'But still... if we found ants on Mars, or even microbes, we wouldn't destroy them. Because life in the universe is such a precious commodity. Every other planet in our system is a wasteland, for God's sake.'
Barbie thought if NASA found life on Mars, they would have no compunctions whatever about destroying it in order to put it on a microscope slide and study it, but he didn't say so. 'If we were more scientifically advanced - or more spiritually advanced, maybe that's what it actually takes to go voyaging around in the great what's-out-there - we might see that there's life everywhere. As many inhabited worlds and intelligent life-forms as there are anthills in this town.'
Was his hand now resting on the sideswell of her breast? She believed it was. It had been a long time since there had been a man's hand there, and it felt very good.
'The one thing I'm sure of is that there are other worlds than the ones we can see with our puny telescopes here on Earth. Or even with the Hubble. And... they're not here, you know. It's not an invasion. They're just looking. And... maybe... playing.'
'I know what that's like,' she said. 'To be played with.'
He was looking at her. Kissing distance. She wouldn't mind being kissed; no, not at all.
'What do you mean? Rennie?'
'Do you believe there are certain defining moments in a person's life? Watershed events that actually do change us?'
'Yes,' he said, thinking of the red smile his boot had left on the Abdul's buttock. Just the ordinary asscheek of a man living his ordinary little life. 'Absolutely'
'Mine happened in fourth grade. At Main Street Grammar.'
'Tell me.'
'It won't take long. That was the longest afternoon of my life, but it's a short story'
He waited.
'I was an only child. My father owned the local newspaper - he had a couple of reporters and one ad salesman, but otherwise he was pretty much a one-man band, and that was just how he liked it. There was never any question that I'd take over when he retired. He believed it, my mother believed it, my teachers believed it, and of course I believed it. My college education was all planned out. Nothing so bush-league as the University of Maine, either, not for Al Shumway's girl. Al Shumway's girl was going to Princeton. By the time I was in the fourth grade, there was a Princeton pennant over my bed and I practically had my bags packed.
'Everyone - not excluding me - just about worshipped the ground I walked on. Except for my fellow fourth-graders, that was. At the time I didn't understand the causes, but now I wonder how I missed them. I was the one who sat in the front row and always raised my hand when Mrs Connaught asked a question, and I always got the answer right. I turned in my assignments ahead of time if I could, and volunteered for extra credit. I was a grade-grind and a bit of a wheedler. Once, when Mrs Connaught came back into class after having to leave us alone for a few minutes, little Jessie Vachon's nose was bleeding. Mrs Connaught said we'd all have to stay after unless someone told her who did it. I raised my hand and said it was Andy Manning.Andy punched Jessie in the nose when Jessie wouldn't lend Andy his art-gum eraser. And I didn't see anything wrong with that, because it was the truth. Are you getting this picture?'
'You're coming in five-by.'
'That little episode was the last straw. One day not long afterwards, I was walking home across the Common and a bunch of girls were laying for me inside the Peace Bridge. There were six of them. The ringleader was Lila Strout, who's now Lila Killian - she married Roger Killian, which serves her absolutely right. Don't ever let anyone tell you children can't carry their grudges into adulthood.
'They took me to the bandstand. I struggled at first, but then two of them - Lila was one, Cindy Collins, Toby Manning's mother, was the other - punched me. Not in the shoulder, the way kids usually do, either. Cindy hit me in the cheek, and Lila punched me square in the right boob. How that hurt! I was just getting my br**sts, and they ached even when they were left alone.
'I started crying. That's usually the signal - among kids, at least - that I things have gone far enough. Not that day. When I started screaming, Lila said, "Shut up or you get worse." There was nobody to stop them, either. It was a cold, drizzly afternoon, and the Common was deserted except for us.
'Ilila slapped me across the face hard enough to make my nose bleed and said, "Tattle-tale tit! All the dogs in town come to have a little bit!" And the other girls laughed. They said it wras because I told on Andy, and at the time I thought it was, but now I see it was everything, right down to the way my skirts and blouses and even my hair ribbons matched. They wore clothes, I had outfits. Andy was just the last straw.'
'How bad was it?'
'There was slapping. Some hair-pulling. And... they spit on me. All of them. That was after my legs gave out and I fell down on the bandstand. I was crying harder than ever, and I had my hands over my face, but I felt it. Spit's warm, you know?'