“Like those last guys who told us we could cut our ad rates fifteen percent and more than make it up in volume?”
“Exactly. The Rainbow Painter’s job is simply to keep management’s hope alive, to convince them that the pot of gold exists. Legitimate facts to the contrary will not be admitted into evidence.”
Susan talks for a while about the fiasco that ensued after our last consulting firm left us all holding the bag when they moved on to their next corporate victim. Within a month, year-over-year advertising revenue was down twenty-three percent and we had to revert to our former pricing model to avert a complete disaster. Maybe it’s fun to relive this stuff for a minute or two. But suddenly, I’m bored. She’s going on too long and I want her to stop. I begin offering nonverbal cues to signal that I’d like her to wrap this up and get the hell out of my office. I start by looking in my Livingston Kidd folder and scanning last year’s proposal. Susan is unfazed. I pick up my pen and begin making notes in the margin.
I glance discreetly at my watch, wondering if I’ll have time to make any real progress on my project before the end of the day.
Finally I start tapping out pithy emails to the managers on my staff.
Pete, GREAT WORK on that IBM proposal! You rock!!
Meg, AMAZING ideas for Audi! Let’s discuss!!
Roger, LOVED what you did for Pfizer! I owe you one, buddy!!
Usually a few minutes of inattentiveness is all it takes for Susan to get the message.
“I’ve got to go,” she says, standing abruptly.
“Sorry. God, I hate it when people multitask,” I say. “Have I at least talked you off the ledge?” I ask.
“What do you mean?”
“When you came in you said you couldn’t take this place for another fucking second.”
“Yeah, I’m off the ledge.”
“And you’ll be here Monday?”
“I’ll be here.”
“And you’ll read that article?”
“I’ll read it.”
After Susan leaves, I take a few minutes to reread the article I gave her and commend myself for introducing another reader to the extraordinarily perceptive work of Christopher Finchley.
There’s one more thing I need to do today. I summon Angela into my office. She arrives clutching a reporter’s notebook and pen.
“Hi, Mr. Wiley,” she says in her whispery young voice.
“Russell’s fine,” I say. “Come on in.”
Angela stands facing me across my desk. She’s wearing a tight white T-shirt and low-front stretch jeans. Her skin is a deep, dark brown. Her lips are painted a glittery purple. Between her breasts, her T-shirt is decorated with a small gold star.
I gaze at her with studied impassivity, resting my chin on my thumbs, pressing my steepled fingers against my face. Angela seems to enjoy awkward silences as much as she enjoys every other moment of her day. I’m not sure she is aware how much she has stirred everybody up. As the executive supposedly managing her, I have already heard a litany of complaints from Barbara and other female colleagues who tell me she is:
“Not focused on her work.”
“Spending all day on the phone.”
“Flirting with the mailroom guys.”
“Nowhere to be found.”
“Leaving nothing to the imagination.”
So far, none of the men have complained, though I sense an air of melancholy in some cubicles each time Angela—with all her youth and beauty and happiness and potential—passes by.
“I just thought I should check in with you,” I say. “Have a chat. See how you’re getting on.”
Angela smiles, displaying perfect white teeth. “Everything’s great,” she says. “I really like it here.”
“You’re fitting in OK? We’re keeping you busy?”
“Oh yes,” she says. “Everyone has been really nice. I’m learning a lot.”
I swivel from side to side in my chair. She sways slowly where she stands, a gentle rotation of the hips. Her eyes are incredibly round. She is breathing deeply through her nose. Barbara thinks it’s my responsibility to inform Angela that she’s a walking example of “What Not to Wear.” But I don’t quite see how I can bring the topic up without embarrassing either or both of us to a painful degree. Why the hell hasn’t one of the women in the office taken Angela aside and told her to cover herself up? What’s wrong with everyone? Why is everything left to me?
“You don’t find it cold in here, do you?” I ask.
“Not at all. It’s always too hot at my house. I love it here.”
“That’s great. Perhaps you could make me two photocopies of each of these presentations?” I ask, handing her a stack of documents. “It’s just that the photocopier on this side is acting up.”
“No problem, Mr. Wiley.”
“Russell,” I say again. “No rush. Monday will be fine.”
“Anything else…Russell?” she says, in a way that makes me appreciate how great men are sometimes brought low by the folly of lust.
