Make Me Work (25 page)

Anthony laughed.

“It's not a joke,” Robert said. “She's afflicted.”

“One in a thousand people has it,” she said. “Our bodies put out a magnetic field or something.”

“I've never heard of this,” Anthony said.

“The old-time jewelers all knew about it. If you were one of these people, they didn't even try to sell you a watch. It wasn't gonna work, and that was that.”

“Well, then, it must not apply to battery-powered watches,” Anthony said. “Most watches today run on batteries. Just go get yourself one of those.”

“Nope, it applies to them, too. I even tried one of those calculator-watch combinations—the thin little business-card type? Got it to balance my checkbook with. The calculator part kept working, but the clock stopped dead.” She looked at Anthony's wrist. “I could stop your watch right now.”

He took off his rubberized quartz chronograph, good to a hundred meters below the surface of the sea, and held it out by its strap.

“What did I just get finished saying?” Robert said.

Celeste extended her wrist. “You have to put it on me.”

“That's part of it?”

“Sometimes.”

He fastened his watch to her wrist. If the jolt he got when he touched her skin didn't stop the thing, nothing ever would. He looked. The second hand was still going.

Celeste leaned back to look Anthony over. “So what kind of trouble are you in, Anything? Besides wardrobe trouble, I mean.”

“Who said I was in any?”

“You're getting scolded by Roberto here. That means you're in trouble. Big trouble, probably. Believe me, I know. So what did you do, snuff somebody?”

“It was personal,” Robert said. “Anything is an old friend of mine.”

“Robert!” she said. “You have an old friend like Anything and you never even mention him?”

“He's been away. He just got back.”

“Where did you get back from, Anything? Pluto?”

“The really funny thing,” Robert went on, “is that Nuong has been his stylist for years, and I didn't even know it.”

“I love stuff like that!” Celeste exclaimed. She returned to Anthony's head. “So what's all this you got up here? Addition? Subtraction? What's this one?”

“That's infinity,” Robert said. “When did you drop out of school? Kindergarten?”

“Math was never my best subject. Wow, infinity,” she marveled, touching Anthony's buzzed temple. She turned to Robert. “Nuong knows how to do all this? That little slip of a thing? What else does she know how to do?”

Robert and Celeste laughed naughtily through their noses.

“Don't worry about Nuong,” Anthony said. “She knows plenty.”

“I'll bet, Anything, if she's been working on you.”

“Our country dropped bombs on her hut when she was growing up. She lived through that.”

Robert and Celeste sat there frozen for a moment. “She grew up in an apartment building,” Robert said finally.

“O.K., we bombed her apartment building,” Anthony said. To Celeste he said, “Robert helped.”

“The hell I did.”

“I meant with my hair.”

“Oh, that. Yes, I did help with that.”

Celeste leaned close to Anthony on her elbows and traced his multiplication sign with a fingertip. “If you really, you know,
liked
a girl…would you put her initials on your head?”

“Of course he would,” said Robert. “The pity is, there's no one special in his life right now.” He drew closer to Celeste. “Anything has recently undergone a terrible heartbreak.”

“Not that recently,” Anthony said.

“Recently enough,” said Robert. “The pain is fresh.”

“I'm so sorry,” said Celeste. She put her hand on Anthony's hand. “A disappointment like that can make a person brittle.”

“I'm not brittle.”

She laughed. “You're reliving the goddamn war in Vietnam.”

Isabelle arrived to serve Celeste a drink she hadn't ordered—Sambuca poured over three black espresso beans.

Celeste sipped this beverage. “I guess you've been told you look like Vincent van Gogh,” she said.

“He has,” said Robert.

“It's a cruel look. Interesting, but cruel.”

“Anything in a nutshell.”

“He wasn't a cruel person, though. I've read up on this. He was a sweet guy who just happened to look cruel by accident. That was his tragedy.”

“He was insane,” Anthony said.

“So goes the rap. You believe whatever you read, Anything? I love van Gogh's paintings. I think his paintings are, like, the epitome of everything.”

“There you have it, folks,” Robert said.

Celeste laughed and punched him in the chest.

“Let's see your stuff,” he said.

