Harry Turtledove - Supervolcano :Eruption

Tempting? God, how tempting! But no. She’d just reminded herself she needed the paycheck. “Gorczany Industries, Vanessa Ferguson speaking.” If she sounded like a slightly constipated robot, well, Mr. Gorczany couldn’t can her for that.

“Hello, sweetheart.” Hagop Nersessyan had a voice like a lion’s rumbling purr. It was the first thing that attracted her to him. She’d rapidly found out there were others. He knew things in bed poor lame Bryce didn’t even suspect. She wondered how she’d got tangled up with a loser like Bryce to begin with. The same way she’d ended up working here, she supposed. It had looked like a good idea at the time.

“Hello,” she said, but even Hagop’s voice didn’t cheer her up as much as she thought it should have.

“I will see you tonight,” he said confidently. “I will close up shop early, and I will see you tonight.” He bought and sold fine Oriental carpets.

“I don’t know,” Vanessa said. “Work’s pretty crazy right now”-which was putting it mildly-“and I may not be fit company for anybody.”

“I will see you tonight,” Hagop repeated. She knew what that meant: he was horny. He had definite rhythms. Well he might-he was a year older than her father. Bryce seemed to be turned on all the damn time, and he’d expected Vanessa to feel the same way. She didn’t just want to screw; she wanted to be wanted, to be seduced. No wonder they hadn’t lasted, even though she’d thought about marrying him.

“Well… okay.” She wasn’t happy with herself for giving in. She never was. She’d find some way or another to get even. Now she hurried on: “Listen, I can’t talk. I’ve got to get this document to Mr. Gorczany.”

“Tonight, then,” Hagop said. He meant after dinner, of course. He wasn’t offering to take her out. He had a good deal of cash, but he was slow about parting with it. She’d wondered if he was married. That would explain why he didn’t want to be seen in public with her. She didn’t necessarily mind being a mistress, but she wanted to know if she was one. Some Internet work convinced her that wasn’t the issue. Hagop just didn’t like to spend money.

She waited outside Mr. Gorczany’s office till he stopped speaking in tongues with the software engineer. Then she brought in the letter and set it on his desk. “Here it is-the way you wanted it.” Her words might have been carved from ice.

He scanned it to make sure she wasn’t saying one thing and doing the other. She’d thought about that, but hadn’t figured she could get away with it-a good thing, too. Nodding, he scrawled his signature at the bottom. “Take it to the post office. I want to make sure it gets today’s postmark. We could have taken care of this sooner if you hadn’t gotten foolish about it.”

She got off at half past four. It was 4:27 now, by the digital clock on his desk. The trip and the wait in line would cost her anywhere between ten minutes and half an hour, depending on how retarded the Post Awful clerks were. And he was waiting for her to complain about it-she could see that. So she just said “Right” between clenched teeth and carried the letter out with her fingertips, as if it stank of manure. As far as she was concerned, it smelled worse than that.

The line at the post office was long, and moved slowly. As soon as Vanessa saw the plump blond woman at one of the two open stations, she knew it would be bad. That gal couldn’t count the fingers on one hand and get the same answer twice running. They talked about employees going postal-how about customers who gathered dust waiting their turn?

She collected a receipt when she handed off the letter. She wasn’t about to pay postage for Gorczany Industries. Then back to her car and back to her apartment. She picked up her mail-junk and a cable bill. The cat gave her a big hello when she came in. Pickles always did. A day in there with nothing but two fish tanks to watch wasn’t very exciting. Vanessa petted the fat-bottomed marmalade tabby and fluffed its fur. Then she fed it some kitty treats. After that, it stopped caring about her. She’d performed her functions, which made her superfluous till the next time the beast wanted something.

Cats were more honest than people.

Vanessa nuked a Jenny Craig frozen dinner. It was… better than going hungry, anyway. She ate a yogurt for dessert. Hagop would have liked her plumper than she was. Had she thought she’d stay with him… She wondered why she didn’t. Whatever the reason, she stuck with Jenny Craig.

She tossed her silverware into the sink. The apartment had no dishwasher. She did dishes when they started getting stinky or when she ran out of clean ones. That appalled her old man, not that it was any of his business.

The buzzer sounded. There was Hagop, waiting for her to pass him through the building’s security system. She did. A few seconds later, she heard his shoes on the stairway up to the second floor. She had to remind herself she was supposed to be glad to see him.

Spokane wasn’t a big city. With Washington State there, though, it had plenty of little clubs. This one had been around a long time. The joint’s name-Harvey Wallbanger-proved as much. Lots of things had come back into style over the years, but not drinks with Galliano in them. As far as Rob Ferguson was concerned, a Wallbanger was a nasty thing to do to a perfectly good screwdriver.

But Squirt Frog and the Evolving Tadpoles had played here the year before. Rob and his bandmates were glad to be back. The sound and light guys-the guy on lights was a girl, actually-knew what they were doing. The management didn’t try to stiff acts as a matter of principle, the way so many clowns who ran clubs did. And the crowd was lively and enjoyed the show. They had last year, anyhow.

Which meant… they were the same kind of weirdos as the ones who played in the band. And if that wasn’t a judgment on them, then it was a plate of spaghetti and meatballs. Or something.

Rob turned to Justin Nachman, who would have been Squirt Frog if the band were set up like that. Justin played lead guitar, did most of the singing, and had as much fame as anyone in a resolutely unfamous band could claim. “What would you call the kind of stuff we play?” Rob asked.

“Beats me,” Justin answered cheerfully. “I don’t put labels on it. I just play it. Long as you don’t call me late for supper, you can call it anything you want.” He meant it, or near enough. Nobody in the band was on the wrong side of thirty, but Justin had a good set of love handles.

They’d gone round that barn before, of course. They’d been going round it since the band formed- congealed was the word Justin used-in Santa Barbara. Rob and Charlie Storer, the drummer, were the analytical ones. Justin and Biff Thorvald, who played rhythm guitar, didn’t sweat it. They did what they didand hoped they did it well enough to keep them from needing to look for honest work.

Charlie said, “We’re probably somewhere between Frank Zappa and Al Stewart.”

He’d said that before. Arguments came and went like tides, and almost as regularly. Rob sighed. “What’s wrong with this picture?” he asked, a rhetorical question if ever there was one. He answered it, too: “For one thing, most of the people who listen to us have never heard of Zappa or Al Stewart.”

“I think you’d be surprised,” Charlie said. “Al Stewart still gigs at places like this. Zappa would, I bet, only being dead makes it harder.”

“Maybe a little,” Rob agreed in tones he’d picked up from his father. In some ways, they were like water and sodium, and caught fire whenever they touched. In others-most of them ways Rob never thought about-they were very much alike.

“That’s what I said.” Charlie’s brown hair frizzed out in a perm that looked as if he’d stuck his finger in an electric socket. It bounced when he nodded, which he did now.