Disint4
If Suzy accepted the offer and met the challenge, she would reach mid-level management at Midwest ten years before her colleagues the same age. She would have to return to Mammoth at once and, after a few weeks of preparation, move to Shanghai, where the company wanted to establish a Chinese affiliate. David had forgiven her for yielding to her boss's request for her address in Norway "just in case." Even if he forgave her for spoiling and curtailing a vacation for which both of them had felt an urgent need, how could their marriage survive her moving to China? Hardly could they take turns flying back and forth between Shanghai and Mammoth to spend weekends together! How could she expect him to abandon a job he liked to seek another one that would almost certainly suit him less in a country as foreign to him as any could be? Yet the offer upset him less than her, for he sympathized with her instead of complaining about the consequences for himself. This very generosity incited in her the fear that he wanted more freedom and saw an opportunity in the offer by Midwest. Torn between the alternatives, she clung to the negative one:
"I'm going to decline."
"You can't do that!"
"Why can't I?"
"They will hold it against you."
"I will get another job."
"The other employers will find out."
"Find out what?"
"That you care for your husband more than your career."
"There are other criteria."
"For a female applicant, reliability is second only to competence."
"You are trying to get rid of me!"
"Suzy!"
"How can I have a baby if I move to Shanghai?"
"People are having babies all the time in Shanghai."
"I can't do that to you."
"The worst you can do to me is to sacrifice your career for me."
"Why?"
"Because I won't be the husband you love any more. I will only be the one you sacrificed your career to."
"That sounds theoretical to me."
"It won't happen to you, it will happen to me."
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He finally convinced her that she had no choice and urged her to start packing.
"You have to catch the train to Oslo tomorrow."
"Aren't you coming with me?"
"I'm driving you to Lillehammer."
"You mean you aren't coming home with me?"
"You don't need me, Suzy. I will only be in the way. I will catch the plane next Sunday as we had planned.
She threw the clothes in her hand back in the drawer: "Me too!"
"If you don't show up in the office Wednesday morning, they will give the job to one of your rivals.
She gave him a tearful look: "I do need you, David."
"... I need you too, you know that, but, once you get to Mammoth, you will do better without me."
"... Why do you want to stay here?"
"I like it here. You don't and I was going to suggest that we leave when that letter came. Now you have a reason to leave, but I have one to stay. Don't worry: I will have supper ready for you when you come home from work next Monday."
"Oh David: what are we going to do about Shanghai?"
"I will get a job. American companies are in a great rush to do business over there."
"It won't be like the PS."
"I will learn a little Chinese. It will be fun."
Although Suzy had finished packing, she tried to keep David from taking her suitcase out to the car and they had a tug-of-war. She balked when he held the door for her to enter and again when he opened it at the station in Lillehammer. They had another tug-of-war when he started to take the suitcase up onto her wagon and, once he had put it up on the rack over her seat, she took it down and followed him rolling it behind her. They scuffled at the entrance as she tried to get off and he, to prevent her. The other passengers were trying to ignore them. Suzy struggled to get off until the automatic door shut between them and, through the window, the last glimpse they had of each other mirrored their consternation. At least, Mom and Dad had kissed and hugged when he took the train in Arthur! The anecdote haunted him all the way back to Utvik, a long, lonely, tiring trip. As soon as he came up the slope, Gretel ran out to tell him that Suzy had called twice trying to reach him. Shocked by her sudden departure, she urged him to call her back on her phone. As soon as she heard his voice, Suzy poured her desperation out in the privacy of her hotel room, while David, though deeply moved, labored to reassure her without raising his
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voice in the Sørensen's house. Yet their antagonistic desires didn't entirely eliminate a guilty satisfaction, with emancipation in his case and success in hers. The five days of their separation passed more quickly than they had expected and each felt less guilty about his satisfaction.
When she entered their apartment in Mammoth, she didn't rush to the phone, but took the time to unpack, put her things away and brew a pot of tea to sip while calling him comfortably curled up on the sofa. How relaxed they sounded to each other! When she called him "David" and he called her "Suzy," it sounded just as intimate, but more affectionate than passionate. After less than fifteen minutes with him, she called her boss, who hadn't expected to hear from her so soon, and discussed the new position with him for over twenty. On her request, he called a meeting for the next morning at eight, but she arrived a quarter of an hour ahead of time. Pleased with her impatience, he stressed the opportunity she had to serve the company and enhance her career. For the next three days, she spent ten hours at the office and a few more at home preparing for her new job. As David had promised, he was getting supper on Monday when she came home a half hour earlier than usual. They had a big hug, murmuring sweet things in each other's ear. Each was more eager to hear how the other had spent the last six days than to tell how he had spent them. When each took his turn, each moderated his tone and language for fear of hurting the other's feelings. She stressed the aspects of her new job that would accommodate him, such as her boss's offer (requested by her) to help him find a job in Shanghai. Little of what she said surprized him, while much of which he said astonished her. He had spent a lot of time with the Sørensens, who had introduced him to their daughter, her husband and two children, friends and neighbors. He had invited the Sørensens to lunch and they had complimented him on his skill in cooking with such limited resources. He had learned some Norwegian. Roaming in the car and on foot, he had found people friendlier because he could say a few things in their language.
"My absence must have helped," said Suzy.
Hesitating until then, he decided not to mention that he had returned to Mörkvatten, invited Birgit to lunch and persuaded her to speak a little Norwegian with him. Her efforts to seduce him had resulted in a conversation that had tickled them both, although she had to settle for compliments such as those he made on her diving skill.
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Grace called Siss to break the news and invite her to come to Mammoth and spend a few days with her so they could speak to the couple with one voice. The vacation in Norway had widened the gap instead of closing it as all four of them had hoped. The two mothers found David surprisingly nonchalant and Suzy atypically torn between guilt and ambition. Since scolding them would do more harm than good, they merely questioned them. Did he have any job offers for Shanghai? Yes, two so far. Would they be able to fly to Shanghai together? No, she would have to look for an apartment, while he managed the packing, moving and shipping of their household. Wouldn't her workload keep her from seeing much of him? No, her contract stipulated her right to four weekday evenings every week and three weekends every month.
Grace: "How long will it be before you have a baby?"
Suzy: "Two years."
Siss: "So you will have news for us one year and three months from now?"
David laughed: "If she has news for me, yes."
Grace: "If she doesn't, I'm going to tell her what I think in Chinese."
David: "I will be able to understand you by then.
