"William Tenn - Wednesday's Child" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tenn William)

"I'm s-sorry," she said. "I'm t-terribly s-sorry. I haven't done that for years. ButтАФyou see, Mr.
BalikтАФI haven't talked about myself for years."
"There's a nice bar at the corner," he pointed out, tremendously relieved. She'd looked for a while as
if she'd intended to keep on crying all day! "Let's pop in, and I'll have a drink. You can use the ladies'
room to fix yourself up."
He took her arm and steered her into the place. Then he climbed onto a bar stool and had himself a
double brandy.
What an experience! And what a strange, strange girl!
Of course, he shouldn't have pushed her quite so hard on a subject about which she was evidently
so sensitive. Was that his fault, though, that she was so sensitive?
Fabian considered the matter carefully, judicially, and found in his favor. No, it definitely wasn't his
fault.
But what a story! The foundling business, the appendix business, the teeth, the hair on the fingernails
and tongue...And that last killer about the navel!
He'd have to think it out. And maybe he'd get some other opinions. But one thing he was sure of, as
sure as of his own managerial capacities: Wednesday Gresham hadn't been lying in any particular.
Wednesday Gresham was just not the sort of a girl who made up tall stories about herself.
When she rejoined him, he urged her to have a drink. "Help you get a grip on yourself."
She demurred, she didn't drink very much, she said. But he insisted, and she gave in. "Just a liqueur.
Anything. You order it, Mr. Balik."
Fabian was secretly very pleased at her docility. No reprimanding, no back-biting, like most other
girlsтАФAlthough what in the world could she reprimand him for?
"You still look a little frayed," he told her. "When we get back, don't bother going to your desk. Go
right in to Mr. Osborne and finish taking dictation. No point in giving the other girls something to talk
about. I'll sign in for you."
She inclined her head submissively and continued to sip from the tiny glass.
 "What was that last comment you made in the restaurantтАФI'm certain you don't mind discussing it,
nowтАФabout not being born, but being made? That was an odd thing to say."
Wednesday sighed. "It isn't my own idea. It's Dr. Lorington's. Years ago, when he was examining
me, he said that I looked as if I'd been madeтАФby an amateur. By some-one who didn't have all the
blueprints, or didn't understand them, or wasn't concen-trating hard enough."
"Hm." He stared at her, absolutely intrigued. She looked normal enough. Better than normal, in fact.
And yetтАФ
Later that afternoon, he telephoned Jim Rudd and made an appointment for right after work. Jim
Rudd had been his roommate in college and was now a doctor: he would be able to tell him a little more
about this.
But Jim Rudd wasn't able to help him very much. He listened patiently to Fabian's story about "a girl
I've just met" and, at the end of it, leaned back in the new uphol-stered swivel chair and pursed his lips at
his diploma, neatly framed and hung on the opposite wall.
"You sure do go in for weirdies, Fabe. For a superficially well-adjusted, well-organized guy with a
real talent for the mundane things of life, you pick the damndest women I ever heard of. But that's your
business. Maybe it's your way of adding a necessary pinch of the exotic to the grim daily round. Or
maybe you're making up for the drabness of your father's grocery store."
"This girl is not a weirdie," Fabian insisted angrily. "She's a very simple little sec-retary, prettier than
most, but that's about all."
"Have it your own way. To me, she's a weirdie. To me, there's not a hell of a lot of differenceтАФfrom
your descriptionтАФbetween her and that crazy White Russian dame you were running around with back
in our junior year. You know the one I meanтАФwhat was her name?"
"Sandra? Oh, Jim, what's the matter with you? Sandra was a bollixed-up box of dynamite who was
always blowing up in my face. This kid turns pale and dies if I so much as raise my voice. Besides, I had