Gene Wolfe - Free Live Free

The crowd vanished and Ozzie with it, though she had never noticed its going. As though she had known all along they would be there, she took a compact and a lipstick from the right pocket of the blue coat. She had powdered and rouged her face and was applying the first dab of lipstick when Sweet sat down beside her.

“Well, hello ,” she said. “It’s wonderful to see you!” To herself she sounded like Mae West in an old, old, late, late, late-night TV movie, and she giggled.

He misunderstood. “I know it took me a while. I wanted to freshen up, change clothes.”

“Me too, only I didn’t. John, am I getting this on straight?”

He looked at her judiciously. “Fairly straight.”

“I might as well tell you, because you’ll guess pretty soon if you haven’t already. I’m a little tippy.” Fearing he did not understand her, she added, “A little in the bag.”

“When you were on the phone, I thought you might be two or three ahead of me.” He smiled.

“You’re sweet.” She kissed him, then realizing what she had said, giggled again.

“Want to give me a chance to catch up at dinner?”

“Do I ever! I don’t think I’ve had a bite since you gave me that candy in the cab. I’m just absolutely, utterly, fabulously starved. I could eat a billy goat stuffed with soldier buttons.”

“You shouldn’t drink on an empty stomach.”

“I’m finding that out. Don’t you want to hear my adventures today?” She was still not sure she could stand up.

“Sure, and I want to tell you mine, but let’s do it over dinner. I’ve had them bring my car around.”

He stood, and she held out her hands to him. “I didn’t— urmp! —think you had a car.” A belch caught her unaware.

“I rented one. They’ve got an office here in the hotel.” With his hands to draw her up and steady her, she came out of the chair more easily than she had expected. “You didn’t tell me you were a nurse.”

“I guess I didn’t.” She and Stubb had made up some story, she knew, but it was lost in the warm, amber fog. “You didn’t tell me you were so strong, either,” she said. It seemed the right thing to say.

“I used to play football, believe it or not. Iowa State. Over this way.”

He had her firmly by the arm, and she was grateful for it, leaning on him with an uncontrollable heaviness. “I’ll be okay when I walk a little.”

“I’m sure you will. Did they call you back? To the hospital where you work?”

“That’s right. It wasn’t really an emergency—did I say that okay? Emergency. Well, it was, but we didn’t think so at first. So I went. I went back in a cab just almost right away after I left you.” She decided to lie. “I’ll tell you the truth, with us just meeting and then breaking up like that, John, I didn’t really feel like going on the trip. All the holiday feeling went out of it. I’ve been feeling down since Christmas, for God’s sake. You really did like me, didn’t you, even if I’m so heavy?” She had forgotten it was a lie.

“Very much.”

“So anyway, I went to the hospital. And there was a lot of trouble there and I had a big talk with one of the doctors about it. And then the lights went out, and I stayed because of that, but after a while I left, and there was this man there—a visitor, you know—that I know and I’ve met him several times and he’s really pretty nice even if sometimes he can be pretty mean. It was dark and we couldn’t get a cab. I was so tired and awfully cold.”

“Certainly.”

“You don’t have a cigarette, do you? I’ve been out forever.”

“Right here.” He lit it for her on the dashboard lighter. They were in the front seat of a big car, though she had no notion how they got there. She toked the cigarette like a joint, drawing in the smoke and holding it with a sort of rapture.

Then letting it out with a gasp, “And there were rioters all around. This man is nice, but he’s pretty small and I was scared. Do you know what I kept thinking? I kept thinking about those old Westerns where the Indians try to kill all the people on the wagon train. It’s no different for us, except the Indians are inside with us now, so it doesn’t do any good to pull the wagons in a circle. That’s funny, huh?”

“That’s why we require a strong government,” Sweet said. “The savages all throughout society are only waiting for the lights to go out.”

Candy nodded. “Then things got complicated, and I found this woman somebody had bashed in the head. Her daughter-in-law was with her. I fixed her up as good as I could there in the dark, stopped the bleeding, tried to keep her warm and all that stuff. I’m afraid I probably got a little blood on my uniform.”

“That’s too bad,” Sweet said.

“And then the lights came back on, and I felt like the U.S. Cavalry was there. We got an ambulance for the woman, and this man and me—we were back together by then—went to a bar and had three or four drinks to unwind. Then I went back to the hotel and had a nightcap. Anyway, I thought it was a nightcap. And then I went out in the lobby and the bellhop was calling my name. That was the best part of the whole damn night, which I guess isn’t saying a whole lot, but it was.” She snuggled against him. “It was just awfully God-damned nice, and it still is.”

Sweet nodded. “I’m glad we shared that cab.”

“I’m glad you couldn’t catch your plane. Or me either. You’re married, I bet?”

“My wife and I are separated.”

“Uh huh.”

“Well, practically separated.”

Candy sighed. “That’s good.”

“That we’re almost ready to break up?”

“That you’re still married. I mean, after all these years …”

“Twenty-two.”

“See? I’m a girl—” Her stomach jumped. “Oh, my God, I hope I’m not getting hiccups. I’m a girl who has kind of had it rough sometimes, if you know what I mean.”

Sweet nodded.

“And one thing I’ve * hic! * noticed * hic! * Oh, my God! Is that when guys get to be over about thirty, it’s * hic! * better if they’re married. You see, John,” she laid a hand on his arm, “guys that aren’t usually aren’t because they’re just so God-damned selfish. * Hic! * Excuse me. Will you excuse it, please?”

“Certainly.”

“It’s all take and no give with them. They don’t know how to treat a girl * hic! * and that’s why they haven’t got one. Like you’re taking me out to dinner tonight. A guy who wasn’t married wouldn’t do that, or he’d just take me to some cheap place. This * hic! * isn’t just some cheap place we’re going to now, is it, John? I’m starved. I could * hic! * eat a—eat a …”

“It’s probably the best restaurant in the world,” Sweet told her.

“Won’ful.” She snuggled harder, one big breast pushing at the side of his right arm, her belly almost in his lap. “Now tell * hic! * me all about it or tell me about your wife or something. I want to hold my breath.”

They might, perhaps, have been a princess and a magician hunted by the white trolls of deadly winter; and indeed the ancient Packard, lumbering and high-wheeled, seemed rather an enchanted carriage—perhaps a funeral carriage—than a car, as it trundled between banks of snow, leaving the hunched, white, black-windowed masses of the city’s buildings behind.

The largest of them seemed also the slowest in pursuit, their towering forms now hardly to be glimpsed against the night sky. Smaller structures still clawed at the Packard’s sides with signs half defaced with snow. Ahead lay empty fields where only a few farmhouses kept watch over the road. Ahead too, a 747 droned out of the low clouds, its landing lights blazing like fireworks.