Fields glanced at his watch. “Nearly oh seventy-one already, and I got an appointment. Listen, I’m gonna leave you to find your way around.”
Forlesen seated himself at his desk. “I was hoping you’d tell me what I’m supposed to do here before you left.”
Fields was already outside the cubicle. “You mean your responsibilities; there’s a list around somewhere.”
Forlesen had intended to protest further, but as he started to speak he noticed an optical illusion so astonishing that for the brief period it was visible he could only stare. As Fields passed behind one of the rippled glass partitions on his way to the door, the distortions in the glass caused his image to change from that of the somewhat dumpy and rumpled man with whom Forlesen was now slightly familiar; behind the glass he was taller, exceedingly neat, and blank faced. And he wore glasses.
When he was gone Forlesen got up and examined the partitions carefully; they seemed ordinary enough, one surface rippled, the other smooth, the tops slightly dusty. He looked at his empty desk through the glass; it was a vague blur. He sat down again, and the telephone rang. “Cappy?”
“This is Emanuel Forlesen.” At the last moment it occurred to Forlesen that it might have been better to call himself Manny as Fields had—that it might seem more friendly and less formal, particularly to someone who was looking for someone he addressed so casually—but, as the thought entered his mind, something else, not a thought but one of those deeper feelings from which our thoughts have, perhaps, evolved contradicted it, so he repeated his name, bearing down on the first syllable: “
“Isn’t Cappy Dillingham there?”
“He may be in this office,” Forlesen said, “that is, his desk may be here, but he’s not here himself, and this is my telephone—I just moved into the office.”
“Take a message for him, will you? Tell him the Creativity Group meeting is moved up to oh seventy-eight sharp. I’m sorry it had to be so early, but Gene Fine has got a bunch of other stuff and we couldn’t figure out anything else to do short of canceling. And we couldn’t get a room, so we’re meeting in the hall outside the drilling and boring shop. There’s definitely going to be a film. Have you got that?”
“I think so,” Forlesen said. “Oh seventy-eight, hall outside the drill room, movie.” He heard someone behind him and turned to look. It was Miss Fawn, so he said, “Do you know where Mr. Dillingham is? I’m taking a call for him.”
“He died,” Miss Fawn said. “Let me talk to them.” She took the receiver. “Who’s calling, please? . . . Mr. Franklin, Mr. Dillingham died. . . . Lastnight . . . Yes, it is. Mr. Forlesen is taking his place in your group—you should have gotten a memo on it. . . . On Mr. Dillingham’s old number; you were just talking to him. He’s right here. Wait a moment.” She turned back to Forlesen: “It’s for you.”
He took the telephone and a voice in the earpiece said, “Are you Forlesen? Listen, this is Ned Franklin. You may not have been notified yet, but you’re in our Creativity Group, and we’re meeting—Wait a minute; I’ve got a memo on it under all this crap somewhere.”
“Oh seventy-eight,” Forlesen said.
“Right. I realize that’s pretty early—”
“We wouldn’t want to try to get along without Gene Fine,” Forlesen said.
“Right. Try to be there.”
Miss Fawn seemed to be leaving. Forlesen turned to see how she would appear in the rippled glass as he said, “What are we going to try and create?”
“Creativity. We create creativity itself—we learn to be creative.”
“I see,” Forlesen said. He watched Miss Fawn become pretty while remaining sexless, like a mannequin. He said, “I thought we’d just take some clay or something and start in.”
“Not that sort of creativity, for crap’s sake!”
“All right,” Forlesen said.
“Just show up, okay? Mr. Frick is solidly behind this and he gets upset when we have less than full attendance.”
“Maybe he could get us a meeting room then,” Forlesen suggested. He had no idea who “Mr. Frick” was, but he was obviously important.
“Hell, I couldn’t ask Mr. Frick that. Anyway, he never asks where we had the meeting—just how many came and what we discussed, and whether we feel we’re making progress.”
“He could be saving it.”
“Yeah, I guess he could. Listen, Cappy, if I can get us a room I’ll call you, okay?”
“Right,” said Forlesen. He hung up, wondered vaguely why Miss Fawn had come, then saw that she had left a stack of papers on a corner of his desk. “Well, the hell with you,” he said, and pushed them toward the wall. “I haven’t even looked at this desk yet.”
It was a metal desk, and somewhat smaller, older, and shabbier than the one in Fields’s office. It seemed odd to Forlesen that he should find old furniture in a part of the building which was still—judging from the sounds that occasionally drifted through the walls and window boards—under construction; but the desk and his chair as well were unquestionably nearing the end of their useful lives. The center desk drawer held a dead insect, a penknife with yellowed imitation ivory sides and a broken blade, a drawing of a bracket (very neatly lettered, Forlesen noticed) on crumpled tracing paper, and a dirty stomach mint. He threw this last away (his wastebasket was new, made of plastic, and did not seem to fit in with the other furnishings of the office) and opened the right-hand side drawer. It contained an assortment of pencils (all more or less chewed), a cube of art gum with the corners worn off, and some sheets of blank paper with one corner folded. The next drawer down yielded a wrinkled brown paper bag that disgorged a wad of wax paper, a stale half cookie, and the sharp smell of apples; the last two drawers proved to be a single file drawer in masquerade; there were five empty file folders in it, including one with a column of twenty-seven figures written on it in pencil, the first and lowest being 8,750 and the last and highest 12,500; they were not totaled. On the left side of the desk what looked like the ends of four more drawers proved to be a device for concealing a typewriter; there was no typewriter.
