How Like A God Read online

  How Like a God By Brenda W. Clough

  Part One CHAPTER 1

  It was Rob’s turn to drive the kids to day care. As usual the noise and chaos of the morning departure were stupendous, enough to make a strong man quake. Davey, eighteen months old, was perfecting a full-throated imitation of Tarzan of the Apes. Julianne carried him yodeling out to the minivan on one hip, her briefcase slung over her shoulder and a bulging diaper bag hooked over the other arm. In the living room Rob wedged the filled baby bottles into Angela’s diaper bag and scooped his daughter up. “No!” she shrieked. She raised her arms into noodle position and almost slipped right out of his grasp. He foiled her by grabbing one chubby leg.

  “Come along, sugar pie.” With his free elbow he pushed the new storm door open. He had installed it himself only last weekend, and made a good job of it—a white steel frame and door with a safety grate over the glass and a

  self-storing screen.

  “No no no no!” Angela howled. Rob stuffed her expertly into the carseat in the center seat of the van. Before she could wiggle away he clicked the latch home. In the other carseat, Davey had already accepted the inevitable and was philosophically eating Cheerios by the fistful.

  Rob slid the door shut on the pair of them and waved at Julianne’s retreating back. “Bye, darling!”

  “Have a good day, hon!” she called over her impeccably tailored pink shoulder. “Don’t forget to tell Miss Linda about the shots!” Then the Washington,D.C., commuter bus roared into view at the far end of the suburban street. Julianne sprinted to catch it, her satin blonde hair bobbing.

  Julianne was always in a rush. Years of hurrying in high-heeled designer pumps had taught her to run as fast in them as in sneakers. But she had cut it too fine this time, Rob decided. The bus showed no signs of slowing down. The gray diesel plume of its exhaust streamed out straight behind like a fox’s tail. Probably the driver hadn’t even seen her. Shaking his head, Rob went around the maroon van to the driver’s side. If only Julianne would allow herself five more minutes! Now she would need a lift to the Vienna Metro station, and that would make them both late. The family schedule had no slack in it at all.

  The revelation came to him suddenly, just as his fingers touched the van’s fake wood door panel. The bus driver had indeed seen Julianne. Rob was absolutely certain of it. The blue of the May morning sky over his head was not more obvious. The rotten bastard! Taking out his petty frustrations on an innocent commuter … Rob jerked open the door, seething.

  A warm solid wall of sound and odor hit him in the face. The twins yelled in stereo and he realized that at least one diaper was very thoroughly soiled indeed. Bitter experience had taught Rob there was never any percentage in postponing the inevitable. Holding his breath, he climbed up between the front seats and clawed a diaper bag out of the back with one hand, unlocking Angela with the other. It was fifty-fifty the diaper was hers, and she was sobbing with rage, in desperate need of soothing.

  Cheerios crunched underfoot as he backed out. Davey had broadcast his snack with happy liberality onto the dashboard, over all the seats, and into his sister’s clothing and hair.

  Out of the car again, Rob stared, the screaming child muffled against the knot of his necktie. The bus had stopped after all. But not at the bus stop, not for Julianne. It had halted right in the middle of the street. A few passengers were climbing out, and others were crowded at the front. Julianne came trudging back. “Thank god you haven’t left yet,” she said.

  She tossed her briefcase into the front seat. “You’ll have to drop me at the station.”

  With his free hand Rob shook the orange plastic changing pad open and laid it on the driver’s seat. “Sure—can you hold her for me?”

  Out here in the open air it was evident that Angela wasn’t the culprit. Julianne took the hiccuping toddler and said, “Now what?” But when Rob hauled Davey out in a hail of falling Cheerios no further explanations were necessary. The stay-dry gathers had utterly and visibly failed in their duty. Rob held his reeking son and heir at arm’s length to save his tan sports jacket. Sighing, Julianne pulled the wipes and a complete change of clothing out of Davey’s bag.

  “What happened to the bus?” Rob asked as he wiped.

  “I didn’t see. The other passengers said the driver went into convulsions or something. A woman with a cellular phone called 911.”

