"I don"t look at it like a job, Lenore," Lang said. "I"m looking forward to it."
"Kopek Spasova"s really supposed to be great."
"And your Daddy told you to go?"
"Dad doesn"t tell me to do anything. He said he"d appreciate it, is all. If I didn"t want to go, I wouldn"t go."
Lang grinned. "You sure about that, now."
"Of course I"m sure. If I thought this was going to be suck, to coin a phrase, I wouldn"t do it."
"My own personal Daddy tells me to do something, I as a rule do it."
Lenore looked at him. Her breath went up toward him a little before it disappeared. "Except he told you not to marry Mindy Metalman, you said in the car."
Lang laughed. "OK, usually I do what he says." He looked serious. "Sometimes me and Daddy just take a while to see eye to eye."
Erieview Plaza was all lit up. A marquee had been set up in front of the Erieview Tower lobby, by the ticket window. On the marquee a little electric girl was pulsing around a bar, connected to it by her feet. Beside her throbbed the bright-white perimeter of a baby, with a spoon in its hand. Yellow light from the windows of the Bombardini Building across the Plaza illuminated the rear of the line for the tower lobby.
"So let me get this totally straight, for the record and all," said Lang, watching his own breath. "You"re just here "cause you want to be. In toto. "
"I like gymnastics. I was totally glued to the TV for the World Championships, last month."
"But what I understand, this little girl"s helping these Gerbers launch a kind of a Tet Offensive against your Daddy"s company. That"s what Neil said."
"That"s beside the point. I"m not Dad, or Dad"s company."
"So what"re we doing here, then? I can think of a thousand funner places for us to be."
"You"re no joke, brother," the Vietnamese man in front of them said as his group got to the ticket window. He and one of the women began to talk very fast at the man behind the window.
"Good G.o.d, that"s Mr. Beeberling, selling tickets," said Lenore.
Lang looked briefly at the ticket window before returning to scanning the line.
"He"s really Bob Gerber"s right hand man," Lenore said. "He"s the one who supposedly came up with this ingredient in Gerber baby food that"s supposed to help babies chew."
"Instead of singing like birds?"
"What"s that supposed to mean?"
There was definitely some sort of controversy at the window. The Vietnamese man was jabbing his finger toward the doors to the Erieview lobby. Mr. Beeberling was being told that he was suck.
"Look here," Lang said, leaning way over to make himself heard in Lenore"s ear above the din around the window. The side of his jaw was smooth and smelled sweet, even in the cold air.
"Look here," he said. "If we just go on back right now, "Dallas" is on. We can watch "Dallas." It"s a show that kicks a.s.s. I just got a new TV, a big sucker. I got wine. We"ll have more fun than a whole barrel full of prehensile-toed little tumblers." He stopped and looked at Lenore. "Of course I guess that"s a.s.suming you"re only doing what you want to do, not what your Daddy or anybody else tells you to do."
"Hey, look ...," Lenore was saying up to Lang when they were pushed by the force of the line behind them into the gla.s.s of the ticket window. Lang lost his cowboy hat. Lenore dropped her purse, and lottery tickets spilled out and went everywhere. She bent and started picking them up. Some blew away.
"Hold your horses G.o.d d.a.m.n it!" Lang shouted back at the line. The two girls, orange and pink hair in the light of the marquee, gestured.
"Hi Mr. Beeberling," Lenore said, stuffing the last of the bright tickets into her purse. "Two, I guess, please."
"Lenore," said Mr. Beeberling. "Lenore Beadsman."
"Andrew Sealander Lang, here," Lang said absently, looking around for his hat.
"Two coming up," smiled Mr. Beeberling. He opened a drawer and began to rummage. He was wearing a porkpie hat that said GERBER"S across the brim. "Just missed Foamwhistle and your Jars guy, Goggins, you know," he said. "Just came through."
"Blanchard, or Sigurd?" said Lang.
Lenore turned and stared at Lang.
"Well now here we go," said Mr. Beeberling. He pushed back his hat and smiled. "That"ll be four hundred dollars, please."
"Pardon?"
"Special Stonecipheco rate," Mr. Beeberling said. "If you"re going to scout us out, you can at least help to defray costs."
"But except I"m not here for Stonecipheco," Lenore said as Lang fought off another surge of the line behind them. "I"m just here because I really like Kopek Spasova."
