Some Other Town (24 page)

The Personality is on delicate ground here, and we do not any of us know what to say. It's bad enough, we think, that we must dodge around Steinem when he talks of our books as if extant. But now the Personality is here and she is curious. It's just like her to ask what we've been up to.

She sits and takes us all in. We do not any of us say a word. We just sit in our deck chairs and look as though, actually, we do not wish to discuss it. But the Personality is interested. She does not want just to let the subject drop.
Magic Garden
, she says, is always looking for something to read to the boys and girls there at home. And then she asks what we were all afraid she would: So then, does anyone have a book from our new offerings she could use? We could consider it a kind of field test.

For a moment we all freeze. We look at the floor, we are silent. But then finally Frances speaks up. She has an easy out here, she sees. “Well no,” she says, she does not think her third-grade readers would do. “We are a little beyond
Magic Garden
,” she says. Her stories are all future perfect and riddled with subjunctive mood. MaryBeth needs something more basic. And then gesturing the Personality toward Sally Ann, “Really it's the earlier readers you want. Isn't that right, Sally Ann?”

It's wrong of Frances to sacrifice one of us like this. Still, we all turn to stare at Sally Ann. Although we know she does not have a series either, we cannot help checking just in case, on the outside chance some publisher's proof has magically shown up in her suite.

Sally Ann blushes. She is not used to so many staring at once. And the Personality says then, “Yes, Sally Ann. You must let me see some of your readers. Dr. Steinem informs me the stories are all quite lively.”

Which is a lie, of course. As I've said, Steinem has not read any one of our stories. And Sally Ann is far from lively. Someone is not telling the truth here, probably the Personality.

Sally Ann doesn't look like she knows what to say, and as usual reaches for her purse and Bones. We watch her fumbling and yes, we all think, maybe Bones will come up with an idea. Although the Personality did not seem much to take to him at lunch, it may be that Bones now can help us explain ourselves. But Sally Ann has run into a snag. She cannot coax Mr. Bones out of her purse, her fingers all jam in his bowls. Sally Ann is in trouble, we can tell.

It is Celeste then who speaks up for us all. Ever since the Personality brought up fish, she has been debating whether to jump in here, to go into any kind of detail. But although she is not one to flaunt, she says later, it seemed the only thing really to do.

“Perhaps you would like to see some of our new Joe Trout readers,” Celeste says, as though she did not hear the Personality address her before. “They are part of our supplemental materials.” Celeste is being modest. She could have easily said they are part of our gifted series, our exceptional, talented materials. It is how Dr. Steinem's proposals put it, although we all know it is really just Joe Trout.

Celeste is being modest, but she is also being a fool. She is, as I've said, not in on the secret the rest of us are. She doesn't know not to offer what doesn't exist. And I realize I have to step in here. “Well but I'm afraid that series is a little behind, it is still really just in flats. Remember, Celeste?” I say. Joe Trout is only in paste-up, I remind her, loud enough for the Personality to hear. It wouldn't be practical to read him just now. The imposition would throw off the plotlines.

The Personality raises an eyebrow. She must wonder at all our reluctance. “No really, it's fine,” she says to Celeste. She can just look at a few of the boards. It will give her the general idea.

I shake my head a hard no at Celeste. And she seems at last to understand. No, it isn't wise to show things before they are ready, people will only criticize. So she says to the Personality that well, better yet, she can just tell her a little about Joe. And without waiting, she plunges in.

Joe Trout explains science to children, Celeste says. He came to her, that is the idea of a trout occurred to her in the first lesson. Which was the water, that is hydrologic, cycle, Celeste reminds us. She was at a loss at first, you can imagine. Where to begin? It was a cycle after all.

