. His little ways. His favorite foods and smells and colors and little magics in bed. All men believed they had their own magics in bed.
And then, too, she did love Rigo, When she had said that to Marjorie, it hadn’t been a lie. Of all the men she had loved, she probably loved Rigo most. He had been most fun.
But Rigo was hardly fun at all in this place. When love wasn’t fun, it was just boring and dull and achy. People had to have things that were fun for them. What Marjorie had said about pets was probably the best advice anyone was going to give her, even though it had come from Rigo’s wife.
Eugenie begged a ride from Roald Few to Commoner Town, enjoying the trip because of all the sweet things he and the other men said to her. It was Roald himself who told her to look up Jandra Jellico. “If you’re looking for something little and petful and fun to have, Jandra may have it or she’ll know who has. She’s got most everything in fur and feathers and pretty skin, Jandra does.” He warned her, too, that Jandra would be in a half-person, as though Eugenie was the kind of person to make unkind remarks or stare.
And Jandra, after Eugenie had been with her for half an hour, knew everything about her just as Roald had. Knew and appreciated and felt a bit sorry for, while at the same time blessing her guardian spirits that Eugenie had come along just now to solve her dilemma. “I’ve got just the thing for you,” she said. “Something I got from Ducky Johns, down in Portside. Wasn’t right Ducky should keep it down there among the sensees and the profligates, so I had her bring it here to me. I keep it in the spare bedroom.”
She brought it out, the slender prettiness of it, the long-haired sweetness of it, the sidling, goose-eyed gaze of it, all done up in girl skin and girl smell and dressed in a pretty smock which it had learned to keep down. “I call her the Goosegirl,” said Jandra, not saying why. Eugenie wasn’t an awl-eyed one like Jandra’s own dear Jelly, to see what others hadn’t noticed, that almost mindless, birdish stare turned on each and every one as though to ask the world what there was to be afraid of out there, knowing already in its little bird mind that there was something.