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"Okay, Emily." The truth burst out of her like an abcess.
"When I think of you and David sleeping together, I want to tear your fucking throat out."
Emily sat there and took it. She shuddered and flung it off.
"I can't make up for it. But I can run away."
"Don't run, Emily. He doesn't need that. He's a good man. He doesn't love me anymore, but he can't help that.
We're just too far apart now."
Emily looked up. Hope dawned. "So it's true? You're not go
"No." She forced the words to come lightly. "We'll get the divorce. It won't be that much -trouble.... Except for the journalists."
Emily looked at her feet. She accepted it. The gift. "I do love him, you know. I mean, he's simple, and kind of dizzy sometimes, but he does have his good points." She had nothing left to hide. "I don't even need the pills. I just love him. I'm used to him. We're even talking about having a baby."
"Oh, really?" Laura sat down. It was such a strange thought that it somehow failed to touch her. It seemed pleasant somehow, homey. "Are you trying?"
"Not yet but ..." She paused. "Laura? We're go
"Yeah." Long silence.
She leaned toward Emily. Now that it was out between them some ghost of the old vibe was coming back. A kind of subterranean tingle as their buried friendship stirred.
Emily brightened. She could feel it too.
It lasted long enough for them to go back in with their arms around each other.
Everyone smiled.
She spent Christmas at her mother's place in. Dallas. And there was Loretta. A little girl who ran when she saw the lady in the hat and-sunglasses, and hid her face in her grandmoth- er's dress.
She was such a cute little thing. Spiky blond pigtails, greenish eyes. Quite a talker, too, once she got going. She said, "Gramma spill the milk," and laughed. She sang a little song about Christmas in which most of the verses were "na na na na" at top volume. After she got used to her, she sat in
Laura's lap and called her "Rarra."
"She's wonderful," Laura told her mother. "You've done really well with her."
"She's such a joy to me," said Margaret Alice Day Garfield
Nakamura Simpson. "I lost you-then I had her-now I have both of you. It's like a miracle. Not a day passes that I don't marvel at it. I've never been this happy in my life."
"Really, Mother?"
"I've had good times, and I've had bad times-this is the best time, for me. Since I've retired-shrugged the yoke off-it's me and Loretta. We're a family-it's like we're a little team."
"You must have been happy when you and Dad were together. I remember it. I always thought we were happy."
"Well, we were, yes. It wasn't quite this good, but it was good. Till the Abolition. Till I started doing eighteen-hour days. I could have chucked it your father wanted me to- but I thought, no, this is it, the greatest turning point I'll ever see in my lifetime. If I want to live in the world, I have to do this first. So I did it, and I lost him. Both of you."
"It must have hurt you terribly. I was young and didn't know-I only knew that it hurt me."
"I'm sorry, Laura. I know it's late, but I apologize to you."
"Thank you for saying that, Mother. I'm sorry too." She laughed. "It's fu
Her mother took her glasses off, dabbed at her eyes. "Your grandmother understood.... We never have much luck, Laura.
But you know, I think we're working it out! It's not the old way, but it's something. What are nuclear families, anyway?
Preindustrial.
"Maybe we can work it better this time around," Laura said. "I blew it so much worse than you did that maybe it won't hurt her so much."
"I should have seen more of you when you were growing up," her mother said. "But there was work and-oh, dear, I hate to say this-the world's full of men." She hesitated. "I know you don't want to think about that right now, but believe me, it does come back."
"That's nice to know, I guess." She watched the Christ- mas tree, flickering between two Japanese wall hangings.
"Right now the only men I see are journalists. Not much fun there. Ever since Vie
"Nakamura was a journalist," her mother said thought- fully. "You know, I was never very happy with him, but it was certainly intense."
They had supper together, in her mother's elegant little dining nook. There was wine, and Christmas ham, and a little spread of newly invented scop from Britain that tasted like pate.' They could have eaten pounds of it.
"It's good, but it doesn't taste much like pate," her mother complained. "It's a bit more like, oh, salmon mousse."
"It's too expensive," Laura said. "Probably costs about ten cents to make."
"Well," her mother said tolerantly, "they have to recoup the research fees. "
"It'll be cheaper when Loretta grows up."
"By then they'll be making scop that tastes like every- thing, or anything, or nothing ever seen."
The thought was a little horrifying. I'm getting older,
Laura thought. Change itself is begi
She put the thought away. They played with Loretta until it was her bedtime. Then they talked for another couple of hours, sipping wine and eating cheese and being civilized.
Laura wasn't happy, but the edges were off, and she was something close to content. No one knew where she was, and that was a blessing. She slept well.
In the morning they exchanged presents.
The Central Committee had gathered in Rizome's' Stone
Mountain Retreat. There was the new CEO, Cynthia Wu.
And the committee itself, enough for a quorum: Garcia-Meza,
McIntyre, Kaufma
Rusticating. They were doing a lot of that lately. Atlanta was a major city. There was always the whispered suggestion that it might become Ground Zero.
It was a typical Central Committee feed. Lentil soup, salad, and whole-grain bread. Voluntary simplicity-they all ate it and attempted to look more high-minded than thou.
The telecom office was a Frank Lloyd Wright revival, gridded concrete block pierced with glass, stacked and under- cut in severe geometrical elegance. The building seemed to fit
Mrs. Wu, a' schoolteacherish Anglo in her sixties who had come up through the marine-engineering section. She called the meeting back to order.
"Thanks to contacts," she told them, "we're getting this tape three days early, and before the network cuts it. I think this documentary serves as a capstone to the political work we pursued under my predecessor. I propose we use this opportu- nity, tonight, to reassess our policy. In retrospect, our former plans seem naive, and went seriously awry." She noticed de
Valera's hand. "Comment?"
"What exactly are you defining as success?"
"As I recall, our original strategy was to encourage the data havens to amalgamate. Thus maneuvering them into a bureaucratic, gesellschaft structure that would be more easily controlled-assimilated, if you will. Peacefully. Is there any- one here who thinks that policy worked?"
Kaufma
"Only because they fear being killed, Suvendra said.
"The anger of the Net is become an awesome force!"
"Let's face it," de Valera said. "If we'd known the true nature of the F.A.C.T. we'd have never dared become in- volved! On the other hand, the havens did lose, didn't they?