somebody had explained that they’d decided to introduce a second Christmas to the year and today was the day.
“Mom?” said Hayley, coming toward the car, and all her friends came with her.
“This is Ed Wilson, from the office,” said Elaine. “Ed, I’d like you to meet Hayley.”
“Pleaseta meetcha,” said Ed, holding out a hand, and they shook hands across Elaine. Then Elaine got out to let Hayley into the back seat, and then she got back in, and then they took off.
“You guys in a hurry to get home?” said Ed, and Hayley said No before Elaine had a chance to say Yes. “Wanna take a drive along the shore?” said Ed, and Hayley said Yes before Elaine had a chance to say No.
They drove out along the shore, which was not too crowded at this time of day, so Ed was able to just test the speed limit once in a while to give them some idea of the general point of a Lamborghini. Then they stopped for hamburgers, and Ed bought eight separate Rodeo Deals just so they could instantly collect all eight Rodeo Gals. They went and sat down, and Hayley just sat there with her chocolate milkshake and the eight Rodeo Gals, each in a different cowgal outfit, and she looked all lit up inside.
Elaine had been on lots of dates over the years, and she couldn’t count how many times she’d had to sit there cringing while the guy sat there trying to be nice to Hayley and Hayley sat there being polite and quiet back. She couldn’t think of a single one that knew how to talk to kids, or that Hayley had liked. And now here was Ed not even making an effort, it wasn’t just the fact of the Rodeo Gals, it was the fact that Ed just naturally entered into things from a kid’s point of view. From a kid’s point of view, the whole point of being grown up is that you can afford to get the whole set of a special offer all at the same time, so why would you want to wait? Of course, some men might have had just enough of a glimpse of that to buy the whole set, but they would have been so condescending about it to Hayley that it would have been almost as bad as not buying anything at all. Whereas Ed obviously had the attitude, Who knows when we’ll come back? If we ever do? Who knows if they’ll still have the offer? Let’s get the whole set now just to be on the safe side. In other words, the attitude of a ten-year-old kid.
Now of course, one way of looking at it was that the reason Ed related so well to a ten-year-old kid was that Ed had the mental age of a ten-year-old. And thinking back over some of the stories she’d heard about Ed’s sense of humor, Elaine had to admit there was more than a grain of truth in it. But wait just a minute. This wasn’t some total idiot who couldn’t get his act together, this was the top earner in the company, somebody who had asked for a Lamborghini as a company car and gotten it.
Besides, you can tell something about someone by the way kids respond to them. A kid can usually tell if someone is genuine or full of b.s. If a kid likes someone that tells you something you probably couldn’t find out any other way.
So Elaine sat eating one of the eight Broncoburgers, watching Ed eat fries in a way that suggested his manners hadn’t undergone much of a transformation since he was ten, and relaxing. It felt weird to relax on a date with Hayley around, because usually she was so tense what with sensing all the cross-currents.
Roy, meanwhile, was breaking his golden rule. Roy’s golden rule was that you should never take work home with you. When you leave the office, leave the office, and make sure you leave the office at the office. That was the rule, but Roy was in a quandary, and he had simply not been able to leave that quandary behind when he walked out the door.
Should he tell someone? If so, who?
Not easy questions, and there was no easy answer.
AN UNEASY TRUCE
For the next three weeks Roy went on trying to make up his mind what to do. He hadn’t been able to bring himself to use the disabled stall again. He