Anybody Out There?
Page 76
“Do you have a job?” I asked. It came out a bit bald.
“Yeah,” he said.
We kept walking. He said nothing further. After a period of silence, he suddenly stopped. He even laughed. “Oh my God! I should have told you what it is. That’s why you asked. You weren’t wondering if I was on welfare.”
“Well, no, no,” I blustered. “Not if you don’t want—”
“Sure, I want. It’s a regular question. It’s what people ask. Jeez, it’s no surprise I don’t get invited to dinner parties any longer. I’m a mess.”
“Not at all,” I said. “I’m the one who forgot penguins could swim.”
“I design and install home-entertainment systems. I can tell you more if you want to hear it, as much as you like. It’s kinda technical.”
“No, it’s okay, thank you, but I couldn’t pay attention long enough to understand. Hey, we’ve missed the Temperate Territory—snow monkeys, red pandas, butterflies, ducks.”
“Ducks?”
“Yes, ducks. We can’t possibly miss them. Come on.”
We retraced our steps, halfheartedly admired the Temperate Territory animals, and took an executive decision to skip the kiddie zoo, and suddenly things started to look familiar; we were back where we started. We had walked in one big circle.
“Is that it?” Mitch asked. “Are we done?” Like it was a chore.
“Looks like it.”
“Okay, I’m going to hit the gym.” He shouldered his kit bag and made for the exit. “See you next Sunday?”
“Okay.”
I waited until he was good and gone. Even though I’d spent the last couple of hours with him I was suffering from fear of the “false good-bye syndrome”: when you don’t know someone that well, and you’ve just said a lovely warm farewell to them, maybe even kissed them, and then you unexpectedly bump into them a few minutes later, at the bus stop or the subway station or on the same stretch of street, trying to hail a cab. I don’t know why but it’s always mortifying and the nice, easy conversation that you’d been having only a few minutes earlier has dissipated entirely and the mood is tense and strained and you’re looking at the tracks and praying, Come on, train, for fuck’s sake, come on.
Then when the train or taxi or bus comes, you say good-bye once more and you try to make a laugh of it by saying gaily “Good-bye, again,” but it’s nothing like as nice as the previous time and you’re wondering if you should kiss them again, and if you do, it feels fake, and if you don’t, you feel as if you’ve ended on a bad note. Like a soufflé, a successful goodbye can really only be done once. A good-bye can’t be reheated.
While I waited until it was supersafe to leave, I watched the normal people still flooding into the zoo and I wondered about Mitch: What had he been like before? Or what would he be like in the future? I knew I wasn’t seeing the real him; at the moment all he was was his bereavement. Like me. I wasn’t the real Anna right now.
A thought struck me: maybe I wouldn’t ever be again. Because the only thing that would snap things back to the way they were would be if Aidan hadn’t died, and that could never happen. Would I be holding my breath forever, waiting for the world to right itself?
I looked at my watch. Mitch had been gone ten minutes. I made myself count to sixty, then felt I could chance it. On the street, I did a few furtive look-arounds and there was no sign of him anywhere. I hailed a cab, and when I reached my apartment I was feeling quite good. That was most of Sunday taken care of.
56
Before hitting my desk, I did a quick dash into the ladies’ room and found someone bent over one of the basins, sobbing her eyes out. Because it was Monday morning, it wasn’t unusual for someone to be crying, in fact the cubicles were probably packed to capacity with girls throwing up because they hadn’t enough coverage to bring to the Monday Morning Meeting. But I was surprised to see that the crying someone was Brooke Edison. (Wearing some elegant taupe linen getup while I was in a cerise suit from the fifties with a boatnecked jacket and a pencil skirt, worn with rose-patterned ankle socks, pink patent peep-toe sling-backs, and a handbag shaped like a two-story house.)
“Brooke! What’s happened?”
I couldn’t believe she was crying. I had thought it was practically illegal for WASPs to show emotion.
