We All Sleep in the Same Room (4 page)

October

1

A
nother Tuesday morning at Cunningham, Klein, and Levan. Doreen breezes into my office wearing a beige, fur-collared coat, a green shoulder bag, red pumps, and dark sunglasses.

“Mr. Claughlin, I'm so sorry I'm late. I know how important time is for you lawyers.”

Doreen clutches the back of the client's chair a few feet from my desk. Her hands pink from the cold. Her nails are meticulous, cherry-red. She wears a gold band with a sizeable turquoise gem on her ring finger.

“I had quite a morning,” she says. “We've had no hot water for a few days now. Then the sink started leaking, and I really wanted Hunter to attend to it before I left for Manhattan and the whole kitchen flooded, and—”

“Ms. Grant,” I say.

“I've been preparing for this meeting for weeks,” she says. Her eyes meet mine.

“Please,” I say, “take off your coat and have a seat.”

Jessie takes Doreen's coat and hangs it on a hook by the door.

“Such a pretty assistant,” Doreen says. “You're so young. You look like you could be in school. That's a compliment.”

“Actually, I am in school,” Jessie says. “I'm about to finish my law degree.”

“I assure you Ms. Engel is one of our sharpest minds,” I say.

“Oh, I have no doubt about that,” Doreen says.

The women shake hands and sit.

“First,” I say. “Stop apologizing. I'm the union's lawyer. They've hired me to handle your case so my time is on their dime. Now, if you held up a judge or an arbitrator like this it would be a real problem. But today, we've got some work to do, so let's get to it, okay?”

Doreen and Jessie both nod.

“Okay,” I continue. “We received a fax from the health clinic this morning explaining that they're not going to release any documentation from your termination.”

“Really, what did they say?”

Jessie reads: “The Coney Island Health Clinic declines to produce any report made during the clinic's investigation into Doreen Grant's misconduct because such a report is confidential. The investigation was based on a complaint made by a patient for inappropriate and damaging comments made by Ms. Grant. The comments were not only personally damaging to the patient, but were also in breach of the patient's confidentiality and the clinic's own confidentiality policies. The hurtful comments were made in front of more than one of the clinic's employees who have verified the complaint. The CIHC is deeply committed to protecting the privacy of its patients and employees.”

“Why would they do this?” Doreen says. “They're making it all up. Don't you see? They know they're wrong.”

“You may be correct,” I say. “Invariably, in a wrongful termination case, it's in the employer's interest to introduce proof that the termination was warranted. It seems to me their case will need to rely on either witness testimony or a sworn statement from the wronged patient corroborated by an eyewitness or third party. You can't fire a person purely on hearsay.”

“But Mr. Claughlin, that's why I've been so blessed to have you as my lawyer,” Doreen says.

“As I said, I represent the Federation of Allied Health Employees. As such, I'll do everything I can to determine whether the clinic had just cause to fire you.”

“Attorney Claughlin and I are going to do our best,” Jessie chimes in, “to make sure you get all the money you should've been earning paid back to you, and to insist your record is cleaned of any wrongdoing.”

I glance at Jessie. I appreciate her optimism, but she's being presumptuous. She's practically promising a successful outcome to our grievant, which for obvious reasons, made especially clear to a parent of a toddler, is never a good idea.

“Oh, that's wonderful,” Doreen says. She hesitates before continuing. “The thing is, Mr. Claughlin, I took the liberty of doing something. You said yourself at our first meeting that we might need other people to support my track record. You said that if things came down to a matter of my character I might need this. Well, at first it made me upset—the idea of having to defend my character. You must understand how seriously I take my job. That's just how I am. But then a few days after our meeting, I realized I had to quit moping around my house feeling sorry for myself. I had to do something, you know? So I went back to the clinic—”

“Doreen—”

“Don't worry, I didn't go inside. I camped out a few stores down on the corner of 18th Street. And from the corner I waited for patients from the clinic to walk by. Most of them said hello on their own and asked me what I was doing out in the cold. I told them what happened. So many of them were sympathetic. We've all been there, right? I asked a small favor from those who felt for me. I asked them to write letters on my behalf. I told them I could use their words to get hired back. And they did. People wrote beautiful words on my behalf. They really stood up for me, you know? They stood up for what's right. It made me feel good. Everyone was so nice.”

