“
She pulled his arm tighter around her, although it wasn’t cold. “Intelligent or not, it’s wrong.”
“I agree. Most people would. Rusty knew it even as a child. But most kids don’t have a moral fix on the world. That takes years to develop. By the time we’re adults, most of us have put away childish things, which would include burning ants with a magnifying glass or pulling the wings off flies. Probably
“But still… if we found ants on Mars, or even microbes, we wouldn’t destroy them. Because life in the universe is such a precious commodity. Every other planet in our system is a wasteland, for God’s sake.”
Barbie thought if NASA found life on Mars, they would have no compunctions whatever about destroying it in order to put it on a microscope slide and study it, but he didn’t say so. “If we were more scientifically advanced—or more spiritually advanced, maybe that’s what it actually takes to go voyaging around in the great what’s-outthere—we might see that there’s life everywhere. As many inhabited worlds and intelligent life-forms as there are anthills in this town.”
Was his hand now resting on the sideswell of her breast? She believed it was. It had been a long time since there had been a man’s hand there, and it felt very good.
“The one thing I’m sure of is that there are other worlds than the ones we can see with our puny telescopes here on Earth. Or even with the Hubble. And…
“I know what that’s like,” she said. “To be played with.”
He was looking at her. Kissing distance. She wouldn’t mind being kissed; no, not at all.
“What do you mean? Rennie?”
“Do you believe there are certain defining moments in a person’s life? Watershed events that actually do change us?”
“Yes,” he said, thinking of the red smile his boot had left on the Abdul’s buttock. Just the ordinary asscheek of a man living his ordinary little life. “Absolutely.”
“Mine happened in fourth grade. At Main Street Grammar.”
“Tell me.”
“It won’t take long. That was the longest afternoon of my life, but it’s a short story.”
He waited.
“I was an only child. My father owned the local newspaper—he had a couple of reporters and one ad salesman, but otherwise he was pretty much a one-man band, and that was just how he liked it.
There was never any question that I’d take over when he retired. He believed it, my mother believed it, my teachers believed it, and of course
“Everyone—not excluding me—just about worshipped the ground I walked on. Except for my fellow fourth-graders, that was. At the time I didn’t understand the causes, but now I wonder how I missed them. I was the one who sat in the front row and always raised my hand when Mrs. Connaught asked a question, and I always got the answer right. I turned in my assignments ahead of time if I could, and volunteered for extra credit. I was a grade-grind and a bit of a wheedler. Once, when Mrs. Connaught came back into class after having to leave us alone for a few minutes, little Jessie Vachon’s nose was bleeding. Mrs. Connaught said we’d all have to stay after unless someone told her who did it. I raised my hand and said it was Andy Manning. Andy punched Jessie in the nose when Jessie wouldn’t lend Andy his art-gum eraser. And I didn’t see anything wrong with that, because it was the truth. Are you getting this picture?”
“You’re coming in five-by.”
“That little episode was the last straw. One day not long afterwards, I was walking home across the Common and a bunch of girls were laying for me inside the Peace Bridge. There were six of them. The ringleader was Lila Strout, who’s now Lila Killian—she married Roger Killian, which serves her absolutely right. Don’t ever let anyone tell you children can’t carry their grudges into adulthood.
“They took me to the bandstand. I struggled at first, but then two of them—Lila was one, Cindy Collins, Toby Manning’s mother, was the other—punched me. Not in the shoulder, the way kids usually do, either. Cindy hit me in the cheek, and Lila punched me square in the right boob. How that hurt! I was just getting my breasts, and they ached even when they were left alone.