The decor was a monument to bad taste. Ugly gold shag carpeting covered the floor. An aquarium filled with iridescent gravel sat next to a Spanish sofa with dark wood trim, brass nail heads, and red velvet upholstery. Sam flipped a wall switch, turning on a lamp made up of a wire bird cage filled with plastic philodendrons. Nearby, occupying what was obviously a place of honor, hung a full-length oil painting of Elvis Presley wearing one of his white-satin Las Vegas outfits and clutching a microphone with ring-encrusted fingers.
Susannah looked over at Sam and waited for him to say something. He returned her stare, his expression belligerent as he waited for her to make a comment. The look of challenge in his eyes and the stubborn set to his jaw touched her. She wanted to go to him and lay her head against his shoulder and tell him she understood. A man with so much passion for elegant design must find it unbearable to live in such a place.
She asked to use the bathroom. Decals of fat fish were stuck to tangerine tiles. She took off her torn stockings and stuffed them into a plastic wastebasket. A smaller painting of Elvis done on black velvet regarded her from the wall behind the toilet, LOVE ME TENDER was written in glitter ill script across the bottom, except some of the letters had worn off so that it read love me ten. Not one, she thought as she washed her hands, avoiding her reflection in the mirror. Don't love me two or three. Love me
She found Sam in the kitchen. He offered her a can of Coke and a pair of gold sandals with a plastic daisy at the apex of each thong. 'They're my mother's,' he said. 'She won't mind.'
She slipped into the sandals but politely refused the Coke. He studied her for a moment, then picked up a handful of hair next to her cheek and closed it in his fist. She felt dizzy with his closeness, as if she were racing toward the edge of a cliff.
'You have beautiful hair,' he whispered. He brushed his thumb over her lips. Her breath quickened. The amber flecks in his eyes glowed like the fireflies she had once trapped in a jar as a child. When Susannah wasn't looking, Paige had opened the lid and dumped the insects on the ground, then squashed them with the soles of her sneakers so that their crushed bodies left a yellow phosphorescent streak in the grass. Afterward, Paige had cried so hard that Susannah had thought she would never stop.
The expression in Sam's eyes told Susannah that he wanted to make love to her, and the tissues in her body began to feel loose and fluid, as if she'd had too much wine. There had been so much emotion that day, so many feelings rushing through her. She wanted to live out all her fantasies, but she was frightened. This was the final step in her emancipation, and she wasn't ready.
She pulled abruptly away from him and walked back into the living room. Elvis, soul-eyed and sullen, looked down at her from the wall. Did she love Sam ten? she wondered frantically. She didn't even know what love was anymore. Was this love or was it simply lust? She loved her father, and look what she'd done. She'd been pretending to love Cal, and that had resulted in disaster. And Sam? Had she gone crazy succumbing to the sexual fantasies this amber-eyed renegade aroused in her? Had she thrown away everything familiar for sex?
'Come on out to the garage with me,' he said from behind her.
She whirled around and saw him standing in the archway between the kitchen and living room.
'I want you to see what we're doing,' he said. 'You're going to be part of it now.'
He led her toward the back door, talking all the time. 'I told you it was starting for us, Suzie, and I meant it. Last week I got an order for forty circuit boards from this guy named Pinky at Z.B. Electronics. Forty! And this is just the beginning.'
As Joel Faulconer's daughter, it was difficult for her to work up much excitement for such small numbers, but she tried to respond enthusiastically. 'That's wonderful.'
She felt the plastic petals on the daisies of her sandals scratch at her toes as she crossed the backyard. Sam pointed toward the garage with his can of Coke. She studied his hand as it curled around the can. It was a working man's hand. His fingernails were clean but uneven, and an untidy white scar marred his thumb.
'Garages are good luck in the Valley. Bill Hewlett and David Packard started Hewlett-Packard in a garage in Palo Alto, and we're going to start our company in this one. Right now, half the guys in Homebrew have projects going in garages. Do you remember Steve Wozniak from the Homebrew meeting? I pointed him out to you.'
'He and his friend are the ones building that single-board computer with some sort of fruit name.'
Sam nodded and stopped in front of the side entrance to the garage. 'They're working out of Steve Jobs's parents' garage in Los Altos. I heard that Mrs. Jobs is driving Woz crazy by running in and out all the time to use her washer and dryer.' Sam grinned and opened the door. 'Yank has it even worse.'
Susannah didn't understand what he meant until she stepped inside the Gamble garage. It was roughly divided into two sections. The back section held shelves of electronic equipment, a long lighted workbench, and a faded floral sofa. The front of the garage was partitioned off with blond paneling. Susannah walked through a narrow doorway set in the paneling and saw a shampoo bowl, a beauty-shop chair, and several hair dryers. Where the garage door should have been stood a wall of gold-flecked mirrored tiles.
At that moment a phone sitting on a small desk next to an appointment book began to ring. An answering machine clicked on and a woman's voice announced, 'This is Angela at Pretty Please Salon. I'm closed for the next two weeks while I try my luck in Vegas. Leave a message and I'll get back to you.'
There was a pause and then a beep. 'Hi, Angela. It's Harry Davis at Longacres Funeral. Old Mrs. Cooney passed away during the night. I wanted you to do her before the first viewing on Monday, but since you're not going to be around, I'll get Barb. I'll call you with the next one.'
The answering machine gave its final beep. Susannah turned to Sam and said weakly, 'Your mother does the hair on corpses?'
'She does them when they're alive, too, for chrissake,' he retorted belligerently. 'She works with one of the nursing homes. When the old ladies finally croak, the funeral home calls her. It drives Yank crazy.'
'The funeral home?'
'The old ladies. The nursing home buses them over here to get their hair done. Sometimes when he's working, they peek through the door and start asking him questions.' He took a swig of his Coke and gestured with his thumb toward the other side of the partition. 'Come on. Let me show you what we're doing.'
She left the Pretty Please Salon to follow him into the other section of the garage. The guts of a Sylvania television along with the computer circuit board, a keyboard, and a cassette tape recorder sat on a workbench. He flipped on the overhead work light and began to fuss with the equipment. In front of her, the picture tube started to glow. He put a tape in the cassette recorder, and before long a message appeared in block letters on the screen.
WHAT IS YOUR NAME?
'Go on,' Sam said. 'Talk to it.' She walked forward and hesitantly typed, 'Susannah.' 'Now push this key.' She did as Sam directed, and another message appeared.
HI, SUSANNAH. I'M HAPPY TO MEET YOU. I DON'T HAVE A NAME OF MY OWN YET. DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEAS?
She was struck by the oddity of having a machine address her by name. 'No,' she typed.
THAT'S TOO BAD. LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT MYSELF. I AM BEING RUN OFF A 73 19 MICROPROCESSOR FROM CORTRON. I HAVE 8K BYTES OF MEMORY. WOULD YOU LIKE TO KNOW MORE?
'Yes,' she typed.
The machine responded with more technical information and then, to her surprise, flashed the question, ARE YOU MALE OR FEMALE, SUSANNAH?
'Female,' she typed.
are you pretty? it asked.
Sam reached around her and typed, 'Yes.'
ARE YOU STACKED?
She smiled for the first time that day. 'This machine has a naughty mind.' 'Don't blame me. I didn't program it.' She entered the word no on the keyboard.
THAT'S TOO BAD. WOULD YOU GO TO BED WITH ME ANYWAY?
She chuckled and entered the word no.
DARN. I NEVER HAVE ANY LUCK WITH WOMEN. I THINK MY MICROPROCESSOR IS TOO SMALL.
