The Best from Fantasy & Science Fiction 8 - [Anthology]

by Edited by Alfred Bester

  Edith was not the sort of person who, realizing suddenly that she is on the wrong bus, immediately stands up and screams and reproaches the driver for taking her in the wrong direction, and insists upon being put off on a strange street corner at once. She was annoyed at herself for her mistake, but was not inclined to think that the bus company had deceived her. It was not vitally important, after all, for her to reach her girl friend’s house before lunch: she was in a strange section of town, and she knew she could easily get out of the bus, have her lunch in the first restaurant she came to, and then proceed in a leisurely manner. So, at the first stop, she got down from the bus and stood while it roared away, regarding her surroundings.

  Now at this point begins the series of events which might easily have been a dream of Edith’s except for its conclusion. For, as Edith stood on the corner, she knew first that she was in a part of town she had never seen before, and secondly that there was no landmark in sight, not even a sign saying RESTAURANT or COFFEE SHOPPE or EAT or DINER or LUNCHONETTE or FOUNTAIN: in other words, no place where a girl alone could ask for information about where she was without looking foolish. Then, with that enjoyable feeling of anonymity which comes when you are a little lost, with plenty of money in your pocket, and the secret feeling that you can always get home by calling for a taxi, Edith realized that for a little while anyway she had escaped the problem of her mother and Jerry, for the simple reason that neither of them could at present find her to remind her of it. The next thing that happened was her shocking discovery that she did not have any money after all. The change purse she had slipped into her pocket contained, instead of several one-dollar bills and a five—which she now recalled having spent for the hat she was wearing on her head at the moment—only four nickels and approximately seven pennies. Thus Edith, marooned.

  It seemed wise, at first, to retire to a secluded spot and wonder what to do. A bus back to the center of town? Then where was the bus stop? Edith craned her neck, but could not find a familiar sign. She fumbled in her pockets and at that moment found Granny’s list. Staring at it uncomprehendingly, thinking for a minute that it was a stray dollar bill in her pocket, Edith read: “Carnation. The sign. Blue cat. Telephone. Ring.”

  “What on earth?” said Edith out loud, and a child passing stopped, stared at her, and then said, “Huh?”

  “Nothing,” Edith said quickly. “Just an omen.”

  The child stared further, and went off looking back at her.

  Edith was intelligent enough to know that when she asked for an omen and got it the least she could do was obey it. Reading it again—she stopped, this time, to admire the queer, old-fashioned handwriting, so much like a voice from a sweet and simple past—it occurred to her that since her omen told her “carnation” a carnation was obviously indicated. Smiling at herself, although not with so much amusement as she might have felt if this omen had not arrived exactly on schedule, she started down the street, in the general direction of the center of town, looking for a carnation. At this time she made her first discovery about omens: that their requirements are usually much more difficult than they seem to be, and that fewer carnations were in evidence than one might suspect in early summer. For instance, a florist shop seemed a possible place to look, although it did seem rather like cheating until Edith, scrutinizing carefully the window display of a mangy-looking shop which advertised itself as a florist shop, found that there were no carnations. Roses, yes. Lilies, violets, ferns, horrid-looking daisies. But not carnations. Puzzled, Edith went on. There were paper flowers in the window of a funeral parlor, and they might as well have been carnations as anything else, but Edith thought that perhaps paper flowers were not allowed, particularly since a funeral parlor seemed no place for a self-respecting omen to lead her. Then, as she had begun to despair, and had gone about four blocks, someone said, “Pardon me, but are you Miss Murrain?”

  Edith turned; the words were addressed to her. Her mind did not take in the sense of them for a minute, because the man speaking to her was wearing a white, carnation in his buttonhole. Edith realized that the omen had said not “carnations” but “carnation” and she said, “I’m sorry?”

  “Are you Miss Murrain?” the man asked again, very politely.

  “No, I’m afraid not,” said Edith.

  “Are you sure?” said the man.

  “Yes,” said Edith.

  “Are you positive?’ said the man.

  Edith stared. “I am not the lady you are looking for,” she said as firmly as she could (Am I? she wondered suddenly.) “I’m sorry,” she added, when she saw that the man was troubled.

  “I wish you were,” he said, and sighed.

  “Don’t you know the lady?” Edith asked.

  He laughed. “Come and see,” he said. He took her politely by the arm and led her further down the block to where a group of people were standing around a store window. The store was a grocery, and this was apparently its grand opening day, for bright-colored flags draped the doorway, and signs saying free soda for the ladies stood upon the sidewalk. The crowd of people standing before the store window separated as Edith and her guide came up to the window.

  “See?” said Edith’s guide, and Edith’s mind registered “sign,” the second word on her omen.

