II
Downstairs, her tantrum spent, Stevie sought to remedy the situation in a rational way. When a problem presented itself, Ted had always cautioned her, you didn’t spout curses, pound inanimate objects, or tear your hair. No, of course not. You made a list of possible solutions, either on paper or in your head, and you tried each of these solutions in turn until everything was hunky-dory again. Otherwise, according to this consummate handyman-for-hire, you went rapidly and counter-productively bonkers.
So be it. She would take her late husband’s advice.
Too bad you didn’t practice what you preached in bookkeeping and financial matters, thought Stevie involuntarily, with a twinge of the old resentment she had been trying to exorcise for months. She administered a reproving slap to her own forehead and put the thought out of her mind.
What to do about the broken Exceleriter? First, Stevie decided, she would try to borrow the clunky old Smith-Corona at the Barclay medical center to finish her article. So that she need not transport the typewriter back and forth in her van, Dr. Elsa would probably agree to let her work in an empty examination room. It might even be fun to turn out a story in a building where you could hear other human beings moving about.
Second, she would telephone the offices of Pantronics Data Equipment in Ladysmith to see about having her Exceleriter repaired. The last time something had gone wrong with it (a minor glitch in its timing), Ted had taken care of the matter while the machine was still under its original warranty. Really, then, she had no right to accuse PDE of marketing an unreliable product. In the twenty months since her husband’s desertion—death, rather; she didn’t mean desertion—she must have run nearly a half-million words through the Exceleriter. By that standard, it had been a bargain, the most astute investment in her future security Ted could have possibly made—with the inarguable exception of a decent insurance policy and a growing savings account. A good hand with a measuring tape and voltage meters, he had never been able to balance his checkbook.
Although eighteen miles away, Ladysmith was a local call for Barclay residents. Stevie found the PDE number in the directory, dialed it, and began explaining her trouble to a secretary who interrupted her anxious spiel to connect her with the service department. This time a man answered, and Stevie began again.
“Give me directions to your place of business,” the service employee interjected. “We’ll send someone over.”
“I’m self-employed. I work at home.”
“Do you carry a service agreement with us?”
“At three hundred dollars a year? Are you kidding?”
The man gave an ambiguous harrumphing laugh. “Well, we make house calls even for private individuals without service agreements.”
“For a price.”
“No different from anybody else, Mrs. Crye. You don’t work for free, I’ll bet. Neither do the folks at Pantronics Data Equipment.”
“Okay, okay. Apart from repair costs, what do you charge for a service call?”
“Just a minute.” Stevie heard the pages of a loose-leaf manual turning and the serviceman muttering half-audible computations. “It’s a mileage thing, Mrs. Crye,” he said a moment later. “To Barclay and back . . . well, about twenty-three dollars.”
“I’ll bring it in.”
“Fine with us.”
“That’s better than a dollar a mile,” Stevie accused. “Fine by me if I don’t pay your extortionist rates.”
“Actually, ma’am, it’s less than a dollar a mile.”
“You’re figuring this on a PDE calculator, I take it.”
“Not at all, Mrs. Crye. You used the Ladysmith directory to call us, but you’re talking to a Columbus exchange. PDE headquarters in South Georgia happens to be in Columbus, that’s where I am, and that’s where you’ll have to bring your typewriter. See how helpful we are? The magic of electronics has just saved you the cost of a long-distance call.”
Stevie’s sense of frustration mounted. South on I-185, Columbus was over forty miles away. Although she did not mind driving there on weekends for the grocery specials and some rueful window shopping, today was Tuesday. She could hardly put off the repair that long. She would have to gas up the VW microbus and drive down there tomorrow, forfeiting a large part of a valuable workday.
Indeed, if they asked her to leave the Exceleriter, she would have to waste a portion of another day fetching it home. The mock-affability of the man on the other end of the line heightened her frustration.
“Your thoughtfulness is a model for us all,” she told him.
“Thank you, ma’am.”
“How much to replace the cable on my ribbon carrier? Can you give me an estimate, to sort of cushion the shock before I get down there?”
“Our hourly rates went up at the first of the year.”
Oh, no, thought Stevie. The PDE man had made this announcement as if declaring a stock dividend. From his point of view, maybe he had. Maybe he was a working-stiff shareholder with a vested interest in soaking the company’s clientele.
“Are you afraid to tell me to what?” Stevie asked.
“From forty-four dollars an hour, Mrs. Crye, to fifty-two. We don’t prorate that amount, either. Fifty-two dollars is the minimum charge for whatever may need to be done.”
“Fifty-two dollars to replace a goddamn carrier cable? Even if it only takes five minutes?”
“That’s not a ladylike way to talk, Mrs. Crye.”
“Listen, in January it only cost me thirty-five dollars to get complete physical checkups for both my kids, tests and lab work included. You don’t really think servicing an Exceleriter ought to cost more than examining two living human children, do you?” Her indignation gave her voice a murderous, unappeasable edge.
“Kids aren’t our specialty, ma’am.”
“Do me a favor. Never tell the American Medical Association what you’re charging, okay? If Dr. Sam and Dr. Elsa ever decide they want parity with you overpaid gadget fixers, I’ll have to start treating my kids with chicken-noodle soup and Band-Aids, no matter how bad they hurt. Really, Mr. Whoever-You-Are, this is outrageous.”
“Smith,” said the man, amiably. “John Smith.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet. Listen, I’d have to be out of my mind to bring my machine to you two-legged piranhas. You’ve made it very clear what PDE stands for. It’s not Pantronics Data Equipment, either. It’s—“
“— Pretty Damned Expensive,” said the man in the service department. “We hear that all the time.” And he hung up.
“Arrrgggghhhhh!” cried Stevie, slamming her own receiver into its cradle. Then she covered her face with her hands and hunched forward over the breakfast bar wondering how Ted would have handled that smart-alecky company shill. Better than she had, probably. Far better than she had. Ted had been good at handling problems, and in his work around Barclay he had encountered dozens of ticklish ones every day. The only problem he had not known how to deal with, money worries aside, was his illness. To his illness he had turned belly-up like a yard dog beset by a pack of vicious strays. Why, in the one conflict where resolve really mattered, had he proved so weak?
Stevie abruptly uncovered her eyes and lifted her head. “The typewriter’s the problem,” she admonished herself. “Not Ted; the typewriter. Stop this rotten sniveling.”
She dialed the telephone again.