I was the worm trapped in the jumping bean, hopping around in blind determination to get anywhere. But I took Danny’s advice, for the second time. I called it off with Colin, and we were both relieved. I phoned Frank, and Janet answered, which annoyed me to no end, but outwardly I accepted their budding relationship. I needed to repaginate my life, to move on from self-loathing, the most boring neurosis.
On the Stuart front, my mother came through on her hospital promise to him. Stuart’s second cousin in Buffalo, Leigh Ann Harmond, was here in New York. Mom found her by placing a Desperately-Seeking-Susan ad in a Buffalo newspaper, and had four calls with the news that Leigh Ann had left Buffalo a week before Stuart’s drugged arrival in town. Her husband, a spokesman for the Buffalo bus system, was hired away by the New York Port Authority, headquartered in the World Trade Center. They were living in Independence Plaza near Battery Park.
Mom, Stuart, and I took a cab downtown to see her.
Stuart was squashed between us on the middle hump of the backseat. “What should I say?” He’d been apprehensive ever since Mom broke the good news. He was a fixture on our sofa bed, a second son. Did he secretly hope that the eccentric Ganellis of Greenwich Village were his long lost relatives, instead of Leigh Ann Harmond formerly of Buffalo?
“The truth,” Mom said.
“Maybe not quite the truth,” I said. I didn’t want Colin getting in new trouble. Who knew if this woman was a churchgoer and would feel it was her duty to go to Australian authorities about his scam?
The middle-age woman who answered the door wore a long-sleeved dress with felt trim. Blizzard living habits must be hard to break; it was an odd first impression on a summer’s day. I was sweating in my gauze skirt and cotton tank top. “Mrs. Ganelli? I’m Leigh Ann.”
“Please—Sylvia. This is my daughter Rachel, Stuart’s friend, and this is your cousin Stuart. How kind of you to see us.”
“Come in! I have some lemonade waiting.”
“That would be great,” I said.
“Stuart, this is a pleasure. I never knew you existed until Sylvia called. I understand you missed us by a week in February.”
Stuart nodded.
“We knew we had your mother in Australia,” Leigh Ann continued “but Margaret never wrote us that she had children. How old are you, darling?”
Margaret Gibbs. Learning his dead mother’s name was more intimate than watching him vomit in Frank’s bucket during withdrawal. It would be cruel to ask more, but I wanted it. What was her maiden name? How did she get from Buffalo to Australia? Did Stuart’s father really die picking up a baby stuffed with a grenade? Or did he die from an alcoholic liver?
How ridiculous this was. I glared over to Mom. Were we trying to pawn this ex-junkie off on Leigh Ann? She didn’t know him from a can of Foster’s, and he was an adult.
“You got your grandmother’s eyes.”
Stuart perked up. “I never met me grandmother.”
“She had those big roundeyes eyes and light brown hair.”
“Like me,” Stuart said.
“Like you.”
Mom saw her emotional window of opportunity, earlier than expected, but she knew it was there. That’s why she was the New York chapter of Women in Public Relations’ Woman of the Year three times in ten years. “Leigh Ann—Stuart has no living relatives, and I thought as his only family link, and as a mother, that you would want to meet him.”
“How long are you in town, Stuart?” Leigh Ann asked softly.
“I’m afraid he can’t go back to Australia,” Mom answered for him.
“Pardon?”
“’Cause I’m dead,” Stuart blurted out.
“Pardon?”
Now it was my turn to cut in. I hoped I could salvage the connection to Leigh Ann. “I think Stuart means that figuratively, right Stuart? He had some hard knocks and he’s moving past them—”
“Actually, I was a heroin addict in Australia. But I’m not anymore. I’m in an aftercare program. I was better off dead in some people’s eyes, including my own. But now Sylvia and everyone’s been teaching me to read, and I reckon I’m not contagious. I passed the AIDS test.”
We should have had a rehearsal in the cab. Having Stuart talk was like bringing out the wailing four-eyed baby at an adoption agency.
Leigh Ann picked up a white glazed swan and stroked its grooves. She put it down. And picked it up again. “My son was a crack cocaine addict—he lost his job four years ago in Buffalo—now he’s a substance abuse counselor.”