From her bag Doreen pulls out a manila envelope and hands it to me. Inside are nine single-page letters addressed
To whom it may concern
. The first one reads: My name is Matthew Botnikov and I recently found out that Doreen Grant is no longer working at the Coney Island Health Clinic. I was dismayed to learn this and I would like to relate a positive experience I had once because of Doreen.

“This is... excellent,” I say.

“Mr. Claughlin,” Doreen says, her eyes ablaze. “I want my job back.”

* * *

2:00
p.m.
Alone in
my office. Raina's smiling at me next to the willow tree. The orange lilies match her skirt. That's why she'd chosen to pose there.

I find my mind wandering to Barbara Jeffries and Gail Hathaway. Barbara was the receptionist in the financial aid office at George Washington University, where I spent my first two years as an undergraduate. My dad died the first week of my second semester. A heart attack. My father was only fifty-seven and looked healthy, and was as smart and well-read as anyone I'd ever met. He was one of those guys that made it a point to read the
Times
every morning from cover to cover. He owned the neighborhood newsstand where he worked six days a week. Sundays found him in nothing but boxers and an undershirt, reading, scotch in hand, in a wooden rocking chair. I would lie on the floor with my comics and read next to him. They said it happened in his sleep.

Shortly after I returned from the funeral, a hazy week of my mom's tears and rehearsed condolences from well-wishers, I found out I hadn't been enrolled for my second semester. Somehow, through all the drama and unrest, my tuition payment had been overlooked. This meant that all of my classes were automatically dropped. That was how I met Barbara.

My first encounter with Barbara set the tone for our relationship. I didn't have an appointment. She demanded to see my school
ID, a brand new security measure the school had adopted. Surely the school had mailed me the ID over the winter break. But they'd sent it to a home that was, for the time being at least, too wrecked to take notice, let alone make sure it got into my hands. For this I would need to travel to the Office of Security. Can't you just look up my name? This is ridiculous. Barbara was probably around 300 pounds and her voice sounded it.
Excuse me young man, I don't make the rules
.

The Office of Security was a dead end. I couldn't acquire a student ID because my registration was canceled. I couldn't make an appointment to register because I didn't have a student ID. It felt like an existential joke.

Barbara and I had gotten off on the wrong foot. Her adherence to the rules rendered her incapable of offering me any help. I had to get around her. I tried coming at odd hours, early in the morning, right before closing, at her lunch-break, but invariably she was seated at her post. Every time she saw me she would just shake her head. I hated her.

Our exchanges climaxed in one particularly dramatic scene when it came to light, the week before midterms, that my exams wouldn't be graded if my name wasn't in the grade book. I returned to her office, desperate.

“Barbara,” I said gathering all the sympathetic charm I could muster, “please help me. I need to speak to someone immediately so that I can enroll in my classes before the midterms. It would really mean a lot to me.” I hoped she wouldn't recognize the previous me, made-over now as this ingratiating gentleman. But she did.

“Why should I help you, young man? You've been quite rude to me every time you've come in here.”

“Barbara,” I said, setting my palms down on her desk. Then, without thinking, I was hoisting myself up and swinging my legs over her desk, skipping gently over its surface, one step onto a low file drawer, and onto the carpet. Then I broke into a run. I didn't stop until I reached Gail's office at the end of the hallway.

I let myself in, immediately confessing almost tearfully to Gail Hathaway, the director of financial aid.
Please help me, the receptionist out there is being impossible. I need to register for my financial aid. My father just died!
Sure enough, with a few graceful movements, Gail, who proved to be an exceedingly understanding and generous listener, sprang into action. She had the authority to make it happen. She made a phone call, pulled out a current student ID card, sans photo, from her top desk drawer, and even signed me up, right then and there, for a work-study job in the archive section of the library. When Barbara came huffing in, Gail smiled warmly and told her that everything was under control.

* * *

To Whom It May Concern:

When I suffered a work-related injury last year and found myself at the Coney Island Heath Clinic, Doreen Grant not only got me an appointment immediately, she was so kind as to let me know how best to file my claim with my insurance. Doreen informed me of the benefits of switching my provider to the CIHC and personally set me up with a great primary care physician. Doreen was always compassionate and very helpful and perhaps the only person I encountered with an optimistic outlook and an ear for my pain.