“That’s all. Thanks.” I watch her walk to the door, then blurt, “In case it does get too cold, you’ll notice a lot of the women here like to keep a sweater on the back of their chair.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Sam’s in the shower when I get home. I sit on the couch, skimming through the mail, studying the charges on our joint credit card. As usual, she has spent several hundred dollars at local stores and various online merchants.
“Are you getting changed, or are you going like that?” She’s standing with one towel wrapped around her body, another around her hair.
“We’re going out?”
“Jesus, Russell. It’s Shila’s birthday. We’re going to Magnolia with her and Judy, Zoe and Max.”
“Oh, right. Sorry. I forgot.” I stand up, walk to her, open my arms to hold her.
“Don’t touch me with all your subway germs,” she says. Her face is shiny with moisturizer.
I head to the bathroom, wash my hands and face, roll on some deodorant, brush my teeth as well.
In the bedroom, Sam’s sitting on her stool at her makeup mirror, plucking. I nuzzle the side of her neck, holding her through the towel. Gently. Innocently. Below the breasts. She waits for me to finish, tweezers hovering in midair.
I step away, strip to my underwear, lie back on our bed. “What time do we have to go?” I ask.
She positions the mirror to look at me without turning. “Soon,” she says, giving me the magnified eyeball.
I heave myself back up and reach into the wardrobe for my jeans.
At dinner, she hangs her cardigan on the back of her chair. She’s wearing a sleeveless dress, drinking wine, laughing more than anyone at Max’s feeble jokes. There’s a candle on Shila’s dessert and we all sing “Happy Birthday.” As a group we treat Shila to her meal. Sam’s and my share tops two hundred bucks.
At home, she says the wine has made her woozy. She’s tired and needs to sleep. She undresses in the dark, slipping into her purple T-shirt before turning on the light to hang her dress.
While she’s at the bathroom mirror, I reach around her, grab the floss and rip off a section. Something from the credit card statement has been nagging at me all night.
“You spent fifty-nine dollars at Classmates.com?”
She spits toothpaste and grabs the edges of the sink. “Jesus, you’re so fucking cheap sometimes. It was a three-year subscription. It’s the best deal they offer.”
“I’m just asking.”
“This is why I need my own credit card. I’m sick of you scrutinizing everything I buy.”
I could tell her to get her own credit card and a separate checking account to go with it. I could also suggest a pay-as-you-go budget amendment that puts a limit on her monthly spending. Instead, I retreat to the living room. I floss slowly, waiting for her to leave the bathroom. I wrap my floss in a tissue. I stretch my arms above my head, then reach over my left shoulder to massage the achy spot on my upper back. Sam turns off the bathroom light and heads to the bedroom. The clock on the cable box counts off two more minutes. I wait for her to switch off the light on her side of the bed. I wait a minute more before heading quietly into the bedroom.
“Ow! What are you doing? Stop that. What time is it?”
“Come on,” says Sam. Having thrown open the curtains, she’s now pulling at the comforter. “It’s the one day we have together. We need to go to the greenmarket, then the grocery store. And I want you to get the laundry done by twelve so we can get to Bed Bath & Beyond and back before we go to Julie and Fergus’s.”
Our apartment’s on the top floor of an elevator building. Our bedroom faces the back. Lying in bed, when I take my forearm away my eyes, it’s possible to look through the lead-paned glass and see nothing but sky.
“Can’t we do Bed now and Bath and Beyond later? Like you said, it’s our one day together.”
“Don’t start. There isn’t time.”
“What do you mean? It’s not even eight yet.”
“We’ve got a lot to get done. My head is pounding. Work with me, OK?”
I stretch out diagonally across the bed, then prop myself on my elbows. Sam is undoing the buttons of the comforter cover so she can throw it into the laundry pile. “You know what makes Fergus jealous?” I say. “The thought that you and I can luxuriate in bed together on a Saturday morning. No screaming kids. No diapers to change. No ‘Blue’s Clues Nora Squarepants’ to watch.”
“We still have a lot to do, Russell.”
“I just thought you should know how Fergus imagines us. He thinks we’re just two young lovers without a care in the world. Taking advantage of a relaxing Saturday morning. Enjoying a slow journey of mutual exploration through the exquisite contours of each other’s bodies.”
