No. There were only two Christians left, Paul Osaka and Carmine Jones. The lions had joined the singing, to make it sound fuller.
“Corwin?” said Sam Imani, the host. “Oh, yes. He never had a chance to scream because he got thrown to the lions before ever being interrogated, and then one of them bit through his neck first thing.”
“He got up and said he was translating himself into Heaven,” Paul Osaka added. “I assumed he meant your scenario in the library.”
Carmine said, “Julie’s character got eaten just a few minutes later and she left for Heaven, too. Didn’t she?”
“Maybe the snack table,” suggested Curly Friedman, one of the converted lions.
So Angela tried the snack table. He wasn’t there, either, but Hoby McGruff was, getting himself another hot dog.
“Corwin!” Hoby exclaimed, slapping his forehead and getting a little mustard on it. “I forgot! I saw him with Julie in the hallway. He said to tell you he was going home early with a headache. I got the impression Julie was giving him a ride.”
“Oh,” said Angela. “Thank you.”
Well, if she was going out with Hank, she couldn’t very well blame Corwin for going out with Julie, could she? Except…wasn’t that the whole reason she had decided to date somebody else in the first place, just because Corwin was hitting it off so well with Julie?
And Angela had been so open and aboveboard with him about her decision to try dating somebody else. Why wasn’t he being as open and aboveboard with her about Julie?
Still, she only had his message at secondhand—“hearsay,” the courts called it. Maybe Hoby hadn’t remembered it exactly. Corwin might have said, “Tell Angela I’m going out with Julie.”
Or he might really have gone home with a headache, and let Julie drive him rather than pull Angela away from her game. Acting like a good, easy old friend. Not some kind of…of romance espionage agent.
* * * *
Julie was still sore from yesterday’s penances…didn’t spring back quite as quickly at twenty-seven as she had at twenty-two. It really was high time she found a replacement and went emeritus from active duty. We couldn’t all be Sam Imani’s. And if you married your prince, didn’t you owe it to him to keep yourself ever ready for love?
Date number two was nicely taken care of, anyway: pizza at Rivelino’s, Cary Grant double feature—“Guys and Dolls” followed by “Arsenic and Old Lace”—at Cineclassics, then sandwiches at the moviehouse’s own nostalgia-decorated coffee shop, where Julie ate cream cheese and watercress on whole-grain rye and watched Dave polish off a jumbo-sized ham and Swiss and a slice of peach pie half hidden under a generous dollop of whipped cream.
Oh, yes, she did like to see a healthy appetite in a man. Especially when he was her potential prince.
“Cary Grant really was beautiful, wasn’t he?” she remarked. “Suave and funny both at once. I can’t even imagine anyone else playing Sky Masterson in that movie.… You know, Dave, you remind me a little of Cary Grant.”
“My hair’s too light, I don’t have any cleft in my chin that I’m aware of, and I’m not even going to ask ‘in what other way.’ Too much like fishing for compliments. Just let me wonder.”
“And make up the compliments for yourself?” She grinned at him. “Your facial expressions, for one thing—and that’s all I’m going to tell you!”
He grinned back and swallowed a jumbo-sized bite of sandwich. “Y’know, the Old Woman—using that as a title of sincere respect, Sergeant Lestrade is my senior partner—she could never enjoy either one of those movies. If a show has anything at all to do with crime and/or lawkeepers, she just can’t take it as plain entertainment.”
“Yes, I think you mentioned that last week, that double date we had with Angela and Corwin.”
“Well…” Dave amended slightly, “I did catch her chuckling once at a Three Phunny Inspectors cartoon, so I guess maybe she doesn’t too much mind us pollies getting spoofed, as long as it can be done without laughing at crimes and criminals at the same time.”
