"Gordie?" Her voice was soft, as if she were speaking to a baby.
"Yeah, okay. You got any beer?" He took off his leather jacket, threw it on the checkered sofa in the living room, and went into the kitchen where Mary Terror was making soup and sandwiches for two.
3: The Moment of Truth
"What is this junk?"
"What junk?"
"Here. Burn This Book. Have you been reading this?"
Doug walked into the kitchen where Laura had just slid the Oriental beef-and-onions casserole into the microwave. He leaned against the white counter and read from the book: "'Like any disease, the credit card malady must be attacked with cleansing medicine. The first spoonful is a personal one: take a pair of scissors and destroy your cards. All of them. This minute. Resist the pleas of those who would have you do otherwise. Big Brother Business is watching, and you can use this opportunity to spit in his eye.'" Doug scowled and looked up. "Is this a joke, or is this Treggs guy a Communist?"
"Neither one." She closed the microwave's door and set the timer. "He was an activist in the sixties, and I think he's searching for a cause."
"Some cause! My God, if people really did this, the economy would collapse!"
"People do use their credit cards too much." She moved past Doug to the salad bowl on the countertop and began to mix the salad. "We certainly do, at least."
"Well, the whole country's heading toward being a cashless society. The sociologists have been predicting it for years." Doug paged through the book. He was a tall, slim man with sandy-brown hair and brown eyes, his face handsome but beginning to show the pressure of his work in lines and sags. He wore tortoiseshell glasses, suspenders – braces, they were called these days – with his pin-striped suits, and he had six different power ties on the rack in his closet. He was two years older than Laura, he wore a diamond pinky ring and his monogram on his shirts, he had a gold-tipped fountain pen, smoked an occasional Dunhill Montecruz cigar, and in the last year he'd begun to bite his fingernails. "We don't use our cards more than most people," he said. "Anyway, our credit's great and that's what it's all about."
"Could you get me the oil and vinegar, please?" Laura asked, and Doug reached up into the cupboard for her. She drizzled the salad and continued tossing it.
"Oh, this is ridiculous!" Doug shook his head and closed the book. "How does crap like this get printed?"
"It's from a small press. Based in Chattanooga. I've never heard of them before." She felt the baby move, a tiny movement, just a shift of weight.
"You're not going to review this, are you?"
"I don't know. I thought it might be different."
"I'd like to see what your advertisers would think of that! This guy's talking about an organized boycott of oil companies and major banks! 'Economic re-education,' he calls it" He snorted with derision. "Right, tell me another one. Want a glass of wine with dinner?"
"No, I'd better not."
"One won't hurt. Come on."
"No, really. You go ahead."
Doug opened the refrigerator, took the half bottle of Stag's Leap chablts out, and poured himself a gobletful. He swirled it around the glass, sipped at it, and then he got the salad plates down from their shelf. "So how was Carol today?"
"Fine. She filled me in on the latest trials and tribulations. The usual."
"Did you see Tim Scanlon there? He was taking a client for lunch."
"No, I didn't see anybody. Oh… I saw Ann Abernathy. She was there with somebody from her office."
"I wish I could take two-hour lunches." His right hand continued to spin the wine around and around the glass. "We're having a great year, but I'm telling you: Parker's got to hire another associate. I swear to God, I've got so much work on my desk it'll be August before I can get down to my blotter." Doug reached out and placed his left hand against Laura's belly. "How's he doing?"
"Kicking. Carol says he ought to be a good soccer player."
"I don't doubt it." His fingers touched here and there on her belly, seeking the infant's shape. "Can you see me being a soccer daddy? Going around town to all the games with a little rug rat? And softball in the summer. That T-ball stuff, I mean. I swear, I never pictured myself sitting in the bleachers cheering a little kid on." A frown worked itself onto Doug's face. "What if he doesn't like sports? What if he's a computer nerd? Probably make more money that way, though. Come up with a computer that teaches itself, how about that?" His frown broke, and a smile flooded back. "Hey, I think I felt him move! Did you feel that?"
"At real close range," Laura said, and she pressed Doug's hand firmly against her belly so he could feel David twitching in the dark.
They ate dinner in the dining room, where a picture window looked toward the postage-stamp-size plot of woods in back. Laura lit candles, but Doug said he couldn't see what he was eating and he turned the lights back on. The rain was still coming down outside, alternately hard and misty. They talked about the news of the day, how bad the traffic was getting on the freeways, and how the building spurt had to slow down sooner or later. Their conversation turned, as it usually did, toward Doug's work. Laura noted that his voice got tighter. She approached the idea of a vacation again, sometime in the autumn, and Doug promised he'd think about it. She had long since realized that they were not living for today any longer; they were living for a mythical tomorrow, where Doug's workload would be lighter and the pressures of the marketplace eased, their days relaxedly constructive and their nights a time of communion. She had also long since realized that it would never happen. Sometimes she had a nightmare in which they were both running on treadmills, with a machine that had teeth at their backs. They could not stop, could not slow down, or they would fall back into the teeth. It was a terrible dream because there was reality in it. Over the years she'd watched Doug climb from a junior position at his firm to a position of real responsibility. He was indispensable there. His term: indispensable. The work he brought home and the time he spent on the telephone proved it. They used to go out to dinner and the movies every weekend. They used to go dancing, and on vacations to places like the Bahamas and Aspen. Now they were lucky to get a day alone at home, and if they saw a movie it was on the VCR. The paychecks were more, yes: both his and hers had grown, but when did they have time to enjoy the fruits of their labors? She'd watched Doug age worrying about other people's portfolios, about whether they had enough long-term investments, or that international politics would drive down the dollar. He lived on a tightrope of quick decisions, above a sea of fluctuations. The success of his career was based on the worth of paper, of lists of numbers that could change dramatically overnight. The success of her own career was based on knowing the right people, on cultivating the path through the gilded gates of Atlanta's social set. But they had lost each other. They had lost the people they used to be, and that knowledge made Laura's heart ache. Which in turn made her feel incredibly guilty, because she had all the material things anyone could possibly want while people starved in the streets of the city and lived beneath overpasses in cardboard boxes.
She had lied to Carol today. When she'd said she wasn't having a baby for the reason of bringing Doug closer to her, it was a lie. Maybe it would happen. Maybe both of them would ease up, and find their way back to what used to be. The baby could do it. Having someone who was part of them could do it, and they'd find what was real again.
"I'm thinking of buying the gun tomorrow," Doug suddenly said.