  “Lucky there wasn’t an accident.” An ambulance sped past the bus and halted, lights flashing. Rob didn’t look up. The appalling condition of Davey’s clothing and car seat commanded his full attention.

  There was heavy traffic on the way to the train station, and then Miss Linda had to be brought up to date on the twins’ vaccinations. Rob didn’t have a chance to catch his breath until he got to Chasbro Corporation, in a FairfaxCitybrick-and-glass office complex. Luckily nobody noticed he was late. He dropped his briefcase on his desk, hung up his jacket, and hurried to the kitchen alcove for that first reviving cup of coffee.

  “Yo, Bobster,” Danny Ramone said. He was bearded and generously built, like a rollicking black Santa Claus. “How they hangin’?”

  If there was a name worse than Bob, Rob thought, it was Bobster. But he didn’t want to say this to the head of the software project. Instead he said, “Low, Dan, very low—in need of coffee. Traffic on 66 was all shot to hell this morning.”

  “You should leave earlier. Hey, I got in at5:30this morning! The commute was a breeze!”

  Once more Rob held back his first words. Daycare didn’t start until8 A.M., and it was impossible to ask for more. Miss Linda already kept the twins until6 P.M.And Julianne’s job at the Garment Design Association demanded so much from her—

  Again there came that opening sensation, as if a skylight gaped wide in his forehead. In the driveway at home it had been a mere flicker of enlightenment, a camera shutter opening and then shutting again. Now Rob stared at his boss, amazed at the flood of sightless unheard perception.

  Danny was pouring coffee and saying something about the joys of unlocking the office and having the mainframe all to himself. He hadn’t intended to annoy or criticize. He was too busy contemplating his own vigor, efficiency and intelligence. There was no more malice in him than there was in the elevator doors that shut before the passengers crowd on board. Rob could almost taste Danny’s magnificent, glistening self-absorption, like a Thanksgiving turkey huge enough to shrink everyone in Chasbro Corporation into small potatoes and side dishes. “Wow, that’s weird,” Rob said.

  “Coffee too strong for you, huh, Bobster?” Danny clapped him on the back with a meaty hand and turned away. Rob stood staring at nothing for a few moments. Had he always been able to do this? It felt so natural, to inspect personalities in fine detail through this new mental microscope. Then why had he never done it before?

  But self-examination had never been Rob’s habit, and anyway the oddity of the whole business made him uncomfortable. He dismissed all these peculiar thoughts and went back to his cubicle to immerse himself in the day’s work. Since the days of the abacus, no software has ever been developed smoothly, cheaply, or on time. Nor was Chasbro going to be the first to do it. Rob, like everyone else on the team, in the division, and in the entire company, was racing the clock to produce, lurching from one looming deadline to another without letup. It was a crazy way to make a living.

  As the program booted up, he briefly considered getting away from it all—doing something entirely different with his life. But the thought was a fleeting one. The mortgage, the twins, the car payments: All these turned his paycheck into golden handcuffs. Although Rob was only in his early

  thirties, his life was already laid out from here to retirement.

  Absorbed in writing C++ computer code,
Rob jumped when one of the junior programmers stuck her head in the door. “Lunch in five, Rob,” Tawana called. “Can we count on your van for the ride?”

  “Sure,” he said. “Uh, we’re going out?”

  “C’mon, you remember—Jean’s getting married next month, and we’re going to

  give her the present. Lori chose this absolutely buff Fiestaware salad

  set.”

  Rob had completely forgotten, and scrambled to put on his jacket. At Chasbro it was important to fit into the corporate culture, to make all the right noises and touch all the bases. He liked people, but since social skills didn’t come naturally to him, Rob had learned to compensate by deliberately joining things and saying yes to all invitations. He followed Tawana over to Lori’s desk and duly admired the salad set before the gift box was taped shut.

  For the luncheon the bride had chosen the Blackeyed Pea, a restaurant just up the road that advertised its comforting American-style food. Rob ordered the meat loaf special and ate without tasting it, hardly listening to the technical chat around the table. He was too busy observing people.