“Leigh Ann—my daughter and son have taken care of Stuart since his arrival, and it’s time for him to start taking care of himself. He’s got a clean bill of health. And he’s a lovely boy. I wouldn’t bring a rotten egg over to your home. I’m a very conscientious woman, as I can see you are. My husband and I have delayed our trip to France. We were supposed to go four weeks ago, but my daughter and I wanted to make sure Stuart had a family member to fall back on.” She leaned in for the final sell. “He needs a home while he finds a job.”
Leigh Ann paused. I was sure we were going to be shown the door. “We have an extra bedroom, Stuart. You can do some carpentry for us in exchange, while you find a better job and your own roof over your head. The place is such a mess, but even with Dick’s salary—a good one for Buffalo—in Manhattan it’s not enough to get all the extras done. You won’t believe the condition of the foyer. The last tenants drilled holes the size of carrots in the walls. We want to build a cabinet system right over that. You have a knack for carpentry, darling?”
“A bit,” Stuart said hesitatingly.
“Oh, he’s being modest,” I said. “He was in scaffolding. He’s great with all sorts of things, like fixing locks—” Or picking them open at least.
“Perfect. You can move in tomorrow. I had Dick’s Vancouver cousins here—a week after we moved to Manhattan.” She reached for Stuart’s hand. “This is my family now. He’ll have to say yes.”
If I was a Vermonter instead of a cynical New Yorker, I might say “Leigh Ann Harmond is good people.” In any case, it was truly a touching moment.
My mother nudged me, a nudge shielded by her pocketbook. “He mooched a bit,” she admitted minutes later, while Leigh Ann took Stuart on a tour of the bathroom’s chips and scratches.
“He needed a shove out of the nest,” I said. “He got too dependent on us.”
“You sure you’re not jealous of my babying him?”
“Mom!”
“Don’t worry. You did right by him. Even if you don’t like him much—and I think he is a lovely boy by the way—everyone deserves a second chance.”
“You were fantastic, Mom.” She was. She’d saved my behind. I’d got in over my head, and this might be the last time Mom and Dad would bail me out. From here on in, I promised myself, I would attempt adulthood. Good-bye, Prolonged Childhood. I kissed her cheek.
Mom turned teary. “God, thank you for that, Rachel. You’re my baby girl, you know? You were my morning glory. You always have me there for you, do you know that, honey?”
“Yeah, I know. And vice-versa.” Open communication can be embarrassing.
I peeked in the bathroom. Stuart was scrubbing tile grout with a ratty toothbrush. “We’ll have to go over the details tomorrow when you move in,” Leigh Ann said, “but I wanted you to see first-hand how vile everything is without a handyman around. Gawd! Look at those spiderweb cracks on the ceiling!”
“I have a new job for you,” Selena said, as I watched Stuart pack the last of his things. “For the head accountant at Ivan Stanbury. I’ll let you in on a secret. He’s looking to try out a temp for a few weeks to see if he wants to hire permanently. He asked for a college-educated assistant, full salary, $28,000. If I were you I’d start preparing the résumé.”
Eight thousand less than I made as an acquisitions editor two years earlier, but I didn’t hear my phone ringing. I prepared my uniform—pantyhose, heel-saving Reeboks, and a thirty-percent-polyester gruesome Crest-toothpaste-blue dress Aunt Virginia had bought me in a hurry when I was seventeen and temped winter break for her priest. “He’s in a bind,” Aunt Virginia had said on presenting me with the ghastly thing, “and I’m running for treasurer. You shouldn’t be wearing anything good. His sister works there and you want to make her feel like a well-dressed executive.” I pinned the dress under with a safety pin, a makeshift seam. Dressing down is good advice for temping in general. There is probably a historical precedent, even from the times when women didn’t fill the dredge jobs. Benjamin Franklin wouldn’t have wanted his printing apprentice dressing like a dandy.
Marvin Schneider, Ivan Stanbury’s comptroller, is a horrible man. I wish some mobster tough would shoot him down.
“Mr. Schneider? I’m Rachel, from Temp Solution?”
“Take dictation?” Not even a hello. And it was eight fifty-five, I wanted to get in my customary coffee and pee. I hadn’t even looked over the phone system yet, which sometimes requires an engineering masters.
“I do fast longhand. I wasn’t told I was supposed to take dictation, but I’ll give it a shot.”
“What’s the matter with the girls today? The agency keeps sending me illiterates. I told them I wanted a permanent girl.” He glanced over my attire. Maybe I shouldn’t have worn blue polyester to a fashion executive’s job. Psychologists would say I tried to sabotage my chances of permanent work. “You’ll have to do for today.”
