Baby Talk Read Online Free PDF Page A

Christ,” he said, half-choking on the
words. All at once, his legs felt rubbery.
    “You allright, son?” a deep voice said from
behind him. It sounded far away. Neal teetered, dropping the entire
stack of delivery slips on the pavement.
    Old man Snell watched closely as Neal
scrambled to collect the slips before the wind got hold of them.
Neal snatched up the pink one and pushed it into the middle of the
stack.
    “I thought you were going to keel over there
for a second,” Snell said, with a casual chuckle. But when Neal
looked up at him, he could see that the big man looked genuinely
concerned, and suspicious.
    “I lost my balance, that’s all.” Neal shoved
the stack of papers back into the pocket of his jacket, then
managed a relaxed laugh and patted his stomach. “I guess I ate a
little too much at lunch.”
    “That’ll do it sometimes,” Snell said, but
his pale blue eyes told Neal he didn’t believe the excuse.
    Neal turned back to the van, but Snell
remained behind him.
    “You aren’t on any kind of...medication, are
you son?”
    “No sir,” Neal said quickly, turning to face
him again.
    “You know it would be very dangerous for you
to operate a ve-hi-cle like this under the influence of any kind of
drug.”
    “I know. I’m not on drugs.”
    “Well, I didn’t mean to say you were,” Snell
said, though he seemed glad that Neal had been so direct. “I just
thought you might be takin’ anti-histamines or somethin’ like
that.” He paused. “See, I’m an ex-athlete, and I know somethin’
about this sort of thing...”
    “I’m not taking
any
kind of drugs,
prescription or otherwise.”
    “Well, that’s good, son. Drugs don’t do a
man a bit of good. Not one bit.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    Snell gave one of his fatherly nods. He eyed
Neal for another short moment, then walked back into the shop.
    Neal finished loading up the van as quickly
as he could, avoiding eye contact with anyone. He became more and
more angry. By the time he finished and drove the van away, it took
all his self-control not to screech the tires at every turn. That
goddamn Annie! Her stupid joke had almost cost him his job! Not to
mention making him look like an idiot, having his little girl
calling him at work, leaving gooey messages. Thank God they didn’t
know much about his family—he had only told the old man that he was
married and had a child, nothing more specific than that. If they
knew Natasha was a five-month old infant, Annie’s little joke would
have blown up in her face. He was sure that the Snell’s weren’t the
type of people who would approve of telephone pranks, especially
coming from an employee’s wife.
    Boy, Neal would let Annie have it when he
got home!
     
    * * *
    Annie sat up with a start. She was still
sitting at the dinette table, a small puddle of drool where her
head had been resting. She reached up and touched her forehead—it
was slick with sweat.
    The dream she had been having came rushing
back at her. She was working in some huge, futuristic factory, and
there had been some kind of emergency (a radiation leak?) and
everyone was in a panic. An alarm was blaring throughout the
massive complex, but she couldn’t escape—thousands of faceless male
workers (was she the only female?) were jamming up all the exits,
not pushing or shoving, but just pressing hard against each other,
so hard that she couldn’t breathe.
    Now that she was awake, she could still hear
the alarm in her mind.
    She turned her head towards the bedroom,
realizing that the sound might not have just been in her head—she
knew it well. It was the raucous
beep-beep-beep
tone that
the telephone makes after you’ve left it off the hook for a couple
of minutes.
    She rushed into the bedroom to check on
Natasha.
    To her relief, she found her daughter alive
and well. The baby was staring up at mobile above her crib, her
tiny fingers slowly wiggling back and forth, as if she was trying
to grasp the plastic, multicolored fish