The Pursuit of Other Interests: A Novel (13 page)

“Wait, I have to move,” he said. “I can’t park here.” Behind them, a car honked.

“I’ll get out here,” she said.

“You can’t go now. Not like this.” He tried for her hand, but she pulled it away, opened the door, and jumped out. “Come on. Get back in the car, please.” He tried to sound calm, but his voice was rising.

She didn’t respond. Instead, she opened the back door and reached for her bag. It was jammed between the floor and the seats, though, and she had trouble getting it out.

“Donna, you shouldn’t go off like this, leave like this.”

She yanked on the bag. The policeman blew his whistle again and headed toward the car. Behind him, Charlie heard more honking.

He turned, and at the exact moment that she pulled her bag free, he yelled, “I got fired. They fired me. Helmut fired me.”

Donna had no response to this either. Charlie wasn’t sure she’d heard him, “Donna! Come on, get back in. I said, I got fired. You can’t go now.”

She slammed the rear door and stood one last time by the passenger window, peering back at him. It was only then that Charlie realized she wasn’t going to visit her brother Aaron in Minneapolis.

“Where are you going?” His question scared him. She stared at Charlie, her hard jaw retreating, her mouth trembling. She turned and rushed off through the revolving doors and into the airport, which was ablaze with lights.

A clear sky at night is a strange place. Mysterious. Peaceful. Perspective can be found in the distance and space. Looking up into the darkness at the stars, a man is reminded of his station, his overall state of helplessness.

Charlie used to like looking at the stars when he was a boy. He found them reassuring. He believed they had a purpose, and he sensed an order, a connection to God. Perspective shifts with age, though, and now he saw them differently, now he recognized their frailty and saw them for what they were: random pinpricks of light and nothing more.

“I’m fifty years old,” he said out loud, his face turned up to the sky. “Fifty years old.”

It was late and the night had grown windy and cool. Despite the fact that he had made a serious dent in a new bottle of bourbon and was wearing his Bagel Man cape, the cold was bracing and he knew he should go inside. It was after midnight and he had been in the backyard for hours, gazing up at the sky, his telescope at his side, sifting through things.

As he lay on the ground, he tried to trace the roots of his situation, tried to identify when things had gone south between Donna and him. Several moments, fights, incidents, came to mind, but one stood out. It had happened about three or four years ago. Kyle had gotten a small part in the school play and Charlie had promised to leave work early so he could be there to cheer him on. He had recently made the move over to the new agency and had missed a string of family functions: Donna’s father’s eightieth and, it turned out, last birthday; Kyle’s Little League All-Star game; a block party in the old neighborhood. His absences had resulted in loud rows with Donna that lasted well into the night, concluding only with his sworn pledge that he would change.

On the afternoon of Kyle’s big play, the expected happened and he was called into an emergency meeting and wasn’t able to make it. When he came home late that night, he was fully prepared for a major scourging, but instead was greeted with indifference. No outburst, no dramatics, no silent treatment. Merely a shrug and a quick summary of the play and Kyle’s performance when he asked how things had gone. At the time, he was relieved by this reaction. But it was at that moment, he now realized, that Donna had started her retreat; it was at that moment when things had begun to die.

He considered this until the skies clouded and the stars disappeared. Then he headed back to the house, leaving the telescope and bottle of Jim Beam to mark his spot. His cape, however, was firmly clasped around his neck and fluttered royally behind him in the breeze. As he walked, he felt like a defeated king leaving a battlefield.

He drank two glasses of water at the kitchen sink, shut off all the lights, then trudged on upstairs. In the dark hallway, he saw a bar of light coming from under Kyle’s door. He knocked.

“What?”

“It’s me. Your father. Can I come in?”

“Yeah.”

Charlie opened the door and found Kyle lying on the bed, reading a book.

“It’s late,” Charlie said. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing.” He sat up, brushed the hair out of his eyes, and gave Charlie a strange, worried look.

“You’re not doing nothing. You’re reading.” He reached over and turned the book around so he could see its cover. It was Thomas Pynchon’s
V.