I bit my tongue.
“Are you listening? What did they send me, an airhead? I want you to take a memo down. Grab a pad.” I raced to the desk and grabbed a legal spiral. “Confidential memo to Ivan Stanbury. Semicolon. As per our meeting in Colorado, I have decided to green-light the project, though I still stress my gut feeling is that it’s nutty—”
“Excuse me, Mr. Schneider, can you go a bit slower?”
“For Christ’s sake. As per our—”
“I got that. From stress, please.”
“… my gut feeling is that it’s nutty. However, you had such a surplus year in linen that you can afford one or two indulgences. And, the darn population at the ranch has substantially increased, reducing the selling point to point six three per pound, a reduction of at least twenty-five percent. I’ll grant you that this is causing less forage for our cattle, and according to Bart, he’s had to decrease the herd by approximately one hundred and fifty head. Bart met Thursday morning with Spanky, the exotic game rancher who’s had moderate success with camel, alpaca, and llama. Bart told me that Spanky’s overview is that ‘if you can afford to start it up, it’s the product of the future, and is definitely not a fad.’
“New paragraph.
“Of course, money is not a problem; I’m afraid, however, that the media will have a field day if this is a disaster, which would affect confidence in our stock. I’ve met with Tommy’s risk management guy who disagrees with my first reaction to you that product liability exposure could offset any potential gain by this venture. Tommy thinks this man is the genius of the corporation. He feels that a limited mail-order line could be a natural outlet to get more press for the winter clothing and linen. He thinks you might even get on television with a gimmick like this.
“New paragraph.
“In any case, the one sure winner in this scenario is Spanky. I’m told he went public last year and had no buyers. Once they hear that Ivan Stanbury is using his services, he’ll have an avalanche of investors in the new meat of choice. Spanky also told Bart that the antlers are rich in testosterone, which reduces blood pressure, relieves arthritis, and improves male sexual performance. I personally love the prospect of the latter.”
You’re gonna need more than an antler to get a woman in bed, you ugly old Scrooge. And what the hell is this idiotic memo about?
“In any case, Ivan, I will sign off on the project. I’ve let Deborah know that she’ll have to alert media on Wednesday. I say let’s not waste a second. The Christmas catalog media will start in about ten days.
“Regards—Got that, Susan? Read it back to me.”
“Okay,” he said, when I finished. I stumbled on a few words because of my sucky handwriting. “Good enough. When you’re done typing, set up the conference room for five, and don’t use paper cups! The last girl used paper cups when Stanbury came down. I fired the idiot on the spot. First get my mail from Orlando. I like to have it with my coffee, and he won’t make the rounds for another hour.”
The baboon didn’t deserve my real name. And his goddamn underarms stank. A man who I assumed was Orlando the Mail Slave pointed to the slots. Schneider’s mailslot was the biggest. Part of his contract, no doubt, like a corner office and a company Lexus. One o’clock didn’t come soon enough.
I rode the Macy’s escalators in a trancelike state. Now that my charade of a marriage had been called off, I felt somewhat better, but misery had been replaced by dull acceptance of the uphill road ahead. Life without Colin would be sad. Recovery is sad. The mannequins on each floor were dressed in shirts and skirts of a ghastly tan hue. It felt strange to notice normal things again, like seasonal colors. Welcome back to Earth, Rachel. This is what you missed? I took a stool by the neon-lit yogurt counter, Self Treat, staring toward a video monitor of the latest Betsey Johnson dresses.
“Didn’t I just see you on the escalator?” a woman asked from the neighboring stool. Talk about Bronx accents. She had too much blue eye shadow on.
“Yeah, I’m temping at Ivan Stanbury this week.”
“I’m Sandy. I’m temping, too, for Ivan himself, if you believe that.”
“Really? I have his comptroller, Marvin Schneider.”
“Do you like him?”
I paused. What the hell? “Nah, he’s a pig.” Sandy laughed so hard that it was obvious she wasn’t a company spy. I ordered a fresh-squeezed apple juice and a chicken salad pita. Sandy ordered a yogurt with carob chips, a substance beyond comprehension to me. “So,” I said, resuming our conversation, “how’s it working for the big man? Does Ivan wear his own cologne?”