“Oh, Anna…,” she wept. “I had a little spat with my dad.”
Oh my God! Brooke Edison had spats with her father? I admit it: I found it a little thrilling. It was a comfort to know that other people had problems. And maybe Brooke was more normal than I’d realized.
“There’s this Givenchy gown,” she said.
“Couture or off the peg?”
“Ohhh.” She sounded like she didn’t understand the question. “Couture, I guess. And…and…”
“And he won’t buy it for you,” I prompted, finding a packet of tissues in my house-shaped handbag. They were patterned with shoes, which sort of shocked me. This kookiness thing really had me in its grip.
“No,” she said, her eyes widening. “Oh no. It’s because Dad wants to give it to me as a present and I said I already have enough fabulous gowns in my closet.”
I just looked at her, aware of a sinking feeling.
“I said that there’s so much poverty in the world and I really didn’t need another gown. But he said he couldn’t see what was wrong with wanting his little girl to look beautiful.” A fresh crop of tears sprang from her eyes.
“My dad is my best friend, you know?”
Not really, but I nodded anyway.
“So it’s horrible when we don’t get along.”
“Well, I better get going,” I said. “Keep the tissues.”
The rich really are different, I thought: they’re fucking freaks.
I hurried toward the office, keen to share my insight with Teenie.
That night I got an e-mail from Helen.
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Tediarseity
Another break in routine! Detta had lunch in restaurant with
“the girls”: three other women, all about same age as her, maybe also married to crime lords? Chanel handbags, really war-crime quilted ones with gold chain handles. Rotten. Again had to hang around in street like homeless person, watching through window, and this time someone tried to buy methadone from me. No sign of Racey O’Grady, though. Just to be sure, went in on pretense of using loo (mind you, not pretense, in this job, you make wees every chance you get) and the four of them were sitting in cloud of gagzo perfume, scuttered drunk, and cackling about husbands. On way in, one of them—sunken-eyed, dark-haired, nails like Freddie Kruger’s—screeched: He couldn’t find his arse in the dark.
“Yeah,” he said.
We kept walking. He said nothing further. After a period of silence, he suddenly stopped. He even laughed. “Oh my God! I should have told you what it is. That’s why you asked. You weren’t wondering if I was on welfare.”
“Well, no, no,” I blustered. “Not if you don’t want—”
“Sure, I want. It’s a regular question. It’s what people ask. Jeez, it’s no surprise I don’t get invited to dinner parties any longer. I’m a mess.”
“Not at all,” I said. “I’m the one who forgot penguins could swim.”
“I design and install home-entertainment systems. I can tell you more if you want to hear it, as much as you like. It’s kinda technical.”
“No, it’s okay, thank you, but I couldn’t pay attention long enough to understand. Hey, we’ve missed the Temperate Territory—snow monkeys, red pandas, butterflies, ducks.”
“Ducks?”
“Yes, ducks. We can’t possibly miss them. Come on.”
We retraced our steps, halfheartedly admired the Temperate Territory animals, and took an executive decision to skip the kiddie zoo, and suddenly things started to look familiar; we were back where we started. We had walked in one big circle.
“Is that it?” Mitch asked. “Are we done?” Like it was a chore.
“Looks like it.”
“Okay, I’m going to hit the gym.” He shouldered his kit bag and made for the exit. “See you next Sunday?”
“Okay.”
I waited until he was good and gone. Even though I’d spent the last couple of hours with him I was suffering from fear of the “false good-bye syndrome”: when you don’t know someone that well, and you’ve just said a lovely warm farewell to them, maybe even kissed them, and then you unexpectedly bump into them a few minutes later, at the bus stop or the subway station or on the same stretch of street, trying to hail a cab. I don’t know why but it’s always mortifying and the nice, easy conversation that you’d been having only a few minutes earlier has dissipated entirely and the mood is tense and strained and you’re looking at the tracks and praying, Come on, train, for fuck’s sake, come on.
