The Learners: A Novel (No Series) (20 page)

All of them were under the impression that they would be shod and fed, and not one provided even a shred of insight of any use whatsoever—with the possible exception of Ursula, who, when she finally stopped crying, took a deep breath and mightily sighed, “Whew, I needed
that!
”

She wasn’t antisappointed at all.

“Gee, what a rousing success.” It was Sunday afternoon and Tip had just closed the front door behind Ursula, bolting the lock. “So let’s review what we’ve learned. Buckle shoes should be:” he counted off consecutive fingers of his right hand, “bulletproof, deodorizing, racially superior, and super-saline-absorbent. Christ.” He slumped on the couch and stared into space.

“It was a good idea, really,” I weakly tried to assure him, wondering if Dr. Milgram got his share of kooks too. Probably yes then no—he had assistants at the university to weed them out.

But we didn’t have that luxury, and Tip saw no point in going on with the interviews, wasting more money and time. “At this rate, next we’d get the three blind mice,” he muttered, “squeaking at us that their favorite color is gorgonzola.”

On Monday morning Sketch called in sick. Which was ironic, because if anyone should have, it was me. Something was wrong. Not physically, not really, I just wasn’t…myself. Or maybe that was the problem—maybe I finally
was
myself and couldn’t get used to it. Oddly, it didn’t keep me from functioning. If anything, it made me work even harder. Distraction was precious now. Nights when I wasn’t working I was either camped out at the Sterling Library with my nose in the OED until closing; or home staring at old movies on the Late-Late Show. And then the test pattern.

Anyway, that Monday, over the phone, Sketch asked me to work up some new Krinkle preliminary layouts, a dozen one- and half-pagers with display type, leaving space for him to do the illustrations. His plan was to switch from his cartoon style to a more naturalistic but extremely detailed type of drawing he called “Norman Rockwell after a half-pint of Old Grouse.” “Maybe that will make that Plupp bastard quit grousing,” he coughed. This was a big step for him, to switch gears so drastically on something he’d done for so long. I was really looking forward to seeing it.

“No sweat,” I assured him. “You take it easy now.” Lenny Plupp was due in on Thursday to review Krinkle’s “bold new ad direction.” I had everything ruled out and lettered by three that afternoon. With the extra time on my hands, I thought I’d surprise Sketch by going up the street to Grasso’s Art Supply and having blowup photo-stat prints made of some stock shots of bowls of chips, as positioning reference for the drawings. They’d make his job a lot easier and the repro budget would more than cover it.

I’d just cemented the last of them in place on tissue overlays when Sketch’s intercom buzzed. I got up from my desk, stabbed the “talk” button.

“Hello?”

Miss Preech, frantic: “I tried to stop him. He’s coming up.”

A chill surged into my spine. Who on earth could could shake
her
up?

“Who is? Wha—”

“I apologize for the interruption.” Lenny Plupp strode into the room, urgent. I could hear Dick Stankey lagging in the distance, huffing and puffing up the stairs.

Jesus. “Uh, I’m sorry, Sketch is out sick today. We were expecting you Thursday. Can you—”

“Yeah, sorry for the drop-in.” His eyes went everywhere, as if this were a raid. “It’s just that now I can’t make it Thursday. We were in the neighborhood and I wondered if you had anything worked up yet for—hey, THAT’S it.” He lit upon the board on my desk.

“THAT’S what I want.” Snatching it up, giving it the once over, grinning. “I just had a feeling. And I was right. Photos,
finally
. People want to eat chips because of photographs, not cartoons. This is great.”

Oh my God. “No, Mr. Plupp, you don’t understand, these are preliminary set-ups, for Sketch to work from. These aren’t the finals.”

“They are now, m’boy.” He flipped through the stack of them. “Good work! This is swell.”

Stankey lurched in the doorway, panting. “What’d I miss?”

Everything. The end of everything. Help me, help me, you big Stanking lump. “I—”

“Listen. Got to scoot. Many thanks!” Plupp tucked the boards under his arm. “C’mon, Dicky. Hop to.” Hat on head. “Be in touch.” And out he went.

Stankey stared at me, helpless. “What, what?”

“I just ruined everything. You’ve got to talk him out of it. Sketch is going to
kill
me.”

“Geez.” He wiped his brow, spat into his chew cup.

“Christ on a cracker.” Then he raced back down the stairs to catch up with Plupp. As if he ever would.

What to do? Hot panic. I bolted down the steps to Nicky’s office, rapped on the door glass.

“Come in.”

Tip was there, seated and taking notes. I’d interrupted a meeting.

“I,” I was on the verge of tears. “Something’s happened.”

“Hey, calm down. Sit. What is it?”

I explained it all, as best as I could.

“Well, well, well,” Tip snickered accusingly. Then he chimed, in a weird, Bette Davis voice: “Don’t give it a thought, Karen. After all, you didn’t
personally
drain the gasoline out of the tank.”

What the
hell
did that mean? “No! It was a mistake! I didn’t mean for—”

“ALL that matters,” Nicky intervened, “is that the client is happy. Happy.” A pseudo-sly wink my way.

“I’ll give them a call. This is great news. Really. I was worried as hell.”

“But how are we going to tell Sketch,” I pleaded,

“he’ll be—”

Tip set his eyes on his shoes and kept them there. Not laughing now.

