guess at any of these things. I can only wait to see what happens, and see what I do in response.
Three hours go by, and nothing happens, and I’m getting very hungry indeed. I may be out of work and desperate, but I’m still not used to missing meals. Still, the thought remains, that if I leave my post, EGR will appear immediately, and will be safely inside his house before I return.
Twenty past three. A Windstar minivan, gray, very like my Voyager, drives slowly past me, and what attracts my attention is that the heavyset middle-aged woman at the wheel of it is glaring at me. Glaring. I blink at her, not understanding her hostility. She drives on by, and then she stops at that mailbox just up ahead, in front of EGR’s place. Would this be Mrs. Ricks?
Apparently. I see her slide over to the right side of the Windstar, open the mailbox, pull out the mail. Then she drives on into the garage, and the door slides down.
So. It could be that she wasn’t exactly showing hostility, after all, but merely close observation. If she did make the assumption I’m hoping for, that I’m a prospective buyer waiting for the Realtor, maybe she was just frowning at me, studying me, as a potential neighbor.
But the question is, where’s her husband? She closed the garage door, so she’s not expecting him to drive in any time soon. Was he at home all this time? Maybe he’s sick today, got a spring cold.
Or maybe he’s out on a job interview, won’t be back for a couple of days.
It’s getting late. I’m very hungry, and I also have to get back to the mall to pick up Marjorie at six. I can see now that nothing is going to happen here today. A wasted day.
I can’t have too many wasted days. This whole operation has to be done as quickly and cleanly as possible, without sloppiness or unnecessary risk, to get it over with before the equations change. Still, nothing is going to happen here today.
Now what? Tomorrow, oddly enough, I have a job interview of my own, in Albany, with a man from a package and label manufacturer, an outfit that specializes in the labels that wrap around tin cans. I don’t have much hope, since labels are really some distance out of my line, and surely there are label experts who’ve been downsized in the last few years, but you never know. Lightning might strike.
Well, if it does, I won’t be back here on Berkshire Way any more, will I? And EGR will never know what a lucky man he is.
But if lightning doesn’t strike, what then? I can’t come back up here on Wednesday, that’s Marjorie’s other day with Dr. Carney, and the next time I come here I’d better leave home a lot earlier. Clearly the mail had already been delivered when I first got here today.
Thursday, then. I’ll be back here Thursday. Unless, of course, by Thursday I’m becoming an expert in tin can labels.
6
When I first got my hands on that great pile of resumés, with more coming in, and still more, what I felt, I now realize, looking back on it, was a kind of gleeful power. I’d put something over on these people, the competition, I’d learned their secrets and they didn’t even know I was there, in the darkness, in the shadows, in the corner, in the box number, watching them. I was like a miser with his gold, hunched over the file folders of resumés in my office, secret even from Marjorie, no one knowing the power I had, no one knowing the coup I’d accomplished.
But that first euphoria had to wear off, and it did, leaving only questions in its wake. What would I
do
with these things? How, after all, could the resumés help me? Or would they merely serve to discourage me, as when I would look at this sheet or that sheet and see someone just slightly better-looking for the job than I am.
Look
at all these people out here, all of them worthy, all of them accomplished, all of them willing. Look how many there are, and look how few the berths they’re all steering toward.
So I went from secret pleasure at my
Three hours go by, and nothing happens, and I’m getting very hungry indeed. I may be out of work and desperate, but I’m still not used to missing meals. Still, the thought remains, that if I leave my post, EGR will appear immediately, and will be safely inside his house before I return.
Twenty past three. A Windstar minivan, gray, very like my Voyager, drives slowly past me, and what attracts my attention is that the heavyset middle-aged woman at the wheel of it is glaring at me. Glaring. I blink at her, not understanding her hostility. She drives on by, and then she stops at that mailbox just up ahead, in front of EGR’s place. Would this be Mrs. Ricks?
Apparently. I see her slide over to the right side of the Windstar, open the mailbox, pull out the mail. Then she drives on into the garage, and the door slides down.
So. It could be that she wasn’t exactly showing hostility, after all, but merely close observation. If she did make the assumption I’m hoping for, that I’m a prospective buyer waiting for the Realtor, maybe she was just frowning at me, studying me, as a potential neighbor.
But the question is, where’s her husband? She closed the garage door, so she’s not expecting him to drive in any time soon. Was he at home all this time? Maybe he’s sick today, got a spring cold.
Or maybe he’s out on a job interview, won’t be back for a couple of days.
It’s getting late. I’m very hungry, and I also have to get back to the mall to pick up Marjorie at six. I can see now that nothing is going to happen here today. A wasted day.
I can’t have too many wasted days. This whole operation has to be done as quickly and cleanly as possible, without sloppiness or unnecessary risk, to get it over with before the equations change. Still, nothing is going to happen here today.
Now what? Tomorrow, oddly enough, I have a job interview of my own, in Albany, with a man from a package and label manufacturer, an outfit that specializes in the labels that wrap around tin cans. I don’t have much hope, since labels are really some distance out of my line, and surely there are label experts who’ve been downsized in the last few years, but you never know. Lightning might strike.
Well, if it does, I won’t be back here on Berkshire Way any more, will I? And EGR will never know what a lucky man he is.
But if lightning doesn’t strike, what then? I can’t come back up here on Wednesday, that’s Marjorie’s other day with Dr. Carney, and the next time I come here I’d better leave home a lot earlier. Clearly the mail had already been delivered when I first got here today.
Thursday, then. I’ll be back here Thursday. Unless, of course, by Thursday I’m becoming an expert in tin can labels.
6
When I first got my hands on that great pile of resumés, with more coming in, and still more, what I felt, I now realize, looking back on it, was a kind of gleeful power. I’d put something over on these people, the competition, I’d learned their secrets and they didn’t even know I was there, in the darkness, in the shadows, in the corner, in the box number, watching them. I was like a miser with his gold, hunched over the file folders of resumés in my office, secret even from Marjorie, no one knowing the power I had, no one knowing the coup I’d accomplished.
But that first euphoria had to wear off, and it did, leaving only questions in its wake. What would I
do
with these things? How, after all, could the resumés help me? Or would they merely serve to discourage me, as when I would look at this sheet or that sheet and see someone just slightly better-looking for the job than I am.
Look
at all these people out here, all of them worthy, all of them accomplished, all of them willing. Look how many there are, and look how few the berths they’re all steering toward.
So I went from secret pleasure at my