Suzy was embarrassed, but not because the subject was off-color. Once the couple had settled in Shanghai, their mothers heard little more than reassurances from them. They insisted that they didn't have more to say because they were happy together.
Christy also worried Siss. In just one year, the adolescent had outgrown her contemporaries in height and weight, thus her size and shape no longer inspired affection but rather caution. Her shiny eyes and pursed lips had seemed cute; now, no longer. A sharpness of wit and a strident ring in her voice divided her interlocutors into sycophants and enemies. She enjoyed squelching disagreement, rebuking people she didn't like, humiliating opponents whom she knew were right when she was wrong. Her artistic talent and her Lesbianism provided her with invincible arguments against all who dared to oppose her, except her mother. Unmoved if not amused by pretensions that embarrassed Janet and intimidated Christy's contemporaries, Mom tactfully refuted them. She refused to deny her regret that her daughter was gay, which embittered Christy's resentment. What did she resent exactly? She was at a loss to say, but she felt as if she deserved her mother's admiration for being a Lesbian. Although they slept in the same house and had breakfast and supper together, they otherwise saw little of each other despite Mom's persistent efforts to improve the relations between them.
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On the few occasions, when she persuaded her to invite her friends to Five Sides, the duties and responsibility of mother-hostess made "a nervous wreck" of her, as she confessed to Janet who had volunteered to help. The fun Christy and her friends had at these parties consisted in chortling their contempt for everything they weren't, such as the two boys they brought with them, men in general, adults, straights and, implicitly Siss and Janet. Led, prompted and applauded or rebuked by Christy, they reserved their worst smiles for the two ladies who were trying to entertain them. Worst and not best because, despite a veneer of appreciation for their hospitality, these smiles conveyed an insolence justified by nothing better than youth and otherness. Our mid-teens advertised this superiority by the whiteness of their teeth and the pulpy relief of lips smeared with green, silver or black lipstick. Yet Christy wore no lipstick, whether she grudgingly followed her mother's example or spitefully recognized that she had outgrown her prettiness. For one of the same reasons, she wore no rings either, but her friends exhibited a variety of them in a variety of places. They cluttered their fingers with grotesque metal and plastic, and displayed other rings on their ears and other pierceable appendages such as noses, brows, lips, chins, cheeks, the flesh around the navel or others perhaps, who knows? One of the boys, who wore fewer rings on their fingers than their faces, had one on the tip of his tongue. Did it make him lisp or did it aggravate a lisp he already had? In any case, he had one, which he modulated to a sneer or a snarl. The girls' navel rings drew attention to the voluptuous flesh between bosom and buttocks. Already visible, the latter threatened to emerge further from their jeans or tights. One of them advertised "Sedge" over the left buttock and "Cromp" over the right one. Another girl had a tattoo of the sun on the skin above one of her buttocks, where it rose or set according to the amount of flesh exposed; another, an octopus with a few tentacles wrapped around her navel. Despite their efforts not to notice, it taunted Siss and Janet when the girl flexed her stomach muscles. Was she doing it on purpose or was it a habit? Less mobile tattoos appeared on midriffs, calves, upper arms, shoulders, necks and cheeks. One of the girls had a crew cut, another, a shaved head except for a few strands on the side which she had platted. With hair sticking up in greasy spikes, the boys' heads resembled floating mines.
The girls had evidently brought the boys with them to serve as targets for their contempt, yet some of their insults puzzled Siss and Janet:
"You are the exact opposite of spaghetti!"
Why didn't she tell him:
'You are just spaghetti'?
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After the guests had left, Siss cooked spaghetti on purpose for supper, to which she had invited Janet. When they saw the sticks soften and curl in the boiling water, they burst out laughing. The girls had exaggerated their disgust when they discovered Perseus:
"How ugly he is!"
"Instead of cutting a man's head off... "
The other girls laughed and the boys smirked. Sometimes an objection, sometimes a provocation and sometimes for no apparent reason, both sexes exclaimed "shit!" or "fuck!" The first few times, Siss started to intervene, then decided not to since Christy hadn't said it. Nor did Christy from then on, but Mom noticed that she smiled when the others did. Indeed Siss and Janet suspected that they were using this obscenity to see if they could shock the two ladies. Maybe they used it less often when alone. All white, they sabotaged the English they had learned from their parents by black locutions:
"You ain't seen nothing yet!"
"Who you fooling?"
These phrases sounded so much more convincing when Nelly said them. The way both girls and boys sat, stood, walked and turned their heads betrayed their bourgeois background. The obligation to thank their hostesses when they left embarrassed and annoyed them, much to Siss and Janet's amusement:
"It was really nice of you to have us."
"We had a wonderful time."
"What a nice party!"
Although Christy didn't participate in the petty show of emancipation, she orchestrated it. She asked questions, made comments and suggestions that took the conversation where she wanted it to go. None of her friends dared to oppose her or disagree with her, let alone take an independent course. Conserving her dignity, she used it to dominate them and reinforced this domination by distributing favor and blame to incite rivalry. She remarked that the girl with the sun on her buttock could encourage or discourage her admirers by making it rise or set, a divine privilege. Grinning, Sun Buttock squirmed with pleasure, until Christy added that these admirers would tire of mere light and warmth, since she couldn't whet their appetite. Octopussy both enticed and threatened men, who had no chance of survival if she caught them in her tentacles. Grinning at Sun Buttock, Octopussy squirmed with pleasure in turn. A minute or two later,
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however, Christy found her appeal too crude for discriminating men, who would certainly prefer Sun Buttock's. Octopussy's disappointment made her rival laugh, likewise the boys and the other girls except Christy. Octopussy took her humiliation out on the boys, whom she belittled as incapable of such desire and afraid of such a threat. The other girls shifted their derision from her to them. Although Christy didn't laugh with them, she beamed her satisfaction with the success of her manipulation. She laughed even less than she had when she was a cute little girl. She and her companions had their fun by tormenting inferiors in the hierarchy established by her. No sympathy, but rather respect for superiors and contempt for inferiors. Where did common interest end and sexual compatibility begin? Which ones were lovers, which ones were Christy's lovers?
Janet: "Octopussy is her favorite."
"Her favorite?" Siss was disgusted. "How can you tell?"
"She received more of her attention than the others."
"But she treated her worse."
"Sex is amoral, unlike friendship."
"I hope Octopussy isn't her friend."
"I doubt it. How could Christy be friendly with someone that vulgar?"
