"Tad Williams - The War of the Flowers" - читать интересную книгу автора (Williams Tad)

building lobby carrying a combination of flowers clearly chosen over the phone by someone, but guiltily
displayed in an expensive vase to make up for it, he even found himself singing an old Smokey
Robinson song. A pretty young receptionist (too young to be more than a momentary fancy for him, but
that made it all the more satisfying in a way) told him he had a beautiful voice.
"Thanks," he said. "I'm a singer. That's my other job."
She didn't inquire further, but that was all right. It was enough just to be reminded that there was more to
his life than this delivery job. The band hadn't practiced for at least three weeks тАФ all kinds of weirdness
going on there, but for once nothing to do with him, since Kris and Morgan were having some kind of
feud. He was still a singer, though. He could pick up his guitar and go stand on a street corner and earn
almost as much as he did dragging potted plants up elevators to overworked secretaries and retiring data
clerks. Of course, almost as much as "very little" equaled "nearly nothing," so for the moment he'd keep
driving the van, thank you very much.
As the bit of Second-That-Emotion falsetto and the receptionist's smile had reminded him, there was
more to him than just an aging adolescent with longish hair and a Khasigian тАФ the Florist patch sewn on
the breast of his shirt. But the problem was, if his old life really had ended that night, where was the new
one? It was one thing to have your girlfriend throw you out тАФ even in such miserable circumstances
there could still be something liberating in that kind of forced change. But not when you had to move
back in with your mother.
It was only for a few months, of course, only until he had saved a little money for first and last on a
decent apartment. He could have moved in with Johnny Battistini, who had invited him, but although he
loved the man like a brother, the idea of living with him again was a bit much. Theo could never be
called fastidious, as Catherine herself had often pointed out, but you didn't have to be a neat-freak to be

file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruis...0Williams%20-%20The%20War%20of%20the%20Flowers.html (16 of 418)23-2-2006 18:16:57
 file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruiswijk/Mijn%20d...n/spaar/Tad%20Williams%20-%20The%20War%20of%20the%20Flowers.html

uncomfortable with six-month-old fast food hardening to stone under the couch. He had shared an
apartment with Johnny once, years before he'd met Cat, and he still hadn't shaken the memory of
stepping on bugs in the dark.
Besides, it wasn't like his mother forced him to talk with her, or even to interact much at all. He had his
own key. If he was home at dinnertime, which he rarely was, she would heat him up the same leftovers
she was eating, or put a frozen meal in the microwave for him. If he wanted to watch a different program
than she was watching, she didn't seem to mind; she would silently hand him the remote, take a book,
and go to bed. She didn't make a mess, she didn't play loud music, she didn't force him to have long,
boring conversations: if she had been a male roommate she would have been damn near ideal. As a
mother, though, she was a little spooky.
When he had tried to explain her to Cat back when they were first dating he had stated, a bit archly,
"Mom's flame of life doesn't burn all that bright." But, faint as it was, it had burned brighter once than it
did now. He was suprised at how little she seemed to care about anything these days. Was it some kind
of delayed reaction to his father's death almost six years ago? Or was it Theo who had changed тАФ had
living with Cat made him more used to how normal people behaved? He had no idea. Anna Vilmos was
a hard woman to figure out.
She came to all his school plays, he remembered. Showed up every night when I had the lead in the
musical тАФ it must have meant something to her. But she never had much to say about it. "Very nice,
Theo, you did well. I enjoyed it." That was about all, like she was talking about a piece of corned beef
she'd got from the butcher. And his father had been too tired most of the time to say anything either
except that the show or recital in question had been "pretty good," all the time making it clear that what
he really wanted was to get home to bed because he had to get up early the next morning. See, Cat? Who
can turn into a normal grown-up when his role models are polite strangers?
But today, driving the delivery van, even the bleakness of living back at his mother's house could not