Second Variety and Other Stories (24 page)

"How did you make out?" Paine demanded.

"Fine. I got your information."

"What's the story?"

"There was quite a bit of material." She patted the sheaf of notes. "I summed up the major parts
for you."

"Let's have the summation."

"Seven years ago this August the county board of supervisors voted on three new suburban
housing tracts to be set up outside the city. Macon Heights was one of them. There was a big debate.
Most of the city merchants opposed the new tracts. Said they would draw too much retail business away
from the city."

"Go on."

"There was a long fight. Finally two of the three tracts were approved. Waterville and Cedar
Groves. But not Macon Heights."

"I see," Paine murmured thoughtfully.

"Macon Heights was defeated. A compromise; two tracts instead of three. The two tracts were
built up right away. You know. We passed through Waterville one afternoon. Nice little place."

"But no Macon Heights."

"No. Macon Heights was given up."

Paine rubbed his jaw. "That's the story, then."

"That's the story. Do you realize I lose a whole half-day's pay because of this? You have to take
me out, tonight. Maybe I should get another fellow. I'm beginning to think you're not such a good bet."

me out, tonight. Maybe I should get another fellow. I'm beginning to think you're not such a good bet."

Laura consulted her notes. "The project was defeated by a single vote."

"A single vote. Seven years ago." Paine moved out into the hall. Thanks, honey. Things are
beginning to make sense. Lots of sense!"

He caught a cab out front. The cab raced him across the city, toward the train station. Outside,
signs and streets flashed by. People and stores and cars.

His hunch had been correct. He had heard the name before. Seven years ago. A bitter county
debate on a proposed suburban tract. Two towns approved; one defeated and forgotten.

But now the forgotten town was coming into existence -- seven years later. The town and an
undetermined slice of reality along with it. Why? Had something changed in the past? Had an alteration
occurred in some past continuum?

That seemed like the explanation. The vote had been close. Macon Heights had almost been
approved. Maybe certain parts of the past were unstable. Maybe that particular period, seven years ago,
had been critical. Maybe it had never completely "jelled". An odd thought: the past changing, after it had
already happened.

Suddenly Paine's eyes focused. He sat up quickly. Across the street was a store sign, halfway
along the block. Over a small, inconspicuous establishment. As the cab moved forward Paine peered to
see.

BRADSHAW INSURANCE
[OR]
NOTARY PUBLIC

He pondered. Critchet's place of business. Did it also come and go? Had it always been there?
Something about it made him uneasy.

"Hurry it up," Paine ordered the driver. "Let's get going."

When the train slowed down at Macon Heights, Paine got quickly to his feet and made his way
up the aisle to the door. The grinding wheels jerked to a halt and Paine leaped down onto the hot gravel
siding. He looked around him.

In the afternoon sunlight, Macon Heights glittered and sparkled, its even rows of houses
stretching out in all directions. In the center of the town the marquee of the theater rose up.

A theater, even. Paine headed across the track toward the town. Beyond the train station was a
parking lot. He stepped up onto the lot and crossed it, following a path past a filling station and onto a
sidewalk.

He came out on the main street of the town. A double row of stores stretched out ahead of him.
A hardware store. Two drugstores. A dime store. A modern department store.

Paine walked along, hands in his pockets, gazing around him at Macon Heights. An apartment
building stuck up, tall and fat. A janitor was washing down the front steps. Everything looked new and
modern. The houses, the stores, the pavement and sidewalks. The parking meters. A brown-uniformed
cop was giving a car a ticket. Trees, growing at intervals. Neatly clipped and pruned.

He passed a big supermarket. Out in front was a bin of fruit, oranges and grapes. He picked a
grape and bit into it.

The grape was real, all right. A big black concord grape, sweet and ripe. Yet twenty-four hours
ago there had been nothing here but a barren field.

Paine entered one of the drugstores. He leafed through some magazines and then sat down at the
counter. He ordered a cup of coffee from the red-cheeked little waitress.

"This is a nice town," Paine said, as she brought the coffee.

