This was one of Surn's good days. He had talked briefly, and he seemed to understand the purpose of the journey. Lorien hoped that things would go well over the weekend. She didn't want Mr. Surn to be hurt or embarrassed by the experience. She hoped that it would please him to see his old friends again.
"Sit here in this nice plastic chair, and I'll go and see about the bags." Lorien's face assumed an expression of sternness. "You won't wander off, will you?"
Smiling, he shook his head. "Not in Tennessee," he said carefully.
"All right, then. I'll be back as soon as I can." She hoped that she had brought enough money for the trip. They had Surn's Visa and American Express cards, and two hundred dollars in cash for cab fares and tips. That ought to do it. It had to, because Surn couldn't remember the automatic teller code to get cash with his credit card, and she didn't want to draw too much attention to them by asking for help.
"I have to be crazy to think I can pull this off," thought Lorien. "But what an opportunity-for both of us!" She had purchased a new wardrobe for the reunion, reasoning that people would be more likely to accept her as Surn's assistant if she were not wearing jeans and sandals. Since Lorien had never met an employee of anyone famous, she wasn't sure what sort of attire was required, but she decided that if she copied the style of the woman vice-president at Mr. Surn's bank, she ought to succeed in looking both respectable and businesslike. She had even had her hair done for the occasion. Catching sight of herself in a restaurant mirror, Lorien touched her newly styled tresses and frowned. "I look just like Marilyn Quayle," she muttered to herself.
Brendan Surn was a good deal more casually dressed, because as a famous Californian he was not even expected to own a tie. Lorien had studied the pictures on the book jackets of Surn's novels, and she had packed a "representative selection" of similar attire, adding his silver NASA jacket, a gift from the astronauts, in case it was chilly in Tennessee.
So far things seemed to be going well. Perhaps the Piracetam was working. Someone at the health food store had mentioned that the drug was used in Europe for Alzheimer's patients and
people with memory problems, so Lorien ordered some. It wouldn't hurt to try, she reasoned. She wasn't sure if there had been any improvement. Sometimes he seemed fine and sometimes not, but she kept up the dosage in hopes that long-term effects would be more noticeable. If he didn't get any worse, that would be enough.
Brendan had done a couple of short telephone interviews concerning the reunion, and he had sounded fine. Lorien thought it odd that a man who couldn't remember how to turn on the stove could talk knowledgeably about literature, but she supposed that the things that would stay with him longest were the things that he cared about, not necessarily the simplest things he knew. She hoped that this meant he would remember the old days at the Fan Farm. If not, she could cover for him by staying close and changing the subject if things got awkward. There was only one problem Lorien Williams had not worked out: What happens if someone offers Brendan Surn big money to write another book? And what if he agrees to do it?
Managing Surn's business affairs and his laundry were one thing, but Lorien was not at all sure that she was up to writing a best-seller.
While George Woodard talked about his teaching job and the next issue of Alluvial, speculated on the content of the next Star Trek movie (and whether there would be one), and lamented his health, Jay Omega probed under the Concord's hood for signs of trouble. The possibilities were legion. Woodard's engine looked like he had just followed an Exxon tanker through a mud hole. Disaster Lad indeed, thought Jay Omega, but immediately he felt ashamed of himself for this harsh judgment. Surely, he told himself, if George Woodard could have afforded the maintenance on this car, he could also have afforded to trade it in for a newer model. A few moments of study told him what the trouble was.
"It's your battery cables," he announced, fingering the wires barnacled with white corrosion at the terminals.
Behind him the conversation continued unabated. In Woodard's eagerness to discuss old times, he had apparently forgotten his car, his mechanical difficulties, and his new acquaintance. Not that it mattered. Fixing the car would take three minutes and required no assistance from the owner. Jay went back to his own car to get the wet rag and wire brush he would need to clean the battery terminals.
As he went past them, George Woodard called out, "Found the trouble, have you? I hope it's not expensive."
"I can fix it for nothing," said Jay Omega.
Bunzie hated people who accepted telephone calls on airplanes, which was unfortunate, because it was a practice that Ruben Mistral indulged in quite a bit. At the moment he was conferring with his office to reschedule meetings and to see who had left messages in reply to his messages. While he had his secretary on the line, he asked how the final arrangements for the reunion had gone. The response was reassuring. The chartered plane had taken off from LaGuardia at six, and the two hotels had declared themselves ready for the reunion and the editorial contingent.
Bunzie wondered what the reunion would be like, aside from all the hype. Did he really have anything in common with those guys anymore? It. had been so long since he had talked about anything besides business that he wasn't sure he could carry on an ordinary conversation. And what if the guys were worse than boring-what if they didn't like him? Suppose they resented him for going Hollywood? Bunzie figured he had enough enemies throwing negative ions at him without inviting rejection from old friends. For one stifling moment he felt like faking an excuse not to attend and going home. But the plane full of book people had already left New York, and it was unthinkable that the auction should go on without him. The gang stood to make some nice money off this stunt, and it had been his doing. How could he think they'd dislike him?
Besides, he thought, these guys were his friends when he was broke and nobody. They had liked him then. There was even more reason to like him now. It was going to be all right.
Bunzie leaned back in his seat, watching the clouds roll by. Now maybe he could sit back and enjoy his friends and let the business take care of itself. He told Ruben Mistral to take the weekend off, and went back to reading the in-flight magazine.
… One family returns every year on Memorial Day to row out and sink a wreath on what they think is the ancestral burial plot. But one of the older boys admits that he thinks an aging uncle confused the spot with his favorite fishing hole and they have for years been honoring a living channel cat.
– DON JOHNSON "The Mayor of Butler"
"I wonder how it's going," said Marion for the third time. "The reunion? Fine," said Jay Omega, spearing another forkful of barbecue. "Are you going to eat that last hush puppy, because if not-"
After the rescue of George Woodard from the Welcome Center parking lot, Jay had returned to the Mountaineer Lodge, leaving Erik Giles to go off to his private reunion party while he and Marion drove off in search of a decent restaurant. He wasn't entirely convinced that they had found one, but Marion insisted that it would be wonderful, and as far as the food was concerned, she was right. He wasn't too sure about the ambience.
The Lakecrest Cafe, as the place was called, sat on a mound of clay too small to be termed a hill, with its back to the narrow shore of Breedlove Lake. Marion had declared that the restaurant's name was either a reassurance for customers or a neon prayer that the lake's crest should go no higher than the bottom of the slope even during the spring runoffs. She conceded that it might also be a message to hydroelectric-happy Tennessee bureaucrats: the lake stops here.