Office Girl (24 page)

ON THAT WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON.

He wakes up and feels his tongue glued to the roof of his mouth because he must have taken too many Xanax and as he's trying to climb out of his bed in a fog, he hears the phone ringing, and he squints and cannot remember where he has left it, and it keeps ringing and ringing and he finally finds it under a pillow and he holds it upside down to the side of his face and says “Hello” a few times before he realizes his mistake, and it's Magdalena, his stepfather David's wife, his stepfather's ex-wife now, and she says, “David wants to see you. He's not feeling so good. He had the operation but now he has an infection and he's not doing so good,” and Jack takes down the name of the hospital and his stepfather's room number, then puts the phone back under the pillow again.

And later he washes his face. And tries to comb his hair. And polishes his glasses on the corner of his shirt. And he goes outside and rides through the snow on his bicycle, all the way down Ashland Avenue to the medical district off of Harrison, and there he finds St. Luke's and locks his bicycle up out front, and then enters the lobby, and signs his name, and gets a pass, and then takes the elevator to the fourth floor. And there is his stepfather's room, and there is his stepdad, David, huddled beneath some blue sheets, and it's obvious he has been heavily medicated. His face looks saggy, as if it's made out of wax. There is a morphine drip and the little button to control it is wedged in his stepfather's right hand. And his stepfather's grayblue eyes are open but he's staring at nothing, just the pink wall really. The left corner of his lip is white with some drool. And so Jack takes a seat beside him and puts a hand on his stepfather's rounded shoulder.

“David?”

“Ugh.”

“David?”

“Hm.”

“David? David Goldberg?”

“Ughhh.”

“It's Jack. How are you doing?”

“Ughhhhhhhhhhh.”

“What happened, David? Are you okay?”

“I'm all fouled up, Jack. They fouled me up.”

“Are you resting? Do you want me to come back later?

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“No.”

“What's wrong? Are you in pain?”

“Yes. They gave me morphine but it doesn't seem to help too much. I've got an infection. MRSA. It's a staph infection. I got it after they opened it up. Now I got a pretty bad fever and they don't know how long I'll be in here for. I feel like I'm dying.”

“Do you want me to leave? I can come back later. Or tomorrow even.”

“No.”

“Okay, well, I'm just gonna sit here. How's that?”

“Okay.”

“Okay. Do you need anything? Do you want some water?”

“Yes.”

Jack pours a glass of water and hands it to his stepfather, who is unable to keep his hands still so Jack holds it for him and gives him a small sip. The water runs down his stepfather's chin and wets the front of his blue hospital gown.

“You're not doing so good.”

“No. Look at me. Look what they did to me.”

“What did they do?”

“They opened me up. And now I'm sick. I've had it. Close the shutters. Good night, Irene.”

“You're going to be okay.”

“No. They ruined me. I'm all ruined. Magdalena came by and said I look terrible. That's what she said.”

“You don't look so bad.”

“I'm not going to be alive next New Year's. I know it.”

“What? You'll be fine.”

“No. This is it. I can tell.”

“It's just an infection.”

“No. It's the beginning. It's the beginning of the end.”

“You'll be out of here in a few days. You got to tough it out.”

“No. No, I know it now. Nothing lasts. Nothing lasts.”

“Come on, don't say that.”

“Why not? It's true.”

“Because. You're going to be fine. I know it.”

“No, I'm not. You've got to help me, Jack.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Help me.”

“How?”

“I don't know. Just help me.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“I don't know. I think I want to pray.”

“You want to pray?” Jack says, smiling, surprised, having never known his stepdad to be even remotely religious.

“I think so. Can you help me?”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Turn off the lights maybe.”

“What lights?”

“The lights. The lights,” his stepdad mutters anxiously, pointing at the fluorescent bulbs overhead.

“Okay, okay, I'm turning off the lights.” And Jack stands and yanks the switch down, and then the room folds itself into darkness. “Now what?”

“I don't know. Can you help me pray?”

“What? I don't think I know any prayers. We never went to church. Or temple or anything.”

“You have to try to help me. Please. I want to pray.”

“Okay. What prayer do you want to do?”

“Shhhhhhhhhhhh. Pray,” his stepfather says, taking Jack's hand.

David's fingers are warm, much too warm. Jack feels them in his own and he nods quietly and says: “Okay.”

“Okay. Close your eyes.”

Jack closes his eyes. His stepfather does so as well. There is silence, or an approximation of silence, in the room for a moment, and then David begins whispering something. It is very quiet at first and then it gets a little louder. And then it's a little louder again. He is humming something but Jack does not recognize it at first.

“David, what are you saying?”

“I'm singing.”

“What are you singing?”

“‘Sitting by My Window.'”

“I don't know that one.”

“By the Tinos. It was the first forty-five I ever bought. Sing it with me.”

“I don't know it.”

“You don't know it?”

“No.”

“Okay. How about ‘Stormy Weather'?”

“‘Stormy Weather'?”

“‘Stormy Weather,'” his stepfather repeats. “Do you know it?”

“I guess. You want me to sing it with you?”

“Yes. Sing it.”

“Okay,” Jack says, trying to remember some of the words.

His stepfather begins: “
Can't go on … everything I have is gone …”

And then Jack murmurs along, “
Stormy weather … since my man and me ain't together …”
his voice moving together with his stepfather's.

David smiles happily, hearing Jack sing, forgetting the rest of the words. He nods a little to himself, his gray-blue eyes losing their focus then. Jack looks over at his stepdad and frowns.

“David?”

“Hm?”

