This Blue Ball | Page 5

never seen anything glow before. It wasn't like any of his games. I asked Andrew if he had shut the computer off, and he said yes -- "
Gary jumped in, knowing that it was probably the wrong thing to do: "I imagine it was the monitor's test pattern. They typically come on when there's no signal from the computer, and can be quite surprising, sometimes." He smiled into the phone, hoping that he had allayed her fear.
"All right," she said, audibly eased a bit, "that may be it. But there's two things I don't understand, and Andrew couldn't explain them either. The monitor was unplugged from the surge protector, completely unplugged, and the image seemed to be projected six inches off the monitor, like ink glowing in the air. It burned itself into the glass -- this morning I could still read the image in scratches. I've never seen anything like it."
Gary knew that if he expressed the slightest doubt about her description, she would hang up on him and that would be the absolute end. Yet he had no reason to suspect that she was exaggerating or mischaracterizing. She did neither easily: too proud to exaggerate and too careful to mischaracterize.
"That does sound very strange," he said. "It's hard to know without seeing it."
The self-invitation was a big risk, but basically his only play.
She thought too long about this, and said the following with a forced nonchalance: "Yes, that makes sense. Would you be able to come by sometime and take a look? I know it's a lot to ask. But I'm worried." A moment passed before she confessed her worry: "There might be radiation or something."
Gary wanted to tell her that there was simply no chance of dangerous radiation emanating from a monitor, even one which had for some reason gone completely gaga. But he also knew her fear would outweigh his assurances unless he could give specifics, whether she understood anything about them or not. If what she described was true, he suspected that a circuit had surged after a brownout or from a failing circuit breaker, and that the monitor had had a brief excess of current. No big deal, even if he could not explain it with confidence.
"How about tonight then?" he said. "I can stop by after work. Say about seven?"
Her jaw half clenched, she replied: "Sure, I would appreciate that." She thanked him, and hung up.
He imagined himself using his voice of assurance to assuage and win her over. He saw himself pull the technical wool over Andrew's eyes, and impress both of them. But he could only partially convince himself, so he went back to work.
No. 4 -- The first impression is more powerful, and often more positive, than later impressions. With Alice Philips, impressions often started low and, after the third or fourth encounter, began a steady rise. Oh, she did make a respectable first impression: trim, well dressed in a not quite tailored look, an attractive balanced face, with an elegant cosmetic overlay and coiffure. But she was not a quick or smooth talker, or a smiling conversant, or a great beauty, or primed to appeal to male fantasies, either the demure or wild kind. Her manner became clearer over time. She moved with an even, one might say strangely calm manner, slowly and deliberately, turning as if moving a large mass around a carefully balanced center of gravity -- that, by careful observation, you would swear had to be in the cavern of her pelvis. It was an eerily sexy effect, once you noticed it, but not something that struck you at first glance. You might just think she was slow.
Alice had big, expressive brown eyes, within a dark brown face. She was of African descent, with American Indian and European thrown in for good measure. The brown of her irises was rich and luminous -- endlessly brown, as you might expect of the richest of soils in a dank rain forest stretched beneath an equatorial sky. Not that she was particularly exotic, having been raised in Yonkers, New York. Still, there is something inherently intriguing about eye color outweighing the black of the pupils, about skin that is a color in its own right, not the pale reflection of blood coursing through the body, not a red or freckled organ that the sun must first paint. Her face was defined by the large luminous eyes, broad nose and bursting lips of her African ancestry, and her profile seemed to be a fuller version of the Indo-European ideal balance of cheeks, ears, forehead and chin.
She was slow to move, and slow to engage. While waiting for a reaction on her part, your attention might hold on the cosmetic aids to her person: foundation, eye shadow, lipstick, blush, even a