So Much for That (42 page)

She kept her mouth shut, but couldn’t control the little smile.

“Yeah, yeah, you’ve heard that before.
My wife is frigid
. Well, she’s not frigid. And don’t get the idea I’m stuck with some support-hose house-frowse. My wife is gorgeous.” He kept himself from adding,
better looking than you are
.

“You don’t need to apologize to me, ‘Jonathan.’ So, want to get a drink, bite to eat?”

“I don’t have much time. Better skip to the main event, you know?” He’d rung Carol this afternoon to tell her he’d be a couple of hours late, because he was overseeing the repositioning of some kitchen cabinets
whose installation had been botched, leaving a space for the fridge that was only two feet wide…He could have forgone the embellishments, since Carol wasn’t even listening. What was odd about the conversation was that lying hadn’t felt any different from all the other times he’d called and told the truth. Regardless of the details, these days the two of them were always lying to each other, really. That’s why the literal lie had been almost a relief. It was honest lying.

Caprice led him to an innocent-looking hotel, a converted brownstone on Union Street that defied the seediness of his imagination. At check-in, they were brisk and blithe as he rifled his wallet for a Visa with paperless billing that had just, to his incredulity, further extended his credit limit. In the room upstairs, cloth lampshades danced with hokey tassels; the bedspread was a homey chenille, the print over the stead an exuberant color lithograph of the fireworks over the Brooklyn Bridge when it was first opened in 1883. The joint was, believe it or not, kinda cute.

Jackson studied the print while he undid the two top buttons of his shirt, but couldn’t unbutton any further. “You know, a week after that bridge opened a rumor spread it was about to collapse. Stampede killed twelve people.”

Caprice came up behind him and slid her hands into his trousers’ front pockets. “You don’t say.”

“You’re laughing at me.”

She was obliged to deny it. “You’re right.”

Jackson turned around and slipped his hands around her hips, startled by their unfamiliar contour. Still, just the heat of her body through the fabric stirred him in the way that of course he’d been anxious about. He wasn’t hot for the perfume; Carol rarely wore commercial scents, and what really turned him on was the musky waft off her skin when she’d been hauling Flicka in and out of the car all afternoon—a deep, loamy smell like rotting logs. If he’d really wanted to ensure rising to this occasion, he should have insisted that Caprice wear one of Carol’s dirty T-shirts.

“You one of these girls doesn’t kiss? I read you folks don’t like to kiss.”

“You’ve
read about it
.” She kissed him lightly, no tongue. “I think your problem is too many books, buster.”

Something about the
buster
. “You’re still laughing at me.”

“Did you also
read
this sort of thing has to be grim? You’d be surprised, but sometimes I have a great time. And you’re a piece of work. You are—hilarious.”

Jackson reclined on the bed as she shimmied out of the short pencil skirt and removed her jacket; her care to drape the suit smoothly over the chair was comfortingly domestic. The red leotard proved a teddy; how efficient. Carol’s underwear tended to be simpler…He wasn’t sure if he should be thinking about Carol, although he didn’t seem to have a choice.

In retrospect, this is where he should have turned the light off.

Caprice slid next to him still wearing the red teddy. She had nice legs. Carol’s thighs were just starting to…Whoa, this girl sure got right down to business. Carol didn’t usually…That knee slipped between his legs was delish…Jackson flinched when she pressed a little too hard on his fly but managed to cover the wince, thinking, still a little sensitive, but maybe that was fine, because what was wrong with sensitive? She unbuckled and unzipped him, and he inhaled sharply at the sudden smack of cold air, the welcome release from his boxers, thinking maybe she could suck him first, go ahead baby,
suck it
—

Caprice had no sooner laid him open than she recoiled. “What’s
that
?”

“Well, what do you think it is?”

Caprice took her knee back. “What the hell happened, were you born with some kind of defect?”

“I was born perfectly normal!” Or at least that’s what Carol had been lecturing him for the last year.

“Look, I’m sorry, I can’t do this.” Caprice got up and started pulling her suit back on.

“Why not? My money’s not good enough? You’re supposed to fuck me, not fall in love.”

