Simple Machines by Ian Morris

Author:Ian Morris [Morris, Ian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gibson House Press
Published: 2018-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

Ship made a face. “Who’d you say it was?”

“Drucilla.”

“Drucilla what?”

“I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking you.”

He was sitting on his desk with his feet on a chair, paring his fingernails with a chrome clipper from a leather manicure case his parents gave him when he moved in. “How come you want to know?”

I didn’t answer him.

“You want to get in her pants.”

“Jesus, Ship. No one says that anymore.”

He slid the clipper into the case and zipped it. “Turn your back,” he said. Ship kept the key to his desk hidden in a coffee mug on his bookshelf. I knew where it was and he knew I knew, but we both pretended. After I heard the drawer slide shut I turned to see him pulling a pencil out of the spiral binding of a small, black notebook. He flipped to a blank page and licked the pencil tip.

“She’s a theater major?”

“As far as I know.”

“You’re not sure?”

“No, I’m not sure. Could be theater, could be history.”

“What’s she look like?”

“About five feet.”

“Wow, short. Hair color?”

“Brown,” I said. “Dark brown, maybe black.”

“Long or short?”

“Short.”

He made a face.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“What?”

“Well, did you ever think about it? Short girl, short hair, theater major?”

“What are you talking about?”

He put up a hand to shut me up and asked, “What about boobs?”

“What about them?”

“Does she have any?”

“What do you think?”

“Big or little?”

“I didn’t notice,” I said.

“You didn’t notice?”

“No, I didn’t notice. How’s that going to help, anyway?”

He mumbled something like, “If you didn’t notice …” and wrote in the book. Then he held it at arm’s length and studied the page. “Not much to go on, but I’ll see what I can do.”

Ship had to act like I was putting him out to obscure the truth, which was that he lived to do favors for me—for me or for anyone who asked. It is how the Ships of the world get by. In exchange, we tell them things. I told him things. I told him things I never would have told anyone else because I felt like I owed it to him. He called anyone he even vaguely knew “a good friend” and never worried about how many would have said the same about him. A friend in Ship’s mind was a friend, indeed. He counted me as his friend, as his best friend on campus, and he paid for the privilege.

When I turned my back again so he could hide his drawer key, I noticed a slip of paper on the edge of my desk. I picked it up and read, “Dear Dennis Shipman—”

“Here, this is yours,” I said.

“What is it?”

“How should I know?”

He looked. “Oh, did I leave that over there?”

“I guess,” I said and tried to hand it to him.

“You didn’t read it, did you?”

“No, why should I?”

He smiled broadly. “Well, I guess there’s no harm in you knowing, although the announcement won’t be made for another week. I’ve been chosen one of the Faces of the Future.”

“What’s that?”

“Well,” he said, studying my expression as though he was going to give me bad news, “there’s a calendar.

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