“I read this in college. I remember thinking it was complicated and long. What’s it about? I never understood it.”

“I don’t know yet. It’s kind of confusing. That’s why it’s so cool.”

Charlie let go of the book and glanced around the room. He couldn’t remember the last time he had been in here and was surprised at its order and neatness. The top of Kyle’s desk was clear and his bookcase, with shelves of paperbacks, relatively organized. On his walls were the obligatory posters of basketball players with their mouths open, all in various stages of dunking the ball over shocked and helpless opponents.

“Hey,” he said. “When are you going to hear about the basketball team?”

“Soon.”

“Hope you make it.”

“Yeah.”

Charlie looked around his son’s room again. “How many books do you have?”

“I don’t know.”

“Seems like you have a lot.” He walked over to the bookcase. It had six deep shelves, was made of oak, and had cost $25.95 in 1979. Donna and he had bought it soon after they were married, at a furniture ware house sale. Charlie lightly ran his hand over the top of it, stopping at a nick at the corner. He remembered banging the bookcase against the front door while they were moving it into the old house. Donna had to call Sean and Mike, two of her brothers, to help them get it upstairs.

“This is really old,” he said, tapping the top of the bookcase. “We bought this before you were born.”

Kyle looked at the bookcase. “Yeah.” He nodded. “It’s pretty old. I’ve always had it.”

“Yep, it is.” He picked at the nick with his index finger like he was trying to extract something. “Hey,” he said. “I’ve been meaning to tell you, you don’t have to pump gas.”

Charlie turned to face him. Kyle looked confused, his eyebrows forming a tight, straight line. Then his face relaxed and he nodded again. “Oh, yeah. Pumping gas. I don’t think, you know, there are any jobs like that anymore. People pump their own gas, don’t they?”

Charlie reached out for the bookcase again, this time to steady himself. He had drunk a fair amount and was just then feeling its impact. “I guess you’re right. When I was young, people used to pump gas for you. Sometimes they even wore uniforms.”

Kyle was amazed at this. “What kind of uniforms?”

“I don’t know. White ones. We used to wear them at Gas City.”

“You and that drug addict?”

“What? Oh. He wasn’t a drug addict. He was just a kid. A regular kid.” Charlie pushed off from the bookcase and headed toward the door.

“Dad, are you all right?”

Charlie stopped. “I’m perfect, why?”

Kyle motioned with his book. “Why do you have that on?”

Charlie had forgotten about the cape. He stood up as straight as he could and adjusted it, trying to look dignified. “I was cold.” He noticed the grass all over the front of his shirt and pants and made an attempt to brush it off. “I was outside. I fell asleep in the yard.”

Kyle studied him, his mouth half open. He had something stuck in his braces on one side of his mouth, possibly a lima bean. Charlie was going to tell him to brush his teeth, but decided not to. Instead he said, “It’s really late. Go to sleep.”

“Hey, Dad, sorry to hear about your job.”

Charlie stiffened. “What do you mean?”

“About getting fired.”

Charlie’s head, which had been comfortably warm and muddled, instantly cleared. “Did you read the paper?” he asked.

“No. Was it in the paper?”

“How did you find out, then?”

“Mom told me.”

“What? Your mom? Mom told you? Did she just call?”

“No.”

“When did she tell you, then?”

“I don’t know. She told me not to talk about it. She said you felt, you know, bad, and not to talk about it.”

“But when did she tell you? Yesterday? Day before? When?”

He shrugged again. “I don’t know. She first told me a while ago. Right after it happened, I guess.”

The next day, Robert, a tall man with news anchor looks who sat back in the cubicles, got a job. He brought a box of doughnuts to the office to help celebrate his return to the working world. All of the refugees stood quietly in the kitchen area and pretended to be happy for him, as they ate the glazed doughnuts and sipped lukewarm orange juice from oversized Styrofoam cups, while listening to him talk about his new position as the head of marketing for a pesticide company.

“He was only out three months,” Bradley said, after the little party was over. “That’s not very long.”

