Living Room (23 page)

“I feel like smashing into that guy with both—”

“You’d get arrested. I don’t want you in jail. I want you here.”

“When we have less company.”

She watched from the window to see if Al would strike the man across the street. He turned left on the sidewalk and strode briskly away. As the man started to follow him again, Al shot a look up and over his left shoulder in her direction.

In the kitchen, Shirley did what she had wanted to do in the restaurant. She picked up a glass standing on the counter and flung it down. It hit the counter, rolled, stopped against the bread box. It didn’t break. Nothing spilled. It had been empty.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

MINUTES AFTER FALLING ASLEEP, she woke from a dream, the top of her nightgown drenched in sweat. She pulled it off, tried to fell back asleep, hopeless, got up, put another nightgown on, took two seconals. At one point she got out of bed and looked down into dark street lit by the one lamp. No traffic moved. The hat was still there. She crawled back into bed, knowing that her rage would have to subside before sleep would take her.

In the morning, she separated two slats of the Venetian blind. Didn’t that son of a bitch ever sleep? Or did he sleep in the daytime and watch people all night? If Al left, why had the man stayed? Think Al had pulled a second dodge, sneaked back in? Was he watching for Al this morning, evidence of staying the night? His eyes would fall out waiting.

Her stomach wouldn’t tolerate breakfast. She settled for coffee, arrived at the office a minute or two after nine, went straight to Arthur’s office. Marvin was there. They had obviously been talking for some time.

“Good morning,” said Arthur.

Shirley made a sound that might have been anything.

“Good morning,” said Marvin.

“Don’t be a hypocrite.”

“Now what’s the matter?” asked Marvin.

“Why don’t you sit down and have a cup of coffee,” said Arthur.

“Not before you instruct your so-called creative director to call off the cops.”

Arthur seemed startled. He didn’t know.

Cool Marvin said quietly, “What are you talking about, Shirley?”

Shirley ignored him. “Arthur, he’s got some private dick—Marvin, I hate to use dick in connection with you, all you’ve got down there, I’ll bet, is a bald spot—Arthur, he’s having me watched and my friends followed. That may be normal business practice, but if the dogs aren’t called off right now, we can forget this morning’s meeting because I won’t be a part of it or this company, is that clear?”

“Arthur, can I have a word with you outside?” said Marvin.

“You’ll have your words with him right in front of me. In fact, I’ll have them for you. Arthur, if I make any kind of commitment to make personal appearances in connection with any assignment I’ve got here, I’ll try to stick to it, but I won’t if there’s going to be any phony enforcement. This man”—she stared Marvin straight in the face—“is having me followed. I’d like to see him deny it. Marvin hired these people—” Shirley was rummaging through her purse. “Deny it,” she said. “I’d love to see you lie.”

“It was a precaution,” said Marvin, not knowing what she was digging for in her purse.

“What’s the thing you’re looking for, Shirley?” asked Arthur.

“Nothing,” said Shirley, snapping her purse closed. “Pure and simple bluff. If we’re to do anything constructive around here this morning, I want your assurance, not his, yours, no more tails, ever.”

For the first time, Shirley sat down and sipped at the coffee.
It was Arthur who broke the silence. He knew defense was hopeless. “If Marvin did what you say he did, he was wrong. It’s his way, and there are some of his ways I don’t like. Frankly, there are some of your ways I don’t like. I don’t want to minimize how dependent we are on certain major accounts, Ford particularly. If an account goes, people go, and I hate to fire people. Shirley, I’ve heard you criticize people because they’re insufficiently creative, according to you. I’ve heard you sound off about art directors and copy people who aren’t spinning bright new ideas off the top of their heads every minute of the day. Well, with all due respect to your own ingenuity, the world is populated by ordinary mortals who may or may not do something spectacular now and again but who are occupied day in and day out by the housework of making a living, if you’ll forgive the expression.”

“It’s a very good expression, Arthur.”

“You want other people to do the housework, and I’m not talking about sharpening pencils or filing…”

“What’s that got to do with what Marvin’s done?”

“I’m coming to that. Shirley, I’m talking about attending meetings, working from budgets, cooperating with other people including their disabilities and inefficiencies, because you’ve got some, too, the biggest one being your inability to recognize that most people have faults and it’s not a sinful state to have them. Some people can’t help it. I can’t help it, Shirley, I’m full of faults, the biggest of which is dealing with you.”

“Are you rationalizing what he did?”

“Yes, and I’m also apologizing for his ways. Some of his ways are as bad as some of yours.”

“Oh, Arthur.”

“I have to live with you both. Now can we get down to business.”

“I’d like to add a word,” said Marvin, the edge of authority creeping back into his voice.

Shirley looked at him
. People like Marvin didn’t have mothers
, she thought,
they were born in public toilets
. Her mother’s voice answered immediately.
Shirley, without no charity, you’ve got no hope.

“Ford,” said Marvin, “insisted on certain conditions for the campaign. I didn’t want them breached.”

“For Christ’s sake,” said Shirley, “I had a date with a man!”

“You get involved with a man, you’re not going to want to go off to a thirty-city promotion gig, you’ll violate the personal-services end of—”

“Please, both of you,” said Arthur. “Shirley, I don’t care what you do with your private life. If you’re going to hold a job, any kind of job in any business anywhere in the world, you’ve got to work in tandem with other people, in this case with Marvin and me. And our clients.”

In the swirl of her dismay and anger, Shirley realized that in the world that most people experienced every day, in the world of bread and butter and rent, Arthur’s ground rules were right, and that her own unwillingness to live with them was her problem, not theirs.

