married. No kids. She’d had a few inert flings in Nashua, but the only serious relationships she’d had had been with local men who’d turned out to be “a bunch of crud-heads and moochers who didn’t want to work a job.” Instead, she’d accepted her slow-paced, simple life in her home town, figuring “whatever happens, happens, and whatever that might be, it’s a great life and a beautiful world.”
Fanshawe could see in her eyes that she meant it. There was something shockingly refreshing about that.
But what am I really thinking?
He didn’t know. He felt weird in a way he couldn’t identify. Perhaps it was the alcohol—he rarely drank, and the only reason he was doing it here was because of the circumstance. This is the first time I’ve been away from people in—damn—I can’t remember when. His professional life involved his being constantly surrounded by underlings or other financial whizzes. His front office bosses had objected to no end when he’d told them he was going off on a long vacation by himself, as though he were some volatile political figure with enemies around every corner waiting to pick him off. His personal manager, Arthur Middoth, had practically had a panic attack. “Stew, please, a guy like you can’t just drop everything and go for a road trip. Lemme get’cha our best driver and a good vehicle,” the man had suggested with some angst in his voice. “I have a car, Artie, a bunch of them, and I don’t need a driver. I want to go by myself—that’s the whole idea.” Artie pushed his fingers worriedly through his hair, even though he didn’t have much. “Well then lemme send a couple of our guys in a second car.” “A couple of our guys?” Fanshawe laughed. “I’m not a mafia don, Artie. I just need to get away for a while, six months, maybe a year,” and then he’d added, “Period.” What could any of them say? Fanshawe owned them in a sense. Nevertheless, he felt skewed now, his insides diced up and shuffled around like something in a wok. First time out of the office and I don’t know which end is up. Then he looked back at Abbie.
He wanted to say something but couldn’t. Their eyes locked, and several moments passed, but those several moments seemed to Fanshawe like full minutes.
Abbie grinned again. The grin couldn’t have been more full of a joy of life. “What?”
Fanshawe felt like someone speaking in a cavern. “Can-can I take you out to dinner when you get off work?”
Her pause seemed like shock. “I can’t. I have to close tonight; we stay open till two when we have a convention.”
“Oh.” He’d had no previous idea that he was going to ask her out. Idiot. What was I thinking? I’m fifteen years older than her probably, maybe twenty. I’m the OPPOSITE of her. He struggled for something to say next, but then—
An uproar poured into the bar with no warning; Fanshawe turned, startled. The professors, he realized. At once the bar was filled with mostly long-haired, bearded men ranging from their fifties to their seventies. Where earlier they’d been wearing suits, now they wore jeans and T-shirts, and the T-shirts were all emblazoned with prints of dour faces, presumably philosophers. The men lined up at the bar, ordering drinks in chaos, waving dollars bills in their hands. They’re like spring- breakers, Fanshawe thought, only…old. But one thing he didn’t like was loud groups.
And he was embarrassed. Abbie had turned him down.
Part of himself was oddly impressed, because she already knew he was rich. But still…
It was past ten already, and his fatigue from the long drive was taking its toll. “This is a little rowdy for me,” he tried to tell her.
“Huh?” She was juggling bottles for squawking customers, pouring two drinks at once. “Not to be born is best!” someone howled; then someone responded, “Sophocles!”
“I’ve got to go,” he attempted again. “Can you just put my drinks on my room bill?”
“They were on the house,” she raised her voice over the revel, smiling as she was now operating several bar taps simultaneously.
Fanshawe got nudged by a bearded gray-hair whose T-shirt read TRANSCEND YOURSELF! and showed a print of St. Augustine. “Pardon my Dasein,” the man said, then barked to Abbie. “A Witch’s Moon Lager, please!” Pardon my WHAT? Fanshawe wondered, aggravated. He left twenty on the bar as a tip, looked once more to Abbie, and saw that she was swamped with demanding customers. “See ya later,” he spoke up, waving, then slipped out of his seat. She hadn’t heard him. I can’t even say goodnight to her it’s so damn crowded. How can somebody as successful as me have karma this bad? As he was shouldering his way out, he noticed two attractive women chatting with some of the professors, long-legged, vivaciously breasted. Their eyes glittered in a mild buzz. It took a moment to realize he’d seen them before, but in running apparel, not evening dresses. Harvard and Yale, he recognized. Tan legs shined; the slopes of their breasts visible in their gowns seemed to flash at him. What flashed next was the image of them nearly naked as they lay hidden on the hillock; but he pulled away, just as some drunk yelled, “The human self is the only thing that can be known and therefore verified!” and someone responded “Bullshit! There is no objective basis for truth!”
This is some weird party, Fanshawe thought. Finally, he broke out of the crowd under the bar transom, almost desperate now to flee the sudden tide of raucous drinkers. He turned toward the elevator, but before he could stride away—
“Wha—”
A hand grabbed his arm with some insistence; he turned around to see that Abbie had trotted after him. Her face was beaming as more drunk professors shouted objections behind her. “I’ll be right there!” she yelled to them, then turned back to Fanshawe. “You didn’t give me time to finish before all those old eggheads barged in. Day after tomorrow, I get off at seven. There’s a great Thai place on the next block.”
Fanshawe was subtly rocked. She hadn’t turned him down after all. “That’s great. Seven o’clock it is, day after tomorrow.”
“So it’s a date. Just meet me here.”
“Sure thing, Abbie, but I hope I see you before then.”
“So do I,” she said, then seemed surprised she’d said it so abruptly. “But where are you going now?”
“It’s late; I’m bushed from the long drive. And after four Witch-Blood shooters? I definitely need to go to bed.”
Her grin amplified. “Not going to the graveyard?”
The graveyard… “At night? Are you kidding?”
From the bar, the professors were banging their fists on the bartop, yelling “Barkeep! Barkeep! Barkeep!” in unison.
“You better get back in there,” he advised. “I think the professors are about to riot.”
“Good idea.” Her hand slid down his arm, an inconsequential contact, yet Fanshawe felt electric. “See ya! Oh, and remind me to tell you about the Gazing Ball.”
“The what?”
But Abbie was already bulling her way back into the bar. The professors began to applaud.
I hope she’s got earplugs, Fanshawe regarded. And…what did she say? Gazing Ball? But as he waited at the elevator, he realized he was brimming; she’d agreed to go out with him. The elevator took him up, and he saw his own smile warped in the stainless steel siding.
What’s the big deal about a financial mogul going on a date? he asked himself, but he knew, and he knew what Dr. Tilton might say. The situation was unique because it represented his re- emergence into “the regulated societal stream”—which was her way of referring to the everyday, normal world. For most of his adult life, exceptionally attractive women had made themselves all too available, with sexual implications all too apparent. Fanshawe had never been interested; they did not exist at the other end of a telescope or pair of binoculars; therefore, the were unexciting. Even in the year since his marriage had detonated, he had not been interested. Tilton’s right. Now that I’ve removed myself from the “purveying environment” I WANT to go out with a woman, not lust after her through a window. True, he’d felt the pangs during his walk through town, but since he’d been in Abbie’s presence at the bar, those old demons had barely reared their heads.
Any other time, he’d be itching to go on a “peep.”
