Caves of Steel - Isaac Asimov [23]
“Please, Jessie. You see I’m perfectly all right.”
Jessie caught hold of herself with an effort. She said, shakily, “Your partner isn’t from your division, is he?”
“No,” replied Baley miserably. “He’s—a complete stranger.”
“How do I treat him?”
“Like anybody else. He’s just my partner, that’s all.”
He said it so unconvincingly, that Jessie’s quick eyes narrowed. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Come, let’s go back into the living room. It’ll begin to look queer.”
Lije Baley felt a little uncertain about the apartment now. Until this very moment, he had felt no qualms. In fact, he had always been proud of it. It had three large rooms; the living room, for instance, was an ample fifteen by eighteen. There was a closet in each room. One of the main ventilation ducts passed directly by. It meant a little rumbling noise on rare occasions, but, on the other hand, assured first-rate temperature control and well-conditioned air. Nor was it too far from either Personal, which was a prime convenience.
But with the creature from worlds beyond space sitting in the midst of it, Baley was suddenly uncertain. The apartment seemed mean and cramped.
Jessie said, with a gaiety that was slightly synthetic, “Have you and Mr. Olivaw eaten, Lije?”
“As a matter of fact,” said Baley, quickly, “Daneel will not be eating with us. I’ll eat, though.”
Jessie accepted the situation without trouble. With food supplies so narrowly controlled and rationing tighter than ever, it was good form to refuse another’s hospitality.
She said, “I hope you won’t mind our eating, Mr. Olivaw. Lije, Bentley, and I generally eat at the Community kitchen. It’s much more convenient and there’s more variety, you see, and just between you and me, bigger helpings, too. But then, Lije and I do have permission to eat in our apartment three times a week if we want to—Lije is quite successful at the Bureau and we have very nice status—and I thought that just for this occasion, if you wanted to join us, we would have a little private feast of our own, though I do think that people who overdo their privacy privileges are just a bit antisocial, you know.”
R. Daneel listened politely.
Baley said, with an undercover “shushing” wiggle of his fingers, “Jessie, I’m hungry.”
R. Daneel said, “Would I be breaking a custom, Mrs. Baley, if I addressed you by your given name?”
“Why, no, of course not.” Jessie folded a table out of the wall and plugged the plate warmer into the central depression on the table top. “You just go right ahead and call me Jessie all you feel like—uh—Daneel.” She giggled.
Baley felt savage. The situation was getting rapidly more uncomfortable. Jessie thought R. Daneel a man. The thing would be someone to boast of and talk about in Women’s Personal. He was good-looking in a wooden way, too, and Jessie was pleased with his deference. Anyone could see that.
Baley wondered about R. Daneel’s impression of Jessie. She hadn’t changed much in eighteen years, or at least not to Lije Baley. She was heavier, of course, and her figure had lost much of its youthful vigor. There were lines at the angles of the mouth and a trace of heaviness about her cheeks. Her hair was more conservatively styled and a dimmer brown than it had once been.
But that’s all beside the point, thought Baley, somberly. On the Outer Worlds the women were tall and as slim and regal as the men. Or, at least, the book-films had them so and that must be the kind of woman R. Daneel was used to.
But R. Daneel seemed quite unperturbed by Jessie’s conversation, her appearance, or her appropriation of his name. He said, “Are you sure that is proper? The name, Jessie, seems to be a diminutive. Perhaps its use is restricted to members of your immediate circle and I would be more proper if I used your full given name.”
Jessie, who was breaking open the insulating wrapper surrounding