Edge Read Free

die. It can’t go on forever.”
    In a while they prepare for his funeral.
    They sing:
    My! My! My! I smell good-bye!
    I know you’ve got to go
    So one last kiss
    The scent is bliss!
    Good-bye, the scents to die!
    They all wear white and dance.
    Marny can’t stop smiling with joy.
    There is nothing ever said about God here.
    After the funeral I ask Marny if there is religion, God, what?
    â€œAll of that is after death,” she says.
    â€œBut what exactly do you believe happens after death?”
    â€œWe don’t know,” she says, and her mouth tips in a grin. “I suppose on Earth you do?”
    â€œWe have certain beliefs,” I say. “We have concepts. There is a concept of heaven, and a concept or hell. Now, heaven is …” and even as I talk, Marny wanders off from me, yawning, calling over her shoulder that she’d really like to hear all about it … some other time.
    I have never been treated so rudely. That is the part that is so hard to bear: me, Caroline Aylesworth, winner of so many, many honors in science my bookshelves cannot hold all the gold statuettes, my walls with no room left for framed certificates. Not even listened to here on Farfire!
    I cannot say that I am in any way disappointed when I hear the three beeps, even though this tiny taste of Farfire has provoked considerable curiosity in me … and even though there is no way ever again to have that curiosity satisfied, for there is no returning here.
    â€œHello, Caroline!” I hear Doctor Orr’s familiar voice. “Do you think you got a good sample?”
    â€œNot a comprehensive one, by any means, but enough about Farfire to make a highly interesting report.”
    â€œExcellent! And you know how to find your way to the field?”
    â€œOf course I do.”
    â€œI’m here now, waiting for you.”
    â€œGive me about an hour and fifteen minutes.”
    â€œGladly,” Doctor Orr answers. “My God, Caroline, I’m almost overwhelmed by this wonderful fragrance here!”
    â€œA fragrance, Doctor Orr? Not on Farfire. You see—”
    He interrupts me with a whoop of joy. “ Un believable! Almost like lilies! It’s come upon me suddenly! Caroline? It’s so all pervasive! It’s on me! My hands, my face—it’s the sweetest perfume!”
    Of course, I cannot get to him in time.
    I sit down right where I am and make my entry.
    I write, I think I’ve lost my ride home.
    In the interest of accuracy, I cross out “I think.”

SUNNY DAYS AND SUNNY NIGHTS
    F emales prefer chunky peanut butter over smooth, forty-three percent to thirty-nine percent,” Alan announces at dinner, “while men show an equal liking for both.”
    My father likes this conversation. I think even my mother does, since she is telling Alan enthusiastically that she likes smooth. Moments before, she confided that she preferred red wine, after Alan said that women are more likely than men to order wine in a restaurant, and a majority prefer white.
    Alan is filled with this sort of information.
    He wants to become an advertising man. He is enrolled in journalism school for that purpose. He’s my height, when I’m wearing heels, has brown hair and brown eyes, lives not far away in Salisbury, North Carolina. We go out mostly to hit movies, and he explains their appeal afterward, over coffee at a campus hangout. He prides himself on knowing what sells, and why, and what motivates people. Sometimes when we kiss, I imagine he knows exactly what percentage of females close their eyes, and if more males keep theirs open.
    I long for Sunny.
    Whenever Sunny came to dinner, my father winced at his surfers’ talk and asked him pointedly if he had a “real” name. Harold, Sunny would tell him, and my father would say, that’s not such a bad name, you can make Harry out of that, and once he came right out and told Sunny that a man