I rinsed my coffee cup and the pot and set them in the rack. Then I picked up my bag and departed. Mr. Mulligan wasn’t in, or was sleeping, so I left my key in his mailbox before heading up the street to take my breakfast at a nearby diner.
Traffic was light, and all of the vehicles well behaved. I walked slowly, listening and looking. It was a pleasant morning, promising a beautiful day. I hoped to settle things quickly, so I could enjoy it at my leisure.
I reached the diner unmolested. I took a seat beside the window. Just as the waiter came to take my order I saw a familiar figure swinging along the street – a former classmate and later fellow employee Lucas Raynard: six feet tall, red-haired, handsome in spite, or perhaps because, of an artistically broken nose, with the voice and manner of the salesman he was.
I knocked on the window and he saw me, waved, turned and entered.
“Merle, I was right,” he said, coming up to the table, clasping my shoulder briefly, seating himself and taking the menu out of my hands.
“Missed you at your place and guessed you might be here.”
He lowered his eyes and began reading the menu.
“Why?” I asked.
“If’ you need more time to consider, I’ll come back,” the waiter said.
“No,” Luke answered and read off an enormous order.
I added my own.
Then: “Because you’re a creature of habit.”
“Habit?” I replied. “I hardly eat here anymore.”
“I know,” he answered, “but you usually did when the pressure was on.
Like, right before exams – or if something was bothering you.”
“Hm,” I said: There did seem to be something to that, though I had never before realized it. I spun the ashtray with its imprint of a unicorn’s head, a smaller version of the stained-glass one that stood as part of a partition beside the doorway: “I can’t say why,” I finally stated. “Besides, what makes you think something’s bothering me?”
“I remembered that paranoid thing you have about April 30, because of a couple of accidents.”
“More than a couple. I never told you about all of them.”
“So you still believe it?”
“Yes.”
He shrugged. The waiter came by and filled our coffee cups.
“Okay,” he finally agreed. “Have you had it yet today?”
“No.”
“Too bad. I hope it doesn’t pall your thinking.”
I took a sip of coffee.
“No problem,” I told him.
“Good.” He sighed and stretched. “Listen, I just got back to town yesterday . . .”
“Have a good trip?”
“Set a new sales record.”
“Great.”
“Anyhow . . . I just learned when I checked in that you’d left.”
“Yeah. I quit about a month ago.”
“Miller’s been trying to reach you. But with your phone disconnected he couldn’t call. He even stopped by a couple of times, but you were out.”
“Too bad.”
“He wants you back.”
“I’m finished there.”
“Wait’ll you hear the proposition, huh? Brady gets kicked upstairs and you’re the new head of Design-for a twenty percent pay hike: That’s what he told me to tell you.”
I chuckled softly.
“Actually..it doesn’t sound bad at all. But, like I said, I’m finished.”
“Oh.” His eyes glistened as he gave me a sly smile. “You do have something lined up someplace else. He was wondering. Okay, if that’s the case he told me to tell you to bring him whatever the other guys offer. He’ll try like hell to top it.”
I shook my head.
“I guess I’ m not getting through,” I said: “I’ m finished. Period. I don’t want to go back. I’m not going to work for anyone else either. I’ m done with this sort of thing. I’ m tired of computers.”
“But you’re really good. Say, you going to teach?”
“Nope.”
“Well, hell! You’ve got to do something. Did you come into some money?”
“No. I believe I’ll do some traveling. I’ve been in one place too long.”
He raised his coffee cup and drained it. Then he leaned back, clasped his hands across his stomach, and lowered his eyelids slightly: He was silent for a time.