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The Colorado Kid :: Кинг Стивен
Страница: 8 из 81And on days when the fog rolled in and the entire mainland world seemed to be cancelled and the rueful cry of the foghorn came and went like the voice of some ancient beast…why, then she wondered the same thing.
You want to be careful, Steffi, Dave had told her one day when he came on her, sitting out there on the deck with her yellow pad on her lap and a halffinished Arts ’N Things column scrawled there in her big backhand strokes.Island living has a way of creeping into your blood, and once it gets there it’s like malaria. It doesn’t leave easily.
Now, after turning on the lights (the sun had begun going the other way and the long room had begun to darken), she sat down at her desk and found her trusty legal pad with a new Arts ’N Things column on the top page. This one was pretty much interchangeable with any of half a dozen others she had so far turned in, but she looked at it with undeniable affection just the same. It was hers, after all, her work, writing she was getting paid for, and she had no doubt that people all over theIslander ’s circulation area—which was quite large—actually read it.
Vince sat down behind his own desk with a small but audible grunt. It was followed by a crackling sound as he twisted first to the left and then to the right. He called this “settling his spine.” Dave told him that he would someday paralyze himself from the neck down while “settling his spine,” but Vince seemed singularly unworried by the possibility. Now he turned on his computer while his managing editor sat on the corner of his desk, produced a toothpick, and began using it to rummage in his upper plate.
“What’s it going to be?” Dave asked while Vince waited for his computer to boot up. “Fire? Flood? Earthquake? Or the revolt of the multitudes?”
“I thought I’d start with Ellen Dunwoodie snapping off the fire hydrant on Beach Lane when the parking brake on her car let go. Then, once I’m properly warmed up, I thought I’d move on to a rewrite of my library editorial,” Vince said, and cracked his knuckles.
Dave glanced over at Stephanie from his perch on the corner of Vince’s desk. “First the back, then the knuckles,” he said. “If he could learn how to play ‘Dry Bones’ on his ribcage, we could get him onAmerican Idol.”
“Always a critic,” Vince said amiably, waiting for his machine to boot up. “You know, Steff, there’s something perverse about this. Here am I, ninety years old and ready for the cooling board, using a brand new Macintosh computer, and there you sit, twentytwo and gorgeous, fresh as a new peach, yet scrawling on a yellow legal pad like an old maid in a Victorian romance.
You want to be careful, Steffi, Dave had told her one day when he came on her, sitting out there on the deck with her yellow pad on her lap and a halffinished Arts ’N Things column scrawled there in her big backhand strokes.Island living has a way of creeping into your blood, and once it gets there it’s like malaria. It doesn’t leave easily.
Now, after turning on the lights (the sun had begun going the other way and the long room had begun to darken), she sat down at her desk and found her trusty legal pad with a new Arts ’N Things column on the top page. This one was pretty much interchangeable with any of half a dozen others she had so far turned in, but she looked at it with undeniable affection just the same. It was hers, after all, her work, writing she was getting paid for, and she had no doubt that people all over theIslander ’s circulation area—which was quite large—actually read it.
Vince sat down behind his own desk with a small but audible grunt. It was followed by a crackling sound as he twisted first to the left and then to the right. He called this “settling his spine.” Dave told him that he would someday paralyze himself from the neck down while “settling his spine,” but Vince seemed singularly unworried by the possibility. Now he turned on his computer while his managing editor sat on the corner of his desk, produced a toothpick, and began using it to rummage in his upper plate.
“What’s it going to be?” Dave asked while Vince waited for his computer to boot up. “Fire? Flood? Earthquake? Or the revolt of the multitudes?”
“I thought I’d start with Ellen Dunwoodie snapping off the fire hydrant on Beach Lane when the parking brake on her car let go. Then, once I’m properly warmed up, I thought I’d move on to a rewrite of my library editorial,” Vince said, and cracked his knuckles.
Dave glanced over at Stephanie from his perch on the corner of Vince’s desk. “First the back, then the knuckles,” he said. “If he could learn how to play ‘Dry Bones’ on his ribcage, we could get him onAmerican Idol.”
“Always a critic,” Vince said amiably, waiting for his machine to boot up. “You know, Steff, there’s something perverse about this. Here am I, ninety years old and ready for the cooling board, using a brand new Macintosh computer, and there you sit, twentytwo and gorgeous, fresh as a new peach, yet scrawling on a yellow legal pad like an old maid in a Victorian romance.