research and development department of Burnham Massey-Microtech.
She giggled.
Research and development! And probably less attention getting!
She giggled and giggled.
Couldn't stop.
Didn't want to!
She laughed, standing up and looking at that 'Notes on Newcomers' in its neat box of lines. PROBABLY be less attention-getting!
Dear God in heaven!
She closed the big brown volume, laughing, and picked it up with a volume beneath it and swung them down to their place on the shelf.
'Mrs. Eberhart?' Miss Austrian upstairs. 'It's five of six; we're closing.'
Stop laughing, for God's sake. 'I'm done!' she called. 'I'm just putting them away!'
'Be sure you put them back in the right order.'
'I will!' she called.
'And put the lights out.'
'Jawohl!'
She put all the volumes away, in their right order more or less. 'Oh God in heaven!' she said, giggling. 'Probably!'
She took her coat and handbag, and switched the lights off, and went giggling up the stairs toward Miss Austrian peering at her. No wonder!
'Did you find what you were looking for?' Miss Austrian asked.
'Oh yes,' she said, swallowing the giggles. 'Thank you very much. You're a fount of knowledge, you and your library. Thank you. Good night.'
'Good night,' Miss Austrian said.
SHE WENT ACROSS TO THE pharmacy, because God knows she needed a tranquilizer. The pharmacy was closing too; half dark, and nobody there but the Cornells. She gave the prescription to Mr. Cornell, and he read it and said, 'Yes, you can have this now.' He went into the back.
She looked at combs on a rack, smiling. Glass clinked behind her and she turned around.
Mrs. Cornell stood at the wall behind the side counter, outside the lighted part of the pharmacy. She wiped something with a cloth, wiped at the wall shelf, and put the something on it, clinking glass. She was tall and blond, long-legged, full-bosomed; as pretty as-oh, say an Ike Mazzard girl. She took something from the shelf and wiped it, and wiped at the shelf, and put the something on it, clinking glass; and took something from the shelf and- 'Hi there,' Joanna said.
Mrs. Cornell turned her head. 'Mrs. Eberhart,' she said, and smiled.
'Hello. How are you?'
'Just fine,' Joanna said. 'Jim-dandy. How are you?'
'Very well, thank you,' Mrs. Cornell said. She wiped what she was holding, and wiped at the shelf, and put the something on it, clinking glass; and took something from the shelf and wiped it- 'You do that well,' Joanna said.
'It's just dusting,' Mrs. Cornell said, wiping at the shelf.
A typewriter peck-peck-pecked from in back. Joanna said, 'Do you know the Gettysburg Address?'
'I'm afraid not,' Mrs. Cornell said, wiping something.
'Oh come on,' Joanna said. 'Everybody does. 'Fourscore and seven years ago-''
'I know that but I don't know the rest of it,' Mrs. Cornell said. She put the something on the shelf, clinking glass, and took something from the shelf and wiped it.
'Oh, I see, not necessary,' Joanna said. 'Do you know 'This Little Piggy Went to Market'?'
'Of course,' Mrs. Cornell said, wiping at the shelf.
'Charge?' Mr. Cornell asked. Joanna turned. He held out a small white-capped bottle.
'Yes,' she said, taking it. 'Do you have some water? I'd like to take one now.'
He nodded and went in back.
Standing there with the bottle in her hand, she began to tremble. Glass clinked behind her. She pulled the cap from the bottle and pinched out the fluff of cotton. White tablets were inside; she tipped one into her palm, trembling, and pushed the cotton into the bottle and pressed the cap on. Glass clinked behind her.
Mr. Cornell came with a paper cup of water.
'Thank you,' she said, taking it. She put the tablet on her tongue and drank and swallowed.
Mr. Cornell was writing on a pad. The top of his head was white scalp, like an under-a-rock thing, a slug, with a few strands of brown hair pasted across it. She drank the rest of the water, put the cup down, and put the bottle into her handbag. Glass clinked behind her.
Mr. Cornell turned the pad toward her and offered his pen, smiling. He was ugly; small-eyed, chinless.
She took the pen. 'You have a lovely wife,' she said, signing the pad.
'Pretty, helpful, submissive to her lord and master; you're a lucky man.'
She held the pen out to him.
He took it, pink-faced. 'I know,' he said, looking downward.
'This town is full of lucky men,' she said. 'Good night.'
'Good night,' he said.
'Good night,' Mrs. Cornell said. 'Come again.'
She went out into the Christmas-lighted street. A few cars passed by, their tires squishing.
The Men's Association windows were alight; and windows of houses farther up the hill. Red, green, and orange twinkled in some of them.
She breathed the night air deeply, and stomped bootfooted through a snowbank and crossed the street.
She walked down to the floodlit cr6che and stood looking at it; at Mary and Joseph and the Infant, and the lambs and calves around them. Very lifelike it all was, though a mite Disneyish.
'Do you talk too?' she asked Mary and Joseph.
No answer; they just kept smiling.
She stood there-she wasn't trembling any more-and then she walked back toward the library.
She got into the car, started it, and turned on the lights; and cut across the street, backed, and drove past the cr6che and up the hill.
THE DOOR OPENED AS SHE came up the walk, and Walter said, 'Where have you been?'
She kicked her boots against the doorstep. 'The library,' she said.
'Why didn't you call? I thought you had an accident, with the snow.
'The roads are clear,' she said, scuffing her boots on the mat.
'You should have called, for God's sake. It's after six.'
She went in. He closed the door.
She put her handbag on the chair and began taking her gloves off.
'What's she like?' he asked.
'She's very nice,' she said. 'Sympathetic.'
'What did she say?'
She put the gloves into her pockets and began unbuttoning her coat. 'She thinks I need a little therapy,' she said. 'To sort out my feelings before we move. I'm 'pulled two ways by conflicting demands.'' She took the coat off.
'Well that sounds like sensible advice,' he said. 'To me, anyway. How does it sound to you?'
She looked at the coat, holding it by the lining at its collar, and let it drop over the handbag and the chair. Her hands were cold; she rubbed them palm against palm, looking at them.
She looked at Walter. He was watching her attentively, his head cocked.
Stubble sanded his cheeks and darkened his chin-cleft. His face was fuller than she had thoughthe was gaining weight-and below his wonderfully blue eyes pouches of flesh had begun to form. How old was he now? Forty on his next birthday, March third.
