“We don’t have a waffle iron.”
“Oh. I guess that’s right But I certainly like waffles. Pancakes are always the same.”
“Help me set the table,” Barbara said to him. She was getting dishes out of the cupboard.
“What shall I put on?”
“Those little bowls up there. I can’t reach them.”
Carl got the bowls down. “I never saw any bowls like these before. They must have been used by the staff. And a lot of this food. We never had a lot of this. Like this.” He held up a package of frozen chicken from one of the refrigerators. “Did we ever have frozen chicken?”
“Once in a while,” Barbara said. “Put the bowls on the table.”
“All right.”
The pancakes were ready. They sat down at the table and prepared to eat. Barbara brought the platter to the table and set it down.
“Butter?” she said.
“In the refrigerator,” Verne said.
Til get it.” Carl scrambled up, pushing his chair back. He returned with the butter. “There’s tons of it. I never saw so much. We won’t run out. And cottage cheese and sour milk and eggs and regular milk.”
Verne punched a hole in the lid of the syrup can. Barbara distributed the pancakes to their plates. Now the coffee was ready. Carl brought it over from the stove, setting the pot down on a piece of cold tile.
“Let’s go,” Verne said.
They ate, enjoying the food. The window over the table was open, and fresh air blew around them.
“Look how much color there is in the food,” Carl said. “The syrup looks like mahogany finish. Look at the butter! I’ve never seen butter so yellow. And the coffee is like—” He pondered.
“Mimeograph ink,” Verne murmured.
For dessert they had frozen strawberries with cream, in the little bowls Carl had got down. Carl found some ice cream and brought it over to be used on the strawberries.
“None for me,” Barbara said firmly.
“Why not?”
“I don’t like things mixed together.”
Carl put a little on his strawberries but not as much as he would have liked. Both Verne and Barbara seemed strangely silent, eating with great seriousness and preoccupation. He glanced from one to the other but they said nothing.
“Anybody want any more?” Carl asked.
They shook their heads.
Verne pushed his plate away. “That’s all for me.” He leaned back in his chair, pushing himself away from the table.
“There’s still some ice cream left.”
They shook their heads.
Carl sniffed the air, blowing through the window. “It’s a wonderful day out, isn’t it? It’s a good omen. Our first day here. It makes it more like a real vacation, having all the sunlight.”
“A vacation?”
“We don’t have to do any work, do we? All we have to do is be here when the yuks come. We can do anything we want. A whole week to do as we please.” Carl grinned at them happily. “I can’t wait to get started.”
“Get started what?”
“Finding things. Seeing what there is.”
Verne grunted. He looked across the table at Barbara. She did not meet his gaze. She was staring down at the floor, deep in thought. What was she thinking about? What did she think of this?
He pushed his glasses up, rubbing his eyes and yawning. Could this really be? The two of them sitting like this, across from each other, after so many years. As if they had got out of the same bed. He lowered his glasses into place. It was unreal. Like finding an old album of snapshots and poring over them. Or like being dead and in the Great Beyond and having everything come back and swirl around, echoing and gibbering, made of grey dust.
Or like judgement day.
Verne shifted uncomfortably in his chair. Not a pleasant thought. And sheer phantasy, as well. But it was strange how people could come back after years of being outside your existence, come back and reappear; and fully three-dimensional, too. Suddenly no longer ghosts, vague shadows. Was there a cosmic law about it? A law that demanded events and people stay alive, retain existence, on and on, until some prearranged end could be brought about?
Verne smiled. It was only a chance thing, three names pulled out at random, his and Barbara’s and Carl’s. It meant nothing. He continued to study her, as she sat, staring down. Chance had recreated this, the two of them sitting at the same breakfast table, in the warm sunlight. As they had sat once before.
Once before. Only once. Something to do with her parents being home and expecting her. Had that really been true? The trip. The hotel, outside New York. He thought idly back. Their night together, and then breakfast the next morning. Almost like this.
But not quite. There had been no Carl around. It was not really the same at all. And Barbara had changed. She was different, very different. Even the few words he had spoken to her in the office had told him that. She was hard, hard and sour. Like him, in a way. Not an innocent bit of lonely fluff any longer. Not by a long shot.
When had he last seen her? She had come to New York. That was the last time he had really talked to her. He had seen her once or twice since she came to work for the Company, but never to talk. She had avoided him. Well, it hadn’t mattered.
The day she came, a Thursday.... He was broadcasting at the station. That was before he lost his program. He warmed inwardly, thinking about his old show. What was it called? Potluck Party. The warmth turned to an ache. That had been a good time in his life. The program, his job at the station.
He thought about Teddy. It was because of her that he had left New York and gone to work for the Company. Her, and losing the program. Had she been responsible for him losing it? He had considered it a million times in the last four years. Had she done it?
He shrugged. It was all over now.
Teddy and Barbara had both come to the station, that night. They had gone out to a restaurant and then to a bar. They had sat around talking together. The last of the evening he could not remember. It was hazy, sloping off into dark shadow. Something to do with his car. They had gone someplace after the bar. Then he and Teddy were back at her apartment. And the evening was over.
Barbara had gone back to Boston. He wrote to her a few times, but she did not answer. After a while he had given up. There were too many fish in the sea....
“What do you think, Verne?” Carl was saying.
Verne blinked. What had he said? “I didn’t hear you.”
“What’s the matter with you two? You’re both a million miles away. I said, what do you think of the idea of getting out and sizing up the situation? We should try to get some idea of what we have here. We might begin some kind of exploration to determine—”
Verne gazed past Carl, out the window at the towers and silent factories. He had already begun to lose the thread of what Carl was saying. He felt dull and listless. He yawned again, and looked in the coffee pot to see if there were any more coffee to drink.
“Well?” Carl said.
“Let’s wait a while.” There was no more coffee.
“All right,” Carl said sadly. “I guess there’s no hurry. It’s just a suggestion for what we might do when we do want to go outdoors.” He fidgeted around on his chair. “It’s one of those days when you really like to be out in the sun, isn’t it? I can’t see staying inside when the sky is blue and the air smells the way it does. It seems as if something’s going on out there. Something we should know about. Be in on.”
“Open another window,” Verne murmured.
“It’s not the same thing.”
“Why do you have to go running out after it? Let the air come in here. It’ll come, if you wait long enough.”