I strolled over to the pay phone, which was on the wall between the drugstore and the Norge. A sweltering woman in a purple sunsuit was jogging the cutoff switch up and down. I stood behind her with my hands in my pockets, wondering why I felt so uneasy about Steff, and why the unease should be all wrapped up with that line of white but unsparkling fog, the radio stations that were off the air and the Arrowhead Project.
The woman in the purple sunsuit had a sunburn and freckles on her fat shoulders.
She looked like a sweaty orange baby. She slammed the phone back down on its cradle, turned toward the drugstore and saw me there.
'Save your dime,' she said. 'Just dah-dah-dah.' She walked grumpily away.
I almost slapped my forehead. The phone lines were down someplace, of course.
Some of them were underground, but nowhere near all of them. I tried the phone anyway.
The pay phones in the area are what Steff calls Paranoid Pay Phones. Instead of putting your dime right in, you get a dial tone and make your call. When someone answers, there's an automatic cutoff and you have to shove your dime in before your party hangs up. They're irritating, but that day it did save me my dime. There was no dial tone. As the lady had said, it was just dah-dah-dah.
I hung up and walked slowly toward the market, just in time to see an amusing little incident. An elderly couple walked toward the IN door, chatting together. And still chatting, they walked right into it. They stopped talking in a jangle and the woman squawked her surprise. They stared at each other comically. Then they laughed, and the old guy pushed the door open for his wife with some effort-those electric-eye doors are heavy—and they went in. When the electricity goes off, it catches you in a hundred different ways.
I pushed the door open myself and noticed the lack of air conditioning first thing.
Usually in the summer they have it cranked up high enough to give you frostbite if you stay in the market more than an hour at a stretch.
Like most modern markets, the Federal was constructed like a Skinner boxmodern marketing techniques turn all customers into white rats. The stuff you really needed, staples, like bread, milk, meat, beer, and frozen dinners, was all on the far side of the store. To get there you had to walk past all the impulse items known to modern maneverything from Cricket lighters to rubber dog bones.
Beyond the IN door is the fruit-and-vegetable aisle. I looked up it, but there was no sign of Norton or my son. The old lady who had run into the door was examining grapefruits. Her husband had produced a net sack to store purchases in.
I walked up the aisle and went left. I found them in the third aisle, Billy mulling over the ranks of Jello-O packages and instant puddings. Norton was standing directly behind him, peering at Steff's list. I had to grin a little at his nonplussed expression.
I threaded my way down to them, past half-loaded carriages (Steff hadn't been the only one struck by the squirreling impulse apparently) and browsing shoppers. Norton took two cans of pie filling down from the top shelf and put them in the cart.
'How are you doing?' I asked, and Norton looked around with unmistakable relief.
'All right, aren't we, Billy?'
'Sure,' Billy said, and couldn't resist adding in a rather smug tone: 'But there's lots of stuff Norton can't read either, Dad.'
'Let me see.' I took the list.
Norton had made a neat, lawyerly check beside each of the items he and Billy had picked up-half a dozen or so, including the milk and a six-pack of Coke. There were maybe ten other things that she wanted.
'We ought to go back to the fruits and vegetables,' I said. 'She wants some tomatoes and cucumbers.' Billy started to turn the card around and Norton said, 'You ought to go have a look at the checkout, Dave.' I went and had a look. it was the sort of thing you sometimes see photos of in the paper on a slow newsday, with a humorous caption beneath. Only two lanes were open, and the double line of people waiting to check their purchases out stretched past the mostly denuded bread racks, then made a jig to the right and went out of sight along the frozen- food coolers. All of the new computerized NCRs were hooded. At each of the two open positions, a harried-looking girl was totting up purchases on a battery-powered pocket calculator. Standing with each girl was one of the Federal's two managers, Bud Brown and Ollie Weeks. I liked Ollie but didn't care much for Bud Brown, who seemed to fancy himself the Charles de Gaulle of the supermarket world.
As each girl finished checking her order, Bud or Ollie would paperclip a chit to the customer's cash or check and toss it into the box he was using as a cash repository.
They all looked hot and tired,
'Hope you brought a good book,' Norton said, joining me. 'We're going to be in line for a while.' I thought of Steff again, at home alone, and had another flash of unease. 'You go on and get your stuff,' I said. 'Billy and I can handle the rest of this,'
'Want me to grab a few more beers for you too?' I thought about it, but in spite of the rapprochement, I didn't want to spend the afternoon with Brent Norton getting drunk. Not with the mess things were in around the house.
'Sorry,' I said. 'I've got to take a raincheck, Brent.' I thought his face stiffened a little. 'Okay,' he said shortly, and walked off. I watched him go, and then Billy was tugging at my shirt.
'Did you talk to Mommy?'
'Nope. The phone wasn't working. Those lines are down too, I guess.'
'Are you worried about her?'
'No,' I said, lying. I was worried, all right, but had no idea why I should be. 'No, of course I'm not. Are you?'
'No-ooo...' But he was. His face had a pinched look. We should have gone back then. But even then it might have been too late.
