Faking Life (24 page)

Nico smiled, as though it was the answer he'd been looking for. Frank congratulated himself, went out and got drunk.

Working at the agency was easy. Most days were the same, except when Nico was at a lunch or attending a conference. Then he could surf the net without looking over his shoulder, although he had a feeling Esther was constantly sneering behind his back.

“I want to see you take more initiative,” Nico would sometimes say to him, always out of Esther's earshot. “Hang out with Esther while she works, see how she does things. She has a good eye. Take on a few queries and see what you can do with them. See if you can dig up a diamond in the rough.”

In Frank's opinion, he didn't need to prove his initiative. He was sure that if he really wanted to, he could run the business better than Nico. Get their authors a million bucks each. He had
people
skills. He'd have no problem convincing editors that every one of their books was going to hit number one in its first week out.

Nico had confided in him the details of the Gillis book, about how he'd persuaded the owner of Slappy's Slop House to bust him down to a crappy shift, to humiliate him. “It makes sense,” Nico had said to him. “It gives Gillis a different perspective on things, makes him want it more. He's been working in the same bar in the same capacity for six years, and if we really want this thing to fly we've got to shake things up.”

Makes sense
, Frank thought. But why stop there?

Frank respected Nico's opinion, and if Nico felt the project was worth it, then it probably was. After all, dull blades could still draw blood. Besides, most of the memoirs he'd read were whiny grade school shit; guys crying because they'd accidentally caught Mommy and Daddy in the sack. That stuff about Gillis getting laid by his babysitter, it was a total crock. Never once had Frank heard someone complain about a lay, even if it was a bad one by a club skank.

Play it off
, they'd say. If the girl was too ugly to mention or didn't return phone calls,
play it off. It was nothing to begin with.

Frank buttoned up his coat as he walked down Sixth Avenue, nearing NYU territory. Kids in puffy jackets and exploding backpacks trudged to class like they were hauling the world's biggest burdens.

Take some initiative, Frank
. He'd show Nico what initiative was. He wanted a team player? Frank would take this fucking team and carry it.

He'd left his Yankees hat at home this time, not wanting to take a chance on being recognized. The way Nico described Artie, Frank was sure he'd recognize him with no problem. They were all the same, those lower East side bar owners. Greasy little bald men wearing shiny suits, scanning the crowd for the prettiest girl to give their sad, wrinkled libidos a workout. They all came from money, too. They opened the same type of bars they'd gone to as kids, hoping one day they their place would draw the same caliber tail.

Normally Frank wouldn't be caught dead in a place like Slappy's Slop House. The beer was overpriced and the clientele was the worst kind of faux trendy. He preferred clubs, where there was more room, where the dance floors weren't cheap parquet and the DJ's didn't care what MTV considered hip.

And Esther.

Always condescending, always acting like he had no business opening his mouth.
She
was one of those people who'd write a book like Gillis. All self-loathing and
poor me, poor me
crap. She made a steady living and worked in the entertainment biz, what did she have to be pissed about? Even if books weren't as glamorous as movies or T.V., they were still part of the same universe. She was making contacts other people would kill for.

He didn't hold a grudge when she'd turned him down. Even if she had said yes, Frank's judgment would have eventually prevailed. He'd gotten girls that could put her to shame. Girls with luscious, firm breasts—real or fake, it didn't matter—and asses you could crack a walnut on. After years of stealing the panties off of New York's best women, not hooking up with Esther was like dropping a penny after robbing a bank.

Young women like her walked around with a sense of entitlement. Like he should be grateful if they
allowed
him to buy drinks. Frank was man enough to laugh at those silly girls who spurned him. They were the ones who'd end up single and desperate by thirty while all the guys his age would be dating lithe models and nubile young debutantes. They'd be done up in their Prada and their Dior, trying to use the same archaic moves they'd used ten years ago, back when they had the bodies to pull it off. All that blue mascara and sickly sweet perfume didn't mean anything except that they were old. Frank didn't need to give them their comeuppance. He could just smile when it came.

And Esther.

