The Fastest Woman Alive

I eased myself out of my chair. Somebody lost, probably. Engine overheated. Or maybe they just needed gas. If they were lost, I would explain to them that they were on the Tohono O'odham reservation. I always like doing that. When the Spaniards first came here, they named my people Papago, which means "bean-eaters." I have forgiven the Spaniards. But I like hearing white people try to pronounce our true name. They see my skin, and my braided gray hair, and sometimes they ask if I'm a Chief. Not a Chief, I tell them. An Elder.

I turned the latch and swung open the door. There was a woman standing there. Young, in jeans and a sleeveless tee shirt. A white woman, with a newspaper under her arm. She had red hair, cut close, and dark sunglasses like the hotshot airplane pilots wear. Definitely lost.

She took off her sunglasses, and I saw her eyes.

I guess some people think we don't find white people attractive. We marry our own kind, especially on the reservation. I am eighty-five, but when I saw this woman, my heart did something in my chest.

"Excuse me," she said. "I'm looking for Joseph Sonota."

"Why?"

"Well, to be honest, I'm an old friend of his."

"I'm sorry, miss. But I think you've made some mistake."

"Are you him? Are you Joe?" She stepped forward and looked at me hard. Our faces were only a few inches apart.

"My name is Joe Sonota. But I don't know you."

"Oh, my God," she said. "It really is you. Oh, Joe! No, you couldn't remember me. My name is Claire. Claire Lewis. We knew each other sixty years ago."

"Claire," I said, tasting the name. Nothing. And what in the world was she talking about?

"I'm sorry," I said. "You look very young to have known anyone back then."

She stepped back. "Oh, for crying out... don't you ever watch the news?"

"No."

She handed me her newspaper. It was the "Science and Technology" section from the Arizona Daily Star. I took my reading glasses from my shirt pocket, propped them on my nose, and read the headline.

"UMC surgeons perform first transplant with lab-grown heart?"

"No," she said, tapping the paper. "This one."

"United Aerospace pilot returns safely from... what's that say?"

"Beta Coma Berenices. Jesus, Joe! The Terrestrial Planet Finder? Spectroscopic signature for life found at Beta Coma C? The starship? The antimatter drive? The sixty-year mission? Ninety-nine percent the speed of light? The Fastest Woman Alive?"

I wondered if maybe I should call the police.

"Here," she said, "look at this." She pulled a photograph from her back pocket. It showed a man and woman in front of a lake. The woman had red hair and pilot's sunglasses. The man was tall and strong, with black hair and dark skin. There were hills in the background, and on one hill sat a white dome.

The woman was this woman. The man was me.

I took my eyeglasses off. Claire Lewis. I remembered.

The lake was hidden away on Kitt Peak, the mountain with the observatory, the mountain my people called Ioligam. We had gone there together and rowed on that lake. She had shown me the telescopes, and we had hiked that mountain. And others. We had climbed Baboquivari, the mountain my people call the Center of the Universe. We had been lovers. We had walked a part of the Maze of Life together.

"Joe?" she said. "Are you all right?" My stomach hurt. I handed her the picture and rubbed at my eyes.

"You're a ghost," I said, and I turned and went back in my house.

"I'm real," she said, and she stepped inside. Her boots clopped on my wood floor as she followed me to the kitchen.

"You left me." I took whiskey from the top of the refrigerator and poured some in a glass.

"Yes," she said.

"You said you'd be gone for a year. When you didn't come back, I thought you died."

"Ship time!"

"You did, didn't you?"

"No! For me, it was a year. It was sixty years for everyone else. We talked about this! You didn't understand me. Oh, hell. You never were a rocket scientist."

I sipped from my glass. I felt my insides burn in their familiar way. A gentle burning, like passion feels to a younger man. I sipped again.

"You are not a ghost," I said.

"No."

"You're young. You're young on purpose."

"We knew it would happen, yes."

"You knew it would happen. And now everyone you know is dead, or old like me. Your family, too. Your parents must be dead."

"They were dead before I left. That was part of why I was chosen to go. All I had was you."

I looked at her hair, her smooth skin, her green eyes, and I slowly shook my head.

"Magic," I said.

"No," she said.

"You are still beautiful."

She smiled. "You... you are the same in some ways, too."

"I am an old man."

"I'm glad I could find you."

"You're glad I'm not dead."

She took the glass from my hand and finished it, and set the glass on the counter.

"Yes, I am," she said.

"Why did you go?"

"We found life on that world. The first confirmed extraterrestrial life. I walked there. I held it in my hands. I brought back samples of it."

"And that's why you left me?"

"We're not alone in the universe! There's something else out there. And we have the power to reach it. It changes everything, our science, our philosophy. Our picture of the universe is different now. Everything is different. I tried to explain all this to you last year."

I looked around my place. The TV. My favorite chair. The big mirror near the hallway, with the little crack at the bottom. The grandkids' toys on the floor. The dust on the windows.

"Everything looks the same to me," I said.

"That's why I left you."

I had been standing a while now, and my legs were getting tired. I walked to my favorite chair, breathing with the effort, and lowered myself into it.

"Claire, it's good to see you. Thank you for stopping by. But my wife will be back soon with the grandchildren, so maybe you should go."

She laughed. "Grandchildren? Of course. I'm so sorry, Joe."

"You needn't be. For what?"

She came over and kneeled in front of me. "I'm sorry I missed your life. I wish things could have been different."

"I don't think you do. Not really. Why did you come back here?"

"Maybe you're right. Maybe I should go. United Aerospace is keeping my calendar full." She stood and went to the door. She opened it, and turned to me.

"I don't know why I came here. I don't know what I was hoping for. Now I think... I think I'm here to say goodbye. Goodbye, Joe." She slipped out, and shut the door.

I watched the dark TV screen for a few minutes. Then I rose, and went to the kitchen. My wife was late. I poured myself more whiskey, and saw the newspaper Claire left on the counter. I threw it in the trash can under the sink, and went to the bedroom for a nap. On the way, I saw myself in the mirror by the hallway. I stared. The tall, strong man with black hair was long, long gone. So Claire was right. Some things were different, after all.

I went back to the kitchen. I fished the paper out of the trash can, and balanced my reading glasses carefully on my nose. I spread the paper out on the counter, and began to read.

Bio: Stenger White has a background in astronomy. He spent ten years in Arizona, which helped inspire this story. His stories have appeared in Anotherealm and Wild Child.

E-mail: messier109@netzero.net

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