"Oh Doz, how could a daughter of ours make love without being in love?"
Janet was wiping a glass carefully.
However innocent, Janet's relations with Doz had alienated Siss during his life, but her relations with Christy had reconciled her completely. Mothering Christy brought them even closer together than managing Fossez and Chinski. Siss's failure to take initiatives and expand the business as Doz had worried Janet and Nelly. They reminded her that treating their employees with economic rigor eroded their dedication and zeal. Hadn't a more generous policy enabled both her father and her husband to succeed? Siss agreed, but her determination to preserve the company Fuss had founded and Doz had developed undermined her willingness to follow Janet and Nelly's advice. Every time she faced a decision, she hesitated between what Doz would have done and what she had to do to safeguard his achievements. Fossez's employment and compensation policy now resembled Treble's, so employees and job applicants were making comparisons in their negotiations with management. Several Fossez employees had even joined the IBLD. Although Siss recognized the danger, she was unable to overcome her conservatism. Even when she undertook an initiative recommended by Nelly or Janet, the least sign of failure alarmed her and she abandoned the project before she had allowed
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it enough time to succeed. Treble was expanding slowly but surely, while Fossez and Chinski continued to hold the same market share. What would happen in the next recession? Siss's very anxiety discouraged her from taking steps to survive it. For the time being, the company was prospering, a little more in good years and little less in bad.
One of her rare initiatives was successful, however, and even more than anyone had expected. As soon as Wren graduated from ZU, she hired her to replace the young man who had left. Wren mastered his duties and responsibilities more quickly than he had and soon began to learn those of Nelly, Janet and Siss. The employees liked and trusted her almost as much as Nelly. When she visited them on the job or spoke at a meeting, they responded with evident enthusiasm. Hadn't she been one of them? Didn't she know most of them? She understood them all the better because she had worked with them, indeed as hard and as well as any of them. Wasn't her background as humble as theirs? Somehow she combined congeniality with authority "like Doz used to." She was even young and good-looking! She wore the same kind of clothes they did, but they fit her better and damned if she didn't wear them better! They wished they had a daughter or a niece like her. Most of them saw the future of the company in her, a happy future. Although she didn't say so, Siss agreed wholeheartedly and subsidized her enrollment in the MSB program at ZUM. Even before she completed the course, Wren received offers that Siss couldn't match without raising her other management salaries including her own. Declining them politely, she assured Siss of her desire to continue working for Fossez and Chinski even before she heard Siss's offer, which was generous. Siss threw a company party in Zhu's to celebrate her diploma and her return to Fossez and Chinski. The restaurant could barely seat so many guests. A huge success, the party climaxed when Reg danced with Wren to enthusiastic applause.
Reg obtained a MSB from ZUM at the same time as Wren. Blake promoted him to vice president of Touchdown Sportswear, which, with thirteen stores in three states, millions of dollars in earnings and tens of millions in assets, had outgrown Fossez and Chinski. Blake had made one of the more lucrative offers received by Wren, more as a favor to her and Reg than a serious attempt to hire her. He had owed the success of his first ten years in business to his energy and ambition. His reputation as a defensive end on the ZU football team had merely enabled him to get his initial loan and attract a diminishing number of football fans who remembered him. Over
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twenty years later, when he first hired Reg for the summer, Touchdown Sportswear had begun to decline because it was too big to manage by himself and too small to compete with bigger ones muscling into his territory. Reg's passion for sports reignited his and his failure to excel in any of them, which had driven him to try others, had broadened Blake's perspective. At first, he had listened to his friend's son only out of respect for his father, but then he realized that an enthusiast twenty years his junior was unwittingly telling him what was wrong with his business. Instead of concentrating on football, basketball and baseball, why not give equivalent emphasis to tennis and golf, swimming and skiing, which would attract older customers who could only watch the big three? Why neglect recently invented sports that were attracting millions of young enthusiasts? Apparently the possibility of sitting or standing on things that rolled on hard surfaces, slid over water or snow, even sailed through the air were endless.
"How about motorcycle polo? snake wrestling?"
"Hey! No vehicles, no animals. We have to stay focused."
"kite fighting?"
"Kite fighting?"
"You can get kites to do things model airplanes can't."
"I never heard of kite fighting."
"Neither have I. I just thought of it."
The introduction of new sports exposed them to booms and busts, which they had to learn how to manage. They had to anticipate when a new sport was increasing in popularity enough to deserve investment or declining enough to require liquidation of stock. The losses rarely exceeded the earnings and Reg proved effective in selling the equipment. He impressed Blake by the ease with which he learned new sports and his skill in demonstrating them. Nor did Blake lose his patience with him for talking him into a venture that went badly wrong. How many evenings and Sundays did they spend experimenting with kite fighting? When the wind was blowing outside, their employees and customers noticed their distraction. As soon as they could get away in the evening, they rushed to Amos Fletcher Park, where kite flyers admired their zeal. The competition between them drove them to develop their skill, so sweet was victory, however ephemeral. They soon learned to fly different kinds of kites in dogfights that attracted the attention of spectators. Yet a problem foreseen by Blake pestered them from the beginning: how could they attack each other's kites without entangling the strings with which they controlled them? Tinkering with "the rules of engagement," they found that penalties for such
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entanglement usually resulted in arguments over who was responsible and sometimes bad humor. Loathe to abandon his pet project, however, Reg persuaded Blake to continue their experimentation until they thought they had succeeded in finding suitable kites, devising viable rules and developing tactics that allowed maximum aggressiveness with minimum entanglement.
