Nicotine (34 page)

“Well, no need for good-byes,” Rob says, “since you'll be back in two months.”

Standing at attention, Jazz says, “Or maybe this is good-bye. Because there's something I should tell you.”

At that he looks worried, because the possibilities are virtually endless.

“It's about when I shot the monster. You probably think I was acting in self-defense and missed. But I made a conscious decision to trash the house. I was going to execute the landlord for what he did to you, and I choked. But something had to happen. Something extreme. I couldn't do it, because he saved my life once. But I'm a killer. You should know that.”

“Merciful Jesus,” Rob says. “Please tell me you know how to make sense.”

“You're not a killer,” Penny objects. “It's like the personal injury lawyers say. ‘Give me damages, I'll find liability.' Something stopped you. There's no body.”

“She's right,” Rob says. “You stopped him torturing me to death. I'll never forget it. But you don't want to be a good person. That's too boring for you. And don't even think about telling me how he saved your life. Your death wish is proof positive that our culture is totally fucked and needs to be reinvented from the ground up.”

“I'm leaving the gun behind,” Jazz says. “It's under the spare tire.”

Rob cries out in frustration and anger.

Frowning at Rob, Sorry says to Jazz, “You're a wonderful person. Just stressed out. You need to get off this dog-eat-dog continent and breathe some South Sea air.”

Jazz whispers, “Rob. Really. I'll be okay.”

“You'd better be.” He says to Sorry, “Do
not
let her out of your sight. No new phones. Monitor her communications. Make her go cold turkey on that son of a bitch.”

Jazz says, “You're too sane to understand me. My life doesn't fit in your head.”

“What's there to understand? You're not honest with me.”

“Every time I try to be, you get upset. It's only since you started caring about me. It makes it impossible to be friends.”

Now Rob looks sad.

“Not impossible! I didn't mean that. But stop caring about me. I'll break your heart.”

“You've got it backward,” he says. “I always loved you enough to be your fucking doormat, and you started needing me the day you met him. In all the time I've known you, I've never seen you outside your comfort zone. Until now.”

“Yeah, I guess you could say I've met my match.”

In the conversational impasse, Penny hugs Jazz, saying she is pleased that Matt lives on, because they would all be in such deep
shit otherwise. Jazz hugs Rob until he says he will always love her no matter what and that she'd better fucking take care of herself and come back from Hawaii in one piece. Sorry kisses Rob on the cheek and says that all animals have a right to live and be free. Embracing Penny, she thanks her for bringing some anarchy into their humdrum lives.

“Bye!” they all call out at last.

The travelers hike their duffel bags onto their shoulders and depart. Rob and Penny stand by the side door of the minivan, waving. They watch the duffels weave through the terminal—one high, green, and majestic, the other blue and bobbing like a cork. “Divorce settlement,” Rob remarks. He closes and locks the doors, checking for forgotten personal items. “Divorce settlement,” he says again.

“You sound like a Furby,” Penny says.

“I thought Sorry was a lesbian.”

“Lesbians can get divorced! Now they can even divorce women they used to be in love with, instead of chumps they married for the settlement.”

“The world is going to hell in a handbasket,” he agrees. He starts the engine. “Next stop Surf City.”

“Where's that?”

“Somewhere west of here. The place where we're going to rent a paddleboat and drop that gun way out in the ocean.” He pulls out past the double-parked cars into traffic.

“What do you think will happen to Jazz?”

“Definitely something. Sorry might find a comfortable holding pattern, but Jazz—no way. Like she says, something has to happen.”

“I bet she meets somebody new on the plane. Like some Japanese businessman, and the next time we hear from her she's in Nagasaki.”

“I don't think so. I think Matt's her Mount Everest, and she's not going to come down until she's been on top.”

AMALIA LIKES™ THE NORMAN BAKER
Center (aka Sunshine—the Center can't really interact socially) on Facebook and declares it her friend™. She encourages all her friends™ to attend its grand opening on the second Sunday in September.

Patrick direct messages her and Penny and Matt:
Nice work. Didn't know you had anything planned for the house! I'll be on Mindanao but thoughts with you. Great job. Looks terrific. Dad would be proud. Baker Books! YES! Hugs P

Penny texts her:
In Big Sur. So gr8. Be back in time. Love you.

SUNDAY MORNING, SEPTEMBER 11, 2016.

In Fort Lee, Matt kicks off his duvet. He picks up his phone, checks his mail and social media, and selects an old Funkadelic MP3 to pipe to the speakers in the kitchen. He picks his way downstairs. There are wineglasses on the open wooden staircase, and dust bunnies, some resting on the remains of wine. He is thinner, with dark circles under his eyes.

He dresses carefully, in indigo Levi's, a long-sleeved T-shirt, light fleece jacket, Timberlands, and a solar-powered Timex. It reads nine-thirty-three.

