"Robert Reed - Birdy Girl" - читать интересную книгу автора (Reed Robert)

Birdy Girl
by Robert Reed


UPS is at the door. A package for my wife, as usual. The woman's one helluva
shopper. I sign on the slot. It's a box, maybe twenty inches at the longest.
Not heavy, either. I bring it inside, and the box says, "Let me out, why don't
you?" So I look at the return address. Oh, Christ. But the UPS drone has
already rolled away, no time to waste. What can I do? Put the thing in the
closet, I decide. Go back to my life, what there is of it. And pretend that
I'm not hearing a voice calling to me from under the winter coats.

My wife gets home from work, and I tell her, "Look in the closet." She gives
this little hoot and says, "Where's your knife?" I've got this old hunting
knife that we use for packages. Like she's dressing a deer, she cuts the tape
and opens the flaps and unwraps the aerogel, and she pulls out her doll and
says, "Genevieve," with an instant fondness. "That's my name," the doll
replies, looking at both of us. It's got big, big eyes. Green eyes, I notice.
And I'm not someone who usually notices the colors of things. Those eyes are
stuck in an oversized head riding on top of an immature body, reminding me of
a child. But the hair is huge. It's the hair that every woman wants, rich and
flowing with just enough curls. Brown hair, I notice. And the plastic skin
looks heavily tanned. And there's something adult about the voice, even if it
comes rumbling from a body that isn't quite eighteen inches tall.

"I have clothes," the dolls says. "Wonderful little clothes!" So of course my
wife spends the next hour playing with her new toy and its fancy wardrobe. She
calls her friends in the craft club. Everyone drops over, holo-style. Our
living room is jammed with grown women and their Birdy Girls. I'll pass
through, just to watch. Just to spy. "What happened to the quilting?" I ask.
Last week, the group was making quilts with old-fashioned fabrics.
Quasicrystal patterns. Kind of neat. But one of the projected women snorts and
looks up from her half-dressed doll, telling me, "We still quilt. We do all of
our heirloom crafts." Then another woman laughs and says, "We just do them
slower now." And my wife gives me a certain look, asking, "What do you
think?"

Her doll's dressed in a short skirt and a silky shirt, and its shoes have
spiked heels, and the way it wears its hair is something. Frightening, really.
I have to say, "God, she's got a big ass." Which causes the doll to smile and
wink, telling me, "Thank you very much, good sir." Then after the laughter
dies back, I ask, "So what's it dressed for?" And my wife laughs and says,
"She's going out. Out to the clubs." Which I take for a joke. I don't know
much about this new hobby. This fad. But later, I hear the front open and
close, and I come in to find just my wife. The projected women are gone. And
every doll. "Where's your new toy?" I ask. My wife is shoving trash into the
empty box. "Oh, she's gone clubbing. Like I said." "What kind of club is
that?" I ask. And she says, "This box needs to be thrown out." So I trudge out
to the recyke tub and, standing under the street light, I skim through the
Birdy Girl literature. Just to know a little something.