“You know, I peeked at his credit card bills. Someone in his family is addicted to J. Crew. Can you imagine the fashion king ordering $1000 a month from J. Crew? I won’t even meet him. He and his assistant are in Venezuela until Monday. They had me come in to answer his phone and fax him in an emergency. No one can see me. I’m surrounded by solid oak paneling. He even has a private bathroom I use, with a shower and floral toilet paper with his monogram.”
“Perfect!”
Our food was served, and we toasted our chance meeting with plastic cups of water. Having a lunchmate buddy could make this week bearable. I missed Keisha from Bell Press. Now that I was out of my red-zone funk I should call her. Maybe Mom was right. I could ask her if she’d kept in touch with anyone at Bell, if she knew of any job openings there.
“I went through Stanbury’s personal papers from eleven to twelve,” Sandy continued. “I was bored. I think he’s having an affair with Janine Evans.”
“The tie designer?”
“Yup! He keeps a computer diary, and he taped the code word inside the private bathroom cabinet. I guess his regular secretary doesn’t use that bathroom.”
“Or look in his cabinet.”
She smirked.
“Any other dirt?” I asked.
“Nah. Boring stuff. He’s selling the excess elk off of his Colorado ranch as steaks. He sounds like a spoiled schmuck.”
That’s what that nutty memo had been about. “I’ve heard of that ranch. It’s always in the architectural mags. His own casual Ponderosa. Took thirty interior experts two years to get the casual look.”
“Outrageous,” Sandy said.
“You know they kill excess animals in Australia, too, kangaroos. Since the population explosion after they got protected-animal status, they’ve let a set amount get killed every year. You can buy sliced pouch steaks now in city supermarkets.”
“Get out of here? Pouch? You’ve been to Australia?”
“I lived there for two years—Australia’s a great place,” I said coolly, like a proud 1940s buckaroo wife with a dusty, taxing, but gorgeous outback vista out of A Town Like Alice. “Maybe selling elk is the Meat of Choice project his dickhead comptroller referred to in a memo I typed for him.”
“Stanbury said Marvin Schneider’s underarms stink.”
“Really? He wrote that? They do, you know.”
“He said Schneider had shocking odor at Spanky’s Elk Farm, and he was mortified. He wanted to schedule a talk to tell him.”
“No way!” I laughed. I bit into my pita; the chicken tasted like Silly Putty. Frank had once made me chew a wad of it when I’d stumbled in the living room and spilled Yoo Hoo on his new comic. “My guy is pure prick. I’ll go to the end of the week and no more. My temp counselor said he was looking to hire. No fucking way.”
When I returned from lunch the office manager said, “I’m sorry, Susan, but we ordered a shorthand girl.” I didn’t even have the satisfaction of quitting the cruddy job.
“Can you fill out my timesheet then?”
“Your office will pay you for four hours—your manager told me to tell you. I don’t need to fill out your form and you should call her.”
Doorslam! Watch your heel. Shit. I’d already counted on this week’s money. Before I left, I printed out another copy of the memo and shoved it in my knapsack—to prove I had typed everything correctly in case Selena gave me a hard time.
I called her from the lobby phone.
“What happened?”
“I typed his memo correctly, but he—”
“Well Christ, Rachel, I don’t have anything else yet. I don’t know what to tell you. Go home, and I’ll call you this afternoon if anything comes in.”
My parents had left for France, and with Stuart at his second cousin’s place I had the family apartment solo again. I put on The Price Is Right. Colin called just as Dan from Hawaii was about to putt his way from the first hole for a new car. He was in good position to win; he’d guessed the five higher-marked products. I was surprised that an electrician from Hawaii knew that cereal cost more than roach motels. I would have been putting from way further back.
“Hi,” Colin said. “I was going to leave you a message. I thought you were temping. Had the meeting with Angus.”
“Have you decided what you’re going to do? Was Phillip there, that Benedict Arnold?”
“Yeah. He was there, squirming in his chair. They’re giving me a certified check next week if I don’t contest them.”
“Litigation isn’t pretty. Too bad you can’t invest it in elk.”
“Don’t get you.”
“Long story. Ivan Stanbury. He’s bigger than anyone in the States.”
“Huge in Australia, too. My mum asked me to bring back his perfume, and my dad wears his underwear.”
“No wonder he has twenty-seven floors,” I said, twisting my hair into a spiral. “A real Croesus.”
