Who Made Stevie Crye? Read Online Free PDF

was.
    “You probably make more money fixing typewriters.”
    “People don’t respect you, though.”
    Alternating currents of guilt and self-contempt surged through Stevenson Crye. Her pudgy-fingered Lancelot apparently had enough people-savvy to assess her unspoken opinion of him, even as he gallantly rescued her from distress. She deserved to be horsewhipped. Judge not lest ye be judged, and all those other astute Biblical injunctions about loving thy neighbor without coveting his ass. Yass.
    “I admire anyone who’s handy,” she said penitently, meaning it.
    Seaton Benecke neither looked at her nor spoke.
    “What kind of writing do you want to do?”
    “I don’t know. Stories, I guess. Stories about the way people go about trying to figure themselves out.”
    “Psychological stories?”
    Seaton Benecke shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess. I can’t do it, though. All I can do is fix typewriters. That’s as close as I get. That’s why I enjoy doing it for people who really need them.”
    The same grating litany. Stevie wished that she could like the young man, but his pitiable remoteness and his doomed ambition put her off. Unless he developed some management skills before inheriting his share of the family business, he would fix broken typewriters until his retirement. That was all. Stevie could not even imagine him marrying and fathering more little Seaton Beneckes. He would probably have the same skim-milk complexion at sixty-five that he had today.
    “I’m just about finished,” he volunteered a moment later. “And it’s only going to cost you ten bucks and a few pennies tax for the cable.”
    “That’s wonderful. I’m delighted. I really am.”
    He nodded. “You can get back to work. That’s good because I like what you do. It’s personal experiences or feature stories instead of, you know, made-up stories, but I like it anyway. All you lack is getting really deep into the way people try to explain who they are to themselves. What their most frightening worries are and so forth.”
    “Sorry,” said Stevie banteringly, giving young Benecke a smile he did not look up to see. “I guess I’d rather be Erma Bombeck than Franz Kafka.”
    “Sometimes writers don’t have a choice,” he countered. “But you’ll get better at it. I’ve read your stuff, and I can see it happening. You know, the personal-experience columns in the Ledger —sometimes they get close to what I’m talking about, when you exaggerate things to make them deeper, when you sort of confess your feelings.” He stared contemplatively over the top of the Exceleriter. “Deepness is what I really like. Not being afraid to write about fears and dark desires. Nitty-gritty stuff.”
    “Seaton—” His first name sprang to her lips unbidden. “Seaton, most feature columnists exaggerate for humorous effect. They confess , as you call it, for the sake of pathos. That’s what I’m usually trying to do in my Two-Faced Woman series. Get people to identify. ‘Deepness’—whatever that is—well, it’s not usually what I’m after. Only sometimes.” Why was she arguing the aesthetics of writing for the popular press with this blond obsessive-compulsive? Their conversation had grown more and more surreal. “I’m grateful you’ve been following my work, though.”
    Despite having told her the repair was nearly complete, he had bent to the task again. Was he dallying? Was his apparent concentration a sham? His tiny silver screwdriver whirled in his fingers like a Lilliputian camshaft.
    “Is everything all right?”
    “Oh, yes, ma’am. I’m just giving it a special twist here. You need your machine in tiptop shape, don’t you? I’m putting a little extra in. So you’ll be able to get a little extra out.”
    “Extra?”
    “Free of charge.” For the first time Seaton Benecke looked directly at her. Although his expression held neither animus nor threat, Stevie was chilled by the penetrating knowledgeability of his