“I just can’t, it’s too…Look, I’m not that hard up, okay? I’m afraid you’re stuck with the hotel, but I can have the agency reverse the charges on the escort. There are some other outfits who cater to…You can look them up. Who specialize in—disabilities. Special needs.”

Jackson fastened his fly furiously. “
Special needs?
I have some scar tissue, but I’m not an idiot!”

“Whatever you wanna call it, it’s not my bag.” When the zipper on her skirt snagged, this hitherto unflappable young woman seemed to panic, and when she finally got the zipper to budge she wore the expression of the sort of resourceful heroine in thrillers who barely manages to pick a lock with a hairpin before the serial killer busts in the window. “Good luck on the book!” she said, remembering her manners at the door. “I—I’ll be sure to look out for it!”

T
he following morning Jackson was already at work when Shep arrived, because Shep was late—and not for the first time. Jackson would have liked to cover for him, but Pogatchnik was standing in his office doorway, lying in wait. Under his employer’s scathing eye, Shep settled at his station, removing his sheepskin jacket to reveal a muscle T patterned in Hawaiian flowers; Jackson rued his friend’s recent fleshiness, since otherwise the sleeveless T would have shown off a musculature that he himself had always envied. Shep wriggled out of snow pants, underneath which he was wearing the loud Bermuda shorts that Pogatchnik favored in summer, except that it was February. Lastly, he withdrew a miniature battery-powered fan that he propped atop his terminal. All part of the ongoing war over the thermostat (at only 10:00 a.m., it must already have been nearing ninety degrees in here), but if Shep was going to antagonize Pogatchnik with that getup, he should at least have been on time. Something was going on with the guy, something a little reckless and unhinged, but in a peculiarly quiet way; aside from the gear, Shep’s demeanor was one, apropos of a certain pending bestseller, of
shit-eating compliance
. Meanwhile, the rest of the staff were silent, their eyes trained studiously on computer screens yet angled in such a way as to keep Shep and Pogatchnik within their peripheral vision.

“Nice of you to join us, Knacker,” said Pogatchnik. “I’m, like, overcome by the honor of your presence. To what do we owe the royal visit? This extraordinary sighting of Lord Slacker, slumming among the teeming masses and deigning to come to work?”

“My wife was running a temperature of a hundred and three yesterday,” Shep said evenly, booting up his computer and adjusting the fan.

“Another infection. I was up all night in the hospital.”

“You aware that chronic tardiness and absenteeism are grounds for dismissal—period, in any court you care to drag me into?”

“Yes, sir. And I can see how you might be driven to drastic measures if it were merely a matter of an employee who sleeps late. That being impossible when said employee has never got to bed.”

“On top of looking the other way when you waltz in here whenever you please, you expect me to feel sorry for you?”

“No, sir. I expect you to take into consideration the exceptional medical circumstances in my family, as would any reasonable, fair-minded employer like yourself.”

“Guess that makes me
un
reasonable, then. You’re fired, Knacker.”

Shep froze. His gaze burned straight at the screen. “Sir. Mr. Pogatchnik. I sympathize with your frustration. And I promise to try and arrive on time and put in as many regular workdays as my current difficulties allow. With your permission, I would like to observe that I have continued to keep up with my responsibilities. The many complaints about our substandard service”—here he paused, and Jackson could hear the impolitic inference,
our once-exemplary but now-substandard service
—“have not been piling up. As you’re well aware, my wife’s medical care is dependent on the insurance provided by this company. On her account and not my own I would beg you to reconsider.”

“You’re shit out of luck. I didn’t hire your wife, and I don’t run a hospice. You got problems with the system, write your congressman. Now, get your stuff, and get out.”

Pogatchnik had made plenty of threats, but this time was different. Never mind the irony that in the olden days at Knack less-than-handy Randy had been a notoriously unpunctual sick-out artist himself; the game was up.

In recognizing that this fat, freckled erstwhile employee was not vulnerable to persuasion, Shep dropped his shoulders. His back straightened, and his body realigned into such a relaxed, symmetrical pose that
he might have passed for a yoga master. His mouth drifted into a fatalistic smile. He looked serene. Jackson thought he understood. When you’ve been afraid of something for long enough and then it comes to pass, the terrible thing is a release. You embrace it. You’re glad of the badness. For in the belly of the badness there is no more fear. You cannot dread what has already happened.