“A what?”
“A very rich man. Croesus was the name of a king of Lydia famous for his riches.”
“Ninety-eight percent of humanity doesn’t get your drift. Why can’t you just say a very rich man?”
“So sue me, I have a decent vocabulary. And it’s not that unusual a word. Just because you don’t know that term doesn’t mean that ninety-eight percent of humanity doesn’t.”
“God, you’re worse than Hannah sometimes.”
I went quiet for a few seconds and Colin said, “You okay?”
I was surprised how much that stung. “Yeah, just an exiguous perturbation in my trachea,” I said, and we both half-laughed.
“Anyhow, Miss Vocab, I still don’t understand what Stanbury has to do with elk.”
“From the info me and this other temp who snooped around got, I figured out that he’s about to invest in elk as a food source. Kill the excess elk on his ranch and attach his name to the meat like a designer shirt.”
“Like boutique kangaroo.”
“Yup and two days until the press announcement. His comptroller made me write a memo saying the ‘project’ will cause stock in Spanky’s Game Farm to skyrocket.”
“Too bad they know who you are.”
“If I was evil I could make a killing. The comptroller thinks my name is Susan. So does everyone else at that firm. They sent me home at twelve without even signing my timesheet because I don’t know shorthand. Or it could have been my polyester suit.”
“Your what?”
“You have to see it to believe it. It was great for the fire extinguisher company. I blended right in.”
“I’ll bet.”
“Yeah, stop interrupting. I’m losing my thread of—oh yeah, what I was saying was that no one at Ivan Stanbury, Inc. knows my real name. Hah! You and I could be rich in forty-eight hours. Almost as good as the lottery.”
I fished in my knapsack for the crumpled memo. I read the whole thing to him.
“They’re doing a press announcement on Wednesday?”
“Yeah.”
“Rachel! Let’s do it. The whole lump sum on the gamble. It’s dirty money anyhow, what do I care? I was going for the fame.”
“Shut up, Dodo brain! I’m only fantasizing here—your last scam is enough to rock three men’s consciences.”
“I’m serious. I’ll split it with you. You said they don’t even know your name. I’ll buy the stock, to make it even more removed. It’s my money. Let’s take control of our lives.”
“I’m going to quash this stupid idea right this second. I know you got away scot-free once, but don’t tempt fate. It’s illegal. Comprende? Insider trading.”
“Information a temp learns is insider trading? Come on, Rachel, you don’t want to temp forever. I’ll give you money—you can write screenplays. I’m an eccentric rock musician who traveled across America on tour and fell in love with elk and antelope. Nobody will blink.”
“You’ll need a stockbroker.” I was contemplating this?
“Do you have something like the Yellow Pages here?”
“We invented the Yellow Pages, Colin.”
“Can you tone down the sarcasm a bee’s dick?”
“Look, Colin, this is a ridiculous idea, I was kidding. Let’s nip it in the fucking bud.”
“So snippy! You’re bloody condescending to a man who’s about to make you rich. I’ll ring one at random. I’ll play eccentric stockman.”
“The whole thing stinks. It’s morally wrong, like my Dad forcing me to pretend I was still five on museum lines when I was a short nine.”
“I can’t imagine you were ever short.”
Good, he’d moved on. Only our old style banter after all. “I shot up when I was twelve. Before that I was the class shrimp.” The woman with a Frida Kahlo unibrow won both Price Is Right final showcases; she got the bid right within a hundred dollars. I clicked the mute button off and heard her scream—a scream worthy of the first car on the Cyclone. I was transfixed.
A veteran newspaper editor had once informed my Syracuse Introduction to Mass Communications class that most people clip articles and either pass them on to their friends or look at them at a later date with new perception. “In this way, journalism’s the noblest medium,” he said. “TV will kill itself.”
Not when suburban unibrowed women standing in for the everyman win double showcases. Journalism doesn’t have a chance. “Oh shit, Colin, I’m tempted by the elk scam, okay, you satisfied?”
“Really?”
“We have to look into it more. No promises. I’ll meet you at Forty-second and Fifth in an hour. How about the stone bench next to the left lion?”
“I don’t understand what you mean.”
“The main New York library. There’s two lions out front. Let’s check a few things before we blow the dough. I can’t believe I’m saying this.”
