“I get it, I get it!” one of the girls giggled. Her jacket was a shell of sequins around a bubbling core of young person. “This is like Calvin Coolidge, right? Isn’t there some story about Coolidge not talking much?”
Jim arched an eyebrow and nodded in the direction of the restrooms.
“Silent Cal,” her friend agreed. She had big hair that looked like it would coordinate well with the suit and tie of the wizard Adrian. Fashion, like everything else, was a boring, unstoppable cycle.
“And at this party, right? This woman comes up to President Coolidge and says ‘I bet my friend I can get you to say more than two words,’” she seemed proud of herself for remembering this banal story about a dead, unimportant president. Jane remembered Calvin Coolidge; the best she could say about him was that he didn’t have delusions of grandeur.
Which, on reflection, was an unusual quality in a politician.
Jim smiled politely and kept walking towards the hallway. He clenched and unclenched his fists, which Jane read as a sign that he was itching for action and wished he had a weapon in his hand. She was happier, of course, that he didn’t. She stumbled onto the tracks a few feet away, feigning drunkenness, as Jim reached the little plank bridge. She saw clearly now that he had something under his shirt, against his belly.
“What was Coolidge’s answer?” Big Hair looked like she was on the edge of her seat.
“You lose,” Jane said, and she stabbed Jim with both knives.
She’d heard the story, too.
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