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It was ironic the way Tom kept the lights off. After the days without power, Tom thought he would be forever bathed in the light provided from the power company once again. The nights he wasn’t at the billboard he sat in the basement apartment below the mannequins and stared at what could have been the opposite wall. He ate very little or not at all. Nothing changed. He had not been in to the office in several days and, when he honestly evaluated his situation, knew he probably wouldn’t go back. The cable had been cut off and Tom was in no hurry to get it reinstalled. The last program he watched was the news and the lead story was Joe’s death. It was regarded as suspicious, the newscaster said. Of course it was suspicious, Tom cursed. He tried to make it look like an accident and might have been successful if he had bothered to take Joe out of the green sleeping bag. It must have confused the police and rescue crew for a moment, Tom mused. No wonder the man ran his truck off the road, he imagined them saying, he’s in a sleeping bag. Tom knew, however, that it wouldn’t take them long to deduce that no one wrapped in a sleeping bag in that manner could drive at all. There must be something askew here, Tom could hear them theorizing. In fact, the police were no doubt connecting the dots at that very moment. As Tom sat in the dark, the good-looking officer was probably putting his case together. The meeting at the bar confirmed Tom’s suspicions that they suspected him. At any moment Tom felt he would hear them at his door. Would they bother to knock, he wondered, or would they use a battering ram and bang the door down, shouting at him to lie on the floor and put his hands behind his back? Humiliation of all humiliations, and with Tom’s luck, there would be a camera crew with them to film for an upcoming episode of COPS or To Serve and Protect or some such program. World’s Dumbest Criminals?
On cue, Tom heard the handle of the front door turn once, twice and then clatter frantically. His heart jumped, and he felt his skin grow cold. There was someone at the door. So soon? Damn. What now?
“Hello?” he called from his seat. “Who is it?”
“Hello?” He heard a familiar voice from the other side of the door. “It’s me,” the voice said.
Tom flipped the dead bolt and opened the door slowly. There was a second when he wasn’t sure what or who he was looking at. It was raining, so he first noticed stringy hair matted to what looked like a bone white skull. Then he noticed loose clothes hanging wet and heavy on a small frame. “Eddy?” he said.
“I need a place to stay, Tommy,” Eddy said and took a step forward, falling into his arms. He held her in the doorway for a second and then noticed she was shivering. Afraid he would break her, he let go and backed into the living room, leading her by one painfully small hand.
“What happened?” he asked as she took refuge in the chair where she usually sat, her bony hands clutching at the quilt Tom handed her.
“My mother.” She began to sob, and Tom held her and ran his fingers through her wet hair.
“I’ll run you a bath,” Tom whispered, and she nodded.
“Why are the lights out Tommy?” she asked. “Did you forget to pay the bill?”
“No, no,” he said quickly. “Everything is fine. You stay here and I will run you a bath.”
Tom turned on lights as he walked down the hall to the bathroom, the sudden illumination hurting his eyes. He plugged the tub and turned on the hot water, adjusting the cold with one hand and letting the water flow over his other. When the tub was half full he went back to Eddy in the living room. She was huddled beneath the quilt and he all but carried her down the hall, stripped her from her wet clothing and placed her gently in the tub. She sighed long when she hit the water and immediately submerged herself to her nose.
“Are you hungry?” he asked softly and his heart jumped. What a stupid thing to say to Eddy. Then he saw her nod nearly imperceptibly. “You are?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“What can I get you?”
“Steak,” she said flatly. “with lots of garlic bread.”
“We don’t have steak,” he said. “Or bread. Actually, I don’t think we have anything. Cottage cheese, maybe.” He turned to the bathroom door to make like he was going to check the fridge, but there was no need; he knew for a fact they had no food.
“We could go out,” she whispered. There may have been a tear running down her face, or it could have been the water. She was nearly submerged.
“We could.” He thought of his bank account. Did he want to spend money on a steak dinner just to have her go to the bathroom and throw it all up? Then he felt badly about his insensitivity. “We could,” he said again, hoping he sounded more convincing.
