The First Bad Man (2 page)

CHAPTER TWO

I was woken early by the sound of limbs falling in the backyard. I took thirty milliliters of red and listened to the labored sawing. It was Rick, the homeless gardener who came with the house. I would never hire someone to lurk around on my property and invade my privacy, but I didn’t fire him when I moved in, because I didn’t want him to think I was less open-minded than the previous owners, the Goldfarbs. They gave him a key; sometimes he uses the bathroom or leaves lemons in the kitchen. I try to find a reason to leave before he arrives, which is not so easy at seven
A.M.
Sometimes I just drive around for the whole three hours until he’s gone. Or I drive a few blocks away, park, and sleep in my car. Once he spotted me, on his way back to his tent or box, and pressed his smiling, stubbly face against the window. It had been hard to think of an explanation while still half-asleep.

Today I just went to Open Palm early and got everything ready for the meeting of the board. My plan was to behave so gracefully that the clumsy woman Phillip had spoken with yesterday would be impossible to recall. I wouldn’t use a British accent out loud, but I’d be using one in my head and it would carry over.

Jim and Michelle were already in the office, and so was Sarah the intern. She had her new baby with her; she was trying to keep it under her desk, but obviously we could all hear it. I wiped down the boardroom table and laid out pads of paper and pens. As a manager this is beneath me, but I like to make it nice for Phillip. Jim yelled, “Incoming!” which meant Carl and Suzanne were about to make their entrance. I grabbed a pair of giant vases full of dead flowers and hurried to the staff kitchen.

“I’ll do that!” said Michelle. She was a new employee—not my pick.

“Too late now,” I said. “I’m already holding them.”

She ran alongside me and pried a vase out of my hand, too ignorant to understand the system of counterbalances I was using. One was slipping now, thanks to her help, and I let her catch it, which she did not. Carl and Suzanne walked in the door the moment the vase hit the carpet. Phillip was with them.

“Greetings,” said Carl. Phillip was wearing a gorgeous wine-colored sweater. My breath thinned. I always had to resist the urge to go to him like a wife, as if we’d already been a couple for a hundred thousand lifetimes. Caveman and cavewoman. King and queen. Nuns.

“Meet Michelle, our new media coordinator,” I said, gesturing downward in a funny way. She was on her hands and knees gathering up slimy brown flowers; now she struggled to stand.

“I’m Phillip.” Michelle shook his hand from a confused kneeling position, her face a hot circle of tears. I had accidentally been cruel; this only ever happens at times of great stress and my regret is always tremendous. I would bring her something tomorrow, a gift certificate or a Ninja five-cup smoothie maker. I should have already given her a gift, preemptively; I like to do that with new employees. They come home and say, “This new job is so great, I can’t even believe it—look at what my manager gave me!” Then if they ever come home in tears their spouse will say, “But, hon, the smoothie maker? Are you sure?” And the new employee will second-guess or perhaps even blame themselves.

Suzanne and Carl ambled away with Phillip, and Sarah the intern hurried over to help clean up the mess. Her baby’s gurgling was insistent and aggressive. Finally I walked over to her desk and peeked under it. He cooed like a mournful dove and smiled up at me with the warmth of total recognition.

I keep getting born to the wrong people
,
he said.

I nodded regretfully.
I know.

What could I do? I wanted to lift him out of his carrier and finally encircle him in my arms again, but this wasn’t an option. I mimed an apology and he accepted it with a slow, wise-eyed blink that made my chest ache with sorrow and my globus swell. I kept getting older while he stayed young, my tiny husband. Or, more likely at this point: my son. Sarah hurried over and swung his baby carrier to the other side of the desk. His foot went wild with kicking.

Don’t give up
,
don’t give up.

I won’t
,
I said.
Never.

It would be much too painful to see him on a regular basis. I cleared my throat sternly.

“I think you know it isn’t appropriate to bring your baby to work.”

“Suzanne said it was fine. She said she brought Clee to work all the time when she was little.”