After I hung up I helped myself to Chunky Monkey ice cream straight out of the container. I figured I’d hop a cab to the library. Mom and Dad had graciously stocked the refrigerator before they left, and guilt, guilt, left me a few hundred dollars. The doorbell rang. I wiped a bit of chocolate off my chin. It was Frank and his darling Janet. I need this now?
“Can we come in?” Janet said.
“Yeah,” I smiled, with great effort.
Janet sat in Dad’s reclining chair, and Frank wandered about the living room, stopping at the glass bookcase to examine my snowglobe celebrating the fall of the Berlin Wall (like he hadn’t seen it a gazillion times before).
I settled in a lotus position on the carpet. Janet was visibly unnerved by my leg-bending.
“So how’s the new couple?” I tried out. Yuck.
“Pretty good so far,” Janet said. “I know you called, but, well I just wish we had your blessing.”
“What an unusual couple you make,” I offered.
“How’s that?” Janet said cautiously.
“Well you’re all about espadrilles and sundresses, and here’s my brother in a thrift-shop shirt, so green and shiny. You look amphibious, Frank.”
“Amphibious?” Frank said. He knew what I was doing. Will used to say that I have the subtlety of a minivan.
“Reptilian.” I pulled at a stringy bit in the knee of my jeans.
“Are you calling me a snake?” Frank said.
“Well, yeah.” We both laughed, a wavy Ganelli laugh—you get points in my family for a well-thought-out insult. Janet looked relieved that maybe, just maybe, the dastardly duo were truly off the hook.
I uncrossed my legs and reached for my toes. “So guess what? I’ve been talking to my friend Colin.”
“Your friend Colin?” Janet said. “Colin Colin? From the Tall Poppies?”
“Yeah. We’re working it out. Mom even met him, thinks he’s a nice guy. I’m taking the subway to meet him in a few minutes.”
“Working it out?” Frank said. “He’s a lying creep.”
“He was misguided, that’s all. He’s very cute.”
“Jesus,” Frank said. “Women.”
“Are you free tomorrow?” Janet said, touching my shoulder. “That sounds like a story I’ve got to hear. You name the place. Our treat.”
“Lutèce,” I said. “Or the Four Seasons.”
“Ha, ha,” Frank said. “How about Chinatown? The Nice Restaurant on East Broadway?”
“That would be nice,” I said.
“How’s Stuart?” Janet said.
“He’s doing pretty well. Mom’s got him applying to Juilliard for percussion, if you can believe that.”
Janet snorted.
“I can more than believe that,” Frank smiled.
“You know what I think?” Janet said.
“No, what do you think?” Frank asked in a tender voice I hadn’t heard since his early days with Ingrid.
“This whole experience reminds me of an enchanted journey, a ride in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, where everything could happen, and everything does.”
“That’s a great metaphor,” Frank said. “I really like that.”
“Yeah,” I said. Even though I had come up with that very same metaphor in our freshman year screenwriting class. Oh great, Janet, you’re even usurping my metaphors.
Let it go, Danny Death said in a new bubble over my head. Doesn’t mean shit. Against the gravitational pull of disgust, I forced another grin.
“Oh, God,” Janet said, “I feel so much better. I’ve missed you so much, Rachel.” Her eyes were tearing.
“I love you both, too,” I said. When I stood up, Frank whacked me on the arm in our standard ceremonious sibling apology.
Colin gave me his own love tap after we’d spotted each other by the lion.
“My Aunt Virginia once told me that these lions are called Patience and Fortitude.”
“Which one is which?” He wet his finger and wiped a tiny remaining spot of chocolate off my lip.
“I get them mixed up.”
I led the way through the grand Astor Court, up the opulent marble stairs. In the imposing main research room, the size of a football field, I located the microfiche page for the Colorado Yellow Pages. I turned the knob, scanning for elk. No listings.
“Try game,” Colin suggested.
I rolled until I got to G. “Found it! Spanky’s Wholesale Game.”
I copied down the number. We went back down two flights to the phone booth near the men’s room. I called the New York Stock Exchange public relations officer.
“Hi, my name is Karen Jones, and I’m a senior at Murray Bergtraum Business High School.”
“What can I do for you, Karen?”
“I need to follow a stock for my end-of-year assignment and I got the weirdest one. It’s for game. Spanky’s Game Farm. I can’t find it and I need to turn the paper in on Tuesday! Can you tell me what it’s listed under?”
