I said, lying in my teeth, «I never expected anything.»
But Asimov’s eyes were no longer on me. They were straining across the room and I didn’t have to follow them to know he was looking at a girl. I forgot to say that in among his general inability to see anything in the outside world, there is an odd capacity to see every girl within two hundred feet.
11 SARAH VOSKOVEK 7:20 P.M.
She was not my type. Five feet nothing at the most. I like my girls five feet seven or eight. The average American girl is five feet four, breasts average, hips average. If you imagine taking her by neck and ankle and giving a quick outward jerk in both directions, you will have a girl who is sixty-eight inches tall, with small firm breasts and narrow hips. That’s what I like.
This one was just the reverse. An average girl had been taken by neck and ankle and had been compressed. Result: sixty inches, with breasts like pouter pigeons and a rear end like a bustle. She was very pretty; I’ll give her that. Her hair, almost black, was raised into a beehive (to add height, I suppose). She also had a pair of eyes that were just as dark, and that were large and with bluish whites. She had a slightly curved nose and her cheekbones were high and pink.
Her white dress reached to her ankles but fell far short of her collarbone at the other end.
She was walking in our direction and Asimov’s eyes never wavered from her. I watched, too, with less delight, and made little bets to myself as to when her trajectory would veer and carry her off into the night, never, perhaps, to be seen again. I didn’t particularly care when that might take place, but it didn’t.
Her trajectory never veered. She ended up at our table and, ignoring me completely, said, «Pardon me. Aren’t you Dr. Isaac Asimov?» She had a trace of an accent, Slavic, perhaps.
«Hot dog,» said Asimov, with a wide and jovial gesture of his arms. «My fame precedes me. I’m all yours, dear. Just tell me where, when, and how many times.»
«Yes,» she said, «your fame does precede you. You have been described to me and you are Dr. Isaac Asimov.»
It didn’t faze him, nothing of the sort does. He kept on smiling and said, «To repeat myself, what can I do for you?»
«May I join you for a moment?»
«As many moments as there are in eternity,» said Asimov, still hewing to the line.
«Five or six will suffice.»
The combination of accent and meticulous English was enticing. I found myself wishing it came out of a more attractive body.
She sat down, and said, «My name is Sarah Voskovek and I handle public relations for the hotel.»
Why I should have chosen to interfere at this moment, I can’t exactly say. Perhaps I resented being ignored. Perhaps Asimov’s recent dig concerning Giles had left me anxious to strike back at anyone, however meaninglessly.
So I said, «What are you doing here on Sunday night? These aren’t working hours?»
She looked at me coldly as though she were preventing the glance of her eyes from actually touching me. She said, «I am here as a guest of the ABA, and I work when I please.»
And she was looking at Asimov again as though I had existed only for the moment it took to despise me. I took a deep breath and bet myself a grim five to three I’d get a chance at the little bitch before she left.
She said, «I understand, Dr. Asimov, that you are planning to write a murder mystery about this hotel.»
Asimov looked dashed at this sudden descent into business. He said, «Boy, the news spreads fast. Not about the hotel, Miss—Miss—»
«Voskovek.»
«Well, not about the hotel. Murder at the ABA is the suggested title. My publishers have asked me to do it.»
«But the ABA Convention is taking place at this hotel. How realistic do you intend being?»
«As realistic as necessary,» said Asimov, suddenly the writer. «The whole point is to include local color.»
She said, «Nevertheless, it should not be necessary to mention the name of the hotel.»
«It might not be,» admitted Asimov.
That’s when I won my five-to-three bet—or, for a moment, thought I did.
I leaned across the table to her and said, «Look here, little sister. This man is going to write a book. It’s none of your business what’s going to be in the book. If, after he has published the book, you conceive your privacy to have been invaded, or the hotel to have been libeled, you can sue. Until then, you can have nothing to say, and this attempt at prior restraint is disgusting. Why don’t you go off now and indulge in your public relations, for which you seem to have no talent.»
She looked at me as if she were studying a specimen of uncertain genus, but one that didn’t interest her. It was a long, leisurely look, a quite calm look, and then she said, with no sign of an expression on her face, «It must be quite rare for you to find someone shorter than yourself on whom you can exert your fancied masculinity.»
«Wow!» said Asimov.
I had to catch my breath. It was not what she said, of course; I’ve lived on comments of that sort for a generation.
It was just the utter unexpected irrelevance of it. When I could speak, I was stuttering.
«Lady,» I said, «your inches and m-mine—»
But she said, «I will speak to you at some more suitable time, Dr. Asimov.» She turned away and walked off, not hastily.
12 GILES DEVORE 7:35 P.M.
I had an overwhelming urge to run after her and land my shoe right on the tempting target of her buttocks, but I was just barely master of myself to the point of avoiding it. What a hell of a dustup that would have given rise to. So I held on and felt the palms of my hands grow damp and sweaty with frustration.
Of all the humiliations I had suffered that day, this one was the worst.
Asimov didn’t help by saying, «What do you care, Darius? You know your effect on women. Turn on the charm next time you see her and when she crumples into your arms, step away and let her hit the ground.»
He thought it was funny. I didn’t. What could I do but ignore him and confine myself to inner fuming.
I just wish I could remember what it was I was going to say just as she left. It was going to be devastating. It would have absolutely crushed her if I could have gotten it out. But I can’t remember. I tell myself that it’s just as well, under the circumstances, that I can’t—but I wish I did.
Then Asimov said, «Hello, Giles. How’s the celebrity?»
«Hello, Isaac,» said the familiar mincing voice.
I had forgotten about him. I wasn’t searching for him. I had reached the point where I no longer intended to search for him. If he had kept to any other part of the large room, I would never have seen him. If he had arrived ten minutes before—ahead of Little Miss Big-Mouth—I might, just possibly, have felt calm enough to avoid what the whole day had been building up to. If he had arrived ten minutes later than he did, I might well have been absent, for in those few moments after that woman had left, I knew there was nothing further to keep me at the convention. Enough was enough.
And Giles was there at the precise spot and at the precise time.
I looked up in surprise. He was standing there, stooped a little, his arms dangling, his face hangdog. He was distinctly plumper than the last time I had seen him; prosperity continued to go to his waist as it so often does. His glasses were black-rimmed and remarkably like those of Asimov, whom he might have resembled distantly if he were not half a head taller and if it weren’t for his shaggy black mustache.
His lower lip, visible by itself, gave him a monstrous-little-boy-pouting look. Combine the mustache and glasses and make his nose more curved and prominent than it was and he would look as though he were wearing one of those Groucho Marx masks.