prepared a plug of chew instead.
“Positive social change works top-down,” Walter said. “The surgeon general issues his report, educated people read it, bright kids start to realize that smoking is stupid, not cool, and national smoking rates go down. Or Rosa Parks sits down on her bus, college students hear about it, they march in Washington, they take buses to the South, and suddenly there’s a national civil-rights movement. We’re now at a point where any reasonably educated person can understand the problem with population growth. So the next step is to make it cool for college kids to care about the issue.”
While Walter held forth on the subject of college kids, Katz strained to hear what Patty was doing in the kitchen. The essential pussiness of his situation was coming home to him. The Patty he wanted was the Patty who didn’t want Walter: the housewife who didn’t want to be a housewife anymore; the housewife who wanted to fuck a rocker. But instead of just calling her up and saying he wanted her, he was sitting here like some college sophomore, indulging his old friend’s intellectual fantasies. What was it about Walter that so knocked him off his game? He felt like a free-flying insect caught in a sticky web of family. He couldn’t stop trying to be nice to Walter, because he liked him; if he hadn’t liked him so much, he probably wouldn’t have wanted Patty; and if he hadn’t wanted her, he wouldn’t have been sitting here pretending. What a mess.
And now her footsteps were coming down the hallway. Walter stopped speaking and took a deep breath, visibly bracing himself. Katz swiveled his chair toward the doorway; and there she was. The fresh-faced mom who had a dark side. She was wearing black boots and a snug red-and-black silk brocade skirt and a chic short raincoat in which she looked both great and not like herself. Katz couldn’t remember ever seeing her in anything but jeans.
“Hi, Richard,” she said, glancing in his general direction. “Hi, everybody. How’s it going here?”
“We’re just getting started,” Walter said.
“Don’t let me interrupt you, then.”
“You’re all dressed up,” Walter said.
“Going shopping,” she said. “Maybe I’ll see you guys tonight if you’re around.”
“Are you making dinner?” Jessica said.
“No, I have to work till nine. I guess, if you want, I could stop for some food before I leave.”
“That would be extremely helpful,” Jessica said, “since we’re going to be meeting all day.”
“Well, and I would be happy to make dinner if I didn’t have to work an eight-hour shift.”
“Oh, never mind,” Jessica said. “Just forget it. We’ll go out or something.”
“That does sound like the easiest thing,” Patty agreed.
“So anyway,” Walter said.
“Right, so anyway,” she said. “I hope it’s a really fun day for everybody.”
Having thus speedily irritated, ignored, or disappointed each of the four of them, she proceeded down the hallway and out the front door. Lalitha, who had been clicking on her BlackBerry since the moment Patty appeared, looked the most obviously unhappy.
“Does she work seven days a week now, or what?” Jessica said.
“No, not usually,” Walter said. “I’m not sure what this is about.”
“It’s always about something, though, isn’t it,” Lalitha murmured as she thumbed her device.
Jessica turned on her, instantly redirecting her pique. “Just let us know whenever you’re done with your e-mail, OK? We’ll just sit and wait until you’re ready, OK?”
Lalitha, tight-lipped, continued to thumb.
“Maybe you can do that later?” Walter said gently.
She slapped the BlackBerry onto the table. “OK,” she said. “Ready!”
As the nicotine coursed through Katz, he began to feel better. Patty had seemed defiant, and defiant was good. Nor had the fact of her dressing up escaped his attention. Dressing up for what reason? To present herself to him. And working both Friday and Saturday nights for what reason? To avoid him. Yes, to play the same hide-and-seek that he was playing with her. Now that she was gone, he could see her better, receive her signals without so much static, imagine placing his hands on that fine skirt of hers, and remember how she’d wanted him in Minnesota.
But meanwhile the problem of too much procreation: the first concrete task, Walter said, was to think of a name for their initiative. His own working idea was Youth Against Insanity, a private homage to “Youth Against Fascism,” which he considered (and Katz agreed with him) one of the finer songs that Sonic Youth had ever recorded. But Jessica was adamant about picking a