Small Town

She got to her feet, glided over there, planning her opening line, but he sensed her approach and turned. “Chloe was showing me around,” he said. “You looked completely engrossed in what you were doing. I didn’t have the heart to disturb you.”

“I think I’ll wait and let my bookkeeper work it out,” she said. “I keep adding it up and getting different totals every time.” She turned to Chloe and smiled, and Chloe got the message and found something else to do.

She showed him a couple of paintings, then took him to the back office. “That’s Chloe,” she said.

“I figured that out for myself,” he said. “And I don’t blame you a bit.”

“Even if she works for me?”

“Even if she works for the FBI.”

“She’s yummy, isn’t she? Would you like to fuck her?”

“It never entered my mind.”

“Because you probably could. The three of us together, or I could just wrap her up with a bow and send her to you for your birthday.”

“The gift that keeps on giving.”

“She’s got rings in her nipples, too. And big soft titties like bowls of cream.”

“You trying to get me hot?”

“Uh-huh. What brings you here, anyway? I’m supposed to come over tonight and tell you a story.”

“My turn first.”

“Your turn for what? Oh, to tell me a story? Did little Johnny get into mischief last night?”

“Never left the house. Worked all day, ordered a pizza, and worked some more.”

“Is there any leftover pizza?”

“Ate it for breakfast.”

“Greedy pig.”

“We can order more tonight.”

“No,” she said, “pizza’s like revenge, it’s better cold. What’s the story you’re going to tell me?”

“I’m not going to tell you anything. You have to read it yourself.”

“I don’t... you finished the book?”

“The first draft. I’ll have a couple of weeks of tinkering to do before I’m ready to show it to Roz. But you could read it now, if you wanted.”

“You’re sure you wouldn’t mind?”

“I’d like it,” he said. “In fact I couldn’t wait to find out if you wanted to, and that’s why I’m here. I don’t know if you’d want to close early—”

“Come on,” she said. “I’ll tell Chloe to lock up when she’s ready to go home. You and I are out of here.”

He set her up at the table with the manuscript and a cup of coffee. He’d run spell-check, but that didn’t work if the mistake was a word in its own right, and at first she circled typos in red pencil so he’d find them more easily. But that slowed her down, and she decided she’d catch them when she read it through a second time. For now she didn’t want anything to get in the way of the story.

And it was a good story, the protagonist richly human, like John but unlike him, the other characters sharply drawn, the prose and dialogue deceptively simple, transparent as glass. Early on she was overly conscious of who had written it, aware that she’d have to offer an opinion, and that kept her from getting as completely drawn into the story as she would have. But that changed, and everything else fell away, and there was nothing but the perfectly real world of Harry Brubaker.

She read for a couple of hours, until the letters started moving around on the page. She looked up, and he was on the couch with a magazine. She was a third of the way through, she told him, and she didn’t want to stop, but she thought she probably had to.

“It took months to write,” he said. “I shouldn’t expect you to read it at one sitting.”

“I want to, though. But I don’t want to skim. I want to read all the words. It’s wonderful, honey.”

“You really think so?”

“Oh, yes.” And she told him some of the things she liked, and his aura seemed to expand with each thing she said to him. At length he told her she’d better stop, that she wouldn’t be able to find enough good things to say about the rest of it.

“Anyway,” he said, “it’s your turn.”

“To what? To tell you a story? Gee, I don’t know. I’d feel self-conscious, little old me presuming to tell a story to a big old super storyteller like you.”

“Force yourself.”

“Well,” she said. “Okay, then.”

And she recounted the events of the previous evening. The first time she’d done this, telling him last Saturday what she’d done with Franny the night before, her excitement had been held somewhat in check by the fear that he’d turn jealous or spiteful. He’d liked her stories before, but now she was relating current history, and maybe he’d find that threatening.

But he hadn’t, and now she felt at ease, enjoying her own story and his interest in it. Then the phone rang, and he let the machine answer it, then moved quickly to take the call when he heard Maury Winters’s voice.

He picked up and said, “Hello, Maury?” Then he listened for a long moment and said, “No kidding.” And he mostly listened, interjecting other uninformative one- and two-word responses. It seemed like a good time to go to the bathroom, and when she got back he was off the phone and on his feet, standing at the bookcase with the little turquoise rabbit in his hand.

Suddenly she knew, but she waited for him to tell her.