“You think talking like that’s going to help?”
Sam’s already dressed for outdoors. A blue T-shirt, khaki shorts, sneakers. She reaches in a drawer for her Boston University baseball cap, puts it on, and clips it so her short ponytail pokes through the space in the back.
“What do we need at Bed Bath & Beyond anyway?” I ask.
By three o’clock we are on Fergus and Julie’s doorstep. They live with their son and daughter in a small two bedroom on a quiet side street in Cobble Hill.
Fergus opens the door with his three-year-old girl perched on his elbow.
“Hi, Beryl!” I say enthusiastically. “Haven’t you grown? Where’s your big brother Angus?” I want to emphasize for Fergus’s benefit that I have memorized his kids’ names like a best friend should.
While Beryl buries her face in his neck, Fergus gives me a one-armed hug and Sam a peck on her cheek. Beryl was an ugly baby, but she seems cuter now—a miniature humanoid who may eventually grow up looking OK.
Julie shouts from the bedroom, telling us to sit down, she’ll be right out. We join Angus on the sectional couch. He’s a roly-poly looking kid with a round head and straight brown hair cut in pudding-bowl style. He’s dressed in soccer gear, twiddling the knobs of an Etch-a-Sketch.
“Hey, Angus. What you drawing, buddy?”
“I’m not drawing,” he says. “I’m sulking.”
“Just ignore him,” says Julie. “Wow. You look fabulous.” She’s talking to Sam, who is looking fabulous, wearing her hair down, doing her best Winona Ryder in a retro-looking cotton print dress. Julie adds, “Of course, I’m still a giant tub of lard.”
“Stop,” says Sam, in place of a more definitive contradiction. She hugs Julie, which only reinforces their physical differences. Julie used to refer to herself as big-boned even before she had kids. These days she’s a particularly imposing figure. Heavy but solid looking, Julie carries her bulk better than Fergus does his. Fergus has had a history of sympathetic weight gain during, between and since Julie’s two pregnancies. Fergus was always smarter, stronger and better looking than me at school. Now he seems to have settled into a premature middle age, with not much thought given to working out.
Sam presents Angus and Beryl with the gifts she’s brought: a remote-controlled car for Angus and a cuddly monkey for Beryl.
“Thank you,” says Angus, giving Sam a sulky kiss. He takes his new toy into the corner of the room.
“Look, Mommy,” says Beryl before tossing the monkey aside and walking over to see what her brother is doing.
Fergus goes to boil water for herbal tea.
We sit with our teas and the plate of assorted cookies Fergus also serves. In the corner of the room, a cartoon movie plays on the TV screen, the sound turned unintelligibly low. Before long, Angus has his car whizzing around the floor, crashing into table legs and adults’ feet. He seems to have stopped sulking. Beryl chases the car for a while and after that decides to run around in random spurts making high-pitched shrieks until she collapses on the floor and starts pushing the beeping buttons of a battered electronic toy.
Once the antics of the children become too boring and repetitive to be worthy of our encouragements or commentaries, Sam and Julie take fresh cups of tea into the master bedroom so they can chat. Fergus and I reminisce about things we did half a lifetime ago, recollecting youthful stupidities and congratulating ourselves for living in the pre-MySpace-Facebook era. In our college days, we had no means to create embarrassing online profiles or post photos, videos and blog entries of our escapades. If we had, those best-forgotten moments would surely, we agree, haunt us still.
There’s a break in our conversation. I sense our minds drifting in different directions, like our lives did after college. We look over at Angus, who is instructing Beryl to stack some building blocks on a small stool.
These days Fergus is assistant editor at the monthly magazine
Vicious Circle
. Because of its erratic editorial content—which includes a mix of liberal commentary, anti-globalism rants and video game reviews—the magazine has always struggled to find either an audience or a solid base of advertisers.
Fourteen months ago Fergus interrupted a similar lull in one of our conversations by asking me if I wanted to write an article for him.
I did. I produced a gripping, reality-based, names-changed-to-protect-the-innocent account of the dramas that ensued after Henry announced we were consolidating office space by forty percent. Fergus added the headline “Cubicle Size Matters.” Then he offered me a byline and a monthly column.