"Hoffman-HomeForChristmas" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hoffman Abbie)

some real psychos -- their dreams gave them away -- and when she closed
dream-eyes, they looked almost more like everybody else than everybody else did.

He stared down at his coffee mug his shoulders slumped. "I guess there is no way
to know anymore, is there?"

"Oh, what the hell," she said.

He looked at her, a slow smile surfacing. "You mean it?"

"I've done some stupid things in my time. I tell you, though. . ." she began,
then touched her lips. She had been about to threaten him. She never threatened
people. Relax. Give the guy a Christmas present of the appearance of trust.
"Never mind. This was one great dinner. Let's go."

He dropped a big tip on the table, then headed for the cash register. She
followed. "You have any. . .luggage or anything?"

"Not with me." She thought of her belongings, stowed safely in the basement two
miles away.

"There's a drugstore right next to my building. We could pick up a toothbrush
and whatever else you need there."

Smiling she shook her head in disbelief. "Okay."

The drug store was only three blocks from the restaurant; they walked.
Plainfield bought Matt an expensive boar-bristle toothbrush, asking her what
color she wanted. When she told him purple, he found a purple one, then said,
"You want a magazine? Go take a look." Shaking her head again, she headed over
to the magazine rack and watched him in the shoplifting mirror. He was sneaking
around the aisles of the store looking at things. Incredible. He was going to
play Santa, and buy her a present. Keerist. Maybe she should get him something.

She looked at school supplies, found a pen and pencil set (the best thing she
could think of for someone who thought in graphs), wondered how to get them to
the cash register without him seeing them. Then she realized there was a cash
register at both doors, so she went to the other one.

By the time he finished skulking around she was back studying the magazines. It
had been years since she had looked at magazines. There were magazines about
wrestlers, about boys on skateboards, about muscle cars, about pumping iron,
about house blueprints, men's fashions, skinny women. In the middle of one of
the thick women's fashion magazines she found an article about a murder in a
small town, and found herself sucked down into the story, another thing she
hadn't experienced in a long time. She didn't read often; too many other things
to look at.

"You want that one?"