Set This House in Order (9 page)

“Maybe you need one,” Julie says.

The man bobs his head. “Well,” he says, turning back to Andrew, “well, there you go. That's one vote for you.”

“I don't need votes,” Andrew says.

“No, of course not,” says the man. “You
know
you're right, right? You're an
expert
on childcare. But let me tell you something: if
you
had to put up with this fucking kid—”

“If she were my daughter, I wouldn't call her ‘this fucking kid.' And she wouldn't be crying while I stuffed my face.”

For an instant it looks as though the man is going to take a swing at
Andrew after all. But Andrew doesn't blink or flinch, just goes right on looking him in the eye, and in the end the man in the booth decides not to risk finding out why Andrew isn't afraid. “Fine,” he says. He twists in his seat, digs frantically in one of his pants pockets. “Fine, tell you what: you go
get
yourself a kid, OK? You get yourself a kid, live with it for a couple years, then you come back and lecture me on how it's done.” He slaps a twenty-dollar bill down on the table next to his plate. “Come on, Rebecca!” he barks, sliding out of the booth. He shoves Andrew aside and scoops up the little girl, who has been watching the confrontation with great interest, her tears forgotten. The man starts to carry the girl away; halfway to the door he stops, turns back, and points a finger at Andrew. “You'd better hope I never see you again.
Asshole.
”

“If I hear you've been beating up little kids,” says Andrew, “you will see me again. And not just me.”

“Crazy.” The man lowers his arm, shakes his head. Catching a waitress's eye, he says: “You've got crazy people eating here, you know that?”

He walks out, taking the girl with him. Andrew watches until they are gone, then returns to the table.

“I wish to
Christ
you wouldn't do that,” Dennis says.

Andrew nods, and replies sadly: “I know you do, Dennis.”

“That guy could've killed you. He could've pulled out a gun and shot you dead. It happens.”

“I don't think he had a gun, Dennis.”

“He had a
steak knife.
He had fists…”

Andrew shakes his head. “Adam didn't think he'd hit me.”

“Adam…” Dennis rolls his eyes. Putting audible quotes around the name, he says: “And what if ‘Adam' was wrong?”

“Then Seferis would have protected me.”

“Seferis…you really are a mental case, you know that? That guy was right. And you know what the worst part of it is? It's not going to make any difference. Do you really think that guy is going to stop hitting his kid just because you said ‘Shame on you'?”

“It's more likely than if I'd said nothing,” Andrew argues. But he looks unhappy, as if he fears Dennis may be right.

“Nah,” says Dennis. “Nah, he's not going to change.”

“That doesn't matter!” Andrew insists. “I mean…I mean it
does
matter, but you can't just do nothing. You can't just sit by while somebody does something wrong, and not call them on it.”

“Why not? If calling them on it doesn't make any difference…the next
time that guy feels like slapping his daughter around, do you think he's even going to remember you?”

“No,” Mouse says, surprising herself by speaking up, “but the girl will remember.” Andrew and Dennis both look at her, and Julie smiles.

After lunch they go back to the Reality Factory, where Mouse starts losing time again. It's not unexpected; it happens just as Julie announces that it is time for Mouse to get to work. “OK,” Julie says, “let's you and Dennis and I go sit down and start—”

—and the next thing Mouse knows she is alone, crouching in the space between two close-set tents. Uncertain what she is doing there, she starts to get up, but pauses when she hears two voices coming from the tent to her left. One voice is Julie's; the other is Andrew's.

“—textbook MPD,” Julie says. “I talked to three, maybe four different people.”

“The parade,” says Andrew. “That's what Adam calls it.”

“The funny thing is, I might not have recognized it if I didn't know you. I might have just thought, ‘Wow, she's
really
moody!' But once you know what to look for…I got an inkling right away, when she snapped at me at Rudy's. But it wasn't until I bumped into her again at the bookstore that I was sure. After she got a couple drinks in her it was really obvious.”

“You got her drunk?”

“I didn't
mean
to,” Julie says, sounding defensive. “I offered to buy her a glass of wine, and then she asked for a second. And then she went and bought three more glasses on her own.”

“Julie!”

“Well what was I supposed to do? I didn't even know who was ordering those last three drinks.”

“I hope you drove her home afterwards.”

“I tried, Andrew. Really I did. She wasn't
acting
drunk, but she's so little, and after five glasses…but she wouldn't let me give her a ride. When I pressed her on it, this new person came out who I hadn't met yet, and he said—he was male, definitely male, and his voice was stone-sober—he said, ‘No, she's going to need her car to get to work in the morning.' And I said, ‘Are you sure she should be driving after all that wine?' And he said, ‘Don't worry, I'll drive her home. I've done it before.' Even then I didn't just let her—him—go. I said good night, pretended to walk the other way, and then turned around and followed them. I figured I'd at least see that they got to their car all right. But they didn't go straight to the car, they went into a coffee shop. So I hung around outside for as long
as I could, until I had to go get my car, and they never came out, so I thought, OK, they'll be fine, they're waiting to sober up…I felt bad about it, Andrew, but what else could I do? It wasn't—it wasn't like that time
you
got drunk.”

Andrew makes a sound that Mouse, listening through the tent fabric, cannot interpret. There is a silence. Then Andrew says: “So you offered her a job.”

“
Before
she had the second glass of wine, yeah. And she said yes.”

“Who said yes?”

Julie laughs. “Yeah, that question occurred to me, too. She gave me her home number, so I called up early the next morning, partly to double-check that she really had made it home OK, partly to see if she remembered accepting the job offer.”

“And did she?”

“Somebody did. Whoever answered the phone. But when I talked to her again on Saturday she seemed kind of clueless, like all of a sudden she didn't remember but was trying hard not to show it. To tell you the truth, I wasn't a hundred percent sure she'd show up this morning.”