  FIND MISS MURRAIN, the sign entreated. FIND HER, FIND HER, FIND HER. And, in smaller letters: “Somewhere in this neighorhood today, Murrain Brothers, fine groceries and delicatessen goods, have a lady friend who is walking alone, waiting for someone to come up to her and say: ‘Are you Miss Murrain?’ If you ask her this, she will answer: ‘Murrain Brothers are the finest grocers in town.’ If you find Miss Murrain and bring her to this store—Murrain Brothers, fine groceries and delicatessen goods—we will give you ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS in trade. Special Grand Opening Offer, today only.” And, at the bottom of the sign, in very small letters, were the words: “Special hint: Miss Murrain is wearing a hat the color of the bags in which Murrain Brothers pack their special coffee.”

  “Red,” said her guide, when he saw Edith lean forward to read the small letters on the bottom of the sign, “it means red, they pack their special coffee in red bags.”

  “I see,” said Edith, who was of course, wearing a red hat. She turned and smiled at her guide. “I wish I could help you,” she said.

  “So do I,” he said. They made their way out of the crowd again and stood on the sidewalk. “I could use a hundred dollars’ worth of groceries.”

  “If I see Miss Murrain I’ll try to catch her for you,” Edith said.

  “Catch her for yourself,” he said seriously. “They mean it about the groceries.” Abruptly he looked at his watch. “Good lord,” he said, “I’m late.”

  “By the way,” Edith said as he turned to go, “if you don’t mind my asking you, why are you wearing the carnation?”

  “That?” he said, looking down. “Oh, that. Oh, I’m getting married in ten minutes.” He was gone, hurrying madly off down the street.

  “Congratulations,” Edith said weakly after him. Bewildered, she stood for a minute. “Sign,” she told herself, “carnation, sign, sign, carnation, carnation, sign, sign, car—” Realizing that she was beginning to babble, she tightened her lips and reached into her pocket for the slip of paper.

  “Carnation,” it said. “The sign. Blue cat.”

  “Blue cat?” Edith frowned. “Blue cat? Blue cat? Blue cat?” She was babbling again. She set her shoulders firmly, and stepped positively out toward what she guessed was the nearest traffic artery to the center of town.

  “Excuse me, are you Miss Murrain?”

  She turned; it was a lady, and Edith was sorry for a minute that she was not Miss Murrain—the lady so obviously thought she had collared her hundred dollars’ worth of groceries, and she looked, moreover, as though a hundred dollars’ worth of groceries would not come at all amiss.

  “I’m sorry,” Edith said. “I wish I were,” she said.

  “You were wearing the hat, is wh
y I asked,” the woman said. She smiled politely, and walked on.

  If I go home now, Edith was thinking, Mother will be after me again about Jerry. If I go on wandering, sooner or later I will have to go back and then the whole problem will—

  “Are you Miss Murrain?”

  “Sorry, I’m not.”

  “Just thought I’d ask.”

  Or else, Edith thought, if I went back and told her once and for all—

  “You Miss Murrain?”

  “Sorry.”

  “You sure?”

  “Positive.”

  “O.K.”

  Probably the best way would be to put off deciding for a while yet, and maybe somehow—

  “It’s Miss Murrain! Are you Miss Murrain, hey?”

  “No, I’m sor-”

  “It’s Miss Murrain—hey, I caught her, it’s Miss Murrain!”

  Looking around, Edith saw with dismay that she was surrounded by a crowd of people. They were mostly women, housewives out doing their morning marketing, several pushing baby carriages, and there were a few men; all of them—men, women, children—staring at her and at the stout, red-faced woman who had her by the arm.

  “I got her, I got her!”

  “Look,” Edith said quietly to the red-faced woman, “I’m terribly sorry, but I’m not Miss Murrain. People have been asking me the same—”

  “Hundred bucks’ worth of groceries, golly!”

  Edith, trying to pull away, found that the red-faced woman had hold of her much as she would have held a rebellious child. “Please,” Edith said urgently, “believe me—”

  “George—Maggie—Earl—I got her, look, it’s me caught her, the girl with the groceries!”

  “Let me go,” Edith said, and pulled harder. “Listen,” she said, to the crowd, making her voice as reasonable as she could, “if I were this Miss Murrain, I would have had to say so, wouldn’t I? Because I’m really not.”

  “She’s trying to get away, Missus,” one of the men observed impartially. “If she goes, your groceries go with her.”

  “Look,” said the red-faced woman to Edith, shaking her. “You’re not going to get those groceries away from me, you understand?”

  “But I can’t get you any—” Common sense came back to Edith, and she relaxed and said reasonably, “why don’t you take me along to the grocery? They can tell you I’m the wrong person.”

  “Take her to the grocery.” The crowd took up the words; they began to move along down the block, and the red-faced woman marched in advance, almost dragging Edith, and shouting right and left, “I got her, I got her, I got the girl with the groceries.”

  The grocery was some two blocks away; they had gone only a block or so when they were met by a pack of children coming shrieking away from the grocery.

  “Miz Eaton got it,” they were howling, “Miz Eaton got all the groc’ries, Miz Eaton got the groc’ries, Miz Eaton found the girl with the red hat, Miz Eaton . . .”