“I'm gonna go now. I'll let you rest. You're gonna be all right. I'll be back tomorrow. Okay?”

“No.”

“No. You need to rest. I'll be back tomorrow.”

“Okay.”

“Okay? I'll stop by tomorrow. Same time. How's that sound?”

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Thanks, Jack. You're a good kid. I liked you the moment I met you.”

Jack laughs and kisses his stepfather's blue-veined hand and walks out into the hallway. Everything outside of the room seems to be at odd angles. And then he is moving down the hall, quicker than he thinks he ought to, toward a destination he does not know or fully understand, his wet shoes making accusatory sounds against the dullness of the multicolored tiles.

AND HE RIDES TO ODILE'S APARTMENT.

Jack rides up on his blue ten-speed bicycle, not expecting to find her there in front of her apartment building, but there she is, in her pink wool mittens, with her green hood lowered over her ears, and she has a small card table setup, beside which is pretty much everything she owns: her bicycle, a boom box, stacks and stacks of books, all of which have pink price tags on them. A garage sale without the garage, right in the middle of the snow. And there on the front of the card table is a small sign Odile has made, which announces:
Garage Sale. Hooray.
Jack looks at the sign and smiles and then he looks up at Odile. At that moment, Odile has a box full of thrift-store clothes which she is trying to close up with a roll of packing tape, but it doesn't look like it's going so well.

“Did you sell anything?”

Odile peers up at him with a frustrated smile. “No. Well, just one thing. This big white penis-shaped lamp I made a few years ago in a sculpture class.”

“Good for you.”

“Yeah. Good for me,” she says, and fixes a pink price tag that has fallen from an old peacoat.

“I came by to tell you something.”

She peeks from under the cover of her green hood and says, “You did?” a little fearfully.

“I did.”

“Okay.”

“I was thinking about it and it turns out you were wrong about a few things.”

“Like what?”

And here he realizes he does not know how to say what he's thinking. He wants to say:
First of all, you were wrong about pop music. And art and all of pop culture. And all kinds of things. Because all of it matters. Even if it is awful. Everybody knows all the bad movies and the bad songs on the radio. Because it's the only thing anybody has in common anymore. It's all anybody has. So you were wrong about that and you were wrong about us and you were wrong about me,
but he doesn't actually say any of this out loud. He looks at her, at the soft shape of her face, her eyes, and tries to get his words straight.

“Well?” she asks, and he just stands there and decides not to say anything.

Then he murmurs, “I dunno. I thought you ought to know you were wrong about some things, but now I don't know what they are.”

She looks at him and smirks. “Wow. You rode all the way over here to tell me that?”

“I guess so,” he says, picking up one of the old paperbacks she's trying to sell, some sci-fi thing. He puts the book down and sees the bizarro comic book Odile discovered at some other garage sale,
Abstract Adventures in Weirdo World
.

“You're selling this comic book?”

“I'm taking a bus out to New York so I don't have a lot of room for anything,” she explains.

“Oh.” And he picks up the comic, flips a few pages, and then sets it back down. Beside the comic book, placed next to some of her drawings she's trying to sell—one of a hippo, another one of an Eskimo—is her small green notepad. Her idea notebook. He holds it up before her, more than a little surprised.

“You're selling this too? What about all your ideas in here?”

She only frowns.

He flips to a page and says, “What about handing out candy at a bus stop? Or …” and he flips again. “What about dressing up like a parrot for a day?”

“I don't know. I thought when I got to New York, I could come up with some new ideas.”

“How much are you selling it for?”

“What?”

“How much are you selling it for?”

“Really?”

“Sure, why not?”

“I don't know,” she says. “A buck?”

Jack reaches for his gray wallet, finds it in his back pocket, opens it up, unfolds a dollar, and then places it in her right pink mitten. He then slips the green notepad into his jacket and glances away, putting his left foot down on the left bicycle pedal.

“So you're really leaving, huh?”

Odile nods, staring at him for a moment, and then turning away. “I'm scared,” she says. “I wish somebody I knew was going to be there too.”

“What about your friend Jeannie?”

“She's great but I really don't know her all that well.” And then she says, “I kind of wish you were coming.”

“Yeah.” He knows that even in one million years it would never happen. “So what about our art movement?” he asks, not really smiling.

“Who, us?”

“Yeah.”

Odile frowns a little, her cheeks looking red. “I guess it's over. Eventually, I guess, they always come to an end. Like the Situationists. Or Surrealism. And then something new always starts.”

“Yeah. I guess,” he says, beginning to feel the stiltedness again, and the cold. “Well, I'll probably see you at work in a few hours then.”

“Sure,” she says, slipping the dollar bill into her coat. “Thanks. For buying something, I mean.”

“Sure.” And he pushes his glasses up against his face before he sets his other foot on the pedal.

And then she says his name and the way it sounds is so polite, so small, like they are strangers all over again. “Jack?”

“Yep?”

“If I didn't know you, I'd probably never have gone.”

“What?”

“If we never met, I'd probably be working the same job the rest of my life.”

“Why's that?”

“Because no one's ever taken me seriously before. And you did. So, well, I don't know. You know.”

“Some compliment. Look what it gets me.”

“It's true. I don't think I'd ever have the guts if I hadn't met you.”

“Okay,” he says. “Thanks. I mean, it'll be good to have a friend in New York. Whenever I want to be surrounded by assholes.”

Odile smiles, looking at him again.

“Okay. See you later,” he says.

“Bye,” she says, and then she is looking down at her roll of packing tape. And the sun is in her hair and then it is like they have never even met.