Andrew asks: “Why did you offer her the job, Julie?”

“Why?” Julie exclaims. She says it as if she is astonished that there could be any question about the reason, but even listening through the tent wall, Mouse can tell that her surprise is faked. “Because she's a natural programmer, that's why. At least,
one
of her souls is. You should have seen after lunch today, even Dennis was impressed once he saw her in action.” A pause. “What, you don't believe me?”

“I believe she's a good programmer,” Andrew says, “but Adam thinks there's another reason why you hired her, and I think he's right.”

Another pause.

“Well…” Julie says.

“Well?”

“OK,” says Julie, “OK, OK, here's the thing. Her programming skills really are the
main
reason I hired her—I'd been thinking about bringing somebody new in, at least part-time, for a while now, so it really was in my head to sound her out about a job, even before I made the connection about the MPD. That's the God's honest truth, Andrew. But when I
did
make the connection, I thought…”

“What?”

“See, the thing is,
she doesn't know
. I mean, some of her people know, obviously, like the one who told me he'd drive her home, but she—the
woman you met this morning—she doesn't know. I'm sure of it. So I thought, maybe you, you could—”

“Oh, Julie…this is a
bad
idea.”

“I remember you telling me what it was like for your father, back before he built the house. Before
he
knew. Like living in chaos, you said. Well…that must be what it's like for her too, right? Like living in chaos.”

“Probably. But Julie—”

“So I would think, having lived through that experience yourself, you would want to help—”

“I didn't live through that experience myself,” Andrew says. “My father did. And neither one of us is a psychiatrist, which is what she needs.”

“OK, fine, but how's she going to
get
what she needs, if she doesn't even know—”

“If she doesn't know, it's probably because she's not ready to know. And trying to force the knowledge on her could do more harm than good.”

“You're saying she's better off being ignorant of her condition?”

“I'm saying that if you upset her by trying to tell her something about herself that she doesn't want to hear, she won't hear it—she'll call out another soul to protect her from the information. And if you keep upsetting her, the protector may decide you're a threat, and try to get her away from you. Only
she
won't know what's going on—she'll just wake up one day with a new job, maybe even living in a new city, and she'll have to cope with that change without understanding why it happened.”

“Well,” Julie says, sounding reproached. “I wasn't…I'm not suggesting you should just
drop
it on her. My idea was that you'd get to know her first, make friends, then maybe share your own history with her. Tell her what things were like for your father and the others before the house got built—”

“Describe the symptoms?”

“Well…yes, actually. You could talk about how your father used to lose time, tell her about those lists he used to keep…and I mean, don't
push,
but if she says to you, ‘Hey, that sounds like
my
life,' then—”

“I still don't think it's a very good idea, Julie. And I really wish you would have asked me about this before you hired her. I mean, speaking of dropping things on people…you've known about this for a week already, but the first I heard about it was this morning, from Dennis.”

“I know, I know…I should have told you. I almost did, but then I thought, I didn't want to prejudice your thinking.”

“‘Prejudice my thinking'? What does that mean?”

“It means…I wanted to see what would happen if you met her without
being told about the MPD in advance. If you'd pick up on it without me pointing it out.”

“But you said it was obvious. Were you worried that maybe you were wrong, that she wasn't multiple after all?”

“No, I was sure about that, I just thought—”

“What? That it would be fun to surprise me?”

“Andrew!”

“I'm sorry, Julie,” Andrew says, “but I'm really…it bothers me a lot that you would do this. This isn't a game. It's not a, not a virtual-reality simulation.”

“Andrew…”

“It isn't fair,” Andrew insists. “Not to me, and especially not to her. I really don't know what you were thinking, Julie. I really don't.”

“Andrew!…Andrew, wait!”

He is leaving the tent. Hugging the canvas wall for concealment, Mouse slides forward and peers around the tent's front corner in time to catch his exit. She sees right away that the walkout is mostly theater; instead of storming off, Andrew stops just outside and waits for Julie to catch up to him. When Julie does, she is contrite, though Mouse wonders if the contrition isn't theater, too.

“All right, Andrew,” Julie says, and lays a hand on his forearm—the same flirting, conciliatory gesture Mouse saw her use on Rudy Krenzel. “All right, I fucked up, I admit it, and I'm sorry. Really. But she
is
working here now. I can't take that back. And I hope you aren't going to punish her for my mistake.”

“Of course I won't
punish
her. But Julie—”

Julie tugs lightly on his arm, brushing it against the front of her bosom. “Just work with her,” she pleads. “If the MPD never comes up, that's fine. If you two don't hit it off, that's fine too—I won't push anymore, I promise. But if—just
if
—it turns out that she does want help, that she's
ready
for help, I hope that—”

“I'm not going to make any promises, Julie.”

“And I won't ask you to. We'll just, we'll see what happens, OK?” She smiles at him and bats her eyelashes, and when he doesn't respond she answers the question herself: “OK. So…” She gives his arm a last tug and releases it. “I'd better go see how she's doing. I told Dennis to set her up in the spare tent with another test project, but she's probably finished by now.”

Julie kisses Andrew on the cheek, which seems to startle him, then turns and walks away, leaving him standing there, looking exasperated and more
than a little confused. He watches her go; Mouse watches him watching.

Mouse is fascinated by the conversation she has just overheard, even though there is much of it that she doesn't understand. For the second time today, she considers letting down her guard; she imagines stepping out of her hiding place, tapping Andrew on the shoulder, and asking:
What was that all about? Were you talking about
me
just now?

This time it is more than an idle thought, but she still doesn't do it. She hangs back, lurking, and a moment later she witnesses something else interesting.