"Jack Finney - The Other Wife" - читать интересную книгу автора (Finney Jack)

and all the other familiar coins of the world I now lived in-I understood something that had puzzled me
once.

These other alternate worlds in which we also live intersect here and there-at a corner newsstand, for
example, on Third Avenue in New York and at many another place, too, no doubt. And from these
intersecting places every once in a while something from one of these worlds-a Woodrow Wilson dune,
for example-will stray into another one. I'd found such a dime and when I happened to plank it down on
the counter of that little newsstand, there at an intersection of the two alternate worlds, that dime bought a
newspaper in the world it belonged in. And I walked off into that world with the New York Sun under
my arm. I knew this now, and I'd known it long since. I understood it finally, but I didn't tell Vera. I
simply told her I was looking for a 1913 Liberty-head nickel. I didn't tell her I was also looking for a
Roosevelt dime.

I found one too. One night, finally, sure enough, there it lay in my palm; a dime with the profile of Franklin
D. Roosevelt on its face. And when I slapped it down on the counter of the little newsstand next evening,
there at the intersection of two alternate worlds, I was trembling. The man snatched up a paper, folding it
as he handed it to me, and I tucked it under my arm and walked on for three or four steps, hardly daring
to breathe. Then I opened the paper and looked at it. New York World-Telegram, the masthead read,
and I began to run-all the way to Forty-fourth Street, then east to First Avenue and then up three flights
of stairs.

I could hardly talk I was so out of breath when I burst into the apartment, but I managed to gasp out the
only word that mattered. "Marion!" I said and grabbed her to me, almost choking her, because my arms
hit the back of her head about where Vera's shoulders would have been. But she managed to talk,
struggling to break loose, her voice sort of muffled against my coat.

"Al!" she said. "What in the world is the matter with you?"

For her, of course, I'd been here last night and every night for the months and years past. And of course,
back in this world, I remembered it, too, but dimly, mistily. I stepped back now and looked down at the
marvelous tiny size of Marion, at that wonderful, petite figure, at her exquisite and fragile blond beauty.
"Nothing's the matter with me," I said, grinning down at her. "It's just that I've got a beautiful wife and
was in a hurry to get home to her. Anything wrong with that?"

There wasn't; not a thing, and-well, it's been wonderful, my life with Marion, ever since. It's an exciting
life; we're out three and four nights a week, I guess-dancing, the theater, visiting friends, going to night
clubs, having dinner out, even bowling. It's the way things used to be, as Marion has aptly said. In fact,
she remarked recently, it's like a second honeymoon, and she's wonderfully happy these days and so am
I.

Oh, sometimes I'm a little tired at night lately. There are times after a tough day at Serv-Eez when I'd
almost rather stay home and read a good book; it's been quite a while since I did. But I don't worry
about that. Because the other night, about two-thirty in the morning, just back from The Mirimba,
standing at my dresser looking through the coins in my pocket, I found it-another Woodrow Wilson
dime. You come across them every once in a while, I've noticed, if you just keep your eyes open; Wilson
dimes, Ulysses Grant quarters, Coopernagel nickels. And I've got my Wilson dime safely tucked away,
and-well, I'm sure Vera, that lithe-limbed creature, will be mighty glad to see her husband suddenly acting
his old self once again. I imagine it'll be like a third honeymoon. Just as-this time-it will be for Marion.

So there you are, brother, coin collecting can be profitable. And fun too! Why don't you start-tonight!