“Did you have trouble with my email, sir?” she asks, adjusting her headset on her squashed ear.
“I uh. I got that, here’s what… I still can’t… log on.” He pronounces that last with a foreigner’s careful emphasis.
“And you made sure your caps lock was off?”
“No, I hadn’t.”
“Okay, could you do that and then type your password?”
“Sure.”
Pause.
“Sir? It’s working?”
“Oh,” he says, “I thought you’d help me out there.”
Vicki breathes carefully. “Turn the caps lock off–”
“I know!” There’s desperation in his voice. “You gonna tell me how to do that or not?”
“Thou mayest make good on the wager.”
“That’s wrong. That can’t be right! Who decided that order?”
“As a duchess to a baroness, so a flush to a straight. The former outranks the latter by tradition and convention–if not, in this case, God’s will.”
“Screw tradition and convention!”
“It is also recorded on yon parchment: the rules to which we agreed. A merest glance would confirm it.”
“It doesn’t make sense. If I’d known, I would have–”
“I will wait as patiently as is necessary. Make good, milady.”
Sighing, but secretly smiling, Vivian reaches up to undo her bra.
The inside of the bathroom door handle is wet, and Trilby feels his nose wrinkle in disgust as he exits. Sure, it’s clean water. In theory. But what about those who just run their hands under the tap for appearances? And what about those bacteria that laugh at triclosan–they must love swimming around in those clammy drops, just waiting for the next unsuspecting hand! Is it really such a big deal to hit the hot-air dryer button and–
Suddenly, Trilby notices Edwin looking at him. He blinks. “Er,” he says, “did I say that out loud?”
“No,” says Edwin. “What?”
They still don’t have their eyes open, though a couple of determined explorers have managed to escape the basket and go wandering, nose-first. Rusty collects them and dumps one back in the blanket-heap. Then he tosses the other gently upward, grabs the Slugger and connects nicely, right on the sweet spot. There’s an explosive squeak. Then there isn’t.
“Rusty,” muses Blythe as she takes the bat, “you ever think maybe dogball is kinda mean?”
“Less cruel than drowning ’em,” says Rusty, and spits. “You’re up.”
Blythe shakes her head, picks up the next one, and sends her to deep right center.
It’s a big one, a three-locomotive beast, but Chad didn’t want some Amtrak commuter for his first haul anyway. His rope is strong; his cleats are clean. He is unafraid.
It chugs into view with a mighty whistle-blast, and Chad spins out his lariat. “WHEEE-LAH!” he whoops, feeling it catch, setting his feet wide and preparing for the contest.
A hundred yards later, he decides it’s over. He releases the rope and spits out a mouthful of turf before standing, shakily, to inspect his scraped and battered body.
Okay, he thinks. But nobody said train wrangling was going to be easy!
“You could just use the treadmill,” Royal says.
“Not even… remotely the same.” Monique shakes her head, still a little breathless. The skin of her forearms and under her eyes is flushed; the rest of her is pale.
“I think you know that there’s good running and bad running.” His words are careful.
“I know the difference.”
“Do you?”
“Good running is hurting yourself just enough so it’s worth it.” She straightens and plods into the bathroom.
“And bad running…”
“Bad running is hurting yourself as much as you want.”
Royal wants to say something, but she’s already shut the door.
Wednesday, August 4, 2004
There’s a lot of blood. The sun’s bright and hot and things are sticky under it; Morgan believes it’s making everything begin to contrast sharply, losing color, into very bright whites and spare blacks.
“You’re gonna be fine, Morgan,” Tad is saying, “stay with me, okay? Can you talk to me? ”
His voice is taking on a flat, bent quality; she associates it with concerts heard from too far away, or from around a corner. It draws her back to years-ago summer days and Cheap Trick, as they watched from a hill behind a fence, cheating, feeling dangerous and alive.
Hosaka steps from the shadows like a whisper. A whisper in a helmet, with two swords in each hand.
“I admit you were a worthy opponent for me once, Teach,” he says softly. “But my new technique is unstoppable. Lo, you no longer face Hosaka the ninja–but Hosaka the ninjamurai!”
“Unstoppable, eh?” Another man steps out, beard wild, cutlass shining. “Arr! But I too have changed; I’ve seen things to make such as ye weep!” Teach grins, and inhuman fangs gleam in the moonlight. “Will ye truly stand and fight… against a vampirate?”
After that, things get kind of silly.
“Stiller does try to play a straight man,” says Cote.
“Yeah,” Ballard replies, “not really. He’s just taking the zany self-abuse character and putting it out front.”
The elevator car stops to admit another man, a stranger. There are acknowledgement nods all around.
“I mean, a dog biting him on the crotch?” Ballard continues. “Like five minutes of it, facial expressions and all?”
“That’s not straight,” Cote concedes.
The car stops again; there are nods; the stranger exits.
“Probably a bad place to come into that conversation,” says Cote, after a while.
“Yeah,” says Ballard. “Now that was a straight man.”
“One more push,” says the doctor encouragingly, and Everett leans on Miriam’s back as she scrunches and grunts. And then! He’s out at last; a wail, a dunk, a snip and he’s swaddled in her arms. Miriam smiles, exhausted, and her sweat magically turns to glow.
“Your third this month,” says the doctor. “You’re very prolific.”
“Oh, not compared to the real pros,” she says, modest. “You want to hold him, Daddy?”
“For a minute,” smiles Everett. “Hey, little guy!”
“We should get him sent out this week,” says Miriam, turning serious. “Harlan seemed interested…”
“Yeah.” Everett sighs. “Bills to pay.”
Wednesday, August 11, 2004