Overcoming Blake's reluctance, Reg ordered fighting kites and brochures explaining the new sport with particular emphasis on the rules of engagement. Exciting displays appeared in the windows of their fifteen stores, each of which they visited to promote and demonstrate kite fighting. Are there any more eager customers than children with money in their parents' pockets? On the first day, customers mobbed the fifteen stores, sales mushroomed and money poured into the TSI accounts. On the second day, Blake approved Reg's request to rush reorder kites and brochures from their suppliers. Early in the morning of the third day, a cold front swept through the three states in which they were doing business and drew gusting, shifting winds in behind it. That afternoon, kite fighters swarmed over the parks in Mammoth (three stores), Mapleton (two), Concordia, Mountain Ridge and eight other cities and towns, inciting the curiosity of the media which had no more exciting news to cover. Typical of the entire region that day, the blue sky over Amos Fletcher Park teemed with kites in violent colors with bellicose decorations. They flapped like birds of prey, fluttered like killer butterflies, rippled like deep ocean monsters. Undaunted by the shifting gusts, the flyers struggled to get their kites into the air and keep them from spinning into a dive. No sooner had a kite stabilized than the flyer guided it towards the nearest potential adversary. The fiercer the combat, the worse the entanglement of the guide strings and the damage to the kites, which crashed. Reconciled by common disaster, the adversaries collaborated in disentangling the strings and they commiserated with each other over the damage to their kites. The flyers leaving the park with wrecked kites discouraged those approaching with kites ready for combat. On the fourth day, disgruntled customers began to return their kites, damaged or undamaged, and ask for a refund. Since more were coming every hour, Blake excepted fighting kites from the rule of only accepting merchandise in good condition for a refund. The sum of these refunds and the losses on the cut-rate sale of the kites in stock and still on order far exceeded the earnings. To stay in business, Blake had to get a loan which he needed several months to pay off.
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Mortified, Reg told Blake he was going to reimburse him for the loan no matter how long it took him to earn the money. Blake reminded him that he had helped him develop the project, let him realize it and approved his reorder. Rather than accept reimbursement for the loan, he would raise his salary as soon as the company had paid it off. No one knew whether a good idea would work until it worked. Most of Reg's proposals had been successful and Blake valued his contribution to the company. Hadn't Touchdown Sportswear been "going south"? Reg had "turned it around." Good friends already, they began to see even more of each other. They attended the most exciting sports events together, often inviting Wren and Janet for "a double date." Wren teased the other three by complaining of "all these jocks," "all you jocks" and "all my jocks." Janet enjoyed the joke.
Entering Reg's office one morning, Blake shook his keys:
"I want to show you something."
"Sure!"
After lowering the top to his silver BMW, Blake drove him to an elementary school he passed every morning on the way to work. The kids were coming out for recess:
"Watch the girls!"
Spreading out across the playground, the boys soon left the girls behind and some of them approached the convertible. The big white man and his black companion got out and came over. Giving his keys to one of them, Blake told him:
"Keep these for me! And if anything happens to my car, I'm going to eat you alive."
Astonished at first, they burst out laughing and ran to the car. The two men walked over to two teachers who were watching over the children. Blake explained that they were interested in the games little girls played. He had read that the sportswear industry neglected them. As soon as Reg heard that, he went over to some girls, two of whom were swinging two ropes in opposite directions while a third jumped over them. Flattered by his curiosity, they outdid themselves swinging the ropes and jumping faster and faster until the ropes finally caught the jumper's ankles. Admiring their skill, Reg watched a few minutes before asking if he could try. Delighted, they invited him to jump. At first, the ropes caught him in the head, so he told the swingers to move in closer. Although he had skipped rope in training for boxing, they caught one or both of his feet a few times and laughed. After a few minutes, however, he had learned to jump as the two ropes were swinging down on either side of him and they couldn't catch his feet any
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more. Then he took a turn swinging the ropes and, after tangling them a few times, mastered that skill as well. Soon a bell rang the end of recess and he found himself surrounded by enthusiastic little girls. Maybe Wren was right. They had argued over whether they were going to have a little boy or a little girl. He hadn't had the time to try any of the other games, such as hopscotch. Amused, the teachers encouraged him to come back and try them. Blake made an inspection tour of his BMW with the keeper of the keys and, unable to find the slightest scratch, gave him a quarter and his card.
"Do every job as well as that and you will drive a car like this one of these days."
"Wouldn't you like to have one like that?"
At first, Blake didn't understand. "You mean that kid?"
"Yeah! Little Blake."
Blake glanced at him suspiciously: "He might not turn out as well and I would have to put up with his mother."
"His mother would have to put up with you."
"Look! You and Wren have one and call me Uncle Blake. OK?"
Reg took his cell phone out and dialed: "Wren! The boss just told us to have a little boy and call him Uncle Blake."
"What if it turns out to be a little girl?"
Turning to Blake: "What if it turns out to be a little girl?"
It took him a while to digest the idea: "I couldn't romp with her, but she could sit on my lap."
"He says she could sit in his lap."
"How about paternity leave?"
"Hunh?"
"You don't think I'm going to do it all by myself?"
After a thoughtful pause, he looked at Blake: "How about paternity leave?"
"Paternity leave?"
"She says she isn't going to do it all by herself."
Blake hesitated.
Amused by the silence: "Tell him you are going to be as busy as I am."
"I am?... She says I'm going to be as busy as she is."
"Shit!"
"He said 'damn!'"
"I bet he said something worse."
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"Women!... There's no use in standing up to them, they always get around you... Like your old man. There were times when I was sure I was going to get him and I grabbed an armful of nothing."
"He says you try to grab women and all you get is a armful of nothing."
"What?"
"She says: 'what?'"
"OK, I give up. Tell her I will give you paternity leave if Siss gives her maternity leave."
"He will give me paternity leave if Mom gives you maternity leave."
"How much?"
"How much?"
Raising both hands off the wheel in exasperation: "This is like haggling with a god-damned union. If Siss gives her maternity leave, we will get together, all four of us, and see what happens."
The haggling would have continued if Wren didn't have an appointment.
Reg and Wren entered Mom's office.
"Well, both of you! It must be serious. Sit down and tell me... Why are you looking at each other?"
Reg: "We... I mean I... "
Wren: "No, we!"
After a puzzled silence: "Are you expecting?"
Reg: "No... "
Wren: "No, M'am."
"If only you would call me 'Mom.'"
Wren: "Yes M... Mom."
"If it isn't a baby... "
Reg: "Well, it is a baby, or at least it would be."
Another puzzled silence. Then, incredulous: "Whether it's all right to have one?"
Reg: "Come on, Mom!"
Wren: "Blake... "
Reg: "Blake said I could have paternity leave."
Wren: "And he's not even going to have the baby."
"Well, you don't think I'm going to let you have one without maternity leave, do you? ... Come here." Hugging her: "You are as skinny as I was. When we were going to have David, Doz wondered whether there was room for him. You have got to round out, Wren, at least as much as you had before you worried it off." Hugging Reg: "Make sure she eats enough, Reg... Oh Doz!"