“We normally don’t give out that kind of information. I can send you general info about the market, if that would help—”
“Oh, please, I’m really stuck! I’m desperate!”
“I have a daughter who’s thirteen. You sound sweet. Hold on, dear, let me see. No, I don’t see it. But let me look it up on the database, it may be on the American Stock Exchange—yes, here it is! You have to look under SPKGM in the American Stock Exchange listings. They’re not affiliated with the New York Stock Exchange. Be nice to your parents.”
“I will! Thank you!”
I flapped my paper in triumph, and Colin gave me a peck on the cheek. “For evil,” he said, like a James Bond villain.
“I walk the line,” I said, in my best Johnny Cash impersonation. “Now it’s your turn.”
He dialed the hotel. “Yeah—can I have the room of Angus Wynne?—Angus, it’s Colin. Look, mate, I’m still upset about before, but I spoke to my lawyer in Australia and he advised me to take your check. I want it in twenty-four hours though, or the deal is off.”
Two days later, the day Ivan Stanbury was scheduled to release information about his personal elk-meat line, Colin and I took the train to Philadelphia for a field trip. We were too antsy to stay in his hotel room, and he hadn’t done much touristing yet.
Our first stop on the self-guided walking tour was Christ Church. A dour-faced man clasping a clipboard told us about Jacob Duche, a Tory who chose allegiance to the crown in Canada.
“Duche’s sister chose revolution,” the guide said. “Her husband Francis wrote Psalm Sixty-five. I had a Canadian on the tour last week who saw this church as the Mason Dixon line. This is the ugly side of the revolution. Many of our most prominent families lost their shires.”
“I wonder if the city of Philadelphia knows their emissary is knocking the Founding Fathers?” I whispered.
Colin shrugged and reached for my hand, as casually as back in St. Kilda. It felt right. We’d forgotten a major financial scam was on the day’s menu.
Colin and I sat in Benjamin Franklin’s pew while the guide spoke to us from the front of the church. Benjamin Franklin invented the stove, first thought of daylight savings time and bifocals, proved that lightning and electricity are the same thing, was a diplomat, a postmaster, wrote an almanac, published the newspaper, and created the lending library.
Philadelphia’s not a city to visit if you’re in the mood to rest on your laurels.
We continued on to the Hall of Independence, where they signed the Declaration of Independence. Were people so short in the 1700s? The Hall was markedly low to the ground.
“Thomas Jefferson drafted the Constitution at thirty-two,” the park ranger said in the orientation room.
“Four years to match his greatness,” I said quietly. “Fat chance.”
“But did you know that Thomas Jefferson’s manuscript went through eighty drafts by his peers?”
“Now that’s the kind of info I want to hear,” I whispered.
“Who’s complaining?” Colin said. “I’m a year past the use-by date. At thirty-two, I did jackshit.” We continued on to the Hall’s courtroom.
“At thirty-two, you performed in front of thousands of fans. I’ve done jackshit.”
“Shh!” said the man sporting a Coast Guard cap to my left.
“You went to Australia on your own.”
“Anyone could do it with $2000,” I said, as we walked toward the room where the actual signing took place.
“No, Rachel, they couldn’t. You’re hard on yourself.” He paused. “First I’ve heard of Thomas Jefferson. What else did he do besides write a piece of paper? Did he invent the telephone?”
“You’re not serious? That was Alexander Graham Bell—”
“Oh yeah. Stop looking at me like a dumbarse. Didn’t Jefferson invent the egg whisk?”
“Let me continue.”
He stuck his lip out like a kid pretending to be a dimwit. “Duh—the meat tenderizer?”
“Thomas Jefferson was our—”
“I’m taking the mickey out of you, Rachel Ganelli. I’m beginning to think you were the dag no one wanted to pick for tag.”
“—third president. A great man but a hypocrite. He wrote the Declaration of Independence but had plantation slaves.”
The guide looked relieved as we exited the tour to have it out.
“Why would I know about Thomas Jefferson? I’m an Australian. Do you know who Gough Whitlam is?”
“Yeah.”
“Bullshit. You don’t know anything about him do you?”
“Colin, you’re baiting me. Don’t do this. You’re not achieving anything.”
“Got you, ha! The great Rachel is stumped. Stalling.”