  What a fascinating variety of personalities there were! It was like looking out over a delightful intricate garden in which every flower was totally different, not only a different color from its neighbor but a different species entirely—a cactus next to a rose, a sequoia shading a pansy. Here, a staid computer nerd with a lurid second career writing leather porn; across the room a waitress working on a Ph.D. in heuristics. He worked among Trekkies and canoeing fanatics, an ex-CIA agent and a world-class glazer of chocolate truffles.

  Rob had never wanted or been able to delve into his associates’ private lives. Now this painless panorama delighted him. The charm of living in the greater Washington area was its diversity. There were so many different kinds of people here, and now he could really appreciate and enjoy it. The kaleidoscopic view reminded him of his first experience of computer bulletin boards—a hundred thousand topics to surf through, each holding a hundred thousand messages.

  “Yoo-hoo, Earth to Rob! Would you pass the ketchup?”

  With a start Rob looked up. Lori, one of the secretaries, smiled impatiently at him and pointed at the ketchup bottle. Everyone was looking at him. This was obviously not her first request. He lunged awkwardly for the bottle in front of him, his hand feeling as large as hams. Rob had never been graceful—even as a boy he had dreaded Little League and square dancing. Now his reaching hand closed an instant too soon. He could feel the glass bottle sliding across his fingertips. It went spinning onto its

  side across the table and a gush of ketchup hit Danny Ramone dead center.

  “Damn it!” Danny exclaimed, leaping up. When he dabbed with a napkin, the stain merely spread down the broad white expanse of his shirt.

  Two of the younger programmers applauded. “Definitely hit points!”

  “Holy mackerel, Danny, I apologize!” Horrified, Rob held his own napkin to Danny’s belt buckle, to save his pants. The secretaries giggled. Their waiter bustled over with a towel. People at other tables craned their necks to see. Rob yearned for the earth to open and swallow the entire restaurant. He wouldn’t live this one down for weeks—celebration lunches always made the company newsletter, and any incident was fodder for it.

  Danny burst into one of his braying laughs. “I look like a drive-by shooting victim! You’re lucky I don’t hold grudges, Rob!”

  “What with salary review coming up next quarter,” Lori said.

  Other people at the table chimed in with wisecracks too. Rob ignored them and said, “I’ll swing by the mall on the way back and pick up another shirt for you, okay?”

  “I sure can’t go to the design meeting this afternoon like this!” Danny laughed. He mimed being hit by a bullet, clutching his stained chest and

  slumping back in his chair. “Bitch set me up,” he moaned, sounding enough like D.C.‘s ex-con mayor to get another big laugh.

  Rob could only be glad that Danny was being such a good sport. Still, he wished with all his heart that everyone would forget his role in the entire stupid incident. And the all-important software design meeting with the customer had completely slipped his mind! He was too flustered to hang on for dessert. He left a twenty with Lori to cover his share of the meal and hurried off to the mall. A men’s shirt sale was on at Hecht’s. Rob bought three plain white shirts in the three most likely sizes, since he had forgotten to ask what Danny wore. For good measure he bought a tie too, in a vivid Wile E. Coyote pattern that Danny would be sure to appreciate.

  His stomach was in a knot by the time he got back, and Rob swung by his own desk to pop a few Tums before rushing to Danny’s office. “Thank goodness you’re still here,” he exclaimed. “When’s that design meeting?”

  “Doesn’t start until three,” Danny said absently, staring at his computer screen. When he looked up and noticed the bag in Rob’s hand astonishment spread over his plump brown face. “Good god, Bobster!”

  Rob took the shirts out of the shopping bag. “Didn’t know your size,” he said. “I’ll return the ones that don’t fit.”

  “This is above and beyond the call of duty, my man! And a necktie, my god! You’re really determined I’ll represent the division with pride!” With genuine surprise and pleasure Danny held the coyote necktie up, unbuttoning the stained shirt with his other hand.

  “Well, this is the least I could do, considering my part in the whole debacle,” Rob said uneasily.

  “What part?” Danny demanded. He flung off the ruined shirt and tore open the largest new one. “All my own clumsiness! I better not tell the wife either. She’d never let me forget it.” He buttoned the fresh shirt up over his pot-belly and tucked in the shirttail. “Damn, I need a mirror to do the tie.”

