"Kim Stanley Robinson - Forty Signs of Rain" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robinson Kim Stanley)

“Thanks Charlie. That looks good.”
 “I like it too. It’ll be interesting to see what Phil says about it. I wonder if we’re hanging him too far out
there.”

“I think he’ll be okay, but I wonder what Winston’s staff will say.”

“They’ll have a cow.”

“It’s true. They’re worse than Winston himself. A bunch of Sir Humphreys if I ever saw one.”

“I don’t know, I think they’re just fundamentalist know-nothings.”

“True, but we’ll show them.”

“I hope.”

“Charles my man, you’re sounding tired. I suppose the Joe is about to wake up.”

“Yeah.”

“Unrelenting eh?”

“Yeah.”

“But you are the man, you are the greatest Mr. Mom inside the Beltway!”

Charlie laughed. “And all that competition.”

Roy laughed too, pleased to be able to cheer Charlie up. “Well it’s an accomplishment anyway.”

“That’s nice of you to say. Most people don’t notice. It’s just something weird that I do.”

“Well that’s true too. But people don’t know what it entails.”

“No they don’t. The only ones who know are real moms, but they don’t think I count.”

“You’d think they’d be the ones who would.”

“Well, in a way they’re right. There’s no reason me doing it should be anything special. It may just be me
wanting some strokes. It’s turned out to be harder than I thought it would be. A real psychic shock.”

“Because…”

“Well, I was thirty-eight when Nick arrived, and I had been doing exactly what I wanted ever since I
was eighteen. Twenty years of white male American freedom, just like what you have, young man, and
then Nick arrived and suddenly I was at the command of a speechless mad tyrant. I mean, think about it.
Tonight you can go wherever you want to, go out and have some fun, right?”

“That’s right, I’m going to go to a party for some new folks at Brookings, supposed to be wild.”