"Kate Wilhelm - The Girl Who Fell into the Sky" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wilhelm Kate)

Lorna was tall and lanky, boyish-looking with her short dark hair
that curled back home in Ohio, but was quite straight here in
Kansas. Her eyes were such a dark blue that many people thought
they were black, and she tanned so deeply so easily that it always
seemed that the first day of spring when the sun came out and
stayed more than an hour, she got the kind of suntan that other
people spent thousands of dollars on hot beaches trying to acquire.
She was twenty-five.
If she kept driving, she was thinking, she could get there around
ten and Elly and Ross wouldnтАЩt show up for at least a day, maybe
two. Elly had said Friday night or Saturday. The thought of having
a house to herself for a day or two, not having to ask questions,
listen to answers, smile and be polite was overwhelmingly
tempting. Back in February her instructor-advisor on her
committee had taken her aside and encouraged her to apply for a
grant to continue her masterтАЩs project after graduation; he had even
helped her with the forms, and had written an almost embarrassing
letter of recommendation. To her astonishment, she was awarded
the grant, to take effect in June, to run for nine months. All
expenses and living money, even enough to buy her little,
three-year old Datsun. For the first time in her life she felt very
rich. And with the grant the work she had been doing changed,
became meaningful where it had been the result of nearly idle
daydreaming, a last minute desperate attempt to find something for
her project that would win approval from her committee. She was
doing an oral history of religion, its importance, its rituals, its
impact on people who were now over sixty-five or seventy. Not their
present religion, but the religion of their youth.
Suddenly, yesterday, she had frozen, could not think what to say
to the old woman waiting kindly for her to begin, could hardly
remember why she was in the convalescent home in Kansas City in
the first place. Last night in her motel room, she had looked about
with loathing. Even the air-conditioned air smelled exactly the
same in each motel she stayed in, as if they bought it in the same
place that furnished the bedspreads and the pictures on the walls,
and the dim lights. She had planned to stop interviewing
periodically and rent an apartment, start the transcriptions that
would take much longer than getting the information. The time had
come for just that, she had realized, and put away her tape
recorder, consulted her map, and headed for Greeley County,
Kansas.
Really, the only question was, should she stop now, or continue?
She could get a motel here in Topeka, but on down the road? They
might all be filled later, and it was too early to stop now. Only four.
She shook her head, smiling faintly at herself. She had no intention
of sitting in a motel room for the next twelve or fourteen hours. She
pushed the thick door open and went out into the hot air. More
stuff to drink, bread, sandwich makings, fruitтАж She got into her
small Datsun and started looking for a supermarket. And breakfast
things, she told herself. She always woke up ravenous. Half an