“No.”
“Very well, then, I will: You’re wonderful.”
“Thank you.”
I went on, “This calls for a celebration! How long are you free? Say, couldn’t you possibly get some leave? They can’t expect you to be on duty twenty-four hours a day, week after week, with no time off. I think I’ll go right straight to the Old Man and tell him just what—”
“I’m on leave, Sam.”
“—just what I think of that sort of—Huh?”
“I’m on leave now.”
“You are? For how long?”
“Subject to call. All leaves read that way now.”
“But—How long have you been on leave?”
“Since yesterday. I’ve been sitting here, waiting for you to show up.”
“Yesterday!” And I had spent yesterday giving more kindergarten lectures to brass hats who did not want them. “Oh, for the love of—” I stood up. “Stay right where you are. Don’t move. I’ll be right back.”
I rushed over to the operations office. I got in to see the chief deputy by insisting that I had a very urgent matter that he had to attend to. Oldfield looked up when I came in and said in a surly tone, “What do you want?”
“Look, chief, that series of bedtime stories I’m scheduled to tell: better cancel them.”
“Why?”
“I’m a sick man; I’ve been due for sick leave for a long time. Now I’ve just got to take it.”
“You’re sick in the head, if you ask me.”
“That’s right; I’m sick in the head. Sometimes I hear voices. People have been following me around. I keep dreaming I’m back with the titans.” That last point was regrettably true.
“But since when has this being crazy been any handicap in this section?” He leaned back and waited for me to argue the point.
“Look—do I get leave or don’t I?”
He fumbled through papers on his desk, found one and tore it up. “Okay. Keep your phone handy; you’re subject to recall. Get out.”
I got. Mary looked up when I came in and gave me the soft warm treatment again. I said, “Grab your things; we’re leaving.”
She did not ask where; she simply stood up. I snatched my drink, gulped half of it and spilled the rest. We went up and were out on the pedestrian level of the city before either one of us said anything. Then I asked, “Now—where do you want to get married?”
“Sam, we discussed that before.”
“Sure we did and now we are going to do it. Where?”
“Sam, Sam my very dear—I will do what you say. But I am bound to tell you that I am still opposed to it.”
“Why?”
“Sam, let’s go straight to my apartment. I’d like to cook dinner for you.”
“Okay, you can cook dinner—but not in your apartment. And we get married first.”
“Please, Sam!”
I heard somebody say, “Keep pitching, kid. She’s weakening.” I looked around and found that we were playing to a good-sized gallery.
I swept an arm wide, almost clipping the youngster who had given me the advice and shouted irritably, “Haven’t you people got anything else to do? Go get drunk!”
Somebody else said, “I’d say he ought to take her offer; he won’t get a better one.”
I grabbed Mary by the arm and hurried her away from there. I did not say another word until I had gotten her into a cab and closed off the driver’s compartment from the lounge. “All right,” I said gruffly, “why not get married? Let’s have your reasons.”
“Why get married, Sam? I’m yours; you don’t need a contract.”
“Why? Because I love you; that’s one reason, damn it!”
She did not answer for quite a while; I thought I had offended her. When she did I could hardly hear her. “You hadn’t mentioned that before, Sam.”
“Hadn’t I? Oh, I must have. I’m sure I have.”
“No, I’m sure, quite sure, that you haven’t. Why didn’t you?”
“Unh, I don’t know. Just an oversight, I guess. I’m not right sure what the word ‘love’ means.”
“Neither am I,” she said softly, “but I love to hear you say it. Say it again, please.”
“Huh? Okay. I love you. I love you, Mary.”