Home, Story List, Previous Story, Next Story
Emma hoisted a massive wad of noodles from the bowl, splashing soup generously on the laminex table, and wound them around her chopsticks. Kathy lifted up a Buddhist Heavenly Vegetable and inspected it closely, as if she suspected it of consorting with meat. Petra frowned a little as she deftly shelled a prawn.
Sue wasn’t eating. "My diet says its my liquids only day," she said, sipping at her glass of white wine.
Petra frowned again: an it’s not important but I’m supposed to worry about it frown. "My sister’s pregnant," she said.
"So what’s the problem?" Sue asked. "She must be used to it by now."
"It’s not Athena," Petra said. "It’s Juliana. It’s her first."
"So what? Your family isn’t exactly noted for difficult pregnancies."
"She’s a worrier," Petra said, "so she had that new test done. The one where, when it gets to four cells, they grab one, and it tells you everything from the colour of its eyes to its star sign."
"And the baby comes out with its top left corner missing," Sue said.
"I don’t think so," Petra said, in a that’s not funny voice.
"Or is it just three quarters of normal size?" said Sue, ignoring her. "That’d make the birth easier."
"Does it develop hyperactive growth hormones to catch up," Emma suggested, "so that when it’s seven it’s my size?" She looked down at her vast bulk with pride.
"That’s not the problem," Petra said. Her voice became grim. "It’s got the salesperson gene."
There was a hush at the table. Even Emma’s last remaining noodle froze, waiting in vain for its impending doom.
"I thought that was an American shock horror medical beat-up," Kathy said.
Petra shook her head. "The doctor told Juliana that the research is pretty conclusive. They did a whole lot of tests on twins that are insurance salesmen, and found the same DNA pattern. And they’ve confirmed since that 98% of real estate agents and politicians have it, too."
"Has Des had a hand in this?" Emma asked. "He’s been seen in some strange places since he broke up with Sue."
Petra shook her head. "Juliana’s husband is a diplomat," she said.
"So what happens with kids with the gene?" Sue asked. "Do they flog off their kid sisters at the school fete?"
Petra nodded. "Something like that. It’s the same as boy children being innately violent. They learn to lie before they start to talk, they cheat at putting round pegs into square holes, and when they’re teenagers, they always promise to be home before midnight, because they know that’s what their parents want to hear."
"Can’t they deal with it at school?" Sue asked. "I thought that they were supposed to provide training in Adequate Socialisation these days."
"That’s in between the Lesson on Drug Abuse and the boat trip to explore Sexual Harassment is it?" Kathy asked.
"It doesn’t work that way," Petra said. "They’re fully qualified teachers’ pets, before you can blink. Or the larrikin with the big smile. That’s why girls with the gene are no good at maths — they think it’ll wreck their image with the boys."
"Is the baby a girl?" Emma asked.
"No," Petra said.
"That must be a load off her mind. Having a kid with a gene like that would be in breach of feminist solidarity," Sue said.
"That’s the least of her problems," Petra said. "She’s got legal advice that if she has it, the kid’s got a good case for maternal malfeasance. Improper selection of father."
"Is she still living with the guy?" Emma asked.
Petra nodded.
Emma smiled. "Then if I was a smart lawyer, I’d get in now. Quick judge in chambers. Get myself appointed the kid’s advocate. Because where the mother’s concerned, there’s a clear conflict of interest between her relationship with her husband and that with the child."
"I wouldn’t," Sue said. "Because if that kid’s even half as revolting as Petra says it’s going to be, there’s only going to be one winner, and it won’t be the lawyer."
"So what happens to kids like that?" Kathy said. "They can’t all sell real estate."
"There’s always used cars," Sue suggested. "Stockbrokers, entrepreneurs, peace negotiators ...
"I can’t see what your sister’s worried about," Emma said. "Where I work, the salespeople go a long way ... like right to the top. You get promoted for what you say you’re going to do — not for what you do."
"So she’s going to sit back and let the brat destroy the world," Kathy said. "Chair committees the facilitate destruction of the ozone layer. Run conferences on overpopulation. Fund long-term investigations of the rise in sea level."
"You could make a lot of money out of that," Emma pointed out. "Run a sweep on exactly when Kiribati goes under. Or when it’s no longer safe to step outside in the daytime. Or the date we grow gills so we can breathe carbon monoxide."
"That’s what they ought to apply their genetics to," Sue said. "Grow people with longer legs. And thicker skins."
"Sounds revolting," Petra said. "Like a sort of humanoid giraffe fish. Not cuddly."
Emma searched the remaining inch of soup with her chopsticks, hoping that another noodle might have materialised. "The kid’s not going to wipe out civilisation as we know it single-handed," she said.
Kathy shook her head. "But you know what salespeople are like. They get together. They congregate. Sales Teams. Task Forces. Negotiating sessions. Peace Conferences. Parliaments. Synods. Conspiracies. Cabals ..."
"So we should wipe out all salespeople?"
"Preferably."
"Hear. Hear." said Sue.
"Isn’t that an infringement of their civil liberties?" Emma said.
"And isn’t a corn flakes ad interrupting a steamy love scene an infringement of yours?"
Petra dismembered her last prawn.
"I think that you’re missing something," she said.
She chewed for a moment.
"Salespeople spend half their lives getting themselves into sticky situations ..."
"When they’ve told one lie too many, you mean?" Kathy said.
Petra nodded. "And how do they get out of them?"
"They talk fast. Try to make their victim feel important, wanted — give them a warm feeling inside, so they get conned anyway."
"And what do you think that kid’s doing to Juliana right now? It’s pumping her full of hormones — warm, maternal, isn’t it lovely hormones..."
"O to be a mother, now that baby’s here," Sue said.
"Precisely."
Emma lifted up her glass, so the sun glinted in the wine. "Then let’s drink to the end of the world," she said.
Copyright © D.W. Walker, 1993