“Not the easiest thing in the world to do. I see her point, though. Crime—real crime—surely isn’t anything to laugh at. But I’m very glad you can laugh with me, anyway, at such absurd not-for-real ‘crimes’ as in those two old movies we just saw.… There can’t be too many comedies and musicals left for her to enjoy. What about ‘The Wizard of Oz’? I can’t remember any actual crimes there…”
“Miss Gulch threatening to sic the sheriff on Toto—she hates to see law and lawkeepers misused like that. And, of course, the Wicked Witch tries to murder Dorothy and all her companions, and ends up getting murdered herself for her pains —”
“To be technical, I think we’d have to call that an accident, not murder.”
“I’d call it self-defense.” Having finished his sandwich, Dave lifted his pie plate into place and brandished his fork above it. “Anyway, even with all that, it’s one of the few screenshows she actually can enjoy. I’ve even heard her chuckle when the water hits the Wicked Witch of the West. I think maybe the Old Woman sees the Witch as a parody of herself.”
“Dave,” Julie asked suddenly, “do you see your Sergeant Lestrade as a mother figure?”
He thought about it while chewing and swallowing a bite of pie, and at last shook his head. “Nope. Definitely not a mother figure. A father figure, maybe…”
“Good.” Smiling at him, Julie reached across the table to scoop a double fingerful of peach goo out of his pie.
“Hey!” he protested jokingly. “Order your own.”
She shook her head and licked her forefinger. “Don’t want to stretch my girlish figure.” She licked her middle finger and reached for her napkin. “But I do love cooked fruit.” She folded the napkin around her hand and wiped carefully.
“Umm? You a jelly or a jam person?” Putting a whimsically protective wall around his pie with his left hand, he forked another, larger bite into his mouth.
“A jam person, given the choice. With nice, large chunks of fruit.”
“Strawberry, plum, or raspberry?”
“Oh, raspberry,” she replied. “I love to crunch the seeds.”
“Hey, so do I! I’ll bring you a jar or three—just stirred up a batch last week.”
“Wonderful! I shall live for the day. I like a man barefoot and panting in the kitchen.”
“I do a pretty fair chicken cacciatore,” he offered. “And a Hungarian goulash that has won rave reviews from certain knowing friends.”
“If that’s an invitation for next time at your place,” said Julie, “the answer is yes.”
“Friday night?”
“Fridays are tied up for me, remember?” She closed her eyes and considered. Angel duty for her again this Friday, thanks to what yesterday’s special session had done to the rotation; but if things continued calmer in town, there should only be the one regular session per week again. “I think I can make it Saturday night, unless something comes up.”
“Yeah,” he agreed without question. “I guess nurses have it pretty much like pollies that way, don’t they? All we can do is lay plans and hope nothing comes up to change them.”
“Both our worklines take flexibility,” she agreed, aiming a finger at the peach goo that still remained on his plate.
This time, grinning back at her, he laid his fork down and dabbled his finger alongside hers to mop up the last of the sweet stuff, gliding their fingers together as they did so.
* * * *
The days were already shorter than the nights. Not that it mattered that much. Now that the equinox was past and the country was back on Winter Clock, it would have been dark anyway by the time Angela left Sam’s, after—with great determination and resolution that ought to make her proud of herself—she had stayed for a quick game of Snapdragons and a last plateful from the remains of the refreshments table, unt
il she was one of the last people to leave.
She started out on the straightest way to Aunt Sally’s, which lay between her and the Marquette House. At Van Buren she suddenly turned left. At Fourth she resolutely turned and got back onto Riley Drive. At Carmichael she turned left again. And so on until she had bypassed Aunt Sally’s and found herself pulling up in front of the Marquette House, after all.
She parked her old tan “Mason jar”—only an auto as good as a Mason could have lasted this long in good working condition—and sat inside, going over and over things in her mind. There! Up there! Isn’t that a light on in his apartment? He could have just left it on to make it look like someone’s at home. Look here, Angela Garvey, what are you thinking? Friends since childhood gives you some sort of exclusive dibs on him? Something that lets you go out with other people and him, not? All the same, he could have looked in on our Topsyturvydom scenario long enough to tell me himself he was going out with her! Even if he really was just going straight home to nurse a headache, he could every bit as easily have told me that… Well, I suppose, if I can’t find out for sure, I may never get any sleep tonight. Twenty-one hundred hours already!
