The Cadence of Grass (14 page)

From his office high above the floor, Paul concluded that Miss Elvstrom was gaga over Stuart, and that this would be an excellent time to have a smallish discussion with him.

Stuart was summoned by means of a loudspeaker. The bottle-washing foreman he’d been talking to, a small gray-haired man with forearms like Popeye’s, said to Stuart in solemn tones, “There’s a fuckin’ afoot.”

When Stuart entered the office and sat down, Paul was writing on a notepad—“I am collecting my thoughts,” Paul said before looking up into the slightly anxious eyes of Stuart, whose long, gullible face suggested impending flight.

Paul was aware of the fact that since the death of his father-in-law and his own installation as the new boss, Stuart had been entirely too forthcoming in expressing his reservations about the future of the company. Hearing this, Paul vowed to “kick his ass,” and had done lots of homework in preparing for this deed.

“Stuart.” There was no sense that Paul had ever seen him before.

“Good morning, Paul.”

“Beautiful, uh, day.” Paul glanced at the window to discern if this was in fact true, then he pointed in case Stuart didn’t know where it was to be found.

“It certainly is.”

“Stuart, I want you to look into some water-management services we could offer, some franchise we might consider. . . .” He could make out the impact of this preface on his clueless brother-in-law. Yet it took people like this to make headway in places like up on the High Line, say, where anything but the outright monosyllabic produced xenophobic hysteria.

“You mean like—”

“So we’re not
stifled
in this his
toric
building by the spirit of our father-in-law, now dead and only maybe in heaven.” This whiff of kinship made them both uncomfortable.

“I’m not sure I know what you’re thinking about.”

Neither, of course, did Paul, but it was Stuart who looked disoriented. Less-than-idolatrous discussions of Jim Whitelaw were at best experimental in this new postmortem world, and at worst an insufferable deviation. The idea of discussing Sunny Jim’s place in the afterlife was disconcerting.

Paul raised his voice. “
I already told you
. Water-management services as it is understood by most Americans: various forms of conditioned water that we can sell without doing the R and D ourselves. Like with water softeners. We put the widget in the home, sell them the salts for the rest of the life of the operating unit, then sell them another unit. How far are you getting with this, Stuart?”

“I’ll look into it,” he said quietly.

Paul knew that with Stuart, he could really raise the pitch, even let a bit of it be heard down on the floor where Miss You-Know-Who stood by. It wouldn’t be a speck on the regular blistering old Whitelaw regularly doled out to this beaten man. He had concluded that further heapings of the assigned tasks might abet Stuart’s sense of disadvantage.

“You know, we could do need analysis right in their homes and charge for that too.
All
the water around here is too hard—a whole population with itching scalps, flaking skin, mineralized pipes; half of Montana scratching their asses trying to get on with their lives. It’s not right. I’ve seen our elected representatives back there in Washington scratching their asses on national TV, so half of America thinks we’re uncouth, when it’s really just a water-quality issue. But there’s a big opportunity out there for you, Stuart, especially vis-à-vis a guy with a twenty-year-old profit-sharing plan. So look into it, Stuart.
You’re fully vested
.”

“I will, Paul. I know I am, my whole fu—”

“Lot of outfits like us supposed to be bottling plants, and they’re nothing but prisoners of some empire. You can tell our customers all about Coca-Cola products but you’re still a prisoner—” Paul paused at the startled look the word produced on Stuart’s face “—watching some behemoth (‘What are the chances this guy knows what a behemoth is?’) eating your goddamn margins. Sure, I’m worried about sales, but I’m
more
worried about profitability.” With these types, you go straight to the rules of the game and stay out of some value-driven mess where their opinions could have merit. Paul was beginning to believe this himself and vowed to rant more in the future. This was a complicated business, and Paul had no idea what was going on. Even the Coca-Cola concentrate—arriving in separate shipments from Atlanta and Puerto Rico, to guard its secret recipe—added to his anxiety, though in bolder times he dreamed of cracking the code.

“I’m constantly concerned with profitability, Paul.” Paul, who thought Stuart’s little show of gumption was a scream, fanned this show of spirit away. He pursed his lips and stared up into a corner of the room where there was nothing to look at. This lull ended when his gaze came spinning down like a bird of prey. “What, for example, do you say when you call on someone who was just visited by the dipshit from Pepsi? What do you say?” This seemingly cruel redirection was actually a sop enabling Stuart to show the colors a bit and recover a shred of dignity. Paul knew he wasn’t smart enough to credit him with this kindness, but it would be fun to see him on his feet for once, at least for a few strides. Breathe some life back into him. Not much use having a shell out there pushing some dubious product when real conviction was required.

Old Stuart was off and running. “I explain that our sugar content and carbonization differs. I tell them that Pepsi is flatter. I tell them Coke is more orange based, while Pepsi’s more of a lemon flavor.” He concluded in a tone of quiet reason, “I tell them Coke is cocaine free, but that the caffeine’s still there.”

Suddenly Paul was contemplative, his handsome face and great brown eyes at rest. “You know there’s every reason to fear glass bottles are going to be phased out. You need to make it clear that aluminum recycling is iffy
as hell
and that the best interests of their communities are served by returnable glass bottles. Glass bottles hold carbonization and flavor better than anything. Also, on the Coke front, your customers need to be reminded that Coca-Cola is
more
American than apple pie.” Here Paul began to speak in a stentorian tone that would’ve done Lincoln proud. “Dr. John Smith Pemberton first made this elixir in his
backyard
in 1886, and the world has been drinking it ever since. Forget the
expansions
—Minute Maid, Fanta, Sprite, all those peripherals. Stuart, please try and forget them. You need to sell the old original, and you need to sell it out of glass bottles.”