“I have nothing to wear,” she said, and now he knew she was crying.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “You relax and I will dry your clothes. We will go out. We deserve it.” He tried to sound cheerful.
“We deserve everything we get,” she said and moved her arms about in the bath. She hardly made a ripple.
Tom gathered Eddy’s clothes and threw them into the dryer. He took one of his own belts from the closet and guessed at where to make extra notches for Eddy’s waist. He doubled his guess and notched three more with a steak knife while he waited for the dryer to finish and Eddy to be done her bath.
He checked on her after half an hour. She was floating with her eyes closed. “Eddy?” he asked tentatively.
“Yes?” she said.
“Nothing.” He sighed with relief. “You looked so quiet and still, like you were... are you ready to go?”
“I’m in the bathtub.” She sneered, and then smiled, “I’m sorry, Tommy. I had a rough week. I’ll be out in a second.”
“Alright.” He retreated to the living room. With no television there was not much to do but wait for her to be done.
At a restaurant four blocks from their home, one they had never been to, Eddy told Tom everything that had happened since she left and went back to her mother’s. “It was awful,” she said, and Tom tried hard to think if he had ever met her mother (he had not) or even if he knew anything about the woman (he should have).
Here is everything, distilled for brevity, that Eddy told Tom over their two years together about her family that Tom should have remembered: her parents were born into money, Eddy’s grandmother having started a clothing company called “Everyone Is Obsessed With This Clothing Company”. The clothes catered to upper middle-class women with a penchant for the avant-garde. A multi-national conglomerate bought the company when Eddy’s mother was still in high school and changed the name to “Everyone’s Obsessed.” An interesting sidebar: two of the waitresses in the restaurant at that moment were wearing garments from this company. One wore a pink thong with tassels and another wore a blouse with a picture of a mouse snorting cocaine. The waiter, of course was not wearing anything from this famous company, as he rarely wore underwear, but Eddy and Tom, not being omniscient had no way of knowing any of this. In fact, interestingly enough, Tom and Eddy happened to be the opposite of omniscient. While Eddy’s mother never actually wore any of the clothes the company produced, she certainly lived off the proceeds, both she and her husband, Eddy’s father, never had to work a day in their lives. They lived in a large house on a five-acre garden in the country where Eddy’s father decided to become an alcoholic and her mother decided to collect porcelain dolls replete with doilies for dresses made to fit over medium sized empty wine bottles that her husband provided. They divorced as a matter of course, but each refused to give up the mansion. Luckily the mansion was large enough that neither of them had to move out and neither of them had to see or speak to each other ever again. Eddy swore at an early age that she did not want to share in her mother’s frantic collections or her father’s frantic intoxications. She refused their money as well, both of her parents thinking that the money would tie her to them. They were wrong. This was the reason why Tom had met neither of them. Still, no excuse for Tom not knowing about them; over the course of their two years together, she had told Tom all that is presented here at one time or another.
“It was awful,” Eddy said after an appetizer of oysters in a heavy butter sauce ($14.95). “If dad isn’t drinking, he’s sleeping.”
“Wow,” Tom said, wondering if she was full.
“He drinks and then wanders around the yard singing all these old Neil Diamond songs,” she said between mouthfuls. She sipped her gin and tonic ($6.99 each). “And then he passes out right in the garden. They have a maid and she brings him to bed. I think he’s sleeping with her.”
“I’m sorry.”
“And mother...” Eddy said as the waiter came to the table to remove empty plates and bottles.
“Your steaks will be just a few more minutes,” the waiter said, smiling at Eddy. Where are you putting it all, young man, the smile said. The steaks were $24.95 apiece. “Can I get you another drink?” ($6.99 X 2 because Tom needed another as well).
“And mother and her goddamn dolls,” Eddy said. “Do you know they have conventions for those fucking things? They travel from all over the country to show each other their dolls slipped over these expensive wine bottles. Mother gets so upset because hers are the only wine bottles that are empty. They are the tackiest things I have ever seen.”
“That’s something,” Tom said.
