A ruling passion : a novel (19 page)

"How the system could work for you." He kept his voice level. 'Your clerk rings up a sale—a cashmere sweater, say, at a hundred dollars—"

"Try two or three hundred," said Pari with a gentle laugh.

His eyebrows rose. He had never bought Sybille a cashmere sweater. Lately he hadn't bought Sybille anything at all. "All right. The clerk enters the code for that sweater in the cash register, and when it's entered it's automatically recorded, with the sweater size, style and price, and anything else you want, on a magnetic tape recorder—"

"One in each store?"

"Yes." He met her eyes. She was watching him more than she was watching his pencil. There was a tiny mole below her left eye: a dark

fleck that made her skin seem even smoother. He had never noticed it before. He knew if he moved slighdy, his arm would brush hers.

He wrenched his eyes down, to his diagram. "After the shops close, the tape recorders play back the information through the telephone system to your main computer in Monterey. The cashmere sweater— and all the other items sold in the shop—is deleted from the inventory stored in the main computer; it's also printed in a list of items sold that day in each of your shops. So you have a fresh inventory, updated from the day before, and a list of sales in twenty-six stores."

Now she too was looking at the diagram, nodding her head. "Perfect. Perfect. When can I have it? What will it cost? Ah, but it will save me so much, I can afford to spend... well, we will see how much I can afford to spend." She put her hand on his arm. "Nicholas, I need to know what it will cost and how soon you can have it in my shops. That is, if you give me a price I can manage."

Her hand burned on his arm, each of her fingers like a small flame curled around his sleeve. But he smiled at her sudden wariness about money. "I can't promise anything yet; I want to work on how we'd put it together. There are problems in connecting the magnetic recorders with the telephone system. No one's come up with a good way to get all that information stored and transmitted. You don't want us to install another minicomputer to do it; it's too expensive, it takes up too much room, and it doesn't have the speed we want. What we need is something small and fast, uncomplicated, low-cost, very reliable..."

"Like a team of workers in Bombay," said Pari with a laugh. "Perhaps that is what I really need: my family could send me a team and I would give each of them a pen and a telephone. Unless you have something that will do the work of a dozen people, maybe even a hundred."

Nick looked at her. "Or five thousand," he said slowly.

"Oh, no, I could not possibly need so many. We are a small chain ... But that is not what you meant."

"No." Tapping his pencil on the table, he absentmindedly ate a piece of cake, then took another. "I could build you a computer, just a printed circuit board, really... combining microprocessors into a custom-made board... small enough to fit in a desk drawer—well, maybe a small cabinet; it has to have a power supply—and then we'd program it... we'd need a keyboard, but that's no problem; we might even have a video screen so we could see the commands while we're putting them in..."

He looked at Pari and smiled, a wide, gleeful smile. It was the smile of a child who had suddenly made a discovery that changed forever the look and shape of the world.

"We could program it to do the whole job," he said, taking another piece of cake. "Convert the information from the cash registers to signals that are stored on a tape recorder and then transmit them over the phone lines. Incredibly simple, really. Your own specialized microcomputer. Cheaper and smaller than anything on the market. Probably faster too."

Pari was watching him. She had no idea what a microprocessor was, or a microcomputer; custom circuit board had no meaning for her. But she understood cheaper, she understood smaller and faster, and she understood what it meant when a man had that absorbed, rapt look of discovery on his face. She trusted it; she trusted Nick. The talk in the valley was that no one saw possibilities as quickly as Nick Fielding; no one put together programming concepts with such brilliance; and no one else had a partner like Ted Mcllvain, with his superb electronic skills.

"Very good," Pari said firmly. "Tell me how much money you need to build these special micro-whatevers. I want them."

Nick barely heard her. "It could probably do other things." He ate another piece of cake. "It would already be converting information and transmitting it—why not do four jobs? Or a dozen? What would be the limit? Why should there be a limit at all?"

"Nicholas," Pari said, "would you like more cake?"

He looked at the plate. "My God, did I do that?"

