I was caught between getting rid of all the dragon-related items and storing them for when it didn’t hurt so much.  I mean, I still liked the idea of dragons the way I had had before this unfortunate incident, but I also didn’t want them staring at me.

“Storage,” Sylvie said, giving me a glass of water.   “It’s like rental on a time capsule.  No, actually, it’s more like a man’s version of scrapbooking.”

“That’s the garage,” I suggested.

“Doesn’t disprove my point at all,” she noted.

“You have experience with this,” I said to Sylvia at one point.

“I like helping out,” she said.

“No,” I said.  I didn’t mean to disagree with her, but I was having some serious Mercury-in-retrograde kind of communication difficulties.  “It’s more than that.”

“You’re welcome,” she said.  She was shutting me out.  Someone else in her life had gotten her used to long hospital stays and cranky convalescence, but I let it go.  She didn’t need to share any pain with me.

She was there when her classes were out.  Matana had offered to stay over nights, but I just wasn’t feeling inviting enough to have to deal with a vampire on top of my own bad attitude.  Maggie came by and worked on my computer at things, since I was mostly catching up on everything my DVR had to offer, and falling asleep on the couch every now and then.

I was rousing from another bout of drug-induced somnia when I was hit in the face by something thrown at me by the Magster.  The notebook was followed up with a pen.

“You can’t sit there forever.”

“No, I have to use the facilities often enough,” I noted.  It was a pretty big complaint, actually, since it meant I was using muscles that were aligned against me.  Actually, if my body was at war with itself, the muscles were really the, um, muscle of the enemy operation.

“You’re going to run out of television fairly soon, you haven’t checked your e-mail in days, and occasionally I get a snarky comment out of you, but that’s about the most you’ve said besides `please’ and `thank you’ when we shove food into you.”

“Huh.”

“Yeah, and a lot of grunts.”

“What do you want?”

“I want E back from whatever dark place he’s hiding.”

“He’s too busy hiding.  If you’d like to leave a message at the tone, he’ll return your call after St. George helps him take care of his special reptile infestation.  Beep.”

She threw a couch pillow at me and went back to whatever it was she was doing.

After she left, I picked up the pen and started writing.

Goals.

1. Stop being such a schmuck.

2. Find out what happened.

I kind of stopped there, because I had a thought.

The Questor.

3. Have dinner with Questor.

4. Slay Dragon, keep treasure, live in luxury for rest of life.

I think I put the pen in my mouth for a moment, thinking.

5. Find right girl to share treasure & luxury.

Yeah, that sounded about right.

So, how to stop being a schmuck?  I think that was the right word.  My Yiddish was worse than my Chinese, and I only knew enough to say “Feng Shui” a couple of different ways and not embarrass myself by ordering in food.  I was not a linguist.

First, apologies.

Apologies: Chocolate?

Apologies: Flowers?

I crossed that last one out – neither Maggie or Sylvia were flower types.  The carcasses of once beautiful things probably irritated the whole witch aesthetic.  “Unless it was the heads of their enemies,” I noted to myself, aloud.

The living room was very, very quiet.

Apologies: Dinner

Yeah, that definitely worked for Sylvia.   I’d take her out someplace nice.

I scribbled a few other ideas for Maggie.  I got up and went to my computer, intent on browsing the History to see if she’d scrubbed it or if there was anything interesting.  Then, of course, I had to check my e-mail.

A few hours later, I stretched and realized I didn’t hurt so much anymore.

Or I could have a fever.

Second, in the “not being a schmuck” column, I took a shower.  I brushed my teeth.  I put on something that wasn’t ratty or funky.  I took some time shaving.  I looked at myself in the mirror.

I don’t know if I looked like I cared.  I at least looked like I could fake it.

Third, a real meal.  I spent some time throwing things out of the actual refrigerator area that were too fuzzy to meet the “scrapable” standards.  I ended up having to use some frozen stuff to pad out the dinner, and I ate out of the skillet, but it wasn’t strictly convenience foods.  It made me flip to the next page to make a grocery list.  Then I had to flip to the page after it to make a practical note about calling my insurance about my car.   It led to a few other items I had to handle.

Part four would be making amends to Maggie.  I didn’t even know where to begin with that.  I mean, we’d given each other the “just friends” speech in countless ways in the interim, but I think both of us finally got it.  I say “both of us” and “we” because I’m the kind of guy who likes to take full credit for his understanding and relationship foibles.  Yeah.  So really, what would a friend do?

I stayed stymied on that for a while.  Maybe I was missing some kind of obvious response, but “not being a schmuck” would kind of have to handle it until the right thing dropped into my head.

Part five, find out who this Rohana person was.  She left me her number, so I guessed she meant for me to call it.  I could at least thank her for the books – I was enjoying them even if reading was more scattered than normal.

I checked my watch.  It was too late to call tonight, but I’d try tomorrow.

There was a knock on the door.

I froze up.  I couldn’t remember if Dragons knocked.