From Here to Paternity

feeling quite refreshed. She took Willard out for a bit of a run and was just coming back when Mike and Mel showed up. Their faces were sunburned and Mel was limping along, exhausted.
    “Did you have fun? Did you get hurt?“ she asked.
    “It was great, Mom!“ Mike said. “And I did great for a first-timer.“
    “He sure did,“ Mel agreed. “I couldn’t believe how he took to it.“
    “I met a girl I’m taking out to dinner, Mom, if that’s okay,“ Mike said.
    “Sure. Whatever.“
    Mike bounded across the parking lot to the men’s quarters. Mel said wearily, “I’m a hundred and four years old. I could have been beaten with a baseball bat and feel better than I do now. Do you have any idea how much work skiing can be?“
    “I thought you’d done this before.“
    “I had. Lots. When I was about Mike’s age. Centuries ago.“
    “Then go take a hot bath and you’ll feel better.“
    “I’d just drown,“ Mel said grumpily. “Why are you so damned perky?“
    “Perky? Why, Mel, nobody’s called me perky in ages. I had a nap.“
    “A nap,“ he said, his expression misty and filled with longing.
    “Go take one yourself. It’s a vacation. You can do whatever you want.“
    He put his arm around her waist and leered. “Not exactly anything . Not on this vacation anyhow, surrounded as we are by your children.“
    “Well, nearly anything. I’m going to rescue Shelley from the genealogists and see if the boys have suffered any permanent mental disability from a day with the video games. I’ll come fetch you later and we’ll have a nice dinner, okay?“
    Mel agreed and limped off.
    By the time Jane found the meeting room where the debate was going on, it was over. Applause spilled out into the hallway as she approached. The door was flung open and Doris Schmidtheiser plunged out, her movements jerky, her big angular face red and working with emotion. Though Jane tried to dodge her, they collided. Papers and folders flew everywhere.
    Jane knelt to help Doris pick them up. The older woman muttered tearfully, “I’m sorry. I wasn’t looking…“
    “Quite all right. But I’m afraid you’re going to have a time sorting this all out—“
    But Doris wasn’t listening. She’d grabbed an armload of papers, hoisted herself up and was practically running away.
    Jane picked up the rest of the papers, tamped them down, and slipped them into an accordian-type folder Doris had dropped. She’d get them to her later, when Doris had calmed down. Jane peeked into the doorway and spotted Shelley. She waved a greeting and then got out of the emerging audience’s way.
    “What a rout,“ Shelley whispered when she joined Jane in the hallway.
    “Mrs. Schmidtheiser ran into me as she came out. She was really upset,“ Jane said. “What in the world happened in there?“
    “Let’s go have a glass of wine by the pool,“ Shelley suggested.
    When they were comfortably settled with tall tulip glasses of white wine, Shelley said, “I don’t know exactly what happened. Most of the debate was like a foreign language to me. All sorts of sources were flung around. The genealogists, of course, knew the relative merits of them. I didn’t have a clue. But it was apparent that Gortner got the best of poor old Doris at every turn. I don’t think it was that he had a better case—although I could be wrong—but that he had a more scathing manner and presentation. You know—the kind of thing where you don’t present your own side as much as you make fun of everything the other guy says.“
    Jane nodded. “The kind of thing kids are great at.“
    “Exactly. It was like watching a pretentiously clever teenager make fun of somebody. It was pathetic. Doris would trot out some document and flash it on the overhead projection screen and go on in a deadly manner for a while. Then Gortner would make some slick, dismissive comment like, “Surely you’re not suggesting that this qualifies as a primary source…?“ And the audience would laugh.“
    “Of course they would,“ Jane said. “That’s a line that always brings the house down.“
    Shelley shrugged elaborately. “I don’t explain ‘em, I just report ‘em. I have no idea what’s funny about that. It was hideous. Poor old Doris. Not that she didn’t manage to get in a few slugs of her own.“
    “What do you mean?“
    “Oh, sort of loony, dark allusions to ‘enemies within’ and that sort of thing. Suggestions that others in the Holnagrad Society