"Come in."
Dicky was on the phone, mostly nodding. Step laid a copy of the letter down on top of Dicky's typewriter.
Dicky glanced over it while he was listening to the phone, nodded, said "All right," and then hung up. He looked up at Step and smiled. "That was Ray. Your resignation is accepted."
"Very quick," said Step.
"But that two weeks notice shit is out of the question," said Dicky. "Two weeks in which a disgruntled employee can cause damage? Insert bugs in our programs? Report to your new bosses on the secrets of Eight Bits Inc.?"
"What, you mean you guys are secretly developing nuclear weapons for the PLO or something? And I don't have a new boss. I'm going back to freelancing. I have a contract for Hacker Snack, I told you that."
"Sure, of course," said Dicky. "And you're just going to sit back and wait a year for your noncompetition clause and your nondisclosure clause to run out, right? Just remember, asshole, we're going to watch you and if we see one hint of a violation of that agreement we'll have lawyers up your ass so far you'll taste them whenever you burp."
"Ooh, nasty," said Step.
"Right, be flippant about it if you want, but we are going to march to your office together right now and you are going to put your personal belongings into that box while I watch. Nothing that is the property of Eight Bits Inc. will go out of this building with you, and when you leave here you will never come back, do you understand?"
"So you're saying that you reject my offer of two weeks notice, even though you've got nobody else up to speed on my projects?"
Dicky laughed derisively. "Step, the janitors could be up to speed on your work in half an hour. You are the most worthless, useless, completely replaceable person in this company"
"Gee," said Step, "it kind of makes you wonder why you'd bother replacing me."
"Let's get a box, Step. The sooner you're gone, the better this company will be."
The words stung, even coming from Dicky. And although Step's immediate departure was exactly what he had really wanted but hadn't felt right about asking for, it was still deeply offensive that Ray and Dicky understood him so little that they thought he would actually steal from them. But then, being dishonest and conniving themselves, of course they assumed that he would behave exactly as they would behave if the situation were reversed.
It took Step five minutes to withdraw his few personal papers from the desk. Dicky stopped him from taking copies of any Eight Bits Inc. memos, on the grounds that they were internal secrets, but that was fine with Step. He already had the only memos he needed safely at home.
The only problem they had was when Step tried to take a couple of disks with him. "No way," said Dicky.
"Any code on any disk in this office belongs to Eight Bits Inc."
"This is just personal stuff," said Step. "Utilities I use. They don't belong to Eight Bits Inc. Look, let me put them in a machine and do a directory and you'll see."
"You could rename files to any other name, Step. Hand me the diskettes."
It wasn't worth it-the utilities he used most were already at home anyway. So he handed the disks to Dicky.
Dicky reached for the stapler on Step's desk and drove a dozen staples through the disks, bang, bang, bang, bang. He handed the mutilated disks to Step. Step held them up and dropped them on the floor. "When you bring a janitor in here to do my job, he can clean those up," he said. Then Step took the box of his personal papers and dumped it out into the garbage can. There was nothing he needed from Eight Bits Inc., because he had never brought anything here that really mattered. He hadn't invested any part of himself in these people, and so there was nothing that would bother him to leave behind. Except, of course, his attache case, because that was a gift from DeAnne and because it was mostly filled with his lesson materials for his church calling, that and his home teaching information and a couple of magazines to read during lunch.
"Open the attache," said Dicky.
"Not without a warrant," said Step.
Then he walked to the door, dug into his pocket, pulled out his keyring, pried off the key to the back door of Eight Bits Inc., and threw it toward the garbage can. To his surprise, it went right in. "You're so stupid, Dicky, that you didn't even ask me for my key."
Step closed the door firmly in Dicky's face and headed down the corridor to the pit. He opened the door, waved, and said, "I gave the bastards two weeks notice and they're throwing me out. It's been real, gents. Have a life!" Their cheers and applause rang in his ears as he went out the back door, got in his car, and drove home.
