On the way to the library, Cook was nagged by a fear that he had offended Beth at the end of dinner. He was sure he hadn’t said anything offensive. All he had done was help translate the devilish pronoun under dispute. He was okay as far as that went. But he couldn’t shake the feeling that he had done something—or left something undone.
Could it have been that Dan, Robbie, and he had exited as an exclusive group? A male group? Even so, why did Cook feel guilty? Dan had invited him to come along. Was it Cook’s responsibility to leap up and say, “Hold on, now. What about Beth?” Of course not.
He had complimented her on the dinner, so he was covered there. How had she taken his compliment? He couldn’t remember, because he hadn’t actually looked at her. The truth was he had more or less forgotten her. Should he feel guilty for that? People forgot about people all the time. You talk to Joe, you turn to Frank, you wink at Ellen—you leave people behind when you move on to others. Think of the people he had spoken with in his life and forgotten about. Thousands of them. Was it a huge resentful throng?
One good thing had happened, at least: the linguist had done something linguistic. Who would have guessed that the Old English pronoun system could shed light on a twentieth-century marital misunderstanding? You never knew what might come in handy. The next time they quarreled, all of Cook’s Kickapoo might come back to him in a flash and save the day. Who was it who said, “In observation, chance favors those who are most prepared”? Somebody, by God. Maybe Pillow’s faith in him was justified. He did have abundant knowledge about language, at least. “At least”? Why “at least”? What else was there but language?
Cook was free to pursue these thoughts because Dan and Robbie were occupied in the front seat of the van by a song on the radio. They beat time to it and sang snatches. Cook watched and thought someone ought to do a study of what bits of songs got sung by listeners and what bits didn’t. Was that a linguistic question? You bet it was. Everything was a linguistic question these days. And if it wasn’t, he’d make it one.
“You like him?” Dan asked Cook over his shoulder.
“Who?”
“Billy Joel.”
“Never heard of him.”
Dan laughed. Cook wondered why.
Robbie turned around and looked at Cook. “You’ve never heard of Billy Joel?”
“Nope.”
“Geez,” said Dan. “You’re serious.”
“That’s incredible,” said Robbie.
Dan said, “He’s really a major figure.”
This angered Cook. “I’m a linguist, okay? I don’t follow this stuff.”
“Okay,” said Dan. “No one says you have to.”
“You ever heard of Elvis?” asked Robbie.
Dan said, “Drop it, Robbie. Here we are.” He had pulled the van into the library lot and coasted into a parking space. He turned off the ignition, but the engine continued running in a prolonged fit of coughing. Dan and Robbie joined it in a funny imitation, their shoulders shaking as the van shook. It was obviously something they had done before.
When the engine quieted, Robbie said, “Here’s the plan. Dad, you check downstairs at the desk. I’ll run upstairs and check there. We’ll meet downstairs. Okay? Ooh—and I gotta get a book on hamsters, so my new one doesn’t croak on me. I just hope I don’t get that witch at the checkout counter.” He hurried out of the van and ran full speed to the front doors.
Dan asked Cook if he wanted to come with him or wait. Cook had spotted a bank of pay phones in the brick entry-way, and he told Dan he had to make a phone call. Dan looked at him as if for further explanation, but when he got none he just said he and Robbie wouldn’t be long and went on into the library.
Cook walked to the phones. He took Pillow’s business card from his pocket and dialed the home number given on it. An answering machine came on with Pillow’s voice, apparently speaking from the bottom of a well. Cook had experienced slow, self-conscious messages on these things, but Pillow’s set a record. Cook told the voice to shut up. He hung up and fished in his pocket for another quarter, this time dialing Pillow’s office number.
“Pillow.”
This no-nonsense way of saying hello threw Cook for a moment. “Roy? Jeremy Cook here.”
Pillow responded with silence. Had he forgotten who Cook was?
“I’m at the Wilsons’,” Cook said helpfully.
“Of course you are. I know that.”
