“You’re making it up,” Clifford said after he had calmed down a little.
“So help me, I am not. There was this other guy there who . . .”
“Before you start another one, have another drink,” Clifford interrupted. He picked up the bottle, then frowned as he realized it was empty. “That all we’ve got?” he asked Sarah.
“We did have a lot more,” she told him. “I think you two are getting pretty close to cleaning us out.”
“Us?” Clifford pointed at her accusingly. “You haven’t been doing too badly either.” He placed his hands firmly on the table. “That settles it. Tonight we’re going out to celebrate and show Aub the town. Woman—upstairs and make yourself presentable. We’ll clear up this mess.”
“Never thought I’d see the day,” she said. “Okay, why not? We can worry about the expense tomorrow.”
Chapter 9
Clifford awoke the next day feeling very sick and very fragile. It was past twelve o’clock and Sarah was already up. He lay immobile for a long time, recollecting disconnected fragments of the hilarious night that had brought him to the painful condition in which he now found himself, wondering how anyone could possibly conceive that what he had been having should be considered a good time, and collecting the will power he would need to do anything else.
At last he half sat up, groaned, collapsed back onto the pillow, tried again, and made it. A little later, after shaving, showering, and dressing, he emerged still semisomnambulant from the bathroom and made his way slowly downstairs to face stoically whatever the new day, what was left of it, had in store for him.
An ashen-faced Aub was sitting woodenly in an armchair when he entered the living-room. Assorted clatterings and tinkling from the kitchen told him that Sarah was at least still capable of purposeful activity. Clifford sank into the armchair opposite Aub and joined his silent contemplation of the meaning of the universe.
“Ma-an . . .” Aub said after a thousand years or so had passed.
Another thousand years dragged by.
Sarah appeared in the doorway bearing a mug of steaming black coffee. “Oh, so the other half of the dynamic duo finally made it,” she said, looking at Clifford and pressing the mug into Aub’s motionless hand. “I was just going to call the undertakers in for an estimate. Then I thought that perhaps I could make something by selling you for medical research. I know just the people who’d be interested.”
“Don’t scream.”
“I’m not. I’m just talking.”
“Then don’t talk. Whisper. Buzz saws don’t make noise like that.”
“Like some coffee?”
“Mmm, yeah . . . please.”
Sarah left the room and resumed riveting a boiler in the kitchen. Aub returned at last to the confines of his physical body and brought his eyes to focus on the mug clasped in his hand. He studied it curiously for a while as if aware of its existence for the first time, then raised it to his lips and sipped the contents gratefully.
“Some night,” he pronounced finally.
“Some night,” Clifford agreed.
Another silent communion ensued.
Eventually Aub frowned. “What was it we were celebrating?”
Clifford’s brow contorted with the effort of concentration.
“Can’t remember . . . wait a minute . . . we quit our jobs. That was it—we’re both out of work and we’re both out of cash. That’s what we were celebrating.”
Aub nodded slowly, his inner suspicions evidently having been confirmed.
“That’s what I thought. You know something . . . when you really get to figuring it out, there’s another side to it.” Aub delivered the ultimate secret that had been revealed to him during his meditations: “It really ain’t all that funny.”
Sarah came in again, handed Clifford his mug and settled herself down in the swivel chair with her own. She peered over the rim of her cup as she drank and shifted her eyes from one specimen of virile masculinity in its prime to the other.
“Let’s sing songs,” she suggested. Clifford growled something obscene. “Brad doesn’t want to sing songs. Something tells me that my man isn’t his usual exuberant self today. I wonder if Avis hires out temporary replacements.”