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are you doing home on a Friday?” he demanded.
    “The theater manager laid me off. Now you’ll have to marry me.”
    “You can’t afford me. Meade—seriously, baby, what happened?”
    “I was ready to leave the dump anyway. For the last six weeks the popcorn machine has been carrying the place. Today I sat through
The Lana Turner Story
twice. Nothing to do.”
    “I’ll be along.”
    “Eleven minutes?”
    “It’s raining. Twenty—with luck.”
    It was more nearly sixty. Santa Monica Boulevard was a navigable stream; Sunset Boulevard was a subway jam. When he tried to ford the streams leading to Mrs. Megeath’s house, he found that changing tires with the wheel wedged against a storm drain presented problems.
    “Potty!” she exclaimed when he squished in. “You look like a drowned rat.”
    He found himself suddenly wrapped in a blanket robe belonging to the late Mr. Megeath and sipping hot cocoa while Mrs. Megeath dried his clothing in the kitchen.
    “Meade, I’m ‘at liberty’ too.”
    “Huh? You quit your job?”
    “Not exactly. Old Man Wiley and I have been having differences of opinion about my answers for months—too much ‘Jackpot factor’ in the figures I give him to turn over to clients. Not that I call it that, but he has felt that I was unduly pessimistic.”
    “But you were right!”
    “Since when has being right endeared a man to his boss? But that wasn’t why he fired me; it was just the excuse. He wants a man willing to back up the Know-Nothing program with scientific double-talk and I wouldn’t join.” He went to the window. “It’s raining harder.”
    “But the Know-Nothings haven’t got any program.”
    “I know that.”
    “Potty, you should have joined. It doesn’t mean anything. I joined three months ago.”
    “The hell you did!”
    She shrugged. “You pay your dollar and you turn up for two meetings and they leave you alone. It kept my job for another three months. What of it?”
    “Well, I’m sorry you did it; that’s all. Forget it. Meade, the water is over the curbs out there.”
    “You had better stay here overnight.”
    “Mmm… I don’t like to leave
Entropy
parked out in this stuff all night. Meade?”
    “Yes, Potty?”
    “We’re both out of jobs. How would you like to duck north into the Mojave and find a dry spot?”
    “I’d love it. But look, Potty, is this a proposal or just a proposition?”
    “Don’t pull that ‘either-or’ stuff on me. It’s just a suggestion for a vacation. Do you want to take a chaperone?”
    “No.”
    “Then pack a bag.”
    “Right away. But pack a bag
how?
Are you trying to tell me it’s
time to jump?
”
    He faced her, then looked back at the window.
    “I don’t know,” he said slowly, “but this rain might go on quite a while. Don’t take anything you don’t have to have—but don’t leave anything behind you can’t get along without.”
    He repossessed his clothing from Mrs. Megeath while Meade was upstairs. She came down dressed in slacks and carrying two large bags; under one arm was a battered and rakish teddy bear.
    “This is Winnie,” she said.
    “Winnie the Pooh?”
    “No, Winnie Churchill. When I feel bad, he promises me blood, sweat, and tears; then I feel better. You did say to bring anything I couldn’t do without, didn’t you?” She looked at him anxiously.
    “Right.”
    He took the bags. Mrs. Megeath had seemed satisfied with his explanation that they were going to visit his (mythical) aunt in Bakersfield before looking for jobs. Nevertheless, she embarrassed him by kissing him good-by and telling him to “take care of my little girl.”
    S anta Monica Boulevard was blocked off from use. While stalled in traffic in Beverly Hills, he fiddled with the car radio, getting squawks and crackling noises, then finally one station nearby: “—in effect,” a harsh, high, staccato voice was saying, “the Kremlin has given us till sundown to get out of town. This is your New York reporter,