The Burglar Who Met Fredric Brown

22

“Wow, Bern.”

“Says it all, doesn’t it?”

“There’s a voice in my head telling me that this doesn’t change a thing, and there’s another voice saying it changes everything. And I have the feeling they’re both right.”

“I know what you mean.”

“Really? Because I’m not sure I do. This is about as good as I’ve ever felt in my life, like I’m floating on a cloud, and I’m loving it, but at the same time I’m terrified of falling.”

“What I’m feeling,” I said, “isn’t all that different.”

“This isn’t the first time I’ve been to bed with a man. You knew that, right?”

“It seems to me you mentioned it.”

“Ages and ages ago, before I was completely out. I mean, I always knew I was gay, and that I didn’t have the kind of feelings for boys that I had for girls. But when I was in high school, girls didn’t take each other to the junior prom. I gather it’s no longer unheard of.”

“Very few things are.”

“Well, I wasn’t in the running for prom queen, but I wasn’t a complete bowwow either, and I got asked on dates. And my date might kiss me goodnight, and if I dated somebody more than a couple of times we might make out a little. And I didn’t find it disgusting. It didn’t do anything for me, but it didn’t make me vomit.”

“Which might have been awkward,” I said, “in the back seat of somebody’s father’s Plymouth.”

“Anyway, everything got amped up in college. Orientation Week was barely over before a third-year Phys Ed major orientated the hell out of me. One glance and she knew what I was, and after one evening in her dorm room, so did I.”

“And you never looked back.”

“That’s mostly true,” she said, “but you start wondering if maybe this is a phase you’re going through, and if you’re comfortable with the whole idea of never getting married and never having children and never being able to let the world know who and what you really are, because back then—”

“Right.”

“And you get the thought in your head, like how do you know for sure you wouldn’t enjoy sex with a guy if you’ve never had it? And, you know, Bern, it’s a fair question.”

“Sure.”

“And, you know, a couple of drinks makes it easier to go through with something like that. Maybe more than a couple, maybe enough rye and ginger to shut up the voices in your head, or at least turn down the volume.”

“That’s what you drank? Rye and ginger ale?”

“Or the occasional Seven and Seven. That was Seagram’s Seven and Seven-Up.”

“I remember. It tasted—”

“Like crap, but it got the job done. And so did I. I did my research, I performed my experiment, I analyzed the results and drew the only possible conclusion.”

“You were a lesbian.”

“I was,” she said, “and I am. Even in a universe that decided to turn a somersault and put me in bed with my best friend. And it didn’t take anything stronger than Perrier to get me there.”

“Unless you count the Einspänner.”

“What, coffee and Reddi-Wip?”

“I don’t think Abel would use anything but real whipped cream.”

“You’re right. Bern, I’ve been meaning to ask. Have you been up against it?”

“Up against what?”

“Like financially. Strapped, in a bind, whatever. I know the store hasn’t been doing all that well, even if you had a decent day today—”

“More than decent.”

“—but you own the building, and you’ve got residential tenants who pay rent, and I thought that was keeping you above water.”

“It is. Why?”

“You told Abel you had an urgent need for cash.”

“Did I say urgent? I thought the word I used was pressing.”

“Maybe you did. What was pressing you, Bern?”

“Nothing. It was a convenient way to explain a decision I’d already made. I could have quoted Omar Khayyam.”

“A loaf of bread, a jug of wine, and thirty-two thousand dollars?”

“I was thinking of ‘Take the cash and let the credit go.’”

“Take the thirty-two,” she said, “and let the quarter of a million go. Believe me, I’m fine with it, Bern. I don’t know what I’m gonna do with my sixteen thousand, and its not as though I was drooling at the thought of major money. But last time, with the V-nickel—”

“I decided to roll the dice.”

“Right.”

“And how did that turn out?”

“Badly for us,” she said, “and a lot worse for Abel. But that was in a different world, Bern. In this world Abel’s alive and well, and looking to sell the Kloppmann for a minimum of a million dollars. Don’t you think he’ll do it?”

“He may. He’s prepared to sit on it for as long as it takes, and there’s a good chance it’ll hatch sooner or later.”

“You always said that he was the one fence you could trust absolutely.”

“Absolutely might be a stretch. You’re the only person in the world I trust absolutely. But as far as sharing the proceeds from a transaction is concerned, yes, my trust in Abel is as complete now as it was when we left him the V-nickel.”

She looked puzzled. Understandably so, I suppose.

“Nothing in this world,” I said, choosing my words carefully, “would keep Abel from treating us honestly.”

“But?”

“But suppose there’s a reverse somersault, and we do a backflip into the previous universe? Where do you figure that leaves us?”