"You did. Would you like more? Or something else? Dinner, perhaps?"

"No. Thanks, Pari, but we have a project to finish tonight." The diagram drew him, and his glance returned to it. "It's an idea; nobody's done it. Of course there would have to be a limit. But I don't know what it would be. Or what would determine it. We'd have to build—"

"But later, yes? Right now, before you get involved in anything else, you are going to build this custom board and whatever else for me. You are, aren't you, Nick? I must have it soon."

He laughed. "An hour ago you hadn't even thought of it."

"But now I see how badly I need it. I do not need this other thing you started talking about."

"I was talking about a computer small enough to fit on your desk and do anything you want to do."

"But as soon as you build my custom board, what more would I need?"

"I don't know." He looked past her, through the window. The sky was still bright; it was April and the cypress trees were moving gendy in a warm sea breeze. "We don't know all the possibilities of anything until we've built it. But the possibilities ... all the possibilities..." His eyes were still on the sky, and it was a moment before he turned back to her, and stood up. "I'll build yours first. Pari, I promise."

She nodded gravely. "Thank you." She stood with him, the top of her head just at his shoulder level. "It is not good to interfere with a man's work, and I would be accommodating if you insisted; but, you see, I have my own work, and it is all I have."

Abruptly, Nick thought of Sybille, who showed no signs, ever, of being accommodating. Would she also say her work was all she had?

Of course she would. Because even though she had tried to be caring and loving, and he had tried to help her, the premiere of "The Hot Seat" had changed their marriage permanently. From that time on, without pretense, they had let all feelings of closeness dwindle and die. Sybille was where she had been when he met her: she had only her work.

"I'm sorry," Pari said, searching his face. "What have I said?"

"If s not you," Nick said quiedy. "My own thoughts got in the way. I appreciate your being accommodating, but it won't be necessary; we'll start on this tomorrow." He took her hand. She swayed toward him and he bent to kiss her forehead, breathing in her heady scent. She was so close the warmth of her body seemed to embrace him, and desire surged through him with a force that made him dizzy. When she lifted her face to his, her lips slightly parted, Nick brought her into his arms, his mouth covering hers and opening it wider, his hunger so fierce it made his tongue a weapon.

Gently but very firmly. Pari broke free. "We should go slowly," she said. Her eyes smiled, but Nick felt her words as small stabs of reproach.

"I'm sorry," he muttered. Through the raging of his desire, longing filled him, so deep and bitter he felt like weeping. "I don't usually..." Floundering, he blundered on. "I really am sorry."

"Oh, Nicholas." He saw the slight shake of her head and the tender amusement in her eyes, and he felt very young. I'm twenty-eight, he thought; Pari is forty-nine. It would have made no difference at all, and he had not even thought of it in his overwhelming desire for her, but he wondered what amused her: his youthful clumsiness or the

inexperience of a man who had never before strayed from his marriage bed.

It did not matter. What struck Nick at the moment was that he was, in fact, ready to betray Sybille and he felt no anguish over it. He felt nothing. That may have jolted him enough to make his floundering worse, because it said far more about his marriage than about either youth or inexperience or clumsiness.

He took Pari's hands in his. "That was foolish of me; you deserve better. I want to make love to you. Pari. I'll wait until you tell me you want me, but you must know how much I want... how much I need..." He cleared his throat. "I suppose that sounds very young to you."

She shook her head gently. "Why would it sound young? We all have wants and needs, and if we cannot satisfy them one day, we hold them in abeyance for... another time?"

He smiled, grateful to her, appreciating her tact. "I hope so. I hope I'll be welcome if I come back."

"Dear Nicholas, you will always be welcome here."

He took a deep breath. He might still stay. They would talk and have dinner together, and probably spend the night in her bed. But Pari had said what she wanted and he would not try to change her mind. Because she was right: it was better to go slowly. I already rushed once when I shouldn't have, he thought. Rushed off with Sybille before I'd figured out whether I could try again with Valerie. Before I'd even been alone long enough to think things through. I felt so goddam sorry for myself I couldn't wait; I had to—

He caught himself. Never before had he thought their marriage had been a mistake from the beginning. They'd had some good times; he had thought he loved her. After all, he hadn't been attracted to Pari when he first worked for her, a year earlier; he and Sybille had been close then. Or so busy they hadn't paid much attention to how close they were. Or how far apart.

