On the screen, the soap opera flickered and jumped and disappeared, replaced by the dull black-and-white signboard that meant a bulletin was coming. When Evelyn was a child, bulletins meant at least the Cuban missile crisis or a major political assassination. Now they meant any excuse at all, because the local news crews wanted to feel like they were living exciting lives.
“There has been another minor explosion in central Philadelphia,” the talking head said. “Details right after this message.”
Evelyn wondered if there were advertisers out there who stipulated having their ads aired during bulletins. Did the stations have to guarantee the bulletins? The talking head was back. She was a scrawny blonde with limp hair and a strange curve to her lip, wearing too much lipstick. She stared soulfully into the camera.
“Police have been called to the home of a Philadelphia nurse this afternoon and forced to bring everybody from the fire department to the bomb squad with them as the third pipe bombing in under two weeks rocks the city of Philadelphia to its foundations—”
“Horseshit,” Evelyn said under her breath.
“Did you say something?” Henry asked.
“There’s been another bomb.” Evelyn pointed to the television. “In central Philly this time.”
“You shouldn’t watch so much television,” Henry said. “God, it’s bad for your mind and bad for your butt. You ought to get up and move sometimes.”
“I think Patsy must have been one of those SDS Weathermen in hiding,” Sarah Lockwood said. “I mean, what else would explain it. Steve must have been one of them too. And he wanted to turn himself in, so Patsy executed him.”
“I think it would have come out by now if Patsy had that kind of background,” Evelyn said. “The police have been on it for days.”
“Oh, the police,” Sarah said. “I don’t see that they’re much good. They never seem to be able to catch the criminal with the least amount of intelligence. And Patsy had at least that.”
“I thought she was boring,” Henry said. “A boring, pudgy, middle-aged woman. Why do so many women get so boring after they pass the age of forty?”
Sarah Lockwood cleared her throat. “Well,” she said. “I think we’ve got everything done we meant to get done. Kevin and I have an engagement this evening. We have to get dressed.”
“Some people we knew when we were living in London,” Kevin said. “They have a house near us down in Florida too. Lovely people.”
“We’d invite you two along, but you know what the British are like.” Sarah shook her head. “Throw new people at them and they go right into a deep freeze.”
“They’ll be all right once you get to Florida,” Kevin said. “We’ll have a dinner party to introduce everybody to everybody and tell the Brits all about it in advance.”
“Don’t you think this will be fun?” Sarah said.
Another talking head—another scrawny blonde, this time with a hand mike and a bright red blazer—was interviewing that black police detective who had been out at Fox Run Hill just a little while ago. Next to him was Gregor Demarkian, looking tired.
Henry came back from seeing Sarah and Kevin out. His face was red and mottled. His knuckles were white.
“You could have been a little less rude,” he told Evelyn. “You could have talked to people instead of sitting in front of the television table like a dinner roll waiting to be buttered.”
“Nobody wanted to talk to me,” Evelyn said. “Even you didn’t want to talk to me. Nobody was the least interested in hearing what I had to say.”
“Maybe that’s true, Evelyn, but if it is, it’s only because of your weight. People are put off by your weight.”
“In this case, I think people would have been put off by my point of view.”
“Oh, don’t start that again,” Henry said.
“I’m not starting anything, again or otherwise.” Evelyn stood up, one fluid motion, a dancer’s exercise she had learned as a young girl in a local children’s ballet class. It had been years since the last time she had tried to do that. It was incredibly gratifying to find out that she still could.
“I’m not starting anything,” she repeated. “I’m just telling you. There’s something wrong with it. It’s some kind of scam. They’re cheating you.”
“Sometimes your background really comes out,” Henry said. “Do you know that? Sometimes you’re really nothing more than one more fat housewife from the Pennsylvania steel country, parochial and suspicious and small-minded and petty.”