“I’m listening,” she said.

“See it as an exchange, Shirley. Ford supplies the bread to us, we pass some of it on to you, and the quid for bread is work, not just the razzle-dazzle of ideas but the follow-through. I’m not asking you to be an administrator. We’ve got people for that. I’m asking you to follow through on your own campaign so that it’s not just an idea but an idea that works. It may mean going to Dearborn. Dearborn isn’t Siberia. It means trying to be civil not only to Cass Rodgers because you like him, but with everyone else who’s on this job because, like Dearborn, they’re there. I’ll make a deal with you. Cooperate our way, Ford’s way, for nine months. I won’t spring any new clients on you. I’ll sign a piece of paper right now entitling you to draw out a one-time bonus of twenty-five thousand dollars from an escrow account in your name with me
as trustee and the only condition for the withdrawal
that on that date nine months from now you are employed by this agency. I don’t care if you quit the next day, the money’s yours.”

This could be the nest egg,
Shirley thought. She saw the strain on Marvin’s face. The bonus must have been Arthur’s spur-of-the-moment idea, not something they had discussed before her arrival.

“At the end of nine months,” Arthur continued, “you can stay or quit, or if you want me to fire you for the sake of unemployment benefits, I’ll do that, too. You can then go do your thing, whatever it is, though I hope it’s here at the agency, but even if it’s for some other agency, or in Tahiti, it’ll be your decision, Shirley.
I
need nine months security.”

“I gotta go pee,” said Shirley.

“Shirley,” said Arthur. “Grow up. I made you an offer I’ve never made anyone else in my life.”

“Arthur, if I accept your offer, can I go pee?”

She was out the door. In the john, sitting down, she realized she was on the verge of tears. Never. Not in front of them.

She fixed her face.

When she returned to Arthur’s office, he was alone.

“Oh, is the meeting over?”

“We haven’t started. I wanted to hear from you, without an audience, whether there were any reservations in your head.”

“Dozens.”

“But you accepted.”

“I meant what I said.”

“For the sake of my disquieted soul, tell me why did you decide to play ball?”

She didn’t want what she felt to show in her voice. She gave herself a moment for control, then said, “Isn’t playing ball what usually happens?”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

A DRINK AT HER SIDE, Shirley called Mary Wood from home two evenings later.

“Are we on speaking terms?” Shirley asked.

“Of course.”

“Speak to me about you and Al. What was that all about?”

A moment’s silence, then Mary saying, “Jack, would you turn the television down.”

“You can’t talk now,” surmised Shirley.

“Not really. Let’s have lunch.”

“Before or after the birthday dinner, or have you called that
off?”

“Of course it’s on. Al said he’d pick you up at your office at six Friday. I heard about that man watching you. I think that’s terrible.”

“It’s okay now.”

“I’m glad. It sounded as if Al was going to start his first fist fight since high school.”

“With whom?”

“The private eye. Did you think he was angry at you?”

“I thought we were both angry at me. Mary?”

“What?”

“Maybe we ought to call this foursome birthday dinner off.”

Silence. “I can’t.”

“What do you mean you can’t, just call Al.”

Mary hesitated. “I think you and Al should give it one more time. The birthday’s a good excuse. For my sake.”

“I don’t understand that.”

“Some other time. Over lunch. How’s Monday?”

“Monday’s in Dearborn.”

“Tuesday?”

“I won’t know till Monday.”

“We’ll talk then. Hell, we’ll see you Friday first.”

Shirley listened to the humming on the telephone line.

“Jack says to say hello.”

“Good night,” said Shirley.

*

A moment later she dialed Mary’s number again. “What I meant,” said Shirley, “is hello to Jack and good night to you both.”

“Oh Shirley,” said Mary, “we know you. You didn’t have to call back. Sleep well.”

*

On Friday, Al arrived at the glass-and-marble front of the building that housed Armon, Caiden, Crouch five minutes early.

Out in the countryside, his preferred place, five minutes was barely time to indulge his senses in looking up at his one towering silver maple, its high white branches lacing through the leaves, the great mass on top swaying in the west wind.

In the city, five minutes could be an agony of waiting, standing hands in pockets on the sidewalk, glanced at by the scurrying hurriers because he wasn’t going anywhere. He took a deep breath, immediately
regretting his forgetfulness; what he sucked in
was fumes, particles, bad humid air. He looked up at the sky, a patch of blue framed by buildings taller than any silver maple. Across the small gap a jet appeared and disappeared, heading from Kennedy to where? Detroit, Toronto, or would it dip its left wing and head for Cleveland, Chicago, Albuquerque, Los Angeles with its planeload of—this time of day?—businessmen planning to hole up at a distant hotel to be fresh for tomorrow morning’s meeting and then the quick flight back home, having accomplished what?

“I just got out,” said the husk of a voice.

Standing still, Al could not avoid the bum, deep dirt lines in a frizzled face, holding a string-tied paper package under his arm. Old clothes?

“I could use a dollar-forty,” said the bum. “Half’ll get me to the wife in Brooklyn, subway and bus. I’ll need the other half to come back in case she throws me out.”

“Been in long?” asked Al.

“Nah. Thirty days. I’m off booze, it’s for carfare. Honest.”

Al reached in his pocket, peeled off two bills, didn’t bring out the whole of it in case the bum would grab and run. “Keep the change for a drink,” he said.

The bum looked at him as if he were considering whether to take the money. The creased face turned into a broken grin. Most people bought him off with a quarter.

“Thanks.” He shoved the bills deep into the pocket of his overlong coat, hiked the paper-wrapped bundle higher under his arm, took off.