It was true. Carl and Suzanne’s daughter used to come to the old studio after school and hang out in the classes, running around screaming and distracting everyone. I told Sarah she could finish the day but that this couldn’t become a routine thing. She gave me a betrayed look, because she’s a working mom, feminism, etc. I gave her the same look back, because I’m a woman in a senior position, she’s taking advantage, feminism, etc. She bowed her head slightly. The interns are always women Carl and Suzanne feel sorry for. I was one, twenty-five years ago. Back then Open Palm was really just a women’s self-defense studio; a repurposed tae kwon do dojo.

A man grabs your breast—what do you do? A gang of men surrounds you and knocks you to the ground, then begins unzipping your pants—what do you do? A man you thought you knew presses you against a wall and won’t let you go—what do you do? A man yells a crude comment about a part of your body he’d like you to show him—do you show it to him? No. You turn and look straight at him, point your finger right at his nose, and, drawing from your diaphragm, you make a very loud, guttural “Aiaiaiaiaiai!” noise. The students always liked that part, making that noise. The mood shifted when the attackers came out in their giant-headed foam pummel suits and began to simulate rape, gang rape, sexual humiliation, and unwanted caress. The men inside were actually kind and peaceable—almost to a fault—but they became quite vulgar and heated during the role-plays. It brought up emotions for a lot of the women, which was the point—anyone can fight back when they’re not terrified or humiliated, when they aren’t sobbing and asking for their money back. The feeling of accomplishment in the final class was always very moving. Attackers and students hugged and thanked each other while drinking sparkling cider. All was forgiven.

We still teach a class for teen girls, but that’s just to keep our nonprofit status—all our real business is in fitness DVDs now. Selling self-defense as exercise was my idea. Our line is competitive with other top workout videos; most buyers say they don’t even think about the combat aspect, they just like the up-tempo music and what it does to their shape. Who wants to watch a woman getting accosted in a park? No one. If it weren’t for me, Carl and Suzanne would still be making that type of depressing how-to video. They’ve more or less retired since they moved to Ojai, but they still meddle in employee affairs and attend the board meetings. I’m practically, though not officially, on the board. I take notes.

Phillip sat as far away from me as possible and seemed to avoid looking at my side of the room for the duration of the meeting. I hoped I was just being paranoid, but later Suzanne asked if there was a problem between us. I confessed I had shown him some heat.

“What does that mean?”

It had been almost five years since she’d suggested it—I guess it wasn’t a phrase she used anymore.

“I told him when in doubt . . .” It was hard to say it.

“What?” Suzanne leaned in, her dangly earrings swinging forward.

“When in doubt, give a shout,” I whispered.

“You said that to him? That’s a very provocative phrase.”

“It is?”

“For a woman to say to a man? Sure. You’ve definitely shown him—how did you put it?”

“Some heat.”

Carl walked around the office with a dirty canvas sack that said
OJAI NATURAL FOODS
and filled it with cookies and green tea and a container of almond milk from the staff kitchen, then he bounced over to the supply closet and helped himself to reams of paper, a handful of pens and highlighters, and a few bottles of Wite-Out. They also unload things they don’t know what to do with—an old car that doesn’t run, a litter of kittens, a smelly old couch that they don’t have room for. This time it was a large amount of meat.

“It’s called beefalo—it’s the fertile hybrid of cattle and bison,” said Carl.

Suzanne opened a Styrofoam cooler. “We ordered too much,” she explained, “and it expires tomorrow.”

“So rather than let it rot, we thought everyone could enjoy beefalo tonight—on us!” shouted Carl, throwing his hands into the air like Santa.

They began calling out names. Each employee rose and received a little white package labeled with their name. Suzanne called Phillip’s name and my name in quick succession. We walked up together and she handed us our meat at the same time. My meat package was bigger. I saw him notice that and then he finally looked at me.

“Trade you,” he whispered.

I frowned to keep the joy in. He gave me the meat that said
PHILLIP
and I gave him the meat that said
CHERYL
.

As the beefalo was distributed, Suzanne also wondered aloud if anyone could take their daughter in for a few weeks until she found an apartment and a job in LA.

“She’s an extremely gifted actress.”

No one said anything.

