"Kate Wilhelm - Julian" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wilhelm Kate)

"Tell me about it," Rachel demanded. "Let's walk in the rain, and you tell me
what happened."

They walked, but Julian didn't want to talk yet. He wanted to watch the rain
hitting grass, watch it roll off leaves and darken tree trunks, and bejewel
flowers. He watched it collect in his palm, overflow, and run down like a
miniature waterfall.
Two hours later they ended up in Rachel's apartment, which she shared with
two other girls. "Let me change and get a raincoat and then we'll go let you
change and then find someplace to talk," she said, toweling her head.

"How long would it take your hair to dry if you didn't do anything?" Julian
asked, watching.

"In this weather? An hour, hour and a half. Why?"

"How long for hair down to your shoulders?"

"Three hours, unless you are out in the sun, or have a fan on it, or the
wind. What are you driving at?"

And Julian told her, not all of it, but most. He finished saying, "I got so
scared, or excited, that I knocked the telescope aside and by the time I got
it focused again she was out of sight. I went to bed and fell asleep and had
a nightmare that woke me up, and when I was really awake again, I had
forgotten all about it, every bit of it, even using the telescope to snoop
with. I never used it again for anything."

Rachel had become still as he talked, her eyes open wide, very dark blue,
and, he thought, very disbelieving. Suddenly she shivered. "I'm freezing.
Wait a minute while I change."

She hurried away and in a few moments came back in dry jeans and a sweater,
carrying an umbrella. Her hair was still damp enough to cling to her head.

They didn't talk on the way to Julian's dorm, and she waited in the lounge
while he went up and got dry clothes on, and then they went to The Caves,
where they found a booth in the rear of the dark room well away from the
pinball machines and the Foos Ball games and the tiny dance floor. Neither
spoke until their pitcher of beer and bowl of peanuts had been delivered.

"It's too much, isn't it?" Julian said then. "You don't believe me..."

She shook her head. "It isn't that I think you're lying or anything like
that. But you could remember wrong."

He reached across the table and felt her hair, still slightly damp. "Her hair
became absolutely dry within a minute or two, no more than that. She was dry
all over within a minute."