Norvell licked his lips. "Arnie—"
"When you get the tickets, will you get three extras?"
Norvell shook his head. "Arnie, listen to me. I can't get the tickets."
Arnie's chin went up. "You what?"
"I got fired today. That's why I didn't have any money." There was a pause. Dworcas began looking through his pockets for a cigarette. He found the pack and put it absently on the table in front of him without lighting one. He said nothing.
Norvell said apologetically, "It—it wasn't my fault, Arnie. This rat Stimmens—" He told the story from beginning to end. He said, "It's going to be all right, Arnie. Don't worry about me. It's like you said. Maybe I should have canceled long ago. I'll make a fresh start in Belly Rave. Virginia can help me; she knows her way around. We'll find some place that isn't too bad, you know, and get it fixed up. Some of those old houses are pretty interesting. And it's only a question of time until—"
Dworcas nodded. "I see. You've taken an important step, Norvell. Naturally, I wish you the best of luck."
"Thanks, Arnie," Norvell said eagerly. "I don't think it'll be so bad. I——"
"Of course," Arnie went on meditatively, "it does put me in kind of a spot."
"You, Arnie?" Norvell cried, aghast.
Dworcas shrugged. "It doesn't matter, I suppose. It's just that the fellows at the shop warned me. They said you were probably stringing me along about the tickets. I don't know what I'll tell them that won't make you look pretty bad, Norvell."
Norvell squeezed his eyes shut in an agony of self-flagellation. Loyal Arnie! Concerned about his status in the eyes of the other engineers, when it would have been so easy simply to let them think the worst.
"Well, that's the way the ball bounces, Norvell," Arnie went on. "I don't blame you. Forget it. I can't blame you for putting your own problems first." He looked ostentatiously at his watch. "I don't want to keep you," he said. "I'd better be getting back to the Hall in any case; my brother has something he wants to consult with me about. Oh, nothing too special—but it's every citizen's duty, of course, to do what he can." He dropped a bill on the table and piloted Norvell to the door.
Under the dingy marquee, he patted Norvell's shoulder. "Drop me a line once in a while, won't you?" he urged. "I'm the world's worst letter-writer, but I'll always be glad to hear how you're getting along."
Norvell stopped dead and planted his feet; the rain spun in on them from the tempest outside. "Write you a letter, Arnie?" he demanded urgently. "I'll be seeing you, won't I?"
"Of course you will." Dworcas frowned at the rain. He said patiently, "It's just that, naturally, you won't want to make that long trip from Belly Rave too often. Hell, I can't blame you for that! And for that matter I'll be kind of tied up evenings myself until I get this thing for my brother over with. . . . Look, Norvell, no sense standing here. Drop me a line when you get a chance. And the best of luck, fellow!" And he was gone.
Norvell sloshed through the drowned streets. With his credit card canceled and no cash in his pockets, it was a long, wet way home. After the second block he thought of going back and borrowing cab fare from Arnie; but, after all, he told himself, you couldn't do a thing like that, when Arnie had been so nice about the tickets and all. . . .
He had plenty of time to rehearse what he was going to say to Virginia.
He said it.
When it was over, he stared at his wife less in relief than in wonder. His walk home in the gusty rain had been a hell of apprehension. She would scream at him. She might throw things. She would call him names—horrible, cutting, hit-below-the-belt names.
But she didn't.
Fortunately the daughter was asleep; it would have been harder with her around. He changed his clothes without a word came down, looked her in the eye and told her—directly and brutally.
Then he waited. The explosion didn't come. Virginia seemed almost not to have heard him. She sat there, blank-faced, and ran her fingers caressingly over the soft arms of the chair. She rose and wandered to the wall patterner wordlessly. Typical of her sloppy housework, the morning-cheer pattern was still on. With gentle fingers she reset the wall to a glowing old rose and dimmed the lights to a romantic, intimate amber. She drifted to a wall and mirrorized it, looking long at herself. Norvell looked too. Under the flattering lights her skin was gold-touched and flawless, the harsh scowl lines magicked away.
She sat on the warm, textured floor and began to sob. Norvell found himself squatting awkwardly beside her. "Please, honey," he said. "Please don't cry." She didn't stop. But she didn't push him away. He was cradling her shoulders uncomfortably in his arms, her head on his chest. He was talking to her in a way he had never been able to before. It would be hard, of course. But it would be real. It would be a life that people could stand—weren't thousands of people standing it right now? Maybe things had been physically too easy for them, maybe it took pressure to weld two personalities together, maybe their marriage would turn into shared toil and shared happiness and—Alexandra giggled from the head of the stairs. Norvell sat bolt upright. The girl tittered sleepily, "Well! Excuse me. I didn't dream there was anything intimate going on."
Virginia got quickly to her feet, bowling Norvell over. He felt his neck flaming a dull red as he got up.
He swallowed and made the effort. "Sandy," he said gently, using the almost-forgotten pet name that had seemed so much more appropriate when she was small and cuddly and not so much of a bi—hold on! "Sandy, please come down. I have something important to tell you."
Virginia stood blank-faced. Norvell knew she was trying, and loved her for it.
The child came untidily down the stairs, her much too sophisticated dressing gown fastened with a careless pin. Norvell said firmly, "Sandy——"
The child's face was ancient and haughty. "Please," she interrupted him. "You know how I feel about that humiliating nickname."
Norvell got a grip on himself. "I didn't mean—" he started, through clenched teeth.
"Of course you didn't mean anything. You didn't mean to wake me up with your drunken performance on the stairs, did you? You didn't mean to keep Virginia and me in terror when you didn't bother to let us know you'd be out late." She shot a sly glance at her mother, fishing for approbation. Virginia's hands were clenched.
Norvell said hopelessly, "I only wanted to tell you something."
"Nothing you can say now would help."
"No?" Norvell yelled at her, restraint gone. "Well, listen anyway, damn it! We're going to Belly Rave! All of us— tomorrow! Doesn't that mean something to you?"
Virginia said at last, with a wiry edge to her voice, "You don't have to shout at the child."
That was the ball game. He knew perfectly well that she had meant nothing of the kind, but his glands answered for him: "So I don't have to shout at her—because she isn't deaf like me, is that it? My loyal wife! My loving family!"
"I didn't mean that!" Virginia cried.
"You never do!" Norvell bellowed over Alexandra's shrill contribution. Virginia screamed:
"You know I didn't mean it, but I wish I had! You! Call yourself a husband! You can't even take care of a family!"