Finally, at 2110 hours, she got out of her car—just remembering to lock the door because, after all, it was only a week ago today that they had pulled poor Harry Jackson’s body out of the Vigo—and marched up the lawnwalk to the front door of the apartment building.
In ordinary times, the front door—the public door—was only locked between 2200 and 0600. Tonight she found it already locked. She thought for a minute, looked around for the row of chimer buttons, and tabbed the one labeled “Arnheim.”
He answered within two seconds. “Currently in residence.”
“Cory? It’s Angela.”
“Angela!” The front door snicked to “open” at once, and by the time she was through it, he was halfway down the stairs to meet her in the lobby.
“Looks as if that headache isn’t crippling you too terribly, Cory.”
“The headache? Ah, my headache! No, my preprandial perambulation homeward proved quite salubrious in that respect. It’s…Your concern gratifies me deeply.”
“You walked? They said you left with Julie.”
“They did? They garbled the message, then. But how…” He thought a moment. “Ah! We did egress Sam’s abode at the same time, but only coincidentally. She spoke of preparing for a keenly anticipated assignation with…with a gentleman who appears to have captivated her quite auspiciously.”
“Really? Julie? Oh, Cory, I’m…I’m sorry.”
He blinked. “Sorry? Why?… But perhaps I should confide in you the identity of the gentleman in question. Understanding his failure to…shall we say, enthrall?…you, Julie elected to essay her own date with Dave Clayton. This meets your approbation?”
“Cory, it wasn’t that I didn’t like Dave. Just not in any romantic way. For me, I think he’d be fine as a friend.”
“As a friend. Even as you and I?”
“Never ‘as you and I’—wherever that comes from, I know you’re quoting something, probably the Venerable Edgar.”
“Actually, on this occasion the citation originates in Kipling. Would I be fishing to solicit an explication of your rejoinder, ‘Never as you and I’?”
She chuckled. She couldn’t help it. “I think I could be plain friends with Dave, Cory. I’m sure he could never be ‘best friends’ with me. It takes years to become best friends.”
“I think I comprehend, and…feel honored beyond my merit. And you? Has success crowned your ambitions regarding the discretionary time of M. Hank Algood?”
“He’s taking me to the dress rehearsal of ‘Foggerty’s Fairy’ at Riley High this Wednesday. Cory…he’s offered to get us a pair of complimentary tickets for one of the regular performances.”
Corwin shut his eyes as if he were overcome with emotion. He’d always been good at that kind of play-acting. It was what made him such an excellent rolegamer. “Ecstasy!” he breathed. “Friday evening?”
“Copacetic.” She ventured to brush a kiss across his cheek.
He shut his eyes again, drew a deep breath, and suddenly exclaimed, “But you found the door locked! Here.” Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out his keyring and worked two keys off it, fumbling a little in his haste. “The key to the public front door…the key to Arnheim. Should you ever need a refuge, this house is available to you whether or not I myself am at home.”
“What about you?”
“I have duplicates in my possession.”
“But will you be able to get back into Arnheim tonight?”
“Affirmative. I believe I left my door on the latch but, even should it prove otherwise, that light above her door informs me that our admirable concierge, M. Florsheim, is immediately available on the premises. She has a skeleton key lending passe-partout to every apartment.”
“Why don’t you just run upstairs and check your door right away?”
“Because it is my duty and my privilege to escort you to your automobile.” He offered her his arm.
“All right, but only if I get to sit in it and watch till you’re safely back inside again.”
“So stipulated.”
The night was warm for late September, and the soft glow of the street lamps washed out fewer stars than the half moon did. Really, Forest Green seemed almost as safe as it always had, all these lingering precautions just a little bit overdone.
“It may behoove me to confess,” Corwin said as they reached her old Mason, “that Julie has in fact solicited a conference with me tomorrow, a late luncheon at the library coffee shop, on some matter as yet mysterious to me, but which she has guaranteed to be strictly platonic.”
