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ness. And to the pleasure of the president and his aides, the pending legislation that he had supported successfully passed both houses of Congress. |
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While Matty was recovering, Charlie Cobb visited Calvin in the hospital and offered him his old job back with a $5,000 increase. To Charlie's dismay, Calvin accepted. He had called Robin Priest at NYPI and withdrawn his acceptance of the endowed post. He could not accept a job engineered by Julius Wick. Priest denied knowing anything about the circumstances; in fact, he told Calvin that, no insult intended, his department had protested the usurpation of their selection powers by the anonymous director. "Well," Calvin told him, "I guess it works out for us all." Priest could pass the offer on to his own choice of candidates, Matty would not be forced to move away, and Calvin was back at Middlesex pulling down his age plus four. |
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Financially, Calvin's family still fared well, since they had over $600,000 of the Wicks' money in their bank account. For a few weeks, while living out of their hotel, Calvin and Terry looked at houses. By mid-July they had found a place in Wellesley. Meanwhile, the backyard of their old place had been torn up. Some twenty-seven containers of various sizes had been removed and destroyed by the EPA, while the aquifer was decontaminated using Wick's own apparatus. Water tests showed that the Black Flag substance had not leached into the main wells that served Carleton and the surrounding towns. |
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The morning of Matty's release from Children's Hospital was a glorious June day. |
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Matty was in a chair watching television when Calvin and Terry arrived, holding hands. Terry had forgiven Calvin, grateful Matty was alive and they were whole again. Calvin's lapse of sexual interest was clearly related to the hormonal substance in the water. The excess in his case had apparently created antigens that reduced his testosterone level and thereby, his potency. By the Fourth of July he was his own best firecracker. |
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