She had an oversized black leather bag, which she hoisted to her lap and opened to produce a pile of fabric swatches—rich, colorful fabrics with exotic patterns woven into them.

“Celeste owns a wonderful boutique up the street,” Robert said. “I buy all my clothes from her. See these?” he said, fingering the swatches. “These are the
most choice
fabrics”—he kissed his fingertips—“the newest weaves from the best Italian textile designers. You'll never see these anywhere else in America. Celeste has a connection for these things.”

They were gorgeous fabrics, even Anthony could see that. “Are you having a suit made?” he asked Robert.

Celeste gaped at him. “You'd make a suit out of these?” She touched some of the pieces and turned to Robert. “Maybe he has something?”

“No, he does not have something. These are fabrics for draperies and sofas, Anything. Nuong and I are redecorating Shear Satisfaction. Celeste's helping us.”

“Oh,” Anthony said. He watched as they leafed through the samples. “The blue one's my favorite,” he threw in after a while.

Celeste backhanded him in the biceps. “That's my favorite, too! I wasn't gonna tell him till the end, see what he said.”

“The blue's nice,” said Robert. “A little bright. I tend to favor the grays.”

“Tell me,” Celeste said, smoothing Robert's padded shoulder. “Everything's gray with this guy,” she told Anthony.

“Roberto!” a man's voice called out.

At the foot of the mezzanine steps a middle-aged man with a big gut was beckoning Robert with his arm. His pants seemed to defy gravity, staying up despite being worn far below whatever could be considered his waist. The men in Anthony's family wore their pants this way, too. Celeste looked to see who it was. The man winked and waved hello to her. Then he saw Anthony's head and his smile disappeared. He squinted and craned his neck at their table. Anthony looked away.

“What are you doing with that goombah?” Celeste asked Robert.

“Don't say that around here!” Anthony whispered.

“Oh, I know that guy,” she said.

Robert extricated himself from beneath the small café table. “Anthony, this is my man,” he said. “I gotta go.”

Anthony pointed to Celeste. “I thought this was your man.”

“Oh, thanks a lot,” Celeste said.
“Anthony.”

“Give him a lift home, O.K., sweetheart?” Robert said, kissing Celeste's cheek. He gave her a business envelope and shook An thony's hand. “Great to see you, pal. Call me, O.K.?” He put the fabric samples under his arm and went down to meet the man. They walked to the front door and out to the street.

The envelope had a window through which Anthony saw his ponytail. Celeste put it in her bag without looking at it.

“
Anthony
,” she said again, and stroked his engraved temple once with her palm. “So that's the name your mama gave you, huh? Never suspecting you'd do things like this to yourself.”

“Yeah, that's the name she gave me.”

Celeste shook her head. “We go through so much for you bums.”

Contrition with women came easily to Anthony, because of the nuns. He hung his head the way he used to as an altar boy. He had an overwhelming urge to tell Celeste something true about his life. He said, “Would you like to know something? I went to Woodstock.”

She looked as though he'd started speaking Vietnamese. “No kidding. Recently? The movie? The town? What? What are you telling me?”

“The event. The thing. Woodstock. I was there.”

“You were there.”

“Yeah.”

“And you feel I should know this.”

“I thought you might find it interesting.”

“You're telling me you're an older man.”

“No! That's not what I meant at all.”

“Woodstock,” Celeste said. “I think I saw the movie. Maybe I just dreamed I saw it. Hey! You mean if I saw the movie
Woodstock
, you'd be in there?”

“I might be. I don't know. I've never seen it.”

“You were
at
the freaking thing, and you've never seen the movie?” She shook her head. “You're a wonder, Anthony. A real wonder. Anthony what, by the way?”

He told her his family name. It was a long, complicated one. His people were the only people in the whole United States with that particular name.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” Celeste said. “That's gorgeous! That's your name? You have to do something with that name, Anthony! When you have a name like that you're supposed to pass it on! Give it to babies!”

Anthony laughed. “You should talk to my mother.”

“Don't say that, buster, 'cause I might. I might look up her number and give her a little report on you.”

Isabelle brought the bill. She and Celeste wiggled fingers at each other.

“You don't have to give me a lift,” Anthony said. “I can get a cab.”