  The red-faced woman holding Edith stopped, stared, took one deep breath, and then turned to look at Edith, her face, if possible, redder than before.

  “You mean to say,” she began, in a voice obviously restrained to make her imminent wrath the more terrible, “you mean to say you told me you were that girl and you aren’t?” She let go of Edith to put her hands on her hips and in that moment Edith, all dignity lost, turned and ran.

  She darted down a side street, thinking for a moment that the red-faced woman was after her, but in a minute, from the sound of voices going up the street she had left, she realized that the red-faced woman had gone on with her following to the grocery, probably to dispute the decision. Breathing fast, Edith slowed down to a walk and began to look out for a place where she could spend one of her nickels on a cup of coffee and a chance to catch her breath. Ahead, she saw a dingy sign that hung over the sidewalk: it read kitty’s lunch. Gratefully she hurried to it and, as she stepped inside, saw that Kitty had, with odd humor, chosen to adorn the window of Kitty’s Lunch with a large painted blue cat.

  “Blue cat,” said Edith to herself. “Kitty.”

  Not bothering to try to think any more, she went inside. Kitty’s Lunch was nothing more than a long counter with sugar bowls and catsup bottles set at intervals along it, and Kitty herself—presumably—enthroned in vast state on a folding chair at one end of the counter. Edith sat at one of the counter stools and Kitty roused herself much as though Edith had been a mouse, and moved slowly down the counter to serve her, although it did not actually seem possible for there to be enough space behind the counter for Kitty to pass.

  “Coffee,” said Edith as Kitty almost reached her. “Black coffee, please.”

  Kitty nodded, and looked Edith up and down.

  Edith tried to smile. “If you think I’m that Miss Murrain, I’m not,” she said. “They’ve already found her.”

  “I’m mighty glad they did,” Kitty said. “What is mismurrain?”

  “Never mind,” said Edith gratefully. “Do you know anything about omens?”

  “Omens,” said Kitty. “Mismurrain. No.”

  “Good,” said Edith. “If you did find an omen, would you follow it?”

  “I wouldn’t follow a rainbow for a pot of gold,” Kitty said obscurely.

  She went with dignity to fetch Edith’s coffee, which she set down before Edith with a queenly gesture.

  By now, Edith thought, it had become inevitable. After Kitty had gone back to her chair at the end of the counter Edith took the slip of paper out of her pocket and consulted it, although she already knew what it said. “Telephone,” she said softly to herself, and then more loudly to Kitty, “Telephone?”

  Kitty did not look up from her comic book, but gestured with a large thumb at the wall telephone at the end of the counter. It was not in a booth, it was not even remotely private from Kitty or from anyone else who might happen to come in, but the omen had been explicit so far, and Edith, two more of her precious nickels in her hand, hurried down to the end of the counter.

  She dialed the number from memory, and waited interminably until they answered.

  “Gambel’s Garage.”

  “Is Jerry there?” said Edith timidly.

  “Wait and I’ll see.” The voice echoed, far away. “Jerry? Jerrrrry? Lady onna phone.”

  After another deadly wait, during which Edith could hear her nickels washing away, he said, “Hello?”

  “Jerry?” she said. “This is Edith.”

  “Edith?” His voice sounded surprised. “Is something wrong?”

  “Jerry,” she said weakly. “I’m sorry about keeping you waiting. I mean, I know what to do now. I mean, I guess if you want me to I’ll marry you.”

  “Yeah?” She thought hopefully that he sounded rather more pleased than not. “Good,” he said, and then she realized that he had known all the time that someday she would call him like this and tell him.

  “Can you come and meet me?” she asked.

  “I’m off for lunch in ten minutes. Where?”

  “I’m in a blue cat,” she said. “I mean, what does it matter! I mean—Just a minute. Where am I?” she turned to ask Kitty. Kitty lifted her face and gave Edith one long look.

  “Corner of Flower Street and East Avenue,” she said. “How long’d it take you to make up your mind?”

  “Three years,” said Edith. “Corner of Flower Street and East Avenue,” she said to Jerry.

  “Right,” he said. “About twenty minutes, then. Who’s going to take care of your mother?”

  “She’ll have to take care of herself,” Edith said. “I need someone to take care of me.”

  “I’ll go along with that,” said Kitty from the background.

  “Right,” Jerry said.

  “And Jerry,” Edith said. “Listen, will you bring—I mean— the omen says—I mean, do you have—can you get—”

  “What?” said Jerry.

  “What?” said Kitty.

  “A ring,” said Edith helplessly.
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  “I’ve already got it,” Jerry said.

  “What’d he say?” inquired Kitty with interest.

  “He says he’s got it,” Edith told her.

  “What?” Jerry said.

  “Smart man,” Kitty said.

  “Goodby,” Edith said to Jerry, and listened smiling to his answer. Then she hung up, made a face at Kitty, and said, “I’m not going to tell you.”

  Kitty grinned. “Three years to make up your mind,” she said. “You must be crazy.”