"Honey, I don't think you should say things like that." "Yeah? Well, I don't think you should hear voices either. Why don't you see a doctor? My God, consider somebody else's feelings for a change. How do you think it would make _me_ feel, having a husband everybody knew was mentally ill? Around _this_ town? That never occurred to you, did it? You're too busy thinking of yourself. _I_ try to get you to go to a doctor. _I_ worry about it until I'm practically sick myself. But, oh no, you're all right. You just hear voices, that's all. So you don't care what anybody else is going through. Not you." Harry sat very still. Then slowly he stood up. "Put your coat on," he said. "What do you mean, put--?" "Just what I said. Put your _coat_ on." "Oh, Harry, stop. I don't like to be talked to like that and you know it." "Edith." He walked across the room until he was standing very close to her. "Edith, put your coat on and get in the car. We're going into New York and you're going to hear Van Richie on that radio if I have to tie you to the seat." "You're out of your mind. You must be out of your mind! Have you been drinking or something?" He stepped closer. Instinctively she stepped back. They stared at each other. After a moment, she went over to the closet. "Well, if that's the way you're going to be," she said, taking down her hat and coat. "I still say it's the silliest thing...." He found the corners of his mouth were dry. His knees felt watery. But he drove steadily and surely through the heavy traffic. She kept repeating how silly it was. He showed her the theatre with Van Richie's name out front. They drove back and forth along his homeward route. Three times they heard Van Richie sing. On the way back, she began talking again. "Shut up," he said, without raising his voice, without looking at her. She gasped. But she knew enough to remain silent. The critics called it the best musical since _My Fair Lady_. They had special praise for Van Richie: "He has made the transition from crooner to comedian with grace and style ... the years have left the familiar voice intact." "Bless our boy Ben," Feldt said. He sat on the bed, the newspapers strewn on the floor at his feet. The cast party crashed and roared in the next room. "Van Richie and His Electric Voice," Richie said, dropping the phone back in the cradle. He'd been trying to call California since midnight. "Now, listen," Feldt said. "I know, I know. It's a hit. Sure." Richie was looking out the window. The senior producer's apartment commanded a view of two-thirds of Manhattan. The blinking signals of a plane headed for Idlewild. A set of lights far downtown told him it was 1:57. Seconds later it told him the temperature was 39 degrees. "What now?" Feldt asked. "What?" "The big sigh." "Oh, I was just thinking. How it's all different this time." "We're all thirty years older, dad." "No. Something else, too. The--what would you call it--the immediacy?"