"Holly Lisle - Minerva Wakes" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lisle Holly)

But the girl with the nice legs and the nice hair came up
to him and smiled. She had a nice smile, too.
"You're Darryl Kiakra, aren't yon?"
He nodded.

"You were on the team that developed the new Hearth-
Home campaign, weren't you? The one that's up for a
Cleo?" Her eyes were full of admiration.

Pretty ei/es, he thought. Bright green. Contact lenses?
Probably. He smiled- "I was. Junior member of the team,
but certainly on it. Why do you ask?"

She looked down at her feet, then back up at him. "I'm
new. I thought maybe you could tell me how you did itтАФ
how yon cam&. up with such a terrific campaign." Her voice
implied that, junior member or not, she knew he WAS the
idea manтАФthat HearthHome WAS- his success.

He could go home right then, he thought. Home to
Minerva, who Ditched about the. kills and her job; who didn't
look at him with admiration in her eyes anymore, but instead
with something approaching disgust. He could go home and
listen to her tell him that he had rt fulfilling, creative job,

MINERVA WAKES

13

while she was being stifled by all her responsibilitiesтАФas if
his sixty-hour weeks that paid for most of the house and most
of the food and most of everything else were totally divorced
from responsibility; as if writing commercials for dog food
and dishwasher detergent and the detestable HearthHome
cookies was the same as selling his plays would have been.

Yeah, he could go home, where he was the thirty-one-
year-old producer of paychecks, the person whose thrillingly
creative career didn't pay enough to free Minerva from the
drudgery of her own job. He could listen to her talk about
painting, and he could see in her face the certainty that if he
wens a better provider, she would be a professional artist by
now.

He could listen to the kids fight, and hear Minerva com-
plain about how he didn't ever want to talk about their
relationship. Danyl hated the word "relationship." When
Minerva used it, it meant fun and spontaneityтАФand sexтАФ
were out of the question for the evening. The conversation
would be about her growth as a person and his not-growth