He still wasn’t reacting fully to the situation, he knew. Things might take days to sink in. A potbellied autovendor stopped by the booth and began reciting a spiel on the magazines, candies, pills, and other wares that it was carrying. Corrigan told it to go away.
Then one of the waitresses came across with his coffee. She was about twenty, cute in the face, slightly chubby, with dark ringlets poking out from below a blue-spotted kerchief tied around her head.
“Hi, Mandy,” Corrigan said, looking at her name tag.
“You ordered eggs and corned-beef hash with fries?”
“Right.”
“The special today is German pancakes and sausage.”
“I know. I want eggs and the hash.”
Mandy looked puzzled and glanced away at the other customers, as if double-checking something. “But everybody’s having the special,” she said.
“Well, that’s manifestly untrue, isn’t it? If everybody were, then it would include me, wouldn’t it?—by definition. And I’m not.” He watched her patiently, waiting for the pieces to connect. Quite simple, he tried saying with a smile. Just think about it.
Her eyes met his with the vacancy that he saw everywhere. He felt as if he were dealing with a shell whose occupant had departed—or maybe never existed. “Logically, that’s correct, I guess,” she replied. Corrigan was used to things sounding strangely inappropriate. Mandy’s brow creased. She seemed to be having a problem knowing how to continue.
The receptionist at the desk by the door saved her by calling across, “Mandy, is that a Mr. Corrigan there at that booth?” She was holding a phone.
“Are you Mr. Corrigan?” Mandy repeated.
“Yes, I am.”
“Yes, he is.”
“Call for you, Mr. Corrigan,” the receptionist announced.
A beep sounded from the table unit, and the menu vanished to be replaced by a callscreen format. Corrigan tapped the pad to accept and pivoted the unit toward him. The features of Sarah Bewley appeared, looking concerned. Mandy made the best of her opportunity to escape.
“Joe, thank goodness I’ve found you!” Sarah was still the rehabilitation counselor assigned to Corrigan’s case by the psychiatric care section of the city health department. She looked and sounded anxious. “Are you all right?”
Corrigan made a pretense of thinking the question. over; then, knowing that she would miss the point, pronounced, “Probably more what you’d call mostly liberal.” He played the same games with Sarah as he did with Horace. For a psychiatrist, Sarah could be amazingly unperspicacious at times—or so it seemed to Corrigan. Years previously, Dr. Arnold had told him that his condition caused him to see things in peculiar ways and form linkages in his head that made no sense to anyone else.
“I was worried about you,” Sarah said.
“Is that a fact?”
“Horace called and told me the news about Muriel. You know, if you’d only carry a compad like everyone else, it would be a lot easier for people to contact you.”
“I know,” Corrigan agreed. “That’s why I don’t. If I did, I’d have Horace checking up on me all the time. It’s bad enough having to live with a neurotic computer, never mind being hounded all over town by it as well.”
Sarah came back to her reason for calling. “You’re sure you’re all right? You’re not thinking of doing anything silly, are you?”
“I was about to have breakfast, if that’s what you mean.”
“Joe, I’m so sorry! You must be going out of your mind. I know how something like this can affect people, especially somebody in your situation. Now, you’re not to worry, understand? I can probably arrange through the department to have her traced. Then we’ll get her back, and all sit down together and work out what the problem is. In the meantime I want you to carry on just as if nothing happened. Can you manage that for me, Joe?”
Corrigan blinked. What was this? First Horace; now his counselor verging on hysteria. “I’m all right,” he said when he could get a word in. Sarah stopped, seemingly taken by surprise just as he thought she was about to launch off again. “It’s probably for the best,” Corrigan explained. “I don’t think there ever was anything deep between us either way. It was all done for the wrong reasons. To be honest, I feel relieved now that it’s sorted itself out at last.”