Джозеф Хеллер - Maximum Impact

Pace had forgotten about the machine. At least it relieved him of the chore of breaking the news. He put his elbows on his knees and stared between his shoes.

“Sissy, I’m in love with Kathy,” he started hesitantly.

“Are you going to get married?”

“I…I don’t know. We haven’t talked about it.”

“Mom’s got a boyfriend now. His name’s Larry. He stays over sometimes.” Melissa dropped the news as casually as if she were asking for a glass of water.

For an instant, for a guilty instant, Steve felt a wave of jealousy. “What’s he like?”

“Oh, he’s okay,” Melissa said with another shrug, in the manner of a teenager asked about the status of her homework.

“What does he do?”

Melissa looked at him quizzically. “You mean his job?”

Steve nodded.

“He’s a lawyer. He’s rich, too. He’s got a big sailboat that has a motor in case there’s no wind, and eight people can sleep on it. It has a kitchen and a bathroom right on board. Larry lets me steer sometimes, and he’s teaching me to sail.”

“You like him, don’t you?”

“I told you, he’s okay.”

“Is he nice to you and your mom?”

“Oh, yeah. He’s always fixing things around the house and helping me with algebra. I hate algebra, and I didn’t understand it until Larry explained it to me. I still don’t know why I have to take it. Who cares if x equals y squared? I’m not ever gonna hafta know that stuff.”

“You might be surprised. Sometimes it comes in handy.”

“Yeah? When?”

He was on the spot. Ten seconds later, when he hadn’t come up with an answer, they started laughing. He held out his hand to her, and she reached over and took it.

“Sissy, I know you’ve been hoping your mom and I would get back together,” he said gently. “There were times when I thought maybe we could. But we live so far apart, and she has her life, and I have mine. We still love each other, and more than anything, we love you. That has always been true, and it will be true forever. But,” he paused and sighed, “I don’t believe we’ll ever get married again to each other.”

“Yeah, I know,” she replied. “I kinda doped that out.”

Again, Pace was astonished. “You did?”

“Yeah, Dad. I’m not a kid, you know.”

He squeezed her hand. “No, I guess you’re not.”

“But one thing bothers me.”

“What’s that?”

Melissa looked at him with a wickedly mischievous gleam in her deep blue eyes.

“How come,” she said, “it’s okay for you and Kathy to live together when you’re not married, and for Mom and Larry to stay together sometimes when they’re not married, but I can’t go out with Cody in his car?”

Kathy cleared her throat and rapped her knuckles on the table, demanding attention.

“Okay, listen up. We could sit here all morning and talk over dirty breakfast dishes, but that won’t get the picnic done. I repeat, we have baked ham and turkey, Swiss cheese and cheddar, rye and cracked-wheat bread, veggies, fruit, seltzers, Cokes, beer, and lemonade. I’m taking orders on what you all want for lunch.”

“I think I’d like roast beef on a Kaiser roll,” Pace said.

“Da-a-a-a-d,” Melissa scolded, sounding like a bleating sheep.

“Okay, out!” Kathy ordered, waving him from the kitchen. “Out! Out! Out! Melissa and I will pack what we want.”

Pace listened to the giggles behind him. He settled in the living room with the morning paper and left the kitchen things to the women. Like we’re a family… Stop it! That’s not the way it is and not the way it will ever be. Be grateful for what you have.

But he couldn’t let it be. He wallowed in the pleasure of it. The paper lay ignored on his lap while he watched Kathy and Melissa do the breakfast dishes, rubbing maple syrup from the plates and milk scum from the glasses before the dishes were stowed in the dishwasher. Pancake crumbs slid off the no-stick griddle with a swipe of a damp paper towel, but Kathy hand-washed it with soapy water anyhow and rinsed it, and Melissa dried.

Kathy was still in anguish over her brother’s death, but she was making a determined effort not to let her grief bubble to the surface in front of Melissa and dampen the teenager’s fun. Sissy knew about Jonathan’s death; Pace told her on the way into town from Great Falls. And Sissy said the right things when she first saw Kathy at the apartment. After that, they set the subject aside.

Pace glanced at the front page in his lap, at Glenn Brennan’s lead story. Brennan had reached Cullen Ferguson at his hotel and Whitney Warner in Los Angeles. Ferguson professed outrage at the groundings, particularly, he noted, since the NTSB board member overseeing the investigation of the ConPac crash concluded such a move wasn’t necessary. Whitney was her normal, calm self. Sexton wished the FAA hadn’t deemed the action necessary, but in view of what happened to TransAm Flight 957, the precaution was in order. She threw Converse a bone, saying Sexton was confident the C-Fan would pass the inspections without difficulty.

Brennan also reached TransAm officials and the president of Wentworth Fabricating Company, the manufacturer of turbine disks for Converse. TransAm had no statement of any significance. Seymour Wentworth’s statement was self-serving claptrap about using only the best technical equipment and having state-of-the-art inspection practices.

There were quotes from Lane Simmons and Ken Sachs; Pace winced when he saw Glenn had been able to get a statement from Sachs. Vernon Lund refused comment. There was nothing from Harold Marshall, which Pace thought strange. The previous evening, Brennan said he’d called the Ohio senator and was confident Marshall would call back. Apparently it didn’t happen.

Brennan did a good job with the story, and Pace felt a twinge of guilt over taking such a momentous day off. But when he dropped the paper and refocused on the kitchen, guilt faded in a wash of pleasure at seeing Kathy and Melissa enjoying each other.

As soon as the kitchen was spotless, they started messing it up again, wrapping sandwich meat and cheeses in foil and then sealing the packages in ZipLoc bags so melting ice in the cooler couldn’t seep in. They cleaned and wrapped vegetables: lettuce for the sandwiches, celery, carrots (washed but not scraped, because then you lost a lot of the vitamins, Kathy said), radishes, red and yellow bell peppers, and light-green florets of something called broccoflower. Next the fruit, wedges of melons mostly, and grapes, and finally, on top of everything, two full loaves of bread.

We must be meeting the Third Army at Front Royal, he thought. Hey, belly up to the cooler and build yourself a dub sandwich. Have a beer on Steve Pace. It’s the least I can do for our boys (and girls) in khaki. Now get back out there and defend Skyline Drive. The invaders will be here any day. You’ll know them because all the men will be in pink-plaid Bermuda shorts, oxford shoes, and black, knee-high socks. They’ll have cheap cameras hanging around their necks. All the women will be dressed in short shorts that show off their cellulite and poochy stomachs to best advantage. If they try to escape in their cars, you’ll know ’em by their out-of-state license plates and because they all drive too slowly and pass on curves and pull off at every scenic overlook. We want these tourons out of our mountains. All of you have been briefed on the touron—half tourist and half moron. Now let’s get moving. And hey… let’s be careful out there.

“If you two don’t quit horsing around in there, we’ll get to Skyline Drive in time to turn around and come home before dark,” Pace called into the kitchen. “And quit cleaning vegetables. There’s only three of us.”