To not have Doreen working at the clinic is a huge loss. When I stopped seeing her there, I felt it was not my business to inquire about her absence. I assumed she had moved on for personal reasons. But when I learned that she had been let go for an indiscretion, I was shocked and angered. In my personal experience with Doreen and when I've seen her with others, she has always handled things with patience and fairness. Now that Doreen is gone I'm considering changing providers altogether.

Sincerely,

Boris Marks

As Jessie reads, a
lock of dark, curly hair falls over her face, which she instinctively tucks behind her ear.

“I think that one's eloquent,” she says.

We're working in Cunningham's office; he's away this week on a prestigious pro bono case. In an unprecedented move, Cunningham has extended an open invitation to Jessie to use his office any time he's away.

“I agree. I think we should get in touch with this one,” I say. “‘An ear for my pain.' It's nice.” I glance at the duplicitous globe on the windowsill. Fading sunlight curls over the North Pole. The names of countries and oceans are written in an old fashioned typescript. The USSR is intact.

Jessie catches me eyeing the globe and smiles.

“It humbles you to think about people like Doreen,” I say. “Even if she can act a bit nuts. She's so giving.”

I feel Jessie standing over me. I look up. Her face flushes and she looks down at her feet.

“Tom,” she says, placing a hand on my forearm just below the roll of my sleeve, “that's how I think about you. Not the being nuts part. The part about being giving.”

We kiss. I place my hands on her hips and fight the impulse to unbutton her shirt.

* * *

The wind cuts straight
through my dress shirt, wrapping my tie around my neck. I'm on the roof, sixty-two stories up at Cunningham, Klein, and Levan. As usual, my time up here is tinged with paranoia that security or the NYPD will discover my presence—
What the fuck are you doing up here?
—and arrest me, though it's never been enough to stop me from returning.

I watch two construction workers on a lower rooftop across the street carrying cinder blocks from one large pile to another a few yards away over a short wall. If Ben were here, he'd ask,
Cause why?

They might be members of the Builders Service Union, one of my firm's oldest clients. These are the people I fight for. I'm the guy with the conviction and know-how to win them contractually binding rights, compensation, and security—what other kind of security exists? Time and again, I'm the guy who'll fight to get their jobs back in the regrettable but altogether too frequent instances when their livelihood falls subject to the whim of some toxic supervisor. That's me. I'm that guy.

I'm going to do the best I can for you, Doreen. Guilty or not, everyone deserves a second chance.

I close my eyes. The wind's died down.

2

N
train to Union Square: rush hour crowds collide. Through the corridor, I follow a series of advertisements for Stolichnaya Vodka. I stride purposefully uptown along the eastern edge of the park. We're going to the circus tonight.

Doreen's arbitration is set for five weeks from today—the third Tuesday in November. I've argued before Norcross, a memorably thorough arbitrator, twice in the last few years, and though I've yet to determine his politics, he strikes me as an honest and fair-minded guy. Both times he ruled in my favor.

Raina, Frank, and Cal, who holds Ben against his chest, stand outside my building. Raina's holding a cigarette.

“Smoking?” I say.

“They're mine,” Frank says, “I'm quitting.”

Frank is modeling a fluorescent orange scarf and a black beanie. For a second I recall watching through the peephole, Ben and him dancing, all twirling hips and flopping hair.

“We're having a vice day,” Cal says. “Ben started it. Even though he had birthday cake at school, we still let him have ice cream.”

Ben, who's been playing with the collar of Cal's leather jacket, perks up at the mention of his name and ice cream. Undoubtedly, he'll want more junk at the show.

“So Frank and I are having a cigarette, and Cal got the shoes he's been eyeing.” Raina says, winking at me.

“And socks with gold toes,” Ben says.

“Right,” says Raina.

“Good memory,” says Cal. He strokes my son's head as if he were a puppy.

Raina pinches the half-smoked cigarette between her thumb and index finger and extracts a puff. “Tom, any vices you care to indulge today?”

I shrug.

“Want a drag?”

I take the cigarette smoldering between my fingers and imagine inhaling deeply while everyone watches. It's been years since my last smoke. I drop the butt on the sidewalk and step on it.

“Sorry,” I say. “I just don't think it's right in front of our son. Shall I start on dinner or is going out on Dad's dollar part of vice day?”

“We were thinking sushi,” Raina says.

