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Show 217 a quarter of a mile long. The streets below were deserted. Was there anyone down there working? Christmas Day. She thought of Tiny Tim and Uncle Scrooge. But how far away this asphalt, these sprawling concrete warehouses, these chimney-less factories, were from Dickens! There was no snow, no urchins in the streets. And yet, the unyielding grime, the oppressive appearance of it-yes, they were oppressive, those featureless deserted buildings, block after block of them. Perhaps this world was not so far removed from Dickens' world after all. Robbie broke the silence: "How's Roger?" "Did you notice this perfume I'm wearing?" She held her wrist under his nose. "Chanel No. 5, isn't it?" "It sure is. He gave it to me last night." He frowned, a mock frown behind his sunglasses; and then, broke into a grin. "So little Sis is growing up." "I got him a shirt and tie. Which he will wear instead of leaving untouched in his closet," she said. Robbie looked over at her-he never wore the shirts and ties people gave him as gifts, until Sharon and her mother had given up buying them for him-and then he turned back to the road, he wouldn't be baited. So she told him about her date with Roger last night. They had gone to The Lighthouse, Cannonball Add-erly had played, the place had been packed. Most of the crowd had been in their twenties and thirties, she said, Robbie's age and older, they had listened with an almost religious intensity to the sharp, hard sound of the horn. Neither Roger nor she had really understood that intensity of feeling, she said, but both of them had been impressed by it. |
