Charlie was back today, looking tan and fit but oddly subdued. He and Shelly apparently got in very late, about 2:00 AM.

He got upset about the fact that I had taken a bunch of Heinlein photos down to Sorber’s to be retouched and framed. (Which was exactly what Shelly had told me to do over the phone, presumably because it was exactly what Charlie had told her to tell me to do.) I had to phone Sorber’s and get them to call the photos back so I can pick them up tomorrow.

Then he couldn’t find the Nebula photos. Last I saw, they were on his desk, but they weren’t there this morning. No idea what happened to them.

Shelly says that the goal this month is to get the first section done by the 10th. Charlies is planning two back-to-back parties at the end of the month, one to celebrate his birthday, the other to celebrate Locus’ 20th anniversary.

My guess is that Charlie and Shelly had been at BayCon in San Jose.

“Nebula Photos” referred to photographs of recent Nebula award winners.

As for the Heinlein photos, by 1988 I always repeated Charlie’s instructions back to him after he delivered them verbally. It annoyed the living Hell out of him, but he had a habit of denying he’d said what he said. Getting him to repeat his instructions not only aided my understanding, but provided an atom of insurance against him storming into the back office later and demanding to know why I had done whatever it was he regretted asking me to do. I probably did the same with Shelly if she were giving detailed instructions over the phone involving photos of a major Golden Age science fiction writer.

By this time, I was well past the “Gee, it MIGHT be my fault” stage of dealing with a mercurial and unreasonable employer.