11: Zap
This is what happened when the baby was born: On Thursday, the twenty-eighth of July, DeAnne went to her doctor's office to find out why the baby hadn't shown any intention yet of entering the world. It was the due date, and DeAnne had no desire for a bonus week of pregnancy like the one she had with Robbie. When Dr.
Keese examined her, he looked surprised. "You haven't had any labor pains?"
"I don't ever get hard labor pains until I'm about to deliver," said DeAnne.
"Well, get ready for them, then," he said. "You're at six centimeters."
"Oh," said DeAnne. "I guess that means I don't have time to plow the back forty before the baby comes."
"I think it means that if I were you, I'd go out and get in my car and drive to the hospital. I'll have Rochelle call your husband."
"This is really inconvenient," said DeAnne. "My mother is flying in from Utah tonight at nine-thirty. Do you think the baby will be here by then so Step can go pick her up?"
"Are you aware that you are speaking absolute nonsense?" asked Dr. Keese. "Things like that are no longer your concern for the next few days, and certainly not for the next few hours."
She stopped at the reception desk and borrowed the phone.
"Hi," said Step. "What's the news?"
"I'm at six centimeters and the doctor says I don't really have time to go home."
"OK," said Step. "Any pains yet?"
"None," she answered. "But I'm sure they'll make up for it later. Remember that Mother's arriving at nine-thirty"
"I've already arranged with Sam Freebody to pick her up if we happen to be at the hospital by then," said Step.
"Oh," said DeAnne. "How will he know her?"
"He'll look for the woman with short, tightly curled salt-and-pepper hair who seems lost and abandoned and who answers to the name 'Vette."'
"You make her sound like a lost dog."
"And I'm going to call her before she gets on the plane and tell her to look for a man tall enough to change lightbulbs without a stepladder and wide enough that he couldn't get two rattlesnakes to reach all the way around him. I think they'll find each other."
"I know you're perfectly able to handle things, Step. But I have to ask about these things or I'll worry."
"I know," said Step. "Did I complain? I'm trying to reassure you so you don't worry."
"Well, you're doing a splendid job. Call Sister Bigelow or Mary Anne Lowe to stay with the children."
"Whichever one says yes, I'll get the other one to finish mowing the lawn for me."
"Very funny. As soon as whoever it is gets there, then I need you to bring me my bag, the one I packed with everything I'll need in the hospital."
"Yes," said Step. "I'm already standing in our bedroom and I have just opened that bag."
"Don't open it, Step, or something will fall out."
"I'm now putting into the bag your copy of Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, which you told me you intended to read in the hospital but which you had neglected to put in the bag."
"I hate you when you're so superior-sounding."
"Now I'm going to sound bossy," said Step.
"Go ahead, I can take anything-I'm a woman."
"Get off the phone, leave everything to me, drive to the hospital, and I'll be there within thirty minutes."
"OK, Junk Man."
"Oh-wait-what was the name of the hospital again?"
&nb
sp; "Step, you can't have forgotten the-'
He laughed and laughed.
"You are sick," she said. "I hope this little boy is nothing like you."
"I hope he's just like you," said Step, "except with a handle."
"I love you and I'm scared so please hurry."
"That's my plan. I love you too."
She ran only one stop sign on the way to the hospital. When she walked into the room, they made her sit in a wheelchair. I drove myself here, she thought, I walked from the parking lot, and now I need somebody to take care of me?
Well, why not? She was no longer in charge of anything now, except the baby inside her that had finally decided he was coming. Without insurance, but with a mother and father who loved babies and had looked forward to this one with hope, as they had looked forward to all their children.
Step made the calls first, though he was dripping with sweat and covered with grass clippings. Sam Freebody would have no problem picking up DeAnne's mother-he would hold up a placard in the airport saying
"Sylvette Brown, Grandmother again." Mary Anne Lowe was in her car heading over to the house to watch the kids almost before she hung up the phone. Bappy Waters would come over and finish mowing the lawn and put the mower away and bag the clippings. Step even called Ruby Bigelow, ostensibly to warn her that DeAnne probably wouldn't be teaching her class a week from Sunday, but actually because he was pretty sure that the Relief Society president would want to be informed of all childbirths- in-progress so that when sisters in the 1st Ward called her with the news, she could say, "I know."
