Free Duplex by Kathryn Davis Page A

youth.
    “Don’t they know any better?” the photographer asked. He stopped on the grass verge in front of number 47. “Of all songs to be singing, why pick that?”
    “It’s a nice musical,” Miss Vicks said, looking around. She had seen the show on Broadway, though whether it had been the original cast she couldn’t remember. The only thing she could remember was that it had heralded a revival of the kilt as a popular item of apparel for women. The sorcerer’s red taillights reached the far end of the street and he turned right without bothering to put on his turn signal. He was headed up the avenue, Miss Vicks knew, going home to Mary. He was tall, his arms long. He had thin tapered fingers like a surgeon, and he was going to slip them under Mary’s skirt, gently, delicately.
    “Nice?” said the photographer, hitching the horse to a telephone pole and beginning to erect his tripod. “What’s nice about a place that disappears if you leave it? Who would want to live someplace where all it takes is one selfish person leaving home to make everyone vanish as if they never existed?” He seemed to be talking about the musical, but he was thinking about a story his mother used to tell him at bedtime. In the story the same thing happened. Afterward something that looked like smoke hung above the place, but it was really earth vapor, all that was left of the village once it sank into the ground.
    “Have your picture taken on a real live cowpony!” the photographer called to the girls, but by now they were already past number 37 and out of earshot.
    “Isn’t it a little late for that?” said Miss Vicks.
    “For some people, yes,” he said.
    “I mean isn’t it too dark?”
    “The night shots are the best,” he explained, training the camera first on the horse, then on Miss Vicks. “They’re the most atmospheric.”
    The horse craned its neck to stare at her. Its coat was dapple gray, its eyes blue. She could see the soft pink nostrils expand and contract, like something you’d want to stick your finger in. Maybe she was thinking this way because of the way she’d just been thinking about Mary and the sorcerer. The horse’s skin really did look like velvet. “Go ahead. Climb on,” the photographer said. “Give it a try.”
    Miss Vicks shook her head.
    “I can tell you’re dying to,” he said.
    “It’s been years,” she said, arising from the glider.
    The horse slowly closed its eyes and opened them again, even slower, making it seem like the eyes that had been there before had been replaced with newer, better eyes. Miss Vicks put her foot in the stirrup and swung herself into the saddle.
    “Look at me,” the photographer said. “No need to smile.” He focused the lens and as he began to shoot, Miss Vicks followed his instructions. She rarely smiled with her mouth, in any case. Then he walked over and gave the horse a pat on the rump. “Watch yourself,” he said. “Between now and tomorrow lies a long, long night.”
    “Tomorrow?” said Miss Vicks. Already the horse was starting down the street toward the vacant lot, in the opposite direction of where the sorcerer had been headed. “I don’t understand,” she said.
    “Tomorrow!” the photographer said. “You will understand tomorrow what that word means.”
    The girls stopped their singing long enough to stare. At some point they’d all been in Miss Vicks’s classroom, but none of them had ever seen their teacher do anything like this before and they were embarrassed for her.

Disabled List
    W HAT IS IT LIKE TO LIVE WITHOUT A SOUL? THE robots gave this a lot of thought, it being their condition. Roy told Eddie that sometimes Cindy cried herself to sleep. How could she cry? How could she sleep, for that matter? Often what you don’t have breaks your heart. The thing about souls is that with just the one exception, every one has one. The gaping hole gets passed around, like the missing chair in musical chairs. Eddie had been a good