Pendleton had somehow gotten his arm stuck under the sofa. "Take it
easy."
He was aware of a rustling sound and when he got loose and came up he
saw Beth naked by the window for an instant. As he looked she changed.
Then there were two tan sofa chairs in the room.
Pendleton called Beth's name over and over, but she wouldn't come back.
It got cold in the apartment after a time and he threw all the wood
he could find in the fire. He crawled over to the martini pitcher and
drank from it. He noticed that some sticks had fallen out and landed in
the tangle of petticoats Beth had left and he smiled at the disorder of
everything and put his head back against the sofa.
Petticoats crackling woke him. Even before he got his head up very high
in the room, he was coughing. The room was turning bright, sparkling
orange.
"Beth!" he said. "Beth!"
There were still the two tan sofa chairs.
"Beth, sober up now! Come on, change! We've got to get out!"
Nothing happened. Pendleton looked at the chairs a moment. The one on
the left. He grabbed it up and wavered to the apartment door. To make
sure, he'd have to come up for the other one.
For several minutes it seemed the chair would stay wedged in the
doorway. It came free finally and he went back with it and tumbled and
twisted down the stairs.
* * * * *
A siren met him in the cold night outside. The engines were already
there. The firemen were heading for the building.
Spray fell back across the street where Pendleton took the chair.
"Beth, please," he said in a low voice. "Change now." He tried to go
get the other chair, to be sure, but they wouldn't let him.
He fell into the one he'd picked and began crying softly. The sirens
stopped. Before he let the ambulance people look at him, he insisted
that the chair be looked after.
No trace of Beth was found and Pendleton couldn't explain what had
happened. After they let him go, he had the chair sent to his apartment.
He put it very carefully in the living room by the liquor cabinet and
sat down near it to wait.