Дэймон Найт: Orbit 8

“I’d rather have the seven hundred dollars myself than see it go to your company year after year.”

“That’s pretty shortsighted.”

“Are you really going to wear that suit to Maggie’s party?”

“Changing the subject?”

“Why not? You know what you think, and I know what I think, and they aren’t even within hailing distance of each other.”

Mary Louise wore a red velvet gown that was slit to her navel, molded just beneath her breasts by a silver chain, and almost completely bare in the back, clown to the curve of her buttocks. The silver chain cut into her tanned back, slightly. Crane stared at it.

“New?”

“Yes. I picked it up last week. Pretty?”

“Indecent. I didn’t know it was a formal thing tonight.”

“Not really. Optional anyway. Some of us decided to dress, that’s all.” She looked at him in the mirror and said, I really don’t care if you want to wear that suit.”

Wordlessly he turned and went back to the closet to find his dinner jacket and black trousers. How easy it would be, a flick of a chain latch, and she’d be stripped to her hips. Was she counting on someone’s noticing that? Evers maybe? Or Olivetti! Olivetti? What had he said? Something about women who wore red in public. Like passing out a dance card and pencil, the promise implicit in the gesture?

“Slut!” he said, through teeth so tightly pressed together that his jaws ached.

“What? I’m sorry.”

He looked up. The woman in the bus station was watching him across the aisle. She still looked quite cold.

“I am sorry,” she said softly. “I thought you spoke.”

“No.” He stuffed the policy back in his case and fastened it. “Are you warm enough?”

“Not really. The ticket agent wasn’t kidding when he said the thermostat lies. According to it, it’s seventy-four in here.”

Crane got up and looked at the thermostat. The adjustment control was gone. The station was abysmally cold. He walked back and forth for a few moments, then paused at the window. The white world, ebbing and growing, changing, changeless. “If I had a cup or something, I could bring in some snow and chill the thermostat. That might make the heat kick on.”

“Maybe in the rest room . . . “ He heard her move across the floor, but he didn’t turn to look. There was a pink glow now in the whiteness, like a fire in the distance, all but obscured by the intervening clouds of snow. He watched as it grew brighter, darker, almost red; then it went out. The woman returned and stood at his side.

“No cups, but I folded paper towels to make a funnel thing. Will it do?”

He took the funnel. It was sturdy enough, three thicknesses of brown, unabsorbent toweling. “Probably better than a cup,” he said. “Best stand behind the door. Every time it opens, that blizzard comes right on in.”

She nodded and moved away. When he opened the door the wind hit him hard, almost knocking him back into the room, wrenching the door from his hand. It swung wide open and hit the woman. Distantly he heard her gasp of surprise and pain. He reached out and scooped up a funnel full of snow and then pushed the door closed again. He was covered with snow. Breathless, he leaned against the wall. “Are you all right?” he asked after a few moments.

She was holding her left shoulder. “Yes. It caught me by surprise. No harm done. Did you get enough snow?”

He held up the funnel for her to see and then pushed himself away from the wall. Again he had the impression that there was no right side up in the small station. He held the back of one of the benches and moved along it. “The wind took my breath away,” he said.

“Or the intense cold. I think I read that breathing in the cold causes as many heart attacks as overexertion.”

“Well, it’s cold enough out there. About zero by now, I guess.” He scooped out some of the snow and held it against the thermostat. “The furnace must be behind this wall, or under this area. Feel how warm it is.”

She put her hand on the wall and nodded. “Maybe we can fasten the cup of snow up next to the termostat.” She looked around and then went to the bulletin board. She removed several of the notices and schedules there and brought him the thumbtacks. Crane spilled a little snow getting the tacks into the paper towel and then into the wall. In a few minutes there was a rumble as the furnace came on and almost immediately the station began to feel slightly warmer. Presently the woman took off her coat.

“Success,” she said, smiling.

“I was beginning to think it had been a mistake after all, not going to the diner.”

“So was I.”

“I think they are trying to get the snowplows going. I saw a red light a couple of minutes ago. It went out again, but at least someone’s trying.”

She didn’t reply, and after a moment he said, “I’m glad you don’t smoke. I gave it up a few months ago, and it would drive me mad to have to smell it through a night like this. Probably I’d go back to them.”

“I have some,” she said. “I even smoke once in a while. If you decide that you do want them . . . “

“No. No. I wasn’t hinting.”

“I just wish the lights were better in here. I could get in a whole night’s work. I often work at night.”

“So do I, but you’d put your eyes out. What-”

“That’s all right. What kind of work do I do? An illustrator for Slocum House Catalogue Company. Not very exciting, I’m afraid.”

“Oh, you’re an artist.”

“No. Illustrator. I wanted to become an artist, but . . . things didn’t work out that way.”

“I’d call you an artist. Maybe because I’m in awe of anyone who can draw, or paint, or do things like that. You’re all artists to me.”

She shrugged. “And you’re an insurance salesman.” lie stiffened and she got up, saying, “I saw the policy you were looking over, and the briefcase stuffed full of policies and company pamphlets and such. I knew an insurance salesman once.”

He realized that he had been about to ask where she was going, and he clamped his jaw again and turned so that he wouldn’t watch her go into the ladies’ room.

He went to the window. The wind was still at gale force, but so silent. With the door closed, the station seemed far removed from the storm, and looking at it was like watching something wholly unreal, manufactured to amuse him perhaps. There were storm windows, and the building was very sturdy and probably very well insulated. Now, with the furnace working, it was snug and secure. He cupped his hands about his eyes, trying to see past the reflections in the window, but there was nothing. Snow, a drift up to the sill now, and the wind-driven snow that was like a sheer curtain being waved from above, touching the windows, fluttering back, touching again, hiding everything behind it.

She was taking a long time. He should have gone when she left Now he had the awkward moment to face, of excusing himself or not, of timing it so that she wouldn’t think he was leaving deliberately in order to dodge something that one or the other said or hinted. She had done it so easily and naturally.-He envied people like her. Always so sure of themselves.

“Which face are you wearing tonight, Randy?” Mary Louise reached across the table and touched his cheek, then shook her head. “I can’t always tell. When you’re the successful salesman, you are so assured, so poised, charming, voluble even.”

“And the other times? What am I those times?”

“Afraid.”

Drawing back from her hand, tight and self-contained again, watchful, he said, “Isn’t it lucky that I can keep the two separated, then? How successful a salesman would I be if I put on the wrong face when I went to work?”