“Well, good for him,” Charlie said. This development depressed him. Robert’s leaving meant one less job out there.

“Yeah, good for him,” Bradley said. He leaned his back against the sink and took a sip of his orange juice. “Ever notice that guy’s face?”

“Who?”

“That Robert guy. Ever notice how he looks?”

“No. What do you mean?” Charlie asked.

“Looks like he’s had some work done. A little nip and tuck.”

“Hadn’t noticed,” Charlie said.

“Around his eyes and mouth. He’s older than you think. Probably mid-fifties. I think he’s gay too.”

“How do you know that?”

Bradley shrugged. “I just got that vibe. Not that it matters.”

“No, it doesn’t.”

“Gays need to work too,” Bradley said. He sipped some juice. “I wonder if that’s the reason he got the job, though.”

“What?”

“I wonder if the reason he got the job was because he’s gay,” Bradley said.

Charlie was having a hard time following this train of thought. “I think sometimes that might work against you.”

“Not if the person hiring you is gay. Then it would work for you. Don’t you think?”

“I don’t know, maybe.”

“I mean, if I were gay, I would probably hire another gay, wouldn’t you?”

“I honestly never thought about it.”

Bradley was quiet. Then he said, “I’m probably thinking too much.”

Charlie strode over to the coffeemaker and poured himself a cup. The coffee at Rogers & Challenger was brutally weak, but he was committed to drinking it. Avoiding Starbucks was an essential, albeit small, part of The New Frugality. He estimated that he could save close to $40 a month by drinking the office coffee; $500 a year, God forbid, if it came to that.

“I was watching TV the other night,” Bradley said. “They had a guy on in New York who was walking around Manhattan wearing one of those advertising sandwich boards. The board said
I NEED A JOB.
He was walking around like a clown, passing out résumés. Jesus Christ, have some damn pride.”

“Maybe he was desperate.”

“No one’s that desperate. That’s pathetic.”

“Things are bad,” Charlie said. He blew on his coffee. “Hey, how did your dinner go the other night? Your interview?”

Bradley stared into his Styrofoam cup. “You mean my lunch? Got stood up.”

“What?”

“Never showed.”

“Did you call?”

“Only three times. Waited in the bar for an hour.”

“Three times! And they never called back?”

“Nope.”

“That’s unacceptable, unbelievable!”

Bradley gave Charlie a Texas-sized smirk. “What’s unbelievable is that it’s the second time that’s happened to me. Second time I’ve been stood up,” he said. “
That’s
unbelievable.”

“You’re kidding, right? I’d call them again or write a letter to the HR department. That’s really unprofessional! You shouldn’t take that shit. No one should. I wouldn’t take that shit. I would have ordered lunch and sent them the fucking bill, at the very least.”

Bradley didn’t seem to hear Charlie. He was suddenly far away. “You know, I once played in the Cotton Bowl,” he said softly, more really to himself than to Charlie. He looked very sad in his blue suit and red tie with the tight, perfect Windsor knot.

Charlie wasn’t sure he’d heard him right. “What?”

“For Texas. I was a starter. For the fucking Texas Longhorns,” Bradley said. Then, without warning, he threw his cup against the wall, orange juice spraying everywhere.

“Jesus!” Charlie jumped back.

Bradley didn’t say anything. He just walked away.

Since he had run four miles on the treadmill that morning, the first time in weeks, he had gotten in late, and consequently was forced to sit in one of the cubicles at the far end of the hall. The day before, a large sales promotion firm, a client of Rogers & Challenger, had laid off a dozen workers and the office was flooded with fresh, mostly thirtysomething refugees, all looking dazed and confused.

He had planned to confront his résumé again, but as soon as he unpacked his briefcase and got situated, he started obsessing about Donna. He had slept little the night before, berating himself for not following her into the airport and forcing a Bogart-Bergman-type scene on the tarmac. Calls to all the major airlines in the middle of the night had confirmed his fears; there were no late flights out to Minneapolis on United. He considered calling Donna’s brother Aaron in Minneapolis, as well as the FBI, but decided to wait for her to contact him. She had never done this before and he was hopeful that she would come to her senses.