He tried to picture her as an older women, walking the way older women walk, tentative yet trying to exude confidence. Showing off their Pilates-shaped bodies, hiding stretch marks under layers of cover-up. He tried to picture Esther touring modern art exhibits and sitting at martini bars, trying to make everything seem glamorous while anyone with half a brain could see how sad it was. But he couldn't line the image up; her face didn't want to stay attached to any of the wrinkled bodies he conjured up. He shrugged it off and kept walking.

Frank knew next to nothing about her personal life. Nobody called her at the office, she didn't giggle at flirtatious emails from secret lovers. No, she came to work and buried herself in mountains of paper. That was fine with him. If she wanted to be alone, then she deserved to be lonely.

Frank turned the corner and opened the door to Slappy's Slop House. He set his cell phone to 'vibrate' and unbuttoned his suit jacket. It was just after five o'clock. He counted a dozen diners and a few old men at the bar, all staggered evenly with one empty seat between them as though they might catch a disease by being close to the gloom that dripped like a leaky faucet.

Gillis was behind the bar, wiping down the wood with a grimy rag. A stocky Mexican with a couple of frightening tattoos on his neck and forearms was dumping ice on a mound of beer bottles. An attractive waitress with cherry-red lip-gloss walked back and forth between the tables taking orders. Maybe he'd get her number later. He noticed a man, exactly like Nico described, sitting near the kitchen, chatting through a hole in the wall. He was obviously the owner. Artie. Nico was gonna be so fucking pleased…

All this crap about changing his shift, getting him to quit…well, that was bullshit. They needed to go a step further. Why all the pussyfooting around?
They
were the ones in charge, not Artie.
They
dictated the terms. Nico really wanted to shake things up? Frank would show them how it was done. Artie, like a big ass sausage sitting there cooking on a spit. Ready to be eaten.

Frank approached him, his shoes treading softly on the floor. He nonchalantly shielded his face from Gillis, trying not to laugh at the man's pale bare chest.
Nico, you're the fucking king.

“Help you?” Artie said, standing up. Frank noticed a figure in the kitchen back away from the serving window. He smelled grease. Frank remembered why he didn't eat in places like this.

“Arthur Graves?” Frank said, reaching for his wallet. He imagined himself on one of those cop shows from the fifties.
Just the facts ma'am, just the facts.
Frank smiled. He would have made a great detective.

“Yes?” Artie said warily. Frank handed him a business card.
Frank Menegaro, Literary Assistant
. Not an assistant for long, Frank thought.

“Mr. Graves, I'm Franklin Menegaro. I work with Nico Vanetti.” He thought it made sense to introduce himself as working
with
Nico as opposed to
for
him. It made him sound that much more authoritative. Artie examined the card briefly, then put it in his pocket. He smiled and shook Frank's hand.

“Can I get you a drink?” Artie asked. “On the house, of course.”

“I'll have a Bud Light,” Frank said. He put his hand on Artie's padded shoulder and leaned in. He could smell cheap cologne. “Now, do you have somewhere we can talk in private?”

P
aul rang the doorbell three times, then put the groceries down and groped for his key. He propped the door open with a D'Agostinos bag and carried in the other two. He navigated a path through a dozen bottles of Andre and open magazines strewn across the apartment, which now resembled a failed Alcoholics Anonymous waiting room.

The fridge was packed front to back with Andre. Paul cursed under his breath and took out four bottles. In their stead he put the milk, orange juice and a jar of pickles. The rest of the items were squeezed in anywhere he could find space.

As he squeezed the fridge shut, he noticed a clicking coming from John's room. He shook his head. It never stopped. It had woken him twice last night alone. He'd managed to grit it out, accepting it as penance for the many nights he'd kept John awake in college. Paul had a high threshold for that type of abuse, but this time it was different. Now that John was unemployed, the noise might never stop.

He rapped his knuckles on John's door. He heard a distracted “come in”.

“Hey, how's it going?” John was sitting on his red chair, the room dark save the backlight of the computer screen. John swiveled around to face Paul. Three empty bottles of champagne cluttered the desk. The one in his hand looked half finished. John had a silly look on his face, probably aware of how he looked sitting in his underwear in the dark at seven o'clock at night drinking a $4.99 bottle of champagne.