“I’ll handle that.” Nicky chuckled, oblivious. “He ought to be relieved, is what. It will be a lot less work. For years he sat drawing those damned things till all hours. It wasn’t healthy.”

Healthy. What would you know about that, Mr. Nine Iron? What did healthy even mean to you? A ten-stroke handicap?

Nicky exchanged a triumphant glance with Tip, nodding at me. “While he’s here, Skikne, tell him the news.”

News.

“Brace yourself.” Tip lifted his head, not quite believing it himself. “We’re actually going to do a Buckle pitch. For real.”

“Hee-HAH!”

Nicky had, amazingly, swung it. No, Buckle was not looking to change their national advertising, as he suspected. But they did want to see what we came up with in an effort to bring a sense of goodwill to its future community businesses. The idea that we could represent them locally seemed to be a potential reality. Astounding. The ante was upped.

“It’s not your fault. Now c’mon.” Sketch was doing his best to console me, as if
I
were the one who’d just lost the most fulfilling work of my days, because of
him
.

It was nearing six, roughly twenty-six hours after Plupp’s Purloin, as I called it. Sketch had Buckle’s latest catalog splayed open to his right, next to a half-inked drawing of one of the company’s calf-skin men’s dual-clasp slip-ons.

“But it is. I’m so sorry.” I said it for something like the twentieth time that day. “If I hadn’t made those damn photo-stats—”

“Hey. That’s enough now. It sounds like it was a good thing you did.” He put a Henry Burr 78 on the Victrola and cranked it full. “There’s a Spark of Love Still Burning.” Its sweet, sad, tonal flood underscored everything perfectly. Which is to say, drenched us in sonic melancholy. Perhaps unconsciously, Sketch was letting the music mourn
for
him—for Krinkle Karl, for Pucky Pretzel, for…Dick Stankey?

I couldn’t not respond to it. “I—”

“You don’t worry about me. I have plenty else to work on,” he said, stern with concentration, “and so do you, young man, so get to it.”

That afternoon he’d given me the Food Clown’s entire Thanksgiving “We-Gather-Togetherthon” supplement to lay out and paste up, a real bear of a job and a huge responsibility. I was flabbergasted he’d entrust it to me: the half-dozen cranberry recipes using Sea-Spritz’s finest jelled-from-concentrate; the “Do’s’ and ‘Don’ts” of Shell-eeze brand oyster stuffing; the Activity Fun Page’s “how-to-make-a-drawing of a turkey” by tracing around your hand, splayed flat on a piece of construction paper—your thumb assuming the head, your fingers the plume. Just add a wide-open beak and a “gobble!” speech balloon.

Eighteen pages. They wanted it completely revamped from last year. All of it had to be figured out, pleasingly typeset, accented with charming illustrations. I was more than grateful for the opportunity.

We worked the next hours in silence, Sketch drawing shoe after shoe, changing the records on the turntable. I loved anticipating what he would play next.

When he put on Erik Satie’s
Gymnopédies
, I felt for the first time that day that he actually
was
forgiving me. He knew that was my favorite. I couldn’t hold it back anymore: “Sketch?”

“Yup.”

“Why did Mimi let you hire me?”

“What?”

“You never told me.”

“You never asked.” He grinned despite himself, determined to keep his attention to Buckle, its newly acquired place in our lives, front and center.

But I was asking now.

He blew his nose. “I needed the extra help. She knew that.”

I didn’t reply. That just didn’t explain it and he knew it. Knew that I was standing outside of her office that first day, when she was shrieking at him that they couldn’t afford it. Afford me. He knew I’d heard. But then something changed her mind. Immediately.

Now he was betraying his own explanation, laughing. It was close to ten. He cleaned his brush in the mason jar of cloudy water, rubbed his hands with the damp cloth he kept next to it.

“Let’s grab a beer.”

We took two seats at Saluzo’s, at the bar. Sketch looked uncomfortable. Normally he loved explaining things, usually about drawing or comics. But he also harbored a secretive side, fiercely private. Once we’d each had a good swig, he announced, head bowed:

“Look, I’ll tell
you
something if you tell
me
something.”

“Okay.” What could he possibly want to know? There was nothing about me worth knowing. Nothing I could tell him, anyway. Just a typical middle-class American kid who just learned he’s capable of unspeakable evil. “What.”

“Why’d you wanna work here?”

Wow. Out of left field. But of course it would have occurred to him, to wonder. “I needed a job.”

“Aw, don’t shit a shitter. You came from two states away. New Haven isn’t exactly a destination, unless you’ve got Yale in your sights. And you don’t.”

“True.” I did now, but not the way he meant it. “I don’t.”

“So?”

Just tell him. “One of my teachers from school, well, my most important teacher. Used to work for you.”

“Really? Who?”

“Winter. Winter Sorbeck.”

A puzzled look. “Who? I don’t—”

This is what I was afraid of—that he wouldn’t remember. I reminded him of when, three years ago, I’d phoned him in an effort to find out who designed the wrapper for Wrigley’s Doublemint gum. It was an assignment Winter gave to me specifically, and the answer, ultimately, was Winter—he’d done it himself, when he was a feisty young stringer at none other than Spear, Rakoff & Ware. “Anyway, I know it’s corny, but I wanted to start where he started. And look, I was actually able to do just that. I’m so, so lucky, and it’s all thanks to you.”