"Well certainly," said Mr. Beeberling. "So you can be thoroughly entertained, and help defray, all at once." He gestured back at the long line and the circle of pale breath that wove into itself and vanished above it. "You see what the fray is like. Surely you want to help defray."
"There"s just no way you can tell me two tickets can cost four hundred dollars," Lenore said.
"Well, these"re really big tickets, as you can see for yourself," Mr. Beeberling said, holding up two large black tickets behind the window and sizing them up suggestively with a thumb and forefinger.
"You dung beetle," Lang said to Beeberling, who smiled and made a little bow.
"I don"t have near that much on me," said Lenore.
"What an a.r.s.e!" the two girls were yelling in unison at Lang"s back.
"Lenore, let"s just git. Who needs this, if we"re just doin" what we want?"
"Mr. Beeberling I"m not here for Stonecipheco."
Mr. Beeberling grinned and scratched his head under his hat. The electronic image of Kopek Spasova kept lightening and darkening sections of the street.
"This is suck, isn"t it," said Lenore.
"You can"t get pushed around like this, Lenore. Screw him. Let"s git." Lang twirled his car keys on a bandaged finger.
"s.h.i.t on a twig."
lfl "I think you should. I hope you shall."
"Should I, Rick? Oops, may I call you Rick?"
"Of course. We"re both adults, now. Call me anything."
"Should I, Rick?"
"As I see it, you would be doing everyone a favor. We need the help. We"re marginally frantic right now, though of course not unpleasantly so. It would be an enjoyable, brief taste of college memories for you, apparently. And I-thank you, waiter."
"Sure thing."
"We need some more vino."
"More wine, please."
"Right away sir."
"I should like to be able to see you around, every day, working. It would be nice. And you would of course have the opportunity to spend time around ... those Frequent and Vigorous personnel whom you wished to be near."
"Whoever I wanted to be near?"
"What does that mean?"
"Hey, this is yummy."
"The eclairs are good here, I"ve found. Lenore and I sampled the eclairs here, not too far back, with Norman Bombardini, our Building-mate, and-"
"It"s really good."
"I think you should. I so hope you will, Mindy. May I call you Mindy?"
"You silly."
"Mindy, it would simply be fun. That"s all I"m saying. And how long could it be?"
"Good question."
"What?"
"Can I have some more of that vino?"
"And then but what will Lenore think?"
"Rick, what about Lenore?"
"What about Lenore?"
"How will she feel about me taking her place at the switchboard, however temporarily? I saw that she still has a lot of her personal items scattered around in there. How will she feel about me being in the middle of her personal items?"
"Her items can be moved with minimal trouble."
"That"s not exactly what I mean, Rick."
"Perhaps if you were a bit more explicit, then."
"Let"s just say it has to do with my husband and your fiancee."
"Lenore is not quite exactly my fiancee."
"And Andy might not be my husband much longer."
"What?"
"Did you know he was taking Lenore to see gymnastics tonight? The symbolism of which doesn"t escape me, rest a.s.sured."
"Here the answer is that I told Lenore to ask Lang to go to this function with her, I"m afraid. We had a tiff this morning and I told her to. I was being juvenile."
"But Andy told me last night he was taking her. He told me he didn"t want any ... any flak from me about it. That was last night, not this morning."
"More wine?"
"Rick, can I ask do you really own that fabulous bird who"s lighting up religious television?"
"If you"re referring to Vlad the Impaler, he is Lenore"s c.o.c.katiel."
"That"s not what I heard, emotionally speaking."
"What did Lenore say to you?"
"Rick, should I be straight with you?"
"You can certainly be straight about anything Lenore told you."
"I find you very attractive. I"m sorry if that offends you, but I always have, really, in a way, ever since I was little, and you and Daddy would walk around the lawn in tennis clothes, looking for weeds and drinking things that I"d get to drink the last bits of out in the kitchen."
"I remember how wet the gla.s.ses got in the summer, the water ran down the sides. I remember that. And you were out there in tennis clothes. It was like a childhood crush."
"... restroom, very briefly, if you"ll perhaps excuse me for just a second, I"ll be ..."
"And all it would take is one word from Lenore, or you, to CBN, to get me in the door as a voice on "The Partners With G.o.d Club." Rick, you could be an absolutely tremendous help to me."
"What about Andy? What would he think?"
"What about Andy? What about Lenore?"
"I"m afraid I don"t understand what"s going on."