He made a halfhearted attempt to realign the margins of his résumé, before heading down the hall for some water. On his way back to his cube, he glanced sideways into an office and saw Karen Brisco sitting at her desk, her hands cupped over her face. He thought she was about to sneeze, then realized, by the way her head was shaking, that she was crying. He paused, continued on, paused again, and then returned to her doorway and popped his head into her office.

“Everything okay in here?” he asked.

She scooted her hands down and peered over her fingertips with red eyes. Even though she had her arms in front of her chest, he could see the top three buttons on her sleeveless blouse were undone, he assumed, unintentionally.

“The door keeps swinging open. This is a shitty office,” she said, sniffling.

“Are you okay?”

She shrugged. “Yeah.” She reached down for her purse and pulled out a tissue. “I’m great.”

“You look it.”

She blew her nose. “I ate an entire pint of chocolate mint ice cream this morning. An entire pint. What’s wrong with me? I’m disgusting.”

“No, you’re not.”

“I’ve gained five pounds since I lost my job. Five pounds. Who eats ice cream in the morning?”

“Lots of people do. I do.”

She stopped blowing her nose and looked up him. “You do not.”

“I have a banana split every morning. With bran flakes.”

“You’re a liar.” She dabbed at her nose with the tissue.

He watched her dab for a few seconds. “Can I get you something?”

“A job.”

“I’ll get right on that.”

“Thanks.”

“How about a milkshake?”

She looked at him.

“A frosty?”

“Very funny. I’m okay. I’m just having a bad day.”

“Tomorrow will be better.”

“It probably won’t be.” She crumpled up the tissue but kept it in her hand. “Can you try to shut my door? You have to fiddle with the doorknob after you close it.”

“Sure you’re okay?”

“Yes.” She then covered her eyes again and resumed silently crying.

“Hey, come on, now. It’s not that bad.”

“It’s bad.”

Charlie, unaccustomed to the cheerleading role, felt helpless. He considered making a quiet exit, but instead blurted out, “It’s always darkest before the dawn.”

Karen uncovered her eyes and sniffled. “I can’t believe you said that.”

“It’s the best I can do.”

“Will you please shut the door?”

“Failure is the path of least persistence,” Charlie said.

She looked at him again but said nothing.

“Rise above the storm and you will find sunshine.”

She started to laugh a little.

“Failure never comes to any man unless he admits it.”

She sniffled again and shook her head. “Get out and shut the door, please.”

“I’ve memorized every stupid poster in this place and will recite each one unless you promise to stop crying.”

“I’m impressed. Now leave.”

“Courage is being afraid but going on anyhow—”

“Okay, okay, I promise.” She blew her nose in the tissue. “Hey, how are you doing?” she asked.

Charlie’s smile vanished. He thought of Donna and the whole mess and shook his head. “Fine,” he said.

“You sure?”

He paused. “Yeah. I’m okay.” He then made a quick exit, closing the door behind him.

Back in his small cube, bare with the exception of a phone and an old Apple computer, he felt the high over helping Karen seeping away. He looked around the room, saw other refugees silently hunched over their screens, heard the faint hush of the air vents, smelled the stale air of the office. Then he saw Karen crying again and closed his eyes. A bad dream, he thought. This is all a bad dream. He would wake up in the St. Regis in D.C. or the Peabody in Orlando or the Brown in Denver, then go to a meeting, go to a lunch. I’m going to wake up soon, he thought, I’m going to wake up soon.

When he opened his eyes, he called the Wizard. He was put on hold for close to five minutes before he heard Preston’s breathy voice.

“Charlie, what’s the problem?”

“No problem. Thought I’d check in.”

There was a pause. Charlie envisioned Preston’s ghostlike form, a head only, swirling in the air, surrounded by clouds of fire. “But we just talked,” he said.

“Well, I know, but I just thought you might have something.”

“I don’t even have your résumé.”

“Come on, you don’t need one of those things. Come on, Preston. They’re a pain in the ass to do.”

