The phone rang. Street, no doubt. 'I'll get it!' he called out. He picked up the cordless from his desk and pressed the 'Talk' button. 'Hello?'
It was Street, but he hadn't called to gloat, as Bill had expected.
Instead, he seemed subdued. 'I won,' he said, and there was a superstitious hush to his voice, as though he had just broken a mirror and was waiting for the imminent arrival of seven years' bad luck. 'I didn't think I'd win.'
'I didn't either,' Bill admitted.
There was a pause on the other end of the line. 'Want to call Ben and come over for a board game?'
'Sure.' Bill searched around his desktop, trying to find where he'd laid his watch. 'What time is it?'
'Still early. Why don't you come on by?'
'Okay,' Bill said. 'See you in ten.' He started to turn off the phone, then held it once again to his mouth and ear. 'Oh, I almost forgot. Congratulations.'
'Thanks,' Street replied, but there was no joy in his voice.
Bill switched off the phone, switched off his PC, and emerged from his office, walking into the kitchen to get a glass of water.
'He does still live here,' Shannon said loudly from the living room.
'Very funny.' He made a face at her.
Ginny looked over at him from the couch. 'You could spend a little more time with your family and a little less time hiding in your room with your computer.'
'Yeah, Dad.'
'You're with that computer all day. Do you have to do it at night, too?'
'Sorry.' Bill grabbed a glass from the sideboard, rinsed it out, poured himself some water from the sink, and drank.
'So what's your plan now?' Ginny asked. 'Are you going to stay here with us for once, or are you going to hang out with your cronies?'
'My cronies?'
'Your cronies.' Ginny looked at him levelly.
'Well . . . I was going to go over to Street's house for a quick game.'
'Jesus. Don't you think for once you could do something with me instead of your friends?'
All lightness, all trace of bantering, had left her voice. If it had ever been there. Shannon was on the floor, moving closer to the television, trying to pretend she couldn't hear what was going on.
Bill put his glass in the sink. 'Fine,' he said. 'I'll stay home. We'll have our match tomorrow.'
'But you're going to be angry about it, aren't you? You're going to be silent and pout all night.'
'What's with you today?' He moved around the counter, into the living room, sitting down on the couch next to her. 'That time of the month?'
'You're gross,' Shannon said.
'Are your little hormones telling you to be angry with me?' He pinched Ginny's side, tickling her, and against her will she laughed. 'You _are_ gross,' she said.
'But that's the way, uh-huh, uh-huh, you like it.'
'Dad!'
'Okay, okay. Sorry.' He gave Ginny a quick kiss. 'Just let me call Street and cancel.'
'You sure you're not going to pout?'
'No,' he said. And as he walked back down the hallway to his office, he realized that he hadn't been lying to Ginny. He wasn't angry. In fact, he wasn't at all upset that they wouldn't be playing chess tonight.
He was relieved.
'Thank you, Fred,' Street said as he handed the customer his change.
The old man nodded, took his bag of adapters. 'Thanks.'
Ben waited until the customer had left the store, then turned toward Street. 'Whatever happened to the words 'You're welcome'?'
'What?'
'It seems like every time I say 'Thank you' to someone, they say 'Thank you' back to me. Everyone's thanking everybody these days. No one says, 'You're welcome' anymore.'
'What is this crap? You trying to be Andy Rooney or something?'
'Like what just happened here. What are you supposed to say when someone buys something from you? Do you thank him for buying from you and patronizing your store? You do, right? Then he's supposed to say, 'You're welcome.' That's the correct response to Thank you.' But, instead, Fred said, 'Thanks.' Why?
What's he thanking you for? Giving him his change?'
Street shook his head. 'Give it a rest, will you? It's been a crappy day.'
The editor looked over at Bill, changing the subject. 'Well, maybe this'll start a new pattern. Now maybe he'll win all the computer games and you'll win all the board games.'
'Street's right,' Bill said. 'Give it a rest.'
He didn't feel like talking about the chess game. In fact, he didn't feel like playing chess ever again. He _had_ won the board game in their little test, and that pattern reversal had shaken him far more than he cared to admit. It had not been a surprise -- hell, he'd been expecting it -- but confirmation only made it that much worse.
Street, too, had avoided discussing the subject. Only Ben seemed to be unfazed by what had occurred, viewing it dispassionately, talking about it as though he were a geologist who had just found some sort of interesting crystal formation.
The editor sighed. 'Boy, you two are a barrel of laughs today. If you guys are just going to sit around and mope, I'm going back to the office.'
Bill smiled. 'And actually do some work?'
'He _is_ still alive!'
'They're talking about raising the sales tax a quarter of a cent,' Street said. 'The city council. Either of you know anything about it?'
Bill shook his head.
Ben nodded. 'I think it's done deal. That's the rumor.'
Bill frowned. 'Why? I never even heard about this.'
Street snorted derisively. 'Apparently, The Store wasn't required to pay for the traffic impact report, the easement fee, hookup fees, or anything else that the rest of us had to pay. They were given preferential treatment.'
'Incentives,' Ben concurred.
'Now the rest of us have to make up for those lost revenues.'
'I imagine our local citizens are going to be pretty unhappy with that,'
Bill said.
'I hope so.'
'It's only a quarter of a cent,' Ben said. 'A penny for every four bucks.'
'People still won't like it.'
'You know, that's something that always seemed ironic to me,' Ben said.
'It's the one who are so antitaxation that are usually so gung ho about the military. They're willing to kill for their country but not pay for it.'
Bill smiled. 'You old hippie you.'
'I admit it.'
Street shook his head. 'It's not that simple. These are the taxes that really hurt small businesses like mine. Someplace like The Store can afford to absorb the loss and not pass the tax on to the consumer. But the rest of us here are just making ends meet. My prices are going to jump. Not much, but maybe just enough to give The Store that extra edge.'
'Besides,' Bill said, 'this is not providing better roads or better hospitals or things that will actually benefit people. This is subsidizing a successful business with taxpayer money. At the expense of our local merchants -'
'Damn straight,' Street said.