“And for the big guy?”

“Ben, what are you hungry for?” Raina asks.

“French fries,” Ben says.

“Frank, would you care to join us?”

“Oh yeah,” Raina says. “Actually, we already sprang for an extra ticket.”

“Glad to have you, Frank.”

* * *

Randall's Island. From an
encompassing ring of phosphorescent globes mounted on pillars, the surface of the yellow pavilion glows. A three-quarter moon hangs low over dimly lit Harlem across the river.

We're ushered through a smaller ante-tent where the lighting is low, eerie music hums, and the walls are draped with silk scarves and dresses, capes and top hats, glossy photo books, and wooden toys—a gift shop. Ben, perhaps not yet clued in that everything—soundtrack i
ncluded—is
for sale, doesn't plead for a souvenir, until, a few paces in, he spies a man spinning out egregiously large sticks of pink cotton candy. It's certain that more sugar today is not what he needs, but I don't resist. Cal and Frank's presence has me less inclined to play parent.

At our seats, I look up at the domed structure and recall my favorite scene in
Dumbo
when Casey Junior, the steam engine, takes the crew to a barren field outside some southern town. It's nighttime and it's pouring and suddenly all these faceless workers leap heroically from the train wielding sledgehammers and pick axes. Over the rhythm of their hammering and grunts they sing a song in low, sonorous voices,
We work all day, we work all night, we never learned to read or write
, and by the end of it, it's morning and we've seen the whole tent go up
.

Three mute, red-nosed clowns come out and begin toying with the audience. One of them drops into a seat right behind us and musses my hair. Onto the stage strolls a tuxedoed man in a top hat. He chastises the clowns then welcomes us with a resounding delivery.

“Our show begins tonight,” he says, “at the funeral of Jacques Dupont.”

“What's a funeral?” Ben says.

“Shhh. It's a party held when someone dies—”

“Tom, it's not a party!”

“Why?”

“Shhh. It's when a group of friends get together to honor their friend.”

“Cause why?”

“Because he's dead.”

“Who's dead?”

“Jacques.”

“Why?”

“Shhh. It's starting.”

Portly Jacques, in tattered clothes, ambles on stage accompanied by two young women in white dresses, one blonde and one brunette. From the speakers, strings swell and then fall, evoking waves. Then Jacques is dragged away from the women, first backward, then from side to side. Then he's airborne. He struggles comically as wires attached to his lower back and shoulders propel him up and out over the audience. Ben joins the crowd in laughing at his misfortune. Eventually Jacques is allowed to rest on a rafter and watch as a band of eccentrically dressed clowns, including more than one little person and a bearded woman, march on stage playing an eerie waltz. A spotlight reveals a coffin at the top of the tent. Miraculously, the women in white are sitting elegantly on either end. A sleight of hand. The coffin and the women descend into a cloud of mist that has risen above the stage.

A fast electronic beat begins thumping and a bedroom scene rolls onstage, two oversized beds with smiling acrobats in children's pajamas bouncing and doing flips on the mattresses. The audience applauds and the show goes on.

* * *

After the show, the
five of us are speeding down the FDR in Cal's vintage, diesel Mercedes. Ben is in a foul mood.
Dad, don't talk to Mom
. Then irrational.
Mom, I don't like other cars
. He's exhausted.

I'm in the front passenger seat. Raina sits in the back between Ben and Frank.

“Hey Ben,” Frank says, “remember the tightrope walkers?”

He screams at Frank, though it's unclear what he's trying to say. Then he erupts in tears.

Raina is trying to calm him down.

“Oh, sweetie. It's okay. We'll be home soon and you can lie down. You must be very tired.”

Ben is still wailing. He doesn't want to lie down. He's trying to reach under Raina's shirt. He hasn't breastfed in over a year. Then, with a wild look in his eye, Ben stops pouting. He sits up in his car seat, rears his head back, and vomits.

The projectile is shocking: all over the back of Cal's seat, even spraying Cal's neck, and dumping all over Raina's pants. Everyone is immediately consoling Ben, who's become strangely calm. We're on the FDR, somewhere in the fifties and it's decided that it doesn't make sense to pull over until we get to the gas station near our apartment.

We drive on for thirty or forty blocks with the wretched stench. Raina apologizes repeatedly to Cal. It's not unlikely that his car will never smell the same.