But then it just came to her one evening while waiting at a restaurant to be seated. There in the lobby were two large tanks, the kind where you could select your own seafood, trout and lobster mostly. And while watching them swim around and around, “Fish,” Celeste thought. How perfect. Yes, a fish could narrate the water cycle. Not a lobster of course, but a trout, a trout would do very well. You just had to think how it would look to a trout, Celeste tells the Personality, then explains:

You could show first the pond, the trout watching the rainwater fall from a cloud to his pond. Then you could follow him swimming that pond water into streams, and from streams into rivers, and out to the sea. And then, while he lay floating there on his back, riding the ocean waves, you could watch him watching that very same water evaporate back up to a cloud.

“All I needed really was a trout,” Celeste says. “And the rest was all pretty simple.”

The Personality says, “Well yes, it certainly is that. Simple.” And then she says it has been her impression that fish are rather stupid by nature. She cannot imagine they could teach a subject like science.

“Oh but trout,” Celeste says. “Trout are different.” Studies show they are exceptional for fish. Gifted, actually. They can be trained to jump, to carry things around in their mouths. “Like porpoise,” Celeste says, “You'd be surprised.”

“Yes,” the Personality says. She would. Then she looks down the hall, checks her watch. Yes indeed, she says, her voice trailing off, she finds Joe an interesting approach.

Which she does not, of course. She is not even listening now, she is only anxious for Steinem to return from the phone and retrieve her. “Does anyone have the time?” she says. She thinks maybe her watch has stopped.

“One fifty-five,” Celeste says. And then she says how, because Joe was such a hit that first lesson, she decided he should narrate the series. From water cycle naturally on to weather, then friction and how shadows happen. “And more,” Celeste says. She has so much more planned for Joe Trout.

The Personality, who is still checking her watch, says well yes, certainly. She would have expected that of Celeste.

The Personality has given up on us here. And wonder of wonders, she no longer seems interested in our books. She just shifts back farther into her chair and gives her coat an impatient tug. Dr. Steinem will never get off the phone, she is thinking, you can tell. And she will remain forever in this deck chair in this sanatorium full of addicts, trapped by a gang of vacuous editors who
insist on discussing fish. The Personality is wondering why she ever thought visiting Elmwood was a good idea.

But then we hear Dr. Steinem coming our way. “MaryBeth,” he calls. “Oh there you are, MaryBeth.” He waves to her, and at the solarium door he smiles brightly at us all. He nods in particular to Celeste. He is pleased we're entertaining the Personality so well. We have not all this time just let her sit reading magazines by herself.

“Henry,” the Personality says. Her voice is flat, she does not sound particularly glad to see him. She only holds out her hand from her chair. Dr. Steinem pats the hand fondly, then helps her stand and places her coat all the way up on her shoulders.

“We're off,” he calls to us over his back, as he steers the Personality toward the foyer. And “Oh Marcie,” he calls from the elevator, and tells her just to take messages, he won't be back the rest of the day.

When the elevator doors close, “Well then,” Celeste says, and walks back to the coffee cart for more tea. She is certainly glad to have had that little chat with the Personality. She would have hated to have her leave with no idea of what it is that we do.

And she looks then at Sally Ann. At least someone here was genuinely instructive. And turning to the rest of us, “Really,” Celeste says, “we all must learn to present ourselves better.”

After Steinem and the Personality take off, the rest of us remain in the solarium. We cannot wait to find out what we all think, how it went with the Personality.

Celeste says well lunch was certainly more than we hoped for. Mr. Bones, who is out of the purse now, nods his cereal bowls up and down. And damn straight, Lola says. Then adds how that ol' gal won't be comin' back anytime soon.

“Still,” Celeste says, “it's too bad about the helicopter.”

Frances agrees. “Yes, we hadn't planned on anyone dying.”

And here Marcie jumps in. “Well, at least it was no one we knew.”

Marcie, although not inner circle at the Project, is quick to learn things in this building. While the Personality was grilling us just now, Marcie was back at her desk, checking with Elmwood's other administrative assistants to see if anyone knew who had died. And it turned out of course one of them did, she told Marcie it was some part-time custodian. An old guy, Marcie says. Just worked here a couple of nights a week and normally he
wouldn't have been here at all but he came in to have lunch with some workmates. And they kidded around, took him to where they keep their brooms, and shoved an industrial one at him. To see what he was made of, they joked. And then right there in the hall, the guy gave the broom a good push and dropped face first to the ground. His heart gave out on the spot.

