"Cook, Robin - Invasion Txt" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cook Robin)

"My God!" Cassy exclaimed. "Where'd you learn to drive, Kmart?"

"Very funny," Beau said sheepishly. "I turned a little too soon, okay?"

"You should let me drive if you're preoccupied," Cassy said.

Beau drove across the crowded gravel parking lot and pulled to a stop in a slot in front of the diner. "How do you know I'm preoccupied?" he asked. He pulled on the brake and killed the engine.

"When you live with someone you begin to read all sorts of little clues," Cassy said as she undid her seat belt and alighted from the car. "Especially someone you're engaged to."

Beau did the same, but as his foot made contact with the ground, it slipped on a rock. He grabbed onto the open door to keep from falling.

"That settles it," Cassy said, having caught Beau's latest sign of inattentiveness and temporary lack of coordination. "After breakfast, I'm driving."

"I can drive fine," Beau said irritably as he slammed the car door and locked the car with his remote. He met up with Cassy at the rear of the car and they trudged toward the diner's entrance.

"Sure, just like you can shave fine," Cassy said.

Beau had a small forest of tissue paper plastered to the various nicks and cuts he'd inflicted on himself that morning.

"And pour coffee," Cassy added. Earlier Beau had dropped the pot of coffee and broken one of their mugs in the process.

"Well, maybe I am a little preoccupied," Beau reluctantly admitted.

Beau and Cassy had been living together for the last eight months. They were both twenty-one and seniors, like Pitt. They'd known of each other from their freshman year, but had never dated, each certain that the other was always involved with someone else. When they'd finally been brought together inadvertently by their mutual friend, Pitt, who'd been casually dating Cassy at the time, they'd clicked as if their relationship were meant to be.

Most people thought they resembled each other and could almost be brother and sister. Both had thick, dark brown hair, flawless olive-complexion skin, and shockingly crystalline blue eyes. Both were also athletically inclined and frequently worked out together. Some people had joked that they were a brunette version of Ken and Barbie.

"Do you really think that you are going to hear from the Nile people?" Cassy asked as Beau held the door open for her. "I mean, Cipher is only the largest software company in the world. I think you are just setting yourself up for big-time rejection."

"No question that they'll call," Beau said confidently, entering the restaurant behind Cassy. "After the resume I sent, they'll be calling any minute." He pulled aside his Cerruti jacket to flash the tip of his cellular phone stuck in his inner pocket.

Beau's snappy attire that morning was no accident. He made it a point to dress nattily every day. It was his feeling that looking successful bred success. Luckily, his professional parents were able and willing to indulge his inclinations. To his credit he was a hard worker, studied diligently, and got outstanding grades. Confidence was not something he lacked.

"Hey, guys!" Pitt called from a booth beneath the front windows. "Over here!"

Cassy waved and wormed her way through the crowd. Costa's Diner, affectionately labeled the "greasy spoon," was a popular university hangout, especially for breakfast. Cassy slid into the seat across from Pitt. Beau did likewise.

"Did you have any trouble with your TV or radio last night?" Pitt asked excitedly before any hellos were exchanged. "Did you have anything turned on around ten-fifteen?"

Cassy made an expression of exaggerated disdain.

"Unlike other people," Beau said with feigned haughtiness, "we study on school nights."

Pitt unceremoniously bounced a piece of wadded-up napkin off Beau's forehead. He'd been nervously toying with the paper while waiting for Beau and Cassy to arrive.

"For those of you nerds who have no idea of what's going on in the real world, last night at quarter past ten a whole shitload of radios and TVs were knocked out all over the city," Pitt said. "Mine included. Some people think it was a prank by some guys in the physics department, and I'll tell you, I'm steamed."

"It would be nice if it happened over the entire country," Beau said. "Within a week of no TV the national average IQ would probably go up."