do we have to take you someplace with tablecloths?'
Blaine smiled good-naturedly. 'I like pizza just fine.'
Sam pointed his Coke can at Blaine, challenging him with it as if he held a six-gun. 'How about rock and roll?'
'To tell you the truth, I'm more a country western man.'
'You're kidding.'
'A little tolerance for us old folks, Sam. We all have our foibles.'
'Yeah, but country western is really pushing it.'
Ten minutes later they were backing out of the driveway with Sam behind the wheel of the Duster and Blaine in the passenger seat. In the back Susannah held a spool of coaxial cable on her lap while Yank straddled an oscilloscope. They drove to Mom & Pop's, a pizza and burger place located in a strip mall between a dry cleaners and a Hallmark shop. The restaurant served beer by the pitcher and had video games, which made it a favorite of Sam's and Yank's. As they went inside, the uneasiness that had been building inside Susannah all afternoon grew stronger. She felt like an outsider, someone whose only function was fetching food and caring for the creature comforts of men.
They piled into the largest of the circular green vinyl booths, leaving her the place at the end and then steadfastly ignoring her. As Sam spoke, his dark eyes glittered with excitement. Even as her resentment toward him grew, she could feel that familiar core of warmth building up in the deepest parts of her body.
Just as the waitress arrived with their pizzas, Roberta slipped into the seat next to her. 'I don't know why Yank and Sam like this place,' she whispered, dabbing at the top of the nearest pizza with a paper napkin. 'Everything is so greasy.'
While the men talked electronics, Susannah listened to Roberta detailing her latest sinus infection. Her resentment fed on itself until she couldn't stand it any longer. Sam and Mitchell Blaine were acting as if they had known each other for years instead of two days. She decided she wasn't going to let them shut her out any longer, and when the next lull occurred in the conversation, she addressed Blaine. 'Could you tell us what you know about attracting venture capital?'
Once again she received the impression of a chilling dislike. What had she done to this man? Why was he behaving so warmly toward Sam and treating her with such antipathy?
To her astonishment, Blaine turned to Sam as if her question had come from him. 'Venture capital is tricky, Sam. You don't want to go after it until you absolutely have to. If you're not careful, you'll end up giving away the store.'
'Does that happen very often?' she asked, refusing to be ignored.
Again he addressed Sam. 'When Ken Olson and Harlan Anderson founded Digital Equipment Corporation in 1957, they gave up seventy percent of the business for a $100,000 investment. DEC is projecting a billion dollars in sales next year, so nobody's hurting, but it was still a lousy deal. Do you have a business plan?'
'I'm working on it,' Sam replied.
Susannah stiffened. She was the one working on the business plan.
Using the information she had painstakingly gathered, Sam began discussing the specifics. Only when he forgot a statistic or some important fact did he turn to her. But as soon as she had supplied the information he needed, she ceased to exist.
'Come on, Susannah, let's go to the little girl's room.' Roberta caught her arm in a death grip and began pulling her from the booth. Susannah had no choice but to accompany her, but she fumed inwardly as Roberta maintained a steady stream of chatter all the way to the rest room. Yank's girlfriend was a college graduate. Couldn't she, just once, make it to the rest room by herself?
As they walked through the swinging door, Roberta said, 'Mr. Blaine seems really interested in SysVal. He's just what the guys have been looking for.'
'Not just the guys,' Susannah replied sharply. 'I'm part of SysVal, too.'
'Well, sure you are, Susannah. So am I. But it's different with us. We're in it because of them. I mean, I'm in it because of Yank and you're in it because of Sam. Right?' Roberta slipped into the stall. 'Although to tell you the truth, I'm starting to get a little impatient with Yank. I'm not getting any younger, and I think it's about time we got married.'
As Roberta babbled on, Susannah stared at herself in the mirror. Was it true? Was she only part of SysVal because of Sam? Would she still want to pursue this impossible crusade if she weren't so desperately in love with him?
Her hand spun the faucet and water splashed from the bowl onto the front of her slacks. SysVal was hers, too, dammit! She had bought into Sam's dream. Somehow, along the way, she had begun to believe that it could happen. Sam had called them the last buccaneers of America's twentieth century. She wanted it to be true, and she wasn't going to let them take it away from her.
Leaving Roberta still chattering in the stall, she went back out to the booth, determined to make some sort of stand, but only Yank was there, scribbling a diagram on the back of a napkin. Blaine and Sam were playing video games. She watched as Sam let out a whoop and Blaine slapped him on the back, the uptight millionaire executive suddenly as carefree as a teenager. She could almost feel the affinity developing between them, that mysterious attraction of opposites as Mr. Establishment met Easy Rider.
She planned to talk to Sam when they got home-to tell him how she felt about being closed out-but he and Blaine sat up until dawn weaving futuristic fantasies of how everyday life might be reshaped by a small, affordable computer. They were still talking when she finally excused herself to go to bed.
The next day Blaine rented a car and moved into a hotel, but except for a few hours of sleep at night, he spent all his time with Sam. The kinship they had developed continued to exclude her. Although they argued frequently, and Blaine steadfastly resisted all of Sam's efforts to get him to commit to SysVal, the bond between the men grew daily. Each seemed to provide something the other lacked. Sam was attracted to Blaine's greater knowledge and breadth of experience-Blaine to Sam's vision and poetry.
When she was finally able to corner Sam alone, she tried to talk to him about how she felt, but he shrugged her off. 'He's used to working with men, that's all. He's not ignoring you. You're making a big deal out of nothing.'
But she didn't think so. Blaine's aversion to her seemed to run deeper than a general prejudice against women.
The next afternoon, while she was doing a shampoo for Angela, she heard Blaine and Sam on the other side of the partition discussing the prototype. 'The SysVal I is only a toy for hobbyists, Sam. If you want to build a company, you're going to have to base it on that self-contained computer. Ordinary people aren't going to want to hook up a television set and all sorts of other equipment to make their computer work. Everything has to be in one piece, and it has to be simple. As soon as you get the funding lined up, you have to get that machine on the market.'
They talked about possible markets for the computer, and then Sam asked Blaine what he thought they should name it.
'The most obvious name is the SysVal II,' Blaine replied.
'Yeah, I suppose. I just wish we could come up with something more dramatic.'
Sam had never asked
'You can't go back to Boston,' Sam told Blaine the day before he was planning to leave. 'Boston's old history, man.'
But the change of environment seemed to have healed some of Blaine's personal wounds, so that he was thinking more clearly. 'I don't mean to insult you, Sam, but I can get a top position in just about any corporation in America. No matter how much fun I'm having, I'd be crazy to give that up to work with a couple of kids trying to run a company out of a garage. And I'm definitely not crazy.'
Sam continued to badger Blaine all the way to the airport. Susannah sat in the backseat and listened as Sam asked Blaine the same question he had once asked her. 'Are you in or out? I want to know.'
