Extreme Vinyl Café Read Online Free PDF

staring at the handset in disbelief.
    He was so hungry he could barely think straight.
    Desperate times require desperate measures.
    He slid the cake so it was half off the tray and held it very carefully over his head. Then he reached up from the bottom and stuck his hand right into it. He pulled out a fistful of the truffle ganache filling.
    Mary would never know.
    He sat on the floor licking the icing off his fingers.
    He picked up the phone again.
    It rang ten times.
    “Hello?”
    “It’s me,” said Dave.
    “Me too,” said the student.
    “Listen, I’m sorry I hung up,” said the student. “I am a little scared.”
    “Me too,” said Dave. “What are you scared of?”
    “I’m scared I might get fired if you die. Do you think I would have to put it on my resumé?”
    It took them half an hour to figure it out. There was a number on the phone: 52. They were talking on phone 52. All the other phones had different numbers. The student found a binder with a legend, and in it an address that corresponded to each phone number.
    “You are on Upper Walnut Crescent,” he said.
    B ack at the hotel, Mary was beside herself. The main course had been served and there was still no sign of Dave.
    Bert said, “I’ll go. I’m sure everything is fine.”
    But he wasn’t really sure.
    Morley, now on her third glass of wine, was feigning interest in a conversation with a man just big enough to shield her entirely from Mary Turlington’s sight.
    Mary stared at Bert. Mary said, “You stay here.”
    W hen Mary’s taxi pulled up in front of the Gallivans’ house, the fire trucks had been there for about fifteen minutes. So Mary missed the part where they drove the axe through the red-oak front doors. But she was there when the elevator started to make whirring sounds and then began to drop smoothly. She was there when the brass doors opened onto the glass-strewn foyer. And she was there to see Dave, huddled over her cake like a raccoon huddled over a garbage can, his hands and face covered in icing.
    He had been trying to smooth out the cake surface with his fingers. He held out the cake and smiled at her like a child handing in a class project.
    “Safe and sound,” he said.
    They both stared at the cake without saying a word, and as they did the lone marzipan golfer, standing by what was now the sixth and final hole, started to sink slowly—first to his knees and then to his waist, as the entire cake began to collapse into itself as if it were built on a giant sinkhole.
    N either of them said anything for most of the long drive back to the party. At Dave’s suggestion, they stopped at an all-night grocery store and bought a replacement cake, the only cake left in the store. A My Little Pony cake.
    T he drive home the next day was even quieter—perhaps “steamier” captures it better—as was the rest of the autumn. It was the first time there was a noticeable strain between the neighbours. It was not actual unpleasantness, just a determined quiet, which was unpleasant enough in itself. And then one night, out of the blue, Bert called and invited Dave and Morley for dinner. They couldn’t have picked a worse night. It was Dave’s birthday. Dave and Morley had reservations at a little Italian place they favour.
    “Cancel them,” said Morley.
    And so Dave and Morley went next door, and dinner was not unbearable, though it was awkward. Mary was obviously trying to let bygones be bygones, but you could tell it was a struggle. And then it was time for dessert.
    And out came a birthday cake.
    A My Little Pony birthday cake.
    Mary carried it to the table and set it down. Then she blew out the candles, picked up the cake and very carefully turned it over. She scooped a handful from the bottom of the cake and plopped it on Dave’s plate.
    She said, “That’s the way you like it, right?”
    Dave sat there, staring at his plate, not knowing what he should do, looking back and forth at Mary and his wife. It wasMorley who