The Basic Eight Read Free

skills were not yet sharpened when I made this purchase, which is why I’m trying to write costly sentences to justify my expenditure (i.e., “Histori- ans will note…”). For the past couple of days since I got back I haven’t been doing anything much, anyway; only sitting around my room trying to call my friends. My bedroom became a perfect decompression chamber between the European and American civilizations: I spent all my time talking to machines and was thus soon acclimated back to my motherland.
    No one was home. I was sorry to miss them but glad to keep my phone time brief. I’m keeping the line open for Adam. He hasn’t called. I’d like to think that he’s on vacation, but school starts tomorrow so his parents must have brought him home by now to give him time to shop for new khakis.
    Just when I was going over each of my letters in my head, Natasha called. “You know Natasha, right, Natasha Hyatt? Long hair, dyed jet-black, sort of vampy-looking?” What stupid things to write! I picked up on the third ring, but before I could speak I heard her breathy voice.
    “Flan, are you waiting for some guy to call?” Reader, note here that she pronounces my nickname not as the first syllable in my name is regularly pronounced, but as “a pastry or tart made with a filling of sweet rennet cheese, or, usually, custard.”
    I put down The Salem Slot , the last of my hotel bookstore acquis- itions. Once I’ve started something, I have to finish it, no matter how bad it is. “Hi, Natasha. How did you know?”
    Natasha sighed, reluctant to explain the obvious. “You just got back from your European jaunt. You’ve left ‘Hi-I’m-home’ mes- sages on everybody’s machines, so you haven’t gone out. You are therefore sitting on your bed

    reading or writing something. You can reach the phone without moving, but you waited until the third ring. Now, Watson, we need school supplies, ja? Let’s meet for coffee and go buy cute notebooks.”
    “Cute notebooks?” I said. “I don’t know. I sort of have to–” “ Yes , cute notebooks. We’re going to be seniors , Flan. We have
    to play it to the hilt. If we can find pencils with our school colors on them, we’re buying them. But of course we’ll need coffee first. I’ll meet you at Well-Kept Grounds, OK?”
    She started to hang up. “Wait! When?”
    “Whenever we get there, dearest. While on the Continent, did you forget how we operate? Did you forget us entirely? Nobody got even a postcard.”
    “Sorry.”
    “Yes, yes, yes. Leave the machine on in case he calls. And I’ll want to hear all about it. The more you talk with machines and the more they talk with you, the more acclimated you’ll get to American civilization. Ciao .” The phone clattered as she hung up. Only Natasha can make me move as fast as I did. I left the machine on, ran out the door, turned back, got my coat, ran out the door, turned back, got change for the bus and ran out the door. I forgot that San Francisco September can be chilly and that my July bus pass wasn’t going to work two months later. Once on the bus I adopted the Blank Face Public Transportation Dress Code but by the time I got off I couldn’t help beaming. I was happy to see Natasha again. It’s often difficult to keep up with her Bette Davis-meets-Dorothy Parker act but underneath that
    she’d do anything for me.
    Well-Kept Grounds is tucked into a neighborhood full of hippie preteens and bookstores dedicated to the

    legalization of marijuana, but the surroundings are a small price to pay for the cafe’s collection of fabulous fifties furniture and for not charging extra if you want almond extract in your latte, which I always do. Natasha was there already. I saw her lipstick first, though her forest green rayon dress was a strong second. “ Flan !” she called, sounding like she was ordering dessert. Men in their midtwenties looked up from their used paperbacks and alternative newspapers and followed her