Treasure Box by Orson Scott Card

me? Because even if I'm wearing a plastic smile on my face and saying, 'Oh, yes, Quentin, let's
do
stay,' trust me, I do
not
want to stay, I want you to get me out of there before we reach the witching hour."
    "Which is?"
    "If we arrive at noon, then by the next noon we must be gone or I will turn into a puddle of mucus on the floor."
    "That's an attractive image. If I kiss it, does it turn back into a princess?"
    "No, it just turns into a cold." She kissed him. "Your kiss has already turned me into a princess."
     

6. She Loves You, Yeah
    The limo met them at La Guardia in the late afternoon on New Year's Day and they started out on the drive up the Hudson. "Shame we won't be able to see the river," Quentin said. "It'll be dark before we get over the Triborough."
    "You can't see the river anyway," said Madeleine. "Not the way you can from the bluffs. The great houses were all built to be seen from the water. That was the highway then, the steamboats up the Hudson."
    "The house is that old?"
    "A fireplace in every room. The kitchen is an add-on. The bathrooms are carved out of hallways and stuck under stairs. All afterthoughts."
    "They built these huge gorgeous mansions and then went outside to the privy?"
    "Don't be silly," said Madeleine. "They had fine porcelain chamberpots. Which were emptied by the servants."
    "Let me guess about the toilet paper."
    "Every room had a water basin and towels. What do you think they were for?"
    "Oh, for the good old days," said Quentin.
    "I suppose
your
people all had flush toilets from the fifteenth century."
    "No. But they dug their own latrines and built privies and used the Sears catalogue. Nobody handled anybody else's sewage."
    "The idea of money was different then," said Madeleine. "If there was a filthy job, other people did it, and you paid them."
    "My people believed in independence. You did for yourself, beholden to no one."
    "The snobbery of the poor."
    "The helplessness of the rich."
    "Only
you're
the one with money."
    "What, your family's broke?"
    "We have what we need, I guess. Nothing on
your
scale."
    "My money's an accident, Mad. It fell on me while I was doing what I cared about. I was lucky to be in a company run by a marketing madman. And once I
had
money, I couldn't stop it from growing."
    "That's what I love most about you, Tin. You have no ambition whatsoever."
    "One ambition. To make a future with you."
    She smiled at him.
    He pulled the
Beatles Anthology
CD out of his carry-on bag and put it in the player in the limo. "I haven't had a chance to listen to this since you gave it to me."
    "I thought you might want something from your childhood."
    "It's not like I remember them. I was three years old when they did the Sullivan show."
    "It's all ancient history to me."
    "You're not
that
much younger than I am." On the marriage license she had put 1965 as her year of birth.
    "I lived on another planet then," she said. "We didn't even have a radio in our house."
    "Chamberpots, no radio."
    "I did love to crank the Victrola."
    "Seriously?"
    "No. I suppose there was a radio somewhere, but it's not as if anyone would dream of letting
me
choose the station. We didn't get out much."
    "Why not? Didn't you go to school?"
    "Tutors. Family tradition."
    "Were they
trying
to isolate you?"
    "I think perhaps so," said Madeleine. "Grandmother ruled with an iron fist. She never liked me."
    "Grandmother? Will I meet her?"
    "I don't know. She
ought
to be in a rest home, with tubes sticking out of her."
    Quentin had never heard such venom from her.
    "Alzheimer's?" he asked.
    "Advanced bitchiness," she answered.
    "Give me a little preparation. Who is it I should try hardest not to offend?"
    "Tin, don't you get it? I don't care who you offend. I've been free of their control for years now. I'm bringing you here to show them that there are good people in this world and I found one of them and if they don't like you, screw 'em."
    Quentin digested this for a while, listening to the music, then