Elsewhere(23)

Betty nods. And then she nods some more. The nodding seems to help Betty weigh what Liz said. "Whatever time you need, you should take," Betty says finally. In addition, Betty agrees, as Liz knew she would, to provide Liz with the money.

Properly funded with twentyfour eternims a day, Liz establishes a routine. The OD is close enough to Betty's house that Liz can walk there. She arrives every morning when it opens and stays every night until it closes.

Liz continues wearing the pajamas she wore on the SS Nile. She still hates them, but she doesn't want anything new. She sleeps in the pajamas as well, removing them only twice a week for Betty to wash.

Liz usually spreads out her two hours of OD time over the whole day, but sometimes she splurges and uses a couple eternims at a time. If something particularly interesting is happening, Liz spends all her eternims at once.

A typical day follows: fifteen minutes watching her parents and her brother in the morning (three eternims), forty-five minutes at school with her friends and her classes (nine eternims), a half hour with Zooey after school (six eternims), and the remaining half hour (six eternims) at her discretion.

Liz particularly likes when someone mentions her at school. At first, her classmates seem to speak of her quite frequently, but as time progresses (and not much time at that), the mentions become fewer and fewer. Only Edward, Liz's ex-boyfriend, and Zooey still speak of her with any regularity. Zooey and Edward weren't friends when Liz was alive; Zooey had even encouraged Liz to end the relationship. Liz feels gratified by the pair's sudden closeness.

Liz knows her family still thinks about her, but they rarely speak of her. She wishes they would talk about her more often. Her mother regularly sleeps in Liz's bed. Sometimes she wears Liz's clothes, too, even though they are tight on her. Liz's father, an anthropology professor at Tufts University, takes a leave of absence from the college. He starts watching talk shows all day and all night. He justifies his rampant talk-show watching by telling Liz's mother he is researching a book about why people like talk shows. Despite ample evidence that no one is amused, Alvy continues trying to entertain the family with his unique brand of rebus-style prop humor. Liz watches him enact "coming out of the closet," "shooting fish in a barrel," and "watching time stand still." She particularly enjoys the "melonhead" routine, a variation on the original "pothead" one, which involves a gutted cantaloupe and Alvy without pants.

Once, Liz watches her parents having sex, which she finds both disgusting and fascinating. Her mother cries at the end. Her father turns on the television to catch the last half hour of Montel.

The whole routine costs Liz less than one eternim.

Watching her parents, Liz thinks that she'll probably never have sex now. She'll probably spend the next fifteen years alone.

In between watching five-minute segments of the old world, Liz sometimes plays with the stitches over her ear. She can't bring herself to ask Betty where to go to have the stitches removed. She likes knowing they're there.

Liz is at the OD so often, she becomes familiar with the regulars.

There are the old ladies who knit, taking a casual peek in the binoculars every hour or so.

There are the frantic young mothers with their seemingly endless supplies of coins. The mothers remind Liz of slot-machine players she had once seen on a summer vacation to Atlantic City.

There are the businessmen who shout directions at the binoculars as if anyone back on Earth could hear them anyway. Liz is reminded of her father watching a football game and the silly way he would yell at the television.

There is a young man (still older than Liz) who comes once a week, on Thursday nights. Even though he comes at night, he always wears dark sunglasses. And he always sits at the same pair of binoculars, #17. He carries a leather pouch with precisely twelve eternims in it. On each visit the man stays one hour, no longer, and then leaves.

One night Liz decides to talk to him. "Who are you here to see?" she asks.

"Excuse me?" The young man turns around, startled.

"I see you here every week and I just wondered who you were here to see," Liz says.

The man nods. "My wife," he says after a moment.

"Aren't you too young to have a wife?" she asks.

"I wasn't always this young." He smiles sadly.

"Lucky you," she says, as she watches the man walk away. "See you next Thursday," she whispers too softly for him to hear.

As Liz is now spending all day, every day, at the OD, she becomes aware of just how uncomfortable the binoculars' metal stools are. On her way out one evening, she asks the attendant, Esther, about them.

"Well, Liz," Esther tells her, "when chairs are uncomfortable, it's usually a sign you've been sitting in them too long."

Time passes slowly and quickly. The individual hours, minutes, and seconds seem to drag on, yet nearly a month has passed. In this time, Liz has become an expert at refilling the slots for minimal interruption between five-minute segments. She has deep-set circles underneath her eyes from keeping her face pressed up against the binoculars.

Occasionally, Betty asks Liz if she's put any thought into an avocation.

"I'm still taking some time," Liz always answers.

Betty sighs. She doesn't want to press. "Thandiwe Washington called for you again. And Aldous Ghent."