"Nicholas, you said you wanted to get home early."

He smiled wryly. "You're right." Leaning down, he kissed her cheek. "Thank you for being here. I'll call you about the computer as soon as I have a breakdown of costs. Give us a few days." And then he left the velvet and silk room and made the two-hour drive north to San Jose, along the ocean, as afternoon faded into night and the sand dunes and orchards and fields of feathery artichoke plants disappeared into blackness. All the way home, he thought only about computers and inventory and hookups between magnetic recorders and the telephone

system. It was easier than thinking about Sybille.

But she was there when he walked in, talking to Ted in the brightly lit kitchen, pacing as she talked. "Ifs just that nothing changes," Nick heard her say as he closed the living-room door behind him and stood in the darkness. "The show is an absolute success—no one dares refuse to be on it; either they don't have the guts to admit they're afraid or they think they'll be the first to make fools of the interrogators—and we get piles of mail—"

"Not all flattering," Ted interjected.

"It doesn't matter. Mail means viewers. They can send hate mail and we'U love them for it as long as they keep watching. We've knocked out the other channels in that half hour; it doesn't matter what they put on, we always beat them. And the cooking show is good. Nothing like 'The Hot Seat,' but it gets better each month."

"What cooking show?"

"Oh, something I put together on ethnic cooking, just to let everyone know how versatile I am; nothing important."

"You get a lot of mail on that too," Nick said, coming into the kitchen. He laid his cheek briefly against Sybille's forehead.

She gave him a perhmctory pat on his arm. Her eyebrows shot up. "Good heavens." She followed him as he went to the refrigerator, and put her nose to his jacket, sniffing audibly. "Zfw^f that nice? A litde much, but very classy; I'd guess it cost a king's ransom. Or a queen's. Computers make strange bedfellows, is that how you'd put it? If you're getting a drink, make me one, too."

"What would you like?" Nick asked evenly.

"Scotch and soda. Light on the soda. Have you spent the whole day in bed with her or did you do a htde business on the side?"

Ted pushed back his chair. "I'll be in the garage."

"Don't go," Sybille said. "If he's screwing your clients, you ought to know about it; he's your partner, after all."

"He's my friend too, and if there's anything I need to know, he'll tell me.

When he left, the kitchen was silent, except for the clink of ice cubes as Nick filled two glasses. "Are you worried about Ted or about your-selfl*" he asked, handing a drink to Sybille.

She shrugged. "What difference does it make? You'll do what you want. You always do."

"What does that mean?"

"It means we came to this damn town because you wanted to; we moved into this shack because you wanted to; we stay in this lousy

neighborhood because you want to. You know I want to go to New York; you've known it since we got married, but you've never, never thought about moving there. You want to be here. That's all that matters."

Nick gazed at her. "You haven't mentioned New York since you started work at the station. You said this was the right place for you; you were learning so much you'd need later."

"In New York. 'Later" meant New York, and you knew it."

He nodded. "Probably."

"Well, I've learned it. There's no reason for me to stay here anymore."

"Except that you have a husband and a son who live here and I can't leave right now Everything Ted and I are building is based on our reputation here; it wouldn't make any sense to go somewhere else and start from scratch."

"Who said I have a husband? I have someone who's screwing his way up and down the California coast... damn you, how could you! Doesn't it mean anything to you that we're married? I've never even thought about anyone else since I met you! I see a lot of men at work and I don't want to go to bed with any of them, not one of them! But you come home smelling like a whorehouse and expect me to talk about staying here, no matter what, just because you want to. That's what you want, isn't it? Somebody who cleaves to you and doesn't ask questions."

Nick finished his drink. The ice-filled glass chilled his palm. "But you don't want to cleave to anyone, do you?"