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Having learned hopscotch, Reg investigated balls that little girls kicked, threw or sat on, but didn't bat, shoot baskets or throw passes with. The only Chinski who still had friendly relations with Christy, he persuaded her to enlist her harem in an experiment with croquet. Little boys thought it was sissy, he told her affecting contempt. The interest the girls took in the project nearly civilized them for a few weeks. They helped him organize a city-wide competition, to which every elementary and private school sent its best performers. The Little Lady Games had the wholehearted support of the mayor and many civic leaders. Reg impressed everyone, not only by planning, organizing and overseeing the project, but also by his leadership and speaking ability. The media, Channel Eight and The Vigilant took an interest in him. Peggy Rogunda invited him to appear on "The Best of Mapleton" with Wren and Siss. Blake nominated him for membership in the Tinhorn Impresario Kindergarten, which inducted him on the first Thursday after the Games. Equipment for little girls' games sold so well that earnings far surpassed the losses on kite fighting. Reg's friends were kidding him by calling him "the kite fighter." He felt as much at ease with business and civic leaders as his father had. Reminding them of Doz, he enjoyed almost as much popularity although he didn't wield as much influence.
By this time, Christy was a freshman in the ZU Art School; Jimmy, a junior in the Music School and Sabby, in her third year at the Medical School. Mom was alone in Five Sides except for frequent visits by Reg and Wren, Freddy and Allison, and Mark. Although she often encouraged Christy, Jimmy and Marsha, Sabby and Nathan to spend weekends with her, they seldom came. Sabby knew that her promiscuity troubled Mom, Jimmy was concentrating on preparation for a career and Christy didn't like her mother's company. Not only did Mom miss these three children, but she also regretted that they were avoiding each other although less than a mile separated them. Her frequent trips to Concordia, where she had a standing invitation to stay with Tom-Tom and Sherry, revealed that Jimmy disapproved of his sisters' promiscuity, which Sabby resented. Though friendly with each other, Sabby and Christy didn't have much in common. Nor did Christy and Jimmy. Mom wanted to restore happy relations between the three of them. One such attempt was disastrous despite the care and tact she devoted to it. She invited them to lunch one Saturday in the Forty-Niner Saloon, which she knew they liked. She also proposed that they attend Pentecost Tabernacle on Sunday morning and a recital that Jimmy was giving on Saturday afternoon. Since some of Christy's paintings were hanging in the student section of the ZU Art Museum, why not go and see
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them together Saturday morning? Mom also wanted to help Sabby and Nathan furnish their new apartment, which had a peculiar floor plan. If she saw it, she might be able to lend or give them what they needed. Strangely perplexed, Sabby thanked her but wondered whether she should accept such generosity. Mom couldn't get a yes or no from her. Christy was looking forward to showing them her paintings and Jimmy, to their attendance at his recital, but Marsha hesitated because of Candy, who might make some noise. Yet Mom knew that Marsha's neighbor, who had a child the same age, shared baby-sitting with her. Maybe Marsha didn't want to be seen with Sabby. Skip the recital or go without her? Mom hadn't decided a few days later when Christy called to decline the invitation she had already accepted because of a trip to Mammoth sponsored by the Art School. The pain of facing Mom and Jimmy had outweighed the pleasure of showing her paintings. All three children were reluctant about Pentecost Tabernacle, admitting that they had never gone before.
Despite these disappointments, Mom did have commitments from Sabby and Jimmy to have lunch with her at the Forty-Niner. She could try to mend the other fences during her next trip to Concordia. Since Christy wouldn't be there to show them her paintings, she decided to pay Marsha a surprise visit on Saturday morning. Marsha and Jimmy's marriage had taken a predictable and regrettable turn. On the rare occasions when they played together, she no longer charmed their audience by her youth and vivacity, which had suffered from childbirth. Ordinary listeners heard what musicians had known all along, that Jimmy had far more talent than she did. The acutest ears in the Music School and Ashrad Kobo in particular detected his efforts to compensate for her inferiority, which he himself realized only after Candace was born. Humiliated, Marsha asserted herself in vain attempts to restore her equality with him. What seemed like an injustice incited her to ask him to do this or that and especially when he was practicing. Exasperated, he fled to a practice room at the Music School, where he spent most of every day. He left after an early breakfast and returned for a late supper, while she had to juggle coursework with Candy, who had to spend too much time in a crèche. An unmentioned and unmentionable motive had aggravated the conflict. Marsha, whose parents chafed over Jimmy's color, suspected that it drew attention to him and away from her, thus inspiring indulgence and
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ensuring success. Not that she conceded the wisdom of her parents' objections to her marrying a black. On the contrary, she adored him. Yet her black sister-in-law's promiscuity and specialization in sexology threatened to confirm her parents in their prejudice. No more than a few hundred yards separated the buildings in which the two couples lived, but the younger one had found excuses to cut conversations short and decline invitations. The older one guessed their motive, resented it and avoided Jimmy and Marsha. Sabby recalled that Dad and Mom had not only taught them to respect unfamiliar manners, but also illustrated the lesson by their own example. Jimmy and Marsha resented the older couple's resentment, which they detected by audible and visual subtleties. Jimmy remembered that neither Dad nor Mom had ever been intimate with anyone else or ever advertised their sexuality. Virgins until they married, they had done so to have children and raise a family, for which everyone admired them. Jimmy and Marsha were trying to follow their example.
When Mom rang the doorbell, she had to wait a few minutes before Marsha opened the door. Marsha's surprise accentuated her negligent dress and spoiled appearance. Once Mom had soothed her embarrassment with affectionate words and a convincing hug, Marsha regretted:
"Jimmy isn't here, he's practicing at the Music School."
"I wanted to see you."
Even more surprised, but grateful, Marsha invited her to come in and sit down while she brewed some coffee. Candy entertained Gamma by demonstrating her toys. Unfortunately the child resembled her mother as she was now and not as she had been before her birth. Marsha's hair had straggled, her face had bloated, her figure had thickened and disappointment had discouraged her vivacity. Her eyes and mouth suggested an unrelenting fear of worse. Though less than disgraceful, the disorder of her apartment exceeded the results of Candy's play. Gamma hated this nickname, but she hadn't dared to say anything yet. After small talk with and about the child, she told her daughter-in-law: "Marsha!"
"Yes, M'am."
"Stop M'aming and Mrs. Chinskiing me! I finally broke Wren of that habit. Now it's your turn: call me 'Mom.'"
"Yes, M... I mean 'Mom'."
"Say it again so you won't forget!"
"Mom!" She slid across the sofa and kissed her on the cheek.
Putting her arm around her: "Since we are talking about nicknames..."