Step told Stevie to open the door only if it was Sister Lowe, and then he headed for the laundry room, stripped off his grass-covered clothes, and bolted for the bathroom in his underwear. "You're not going to the hospital in your underwear, are you, Daddy!" shouted Robbie.
"I'm going to take a shower," he explained.
"In your underwear?" shouted Robbie. Robbie thought this was so funny he followed Step down the hall, repeating it. "In your underwear? In your underwear?"
"No, in your underwear," said Step. He closed the bedroom door, tossed his underwear into the laundry basket, and took the fastest shower of his life.
He got out, threw on his clothes, picked up DeAnne's bag, and when he got to the family room he discovered that Mary Anne Lowe was already there, armed with a bag full of coloring books, crayons, and little-kid board games. "Please help Sister Lowe all you can," Step said to the kids. And to Sister Lowe he said,
"The kids don't like anything so don't bother fixing them dinner."
"Da-ad!" said Robbie.
"Robbie will eat anything with ketchup on it, including small live animals," said Step. "Stevie will only eat pasta with parmesan cheese on it, no butter, no salt. And Betsy doesn't actually eat food, she just cuisinarts it and sprays it in a fine mist all over the kitchen."
"Don't believe him!" cried Robbie. "He's joking!"
"We'll do just fine," said Mary Anne.
Step looked at Stevie. "Will you help with your brother and sister?"
"Yes," he said.
Mary Anne turned to Stevie now. "What do you hope it is, a boy or a girl?"
"It's a boy," said Stevie.
"We had ultrasound," explained Step.
"Oh, so did we, on our last one," said Mary Anne, "but we wouldn't let the doctor tell us. We didn't want to know."
"We're gonna name it Zap!" said Robbie.
"Zap?" asked Mary Anne.
"For Zapata," said Step. "A great Mexican revolutionary"
She grinned. "What's next, Pancho Villa?"
"Not likely," said Step. "DeAnne said that the only way I could name one of our kids for the bandit who drove her ancestors out of Mexico is if I give birth to it myself," said Step.
"Why are you still standing around?" asked Mary Anne. "Aren't you supposed to be telling her when to breathe or something?"
"Naw," said Step. "We believe in using epidural blocks. No pain. We work crosswords during labor."
"Go, please, you're making me nervous," said Mary Anne.
"Thanks for helping," said Step.
"Don't worry, I'll get even with you."
When Step got to the hospital he found DeAnne already wired up in a labor room. A nurse took the bag and the two of them settled down to their vigil. Everything was going normally now, which meant that the pains were starting, and that meant that DeAnne needed to have Step talk continuously, except when she couldn't stand to have anybody talking to her. By now he was pretty good at guessing when to be quiet and when to babble. Or maybe she was just better at hiding it when she couldn't stand to hear another word or when she was desperate for him to distract her from the horrible process that evolution had decreed for human women-giving birth to big-headed babies.
The nurse bustled in and out; the anesthesiologist punched a hole in her spine and fed in the tube for the epidural block.
Then came the bad news. "Dr. Keese's current patient is having a little trouble," said the nurse. "She may require a caesarean. If she does, there's a backup here for you-Dr. Vender. Is that all right?"
"Do we have a choice?" asked Step.
"Dr. Vender will be fine," said DeAnne. Then, when the nurse was gone, she said, "Vender is a woman.
She just joined the same practice that Mary Anne's ob-gyn is in, and Mary Anne is thinking of switching to her.
She says she's getting a good reputation."
"I don't like changing horses in midstream," said Step.
"Neither do I," said DeAnne. "But that's the way it goes- if your doctor's with another patient when your time comes, then he's not going to drop that baby on its head and come to you."
"Maybe we'll get lucky," said Step.
"Maybe that other woman will get lucky."