“So it wasn't a drug addict at all,” Lola says. And she tries out a laugh, as though we sure had the Personality there.

Marcie waits for Lola to finish. She has more still to tell. And then because Marcie is new and doesn't know that we know him, “The guy's name was Earnest,” she says.

Earnest?

For a long moment no one says a word, nobody moves, except for Frances, who lights a cigarette. We are stunned. We are all of us now thinking of poor Earnest, all those years here he slumped over his mop and his pail. And maybe then thinking of our own sorry selves, slumped over our desks and light table.

It takes us a while more to recover. Then someone says well, it was certainly a difficult lunch. Someone else says well yes. And Frances says yes too. All right, then. All agreed. And taking a drag on her cigarette, “Can we now all please just move on?”

I am for once glad for Frances's candor. Because there is something I've been wanting to say. Earnest is one thing, the Personality another. And since there is not much to be done now for Earnest, it is the latter that has me concerned. The Personality suspects us, I'm certain. All her questions just now are a worry. I think it's those questions we should be discussing, not lunch, bad as it was for Earnest.

And I guess Frances is feeling the same way, because she says to
the editors, “The Personality is onto us, you know. Our secret is out.”

And taking another long drag, Frances as usual goes too far. “The Personality knows we've been faking it. She knows we're never going to publish a thing.”

Frances is upset and not thinking. She has forgotten not everyone here knows.

Celeste sits up straight in her deck chair. “We're not?” she says. For a moment she considers. Swallows hard. “When are we never going to publish?”

We all turn to look at Frances. She sighs. “I said never, Celeste. Never, that's when. We have never once sent a thing to press. Every flat we have ever checked over is still there right behind Margaret's door.”

Celeste blinks, absorbing the news. She gives it more thought, which then we can see takes a sudden sharp turn toward alarm.

Not really wanting to know, “Joe Trout too?” she asks, her voice hushed.

“Especially Joe Trout,” Frances says.

Celeste turns and gives me a long stricken look. “Margaret,” she says. “How could you?”

I do not right away answer Celeste. First because I do not actually have any answer. But also because I'm distracted. Because, that is, with the turn things have just now taken, with the Personality closing in and the Project in general falling apart, I find I am reminded
again of Ben, of that night he and I took a wrong turn as well. That night of
Picnic
, I mean. And what became of us after.

So then, to get it off my chest and move on to more pressing business, here is what happened after
Picnic
. More or less blow by blow.

Leaving the theater, first thing, I tell Ben I cannot imagine what got into William Holden. “This was not his best movie,” I say. If I were William Holden, I would not be putting
Picnic
on any résumé.

Ben does not say anything, he only just watches where he walks.

I tell him well, yes, and I am offended as well by Kim Novak. That so often she begged off in that movie. “You cannot help feeling her Madge is no towering genius,” I say. “‘Oh Ma, what is it just to be pretty?' What kind of line is that?”

Ben looks down, says he does not know.

Well, I say. I just did not care for that busty young Madge, that's all. William Holden could certainly have done better. He could, for instance, have gone on dating Audrey Hepburn.

Ben just stares at his feet. He is thinking of something else now, it's clear. Something troubling, from the look of him. It is the movie, all right. William Holden has upset Ben Adams. He is embarrassed for William Holden, he is embarrassed for me, that William Holden is my favorite actor. Well, something has made Ben turn quiet.

Ben looks up. “Would you like to get something to eat, Margaret?”

I stop and study Ben's face. It is late, nearly ten-thirty, I had been assuming we would just say good night now. Ben would say well he had better be getting back home. But instead “We could drive to the truck stop,” he says. He's pretty sure we can get our booth.