Last Last Chance [antikvár]

One people I love know how to get on with their lives. In evidence: A girlfriend from elementary school was getting married. Day after tomorrow, Plaza Hotel. The invitation was piped in copper and rice, maybe because the bride was Indian. It promised a groom on horseback. This I'd like to see. I knew the groom, which made it tough to imagine horseback nothin'. A horse could make him cry. A horse could make me cry. How fortuitous. When the crying starts, blame horse,. I was on break outside the creche. The view was coops and farmland. Tractor here, reaper there, and, per usual, Wanda Deck-man headed my way. She is the chief union steward. She likes to meddle. And, in my case, to paw for information apropos a strain of lethal plague vanished from my father's lab a few months ago. I understood. Miasmic events storming the country were on everybody's mind. There was reason to believe the strain had fallen into enemy hands. Enemies of freedom, the press was saying. I tried to look buoyant. "Lucy," she said, and grabbed at the card. "Hand it over." Never mind that I'd been fondling the invitation for weeks, it looked like news to her. I did as told. She studied it and blushed. Not word of the Miasma, just some girl's wedding. I said it was my oldest friend, though we don't talk. "Uh-huh." I said I had regrets, more regrets than not. "Uh-huh." "But I do like a good biryani," 1 said. "Some of the curries, too." Last Last Chance 3