Suzanne swayed a little in her long skirt. Carl rubbed his large stomach and raised his eyebrows, waiting for takers. The last time Clee had been to the office she was fourteen. Her pale hair was pulled back into a very tight ponytail, lots of eyeliner, big hoop earrings, pants falling down. She looked like she was in a gang. That was six years ago, but still no one volunteered. Until someone did: Michelle.

THE BEEFALO HAD A PRIMAL
AFTERTASTE.
I wiped the pan clean and ripped up the white paper with Phillip’s name on it. Before I was even finished, the phone rang. No one knows why ripping up a name makes a person call—science can’t explain it. Erasing the name also works.

“I thought I’d give a shout,” he said.

I walked to the bedroom and lay down on my bed. Initially it was no different than any other call except for that in six years he had never once called me on my personal cell phone at night. We talked about Open Palm and issues from the meeting as if it wasn’t eight o’clock and I wasn’t in my nightgown. Then, at the point where the conversation would normally have ended, a long silence arrived. I sat in the dark wondering if he had hung up without bothering to hang up. Finally, in a low whisper, he said, “I think I might be a terrible person.”

For a split second I believed him—I thought he was about to confess a crime, maybe a murder. Then I realized that we all think we might be terrible people. But we only reveal this before we ask someone to love us. It is a kind of undressing.

“No,” I said in a whisper. “You are so good.”

“I’m not, though!” he protested, his voice rising with excitement. “You don’t know!”

I responded with equal volume and fervor, “I do know, Phillip! I know you better than you think!” This quieted him for a moment. I shut my eyes. With all my throw pillows around me, poised at the lip of intimacy—I felt like a king. A king on his throne with a feast laid before him.

“Are you able to talk right now?” he said.

“If you are.”

“I mean, are you alone?”

“I live alone.”

“I thought so.”

“Really? What did you think when you thought about that?”

“Well, I thought:
I think she lives alone
.”

“You were right.”

“I have a confession to make.”

I shut my eyes again, a king.

“I need to unburden myself,” he continued. “You don’t have to respond, but if you could just listen.”

“Okay.”

“Yikes, I’m nervous about this. I’m sweating. Remember, no response necessary. I’ll just say it and then we can hang up and you can go to sleep.”

“I’m already in bed.”

“Perfect. So you can just go right to sleep and call me in the morning.”

“That’s what I’ll do.”

“Okay, I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

“Wait—you haven’t said the confession.”

“I know, I got scared and—I don’t know. The moment passed. You should just go to sleep.”

I sat up.

“Should I still call you in the morning?”

“I’ll call you tomorrow night.”

“Thank you.”

“Good night.”

IT WAS HARD TO THINK
of a confession that would make a person sweat that wasn’t either criminal or romantic. And how often do people, people we know, commit serious crimes? I felt jittery; I didn’t sleep. At dawn I experienced an involuntary total voiding of my bowels. I took thirty milliliters of red and squeezed my globus. Still rock hard. Jim called at eleven and said there was a mini-emergency. Jim is the on-site office manager.

“Is it about Phillip?” Maybe we would have to rush over to his house and I could see where he lived.

“Michelle changed her mind about Clee.”

“Oh.”

“She wants Clee to move out.”

“Okay.”

“So can you take her?”

When you live alone people are always thinking they can stay with you, when the opposite is true: who they should stay with is a person whose situation is already messed up by other people and so one more won’t matter.

“I wish I could, I really wish I could help out,” I said.

“This isn’t coming from me, it’s Carl and Suzanne’s idea. I think they kind of wonder why you didn’t offer in the first place, since you’re practically family.”

I pressed my lips together. Once Carl had called me
ginjo,
which I thought meant “sister” until he told me it’s Japanese for a man, usually an elderly man, who lives in isolation while he keeps the fire burning for the whole village.

“In the old myths he burns his clothes and then his bones to keep it going,” Carl said. I made myself very still so he would continue; I love to be described. “Then he has to find something else to keep the fire going so he has
ubitsu
. There’s no easy translation for that, but basically they are dreams so heavy that they have infinite mass and weight. He burns those and the fire never goes out.” Then he told me my managerial style was more effective from a distance, so my job was now work-from-home though I was welcome to come in one day a week and for board meetings.