Preston didn’t say anything, so Charlie said, “Okay, I’ll get you one. But is there anything out there right now? I just want to start the process. Getting a little antsy.”

“You have to be realistic.”

Charlie snapped at this. “Realistic? You know, Preston, I threw you a lot of work, I mean a lot of work, over the years. I could have worked with any headhunter. Any headhunter. They called us every day.” Charlie said this loudly and two refugees, sitting nearby, glanced over at him. He pressed closer into the cube. “Listen, I’m sorry, but I’d like to get moving on things.” His hands were sweating and his heart suddenly racing. He had scant experience asking people for favors.

Preston was quiet again.

“Listen, I got to go,” Charlie softly said. He realized calling was a mistake and felt ashamed. “I’m sorry I called. Just let me know when you have a minute.”

“Hold on there, boss,” Preston said. “There is something that just popped open. I don’t know if you would be right for it, though.”

Charlie’s heart leaped. “Really? Well, what is it?”

“This is all on the hush-hush, now.”

He inched even closer into his cube and whispered loudly, “I know, what?”

“Xanon International.”

“What’s that? You mean the drug company?”

“Pharmaceuticals. Big-time company. Fortune 500. They canned the CMO a while ago and they’re looking for a replacement. They’re pretty far along in the search, so it’s a long shot, but who knows? They haven’t fallen in love yet. Based here in Chicago too.”

“Well, that could be interesting. What do they do, exactly?”

“Drugs for animals.”

“Drugs for animals,” Charlie repeated.

“Try to sound excited, chief.”

“What kind of animals?”

“Cattle, mostly.”

Charlie had to think about this. “Do cattle need drugs?”

“Everyone needs drugs.”

“How much does this pay?” Charlie asked.

“It pays. It pays fine. Listen, I have to run. I’ll poke around, see what’s what. I’ll call.”

“When?”

“Soon,” the Wizard said, hanging up.

After the call, Charlie felt a brief blip of optimism and allowed himself to hope. Even though it didn’t quite fit his definition of a dream job, the fact that it was a huge company and the fact that it paid were definite pluses. Also, he knew that just having something, anything, going on this early in his search was a major coup. Sensing a shift in momentum, he picked up his cell phone with the intention of calling his brother-in-law Aaron and tracking down Donna. As soon as he flipped it open, however, he heard Donna’s voice.

“When were you going to tell me you were fired?” she asked.

“What? Donna?” His phone hadn’t rung. He pulled it away, looked at it, then tentatively put it back to his ear. “Did you just call? My phone didn’t even ring.”

She had no interest in this phenomenon. “When were you going to tell me you were fired?” she asked again.

He glanced nervously around the room. “Where are you?”

“When were you going to tell me you were fired?”

“Can you stop asking me that?”

“When?”

“I told you in the car when you were leaving. Now, I’m not going to answer any questions until you tell me where you are.”

“In a restaurant.”

“What restaurant? Where?”

“I’m in a place. I don’t know. Cook’s.”

“Cook’s. Where’s that? I never heard of it.”

“It’s on an island. Bailey Island. It hasn’t opened yet. I’m in the parking lot. It’s in Maine.”

“What? What do you mean, Maine? You mean the state?”

“Yes.”

“What?” He could not comprehend this. Maine was incredibly far away and, he thought, dangerous. It was one of the few places he had never been. In an instant, he envisioned oceans and rocky cliffs, fog, black bears. “I don’t understand. What are you talking about? What are you doing in Maine?”

“I wanted to come here.”

“Why?”

“Because.”

They stopped talking and he listened to Donna breathe. From across the room, Walter stared at him with one glassy carp eye, his lips slighting parted. Charlie turned his back to him and leaned forward into the cube

“Apparently I didn’t have to tell you anything. Apparently you knew all along,” he said.

“Why didn’t you tell me yourself? I was waiting for you to tell me.”

“I was going to.”

“When? A year from now? Ten years? I’m your wife. Your wife. We’re married.”

“When did you know?” Charlie asked. “I mean specifically.”