The Easy Way Out (39 page)

Excited by the news, I was tempted to go against order, throw Fields's caution to the winds, and call his office. Instead I ran in and told Sharon my good news. She was combing her hair by the window, surrounded by a cloud of murky sunlight and cigarette smoke.
“I told you something would work out,” she said. “Something always works out in this business. The travel industry is too insignificant for real tragedy. Although I suppose it's still possible the plane could crash at takeoff, the most fitting end.”

*   *   *

When I got home from work that night, Arthur was knee-deep in crumpled newspapers, bubble wrap, and empty cartons. I fell onto the sofa, panic-stricken by the sight of him. A few days earlier, I'd told him the closing date of the house was inconvenient and asked if we could have it postponed.

“This isn't a wedding shower,” he'd said, and I quickly dropped the subject.

I told him I'd solved one of my biggest problems at work that day. “And right at the last possible second,” I said, “just the way I like it. It makes me feel so hopeful.”

He was wrapping a lamp in layers of newspapers. “Hopeful about what?” he asked.

I thought about it for a minute and realized that what I meant was hopeful that something would happen to stall or cancel the purchase of the house. But he was sitting on the floor in front of me with his head bent down, and the overhead light was bouncing off his bald pate, and I couldn't bring myself to mention it.

“Perhaps you should try solving some of your problems at home,” Arthur suggested. “I don't know how you think you're going to get all your packing done in time.” He looked up at me and smiled. “You won't believe how much better you'll feel once it's done, sweetheart. Trust me.”

Thirty-four

I
waited for Fields to call again, but he stubbornly refused. Two days later, he showed up at Only Connect in person, and I welcomed him into my office with such a firm handshake and sincere grin that he shrank back from me as if I were about to rip off his clothes and knock him to the floor.

“I'm sorry I've missed so many of your calls,” I said, offering him a seat. “This office has been a lunatic asylum. The receptionist had a nervous breakdown, and messages haven't been getting through. Harvard grad, high-strung, what can you do?”

He had on a dark tweed sport coat, with suede patches on the elbows, and a pair of baggy khaki pants. A good dry cleaner would have done cartwheels at the sight of his outfit. Whatever the drawbacks of lifelong tenure, you can't accuse the system of encouraging vanity. But there was something endearingly eccentric in his disheveled appearance, now that I looked at it in a certain light. It wasn't entirely out of the question that Zayna might have some real feelings for him.

I told him I hoped he and his niece were all packed and ready to go. “Tomorrow's the big day,” I said.

He stared at my cheerfulness suspiciously. “Hot in here,” he mumbled and took off his jacket. There was a grease stain in the shape
of Cape Cod near the collar of his shirt, and a pen had leaked green ink all over the pocket. He loosened his tie and crossed his bony legs at the knees.

“Everything,” I practically shouted, “is ready: the plane, the hotel. All in order and waiting for you. A good feeling, isn't it?”

He looked confused. “Wasn't this confirmed months ago?”

“Certainly,” I said. “But I always get excited when someone's trip is coming up. Vicarious pleasure, one of the real advantages of this job. All the excitement of travel without having to leave your pets and your houseplants behind.”

“I'm happy to hear someone likes his job,” he said. “I do hope I'm not about to cause too many problems for you, Patrick.” He tilted his head up and scratched his beard. I realized then, with some concern, that his voice had been perfectly audible since he walked into the office.

“A change in plans?”

“I'm afraid so. Zayna, as it turns out, won't be able to go to Bermuda with me. Something came up in her family. I'm afraid I'll have to cancel the whole trip. I know how much work you've done on this, Patrick, and I'm sorry you've gone to all this trouble for . . . I suppose the word is ‘nothing.' ”

I felt as if I'd sprung a leak and all my high spirits were hissing out. “It's no trouble at all. Cancellations are the easiest part of my job.”

“I'm sorry to be telling you this at the eleventh hour, but I myself only found out last week. I have been trying to get in touch with you. Quite a shock to all of us, frankly.”

“Kids,” I said. “What can you do?”

He looked up at me with a hurt expression, and I regretted the comment. He had the unmistakable long face and sagging jowls of a man who's been dismissed by a lover. No matter what a person's age, his facial muscles go temporarily slack upon being dumped by a significant—or even insignificant—other. But what had he meant by “a shock to all of us”? Who was the us? Zayna had fallen for her Russian professor, or the man who sold jewelry outside the entrance to the subway, or maybe her roommate; her parents had found out about the affair and were forcing her to press sexual harassment charges; Fields had given her his American Express card and she'd run up a ten-thousand-dollar bill at The Gap and threatened blackmail if he made her return all those T-shirts.

“I don't know if it's appropriate to offer some sort of compensation for your time and effort,” he said, “but if there's a standard fee, I hope you'll send a bill.” He paused. “To my office.”

Mrs. Fields was obviously still in the dark.

“Don't worry about it,” I said. “This goes with the territory.” The territory was my kind of job and his kind of love affair. I had his folder on top of my desk, and I leafed through the careful notes I'd made on the trip: dates the plane reservations had been accidentally canceled, desperate calls to Gary Bolton, fax messages to hotels in Bermuda. Stapled to the very back of the folder was a slip from the inn I'd reserved for the weekend trip with his wife. “Will you still be using your other reservations?” I asked.

