I fall on the bed laughing, then fall off it laughing. I can’t help it. She’s such a jerk.
“What did I say?” She’s giggling with me, and we are both snorting like fools and pounding our feet on the floor without really knowing why. There is a crabby shout from downstairs to please for the love of God get rid of those damned rhinos or leave me in peace. I choke and cover her mouth with a pillow. She fights me off and whispers hoarsely:
“Tell me true! Is he a communist or what? I won’t hold it against him, Helen’s father is a bus-driver.”
“Economist,” I hiss. “Money. You know, that paper stuff we wish we had some of so we could buy a— buy some—” I have to stop. I can’t think of anything I want to buy.
“Clothes,” Madeleine is saying dreamily, “records, great beads, get our hair done every day, cars, trips to Disneyland and see Braincase playing in New York or Las Vegas or wherever and—”
Downstairs, the phone rings. I think of going down to get it, but decide Poppa’s closer. It keeps ringing. I get up and go to the door. By the time I hit the landing he’s come out of his study and answers it. He glances up to me.
“Are you the teenager with the mind like a steel trap?”
I stare at him. I haven’t told anybody, not even him over lunch.
“Is that Davy?”
“I shouldn’t think so, unless his speech has improved markedly. Well come on, don’t dawdle, my computer’s probably having a melt-down while I loiter here.”
I gallop down the stairs. He grimaces and mutters something about damned elephants should have been put out with the rhinos and hands me the receiver.
“Yes?”
“Don’t hang up,” the voice says.
“You again.”
“Oh, if only you knew. If you realized how much sweat and pain and bloody trouble you put us to, doing what you—” His voice cuts off suddenly, as if someone had covered the mouthpiece. A few seconds later he says in a much more controlled tone, “I’m not getting off to a very good start this time either, am I?”
“I don’t have the faintest idea.” I see Madeleine peering down over the top banister with her eyebrows pushed up into her frizzy blonde hair, doing a question at me. I shrug back and wave my free hand in a circle. I add, “I suppose it depends what you’re trying to say and who you think you’re saying it to.” Whom.
“Who am I saying it to? No, hang on, my turn. This is Rod Gianforte. You’ve never met me, but I guarantee that I’m of sound character and clean in mind and person. Please laugh, that was a friendly self-deprecatory joke.”
“Ha ha,” I say. I hold the receiver away from my face and stare at it. When I get it back to my ear he’s saying, “...tremendously important.” The voice takes a deep and shuddering breath. “Listen, nameless teenager, I would beg your indulgence for just three more questions. Think of this as some kind of intelligence test, or a quiz, yes, that’s it, like a—”
“What’s the prize?”
“The prize? Golly, the prize...it’s just about anything you could ask for, I suppose, when you think about it.”
He seems so enthralled with this thought that I start to hear a weird sound, in behind him, like a whole room of other people sitting and listening and holding their breaths. “Um, anyway, mysterious teenager, I really would be very grateful if you’d just give me the answers to these three—”
“Jenny,” I say, on a sudden impulse.
There is a sound like a wave going out late at night, low tide, gentle but powerful, like a roomful of ghosts brushing through each other.
“Thank you, Jenny. Thank you very much. Now, this is the first question. You will think it sounds strange, crazy, nuts, but please just tell me the simple truth. What is the name of the president of the United States?”
What kind of quiz is this? A quiz for cretins? A test for people who don’t know what day it is? Come to think of it, this guy sounds as if he doesn’t know what day it is. He’s already proved he doesn’t know what time it is.
So I give up trying to analyze his motives and tell him, “Bill Clinton.”
“Bill. The informal touch. Okay. Thank you, Jenny. That was great. Now, question two: who were the previous two presidents? Do you understand what I mean by that? In the four years before this president came into office, who was pres—”
I’m really pissed off by his presumption of my ignorance. One of Poppa’s snide jokes comes into my head, and I say, “George Bush and before him Bing Crosby.” Some sort of awful singer, that’s all I know about him, but the reaction is spectacular. I hear this wheezing gasp, then a gulping snort.
“You’re joking,” the voice says weakly.
“It’s Poppa’s joke, not mine, but he says the real thing was just as silly.”
Very patiently, the voice says, “And who was that, dear?”
“You know as well as I do,” I snap. “Ronald Reagan, and what the hell is all this about?”
“Crosby,” he says. “Movies. Reagan. Wasn’t he in cowboy films? I really can’t....” He sounds as if he is struggling with a hairball. “Thank you, Jenny. Here’s the final question. I’d like you please not to hang up anyway, after you’ve told me this, but even if you do decide to, give me the answer first. Okay?”
“Fire away,” I say. I am getting pretty bored, and Madeleine has gone back inside my bedroom and turned the sound up and she’s dancing her disco aerobic steps, and I know Poppa will be out any minute to shout at us. I can do without that, because I want no trouble fouling up my date with David in a few hours.
“Was Kennedy or Nixon the President of the USA?”
“That’s the question?”
“Yes. Do you want to hear it again?”
“No. What a dumb-ass question. Is this a trick or what?”
He sounds terribly worried and baffled. “No, Jenny, this is not a trick question. Just tell me, which one was president? Have you ever heard of John Fitzgerald Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon, the presidential candidates in—”
“You’re driving me crazy,” I say. “Of course I’ve heard of them. In fact I did a social-ethics essay on them last term, ‘Camelot and Watergate, a comparison.’”
“Camelot and— Fascinating. My God. Apollo, Camelot, I feel as if I’d fallen into a mythological— Look, Jenny, if you did an essay on them, then think back carefully to this one point. Which one of them became President?” A sort of screech gets into his voice.
“Which one? Which one? What do you mean, which one?” I shout at him. “Both of them did. They were both President, you dumbo,” and I hang up in his ear, hard.
SATURDAY, 8 APRIL, EVENING
In the middle of all this bizarre stuff, I start getting cramps. Oh great. Maddy’s upstairs and I’m feeling weird and uncomfortable but I don’t really feel like talking about it to her. Perfect timing for a romantic night with Davy. I was a late starter, Maddy’s been getting periods since she was twelve, and it always gives me a lot more trouble than she ever has. Just what you need for a really terrific mood on a night in front of the video. Not that I have any intention of—
So I’m in the bathroom off the hallway when the doorbell buzzes. It could be anyone but since Maddy is already here and bopping around upstairs I know it just has to be David. The only time in his life he’s ever been on time. We have one of those once-trendy 1970s’ lavatories with pine slats in the door, not that you see in or anything but everyone can hear a good fart if you let rip, not to mention