Then when the train or taxi or bus comes, you say good-bye once more and you try to make a laugh of it by saying gaily “Good-bye, again,” but it’s nothing like as nice as the previous time and you’re wondering if you should kiss them again, and if you do, it feels fake, and if you don’t, you feel as if you’ve ended on a bad note. Like a soufflé, a successful goodbye can really only be done once. A good-bye can’t be reheated.
While I waited until it was supersafe to leave, I watched the normal people still flooding into the zoo and I wondered about Mitch: What had he been like before? Or what would he be like in the future? I knew I wasn’t seeing the real him; at the moment all he was was his bereavement. Like me. I wasn’t the real Anna right now.
A thought struck me: maybe I wouldn’t ever be again. Because the only thing that would snap things back to the way they were would be if Aidan hadn’t died, and that could never happen. Would I be holding my breath forever, waiting for the world to right itself?
I looked at my watch. Mitch had been gone ten minutes. I made myself count to sixty, then felt I could chance it. On the street, I did a few furtive look-arounds and there was no sign of him anywhere. I hailed a cab, and when I reached my apartment I was feeling quite good. That was most of Sunday taken care of.
56
Before hitting my desk, I did a quick dash into the ladies’ room and found someone bent over one of the basins, sobbing her eyes out. Because it was Monday morning, it wasn’t unusual for someone to be crying, in fact the cubicles were probably packed to capacity with girls throwing up because they hadn’t enough coverage to bring to the Monday Morning Meeting. But I was surprised to see that the crying someone was Brooke Edison. (Wearing some elegant taupe linen getup while I was in a cerise suit from the fifties with a boatnecked jacket and a pencil skirt, worn with rose-patterned ankle socks, pink patent peep-toe sling-backs, and a handbag shaped like a two-story house.)
“Brooke! What’s happened?”
I couldn’t believe she was crying. I had thought it was practically illegal for WASPs to show emotion.
“Oh, Anna…,” she wept. “I had a little spat with my dad.”
Oh my God! Brooke Edison had spats with her father? I admit it: I found it a little thrilling. It was a comfort to know that other people had problems. And maybe Brooke was more normal than I’d realized.
“There’s this Givenchy gown,” she said.
“Couture or off the peg?”
“Ohhh.” She sounded like she didn’t understand the question. “Couture, I guess. And…and…”
“And he won’t buy it for you,” I prompted, finding a packet of tissues in my house-shaped handbag. They were patterned with shoes, which sort of shocked me. This kookiness thing really had me in its grip.
“No,” she said, her eyes widening. “Oh no. It’s because Dad wants to give it to me as a present and I said I already have enough fabulous gowns in my closet.”
I just looked at her, aware of a sinking feeling.
“I said that there’s so much poverty in the world and I really didn’t need another gown. But he said he couldn’t see what was wrong with wanting his little girl to look beautiful.” A fresh crop of tears sprang from her eyes.
“My dad is my best friend, you know?”
Not really, but I nodded anyway.
“So it’s horrible when we don’t get along.”
“Well, I better get going,” I said. “Keep the tissues.”
The rich really are different, I thought: they’re fucking freaks.
I hurried toward the office, keen to share my insight with Teenie.
That night I got an e-mail from Helen.
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Tediarseity
Another break in routine! Detta had lunch in restaurant with
“the girls”: three other women, all about same age as her, maybe also married to crime lords? Chanel handbags, really war-crime quilted ones with gold chain handles. Rotten. Again had to hang around in street like homeless person, watching through window, and this time someone tried to buy methadone from me. No sign of Racey O’Grady, though. Just to be sure, went in on pretense of using loo (mind you, not pretense, in this job, you make wees every chance you get) and the four of them were sitting in cloud of gagzo perfume, scuttered drunk, and cackling about husbands. On way in, one of them—sunken-eyed, dark-haired, nails like Freddie Kruger’s—screeched: He couldn’t find his arse in the dark.
