His family was uncatalogued and unclassified in human knowledge.
He rang the bell on Marci’s smart little brick house at bang-on six, carrying some daisies he’d bought from the grocery store, following the etiquette laid down in several rather yucky romance novels he’d perused that afternoon.
She answered in jeans and a T-shirt, and punched him in the arm before he could give her the flowers. “Don’t you look smart?” she said. “Well, you’re not fooling anyone, you know.” She gave him a peck on the cheek and snatched away the daisies. “Come along, then, we’re eating soon.”
Marci sat him down in the living room, which was furnished with neutral sofas and a neutral carpet and a neutral coffee table. The bookcases were bare. “It’s horrible,” she said, making a face. She was twittering a little, dancing from foot to foot. Alan was glad to know he wasn’t the only one who was uncomfortable. “Isn’t it? The company put us up here. We had a grand flat in Scotland.”
“It’s nice,” Alan said, “but you look like you could use some books.”
She crossed her eyes. “Books? Sure—I’ve got ten boxes of them in the basement. You can come by and help me unpack them.”
“Ten boxes?” Alan said. “You’re making that up.” Ten boxes of books! Things like books didn’t last long under the mountain, in the damp and with the ever-inquisitive, ever-destructive Davey exploring every inch of floor and cave and corridor in search of opportunities for pillage.
“I ain’t neither,” she said. “At least ten. It was a grand flat and they were all in alphabetical order, too.”
“Can we go see?” Alan asked, getting up from the sofa.