(Drop it, Boss!)
“Oh, I believe you, now that you’ve explained it.”
“A comparison photo might be a good idea. Make you more careful. I was not implying any criticism of Mrs. Branca; I was simply warning you that the baby-baking apparatus you inherited from her is in prime shape and ready to be triggered each lunar month. Say about ten days from now.”
“I’ll be careful.”
“Want a lecture on contraception?”
“No.” Johann smiled wryly. “Apparently I have at least a week before I need a chastity girdle.”
“Approximately, by statistics. But, uh, Johann. No, ‘Miss’ Smith—do you know the technical term we physicians use to describe girls who depend on rhythm?”
“No. What?”
“We call them ‘mothers.’”
“Oh. Oh!”
“So don’t wait too long. Next question?”
“Uh. . . no more today, Doctor; I need to digest what you’ve told me. Thank you.”
“Not at all, Miss Smith. Shall I have them switch beds now?”
“I’ll send for Cunningham later; I’d like to rest. Doctor? Could you stick that dingus on my ribs? Then have the nurses stay out a couple of hours?”
“Certainly. If you’ll let me raise the safety rails, as this bed is not only ten inches from the floor.”
“Oh, of course.”
10
(Well, Eunice?) (So you want to hear about my little bastard? Boss, you’re a dirty old man.) (Sweetheart, I don’t want to hear anything you don’t want to tell. You could have quintuplets by a Barbary ape and it wouldn’t affect how I feel about you.) (Mealymouthed old hypocrite. You’re dying of curiosity.) (I am like hell ‘dying of curiosity.’ It’s your business and yours alone.) (Oh, don’t be so mean, Boss. My business is your business. How else? Seeing the close relationship we have…and which I like, if there is any doubt in your dirty old mind. You brought me back to life. . . when I was as dead as folk songs. And now I’m happy. So coax me a little, I’ll give.) (All right, dearest—how in the world did you manage to have a baby? When did you find time? Your snoop sheet traced you clear back through high school.)
(Boss, did that security report mention the high school semester I lost from rheumatic fever?) (Let me think. Yes, it did.) (Misspelling. Spell it ‘romantic’ fever. I was fifteen and a cheerleader. Our basketball team won the regional conference . . . and I felt so good, I got knocked up.) (Eunice, ‘knocked up’ is not an expression a lady uses.) (Oh, Boss, sometimes you make me sick. By your rules I’m not a lady and never was—and I’ve got as much right to be inside this skull as you have and maybe more—so you haven’t any business trying to force me to talk the way your mother did. Not when I no longer have Joe to turn to when I get tired of your prissy ways.)
(I’m sorry, Eunice.)
(‘Sail right, Boss. I love you. But you and I are cuddle up pretty close; we ought to relax and enjoy it. I can teach you a lot about how to be female, if you’ll let me. But right now you listen. Don’t interrupt.) The ghost voice started reciting a string of monosyllables, all of them taboo in the faraway days of Johann’s youth.
(Eunice! Please, darling, it doesn’t become you.)
(Pipe down, Boss. I’m going to finish this even if you blow every fuse.) The recitation went on— (That does it, I guess—those are the words I had tagged in my mind never to use in your presence. Now tell, me—was there even one you didn’t understand?)
(That’s not the point. A person should not use language-which offends others.)
(I never did, Boss. In public. But I’m home now thought I was. Do you want me to go away again?)
(No, no, no! Uh, you were away?) (I certainly was, Boss. Dead, I suppose. But I’m here now and I want to stay. If you’ll let me. If I can relax and be happy and not have to be on guard all the time for fear of offending you. I can’t see why a Latin polysyllable makes me more a lady than a monosyllable with the same meaning. You and I think with the same brain—yours—eat with the same mouth—mine, or used to be—and pee through the same hole. So why shouldn’t we share the same vocabulary? Speaking peeing—oh, pardon me, sir, I meant to say ‘micturition’—).