"You don't like Candy, you make a face every time we say it."
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"A face? I didn't even realize it, I was trying not to."
"You think it's silly."
"Yes, I do and I'm afraid her friends will tease her. If everybody starts calling her 'Candy', she will never be able to get rid of it. I don't know why my parents decided to call me 'Siss.' Everybody thought it was because I had brothers."
"All right. I will tell Jimmy. [Nervous laugh:] he usually listens when it's about Can... Candace. But what should we call her? Candace sounds terribly ceremonious. Andy sounds like a boy. Dacy would be even sillier than Candy. Ace... !"
"How about Ann? or Anny?"
Enthusiastic: "Why not Anny now and Ann later on?"
"Yes, why not? Do you think Jimmy will agree?"
"I'm sure he will."
"... You realize I wanted to see you alone because of him?"
"... Yes, I guess I did. I'm as crazy about him as ever, but he's crazy about music. He still cares for me and Anny, but... I'm not as good as he is, we don't play together much any more and I miss that. It's really hard learning music and taking care of a little girl at the same time... Don't worry, Mom, we will stick it out and, once we get permanent employment, we will do all right."
"I wasn't sure of that until I heard you say it. If you need any help, including money, you know who to ask. Don't waste any time."
"You are already pretty generous and my parents match what you give us. We are doing fine."
"Do you mind if we talk about Sabby and Nathan a little bit?"
"Of course not. Especially before lunch. I'm glad you are going to be there."
"I suppose Sabby worries you as much as she worries me, but she is my daughter and your sister-in-law. She is honest, faithful and affectionate. We can't stop her from being what she is and doing what she does. What we can do is have cordial relations with her and Nathan."
"I'm all for it as long as she forgets that other stuff while she's with us. Jimmy will be harder to convince, but I can do it. I will talk to him as soon as he comes home to dress for lunch. We get along best when we have a problem with other people and not each other."
Lunch began happily enough since attention focused on Jimmy and Marsha's little girl, who behaved provided Gamma sat next to her highchair. Deciding what to order and ordering it inspired harmless conversation and
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even a few jokes, but the tension in their voices excited Anny. While they were waiting for the waitress to bring them their food, Sabby shivered. Nathan jumped up and rushed out to their car to get her cardigan. Shaking with anger, Mom glared at her; shocked and mystified, Sabby stared back. After a tense silence, Jimmy intervened:
"Hey, Mom: what's wrong? Dad used to get things for you."
She didn't even seem to hear at first. Then, without diverting her eyes from Sabby, she croaked: "I never treated your father like a slave."
A longer silence. Marsha tried to hide her embarrassment by feeding Anny. Half the minced carrots entered her mouth, while the other half stuck on her lips as she watched Gamma.
Sabby made a visible effort to overcome her pride: "I'm sorry, Mom!"
But this apology didn't satisfy her, so Sabby pushed her chair back, scraping it noisily on the floor, got up and rushed to meet Nathan at the entrance. As he helped her into her cardigan, she explained what had happened, then they returned to the table.
"I hope you told him," croaked Mom.
Sabby turned to Nathan: "I'm sorry, Nathan! I should have gotten it myself."
The other diners were pretending not to notice. When the couple sat down, Anny cried "unh nah!" spewing minced carrots over the table. Wiping up the mess, Martha explained:
"That's how Candy says Unc Nat... I mean... "
"Was Sabby as cute as Candy when she was sitting in a highchair?" asked Nathan.
Mom was shaking with anger: "Lots of little girls are cute, but they don't all stay cute the rest of their lives. What if we had called Sabby Sab? People who don't know her might think her name was Sap. Parents should be careful how they name their children."
Jimmy: "Don't worry, Mom. We will call her Candace from now on."
Marsha was distressed.
"I'm glad you didn't call me Sap," said Sabby.
From then on, they clung to trivial subjects for fear of aggravating Mom's anger and yet this very precaution did aggravate it. Her atypical outburst had surprised her as much as the others. The tension distracted her, Sabby and Nathan from her offer to help them furnish their new apartment, which all three forgot. All five adults were anxious to get lunch over with and separate before another outburst could occur. Jimmy and Sabby hadn’t had any opportunity to make peace. Anny unintentionally provided Marsha and
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Jimmy with an excuse to leave. When noses began to twitch, they regretted that they would have to take her home. All of them knew that both rest rooms had diaper changing equipment, but no one mentioned it. Sabby and Nathan took advantage of the opportunity to leave too and, while thanking Mom, neither they nor she said anything about seeing each other again that weekend. As soon as they had separated, however, Mom felt guilty over scolding Sabby. How could Sabby have helped shivering? Nathan had left before she had had a chance to stop him. Mom had ruined her chances to reconcile the two couples with each other and improve her relations with Sabby. She decided to see Christy’s paintings, but the scene she had made kept her from concentrating on them. Why not simply go to their apartment, explain that she had forgotten the furniture problem and offer to take a look? If they were at home, a visit on Saturday afternoon would probably not interfere with their studies. It would be an opportunity to let Sabby know she was sorry.
Of the four couples formed by her children, Siss found Sabby and Nathan hardest to accept and understand. Though gentle and kind, Sabby gave Nathan little encouragement and inflicted humiliations on him that other men wouldn’t have stood for. He had to share her with rivals who often had contempt for him, although they obeyed her as meekly as he did and envied the favor he enjoyed. If they scorned or ridiculed him, she humiliated them with a tongue lashing. Her power over men was impossible to explain. In Nathan, however, she only enslaved the lover and not the companion with whom she lived, sharing the duties and responsibilities of a couple. In a supermarket, for instance, they resembled other young couples except that he was white and she was black. He pushed the cart and she took him to the shelf displaying the next item on the list, which they had compiled together. Eager to agree on needs, wishes and choices, they discussed prices, freshness, ingredients, recipes, taste, etc. before deciding. Though tempted by her bosom, seducers kept their distance on the conviction that the man at her side had exclusive access to it. As long as no emotion embellished her face, they saw no evidence of the appetite that no one lover could satisfy. When alone, she humiliated the cleverest and most determined predators by her scorn. All witnesses sided with her. Reserving the choice of her lovers for herself, she judged all candidates by the criteria she valued in Nathan: not only sexual ardor, but also honesty, sincerity, modesty, discretion and refinement. Although she shared Nathan’s ambition to have children together, she postponed pregnancy and motherhood until a time when they would no longer curtail her appetite and
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ambition. When she decided to specialize in sexology, he imitated her and they agreed to practice together. Her selective promiscuity had always distressed her mother, this professional orientation scared her.
