|
next, and then it's us. Say,
eighteen hours. You ready?"
Clouds covered Edwards' face. "Jesus, I'm never ready."
"You've never let me down, either." Naomi Yoshijima pecked his cheek, sorry she'd
brought it up. "Next week we get a cycle free. What do you say to Paris?"
"'Give Athena the apple.'"
"What -- Very funny. Really, it's old and historic and dirtier than
Chicago and they don't pick up the garbage as often. Plus I can guarantee you
won't like the French people. Want to go?"
"How can I say no?"
Arriving at Naomi's quarters, Susan checked Naomi's mailbox and then turned to
examine the note on Naomi's door. The main body of it was a piece of a poem by
Yeats:
Never shall a young man
Thrown into despair
By those honey-colored
Ramparts at your ear,
Love you for yourself alone
And not your yellow hair.
A second admirer had crossed out "honey" and "yellow" and written
"reddish-brown, like a smoldering fire viewed through amber, idiot"; the
first had returned, crossed out all references to hair and drawn arrows to
three characters of Syllabus, the non-mathematical script used for recording
screeds.
Susan squinted at the bad mentat calligraphy, then sn
|