“Hey, kid. Tough day?”
“They’re making me crazy, Grandma.”
“Course they are, semester break’s almost here, they’re just getting in a couple more late hits.”
“Somebody up the block waving at you,” Maxine sez.
“Damn, it’s Ofelia already? The car must be early. Well, my good lad, it’s been short but meaningful. Oh and here, I almost forgot.” Handing over two or three Pokémon cards.
“Gengar! Japanese Psyduck?”
“These I’m told you can only get out of machines in selected arcades in Tokyo. I may have a connection, stay tuned.”
“Awesome, Grandma, thank you.” Another hug and he’s off. Watching him run to where Ofelia is now waiting, March goes a little telephoto with her gaze. “That happy Ice couple, I’m tellin ya, either they’re still not on to me or they’re doin a great impression of stupid. Either way somebody’s told Gunther to get here sooner.”
“Nice kid, there, for a Pokémaniac.”
“I can only pray Tallis didn’t get any neat-freak DNA from Sid’s mother. Sid is still brooding about all his baseball cards that she threw out forty years ago.”
“Horst’s mother too. What was with that generation?”
“Never happen today, not with the handle these yups have on the collectibles market. Still, I buy two of everything, just to be safe.”
“You’re gonna get Grandma of the Year, you don’t watch out.”
“Hey,” March determined to be a tough guy, “Pokémon, what do I know? some West Indian proctologist, right?”
HORST CAN’T FIND the ice-cream flavor he really needs today and is showing signs of gathering impatience, alarming in one usually so stolid.
“Chocolate Peanut-Butter Cookie Dough? Hasn’t been any of that around for years, Horst.” Aware that she sounds exactly like the acid-tongued spoiler she has labored all these years not to be, at least not sound like.
“I can’t explain it. It’s like Chinese medicine. Yang deficiency. Yin? One of them.”
“Meaning…”
“I would not want to freak out in front of the boys.”
“Oh, but in front of me, no problem.”
“How do I begin with someone at your level of food education? Aaahhh! Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookie Dough. See what I’m saying?”
Maxine takes the cordless phone and uses it for half of a time-out sign. “Just going to dial 911 here, OK sweetie? Except of course, that, given all your priors…”
How serious a domestic incident this is shaping up to be no one will ever know, because just then Rigoberto buzzes up from the lobby. “Marvin’s here?”
Before she can hang up the intercom, he’s at the door. Ganjaportation, no doubt. “Again, Marvin.”
“Day and night out there bringin the people what they need.” From the soon-to-be-vintage kozmo bag he produces two quarts of Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookie Dough ice cream.
“They discontinued this back in ’97,” Maxine less in wonder than annoyance.
“That’s only the business page talkin, Mahxine. This is desire.”
Horst, already gobbling ice cream with spoons in both hands, nods enthusiastically.
“Oh and this too, this is for you.” Handing over a videocassette in a box.
“Scream, Blacula, Scream? We already have a good depth of copy in the house, including the director’s cut.”
“Dahlin, I only deliver em.”
“You have a number I can call you at in case I want to forward this on someplace else?”
“Not how it works. I come to you.”
Off he glides into the summer evening.
13
One early hour, all too soon, the boys and Horst are up and into a roomy black Lincoln to JFK. The plan for the summer is to fly to Chicago, take in the town, rent a car, drive to Iowa, visit with the grandparents there, then go off on a grand tour of what Maxine thinks of as the Midol West, because whenever she’s there it feels like her period. She rides along out to the airport, like not being clingy or anything, just could do with a nice breeze, through the window of the Town Car, OK?
Flight attendants walk in pairs, hands devotionally in front of them, nuns of the sky. Long lines of people in shorts and towering backpacks shuffle slowly along in check-in lines. Kids mess with the spring-loaded tapes on the queue-control stanchions. Maxine finds herself analyzing the traffic flow to see which line is moving fastest. It’s only a habit, but it makes Horst uneasy because she’s always right.
She stays till the flight is called, embracing everybody, even Horst, watches them down the Jetway, and only Otis looks back.
On the way out as she’s passing another departure gate, she hears her name called. Squealed, actually. It’s Vyrva, decked out in sandals, big floppy straw hat, microlength sundress in a number of vibrant colors banned by statute in New York. “Headed for California, are we?”
“Couple weeks there with the folks, then we’re coming back by way of Vegas.”
“Defcon,” Justin, in Hawaiian-print surfer’s board shorts, parrots and so forth, explains, which is an annual hackers’ convention, where geeks of all persuasions, on all sides of the law, not to mention cops at various levels who think they’re working undercover, converge, conspire, and carouse.
Fiona’s been off at some kind of anime camp in New Jersey—Quake movie and machinima workshops, Japanese staff who claim not to know a word of English beyond “awesome” and “sucks,” which for a vast range of human endeavor, actually, is more than enough…
“And how’s everything down in DeepArcher?” Only trying to be sociable, understand…
Justin looks uncomfortable. “One way or another, big changes on the way. Whoever’s in there better be enjoying it while they can. While it’s still relatively unhackable.”
“It isn’t going to be?”
“Not for long. Too many people after it. Vegas is gonna be like speed-pitching at the fuckin zoo.”
“Don’t look at me,” sez Vyrva, “I just roll the joints and bring out the junk food.”
A voice comes on the PA, making an announcement in English, though Maxine is suddenly unable to understand a word. The sort of resonant voice in which events are solemnly foretold, not at all a voice she would ever want to be summoned by.
“Our flight,” Justin picking up his carry-on.
“My best to Siegfried and Roy.”
Vyrva blows kisses over her shoulder all the way to the gate.
AT THE OFFICE, when Maxine checks back in, here’s Daytona with a tiny TV set she keeps in her desk drawer, glued to an afternoon movie on the Afro-American Romance Channel (ARCH) called Love’s Nickel Defense, in which Hakeem, a pro defensive linebacker, on the set of a beer commercial he’s doing, meets and falls in love with Serendypiti, a model in the same commercial, who immediately gets this Hakeem revved up to where before long he is dealing with running backs the way in-laws deal with hors d’oeuvres. Sparked by his example, the offense begins to develop its own winning ways. What has up to now been the lackluster year of a team that never wins even coin tosses is turned around. Win after win—a wildcard! the playoffs! the Super Bowl!
Halftime at the Super Bowl, the team is down by ten points. Plenty of time to turn this around. Serendypiti comes storming through several layers of security and into the locker room. “Honey, we got to talk.” Break for commercial.
“Whoo!” Daytona shaking her head. “Oh, you back? Listen, some muthafucker with white attitude called about ten minutes ago.” She fishes around on her desk and finds a note to call Gabriel Ice and what looks like a cellular number.