Oh, thank you, Angela thought, thank you, thank you! You did tell me! Aloud, she said, “Cory, why should it make any difference, between best friends, whether she wants to be ‘strictly platonic’ or not?”
“…True. We are still at an age, are we not? you and I, where a certain degree of window-shopping remains appropriate behavior. Your car doors are locked?”
“This whole time.”
Nevertheless, he peered extravagantly through the windows, and even double-checked the back seat after she had unlocked her door, before finally allowing her to sit down and buckle herself into the driver’s seat. Last, he made sure all the doors were still or again locked.
She rolled the driver’s window down, unwilling to let the moment slide past quite so soon. “Cory, do you remember that day in fourth grade when you brought yourself to Show and Tell, announced that you were an ‘octoroon’ and if we took a time-travel bus back to the Antebellum South, you’d be liable to being sold as a slave?”
He chuckled. “And proceeded to strip to the waist, place myself on an imaginary auction block, and knock myself down for the remainder of the school day to the highest bidder.” Another chuckle. “Who eventually proved to be Ralph Abernathy. Does he return to your memory?”
“As a sort of a bully.”
“Something of an understatement. Albeit, with all his faults, not utterly lacking in generosity. An entire bagful of Smackworth’s mixed-flavor jelly beans he plunked down for me on the barrel head…and what hoops he put me through until my automatic manumission by the dulcet tones of the end-of-the-school-day chime! Why, twice or thrice, gleefully portraying Simon Legree, he even attempted demanding the return of his jelly beans!”
“Thank goodness you’d had the foresight to bank them with me.”
“I was somewhat astonished and more than a trifle disappointed that you had held yourself aloof from bidding on me, Angela.”
“I don’t think I had anything as grand as a whole bagful of Smackworth’s mixed-flavor jelly beans. Besides…I don’t know…it seemed a little wrong, somehow, to treat it all so lightly.”
“I was trebly blessed, then, in that y
ou condescended to serve as my banker, and partake of those jelly beans with me after the completion of the school day.”
“Of course, you were the only kid in class who knew what an ‘octoroon’ was. I think you even stumped M. Finestein.”
“Was that not the purpose of Show and Tell: to assist in the education of one’s peers? They may have been unacquainted with the word at the commencement of my little demonstration, but they comprehended it to denote familial pride in my Chocolate great-grandmother, born and bred though she was in Canada, and thus never in her life menaced with the auction block.” He sighed happily. “It is invigorating to be not entirely Vanilla, but marbled or swirled, as it were, with a richer flavor.”
“I’ve thought ever since that day that it must be where you got those wonderful, dark eyes of yours.”
“Whereas your eyes are wondrous blue, even as the deep sky of a spring day over the Painted Desert.”
“And yet I have an ‘octoroon’ of Cinnamon in me from a Native American great-grandfather. I think I could register with his Tribe, only it’s so far away, down in Oklahoma. I have a Native great-grandmother, too, though she was only a step-great grandmother, that great-grandfather’s second wife, and it was really a son by his first wife, his Vanilla wife, who helped eventually make me.”
“I feel less than persuaded that such connections count.”
“Have you ever traced your family heritage past great-grandparents?”
He shook his head. “Never subsequently to that fourth-grade assignment. What would be the purpose? Sixteen great-great-grands…a mere one-sixteenth of an individual’s genetic material from each…and which line to prioritize? And then, what further genealogical revelation could conceivably prove aught than anticlimax to the discovery of a pure Chocolate great-grandmother?”
“A real Spanish Inquisitor somewhere among your ancestors?”
“No, that blood would be far too diluted by now. In the ultimate analysis, we are what we are, each one of us, as they were what they were, each vital one of them, and life is for living each generation anew, rather than overemphasizing the lives of so many individuals connected with oneself more or less incidentally, and who approached their daily tribulations and celebrations with no prognosticatory sense of their descendents as definitive forms and faces.”
All But a Pleasure Page 9