were both in their mid-thirties and came from Chicago. They were known to their friends as Mil and Phil. Mil was the sort of woman, as Margie Davidow had once put it, who always walked into a room where there were strangers and said, “I’m Mil Burns and this is my husband.” When she was eighteen years old she had been Corn Queen at Iowa State College, and she had been allowed to sit on a float surrounded by her handmaidens in white dresses. Her husband sometimes mentioned this when talking about old times back in the States, but Mil never talked about it. She had gained twenty pounds and a husband and three children, and the past was rather silly, but when she walked she held her head up stiffly, partly to show her handsome profile, partly to minimize her double chin, and partly so that her invisible crown would not slide off.
Phil Burns had arrived in Rio six months before his wife, and had rented their apartment, arranged for the necessities, set up his business, and then sent for his family. Mil had arrived protestingly, hating the apartment, hating the climate, hating the cockroaches, hating the telephone system, hating the tan bath water. They had been in Brazil now for more than a year, and Phil loved it as much as Mil did not. He was one of those enthusiastically overassimilated Americans who say things like “I know a wonderful little bar where you can go if you don’t want to meet anyone you know—because only American tourists go there.” He always carried a copy of the South American edition of Time magazine, and he said, “No?” at the end of questions that he asked in English.
Mildred met them at the door. The living room was already filled with people, talking and smoking, and a white-coated butler walked about with a tray of highballs. “You don’t mind if you have to introduce yourselves?” Mil said. “I’m hoarse. I’ve been yelling at the maids all day. They’re so stupid. I tried to tell them how to make a decent-looking hors d’oeuvre , but they can’t learn.”
“I think they look beautiful,” Helen said, taking an infinitesimal pie filled with hot-flavored shrimps from a tray on the coffee table.
“You’re crazy, Mil,” Margie said. “You always worry too much.”
“Heleninha!” Phil Burns said, putting an arm around Helen’s waist. He pronounced it Eleneenya . He was a little shorter than his wife, and he had a boyish, Ivy League look, a crewcut graying at the temples, and earnest, sad eyes. Helen liked him. “There are some people here you don’t know,” Phil said. “There’s a Brazilian—see—over by the window talking to the woman in the flowered dress. His name is Nestor and he’s extremely interesting, you ought to talk to him. And there’s Trainer Wilkes, from the Embassy. He’s not really with the Embassy; he’s just here on a temporary exchange mission to bring Little League Baseball to Brazil. The gal in the flowered dress is his wife.” Phil had his other arm around Bert’s shoulders, Brazilian style, and he patted Bert’s upper arm as he spoke.
“I’d like a drink,” Bert said. “Do you want one, Helen?”
“Yes, please, darling.”
Phil waved at the butler, who came over immediately with his tray of drinks. “Here. Scotch, gin, or rye. I didn’t want to make martinis; it’s too hot. But if you want one, I’ll sneak you one in the kitchen.”
“No, no,” said Bert. “Scotch is fine, thank you.”
“I found the first Carnival records for fifty-nine,” Phil said happily. “I’ll play them later and we can dance. Maybe things will get wild.”
“Somebody will drop dead of a heat stroke,” Mil said. “That’s the wild thing that will happen.”
“I’ve got all the windows open,” Phil said, beginning to look less happy. “It will get cooler later. Do you want me to bring the fan in from our room?”
“It doesn’t do any good in our room,” Mil said, “so what makes you think it will help with this mob in here?”
Corey Andrew, Kathleen Madigan, Jimmy Valentine, Kevin Duncan, Joe Anders, Dave Kirk