“I apologize, Belt. I should know better than to say something like this. My daughter, she does not like it when I talk about her fiction. She becomes very uncomfortable. This is a terrible first impression that I make. I am sorry. You are Clyde’s only son, and I am somewhat nervous. I ask too many questions and I say what I should not.”
“No, no. Please don’t be. Don’t be sorry, or nervous. It’s a great first impression. Really. I think you’re very funny, and I can’t wait to meet you. In person. And you’ve read my book. Thank you for reading it.”
“I enjoy it very much. All of us do.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“You are welcome, of course. And the woman, then?”
“She’s—it’s a very long story.”
“Maybe Clyde has told me. She is maybe the Lisette you have employed the detective to find?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Yes, Clyde has told me. It is very romantic. He believes you will visit us after she is found. You and your Lisette. You will be in love and bring her to Spain, he believes. Is she found?”
“Sort of,” I said.
“Yes?”
“The detective found her. I haven’t really done anything about it yet, though. I was going to. I was just about to. I was on my way to see her just now, and then I…didn’t.”
“Ah, but you must.”
“I must?”
“This is not why you call after so many weeks from a telephone at Dairy Queen to speak to your father only after the detective finds your Lisette?”
“I don’t—”
“This is just why you call after so many weeks from a telephone at Dairy Queen to speak to your father only after the detective finds your Lisette. To hear Clyde tell you what I tell you: that you must. You must see Lisette. Of course you must see her. Do you think he would tell you something else?” said Sandrine.
“Maybe,” I said, but only from reflex.
* * *
—
Before the first ring had played out, she picked up. “Lisette Banks,” she said.
“Lisette,” I said. “Hi. Hello. This is Belt.”
“I know,” she said.
“You recognize my voice?”
“Not at all,” she said. “You sound like an adult. But I knew it was you the first time you called. Why’d you hang up? Were you feeling very nervous?”
“That was Abed,” I said. “Dr. Patel.”
“I believe that,” she said, and maybe she did. “I want to see you, Belt. Can we see each other sometime? Sometime really soon?”
“I could be there in ten, fifteen minutes.”
“Fifteen minutes,” she said, “is perfect. Except it’s better, I think, if you don’t come here. It’s spooky here. You wouldn’t like it at all. Let’s meet somewhere else. Do you know where the McDonald’s in Highland Grove is?”
I looked over my shoulder. It was just across the street.
“On Second Street?” I said.
“Exactly there,” Lisette said. “This is so perfect. Let’s meet up there. We’ll drink a Shamrock Shake.”
“It’s after St. Patrick’s. I’m not sure they have those.”
“They do,” she said. “All March.” She hung up.
I crossed the street to McDonald’s and waited outside. Ten, twelve minutes. I saw her coming from a half-block away. Were it not for the evening gloves, I’d never have guessed. She was heavy, dumpy, smiling as she lurched. Baggy blue sweatpants under a summer dress. All-rubber clogs. Terry-cloth headband. Sticky-looking neck, shiny and ringed. She glanced at me, but seemed to have no idea. She shuffled right past me, into the restaurant. She smelled like dirty hair and full ashtrays.
“Leave,” I thought. But I couldn’t quite convince myself.
She came outside again. “Excuse me,” she said. “You wouldn’t happen to have an extra one of those, would you?”
I gave her a cigarette. She had her own lighter. The pseudo-leather pink purse from which she pulled it was flaking, fading to orange. Her evening gloves were coffee-stained. Her eyes had a wobble. Her eyebrows were pencil lines. To think that she’d once flipped effortless cartwheels…to think she’d ever been—I needed to leave. Why wasn’t I leaving?
Quill lit, she leaned back against the wall, beside me. “Hulga,” she said.
“Pardon?” I said.
“I’m Hulga,” Lisette said.
“Clyde,” I said.
“Nice to meet you, Clyde. Talk to Blinky lately?”
“Blinky?”
“Blinky,” she said. “Ghost who chased Pac-Man. The blue one. Come on. You’re old enough to remember. There was Inky, there was Pinky, there was Blinky, and there was Clyde? Clyde was orange, I think. Chased Ms. Pac-Man, too. All four of them did. And later Baby Pac-Man, Junior Pac-Man, Super Pac-Man.”
“Oh, right,” I said.
“In a way,” Lisette said, “they were the real stars of the franchise, those ghosts. They were in more games than any of the others.”
“Good point,” I said.
“You want to talk about names, though, I’m supposed to meet my friend here—his name’s Belt.”
“Some name,” I said.
I studied my shoes. We puffed at our Quills.
“I know,” she said. “Disgusting, right?”
Had I sighed? Slumped? Made some kind of face?
“For me,” she went on, “there’s only two ways to think of them. One way is: maybe they’ll outlast us. Not all of them, but some of them. Maybe some will outlast us, and a better species than us will arise, or maybe a superior race of alien beings will show up, and then a member of this new species, or one of the superior alien beings, it’ll study them, scope them, take them apart, and it’ll find traces of us, DNA traces, and maybe it’ll use some form of advanced technology on the traces to make a new person, or a bunch of new people, and humankind will get a second shot.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Well, like a second shot at not destroying ourselves. A second shot at being. And maybe we could do better with a second shot. Probably not, but maybe. With the wisdom and guidance of a superior alien society or an advanced new species? one that was skilled enough to develop technology to bring us back from extinction? Not totally impossible.”