Once Mom rang their doorbell, she had to wait so long she assumed they weren’t at home. She was turning to leave when Sabby opened it.
“Mom!”
“We forgot to talk about furnishing your apartment.”
“Oh!... ”
“You said your living room had an odd floor plan.”
“If I show it to you, you won’t like our decorations.”
“Are they... erotic?”
“Yes. Not pornographic.”
“So the Marquis de Sade wouldn’t be satisfied?”
“No, he wouldn’t. We tried to read Justine. Nathan gave up after fifty pages. I only managed seventy-five.”
“And you are both specializing in sexology!”
“Sade would have failed the introductory course.”
"You are treating me like a door-to-door salesman.”
“I don’t want to upset you.”
“I am not a fuddy-duddy!”
“... Promise you won’t be upset.”
Mom laughed, so Sabby let her in. The front door opened directly on the living room, where photographs on the walls made her scream. Covering her eyes with her hands, she dropped to her knees, moaning and swaying. Oversized images of copulating male and female bodies wouldn’t have had this effect, but the ecstatic faces of Sabby, Nathan and other men did. Since the couple had expected outrage and protest, her reaction disconcerted them. After desperate glances at each other, each put a hand on one of her shoulders and stooped beside her, mumbling questions of need and offers of help. Clapping her hands over her ears, she shook her head violently. Then she stood up, ran to the front door and fumbled with the latch. Jerking the door open, she ran down the stairs and out into the parking lot. They ran after her, anxious to reason with her and unable to speak. She jerked the door open, dropped into the seat, slammed the door, yanked the seatbelt across and tried to jam the end into the slot beside her, but it wouldn’t go because her hand was shaking. Releasing the belt, she took her key out of her pocket, stuck it into the slot and turned it. The motor started and, before driving away, she gave them a look they would never forget.
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Stunned, Sabby and Nathan watched the car go out of sight. Then they ran up to their apartment and she rang Mom on her cell phone, but Mom’s voice invited her to leave a message. What could she say? Since Mom had insisted on seeing their apartment, how could she apologize for letting her or for decorating it as she had intended (despite Nathan’s objections!)? She started sentences she couldn’t end, confessed without knowing what she was guilty of and pleaded without knowing what to ask for. She knew Tom-Tom and Sherry had invited Mom to spend the night with them, so she called them. No, she hadn’t returned, Sherry said, but they hadn’t expected her until later. Had something happened? Sabby admitted that the decorations in her and Nathan’s apartment had shocked her mother so badly that she left at once without saying where she was going. After hesitating, Sabby decided not to call Jimmy and Marsha, but who could she call? She had to find Mom, reassure her, reconcile her. After Dad, losing her was unthinkable. But who could she call? Maybe Reg could help. Wren answered and she was so happy to hear from her sister-in-law that Sabby blurted the whole business out. Blaming herself, she choked on her tears and regretted her contempt for women who blubbered.
“I know, Sabby, I know! You don’t have to tell me! You called the right number. I’m going to get Reg and we are going to find Mom."
“I wanted to drive into a tree, Doz. I would have if I had found one big enough beside the road, like the one you climbed to get that cat and bring him down. But I couldn’t [sob] find one [sob] what a crybaby I am!”
“No you aren’t, Siss. Even football players cry. Blake cried after he caught the pass Tom-Tom deflected and forgot to run with it... I’m glad you didn’t drive into a tree, your premium would have gone up.”
“My premium? What would I need insurance for? Your joke isn’t funny!”
“Ha! Ha! Ha! Even if you had found a nice tree, you wouldn’t have driven into it, you don’t give up that easily. You would have remembered that our children need you, and Sabby even more than the others. She has committed to a dangerous career. It’s like walking in space: what if her tether comes loose or snaps? Nothing you can tell her, nothing I could have told her would dissuade her, she’s as stubborn as you are. You don’t love your children because they resemble you or do what you want them to, you love them because they are your children. Maybe you love them even more when they don’t resemble you or do what you don't want them to.”
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“Doz, I wonder if death hasn’t made an idealist of you! Don’t you see that she’s not just exposing herself and Nathan, she's exposing the rest of us too? It’s all the more dangerous because she’s doing it innocently, unintentionally. She’s alienating Jimmy and Marsha and causing friction between them. She loves her family as much as any of our children, but she’s dividing it.”
“That’s why you didn’t drive into a tree, Siss. Only you can keep us together. Why don’t you ask Sabby and Nathan to take Anny to the nursery or bring her home when Jimmy and Marsha have other things to do?”
“... They were taken with Anny at lunch.”
“It would be a good start.”
"All right, I will do it... Doz, I had a nightmare a few days ago. A section of Five Sides came crashing down in a cloud of dust. The termites had already moved on to another section when I woke up... You weren’t there to wake me up.”
“Yes I was, Siss! I was right there beside you. Didn’t I wake you up? Didn’t you realize it was just a nightmare?”
“... Yes, of course you did! But was it just a nightmare this time?”
“Anxiety causes nightmares. They don’t predict anything unless your fears come true. You have to dissuade Sabby from isolating herself from the family. You have to reconcile her with Jimmy and Marsha. You can do it, Siss. It will take persistence, patience and tact. I bet she’s trying to reach you right now. See if there’s a message on your cell phone.”
Turning to take it out of her purse, she noticed Reg and Wren watching her anxiously from a discreet distance. They couldn’t have heard what she was saying, but they certainly saw that she was talking. Who could she have been talking to if it weren’t a few bones salvaged from the hulk of Doz’s car? Before his death, they had agreed that there was no afterlife. Now she not only believed in the survival of his spirit, but she also spoke with him whenever she wished. Hadn’t he waked her up in the middle of a nightmare just as he used to? How could he have done that if he weren’t alive? Since the son and daughter-in-law closest to her had discovered her secret, she certainly had to admit it to herself. For a while they looked at each other without knowing what to do or say. Finally Wren ran up to her, threw her arms around her and hugged her so tightly that she dropped her purse. Reg followed her and hugged them both. Then he let go, picked her purse up and handed it to her. Mom took her cell phone out and they moved away, but she motioned them back.
“Sabby?”