“I tell them we combined with Tri-Star to form Columbia Pictures!” Stuart cried, causing a brief but unsettling quiet.

“No, Stuart,
please
, they don’t need that, Stuart, they mustn’t hear it. They do not need Hollywood. They need a time-honored cold drink in a glass bottle. But look, the headline for today is water-management services, the sort of slam dunk you can do on the weekend across your neighbor’s fence while you’re roasting weenies on the barbecue. Tell the one about how the problem isn’t keeping his wife out of your yard but keeping
your
yard out of
his
wife! It’s an old one, but the old ones are the good ones, aren’t they, Stuart? I think they are. And you can make stuff up, too. Tell them Pepsi gets its water out of the cyanide leach fields from abandoned mines.”

“Uh, I’m going to dig into it today, Paul. Services basically.”

“Good, Stuart. And look, I know this takes some getting used to, but what are we going to do? Jim Whitelaw is dead.” Paul felt strangely soiled by his own performance.

“I realize.”

“And
puhleeze
don’t pretend you miss him.”

“I did respect him though, Paul.”

Paul clenched his forearms to his rib cage. “
I
bet you got a
million
more where that one came from.”

Now Stuart was rising from his seat, shaky and undefiant. Paul found his search for an appropriate facial expression semi-risible; it was like Stuart came in a shoebox full of spare parts. With a slight frown of ostensible concern, Paul urged him to pull himself together.

“I can’t, Paul,” Stuart said. “I never expected to be treated this way. I should’ve prepared myself better.”

He didn’t know how he found her here, nor how he managed to get her to share a bench with him, though she maintained a certain distance by pushing her hands deep into the pockets of her winter coat and withdrawing her neck into its collar so that the only actual flesh of Evelyn on display was the bridge of her nose, her eyes and the portion of forehead that showed below her Irish wool cap. Paul—coat open, gloveless—seemed warmed by his not inconsiderable charm. “Why don’t you just call off the divorce? That satisfies everything.”

“God knows there’s plenty of pressure on me. Why can’t you at least get a bit of money out to my mother?” Her eyes still followed the dogs, the Frisbees. “And Nat could use a boost.”

“I don’t make those choices. These distributions are based on profits.”

“What happened to the profits?”

“They’re going down,” said Paul glumly.

“Why? Don’t you know how to run the place?”

“Of course I do. But there are market forces I can’t control, and our sector is getting hammered everywhere.”

“
Sector
? Paul, you just make stuff up. What if I did stay married to you—let’s just say I did—all that happens is I inherit Dad’s equity in the ranch. In other words, no difference. You keep appealing to my greed, and it’s not working. Why be so tiresome?”

“You may not get any money, but it would enable us to sell the company and cash out your mother and your sister.
Your mother and your sister
.” Evelyn decided not to comment on this appeal to family values. “I don’t see Bill living forever, and that land’s worth a fortune. Someday you’ll sell it and—
ta da
—you’re in San Juan Capistrano shaded up under a California oak, a margarita in one hand, a Palm Pilot with stock quotes in the other, just waiting for the fucking
swallows
to return.”

“You make a romantic case for liquidation, but in my version Bill gets to a hundred and I live in peace out there at least until menopause, at which point your plan might start making sense. But say all this happens. Where are you?”

“The usual place, trying to get back into your good graces. Natalie says I can use the spare bedroom once Stuart gathers up his sea boots and boogies. Then I’d have to look around for something to do, pretty good at selling myself.”

“You’ll need a fresh audience.”

“Could be, but what’s for you to think about is this company, which, despite its quantifiable value to others, seems to be caught in bad undertow. And, frankly, are you selling enough cows to support your mother? Not to mention the various treatment bills lying ahead for Natalie, given her deepening despondency—i.e., more than pissed
and
gone back to stealing, just for instance?”

After a moment’s thought, Evelyn said, “This is an absolute curse.”

“Maybe so, but I didn’t put it on you. Your father did. Remember, I’m not the devil.”

“You just work for him.”

“Really? I wonder why. The pay sucks.”

The doors were all closing. Paul’s mother called her that same night, undoubtedly tipped off by him to some perceived weakening. And knowing he would report to her probably kept Paul from going crazy. She claimed to be correcting papers but was, in fact, stinking drunk. “You’re not sufficiently aware of the value of continuity,” Mrs. Crusoe began in general garrulity, “or other long-run values that make your apparent need for some dreamed-of bliss shrink by comparison. Marriage is like the devoted study of a long, sacred document. Think of the Bible! Think of the Koran! What’s that other one? Where all parties are raised to sacramental heights by the dedication of their lives.” Evelyn’s attempts to interrupt were unavailing. She actually put the phone aside for as long as it took to put a few dishes in the sink. When she picked it up again, Mrs. Crusoe was winding down and growing confused. Finally, she demanded, “Who
is
this? With
whom
am I speaking?”

Natalie stood outside fastening her coat and determining if she’d left any lights on. The wind cut into her cheek while she took in the tidiness of the bungalow with both faint distaste and some alertness to maintenance issues. She recalled putting its little rectangle of a garden to bed as though it had been an act of complicity with seasonal forces that wished to make her colorless. She understood that she had to work this particular fear. She knew it was not reasonable when Stuart asked if they could move the boat from Canyon Ferry to Flathead Lake, and she’d replied that it made her want to kill herself. And it mattered less than it should have when Stuart made his little puzzle-face and tried to cheer her by describing the huckleberries west of the Continental Divide and the summer theater and shopping opportunities around Bigfork. Foolishness of this sort had once landed her in a karaoke joint lip-synching Tammy Wynette to gales of laughter and a booby-prize free pizza. Natalie was a Vassar graduate, and at the time this had seemed a very long fall indeed.