“I don't mind. For some weird reason, I trust you. Are you from another planet?”

Anthony thought about it. “No.”

“You can tell me. I believe in that stuff.”

“I'm not.”

“Well, I'll still give you a lift. But it'll have to be to my store, down the street. I don't have a car. Wish I did. I love cars. You have a car?”

“Yeah, but it's in Cambridge. I'll just get a taxi, thanks.”

“Oh, no, you gotta come back to my store. I want you to try a few things on. I have some new things I think would look great on you. This isn't a sales number. I just wanna see. You have the physique for nice clothes, Anthony.”

“Celeste. I'm not really into stuff like Robert wears.”

“No, no, no, Anthony! I'm talking about
clothes
, fashionable clothes. The newest things from Milano! You think I'd put you in Robert's suits? He's a…
suit
, for God's sake. The man is, like,
so straight
. I do what I can do, but he's all business. ‘Lighten up!' I tell Robert, but it does no good. He won't even wear, like, an adventurous tie.”

“Did you meet Robert because he shopped in your store?”

“Not exactly.”

“You live here in the North End, too, I guess?”

“Do I live here in the North End? I grew up across the street, Anthony. Hey, know what? I have a VCR, and some eggplant parm in the fridge. Why don't we rent
Woodstock
and see if we can find you in it? Wouldn't that be a riot? Plus, we'd get to hear all that weird old music again.”

“I still think a lot of that music's pretty great.”

“Oh, brother. Sorry, no offense.”

Anthony paid the bill, tipping Isabelle exorbitantly, and they got up to leave. From the edge of the mezzanine he surveyed the ancient spectacle of Caffè Vittoria spread out below him. At this moment it captured the whole point of human life. Celeste's arm appeared in front of his face. She was showing him her wrist. His watch had stopped—the second hand was not moving.

Her pleasure in this was a stunning thing. “Now you believe,” she said.

“Yes, I do,” Anthony answered, and he did, in something, though he wasn't completely clear on what. “Hey, hold on,” he said. “I just had a thought. When a person such as yourself—”

“An afflicted person.”

“When an afflicted person gives a watch back to a person like me—”

“A normal person.” She snorted and cracked up.

He stared at her for a minute. “Does it start working again?”

She took his arm and led him onto the stairs. “Who said I was giving it back?”

HEAVY LIFTING

Dwight Jr. has uttered his first intelligible word—“Da,” his name for Dwight Sr. The elder Dwight is predictably proud, but he's also a great believer in the perfectibility of man, and feels there's room for improvement. He's been playing Bob Marley albums nonstop at home, trying to get Dwight Jr. to change it to “Jah”—God's Rastafarian name. Dwight believes that children need a strong transcendental figure early in life, and what better choice than Dad? So far, young Dwight is sticking with the earthly “Da,” though he dances to reggae like a born Rasta. “If you can do ‘Da,' ‘Jah' should be easy, right?” Dwight asked me the other day. “‘Jah' should be a pretty small step, don't you think?”

One small step for Dwight Jr. One giant leap for Da.

Dwight Jr.'s day-care provider is indisposed today, so the little guy is here at Paradise Productions with Anita and me, helping us with the video crisis we're in. I'm holding him on my lap so he can't crawl under the table and pull the plug for the computer I'm writing this videoscript on. He can't be on Anita's lap because she needs both hands to work the editing console, plus he pulls up her blouse to nuzzle her breasts. He tried that on Susie, our receptionist, so she won't watch him anymore. He tried it on me, too, but my nipples just cracked him up. My belly button was also good for a few snorts. If I hold Dwight Jr.'s ankles with one hand and his body with my upper arm, I can type fairly well for a minute, until he squirms free enough to grab the computer mouse, trying to activate the painting program he uses on Dwight Sr.'s machine at home. At ten months of age, Dwight Jr. is bigger than most two-year-olds, and he fools you into thinking he's a rational being. I started the day calmly explaining to him that computers can't paint till they have software to eat, and Da's computer at home is like the piggy that ate roast beef, whereas this computer here is the piggy that ate none. I've stopped explaining that. We're down to physical restraint and “No paint.”