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Reg and Wren moved closer so that all three heads touched. Sabby and Nathan had already torn the photos down and burned them in an outdoor fireplace. Thanking them, Mom asked them if they could take Anny to the nursery in the morning and bring her home in the evening when they had the time and Jimmy and Marsha didn’t.
“Your father proposed it.”
“He proposed it?”
“Yes, I just spoke to him.”
“... All right, I will call them right away.”
“No, let me call them. I will call you back.”
Though startled and reluctant at first, Marsha relented when Mom told her that her father-in-law had made the proposal. No less persuaded than puzzled by this mysterious source, she responded with gratitude and enthusiasm. Thus affection for Anny restored relations between the two couples even though it removed none of the conflicts between them.
A few months later, Wren was pregnant and everyone was delighted.
Mom received an edition of the AAMSE newsletter, which promoted a tour of China by members. The rapid development of the moving and storing industry in that country offered American movers potentially lucrative opportunities. Siss took a greater interest, however, in the three days the group would spend in Shanghai. The tour would allow her to visit David and Suzy without imposing the obligation on them that she would have if she made the trip only to see them. David had been calling her every weekend and Suzy usually joined them on another phone. Both liked their jobs, but Suzy’s preoccupied her entirely, while David was more interested in China and the Chinese. She was doing nearly all of her business in English with Americans and English-speaking Chinese, while he was devoting most of his leisure to learning Chinese and speaking it with Chinese who knew little or no English. Suzy admired the ease with which he assimilated the language, made friends and explored the culture. Only David could have convinced the Postal Service that it needed an agent in Shanghai, that the benefits would exceed the liabilities and that he was the man for the job.
“I married a hell of a salesman!” bragged Suzy, “
“I have to listen to Chinese music before she comes home or she burns stuff in the oven or drops dishes in the sink.”
They were still making the kind of compromises that marriages survive on and spending the same amount of time together as they had in Mammoth. Other remarks revealed, however, that, while they continued to agree on alternating between her professional acquaintances and his personal friends, she still
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failed to keep her promise and he tolerated it. Their compatibility had neither decreased nor increased. Mom held the story about Wren and Reg asking for maternity and paternity leave back until she thought Suzy and David would laugh. Yet they didn’t.
“... I’m so glad for them. I hope Wren has a healthy pregnancy and an easy delivery. I hope it won’t interfere with her career.”
“Congratulate them for us, Mom! congratulations to you too!”
Suzy wasn’t going to keep her promise to have a baby any more than the one to invite his friends. How long would David continue to put up with that? When he called Mom the next weekend, she didn’t hear Suzy on the other phone.
“Suzy’s not back yet,” he explained, “but I thought I had better go ahead and call.”
Mom wondered whether they had agreed to meet on Sunday to call her so she wouldn’t suspect them of spending too little time together. Grace, whom they also called on weekends, shared her suspicion.
The couple’s embarrassment over Wren’s pregnancy made Mom hesitate to take the AAMSE tour. Since the deadline for a down payment was approaching, however, she decided to see how they would react to the possibility of her taking a tour of China. When she told them, they had nothing to say at first, not even when she mentioned the three days in Shanghai. She was trying to think of an excuse not to go when both of them encouraged her:
David: “That would be great, Mom!”
Suzy: “What a wonderful opportunity!”
“We could get together.”
“You will have some free time, won’t you?”
“We could show you some things not included on your tour.”
“You could have meals with us in our apartment. You could stay with us. We have a guest room.”
“Thanks, that’s kind of you. I haven’t made up my mind yet. I don’t know whether the tour will help business as much as staying home and taking care of it. Besides, it will be tiring”
“Are you all right, Mom?”
“Of course! Don’t worry about me!... It would be nice to see you both. I will have to think about it. I will let you know.”
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She had to think fast because she only had a few days before the deadline. Calling Grace, she wondered whether both of them wouldn’t have more success than if she went alone. Grace would have loved to go with her and see China again after so many years, but both of them together would overemphasize their concern. If Siss visited them alone while on tour, she would have more effective influence over the couple.
“Then you think I ought to take the tour?”
“Yes, definitely, unless it hurts your business. You will be doing me a huge favor. Maybe you and I could take a trip to China some other time. Reginald would probably like to come too.”
So Siss took the tour. Her fellow movers, their spouses and companions befriended her, especially those who had known Doz. To her surprise, they and their Chinese hosts were making proposals that would enhance business. They kept her busy noting names, addresses and comments on her laptop, sending wi-fi messages to Janet, Nelly and Wren. The speeches and discussions engrossed and enlightened her despite jetlag. When the tour came to Shanghai, she had to skip some of the events on the schedule that she would have liked to participate in to see David and Suzy. She reserved an evening for dinner with them and a morning to see what they wanted to show her. Both of them complained about seeing so little of her, but he more sincerely than she. Remarks intended to reassure her did just the opposite. Saving Sundays for each other implied spending Saturdays separately, an implication confirmed by remarks about what he did or didn’t do and what she did or didn’t do on that day. David’s indulgent irony over Suzy’s promises to devote her Sundays to him suggested that she kept them no more than the others. Allusions to the lunch they were supposed to have once a week together not only revealed that they didn’t have more than that, often shared it with others and even sometimes failed to have it. Yet the enthusiasm with which they often agreed, the exuberance with which they teased each other, the spontaneity with which they threw an arm around each other and elbowed each other in the ribs made Mom wonder why they spent so little time together. If David died in an accident, would Suzy find the time to attend the funeral? If Suzy slept with another man, would David react with the same indulgent irony? Ten times, Mom was tempted to ask such questions but didn’t because she was afraid they would separate them even more.
“Don’t you ever fight with each other?” she finally asked.
Silent at first, they burst out laughing.
Him: “We had a pillow fight this morning.”
Her: “His pillow burst and there were feathers all over the bed.”
“... Then you sleep in the same one?”
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Another silence, then another laugh.
“You ought to hear her snore! She sounds like one of those steam engines in black and white movies.”
“He’s always kicking, kneeing, elbowing. You would think I was a punching bag.”
“She thinks I’m a tree. She keeps climbing on me.”
“What? You are making that up!”
They were having so much fun that they forgot the witness. Suddenly remembering her, they were embarrassed, but Mom was enjoying it:
“How did the pillow fight start?”
They had forgotten, but then David remembered:
“It was seven o’clock and she didn’t want to get up.”
“That’s the only way I can get breakfast in bed.”
They were having too much fun in bed to forget each other: Grace and Doz were glad to hear it.