"Ed Howdershelt - Mindy" - читать интересную книгу автора (Howdershelt Ed)

I was changing my shirt she asked, "What else did you pick up about me?"
I took a moment to douse my head and chest with cool water before answering. "You're 34,
sort-of single, you have no kids, and I saw a painting in there." I saw her eyes widen in my
shaving mirror as I dried myself, but when I turned, she pretended skepticism and fanned
herself with an events-program. "You saw a painting when you touched me?"
"Yup, something Egyptian-looking, with bright colors. On a stand."
"An easel," she said, "Don't you have any doubts? That maybe you might be just a little bit
wrong about some small thing along the line?"
"Not this sort of thing, and I would like to see that painting."
"Why," she asked skeptically, "Just to see if there really is one?"
"Nope. It's at your apartment, about half-finished." I could see she was having trouble
adding something up.
"So you're into Egyptian art?"
I grinned slightly. "No, not particularly."
"Then why do you want to see it?"
As I buttoned my shirt, I smiled and said, "Because it's in your apartment, Mindy, and seeing
it would mean being there with you, and that would mean you think well of me."
Mindy laughed aloud. "Think well of you? Think well of you? You think I'm going to take you
home with me because I think well of you?"
 When her laughter died, I said, "You certainly wouldn't if you didn't, would you?"
"Oh, well, no, I guess not. That's a good point, Ed." She laughed again.
"You'll consider letting me see that painting, then?"
She was really laughing, now. I gave her a questioning look.
"Oh, it's just," she said, "That you seem to be trying to con ME into asking YOU to come up
and see MY etchings."
I summoned up my most innocent, thoughtful look and said, "Yes, well, I suppose it could
appear that way, wouldn't it?"
If anything, Mindy's laughter increased. She grabbed my towel to dry her face and sat with
her face buried in the towel, laughing. A rather portly woman passing by saw her apparently
sobbing into a towel and stormed over with a couple of similarly-indignant friends to ask in a
rather accusatory tone if everything was alright, already glaring daggers at me.
I grinned innocently and shrugged. Mindy looked up, saw them prepared to draw and quarter
me for supposed offenses of word or deed, and howled with laughter, falling backwards off the
cooler. She wound up wedged between the tent screening and the cooler. I moved to help her
up, but she caught sight of the three women looking pretty damned confused, and the gales
of laughter started all over again. I settled for helping her to lie on her side behind the cooler
for the moment.
The three women drifted slowly away with the kind of glance-backs normally reserved for
people of dubious sanity. As her laughter began to fade, I handed Mindy a freshly dampened
towel and asked, "Are you gonna survive this?"
She rolled flat on her back and breathed deeply. Elizabethan costumes tend to lend
themselves well to deep-breathing, I noted with appreciation.
Mindy noted my appreciation. "What? Am I untied or something?"
"Ah, no. I was just, um..., entranced by your costume."
"Entranced, huh? Oh, well, you're supposed to be. These outfits do show a lot of cleavage,
don't they?" She glanced down her front.
"Well, now that you call my attention to it..."
"Oh, shut up," she said, "You'll just get me started laughing again." I helped her back up
onto the cooler, where she sat recovering for a few moments. "Now," she said, "What about
those drinks?"