“Other reservations?”

“At the inn? Outside Boston? With Mrs. Fields?”

“Oh, those,” he said. “No, I don't think we'll bother with that trip, either. More trouble for you, I'm afraid. I don't suppose it's possible to get back my deposit?”

Since I'd forgotten to call in his credit card number in the first place, the deposit was hardly an issue. “Their policy is to keep the money, but I might be able to pull a few strings. I can't guarantee, but I suspect we'll work something out.”

He stood up slowly and put on his jacket. “It's been a pleasure doing business with you,” he said. “Perhaps sometime in the future I'll be making more definite plans.”

He stuck out his hand, and I shook it, reminded of the last time I'd gone fishing and had pulled a cold, squirming mackerel off the end of the line.

I wanted to make a gesture toward him, offer some condolence, tell him he was probably better off without his undergrad girlfriend. I held on to his hand for a second longer than custom allowed, and he slid it from my grasp. Pretend you're on the Donahue show, I wanted to tell him. Pretend you're telling millions of people how you've triumphed over this compulsion to seduce your students, how much better you feel now than you have in months. Don't forget how much you love your wife, the strength of your marriage all these years. And then there's your best-selling self-help book,
Coed Codependence.

But there was nothing I could say. He knew I didn't believe the niece story, but I was locked into it, one of the pitfalls of making a commitment to a lie.

The frayed sleeves of his jacket didn't quite cover his hairy wrists.
He gave them a little tug and slumped out. I looked at the folder on my desk, struck by the sudden silence of the office and the faint smell of pipe tobacco he'd left behind. I'd been unfair to him all along. He'd come in for the first time on a Friday afternoon when I was trying to get out to catch an early shuttle to New York to see Jeffrey. He'd begun to grate on my nerves as soon as I found out what he was up to, which, given what I myself was up to, should have made us great pals. If I'd been able to predict this tragic ending, I'd happily have booked everything and on time.

I should have called Gary Bolton to cancel the reservations, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. Maybe Zayna would have a change of heart at the last minute.

Thirty-five

I
t's often happened to me that in a series of depressing and disorienting situations, the one of least significance hits the hardest. And so I fell into a stupor from which I couldn't seem to rouse myself, as if the breakup of Fields's relationship with Zayna and the cancellation of his trip was likely to undermine the shaky foundation of my life. For much of the rest of the day, I remained inert, staring at green lights on my computer screen and paying no attention to the buzzing of my intercom.

Sharon wasn't in much better shape. Ryan had had his dinner with Elaine the night before, and Sharon was at a dead halt, pulled on one side by her desire to call him and find out how it had gone and on the other by her determination to write him off altogether. She and I arranged to spend the evening watching television at her house. She intended to work late but promised she'd show up before nine.

*   *   *

Cambridge was in full spring bloom now, fragrant with dying lilacs and wisteria and mock-orange blossoms. As I left the travel agency that day, the air was sweet and mild, and the windows of the office building across the alley were glowing in the afternoon light. I biked along the one-way streets behind Harvard Square, trying to absorb some of the brilliance of the sunset, letting the breeze blow
my hair back. This was the way spring used to be, I thought, and then realized that, at least for today, this was the way spring was. Of course Sharon wasn't even remotely sentimental about flowers, but something in the fragrance of the air made me want to buy her a bouquet. I turned onto Mass Ave and headed for the florist shop near my gym.

The sign announcing 15 Days Left was still taped to the window of the place. Two months had passed since I'd first seen it that rainy morning I was heading to New York, and time had disarmed its ominous message. I cupped my hands against the glass and peered through the pane. The owner was behind the counter, smoking and taking snips at a bonsai with pruning shears. He shook his head to indicate he was closed, and I waved back, pretending I didn't understand. He opened the door, flicked his cigarette butt across the sidewalk and into the gutter. “I'm closed,” he said.

“I wanted a bunch of irises,” I said. It's amazing how effective feigned stupidity can be at the right moments, and how effective genuine stupidity is all the time.

“Right, but I just closed up shop. Maybe you heard me say that?”

He started to head back into the shop, and curiosity got the best of me. “I've been wondering about this sign for a while now,” I said.

He folded his arms across his chest and leaned into the doorway, his weight on one foot. “Which sign?”

“The one that says ‘Fifteen Days Left.' Fifteen days until what?”

He shrugged. “Whatever you want. I put it up for a sale I had six months ago and forgot about it. Then I figured it's always fifteen days from something, right? Somebody's birthday, anniversary, funeral.”

“I thought you were predicting the end of the world.”

“That'd be convenient, given my financial situation.” He had very round eyes, too blue not to be contact lenses but attractive even so. “Nice bike,” he said, nodding toward my rusting three-speed.

I could tell from the condescending tone in his voice that he wanted to think I was younger than I am. He himself was probably in his mid-forties. He had the lined face of a man who's spent too much time sitting in the sun at Key West and Provincetown, and he was going gray around the temples. There was something in his Marlboro Man look that was a little overdone—considering the weather and his job, he didn't really need the flannel shirt and the cowboy boots—but I liked the way he had his arms folded and his
head tilted back. He obviously thought I was so desperate for attention I'd be flattered by the insult to my bicycle, and I was disappointed to realize I was.