Эд Макбейн - Last Summer

Mr. Porter calmly explained to David’s mother that yes, he had charged her for the extra carton of beer because upon checking further, he remembered something about the order but had not had a chance to call her back. What he remembered was that he’d had only three cartons of Heineken (David’s father’s brand) in stock when he’d gone to the refrigerator, which fact had caused him to write a memo to reorder, which memo was now in front of him, would David’s mother care to have him read it to her on the phone? Yes, David’s mother said. Very well, Mr. Porter said, Reorder Heineken Beer, and it’s dated Saturday, July the eighth, and right here in the corner are my wife’s initials, MJP for Mary Jane Porter, meaning she has already taken care of the reordering. So that’s how I know I gave you three cartons and not two , and that’s why I charged you for the extra one I sent over, which you may have noticed was Löwenbräu and not Heineken, because the Heineken still hasn’t come in yet. Thank you, David’s mother said, and hung up.

She then, naturally, called in the maid, whose name was Eudice, and asked her whether she remembered how many cartons of beer she’d put into the refrigerator last Saturday when the order came from Mr. Porter’s — was it two or three? Eudice, who was raised in North Carolina, and who had difficulty counting past the number five, examined her fingers and told David’s mother that she had put three cartons in the refrigerator, and then went on with amazing if not total recall to itemize the exact number of times David’s father had gone to the refrigerator for beer, as for example the two bottles he had drunk with the barbecued spare-ribs they’d had that Saturday night, and the one he’d had on Sunday afternoon after fixing the water pump, and the two he’d had with those funny clam things—

The marinated clams, David’s mother said.

— yes, on Sunday night, Eudice went on. As a matter of fact, she herself had been surprised last Monday, what with it raining so hard and all, to find only a carton and a little bit more of beer, instead of there being two cartons and a little bit more.

When did you discover this? David’s mother naturally asked.

It was just after your son left the house, Eudice the rat answered.

So that’s what was waiting for David when he stepped through the door after the day on Violet’s island. His father went through the outraged older party routine, the shame of learning that his own son was drinking behind his back, what other things was David doing that his father knew nothing about? Are you smoking, too? he asked, are you?

David denied drinking, he denied smoking, he almost denied breathing. If only you had asked , his mother said, we would have given you the beer (which was a bald-faced lie). But no, you had to steal it, oh David, I’m so ashamed of you, and so on, as if she had just cracked the Brinks robbery.

So they grounded him.

For three days.

The grounding was a full-dress one, too. He wasn’t permitted to leave the house, of course, but neither was he permitted to have friends there or to talk to them on the telephone. He was allowed only one phone call (as soon as he hung up, Sandy said to me, “Do you think we should get him a lawyer?”), which was how he managed to let us know what had happened. All in all, it looked as though a desolate few days lay ahead.

The first day was very difficult.

We had gone out to the point on Tuesday morning, searching for our cache of beer near the telephone pole with the aluminum strip marked 7-382 on it, and practically digging up half the beach until we remembered we’d buried it at the foot of 7-381. We unearthed two bottles and carried them into the tall beach grass because there were some other kids around, and also some adults playing volleyball without a net. Sandy took the bottle opener out of her bikini top, removed the Kleenex she had wrapped it in, opened both bottles, said, “Here’s to the prisoner of Zenda,” meaning David, winked, drank, and then reached into her canvas beach bag for what looked like a railroad timetable.

“Did you see this?” she asked, and handed it to me.

The brochure was perhaps eight inches long and three inches wide, folded in half lengthwise and then in half again. It was printed in blue ink. The headline read: INTRODUCING SELECTA-DATE.

“What is it?” I said.

“Read it.”

I read it quickly. The first page explained that this was a new scientific method of meeting people who were specifically suited to one’s own tastes and needs, all of it made possible through the modern miracle of electronic data processing. It went on to explain that the answers to this questionnaire (which comprised the remaining pages of the folder) would be fed into a computer programmed to discover “that perfect date who will complement your personality, your likes and dislikes, your outlooks and ideals, your physical tastes.”

“What do you think?” Sandy asked.

“What do you think?” I answered.

“I think we ought to screw up the machine,” Sandy said.

I’d noticed that a registration fee of ten dollars was required for each applicant, and I immediately wondered whether it was worth that much to screw up a machine. She saw my hesitancy and said, “What’s the matter?”

“It costs ten bucks to join,” I said.

“That’s only a little more than three dollars each,” Sandy said. “David’ll go along with it, don’t you think?”

“I don’t know.” I hesitated again. “I wish he was, here.”

“I do, too. Let’s fill it out, Peter. Just for fun. We don’t have to mail it in if we don’t want to.”

“Okay,” I said.

We sipped a little more beer. Sandy took a ballpoint pen from her beach bag, and propped the folder on a copy of McCall’s , which she supported with her knees. It was a very hot day. A fine sheen of sweat was on her chest above the bikini top. I thought fleetingly of that day she’d run into the water naked above the waist. Sandy immediately said, “What?”

“Nothing.”

“Peter,” she said warningly.

“I was thinking of the day you went in the water without your top,” I admitted.

“Oh, yeah,” she said, and grinned. “Some show, huh?”

“Well, I think it was,” I said, and shrugged.

“Shall we fill this thing out or not?” she said.

“Yeah, sure, let’s fill it out.”

The first question (as indeed the entire first page of questions) was multiple choice, the applicant being asked to circle his or her age bracket. Since the youngest bracket listed was 17–19, Sandy was clearly ineligible to begin with. But in order to screw up the machine, she circled the listing for 20–22. I was still thinking about that day, and was getting a little annoyed by her refusal to discuss it. We’d promised to tell the truth at all times, hadn’t we? So why had she just brushed me off? She went down the questionnaire now, reading the questions and the choices out loud, circling her height as 5′3″ to 5′5″, a good two inches less than her real height, and then describing herself as “of ample build.” She claimed to have a masters degree, black hair, and blue eyes — she did have blue eyes, of course. But she further claimed to be Oriental, and Jewish, and fluent in Chinese and Greek, and Republican in outlook.

She then came to a question that asked whether she considered herself Very Bright, Bright, or Averàge, and immediately circled Very Bright. Since I was annoyed, anyway, I coughed politely and looked up at the sky.

“I am, ” she said. “I have an IQ of 157.” She lowered her eyes. “I’m sorry, that sounds like boasting. Shall I cross it out and circle Bright instead?”