“I’m trying to tell them everything that’s going on, you know, us breaking up and everything, and all they can do is drink and talk about dolls.” Eddy sat back to let the waiter place their steaks in front of them. Medium rare with a side of baked potato, heavy with sour cream and butter, and two slices of tomato. “They didn’t even bother to ask, or to notice...” Eddy raised one of her bony arms for Tom to inspect. “They didn’t even want to know...”
“I’m sorry.” Tom said ineffectually.
After three or four bites Eddy started to cry. “I think I’m going to throw up,” she said.
“I know,” Tom said and helped her out of her chair and led her to the washroom. He asked for the cheque and paid the bill while he waited for Eddy to purge. ($96.95 + obligatory 20% tip = approx. $116.00). “Make it $120.00,” Tom winced to the waiter.
While Tom knew he shouldn’t drive having had $6.99 X 3 drinks, he could not face calling a cab ($15.00 + $2.50 tip) and risk seeing Belraj. The man would see right through him and Eddy at this moment. Besides, it was only a few blocks away. Eddy could drive, he reasoned, the steaks, oysters and drinks out of her system by now.
Later, in bed, Tom let Eddy curl herself into a ball and wedge herself into his arms. He wrapped himself around her like a cocoon and felt protective. She fit so snugly. Was she back? Did he need her to be back? He thought so at this very instant.
“Do you ever think about those mannequins upstairs?” she said suddenly when he thought she was sleeping.
“Sometimes,” he said. “I need to phone the landlord and see if they can’t get curtains on the windows. It kind of gives me the creeps.”
She was silent for a few seconds. “They have such perfect bodies, and they don’t even have to think about it, ever.”
“They don’t have to think about it because they have no heads,” Tom tried to joke, but the only response was Eddy’s leveled breathing. “They’re not perfect, they’re plastic,” he said finally.
“Maybe it’s the same thing,” she said. Tom sensed rather than heard her crying next to him. He could not bring himself to comfort her. He should respond to this, he knew.
Tom did not respond and in a short time he felt her body relax and her breathing settle into a rhythmic pace. She was asleep. Damn mannequins, he thought, if he could cut them all down he would.
$$$
The phone rang shrilly and woke Tom immediately. Confused, he rolled over in bed and found Eddy. She was back. Was she really back? How did he feel about this, he wondered. The phone insisted, and Eddy moaned in her sleep. Tom reached to answer before she woke. She needed sleep; she was so down the night before, despite having eaten a big meal, or maybe because of it. “Hello?” he mumbled into the wrong end of the receiver, turned it around and repeated, “Hello?”
“Tom Ryder?” The voice said.
“Yes?”
“This is Sam from Consumer Life.” The recruitment manager. Tom was fired, he could feel it. He hadn’t been to the office in nearly a week and had not bothered to phone in sick.
“Hello,” Tom said flatly.
“Hi, I didn’t wake you, did I? It’s past noon.” The voice was smiling. So eager to ingratiate. Tom recognized the slippery way of talking from their very first interview.
“No, no. I was just doing some... um... yard work,” Tom said.
“In this rain?” the voice said, “What a trooper.”
“Rain?” Tom said.
“Listen, I need you to come down to the office this afternoon. We have a board meeting at about three.”
“About three?”
“Well, actually, at three,” the recruitment manager said. “It is important that you be there, can you make it? I mean, you should make it. It’s very important.”
“Can you just fire me over the phone please?” Tom mumbled.
There was a huge laugh at the other end of the line, followed by intense coughing. When he was through, the recruitment manager said, “No one is getting fired Tom. It’s about Wally.”
“Is he...”
“Dead? Not Wally.” Another laugh, morphed into coughing. “I smoke too much,” the recruitment manager said in way of explanation or apology, “Wally is out of commish for a while, though, as you can imagine. What we need to do is up the productivity of the agents while Wally is on disability leave.”
“What are you going to do?” Tom asked, suddenly frightened.
