King

After the Plague, Termination Dust TERMINATION DUST There were a hundred and seven of them, of all ages, shapes and sizes, from twenty-five- and thirty-year-olds in dresses that looked like they were made of Saran Wrap to a couple of big-beamed older types in pantsuits who could have been somebody's mother-and I mean somebody grown, with a goatee beard and a job at McDonald's. I was there to meet them when they came off the plane from Los Angeles, I and Peter Merchant, whose travel agency had arranged the whole weekend in partnership with a Beverly Hills concern, and there were a couple other guys there too, eager beavers like J. J. Hotel, and the bad element, by which I mean Bud Withers specifically, who didn't want to cough up the hundred fifty bucks for the buffet, the Malibu Beach party and the auction afterward. They were hoping for maybe a sniff of something gratis, but I was there to act as a sort of buffer and make sure that didn't happen. Peter was all smiles as we came up to the first of the ladies, Susan Abrams, by her nametag, and started handing out corsages, one to a lady, and chimed out in chorus, "Welcome to Anchorage, Land of the Grizzly and the True-Hearted Man!" Well, it was pretty corny-it was Peter's idea, not mine-and I felt a little foolish with the first few (hard-looking women, divorcées for sure, maybe even legal secretaries or lawyers into the bargain), but when I saw this little one with eyes the color of glacial melt about six deep in the line, I really began to perk up. Her nametag was done in calligraphy, hand-lettered instead of computer-generated like the rest of them, and that really tugged at me, the care that went into it, and I gave her hand a squeeze and said, "Hi, Jordy, welcome to Alaska," when I gave her the corsage. She seemed a little dazed, and I chalked it up to the flight and the drinks and the general party atmosphere that must certainly have prevailed on that plane, one hundred and seven single women on their way for...