Si, carrying his glass, moved over to the stool next to her. “Call me Si,” he said. “Everybody calls me Si.”
She said, “I’m Natalie. Natalie Paskov. Just Natalie. Imagine meeting Seymour Pond. Just sitting down next to him at a bar. Just like that.”
“Si,” Si said, gratified. Holy Zoroaster, he’d never seen anything like this rarefied pulchritude. Maybe on TV, of course, one of the current s*x symbols, but never in person. “Call me Si,” he said again. “I been called Si so long, I don’t even know who somebody’s talking to if they say Seymour.”
“I cried when they gave you that antique watch,” she said, her tone such that it was obvious she hadn’t quite adjusted as yet to having met him.
Si Pond was surprised. “Cried?” he said. “Well, why? I was kind of bored with the whole thing. But old