They didn't get lucky. DeAnne was ripe and ready to go, and Dr. Keese was still with the other woman. Dr.
Vender showed up, solemnly businesslike-she looked to Step like one of those women who always wore midcalf brown skirts in college and put on little teeny half-smiles if somebody made a joke.
In the delivery room, it didn't take all that long. DeAnne had had enough babies now that she watched her own episiotomy in the mirror, though Step didn't think there were enough babies in the world to get him used to the idea, so he didn't watch. Then, just like clockwork, out popped the head, a little twist for the shoulders, and presto, boy number three. Zap.
"Hi, Zap," said Step.
"Oh, can't you let him hear his real name?" said DeAnne. "He'll want to go back if he thinks he's going to be Zap for the rest of his life."
"Hi, Jeremy Zapata Fletcher."
"Is he all right?" asked DeAnne.
"Twenty digits total, distributed normally" said Step.
Clip. Snip. The nurse took the baby from Dr. Vender and laid it on the scale. "Be useful, here, daddy" said the nurse. "Watch the baby and don't let him walk anywhere."
"He's shivering," said Step. "I think he's cold."
The nurses were preparing something over on the side counter. Dr. Vender was taking care of the placenta and stitching up the episiotomy.
"Can't we cover him or something?" asked Step. "He's really shivering."
"Now, don't worry mama," said Dr. Vender. "Everything's just fine."
Step wanted to snap back at her: Don't talk down to us like children.
"Here we go," said the nurse. She took note of Zap's weight and then dripped something in each of his eyes with an eyedropper. "Oh, I know you don't like that," said the nurse.
"This is definitely not normal," said Step. "He's shivering and you've got to do something about it."
"What's wrong, Step?" asked DeAnne.
"Nothing's wrong," said Dr. Vender. "Daddy's just being a worrywart."
"Can the babytalk," said Step, unable to endure it another moment. "DeAnne is a grownup and so am I, and we'd both like to know what's going on with the baby."
"We've already sent for a neonatal specialist," sai
d Dr. Vender. "It appears that it may be some kind of seizure activity. There's no proximate cause. There was no oxygen deprivation and no anomaly in any of the baby's vital signs during delivery."
Step figured that what he was hearing was the standard dis claimer to avoid a malpractice suit. He also figured that it was probably true. But that still didn't answer the real question. "Is the baby going to be all right?"
"His vital signs are just fine," said Dr. Vender. "This isn't normal, but at the same time it may not be dangerous at all. Please, now, as soon as I know anything more I'll tell you, but it's time now for your wife to go into the recovery room."
Step leaned over DeAnne, kissed her, and squeezed her hand. "Can't I hold him?" she asked. "Can't I see him first?"
Step knew what she was thinking: Something is wrong with my baby. I don't want my baby to die without my having held him when he was alive. "Of course you can," said Step to DeAnne.
He looked at Dr. Vender, raised an eyebrow. She beckoned to the nurse who had the baby. The nurse brought Zap to DeAnne and laid him in the crook of her arm. DeAnne turned her head to see him. "He's beautiful," she said.
It was true. All newborns are squat and red, of course, but Zap was a genuinely pretty baby.
"He really is shivering," she said. "Don't be scared, Jeremy. We already love you. You've got a wonderful life ahead of you."
The nurse took the baby back. Another nurse wheeled DeAnne out of the delivery room, with Dr. Vender right behind.
"I'd like to hold the baby," said Step.
"The neonate's going to be here in a minute," said the nurse, "and we've got to get the measurements."
"He's not going to grow in the next thirty seconds," said Step.
"You're a feisty one," said the nurse. He could tell that she was not going to say I like that in a man.
"I'm sorry" said Step. "But this little guy is a lot more important to me than hospital routines, and there isn't a line of people waiting outside for this room."
She handed him the baby. Just like the three times before, the first thing he thought was: I never knew that babies could be so small. All his memories of the older kids were from later in their babyhood. The first minutes were always new again. "I think he's shivering a little less."
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