"What-UncleGorby" - читать интересную книгу автора (What Leslie)

insisted that we tell you this."

"Sounds just like her," Katya said.

The operator spoke softly, and the noisy terminal made her voice sound as if it
were wrapped in tissue paper.

Katya held the receiver close to her ear. "Speak up please!" Katya shouted. "I
can't hear what you're saying."

"I have very bad news," said the operator. "I'm really sorry to be the one to
tell you this."

"What is it?" asked Katya. People rushed past her to stand before the baggage
claim. The carousel began to turn. Katya tapped her fingertips on the receiver.
"I have to hurry, my luggage is coming. Please, speak up!"

And then the shouting, bare as a present given in a cardboard box. "Your father
is dead," the operator said. "Dead," she shouted. "Do you hear me now.'"

"That can't be," Katya said. She looked across the expanse of blue carpeting,
and knew it was untrue. There, sure as sky, was her father. He turned his face
away, but she clearly recognized his wide shoulders, his tan suede coat, the "U"
at the back of his head. He hadn't aged a day since the last time she had seen
him, two Christmases ago. "He's right there!" Katya cried as she hung up the
phone.

She ran forward and thrust her arms to part the row of people standing before
her. Two lanky pre-teen boys blocked her view.

"Excuse me," she said in her most pleasant tone of voice. When neither one
moved, she shoved her arms between their two T-shirts, now hunched together over
one match.

"Guy," said one of the pre-teens, who managed to squeeze more than one syllable
from the word. "Have a cow, why don't you?"

Her father had vanished, and not only that, her luggage was missing as well. The
luggage was the only good thing to have come from her relationship with her
boss, the ex-lover who had given her Vlad. He had won Vlad at the county fair on
their only public date, the same night when he promised to leave his wife of
twenty years. He had not kept his promise and had, in the end, abandoned Katya
for a younger lover, a new hire in personnel.

Her clothes, her half-finished mystery, her birder's field guide, her camera bag
with ten rolls of exposed film she'd been meaning to develop -everything gone.
She watched the empty carousel complete its cycle, then begin again. The area
cleared, and Katya stood staring at the carpet, swimming alone in a deep blue
nylon sea.