  “But—don’t you remember? When I pushed the ketchup bottle over?”

  Danny rapidly transferred three pens, a pink highlighter, and a 0.5 millimeter mechanical pencil from the old shirt pocket into the new one, and sat down. “That was me, Bobster. I pushed it over. Stupidest thing I’ve done this week—except for this damned code here.” He frowned at the glowing screen and tapped a few keys, the unknotted necktie draped around his neck already forgotten. Stunned, Rob began to retreat. “Leave the receipt and I’ll reimburse you later, Bobster,” Danny surfaced briefly to say.

  “Appreciate your thoughtful-ness, pal. I won’t forget it.”

  “It was nothing, really,” Rob muttered, and left him to it.

  Obviously the thing to do was to interview the witnesses, talk to the other people who went to lunch. Rob made a quiet circuit through the division, eavesdropping. As long as he frowned down at the printout in his hands he blended in completely. No one mentioned the luncheon at all, so he was forced to bring it up himself. He caught up with Jean, the upcoming bride, at the water cooler. “Pretty messy scene at lunch there, huh?” he greeted her.

  “Oh, I’ve seen worse,” Jean said. “My future father-in-law is like Danny—so involved in his thoughts that there’s, like, no one at the helm.”

  “It was Danny who spilled the ketchup,” Rob said. “You’re sure.”

  She stared at him. “Well, yeah. We all saw it.”

  “I, uh, must have been lost in my thoughts myself.”

  Jean shook her head, smiling. “That’s like, an occupational hazard around here.”

  As obliquely as he could, Rob quizzed a few more friends. Testimony was unanimous. “A typical Dano trick,” Lori pronounced it. Unable to let it rest, Rob slipped out of the building and drove back to the restaurant. It was midafternoon, and the dining room was nearly empty. The hostess chirped, “Would you like the lunch menu, sir? We don’t start the dinner menu until four-thirty.”

  “I don’t want a menu,” Rob said. “I was here at lunchtime, with a group from Chasbro. Could I speak to our waiter? We were sitting right over there.”

  “That would be Julio’s table, but he’s gone now. But I was here. Maybe I can help?”
>
  “There was a little accident—someone spilled ketchup on one of the guys.”

  “It wasn’t our server’s fault,” she said quickly.

  “I know that—but who did it? Who actually knocked the bottle over?”

  The hostess wrinkled her brow in puzzlement. “If your associate would bring us the dry-cleaning bill for his suit, we’d be happy to—”

  “No, no! Besides, I already bought him a new shirt. Did you actually see the incident? Who knocked the bottle over?” He wanted to shake the answer out of her.

  She began to look nervous. “From where I was standing it looked like he picked the bottle up himself, and it slipped out of his hand and down his front. Look, let me see the receipt for the shirt. If the manager gives an okay—”

  Rob turned on his heel and almost ran out of the restaurant. He stood on the sidewalk, swaying on his feet, sweating in spite of the mild spring weather. His brain seemed to have overloaded. He couldn’t think properly.

  It would be crazy to try and drive in this state. He’d have to get a grip on himself first. Across the street he saw the post office and, just beyond, the Fairfax City branch of the library. He took a deep breath and crossed with the light.

  Libraries were one of Rob’s favorite places. In college he had even written a paper about how the entire goal of civilization was to build libraries and produce books to fill them. Now he stepped through the double glass doors and collapsed gratefully into an ugly institutional armchair. The library’s familiar atmosphere of friendly neglect enveloped him. As long as he didn’t become noisy or destructive he could do anything here—sleep, use the restroom, read lowbrow military adventure novels. Nobody would bother him with questions, or descend on him demanding why he was wasting time when there was software to be debugged and diapers to be changed. He relaxed and took the nearest paperback from the rack for camouflage.

  Now he felt able to analyze his problem rationally. What the hell has happened to me? he wondered. Can I really be looking into people’s heads? Altering their memories? I know what happened at lunch today! How did everyone at Chasbro forget? He took out the pocket notebook he always carried, and made a list: