"Kate Wilhelm - Hounds" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wilhelm Kate)

worry was gone, and the circles under his eyes seemed less dark, although he still hadn't slept. Rose
Ellen pushed herself away from him slightly in order to see him better.

"Anyway, you can get a job up in Jacksonville tomorrow. They know that, don't they? That you'll not be
available if they let you go."

"Honey, they aren't Machiavellian, you know. The agency doesn't want to break up our team, but they
had no choice, no money, no appropriation for more money. We did what they hired us to do. Now it's
over. Let's go to bed."

"Uh-uh! Not until you tell me what's making you grin like that. "

"Right. Look, doll, I'm forty-nine. And laid off. You know what the story is for the other guys who've
had this happen. No luck. No job. Nothing. It wouldn't be any different with me, honey. You have to
accept that."

She kissed his nose and stood up, hands on hips, studying him. "You! You're better than all the others
put together. You know you are. You told me yourself a hundred times."

"Honey, I'm forty-nine. No one hires men who are forty-nine."

"Martin, stop this! I won't have it. You're a young man. Educated! My God, you've got degrees nobody
ever even heard of. You've got education you've never even used yet."

He laughed and poured his second martini. She knew it pleased him for her to get indignant on his
behalf. "I know what I'm talking about, honey. Simmer down, and listen. Okay?" She sat down again, on
a stool on the other side of the bar, facing him. A tight feeling had come across her stomach, like the
feeling she used to get just before the roller coaster started to go down the last, wildest drop. "I don't
want another job, Rose. I've had it with jobs. I want to buy a farm."

She stared at him. He said it again, "We could do it, honey. We could sell the house and with the money
left after we pay off the mortgage, the car, the other things, there'd be enough for a small farm. Ten,
twenty acres. Not on the coast. Inland. West Virginia. Or Kentucky. I could get a job teaching. I
wouldn't mind that.

"Martin? Martin! Stop. It's not funny. It isn't funny at all. Don't go on like this." Her playfulness
evaporated leaving only the tight feeling.

"You bet your sweet ass it isn't funny. And I'm serious, Rose. Dead serious."

"A farm! What on earth would I do on the farm? What about the kids?"

"We can work out all those things...."

"Not now, Martin. I have to go get Juliette. Later, later." She ran into the house without looking back at
him. Bad strategy, she thought at herself dressing. She should have gone to bed with him, and then
talked him out of his crazy notion. That's all it was, a crazy notion. He was as scared as she was. He
could get a job in Jacksonville. He could. It wasn't a bad drive. He could come home weekends, if he
didn't want to drive it every day, although some people did. She thought about the house payments, and
the insurance, and the pool maintenance, and the yard people, and the housecleaning woman who came