Free Heroes by Ray Robertson Page B

smile.
    Bayle smiled back. “All right, so you got all the tenacity genes in the family,” he said.
    Patty picked up her tea cup of warm beer again and sipped at it absently. “Yeah. Yeah, that’s me all right,” she said. “Tenacious Patty. Yeah, that’s me.”
    Then, louder — and as she went along, gaining enthusiasm for her subject, louder and louder still — “Yeah, Tenacious Patty,” she said. “That’s it. I think I’ll start up my own line of woman’s wear. The Tenacious Patty Line. For the Truly Active Woman Intent on Getting Ahead in the World and Staying There. You know: severe, two-piece business suits of stylish armour with shoulders
out to here
just like a hockey player’s with not an inch of mortal flesh showing and all styles available in the identical shade of grown-up grey. Five-inch black high heels that say, Yes, I’ve got legs up to my neck you’d just love to slobber all over, but I’m also the toughest negotiator you’ve ever had the misfortune of encountering, each pair furnished, it goes without saying, with a shining silver razor blade carefully concealed inside the left shoe for those extra-tough bargaining sessions. And brand new this season! Don’t call it a purse! Don’t call it your bag! It’s the allpurpose Tenacious Patty Satchel! To the ignorant eye, it’s true, just another flimsy lady’s accessory, but to the happily initiated, everything you need and then some to keep healthy, wealthy, and wise out there in the cold, cold world of commerce. Snubnosed Barreta. Easy-to-access switchblade. Even a vial of hydrochloric acid for tossing in the faces of one and all who — no matter how hard you try; no matter how hard you try and try and try — just don’t seem to get your point.”
    Most of the restaurant was looking their way now. Patty looked up at her brother. Patty looked through her brother. Crazy — no other word for it — crooked smile and hot salt tears. Like being caught in the middle of a violent thunderstorm, Bayle thought, on the sunniest day of the year.
    The situation clearly called for Bayle at his absolute worst, Bayle the emotional commiserator. He placed a tentative hand on his sister’s trembling shoulder. Patted her there a few times softly. Smiled a hang-in-here smile. Awkwardly drew his hand away. Felt in his gut just as petrified as she looked. “Patty ....”
    â€œOh, let’s just get out of here,” she said.
    Bayle didn’t know what to say so he got up and settled thebill at the cash. When he came back from paying, their table was empty. An instant of panic. But then the guy in the cowboy boots and sideburns smiled and pointed outside at Patty sitting on the cement step of the restaurant embracing herself against the cool of dawn. Bayle smiled a relieved smile back at the man and said thanks as he walked past his table, forgetting Patty’s library books stacked on the floor beneath her chair.
    Bayle and his sister ate their breakfast specials in silence, the dust-caked white curtains hanging beside their window table useful at least in preventing too much of the ripening morning sun from spilling through. After the egg yolks had been mopped up and the coffee cups refilled twice over there really wasn’t much left to do. All around them the restaurant hummed alive, the early Monday morning breakfast crowd with their freshly cracked newspapers and just-scrubbed faces infectious for their beautifully foolish excitement over the start of just another day, the start to just another week.
    Bayle felt his stomach turn a joyful tumble at the thought of putting Patty on the subway and getting himself home to bed so that before too long he could get right back up and head off to the library and return to work on the final paper for his summer-school class. The seminar itself had been a disappointment, a fourteen-week snooze of