"Yes, isn't it?"

Paine hesitated. "How -- how long have you been working here?"

Paine hesitated. "How -- how long have you been working here?"

"Three months?" Paine studied the buxom little blonde. "You live here in Macon Heights?"

"Oh, yes."

"How long?"

"A couple of years, I guess." She moved away to wait on a young soldier who had taken a stool
down the counter.

Paine sat drinking his coffee and smoking, idly watching the people passing by outside. Ordinary
people. Men and women, mostly women. Some had grocery bags and little wire carts. Automobiles
drove slowly back and forth. A sleepy little suburban town. Modern, upper middle-class. A quality town.
No slums here. Small, attractive houses. Stores with sloping grass fronts and neon signs.

Some high school kids burst into the drugstore, laughing and bumping into each other. Two girls
in bright sweaters sat down next to Paine and ordered lime drinks. They chatted gaily, bits of their
conversation drifting to him.

He gazed at them, pondering moodily. They were real, all right. Lipstick and red fingernails.
Sweaters and armloads of school books. Hundreds of high school kids, crowding eagerly into the
drugstore.

Paine rubbed his forehead wearily. It didn't seem possible. Maybe he was out of his mind. The
town was real. Completely real. It must have always existed. A whole town couldn't rise up out of
nothing; out of a cloud of gray haze. Five thousand people, houses and streets and stores.

Stores. Bradshaw Insurance.

Stabbing realization chilled him. Suddenly he understood. It was spreading. Beyond Macon
Heights. Into the city. The city was changing, too. Bradshaw Insurance. Crichet's place of business.

Macon Heights couldn't exist without warping the city. They interlocked. The five thousand
people came from the city. Their jobs. Their lives. The city was involved.

But how much? How much was the city changing?

Paine threw a quarter on the counter and hurried out of the drugstore, toward the train station.
He had to get back to the city. Laura, the change. Was she still there? Was his own life safe?

Fear gripped him. Laura, all his possessions, his plans, hopes and dreams. Suddenly Macon
Heights was unimportant. His own world was in jeopardy. Only one thing mattered now. He had to
make sure of it; make sure his own life was still there. Untouched by the spreading circle of change that
was lapping out from Macon Heights.

"Where to, buddy?" the cabdriver asked, as Paine came rushing out of the train station.

Paine gave him the address of the apartment. The cab roared out into traffic. Paine settled back
nervously. Outside the window the streets and office buildings flashed past. White collar workers were
already beginning to get off work, swelling out onto the sidewalks to stand in clumps at each corner.

How much had changed? He concentrated on a row of buildings. The big department store. Had
that always been there? The little boot-black shop next to it. He had never noticed that before.

MORRIS HOME FURNISHINGS.

He didn't remember that. But how could he be sure? He felt confused. How could he tell?

The cab let him off in front of the apartment house. Paine stood for a moment, looking around
him. Down at the end of the block the owner of the Italian delicatessen was out putting up the awning.
Had he ever noticed a delicatessen there before?

He could not remember.

What had happened to the big meat market across the street? There was nothing but neat little
houses; older houses that looked like they'd been there plenty long. Had a meat market ever been there?
The houses looked solid.

In the next block the striped pole of a barbershop glittered. Had there always been a barbershop
there?

there?

Terror gripped him. Laura. His world...

Paine raced up the front steps and pushed open the door of the apartment house. He hurried up
the carpeted stairs to the second floor. The door of the apartment was unlocked. He pushed it open and
entered, his heart in his mouth, praying silently.

The living-room was dark and silent. The shades were half pulled. He glanced around wildly. The
light blue couch, magazines on its arms. The low blond-oak table. The television set. But the room was
empty.

"Laura!" he gasped.

Laura hurried from the kitchen, eyes wide with alarm. "Bob! What are you doing home? Is
anything the matter?"

