"Edward Bryant - The Transfer" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bryant Edward)

want." But first, of course, he'd have to punch my ticket in Aurora.
The smell of liver and onions and sex made me want to throw up. I said no.
But it was close, dangerously so. The compulsion to touch his soul,
satisfy his need, to draw near and meld with him, actually be him, perhaps
to become even worse than he . . . that frightened me so much that I drew
back.
I wouldn't have phrased it this way, back then, but I wanted to remain my
own person.
The next night, there were messages scrawled on my weather board; they
were terrible, obscene things. The Chroma-Key didn't pick them up, so only
the crew and I could see them. I finished the evening news block, and then
I quit. I didn't have many choices, but at least that one I could make.
So that's why I ended up in Chicago sooner than I'd expected, on the
streets looking for another job; maybe I could be a weathergirl again. I
don't think there are many weathergirls now. Every station has its own
staff meteorologist and they usually are men. But back then, looks
counted.
At least for more than they do now. I think. I haven't tried to trade on
looks for a long, long time, and that's all to the good.
When I finally got a job, it was at an advertising agency on North
Michigan. The company was called Martin, Metzger, and Mulcahy, and
appearances certainly counted there. The men who ran the agency had a
crystalline vision of how we should all look and act, whether we were at
the office or not. You always represent the agency, they said. All of us
had to measure up to their expectations.
It's not easy defining yourself that way, but I tried. I worked hard and
did what they wanted for six months, until nearly my twenty-fourth
birthday. I was a pretty good secretary. It seemed to workI was in line
for a promotion. Then I met Cody.
That's blood, isn't it? Blood, all liquid and running downStop it, Dorrie!
Think. Remember . . .
My parents, my father especially, used to tell me, don't be so
impressionable, Dorrie. Use your own head. But how could I do that when I
used the heads of others? When I saw through their eyes and felt what they
felt. And, and
What, Dorrie? I looked back, confronted the child I was then, the person I
am now.
II became likeNo, I became
Please . . . Damn it. Please, no, I'm me. Me, Doris MacKenzie. I am
forty-three years old, though I overheard one of my neighbors at the
market talking to a woman from across the street and guessing that I was
in my fifties. That's as old as Jim, my husband. They didn't know I'd
overheard, because there was a pyramid of paper-towel rolls between us.
It's not that I mind being that old. No, it's being reminded of him. We
were so much alike. My dearest, dearest. His face is so red. And it drips.
Oh, Jim.

I met Cody Anderssen on my lunch break while I was walking slowly along
the lakefront. At first I thought he was just another hippy. There weren't
many hippies downstate in Macomb, at least none I'd ever been aware of,