“I have a question. Is there a horror at the core of the Wilson marriage?”
“Don’t be silly,” said Pillow. “Of course there is.”
Cook flinched as if he had been slapped. “Why didn’t you tell me about it?”
“Tell you? Good God, man. It goes without saying.”
“It does?” Cook forced himself not to shout. “What is it?”
“Just a minute, Jeremy. I’ve got another call.”
Cook started to protest, but Pillow went away and left a void behind. A minute passed. Then another minute. Cook shouted into the emptiness. A moment later he heard a promising click. Then he heard several clicks bunched together. These climaxed in a dial tone.
Cook held the receiver at arm’s length, looked at it, and said to it, “You are a prick.”
A black teenager at an adjacent phone raised his eyebrows at Cook.
Cook found another quarter and redialed the Pillow Agency. The line was busy. “Stupid fucking twit,” said Cook. The teenager grinned broadly. Cook dialed again and got Pillow, whose first word was “Sorry.”
“Right,” said Cook.
“It was Mrs. Pillow. I was going to get right back to you, Jeremy. You shouldn’t have hung up.”
“The horror, Roy. Tell me about the horror.”
“After I spoke with Mrs. Pillow and discovered you had hung up, I tried to call you at the Wilsons’. You told me you were there.”
“Never mind that. Tell me about—”
“You lied.”
Cook wanted to slump to his knees. “I didn’t mean I was literally there. I was just reminding you who I was when I said I was at the Wilsons’.”
“Reminding me?” Pillow said with a laugh. “You mean you thought I might have forgotten?”
“Yes.”
“Lord, Lord, Lord. Insecurity. It’s the universal disease, isn’t it? Mrs. Pillow and I were discussing this very subject at lunch. We disagreed in our views, but I don’t think frank disagreement is a threat to love. Do you?”
“You had lunch with your wife today?”
“Yes. I had prime rib.”
“You said you were going to have lunch with me.”
“I mentioned in a general way I would like to have lunch with you someday, yes, that’s true.”
“You said today.”
“Oh come now, Jeremy. You’re the one who said you were at the Wilsons’ when you weren’t. And you’re calling me a liar?”
“You said it. You said ‘today.’”
“You heard ‘today,’ Jeremy, but I’m sure I said ‘someday.’ Perhaps you were just hungry.”
Cook laughed wildly. “Let’s go back to the reason I called. The horror at the core of the Wilson marriage.”
“Yes?”
“How can you say ‘yes’ like that, as if it’s an everyday thing?”
“It is, Jeremy. There’s a horror at the core of every marriage—and it’s the very same horror.”
“What do you mean? What is it?”
“You have The Pillow Manual. It will lead you to it. Are you having a regular social evening?”
“Well, I—”
“Are you demonstrating your conversational competence?”
“Well, I’m—”
“Have you asked twenty-five questions?”
“No, I—”
“You see? There’s plenty still to do. My advice to you is to roll up your sleeves and get to work.”
“I hate that expression.”
“Pardon?”
“‘Roll up your sleeves.’ I hate it.”
“Well, I’m sorry, Jeremy.”
“I really hate it.”
“I’ll try not to use it in the future. If it’s on your hate list in The Woof of Words, I don’t remember it. But may I change the subject?”
Cook was so impressed by this burst of decorum that he said yes.
“I’ve been going over the questionnaire you filled out this morning. One of your answers puzzled me.” Cook heard the rustling of paper. “Here we are. The question is ‘Rank the following social situations from least appealing to you to most appealing to you by numbering them from one (least appealing) to ten (most appealing).’ Do you remember the question, Jeremy? It gives ‘cocktail party for twenty,’ ‘country club dinner dance’ …”
“Sure. I remember it.”
“I don’t think you understood the instructions. You wrote a ‘one’ next to all of them.”
“That’s right. They were all ‘least appealing’ to me.”
“But compared to what? What social situation does appeal to you?”
“None.”