Paine relaxed, sagging with relief. "Hello, honey." He kissed her, holding her tight against him.
She was warm and substantial; completely real. "No, nothing's wrong. Everything's fine."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sure." Paine took off his coat shakily and dropped it over the back of the couch. He
wandered around the room, examining things, his confidence returning. His familiar blue couch, cigarette
burns on its arms. His ragged footstool. His desk where he did his work at night. His fishing rods leaning
up against the wall behind the bookcase.

The big television set he had purchased only last month; that was safe, too.

Everything, all he owned, was untouched. Safe. Unharmed.

"Dinner won't be ready for half an hour," Laura murmured anxiously, unfastening her apron. "I
didn't expect you home so early. I've just been sitting around all day. I did clean the stove. Some
salesman left a sample of a new cleaner."

"That's okay." He examined a favorite Renoir print on the wall. "Take your time. It's good to see
all these things again. I --"

From the bedroom a crying sound came. Laura turned quickly. "I guess we woke up Jimmy."

"Jimmy?"

Laura laughed. "Darling, don't you remember your own son?"

"Of course," Paine murmured, annoyed. He followed Laura slowly into the bedroom. "Just for a
minute everything seemed strange." He rubbed his forehead, frowning. "Strange and unfamiliar. Sort of
out of focus."

They stood by the crib, gazing down at the baby. Jimmy glared back up at his mother and dad.

"It must have been the sun," Laura said. "It's so terribly hot outside."

"That must be it. I'm okay now." Paine reached down and poked at the baby. He put his arm
around his wife, hugging her to him. "It must have been the sun," he said. He looked down into her eyes
and smiled.

Half-dozing, Larry Brewster contemplated the litter of cigarette-butts, empty beer-bottles, and
twisted match-folders heaped on the table before him. He reached out and adjusted one beer-bottle -thereby
achieving just the right effect.

In the back of the Wind-Up the small dixieland jazz combo played noisily. The harsh jazz-sound
mixed with the murmur of voices, the semi-darkness, the clink of glasses at the bar. Larry Brewster
sighed in happy contentment. "This," he stated, "is Nirvana." He nodded his head slowly, agreeing with
the words uttered. "Or at least the seventh level of zen-buddhist heaven."

sighed in happy contentment. "This," he stated, "is Nirvana." He nodded his head slowly, agreeing with
the words uttered. "Or at least the seventh level of zen-buddhist heaven."

"That's a fact," Larry admitted, reflecting on the matter. "I was speaking metaphorically, not
literally."

"You should be more careful; you should mean exactly what you say."

"And say exactly what you mean?" Larry peered up. "Have I had the pleasure of knowing you,
young lady?"

The slender, golden-haired girl dropped into the seat across the table from Larry, her eyes sharp
and bright in the half-gloom of the bar. She smiled at him, white teeth sparkling. "No," she said. "We've
never met; our time has just now arrived."

"Our -- our time?" Larry drew himself up slowly, pulling his lanky frame together. There was
something in the girl's bright, competent face that vaguely alarmed him, penetrating his alcoholic haze. Her
smile was too calm, too assured. "Just exactly what do you mean?" Larry murmured. "What's this all
about?"

The girl slipped out of her coat, revealing full, rounded breasts and a supple figure. "I'll have a
martini," she said. "And by the way -- my name is Allison Holmes."

"Larry Brewster." Larry studied the girl intently. "What did you say you wanted?"

"A martini. Dry." Allison smiled coolly across at him. "And get one for yourself, why don't you?"

Larry grunted under his breath. He signaled to the waiter. "A dry martini, Max."

"Okay, Mr Brewster."

A few minutes later Max returned and set a martini glass on the table. When he had gone, Larry
leaned toward the blonde-haired girl. "Now, Miss Holmes --"

"None for you?"

"None for me." Larry watched her sip her drink. Her hands were small and dainty. She wasn't
bad-looking, but he didn't like the self-satisfied calmness in her eyes. "What's this business about our time
having come? Let me in on it."

"It's very simple. I saw you sitting here and I knew you were the one. In spite of the messy table."
She wrinkled her nose at the litter of bottles and match-folders. "Why don't you have them clear it off?"