"Ron Goulart - Why I Never Went Steady With Heather Moon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Goulart Ron)

"Whatever are you babbling about, Harkins?"

"About Sue Smith," I told him. "I'll stop dating her. She's yours exclusively."

"I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. Is this some undergraduate
prank, my boy?"

"Just call them off- the demons and all the other crap."

"Whatever drug you're on, Harkins, I suggest you make a serious effort to sober
up." He slammed down the phone.

The demon on the sofa gave off a faint popping sound before vanishing.

I moved, very carefully, to the bathroom and chanced a look. I was pretty sure
those other two would be gone as well and they were. Although the fuzzy pink
cover on the toilet seat had a burned spot where the demon had been perched.

I was free, yet far from happy. I had, out of fear and cowardice, just given up
the only woman I'd ever truly loved so far in my life.

This was some years back, I was not quite twenty-one, and the idea of losing Sue
Smith for good and all seemed enormously important to me.

The next day, an autumn Wednesday, while completely free of demons and other
chilling supernatural manifestations, was not especially happy for me. For one
thing, because of the psychic occurrences of the night before, I hadn't been
able to study for the quiz in Political Theory 22A and my paper on "Tap-dancing
in the Movies" for Pop Culture 1 lB came in at just over a page and a half. A
good three and a half short of the minimum length. Worst of all I had to phone
Sue at the Gamma Epsilon sorority house and tell her I'd decided to devote
myself to my studies and couldn't see her anymore. She cried, which almost
tempted me to go on defying Professor Krouch and his black magic. But I already
knew it would be impossible to go on dating her and so I didn't weaken. I was,
however, sniffling slightly when I stepped out of the phone booth in Wally's
Pub.

I'd postponed phoning until nearly five in the afternoon. So I was able to walk
directly from the phone to a table at the far side of the sawdusted floor and
join Nat Weinbaum.

At the time -- this was my senior year at Brimstone University in Brimstone,
Connecticut -- Nat was, even though we weren't in the same fraternity, my
closest friend. And he knew quite a bit about what I'd been suffering through
the past two weeks.
He wasn't at all sympathetic, though. "You're a shmuck," he observed after I'd
outlined what I'd done.

"For giving up Sue? It is a hell of a sacrifice, yeah, but --"