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with these tonight, eh, Mr. Martin?"
But I searched through them all the same. He looked at me wonderingly, but the clerks were
breaking out the bottles and the runners from the lunchroom were bringing up sandwiches, and he
drifted away.
I found the credit check I had requested. "Co-Maker Required!" was stamped at the top, and
triply underlined in red, but that wasn't what I was looking for. I hunted through the text until
I found what I wanted to know: "Subject is expected to leave this country within forty-eight
hours. Subject's employer is organized and incorporated under laws of State of New York as a
religious mission group. No earnings record on file. Caution: Subject would appear a bad credit
risk, due to-"
I read no farther. Forty-eight hours!
There was a scrawl at the bottom of the page, in the Credit Manager's own handwriting:
"George, what the devil are you up to? This is the fourth check we made on these people!"
It was true enough; but it would be the last. In forty-eight hours they would be gone.
I was dull at the Christmas Party. But it had been a splendid Christmas for the store, and
in an hour everyone was too drunk to notice.
I decided to skip Party Week. I stayed at home the next morning,
staring out the window. It had begun to snow, and the cleaners were dragging away old Christmas
trees. It's always a letdown when Christmas is over; but my mood had nothing to do with the
season, only with Lilymary and the numbers of miles from her&to Borneo.
I circled the date in red on my calendar: December 25th. By the 26th they would be gone. .
But I couldn't, repeat couldn't, let her go so easily. It wasn't that I wanted to try
again, and be rebuffed again; it was not a matter of choice. I had to see her. Nothing else,
suddenly, had any meaning. So I made the long subway trek out there, knowing it was a fool's
errand. But what kind of an errand could have been more appropriate for me?
They weren't home, but I wasn't going to let that stop me. I banged on the door of the
next apartment, and got a surly, suspicious, whatdo-you-want-with-them? inspection from the woman
who lived there. But she thought they might possibly be down at the Community Center on the next
block.
And they were.
The Community Center was a big yellow-brick recreation hail; it had swimming pools and
pingpong tables and all kinds of odds and ends to keep the kids off the streets. It was that kind
of a neighborhood. It also had a meeting hall in the basement, and there were the Hargreaves, all
of them, along with a couple of dozen other people. None of them were young, except the Hargreave
girls. The hall had a dusty, storeroom quality to it, as though it wasn't used much-and in fact, I
saw, it still had a small Christmas tree standing in it. Whatever else they had, they did not have
a very efficient cleanup squad.
I came to the door to the hall and stood there, looking around. Someone was playing a piano, and
they were having a singing party. The music sounded familiar, but I couldn't recognize the words-
Adeste fideles, Laeti triumphantes. Venite, venite in Bethlehem.
The girls were sitting together, in the front row; their father wasn't with them, but I
saw why. He was standing at a little lectern in the front of the hall.
Natum videte, regem angelorum.
Venite adoremus, venite adoremus-- I recognized the tune then; it was a slow, draggy-beat
steal from
that old-time favorite, Christmas-Tree Mambo. It didn't sound too
bad, though, as they finished with a big major chord from the piano and all fifteen or twenty
voices going. Then Hargreave started to talk.
I didn't listen. I was too busy watching the back of Lilymary's head. I've always had
pretty low psi, though, and she didn't turn around.
Something was bothering me. There was a sort of glow from up front. I took my eyes off
Lilymary's blond head, and there was Dr. Hargreave, radiant; I blinked and looked again, and it
was not so radiant. A trick of the light, coming through the basement windows onto his own blond
hair, I suppose, but it gave me a curious feeling for a moment. I must have moved, because he
caught sight of me. He stumbled over a word, but then he went on. But that was enough. After a
moment Lilymary's head turned, and her eyes met mine.
She knew I was there. I backed away from the door and sat down on the steps coming down
from the entrance.
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Sooner or later she would be out.
It wasn't long at all. She came toward me with a question in her eye. She was all by
herself; inside the hail, her father was still talking.
I stood up straight and said it all. "Lilymary," I said, "I can't help it, I want to marry
you. I've done everything wrong, but I didn't mean to. I-I don't even want it conditional,
Lilymary, I want it for life. Here or Borneo, I don't care which. I only care about one thing, and
that's you." It was funny-I was trying to tell her I loved her, and I was standing stiff and
awkward, talking in about the same tone of voice I'd use to tell a stock boy he was fired.
But she understood. I probably didn't have to say a word, she would have understood
anyhow. She started to speak, and changed her mind, and started again, and finally got out, "What
would you do in Borneo?" And then, so soft that I hardly knew I was hearing it, she added, "Dear."
Dear! It was like the first time Heinemann came in and called me "Department Head!" I felt
nine feet tall.
I didn't answer her. I reached out and I kissed her, and it wasn't any wonder that I
didn't know we weren't alone until I heard her father cough, not more than a yard away.
I jumped, but Lilymary turned and looked at him, perfectly calm. "You ought to be
conducting the service, Father!" she scolded him.
He nodded his big fair head. "Doctor Mausner can pronounce the Benediction without me," he
said. "I should be there but-well, He has plenty of things to forgive all of us already; one more
isn't going to bother Him. Now, what's this?"
"George has asked me to marry him."
"And?"
She looked at me. "I-" she began, and stopped. I said, "I love her."
He looked at me too, and then he sighed. "George," he said after a moment, "I don't know
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