Who Made Stevie Crye? Read Free

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