As Shep logged off his terminal and crossed the room to retrieve an empty stationery carton, his bearing returned to that of the man whom Jackson used to revere and whom he’d made sometimes embarrassingly obvious efforts to emulate. At last the guy moved with smooth assurance and not like a groveling toady. Cool Hand Luke was back. Jackson hadn’t realized how much he’d miss this man: powerful, competent, and stalwart. A man you could count on—who would never let your pets starve or your houseplants die while you were on vacation, who would never misplace the spare keys to your house. Who wouldn’t bat an eye at extending a loan to a pal, be that five bucks or five thousand. Who wouldn’t keep track. Who wouldn’t expect it back. A reliable, generous man of the sort now an endangered species in this country, where everyone had a hand out, and therefore naturally prone to being taken advantage of by all and sundry. A man who pursued one eccentric hobby that most people considered ridiculous, but that it behooved Jackson to regard as endearing, for Shep Knacker’s fruitcake fountains burbled a few wellsprings of whimsy into a life otherwise austerely pragmatic. A man who for all his kindness and hard work had asked for only one thing in the end, really: to be let go. Since, like it or not, he’d now got what he’d wished for, it was a goddamned shame that the timing was so piss-poor.

Glowering from his doorway, Pogatchnik looked strangely unsatisfied, having registered the corollary of a dread fulfilled: when you got a really fun thing over with, you could no longer look forward to it. Meanwhile, Shep strolled through the cubicles making good-humored remarks to his co-workers, shaking hands, gripping the odd shoulder, giving forearms a reassuring pat. Despite the zany beachcomber attire, any stranger scanning this room would immediately assume that the forceful, authoritative character in the Hawaiian print was the boss.
Well, he was. That’s what Pogatchnik could never bear, and that’s why Shep had been fired. Whatever the law, Shep was still the boss and he always had been, while Pogatchnik had the soul of a peon, and even sacking Knacker would never change that.

Thanks to Pogatchnik’s ban on “personal paraphernalia,” Shep didn’t have to untape a collage of family snapshots, and the clearing off was brief. Coat over one arm, carton under the other, Shep surveyed the office at the door.

The website designer shouted, “Yo, Knacker, left something behind, didn’t you?”

Shep raised his eyebrows.

“Your fucking company, man!”

Squelched at first, a seditious laugh rippled through the staff. The accountant cried, “Yeah, take me with you!”

Jackson had taken his exclusion from Shep’s round of goodbyes as a compliment; he wouldn’t have wanted to be one more co-worker. “Let me give you a hand with that,” he said.

Though Shep could handle the single carton on his own, he said, “Thanks,” and they left together.

T
hey walked in silence to deposit the box in Shep’s car. “I had to sell Glynis’s Golf,” Shep remarked mildly, closing the trunk. “Fortunately, she hasn’t noticed yet.”

“She still thinks she’s going back to driving it?”

“Probably. Or I don’t know what she thinks.”

“Living in her own reality the way she’s been,” said Jackson. “Not facing the music. Must make it, for you—kind of lonely.”

“Yeah,” Shep said appreciatively. “You could say that. Listen, you’d better get back. Don’t want to get sacked, too. You know he’d leap at the chance.”

“Let him. You can’t imagine that I’m gonna keep working there, with you gone.”

“You might surprise yourself. Bills to pay. Don’t think you have to do anything dramatic on my account.”

“Don’t worry,” said Jackson. “If I do anything dramatic, it’ll be on my own account.”

Funny, the resolve didn’t manifest itself all at once. No light went on—or out. Neither his mind nor his humor took a sharp turn south. But it was right around the point that Jackson could not picture toiling in that stultifying cubicle one more afternoon, and could not picture earnestly applying to toil in any other cubicle either, that what had for some months now been a resort—a theoretical island of respite in his head not so different from Shep’s, his own private Pemba—began to solidify into a land mass to which he might actually travel. Because this blank he drew, it wasn’t from a failure of imagination or even a refusal, à la Glynis, to face the music. It was not denial, but recognition: that he could not conjure an image of himself slogging once more through the paces of meaningless employ, numbly poking his head above the soil as one more perennial in the government’s crops of citizenry, because he would not. That was not what was going to happen.