“Gough Whitlam was Prime Minister of Australia from 1972 to 1975. He was the first Labor Party leader to win the premiership in twenty years. He pushed an agenda of women’s and Aboriginal rights—and national social security. He was ousted by a little-known rule called by the Queen’s representative, Sir John Kerr, The Governor General.”
“Okay, you know it. I give—”
“Also of note: Christopher Boyce, a cipher clerk, found out that the CIA had Sir John Kerr as their agent. In essence they overturned Whitlam’s socialist policies, like they toppled Allende’s Chile in 1973. The Falcon and the Snowman, book by Robert Lindsay, film directed by John Schlesinger. Timothy Hutton as Boyce. Sean Penn, not yet married to Madonna, as his blackmailing friend. Soundtrack by Pat Metheny. Title song by David Bowie.”
“Oh I see. He’s a movie reference. You only know him ’cause it was a movie story. That’s not real knowledge—”
We walked a few yards and were now standing in front of the Liberty Bell.
A guide addressed a horde of ten-ish kids. “The first time it rang, it cracked and was recast. In 1835, it cracked again. Repairs were made. In 1846, it cracked once more as it rang for Washington’s birthday. No one could fix it this time.”
“How come they didn’t throw it out and get a new bell?” Colin whispered.
“There was love in it,” I said. “It was precious. It means more that it has survived.”
We sampled the native cuisine: cheese-steak sandwiches. They were cheap, and between us we had ten dollars left. I wanted a Philadelphia snowglobe with the Liberty Bell in it; the closest gift shop, at Betsy Ross’s house, only had one with Independence Hall. Colin called his Yellow Pages stockbroker from the pay phone inside of the shop. I had to go outside to pace. Colin could have lost his shirt on whimsy.
He came out with a thumbs-up. “The bloody mother lode!” he screamed from across the street, and my arms went numb. We kept breaking out into sinful laughter, like Bonnie and Clyde. According to our calculations on the New Jersey transit, we had made $200,000 off designer elk. Enough for Colin to buy a small recording studio, and for me to give a go as a screenwriter. We could even give Stuart something to start off his new life. Colin had told his broker to sell, even though if we waited, we could have had truly serious dough.
“There’s something I have to tell you,” Colin said as we rolled past Newark.
“Shoot.”
“I ran into Will the other day.”
“Will?”
“Your Will.”
“Will Reynolds? What are you talking about?”
“He met Hannah out on Long Island. This is rather unreal, but he’s dating her now. She always wanted to move up a notch.” He shielded his head, waiting to be hit.
“You forgot to tell me?”
“I wasn’t going to tell you. I was afraid you’d go back to him.”
“Jesus, Will and Hannah? Jesus. You’re pulling my leg.”
“I suspect she’s always thought Australia was too uncouth for her. Except for the fact that he stole my girlfriend, he seemed like a perfectly nice guy. He had nothing except nice things to say about you.”
He was serious? Will with Colin’s redhead? But then, at this point in my year of mishegoss, the link didn’t seem implausible. Weird things were plaguing me that year; happenstance made perfect sense. I stared out the window. We’ve swapped places, I thought. She’s got my goddamn precious upper-middle-class destiny.
“You’re right, he is a nice guy,” I agreed. Colin gave me a bewildered look, and I gave him an “it’s safe” smile. Convinced, he reached for my wrist.
“So this is how it turns out,” he smiled.
I pulled him to me and planted a big smackeroo on his lips. “Yeah,” I said afterward.
As the train rolled toward the tunnel entrance, the new moon rising over Frank Sinatra’s Atlantic City billboard, I remembered the Christ Church guide batting for the Tories, and I thought, morality is in the retelling. Who’s presenting the history?
Once, while I was still at Bell, a man perched on top of a discount store across the street from my office had started firing bullets at the western-facing windows of our office building. He’d been fired from a textile company on the third floor, two below Bell Press. Our building’s voice, the same one that informed us of fire drills, announced, “Ladies and Gentlemen, please go to the center of your offices, away from the windows.”
In the conference room, the vice president continued to dictate a letter to his assistant as forty of us filled the remaining chairs and floor space. The head of publicity asked me if I wanted a stick of cinnamon Trident. Over the loudspeaker we heard “Ladies and Gentlemen, the police have killed the man, there is no more danger,” and we resumed work. There were too many tri-state murders that day; the incident barely warranted a mention, even in the tabloids. Since none of my friends read about my midday mayhem, no one ever believed it happened.