"If I come—" But Brendel had given their number. They were outside their own door, and she hadn't felt a thing. Today she resented not feeling a thing.
"These weird-o's, they talk too much. I'm hungry."
She resented punching his food and didn't even want to quarrel.
She drowsed back into sleep, remembering. Everything was empty. She ate, she slept, she quarreled, she gridded around seeing friends. What else was there? She couldn't get a job; there weren't that many jobs. And with the government allowance for not working, who needed a job? Who needed anything? A time of plenty, her school machine had called it. You just gridded around collecting and arguing to make it interesting. There were so many people moving so fast that you had to quarrel and push or you'd get stepped on.
It was all stupid. Brendel didn't help a bit. He was stupid too.
She tried to imagine Latsker Smith echoing through the empty streets in his scarlet splinter of car. Latsker Smith couldn't be stupid.
She slept three hours before the gridbell rang.
Elka, her cousin, stood on the grid, loose-haired, big-toothed. She swung a hatbox. "I didn't get you up?"
"No," Pollony said hopelessly.