“Oh come now.”
“I mean it.”
“Not even ‘quiet dinner party for four’?”
“Sounds awful.”
“You don’t like groups? Is that what you’re saying?”
“Yes.”
“Do you like people?”
“Of course I like people. What do you think?”
“Yes, I can see from your other answers here that you … that you …” Pillow fell silent. Then he said, “You say here that you’ve slept with sixteen women in the past five years.”
“I wasn’t crazy about answering that,” said Cook. “I was going to leave it blank, but I was afraid you’d get the wrong idea.”
“It also asks how many of them you loved. You did leave this one blank.”
“I guess I should have put a zero. The answer is zero.”
“And under ‘Explain’—the follow-up to that question—you again wrote nothing.”
“What’s to explain?”
Pillow made a flabbergasted noise. “Frankly, Jeremy, it cries out for an explanation. You slept with sixteen women but didn’t find one of them lovable?”
Cook wanted to laugh. Pillow made them sound like teddy bears. “I think this is my business, Roy.”
“It’s Pillow business now.”
“I didn’t love them. What more can I say? I don’t know why. Maybe you can tell me. You want to meet them? Want me to hunt them up and bring them by?”
“Do any of them live in the area?”
Cook laughed. His laughter echoed so loudly off the brick and glass walls that two librarians at the front counter looked through the window at him. So did Dan and Robbie, who had just walked up to the counter. “I was joking, Roy,” Cook said.
“Oh.”
“I don’t see why you need all this stuff, anyway. You’ve already hired me, right?”
“Oh, there’s no question about that. But I’m concerned, Jeremy. You know how I feel about love.”
“Yes. You told me.”
“I believe in it.”
“I know. You told me.”
“I would give my life for it.”
“That won’t be necessary.”
“Love, Jeremy.”
“Yes, Roy.”
“Trust.”
“Yes. Trust.”
“We hear those words so often that we forget what they mean.”
“Yeah, well, that happens.” Cook watched Dan and Robbie check out their books.
“I wish those words were outlawed. Forbidden. We would have to invent new ones.”
“A powerful idea, Roy.” Cook wasn’t the least bit interested.
“The new words would mean something. For a while, anyway.”
“Ah,” said Cook, suppressing a yawn, “but what then?”
“Let’s make up new words, Jeremy.” Pillow said this with frightening enthusiasm. He made it sound like a child’s game.
“I’d rather play Candyland, Roy.”
“Pardon?”
“May I change the subject?”
“No.”
“What? Come on. I let you change it.”
“You want to talk about the horror. Time to end our chat, Jeremy. We’ve come full circle.”
“I hate that expression, too.”
“Sorry. It’s purged from my lexicon. I never want to say anything to upset you. To be on the safe side, I’ll say nothing more.” Pillow hung up.
Cook stared at the dead phone. As he hung it up, Robbie and Dan came out the door. Robbie waved a book for Cook to see and then sprinted all the way to the van. He seemed to run flat out just about every chance he got.
Dan came up to Cook. “We found it. I’m off the hook.”
“Which hook is that?” Cook asked.
“Beth’s meat hook. She’s got one on the wall in every room. Haven’t you seen them?” Dan leaned toward Cook, screwed his face up, and piped, “‘You’ve made your house very comfortable’” in blatant mockery of him. “But what about the meat hooks, Jeremy? Eh? What about the meat hooks?” Dan laughed insanely.
For a moment Cook wondered if Dan had had a snort of something in some alcove of the library. He had trouble matching this angry man with the pleasant fellow who had been willing to dash off and fetch his son’s book. Cook was so unnerved by Dan’s outburst that he could think of nothing to say. He was silent as they walked to the van.
Pillow believed in love. What did it mean? Take Dan. Here was a guy who, if you asked him (or if she asked him), would probably say he loved his wife. He might even say he loved her a lot, or a great deal, or a bushel and a peck. But listen to the way he talked about her. Just listen to him.