I went to sleep peacefully and as far as I know I slept dreamlessly the good sleep of the Just—this particular Just.
In fact, there was not one moment during the entire night, from the moment I met Shirley, when I as much as wrinkled my forehead and thought: Isn’t there something I’ve forgotten?
Not once.
If Shirley hadn’t arrived in time to cross my path with all the careful timing of a trapeze act—But she had and it would have been too much to ask of humanity (of me, anyway) to remember something as stupid as Giles’s package, when all my attention—every bit of it, both sensory and hormonal—was on Shirley.
So I slept well and peacefully. It’s just that since then, there have been nights when I haven’t slept at all well, through thinking how well I slept that night.
Part Two
MONDAY, MAY 26, 1975
(MEMORIAL DAY)
1 SHIRLEY JENNIFER 8:55 A.M.
I woke up at nearly nine with the smell of broiling bacon in my nose. That’s the best way to wake up—second best—and it doesn’t happen when you live in a bachelor pad, however well appointed, and mine wasn’t particularly.
I said, «Come on, Shirley. Bathroom first and then instant replay.» I patted her side of the bed.
But she said, «No-o-o-o. You start that and there’s no telling how long it will take, and I’ve got my signing to do.»
«That’s not till this afternoon.»
«Yes, but there’s the book-and-author luncheon first and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., will be speaking and I love him.»
«How quickly they forget,» I said.
«I love him spiritually,» said Shirley, «and if you want to go to the bathroom, go right now, because I’m going to add the eggs.»
So I scooted. When I came out, she added the eggs and said, «I fell in love with him when he played Rupert of Hentsau in The Prisoner of Zenda.» She paused to light a cigarette while the eggs fried slowly, and I edged a bit further away.
«You aren’t old enough to remember The Prisoner of Zenda,» I said.
«I’m mysteriously older than I look,» she said, shaking her hair at me, «and I saw it three times on television. Besides, I fell in love with Rupert of Hentsau when I read the book at the age of ten. I was so afraid they’d spoil him in the movie, but they didn’t. Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., was just right. No morals at all.»
«That’s the secret,» I said, sighing. «Women love men with no morals.»
«That’s no secret,» said Shirley. «It’s not safe to marry a man with no morals, but a man who has them is no good in bed.»
«I’ve got morals,» I said.
«Not a one,» she said, and I decided it was a compliment and helped her dish out the eggs and bacon.
She put out her cigarette and we moved into the little dinette.
«Are you going to the convention today?» she asked.
«I don’t particularly want to,» I said, «except that I would like to join you at lunch.»
«Well, you can’t. I’m going to be with my publisher, and I don’t want anyone absently stroking my fanny at the table. It doesn’t go with my image.»
«It goes with my image.»
«Then stroke your publisher’s fanny and impress him. You leave my rear end alone in public.»
«All right, but I won’t go with you on those terms. Hands that don’t touch fannies shall never be mine. Except that—»
For the first time since I had hugged Shirley the evening before, something stirred within me. That is, something that wasn’t hooked up to an endocrine gland. I didn’t know what it was; not the faintest idea. I just had a feeling of uneasiness.
«Except what?» said Shirley.
«Except that maybe I ought to go in and cheer for poor Giles at his autographing session.»
Funny. I could even mention Giles and remember yelling at him and being shamefaced about it now that I was feeling fulfilled and calm, and yet not think of the errand I had failed to run—at least, not consciously.
I went over to the end table near the bed to look at my watch. «I can do it,» I said. «I can guzzle down my coffee, take a quick shower, and not be more than a few minutes late, and then I’ll see you after lunch, and I get the first chance at instant replay.»
I could have done it, too. I think it was my last chance. If I had gotten there and if Giles had seen me, I would have remembered what I had forgotten because he would have left the platform and charged me even with a thousand people waiting for a signature. And then—
But what’s the use? My heart wasn’t in it. It was just my vague unanalyzed anxiety pushing me, and I probably wouldn’t have gone—well, maybe I wouldn’t—even if Shirley hadn’t put in an objection.
She said, «Oh, going to one of those autographing sessions is cre-e-epy. They just line up. You’ve autographed books.»
Not as often as all that. There were two times when I signed books after a book-and-author luncheon, and three or four times after I had given a talk on those few occasions when Prism Press had supplied books the day before I gave the talk instead of the day after. (Other publishing houses are as bad, even the best of them.)
Autographing books is nice in a way. Every book is a sale, and every sale is six bits or more in your private till (before taxes, of course). On the other hand, there’s the strain of it.
The same thing. The same thing. Best wishes. Best wishes.
Best wi—
And you smile and smile. Thank you. Thank you. I’m so glad you like my books. I’m so glad. Thank you. The pleasure’s mine. Thank you.
When it’s done, you go out and bite the nearest bystander to get the sickly-sweet goo out of your mouth.
Some are better at it than others. I know one author who will sign nothing but hardbacks, and then only his name in a wavy scrawl that means nothing.
Asimov goes to the other extreme, the incredible ham.
He’s the only writer I know who actually enjoys it. I watched him at a signing session once, and there are no limits to the lengths he will go. He scrawls out «with love» and «with passion» and «with ravished ecstasy» at random, asking only that the person before him be at least vaguely feminine.
Once he asked a young woman’s first name and then wrote:
«To Sheila, in memory of that night on the beach when we, as you so charmingly put it, went all the way.» He’d never seen her before, of course, but she went off giggling and clutching the precious souvenir to her ample breasts—and probably lied about it later.
And he’ll sign anything, hardbacks, softbacks, other people’s books, scraps of paper. Inevitably someone handed him a blank check on the occasion when I was there, and he signed that without as much as a waver to his smile—except that he signed: «Harlan Ellison.»
«Who’s Harlan Ellison?» I asked afterward.
«Friend of mine,» he said. Then he added irrelevantly, «About your height.»
I thought of all that in connection with autographing, yawned, and said, «Guess you’re right.»
Goodbye, last chance.
«But I’ll still go,» I said. It was the uneasiness talking, but it seemed to make more sense to blame it on my passion for Shirley. «I still want to see you after lunch. In fact, maybe I’ll go to the lunch, find you, sneak over to you when you’re not expecting it, and stroke your fanny, and yell, ‘Lookit, everybody! Lookit, everybody!’»
«You do that, and I’ll tell everyone you’re impotent.»