My American Unhappiness (17 page)

"Very well," Morris says.

"Okey-dokey," Farnsworth says.

Farnsworth and Morris walk out the door to my office and I follow them. Morris knocks once on the open door to the conference room, and as soon as his knuckles hit the wood, the five auditors leap to their feet and walk out the door behind them, leaving a pile of shuffled manila folders and large stacks of grant applications littering the table and floor of the conference room.

I
AM FLUSTERED
when Farnsworth and Morris and their squad of silent auditors leave the GMHI offices. I can't sit still. I go to Lara's desk and stand there for a moment, as if I can will her there. What does she know about this? Has she just let me be blind-sided by a team of aggressive federal bureaucrats? Why? Perhaps I have been too nonchalant about this whole process. Why didn't she warn me how serious and thorough and militaristic the auditors actually were?

I lock the door to the office (what good does that do?) and head across the campus toward State Street, walking rather frantically, unable, even, to take my time to enjoy the sights of the coeds who are donning, for the first time in months, their autumnal attire: tight dark denims, wool skirts, and tall boots, all of them looking regal and sophisticated and bright.

I have one friend who is more paranoid than I am when it comes to the federal government, and I need to ask him if he has ever heard of the Department of Departmental Compliance and Accountability.

When I get to the Pilgrim's Pages bookshop, Joseph is behind the counter, working. The store is largely empty, though a few customers linger over iced coffee in the adjoining café. I recognize the gray-suited man from Starbucks, who apparently is spending the afternoon moving from downtown café to downtown café.

I head straight to the counter.

"Hey, have you ever heard of the Department of Departmental Compliance and Accountability?" I say.

Joseph appears to be absolutely taken aback. He doesn't say anything.

"I don't know what you are talking about," he says finally.

"Joseph, do you know anything about this new office of the executive branch?"

"I'm sorry. I'm not sure I know what you are talking about, sir."

"You don't know?" I say.

"I'm afraid I don't; I mean, I've seen you in here before but—"

"You mean you don't know me? Is that what you're saying?"

"I'm afraid so."

"You don't know me?"

Joseph glares for a second.

"Yes," I say. "You do."

"Sir, I really am going to have to ask you to leave in your condition. You're obviously very drunk," Joseph says loudly.

Now I whisper very quietly. "I know everything about you! I know you drink gin and tonics all summer, but you switch to single-malt Scotch when the first frost hits. I know your favorite musical composer of all time is Gorecki and that you listen to his
Symphony of Sorrowful Songs
once a day, and I know your eighty-two-year-old father owns a chain of beauty parlors in Florida."

Joseph narrows his eyes and sort of points with his chin toward the café at the gray-suited man who is now looking down and reading a mass-market paperback. It is most definitely the same man I saw at Starbucks that morning with the yellow legal pad set before him: white hair, a strong jaw, red tie with a gray suit. He has large dark circles under his eyes, puffy bags of stress and sleeplessness. The only other man in the bookstore is a man in a suit browsing the staff picks, hiding his face in a copy of Simon Schama's
Landscape and Memory.
This, I can tell from the Brooks Brothers shirt and suspenders, is Mack Fences, and when I ask Joseph, "Hey, is that Mack?" Mack sets down the book, carelessly corrupting an end-cap display, and runs, literally runs, from the store.

I stare at Joseph for a moment. His face is blank.

"Sir?" he says, and suddenly I understand.

"Oh, I'm sorry," I say rather loudly now. "I had asked a staff member from the bookstore a question about an out-of-print title last week. I must have you confused with somebody else."

"Yes, maybe Rory?"

"That's it!" I say. "Rory!"

"That's okay, sir. What was your name again?"

"It's Pappas. Zeke Pappas."

"Oh," Joseph says. "Yes. I just called you some time ago. Your special order is in. Let me get it."

I do not recall ordering a book recently, but perhaps it is an old order that has finally come into the store. Occasionally my special orders are difficult for the staff to obtain.

Joseph reaches down to the shelf behind him and pulls out a copy of
The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood
by Rebecca Wells.

I certainly did not order that!

