Hulk

if concerned that something might leap out at him.
And then his face darkened to storm-cloud intensity, thereby confirming the aptness of his nickname.
“Find Talbot,” he growled.
“So how do you find me after all this time?” asked Talbot.
Betty sat across from him at their table at the French restaurant Chez Robin, idly fiddling with the escargots and wondering what in God’s name had possessed her to order them. Several tables over, a violinist was leaning in toward a young couple. The girl was smiling with perfect teeth as the violinist’s bow moved deftly over the violin’s strings, while her young escort was trying to check subtly through his pockets to see if he had a few bucks to give the guy for a tip. For some reason Betty considered the entire scene to be remarkably funny. She glanced over at Glen, realizing he had addressed her, and imagined he was Bruce as she said, “I’m sorry. What?”
He took a long sip of the wine they’d ordered, but never took his eyes off her. She had to admit the ambience of the place was really quite nice. “I asked you what you thought of me,” he repeated.
She had to laugh at that. “I’ll give you credit, Glen,” she said, putting down the tiny utensil she was using to prize a snail from its shell and writing off the snails as an experiment that just hadn’t panned out. “Most guys wouldn’t be foolish enough to ask the woman sitting in front of them what she thought of them. But not you. You go right for the old, ‘But enough about me, let’s talk about you. What do you think of me?’ ploy. That’s a sure winner.”
“I wasn’t trying to ‘win’ you in any way, Betty,” he said. The flickering candle from the centerpiece was reflected in his eyes and, for some reason, creeped her out. “I was, at most, hoping to acquire the talents of both you and Bruce for Atheon. I mean”—and he took another sip, then leaned back—“does part of me wish that it had worked out differently for you and me? Yes, of course. But I’m not one for belaboring the past or wishing I could rewrite it. What’s done is done. I care only about the future . . . as does Atheon.”
At that moment, a pager went off. Betty reflexively checked hers, but Talbot was already pulling his out from his jacket pocket, looking apologetic as he did so. He glanced at the number, sighed, and said, “Excuse me. I’ll be right back.”
“Do you need a phone?”
“No, I have a cell phone. I just never give the number out; only the pager’s. Besides, I hate it when people sit at tables in restaurants and chatter away on cell phones, don’t you?”
“I’ve never given it any thought,” she replied.
He got up and hastened quickly to find a place where he could have some privacy. Betty watched him go, and then noticed that the middle-aged man sitting at the next table was laughing and speaking far too loudly on his cell phone. “Hey,” she snapped at him, “could you keep it down? Do you have any idea how annoying that is?”
In response, the man flipped her an obscene gesture, angled himself so that his back was to her, and kept right on talking. She considered pouring her glass of wine over his head, but decided that would be gauche.
It seemed long minutes passed before Talbot finally returned. Betty looked up at him, and he seemed a bit put out. “Problem?” she asked.
“Oh, no. No,” he replied, “nothing I can’t handle. Actually, I got a message from someone who might interest you.”
“Really.” She neither felt nor sounded interested.
“Yes. Your father. He wants to chat.”
Betty almost knocked over her drink. She caught the glass of wine just before it spilled all over the pristine white tablecloth. She was quite aware that Glen was trying to hide a smirk resulting from her reaction and wasn’t quite doing a good job of it. “Oh, he does. How nice for you both. He hasn’t wanted to chat with me in quite some time.”
“Would you have listened, or wanted to, if he had?”
The question was a bit too pointed for her taste. She scowled as she said, “I don’t see how that’s any of your business, Glen.”
“You’re right. You’re very right.” He leaned forward. “You’re my business, Betty. You and Bruce.”
“Which one of us are you more interested in?” she asked.
He smiled. “I just want what’s best for you, Betty. I always have. When you were younger, I don’t think you really understood that. But now that we’re both older and wiser, perhaps you do.”
“You know what the funny thing is, Glen? Some people grow older, but not wiser.”
“That’s very true.”
“So—” She swirled the liquid around in her glass. “Just what does my father want to ‘chat’ with you about?”
“Why, Betty,” said Glen, as if he were pouncing on an opening, “I don’t see that’s any of your business.”
She grimaced slightly, then nodded and said, “Touché, Glen. Touché.”
The violinist was suddenly playing in her ear. She turned, gave him a look that would have ignited tungsten, and said in a voice dripping with honey, “If you don’t move away, I’m going to shove that bow so far up your—”
He moved away.
“That’s what I’ve always loved about you, Betty,” said Talbot, raising his glass in a toast. “You always know just what to say, on any occasion.”
The rest of the dinner went more or less as Glen Talbot anticipated it would, which was unfortunate but not unexpected. Betty made polite chitchat, was noncommittal about the notion of moving to Atheon, and was obviously fighting to restrain herself from asking about her father.
Glen shook his head in mute astonishment. It didn’t matter how bright a woman was, or at least thought she was: They were all still very much the same, and all still very predictable, no matter how much they fancied they were mysteries to