The Atomic City Page #3

who ought to know

how to say hello to his wife.

Hello.

Hello.

What time we due at the dance?

You want to go?

I think it's what we both need.

I'll call for a sitter.

You usually phone before this.

Hey. What's boiling up inside you, honey?

If we're going to the dance,

I'll need a sitter.

It'll keep. First,

let's find out about you.

This is the first hint I've had

that you didn't like living here.

Oh, I didn't mean it to sound like that.

You know I love our home, our friends.

I'm proud of you, getting to the top,

all the recognition you've won.

It's been wonderful for all of us.

But what, honey?

Can't be the barbed wire and the signs...

Not after six years.

What is it?

Nothing that makes sense.

Well, then...

Talk nonsense, but tell me.

Maybe we've been forgetting Tommy.

He's spent all but one year

of his life in Los Alamos.

You make it sound like Siberia.

What's wrong with living here?

Good schools, good climate...

Good companionship.

Everything a normal kid wants and needs.

Are you sure, Frank?

Sure.

I've been wondering

whether living in this atmosphere

is normal life for a child.

There are 4,000 kids living in town.

They look normal to me.

I don't know. When I was a child,

I'd say to my mother,

"When I grow up, I'll be a nurse,"

or "When I grow up, I'll be a doctor."

It was always, "when I grow up."

All kids talk like that.

Tommy doesn't.

Tommy doesn't say "when."

Today at lunch, he said, "if I grow up."

If he grows up... How normal is that?

Darling, you're magnifying a slip of

the tongue into something gigantic.

No, it wasn't a slip of the tongue.

Tommy doesn't talk about the future.

Children in normal surroundings do.

You did. I did.

[doorbell chimes]

I'll get it.

Addison?

Sign here, please.

Thank you.

Frank?

Frank!

[speaking Spanish]

Excuse me, please.

Where's the nearest telephone?

Across the patio, seorita.

Thank you.

[speaking Spanish]

Yes. Yes.

I'm very sorry, miss Haskell.

Tommy should've told you

he was going to leave early.

I picked him up outside the hotel.

But, dr. Addison,

you had no right to do that.

I ran all over the fiesta

looking for him. It was horrible.

Tommy deserves a paddling

for not telling me.

I'm sorry. I'm to blame.

You certainly are. It was completely

thoughtless of you.

I'm sorry.

Tommy's ticket won the bicycle.

Oh?

Oh, h-he'll be very happy he won.

Tell him he has

one week to claim the bicycle.

No, I... Can't tell him now. He...

He--he went to the store with his mother.

He'll have to present the ticket

in the lobby of the La Fonda.

They're keeping the unclaimed prizes there.

He must appear in person by next Saturday.

Yes. I'll tell Tommy.

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