typed that page during an episode of fugue and don’t remember doing it.
Or else she thinks you’re crazy, kiddo.
Stevie wondered if her insanity lay in failing to . . . well, to fear the machine. An electric typewriter that began to churn out highly detailed versions of your dreams warranted a certain awe. It could remake your life. It could reveal your most shameful secrets. It could destroy you. Cataloguing these melodramatic possibilities, Stevie smiled at herself.
In point of amusing fact, a typewriter—no matter how voluble, vulgar, and malicious—had no forum unless you gave it one. It could not saunter from room to room rummaging through your belongings, go to the police chief to denounce your private appreciation of smutty books, or even creep over an inch to upset the bottle of Liquid Paper next to your latest manuscript. A typewriter sat where you put it. If you kept your study door closed and forbade anyone else to enter, it served as your absolute captive.
Stevie intended to make use of these facts. Why, then, should she fear her typewriter? Although hard to lift, it was not otherwise physically imposing. Its grimy platen knobs and mild keyboard grin conveyed not a flinch of menace. Besides, before visiting Dr. Elsa, Stevie had defanged the machine by the simple expedient of unplugging it. If it wanted to get rid of her or ruin her reputation, it would have to wait until she restored its power. When she did, she fiercely believed that Stevenson Crye rather than the PDE Exceleriter would occupy the driver’s seat. She would turn the machine’s occasional self-sufficiency to her own advantage.
That was why she had asked Dr. Elsa for those long sheets of slippery white examination-table paper. Since returning from Wickrath, she had not set foot in her study. She had spent the morning scissoring Dr. Elsa’s “sausage wrap” into streamers about eight inches wide—so they’d fit into the Exceleriter. These virgin scrolls lay about the kitchen—on the breakfast bar, the circular oaken table, the seats of her wobbly captain’s chairs—as if she were trying to convert the place into a medieval library. All her manuscripts lacked were words and meticulous illuminations. The words, at least, would come later.
Teddy came in, dragging his expensive winter jacket and eyeing the paper-filled kitchen.
“You’re home early,” Stevie said, baffled. The clock on the stove showed only a few minutes after noon.
“It’s a teachers’ in-service weekend, Mom. We only went half a day.”
“Oh.” She had forgotten.
“The elementary school let out early, too. Isn’t Marella home yet?”
The day’s plans—some of them formulated at breakfast while she was still trying to absorb the implications of her strange discovery—began to take focus again. “Tiffany McGuire’s mother picked her up, Teddy. Marella’s supposed to spend the night there.”
“She well enough to go?”
“Claimed she was this morning. If she can go to school, I guess she can go to a friend’s house, don’t you?”
“ ’Sno skin off my nose.” Before she could tweak Teddy for the slovenly offhandedness of this remark, he added, “I thought you’d be upstairs working, trying to make up for yesterday and all.”
“Afraid you’ll starve?”
“No, ma’am.” He looked taken aback, and Stevie regretted snapping at him—the guilt of the neglectful breadwinner triumphing over maternal solicitude.
More tenderly, she said, “In a way, I am working.”
“Somebody ask you to do decorations?”
“I’m going to type on this, Teddy. I’m halving the strips so they’ll roll into my machine.”
“I thought you typed on typing paper.”
“These are for drafts. From now on I’ll be using long strips like these for almost all my preliminary drafts.”
“What for?” Teddy picked up a tightly wound scroll and thumped it against his chin.
“It’s a psychological thing,” Stevie told him. “When I get to the bottom
Or else she thinks you’re crazy, kiddo.
Stevie wondered if her insanity lay in failing to . . . well, to fear the machine. An electric typewriter that began to churn out highly detailed versions of your dreams warranted a certain awe. It could remake your life. It could reveal your most shameful secrets. It could destroy you. Cataloguing these melodramatic possibilities, Stevie smiled at herself.
In point of amusing fact, a typewriter—no matter how voluble, vulgar, and malicious—had no forum unless you gave it one. It could not saunter from room to room rummaging through your belongings, go to the police chief to denounce your private appreciation of smutty books, or even creep over an inch to upset the bottle of Liquid Paper next to your latest manuscript. A typewriter sat where you put it. If you kept your study door closed and forbade anyone else to enter, it served as your absolute captive.
Stevie intended to make use of these facts. Why, then, should she fear her typewriter? Although hard to lift, it was not otherwise physically imposing. Its grimy platen knobs and mild keyboard grin conveyed not a flinch of menace. Besides, before visiting Dr. Elsa, Stevie had defanged the machine by the simple expedient of unplugging it. If it wanted to get rid of her or ruin her reputation, it would have to wait until she restored its power. When she did, she fiercely believed that Stevenson Crye rather than the PDE Exceleriter would occupy the driver’s seat. She would turn the machine’s occasional self-sufficiency to her own advantage.
That was why she had asked Dr. Elsa for those long sheets of slippery white examination-table paper. Since returning from Wickrath, she had not set foot in her study. She had spent the morning scissoring Dr. Elsa’s “sausage wrap” into streamers about eight inches wide—so they’d fit into the Exceleriter. These virgin scrolls lay about the kitchen—on the breakfast bar, the circular oaken table, the seats of her wobbly captain’s chairs—as if she were trying to convert the place into a medieval library. All her manuscripts lacked were words and meticulous illuminations. The words, at least, would come later.
Teddy came in, dragging his expensive winter jacket and eyeing the paper-filled kitchen.
“You’re home early,” Stevie said, baffled. The clock on the stove showed only a few minutes after noon.
“It’s a teachers’ in-service weekend, Mom. We only went half a day.”
“Oh.” She had forgotten.
“The elementary school let out early, too. Isn’t Marella home yet?”
The day’s plans—some of them formulated at breakfast while she was still trying to absorb the implications of her strange discovery—began to take focus again. “Tiffany McGuire’s mother picked her up, Teddy. Marella’s supposed to spend the night there.”
“She well enough to go?”
“Claimed she was this morning. If she can go to school, I guess she can go to a friend’s house, don’t you?”
“ ’Sno skin off my nose.” Before she could tweak Teddy for the slovenly offhandedness of this remark, he added, “I thought you’d be upstairs working, trying to make up for yesterday and all.”
“Afraid you’ll starve?”
“No, ma’am.” He looked taken aback, and Stevie regretted snapping at him—the guilt of the neglectful breadwinner triumphing over maternal solicitude.
More tenderly, she said, “In a way, I am working.”
“Somebody ask you to do decorations?”
“I’m going to type on this, Teddy. I’m halving the strips so they’ll roll into my machine.”
“I thought you typed on typing paper.”
“These are for drafts. From now on I’ll be using long strips like these for almost all my preliminary drafts.”
“What for?” Teddy picked up a tightly wound scroll and thumped it against his chin.
“It’s a psychological thing,” Stevie told him. “When I get to the bottom
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