I look at him and he nods, gravely. The grave nod is a gesture any serious man must master, and Joseph has mastered it to the point that I trust him implicitly when he offers it to me and I know that someone, most likely me, is in a great deal of trouble. Incomprehensible trouble, yes, but trouble nonetheless.

"It looks like it's been prepaid," Joseph says.

"Yes," I say. "I believe it was."

Joseph slips the book into a brown paper bag and hands it to me.

I walk around the corner and head straight for the office. It is almost three thirty when I return to the office, and still no sign of Lara. It appears as if she has taken the day off without notice. If she doesn't arrive the next morning, if the mini-storm about my fall fundraising letter does not blow over on its own, I will call her and apologize and beg her to come to work. But for now, I am exhausted. She wins; I can't imagine her taking a day off when auditors are coming, unless she had an emotionally or physically dire reason! Perhaps she left me a message. I haven't checked voice mail for hours.

I go into my office and pull the copy of
The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood
from the brown paper bag and open the book. I look at the first page, and then, on the title page, I see these words:

THEY WANT TO KNOW ABOUT THE SORTS OF BOOKS YOU BUY. THEY WANTED ALL OF YOUR SPECIAL ORDER REQUESTS FROM THE PAST EIGHT YEARS. WHAT HAS HAPPENED? WHAT DID YOU DO?

Then, although there are a number of quick actions I could and should take—call Lara, call a lawyer, call our bulk mail service and have them send out the fundraising letter as is, I begin reading the
Divine Secrets.
It is a surprisingly pleasant book to read and I wish that I could do nothing else but read it for the rest of the afternoon. I wish I could read until the daunting feeling of unavoidable trouble leaves my emotional horizon.

When I get home from the office that evening, Harmony is quiet and efficient with supper. We eat burgers and potato salad, and she eats alone at the kitchen counter. My mother gets up briefly and drinks water and pretends to eat, but I can see she has no appetite. The girls crowd her, wanting closeness.

"Well, how was work today, Zeke?" my mother says, a wheezy whisper.

"It was rather interesting actually," I say. "It turns out I'm involved in a pretty thorough review process."

"What's that?" May asks.

I chew on my burger. "Well, it's like I'm cleaning my room and then somebody comes in and checks on it. Makes sure I did a good job."

"Why?" April says.

"Because the IRS had nothing better to do than harass a hard-working taxpayer," my mother says. In the brief hours each day that she is awake, she still watches Fox News, which seems like a horrendous waste of one's final months on earth.

"Who's the IRS?" April asks.

"It's actually not the IRS," I say. "A new program. Homeland Security."

My mother nods. "Well, at least they don't take our money," she says.

"Oh, they find a way to get it, Mother."

I am wondering if my mother is going to muster the strength for a political argument this evening. Frankly, even if she is capable of doing so, I feel exhausted.

Harmony comes in with my mother's pills. "Take these, Violet, and then I'll help you get dressed."

"We're going to the mall!" April and May shout together.

"Grandma rides in a wheelchair there!" May says.

"We take turns pushing," April says.

"It's a big show," my mother says.

"Do you want to come, Zeke?" Harmony asks.

"I don't like malls," I say. "You know that."

"A simple 'no' would suffice," Harmony says.

"Why don't you like malls, Uncle Zeke?" May asks.

"He's too good for them," my mother says, standing from the table with great straining. "But it's all some of us have."

"I'm going out for coffee," I say.

"Why can't you have coffee at the mall?" May asks.

"I'm meeting somebody," I say. "A very lovely woman."

My mother, inching off to the downstairs bathroom, stops in mid-shuffle. "A date?"

"Yes," I say.

I look at Harmony when I say it, but then the girls remind me I have promised to tell them a brand-new Lizard Leopold story.

"I'll meet you back here at bedtime," I say.

"Not if you're on a date," my mother says. "I can tell them a story, Zeke!"

"A Lizard Leopold one!" April shouts.

Lizard Leopold is a character I've created for them, and he's named after the great naturalist Aldo Leopold. Lizard Leopold often finds himself in high-stakes conundrums exacerbated by ecological recklessness on the part of humankind.