“We want to send eight agents to a sales conference downtown, you’ll stay in a hotel for the weekend. No contact with the outside world, just immerse yourself in this conference.” The recruitment manager was able to make this sound like a luxury holiday, but Tom was dubious.
“No contact with anyone?”
“No distractions at all,” the recruitment manager said, “Believe me, you’ll walk out of there a new man.”
“I don’t know...” Tom said.
“You will be paid.” The recruitment manager leveled his voice.
Tom felt offended. Perhaps this tactic worked on some other agents, like Wally or the others, but not Tom. After all, Eddy had just returned; he should be working on his relationship. “How much?” he asked.
“That’s what we need to discuss at the meeting,” the recruitment manager said. “Some of the underwriting staff will be there as well.”
Rebecca.
“I’m there. Three?”
“How about two-thirty?” the recruitment manager said. “It’s actually at two thirty.”
Tom left Eddy a note telling her he had to go to work and slipped out the door. Traffic was heavy at this hour and it took him longer than usual to reach the office. He entered the building with his head low and could not look the receptionist in the eye. He went to his own tiny office to check his messages: “You have no new messages,” the mechanical voice taunted, and Tom left for the boardroom.
He sat guiltily in the corner, but no one seemed to notice or care about his week-long absence. In fact, none of the agents said much of anything to each other and the management did not have a lot to say to them. Wally’s condition was summed up as being fine, but his doctor insisted on a period of rest. Which meant that production would be down for as long as Wally was out of the office, hence the need to get the newer or lesser producing agents up to speed. The investment was worth it, the management told the lesser agents gathered around the table, if they could each do a tenth of what Wally did in each month, the company would see it’s numbers at a respectable level and the agents themselves would see their pay skyrocket.
Their itinerary was in front of them with times and locations for the various seminars as well as confirmation numbers for the hotel. The prospect of spending the weekend in a hotel only miles from home seemed strange to Tom and probably the others as well. None of them voiced these opinions. Tom knew what his position was within the organization: precarious at best. The others here did better, Tom was sure, but they were still chosen to attend the conference. They must not be as successful as Tom first thought. Perhaps there were others who had the same doubts and fears as he. Could it be? This seminar would give them a chance to hone their skills. Up close and personal for a whole weekend with the man who wrote “Choose Your Own Reality.” Not just an hour in the boardroom, a whole weekend. Perhaps with some one on one time.
Eddy was still sleeping when he arrived home later. He nudged her gently and she stirred. “Eddy?” he said, “I have to talk with you.” He explained his situation with as much detail as he could while she woke by degrees.
“I don’t want you to go,” she said flatly, her eyes beginning to flutter like water in a stream coming against rocks.
“It’s just for the weekend,” he said and kissed the bone of her shoulder. “I thought we needed time apart anyway. You were gone for what, a week and a bit, a couple more days will be alright.”
“It’s not that; it’s got nothing to do with us.” Tom could sense she was choosing her words carefully, trying not to hurt his feelings. She was doing a poor job. “I just don’t think I can be alone right now,” she said.
“But I can’t take you with me,” Tom said.
“I don’t want to come with you.”
“Well, what then?”
“I don’t want you to go.” She started to cry softly. “I don’t think I can be alone right now.”
“There is nothing in the fridge,” he offered.
“It’s got nothing to do with that.” She sat up suddenly, shrugging off his attempt to comfort. “You don’t understand anything.”
“I guess I don’t,” Tom said, trying to keep his voice level. Was it anger he felt, resentment? It was something. An emotion. And it felt rather good. “This is something I have to do for my career.” The words felt so foreign on his tongue, he was not even sure he really meant them.
Tom left her there, crying or not, and shouted back through the walls of the apartment; “I’ll leave you the car.” He would take a taxi. He phoned the taxi first, inexplicably asked for Belraj and packed while he waited.
Belraj didn’t recognize him as Tom climbed into the back seat. He simply said into the rearview mirror: “You know who I had in my car yesterday? Elvis Presley.”
“You did not,” Tom said flatly.
Belraj looked in the mirror and he smiled, “Oh, it’s you. No. No, I didn’t.”