Holy Water (48 page)

It
’
s this:

Erase this as soon as you read it I did as soon as I sent it. There
’
s something you should know. Something I
’
d suspected for a week and overheard today while having drinks with a certain high-level executive one of whose brands is Happy Mountain Springs. The short story (unless you want to know the long one about this guy
’
s three ex-wives and Viagra dependency issues) is that the big company, perhaps as soon as tomorrow, is going to fold HMS into a larger bottled water brand. Glacial something. The one from Greenland with an umlaut. By folding it into a larger brand they mean to eliminate anything associated with HMS. Including, in a corporate, not homicidal, sense, Pat and Audrey, who know nothing about this. Also including Giffler and you and the call center and your seemingly admirable LifeStraws project. Of course you can
’
t tell a soul, especially Pat and Audrey, who, incidentally, are somewhere over the Pacific as you read this. Why did I tell you this? Certainly not to bum you out. I did it to give you a heads-up in hopes that it might in some way help you. Sorry about this, Henry. Be strong and stay safe.

-M (EEEE)

PS: Don
’
t bother checking the site for content. I
’
m actually shutting it down soon; will explain later.

After deleting the message and clearing his digital history, he walks to the doorway. Outside, backed by the boom box, Mahesh is teaching three rows of orange-robed women the steps for what appears to be the Cha-Cha Slide. Maya and her cousin and several other nonparticipants laugh and clap as they watch from the side. It almost would have been better, he thinks, if this had been a disaster from the start. Last night in his bed they told each other again and again that it couldn
’
t work. That they couldn
’
t work. They should
be
happy that they found each other at this moment and they should enjoy it while it lasts. But as they made love and talked and watched each other with astonishment as the night went on, the sentiment transformed from a joke to a warning to a plea and finally, near dawn, to a sort of sentence. They went from saying they couldn
’
t last but not meaning it and pretending they didn
’
t care to knowing that they wouldn
’
t and understanding it and caring more than either thought possible.

Watching the Galadonians, almost as a punishment for indulging in the vices of hope and expectation, he is filled with, for the first time in a long time, guilt. Against his better, fatalistic judgment, he had gotten these people to depend on and, it appears, to believe in him. Even worse, he had gotten himself to believe in himself.

He steps halfway into daylight before stopping, straddling the doorway, and wondering where to step next. Wondering what to do and what to say. What do you say to these people? What do you tell Maya?

“
Hey there, hero.
”
Maya, out of nowhere, alongside him.

“
Excuse me?
”

“
Don
’
t be coy.
”
She grabs hold of his right arm by the triceps and begins to escort him toward the others.
“
Look at how happy they are.
”

He looks, thinking, The happier they are, the harder they will crash. The worse things will be. And by all signs they are pretty damned happy. Mahesh and the group have moved on to the intricate choreography of the Chicken Dance. A cappella.

“
Like this!
Na-
na
-
nenenene
-
neh
! Na-
na
-
nenenene
-
neh
!
”

He feels horrible about the recent turn of events, and it is about to get worse. Mahesh and the twelve giggling Galadonians are waving him out to join them.

“
Hey now! Well, well!
”
Mahesh yells, stopping
midflap
, already walking toward Henry and away from the dancers.
“
He
’
s back! Everybody!
”
From three sides they begin to converge on Henry, enveloping him with thanks for a gift not yet delivered. When Mahesh begins to clap, they clap too. When Mahesh wraps his arm around Henry and begins to chant
“
Speech!
”
they do too. And when someone grabs a bench for Henry to stand on, to tease the promise of tomorrow, he begins rehearsing an all-new version of the lie in his head.

~ * ~

If Sex Is Involved,

Altruism Is Not

If the benefits gained from an altruistic act exceed the cost of the act itself, it ceases to be altruistic. Well-intentioned, win-win PR, at best, Henry thinks. But more likely it plays out as some form of sleazy opportunism rather than the selfless helping of others. Add deception to the equation, and the fact that the so-called altruistic act may never be consummated, or that the person in charge of said act at least originally thought of it to win the attention of a woman, and it becomes criminal. At least in a karmic sense.

They are in Maya
’
s truck, returning from an after-lunch visit to her old river village. She
’
s driving. It is almost dark, and for the second time this week a rare post-monsoon rain falls on the empty highway and pounds the hard-chalk earth on both sides of the road. Henry is in the passenger
’
s seat, with his head tilted back and eyes half closed, and four children, including Maya
’
s nephew, are singing a song that he has never heard in the back row and hatch area. They headed for the river right after the party this afternoon; to ensure that her village would be included in the LifeStraw program, Maya was determined to have it represented at tomorrow
’
s ceremonies.