“I picked up the groceries, thought I'd make some omelets for dinner. I got fresh mushrooms and cheddar,” Paul said.

“No thanks, I already ate.” John swiveled back and resumed typing. Paul could see dark circles under his eyes, veins webbing out that hadn't been there a week ago.

“Did you order in? I didn't see any dishes out there.” Without removing his eyes from the screen, John picked up an empty bottle of Andre and shook it. Paul had counted at least four empty bottles in the recycling bin every night this week. Not once had he seen John consume anything that wasn't at least six percent alcohol.

Everyone goes off a little bit
, Paul told himself. Hell, he'd done the same thing the first time he was fired. He didn't return to the apartment for three days, spending all of it raging drunk and cavorting with a girl named Kendra he'd met—while drunk, of course—at a book signing. He still had the book. The inscription was in blue sharpie and read “To Paul, a fellow writer. Drink some coffee and seek help. Richard.”

But of all the shitty luck, getting fired a mere week after getting busted down to lunch duty. John said it came out of nowhere, that Artie had just pulled him aside and said, “Sorry kid, but studies show new blood brings new business.”

The money issue hadn't yet been broached. Paul couldn't afford to piggyback him for long, especially since he hadn't received any word from Carol Joyce about his story collection. She said they needed to be meticulous in their presentation due to the soft market. That was a month and a half ago. And until that call came, he was just another working class schmo living paycheck to paycheck while his jobless roommate typed half naked in the dark.

Motioning towards the screen, Paul said “Have you backed up any of your work?” John gave him a blank stare and shrugged. Paul sat down on the unmade bed. The room had a grimy smell. He opened the window, then picked a bundle of covers off the floor and heaped them on the mattress. “It's a good idea to back up…whatever you're working on. You know these buildings, the wiring is so old that if you run a hairdryer while the TV's on you'll blow a fuse.” John stayed silent.

“I'll back it up when I get a chance,” John finally said, eyes glued straight ahead. Paul snuck a quick peek at the screen as he did. He could only make out one sentence.

You're only lost if someone wants to find you.

John's body blocked the rest of screen.

“So what are your plans tonight?” Paul asked.

“I'm gonna shave soon and clean up a bit. Then I'm going to Slappy's.” Paul coughed.

“Slappy's? Uh, you do realize they fired you, that you don't work there anymore?”

“Of course. What'd you think, I missed the part where Artie said, 'sorry kid, gotta let you go? No hard feelings?' No, but he did tell me that if I ever happened to be in the neighborhood, I was welcome to stop by and drink on the house. Well, I'll happen to be in the neighborhood in an hour, so I'm gonna call his bluff.”

Paul pointed to the translucent green bottles. “How many of those have you had today?”

“I don't know, three I think. Maybe four.”

“Maybe you should stay in tonight. We can go drinking tomorrow, when you're not already tanked.” John turned around, smiling.

“Hey, you wanna come with? I don't know if Artie'll extend you the same courtesy, but I'm sure Stacy can smuggle us out a bottle if we don't stay.”

“I have a better idea. Why don't rent a movie, order up some Chinese food. I'll do omelets another night. I just renewed my Blockbuster card and my next one is free. There's a new Kirsten Dunst flick out, I hear she almost gets naked in this one. Besides, you've got enough Andre here to sit through a triple feature.” John shook his head.

“I'm definitely going to Slappy's. You're welcome to tag along.” Paul cringed at the words 'tag along'.

“Ok, how about I rephrase. I don't think you should go tonight. Not so soon after they fired you. No offense man, but you're a mess.” John kept on typing. “And right now you're in the rebellious phase of post-losing your job syndrome. Soon after that comes the self-loathing phase. Trust me, I've been there, and I think that the rebellious phase is one best spent reasonably sober. Definitely
not
drinking with people that pissed you off.”

“How are the kids?” John said flatly, his eyes riveted to the screen.

“What kids? What are you talking about?”

“Your kids. The ones you teach, remember?”

“What do they have to do with anything?”