She tried to jerk her arm free but couldn't. "How long will you be
here?" she called back, swatting Brendel's arm.
He lifted his shoulders and dropped them.
"If I come--" But Brendel had given their number. They were outside
their own door, and she hadn't felt a thing. Today she resented not
feeling a thing.
"These weird-o's, they talk too much. I'm hungry."
She resented punching his food and didn't even want to quarrel.
* * * * *
She drowsed back into sleep, remembering. Everything was empty. She
ate, she slept, she quarreled, she gridded around seeing friends.
What else was there? She couldn't get a job; there weren't that many
jobs. And with the government allowance for not working, who needed
a job? Who needed anything? A time of plenty, her school machine had
called it. You just gridded around collecting and arguing to make it
interesting. There were so many people moving so fast that you had to
quarrel and push or you'd get stepped on.
It was all stupid. Brendel didn't help a bit. He was stupid too.
She tried to imagine Latsker Smith echoing through the empty streets in
his scarlet splinter of car. Latsker Smith couldn't be stupid.
She slept three hours before the gridbell rang.
Elka, her cousin, stood on the grid, loose-haired, big-toothed. She
swung a hatbox. "I didn't get you up?"
"No," Pollony said hopelessly.
"I'm gridding to NYC hatting and--"
"It's not even seven."
"Poll, I'm contritest but you weren't sleeping and--"
"I don't need hats."
"You haven't seen the darling I got in Paris. I gridded over with
Sella Kyle and, honestly, there was a shop that--"
She convinced Elka that she was not going hatting. Elka took her toll
in coffee and gridded after her Paris hat. Pollony barely admired it
and Elka left.
Before she could dial Brendel's breakfast her mother was on the grid,
fluffy, fleecy, thrusting a wad of bills at her.
"Just on my way to Mexico, toodle. Punch me some coffee?" Breathless
moments later she was gone.
"What took so long?" Brendel demanded when she woke him.
"Momma stopped." She hated him like this, his face creased and puffy
from sleep. She had never thought he would get fat.
He gulped his breakfast and left. Sometimes she hated him for just
being.
The gridbell rang. It was a salesman. He insinuated she didn't have
the money to buy his product. She said his merchandise stank. He left
grinning but she didn't feel better.
The bell rang. A young man muttered, "Mis-grid," and disappeared.
She had gotten to the dress when she heard the door open. She eyed the
hall reflector and saw Ferren, her mother's brother, slip into the
cook. She dressed hastily. Ferren would order breakfast and keep the
silver to turn in from his own grid for the deposit.
* * * * *
He was plumped up to the counter, a wooly haired man, attacking a stack
of eggcakes.
"Let me have them."
He purred, taking spoon and knife from a pocket. "The government
allowance is hardly sufficient for a man of my tastes. Shielded by your
father's fortune as you are--"
"You could get a job." She punched coffee. She wished he would go away.
He was always watching, smiling, spinning together soft words.
"And add to the work shortage?" He wagged his wooly head.
"Then don't complain. There should be a syrup pitcher too."
He produced it, purring.
The gridbell rang. Two pig-faced men in black Gridco uniforms blocked
the doorway. "You got Ferren Carmichaels inside, lady."
"No." You always lied to Gridco collectors.
"We traced him here from Dallas."
"Well, he isn't here now."
"How come we heard him talking?"
"He isn't here." Gridco could not remove a grid even though the
subscriber refused to pay his quarterly bill. The grid was held by law
to be essential to human existence in the twisting, walled alleys
of suburbia. Gridco could only send collectors to follow until their
quarry fell or was pushed into their hands. And a man who had once
fallen into Gridco hands paid eagerly forever after.
"We can pull another trace."
"Do that!" She slammed the door.
She had time for a quick swallow of coffee before the bell rang.
"He didn't go no farther."