"Right," Ted agreed. "So?"
"Like I always do."
"We only have hot cakes on Friday."
Miller nodded slowly. "That's right. Hot cakes on Friday. Because your uncle Frank eats with us Saturday and Sunday and he can't stand hot cakes, so we stopped having them on weekends. Frank is Marjorie's brother. He was in the Marines in the First World War. He was a corporal."
"Good-bye," Ted said, as Don came out to join him. "We'll see you this evening."
School books clutched, the boys sauntered off towards the big modern high school in the center of Berkeley.
Miller re-entered the house and automatically began searching the closet for his briefcase. Where was it? Damn it, he needed it. The whole Throckmorton account was in it; Davidson would be yelling his head off if he left it anywhere, like in the True Blue Cafeteria that time they were all celebrating the Yankees' winning the series. Where the hell was it?
He straightened up slowly, as memory came. Of course. He had left it by his work desk, where he had tossed it after taking out the research tapes. While Fleming was talking to him. Back at the History Agency.
He joined his wife in the kitchen. "Look," he said huskily. "Marjorie, I think maybe I won't go down to the office this morning."
Marjorie spun in alarm. "George, is anything wrong?"
"I'm -- completely confused."
"Your hay fever again?"
"No. My mind. What's the name of that psychiatrist the PTA recommended when Mrs. Bentley's kid had that fit?" He searched his disorganized brain. "Grunberg, I think. In the Medical-Dental building." He moved towards the door. "I'll drop by and see him. Something's wrong -- really wrong. And I don't know what it is."
Adam Grunberg was a large heavy-set man in his late forties, with curly brown hair and horn-rimmed glasses. After Miller had finished, Grunberg cleared his throat, brushed at the sleeve of his Brooks Bros, suit, and asked thoughtfully, "Did anything happen while you were out looking for the newspaper? Any sort of accident? You might try going over that part in detail. You got up from the breakfast table, went out on the porch, and started looking around in the bushes. And then what?"
Miller rubbed his forehead vaguely. "I don't know. It's all confused. I don't remember looking for any newspaper. I remember coming back in the house. Then it gets clear. But before that it's all tied up with the History Agency and my quarrel with Fleming."
"What was that again about your briefcase? Go over that."
"Fleming said it looked like a squashed Jurassic lizard. And I said --"
"No. I mean, about looking for it in the closet and not finding it."
"I looked in the closet and it wasn't there, of course. It's sitting beside my desk at the History Agency. On the Twentieth Century level. By my exhibits." A strange expression crossed Miller's face. "Good God, Grunberg. You realize this may be nothing but an exhibit? You and everybody else -- maybe you're not real. Just pieces of this exhibit."
"That wouldn't be very pleasant for us, would it?" Grunberg said, with a faint smile.
"People in dreams are always secure until the dreamer wakes up," Miller retorted.
"So you're dreaming me," Grunberg laughed tolerantly. "I suppose I should thank you."
"I'm not here because I especially like you. I'm here because I can't stand Fleming and the whole History Agency."
Grunberg protested. "This Fleming. Are you aware of thinking about him before you went out looking for the newspaper?"
Miller got to his feet and paced around the luxurious office, between the leather-covered chairs and the huge mahogany desk. "I want to face this thing. I'm an exhibit. An artificial replica of the past. Fleming said something like this would happen to me."
"Sit down, Mr. Miller," Grunberg said, in a gentle but commanding voice.
When Miller had taken his chair again, Grunberg continued, "I understand what you say. You have a general feeling that everything around you is unreal. A sort of stage."
"An exhibit."
"Yes, an exhibit in a museum."
"In the N'York History Agency. Level R, the Twentieth Century level."
"And in addition to this general feeling of -- insubstantiality, there are specific projected memories of persons and places beyond this world. Another realm in which this one is contained. Perhaps I should say, the reality within which this is only a sort of shadow world."
"This world doesn't look shadowy to me." Miller struck the leather arm of the chair savagely. "This world is completely real. That's what's wrong. I came in to investigate the noises and now I can't get back out. Good God, do I have to wander around this replica the rest of my life?"
"You know, of course, that your feeling is common to most of mankind. Especially during periods of great tension. Where -- by the way -- was the newspaper? Did you find it?"
"As far as I'm concerned --"
"Is that a source of irritation with you? I see you react strongly to a mention of the newspaper."
Miller shook his head wearily. "Forget it."
"Yes, a trifle. The paperboy carelessly throws the newspaper in the bushes, not on the porch. It makes you angry. It happens again and again. Early in the day, just as you're starting to work. It seems to symbolize in a small way the whole petty frustrations and defeats of your job. Your whole life."
"Personally, I don't give a damn about the newspaper." Miller examined his wristwatch. "I'm going -- it's almost noon. Old man Davidson will be yelling his head off if I'm not at the office by --" He broke off. "There it is again."
"There what is?"
"All this!" Miller gestured impatiently out the window. "This whole place. This damn world. This exhibition."
"I have a thought," Doctor Grunberg said slowly. "I'll put it to you for what it's worth. Feel free to reject it if it doesn't fit." He raised his shrewd, professional eyes. "Ever see kids playing with rocket ships?"
"Lord," Miller said wretchedly. "I've seen commercial rocket freighters hauling cargo between Earth and Jupiter, landing at La Guardia Spaceport."
Grunberg smiled slightly. "Follow me through on this. A question. Is it job tension?"
"What do you mean?"
"It would be nice," Grunberg said blandly, "to live in the world of tomorrow. With robots and rocket ships to do all the work. You could just sit back and take it easy. No worries, no cares. No frustrations."
"My position in the History Agency has plenty of cares and frustrations." Miller rose abruptly. "Look, Grunberg. Either this is an exhibit on R level of the History Agency, or I'm a middle-class businessman with an escape fantasy. Right now I can't decide which. One minute I think this is real, and the next minute --"
"We can decide easily," Grunberg said.
"How?"
"You were looking for the newspaper. Down the path, on to the lawn. Where did it happen? Was it on the path? On the porch? Try to remember."
"I don't have to try. I was still on the pavement. I had just jumped over the rail past the safety screens."
"On the pavement. Then go back there. Find the exact place."
"Why?"
"So you can prove to yourself there's nothing on the other side."
Miller took a deep slow breath. "Suppose there is?"
"There can't be. You said yourself: only one of the worlds can be real. This world is real --" Grunberg thumped his massive mahogany desk. "Ergo, you won't find anything on the other side."
"Yes," Miller said, after a moment's silence. A peculiar expression cut across his face and stayed there. "You've found the mistake."
"What mistake?" Grunberg was puzzled. "What --"
Miller moved towards the door of the office. "I'm beginning to get it. I've been putting up a false question. Trying to decide which world is real." He grinned humorlessly back at Doctor Grunberg. "They're both real, of course."