The Car Thief by Theodore Weesner

Author:Theodore Weesner [Weesner, Theodore]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw
Tags: The Car Thief
ISBN: 9781938231018
Publisher: Astor + Blue Editions
Published: 2012-05-09T18:30:00+00:00

ALEX RETURNED TO the same small café, on Kearsley Street. He did not intend, going there, to call Irene Sheaffer, but when he had sat at the counter some ten or fifteen minutes, and had drunk a cup of coffee, and perhaps because it was Friday and the sense of going somewhere and doing something grew in him, he backed off the stool and walked again to the phone booth. Even if his instinct was skeptical, there was a logic in trying again. This time he was going to ask her for a future date. It had not been smart, he thought, or fair, to call as he had, at four o’clock, asking her to go out a couple of hours later. He would suggest tomorrow night. Saturday. Perhaps he could use his father’s car.

She answered the phone herself this time, and he said, “This is me again. Alex Housman. Ah, that was crazy, I guess, to call last night like I did. And I was just wondering if maybe—if you’re not busy—if you would care to go to a movie or something, tomorrow night?”

“Ohh—gosh,” she said. “I can’t. Really. I’m awfully sorry. I’ve already made plans for tomorrow night.”

A pause followed—he did not know what to say next—and then she added, “I really am sorry,” and he believed he detected a desire in her voice to hurry.

“Oh, that’s okay,” he said. “I’ll survive. You know.”

“I would like to take a rain check.”

“Fine,” he said. “We’ll leave it at that. Fine.”

Outside the café, walking on the sidewalk, he thought how well she had handled herself, how kind it was of her to say what she had about a rain check, still managing to put him off.

Even as he knew it was out of proportion, he promised himself never to call her again.

Books, and the city library, were a bore tonight. He looked up and around the room often. He wished Graham Webster would show up, but doubted he would on a Friday. He also thought often, as darkness fell, of walking over to the café where he and Webster had stopped, to have some dinner, but he felt little hunger and remained sitting at the library table.

Geometry finally helped him. He raised some interest in solving a problem. The other problems allowed his mind to focus, and in time he was working once more without looking up. He worked through two chapters, and then a third, and then a fourth. Then he left the library for a break and walked over to the café. It was after eight o’clock by now and the difference of a Friday night was apparent in the noise on the streets, the people walking, the number of cars.

Later that evening, at the candy counter at the Fox Theater, from behind him, he heard Cricket Alan. He heard his voice and it was not in a dream. He looked into the gloss of candy; the voice had come from near the carpeted entry. He did not turn around.

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