It occurs to me that in a few months, my Lizard Leopold stories may be told over the phone rather than cuddling in bed with my two little chickens. Perhaps a webcam chat would work. I could tell the bedtime stories over the Internet. But then, but then, I will miss their breaths slowing down as I read, their humming subsiding as they drift to sleep. I will miss the feel of pulling the blanket over them, covering the down on their warm and soap-scentedarms.

"Okay," I say. "If I'm not back by bedtime, girls, Grandma will do a Lizard Leopold story. You can have your stories downstairs here, in the adjustable bed."

The girls seem satisfied with this arrangement and Harmony begins to find everybody's jackets. My mother winks at me and continues her shuffle.

"Have fun," she manages to say, before she is wracked by coughs.

I head out to the bus stop.

My stresses at work, though possibly significant and urgent, still must take a back seat, I remind myself, to the simpler mission that's before me: marry somebody, in accordance with my mother's last will and testament.

In the blue light of the bus, on this, the first crisp and frosty evening of the autumn, all of the passengers look to me as if they are trapped in some giant, mobile freezer. They wear winter caps and thick coats for the first time in months, and their expressions are frozen and devoid of smiles, a motley crew of grimaces, pensive looks, and dour, soured expressions. Just a week ago they went coatless, bare-midriffed, sandaled. Now, this, the siege of winter already hinting at its arrival. It makes me feel as if we're awaiting somebody's death in that bus and I am thrilled to get off when my stop finally arrives.

I am in Fitchburg, one of Madison's sprawling suburbs. I walk to the green Starbucks sign glowing in the fading light.

Minn is there. She looks like an icon against the bronze and brown of the tile that lines the wall behind the Starbucks counter, a saint done in mosaic; behind her the lighted menu shines on the ends of her pulled-back hair.

"Zeke! What a surprise!"

"Well, I found you. I went to the Starbucks on the Square today and you weren't there."

"Oh," she says, almost with a hint of remorse in her voice.

"Um, well, how are you doing?" I say.

"Great. I was traveling some, and then I switched stores. How are you?"

"Well, my mother is ill. Terminally so. I haven't worked much."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

"Thank you."

"And here you are now, all the way in Fitchburg? I didn't peg you for a Fitchburg guy. Do you live near here?"

Two customers have come in behind me, so I step aside so that Minn can take their orders. In my head, I guess: yerba maté latte for the thin one, vanilla bean Frappucino for the stout one. I am correct. It is an easy one. Once they have their beverages, I say, "No."

"No? No what?"

"I don't live near here," I say.

"Oh, so what are you doing over here then?"

"Looking for you," I say, knowing that this will either sound creepy or sweet.

A smile, even the slight hint of a blush, colors Minn's cheeks. "I see," she says.

Now I have no idea what to say.

"I went back to work recently. And you have not been there when I go for my coffee breaks."

"And how did you know I was here in Fitchburg?"

"Starbucks intuition," I say. "My sixth sense."

"Seriously?" Minn says, still smiling as if she couldn't stop smiling if she tried.

"Yes, and Wallace told me you'd been moved."

She laughs and the can lights above her twinkle in the blue irises of her eyes.

Two customers enter the shop, holding hands. This strikes me as a poignant and weighty image but Minn doesn't seem to notice it on that level. Just two customers to her. But before I step aside for them, I make a guess, whispering it to Minn.
Doppio macchiato for the man, skinny latte for the lady.

And I'm one hundred percent correct!

Minn tries to act normal in front of the customers, but first she gives me a dazzled look, her eyes wide, a smile breaking out.

I stand off to the side of the counter and peruse the
New York Times
while Minn makes the drinks. She seems calm in my presence, not at all creeped out by the fact that I had found her at this new Starbucks.

When she has dispatched the customers, happily, I watch her wipe down a counter for a minute. I can't think of what to say next.

She speaks. "So, yeah, I would have liked to stay downtown. But they needed a supervisor here. It was a big raise. This is an underperforming store."

"Of course," I say.

A man comes in wearing a yellow ball cap.