He didn
’
t think it possible, but seeing the river and the base of the mountains and the kids again, exchanging high fives with her admiring nephew, makes him feel even worse. At one point on the ride over he considered telling Maya about Meredith
’
s note, but she was so happy, so exhilarated, he didn
’
t have the heart. Or the balls.

~ * ~

Near the end of the return trip from the river, Maya asks,
“
Everything okay?
”

After a moment during which he reconsiders and again rejects the idea of coming clean to her, he answers,
“
Yeah. I
’
m fine. Just a little exhausted.
”

“
Well,
”
Maya says, resting a hand on his thigh,
“
you have every right to be. You
’
ve been amazing.
”

They don
’
t speak again until they pull into his driveway in USAVille. She drops him off first because his place is the first they come upon. The plan is for Maya to leave the children to spend the night at her cousin
’
s home, and after running some errands she
’
ll be back, around nine, for the night. He
stands in the black drizzle, watching her taillights disappear, then heads up the walk to Madison Ellison
’
s house. Maybe she can help. He rings the bell. Knocks. Walks around her darkened house. No one
’
s home.

~ * ~

Shuffle gives him
“
All the Wine
”
by the National.

Big wet bottle in my fist, big wet rose in my teeth

Over the kitchen sink is a death threat on a Post-it note. A cartoon figure of a man hanging from a prayer flag. Hardly welcome, he thinks, taking it down. But using the Post-it note as a medium somehow diminishes the threat.

. . .
I
’
m a festival, I
’
m a parade

Upstairs, papers are scattered on the office floor. Torn, shredded, and apparently pissed upon. The desk is flipped up on its side, and the top of the laser printer has been smashed into a mosaic of gray plastic shards. He doesn
’
t pick any of it up. Just shuts the light and heads back downstairs.

He calls Shug on his sat-phone and asks if he would be interested in spending the night at the call center, for double salary,

watching out for vandals.

Shug agrees, then says,
“
Have you heard the news?
”

Henry thinks. Shug couldn
’
t know about the pending sale of an
American bottled water company. Then again, who knows what
Shug knows.
“
No, Shug. I don
’
t think I have.
”

“
The . . . king . . .,
”
Shug says with difficulty, then pauses.
Henry
’
s fairly sure he hears sniffling on the other end.
“
The king
has died.
”

And all the wine is all for me. . .

He wonders if the old man was dead when he saw him being handled like a mannequin during the photo shoot. He wonders if this is good or bad for the prince and his plans, and for Happy Mountain Springs and its plans.

~ * ~

He calls Sirajh, thinking that if he can get him to agree to a transfer of the money from the HMS account into Sirajh
’
s, the deal would be considered complete, and then, for a year at least, they could help several thousand
rather than a hundred Galadonians for a month. But Sirajh doesn
’
t pick up, doesn
’
t even give him the opportunity to leave a message.

He checks e-mail. Nothing from Meredith, or Giffler. He visits Eva
’
s Web site, only to find an announcement saying that it has been shut down. He keeps thinking of Madden
’
s tenet:
To get anything done around here, you need to know all the wrong people.
Madden
’
s phone rings and rings. Henry puts his phone on speaker and lays it on the table, still ringing, as he begins to tap out a message on his laptop. When he
’
s done, he presses Send, rises, and pours himself a tall glass of
ara
.

~ * ~

Maya doesn
’
t return until after ten. He gets up from an uneasy sleep on the couch.

“
Sorry I
’
m late, but I had to stop at the spa.
”

“
My spa?
”

She nods as she reaches back to undo the red
scrunchie
that holds her hair in a ponytail.
“
Our friends have arrived.
”

“
They weren
’
t due until much later.
”

Maya shakes her head.
“
Apparently they were able to catch a flight to Seoul on the corporate jet.
”

Good luck catching one back, he thinks.
“
Is everything okay? Were they looking for me?
”

“
They were too busy fighting with each other to look for anyone. I spoke under condition of anonymity with their same-sex-marriage counselor. Separate rooms. Separate buildings.
”

“
The purity runs through us all.
”

She smiles.
“
I told them we
’
d meet for breakfast in the morning and go to the event together.
”