Time Waits for Winthrop by William Tenn Read Free Book Online Page B

Winthrop’s stubbornness.
    M ary Ann Carthington tightened the curl of her blonde hair with a business-like forefinger while she considered the matter. “You told him all that you told us, and he still wouldn’t do anything, Mr. Mead? Are you sure he knows who you are?”
    Mr. Mead didn’t bother to answer her. He had other problems. Not only was his spirit badly bruised and scratched by his recent experiences, but his golf knickers had just woken into sentiency. And whereas the jacket merely had attempted to express its affection by trying to cuddle under his chin, the knickers went in more for a kind of patrolling action. Up and down on his thighs they rippled; back and forth across his rear they marched.
    “Sure Storku knows who he is,” Dave Pollock told her. “Ollie waved his vice-presidency in his face, but Storku heard that Sweet-bottom Septic Tanks Preferred fell to the bottom of the stock market just 481 years ago today, so he wasn’t afraid of him or much impressed.”
    “I don’t think that’s funny,” Mary Ann Carthington said, and shook her head at him once in a “so there!” gesture. She knew that old beanpole of a school-teacher was just jealous of Mr. Mead, but she wasn’t sure whether it was because he didn’t make as much money or because he wasn’t nearly as distinguished-looking. But if a big executive like Mr. Mead couldn’t get them out of this jam, then nobody could. And that would be awful, positively awful.
    She would never get back to San Francisco and Edgar Rapp And while Edgar might not be everything a girl like Mary Ann wanted, she was quite willing to settle for him at this point. He worked hard and made a good living. His compliments were nothing much, true, but at least he could be counted on not to say anything that tore a person into worthless bits right before their very eyes, like somebody she could mention. And the sooner she could leave the twenty-fifth century and be forever away from that somebody, the better.
    “Now, Mr. Mead,” she cooed insistently, “I’m sure he told you
something
we could do. He didn’t tell you to give up hope completely and absolutely, did he?”
    T he executive caught the strap end of his knickers as it came unbuckled and started rolling exultantly up his leg. He glared at her out of eyes that bad seen just too damn much, that felt things had gone just too damn far.
    “He told me something we could do,” he said with careful viciousness. “He said the Temporal Embassy could help us. All we need is somebody with puff in the Temporal Embassy.”
    Mary Ann Carthington almost bit the end off the lipstick she was applying at that moment. Mrs. Brucks and Dave Pollock had both turned to stare at her. And she knew just exactly what they were thinking.
    “Well, I certainly don’t—” she started to protest.
    “Don’t be modest Mary Ann,” Dave Pollock interrupted. “This is your big chance—and right now, it looks like our only chance. We’ve got about an hour and a half left. Get yourself into a jumper skedaddle out there and turn on the charm!”
    Mrs. Brucks sat down beside her and gave her shoulders the benefit of a heavy maternal arm, “Listen, Miss Carthington, sometimes we have to do things, it’s not so easy. But stuck here is better?
That
you like? So—” she spread her hands—“a touch here with the powder puff, a touch there with the lipstick, a this, a that, and believe me, he won’t know what to do first for you. Crazy about you he is already—you mean to say a little favor he wouldn’t do, if you asked him?”
    “You really think so?” The girl began to preen. “Well, maybe—”
    “A pretty girl like you, a fellow like him, nothing to maybe about. What a man like Mr. Mead can’t accomplish, a woman has to do all the time. And a pretty girl like you can do it without lifting her little finger.”
    Mary Ann Carthington gave a nod of agreement to this female view of history and stood up with determination.