AT TEN-THIRTY, ROB AND PENNY
awaken in Tranquility. “Let me make coffee,” Penny says, crawling out of bed.

In the kitchen her mood is placid and sunny. As much as she abhors Matt, she is pleased his vengeance takes the form of a memorial to her father. Of course his motives are the worst and he's a domineering lunatic, but the benefit to her is clear: the Norman Baker Center makes her feel that Norm will soon cease haunting her. Instead he will enter into a denatured existence as an icon in a niche—the patron saint of JC anarchism—with Matt, of all people,
as his priest. She reflects that she could move all his nasty furniture over to the Center and buy some decent Scandinavian stuff from her salary at the bank.

She muses and hums as she arranges two cappuccinos, toast, and mango preserves on a tray. Unbeknownst to her, her thoughts represent a state of unconditional love. She asks nothing of Matt but Mattness, and grants his right to exist. She even grants Norm the right to be dead and forgotten, his legacy erased.

“Today's the day,” she says, handing Rob a red Zoloft cup of milky coffee. “The Norman Baker drug cult meets the Norman Baker shopping center. It's like matter and antimatter.”

“I can't believe you want to go there at all.”

“It's going to be great. Dad's friends love me. You will be so weirded out when you see how they treat me.”

She dresses carefully, selecting particular amulets she feels will be appropriate for no particular reason. Over them she arranges her white cotton shift and a red crocheted shoulder bag with her phone. Rob remarks on her lack of underwear and shoes. “They're not part of this outfit,” she explains.

“Well, I won't worry about you, if you don't worry about me.”

“Deal,” she says. “We're all grown-ups here.”

BEFORE NOON, MATT IS DOWN
at the Baker Center. His staff—manager Kestrel, baristas Feather and Huma, booksellers Sunshine and Cassidy—stand erect at their stations as he enters. “Looking great! I'm psyched! I love this book display. Did you do this, Sunshine? This is great work. You guys are set to do some serious business today.”

Feather says, “Would you like a latte? I'm still practicing.”

“Well, then, make me a latte!”

Cassidy says, “Matt, I wanted to say, because we were talking
about it, and we wanted you to know how much it means to us that you did this. I worked in so many stores, and this is the
first
time I got paid. And the inventory is, like, amazing. We have so many books!”

“Thank you, Cassidy! Now I have to do some last-minute stuff in my office”—he is already ascending the stairs—“so if you need me, come get me.”

Matt reaches roof level, holds the banister, and sighs heavily. He steps out into the angled light of early fall, which is creating colorful geometric patterns on the fawn-colored carpet via prismatic glass in the Glasgow-style transoms of the French doors facing west. He plunks down in an arts-and-crafts armchair with camel hair cushions and puts his feet up on the white-tiled hearth.

He hears drumming and struggles to his feet. He looks over the edge of the roof and sees an older man he hasn't seen since Norm's funeral, sitting on a rattan stool in the street, playing a conga. A teenage boy next to him keeps time with a shell-and-gourd rattle.

Matt sits down. He leans back hard, drowning out the sound with his thoughts. Because of the nature of his thoughts, he soon switches to drowning them out with the sound. He notices a second drummer joining in, playing tabla. He hears ululation and a rhythmic clattering of wood on asphalt.

He gets up to look down again. A troupe of women in sarongs with palmetto leaves in their hair, looking vaguely Polynesian except that they are white and African American, is performing a dance with broomsticks. Four crouch, raising and lowering parallel broomsticks in a cross shape, and four others dance among them. The attitude of the dancers' hands unmistakably suggests a Scottish sword dance.

“I did
not
order this,” Matt says aloud. He calls the landline downstairs to ask Kestrel what's up.

“It's a community celebration,” Kestrel says.

“I've met this community. It sicced its dog on me. Ask those people where they're from.”

She lays the receiver on the counter without putting Matt on hold. He can hear his staff clapping in time with the music. He hears voices and laughter, and she returns. “Followers of Norman Baker!” she says. “They came all the way from Cincinnati!”

“Thanks,” Matt says.

At around 1:00
P.M
., he starts hearing complex polyrhythms. He looks down again. There are so many people dancing and drinking in the street that he can't make out individuals.

In particular, there are so many small, dark-haired women that he can identify no one relevant to his mood. He sees Jazz and Penny many times—mostly Penny—but it's never the real Jazz or the real Penny. Interspersed among the many doppelgängers are poor locals, gangs of wild-looking little kids, a wide array of anarchist youth of many genders, and the guy whose dog he painted. He blanches. He rehearses his speech about creating community.

PENNY APPROACHES A GROUP OF
her father's friends to exchange congratulations and condolences. They embrace her and tell her how lovely she is looking. They are thrilled about the Baker Center, and sad that Norm can't be on hand.

“I was surprised to hear it was Matt's idea,” one woman says. Her husband looks at her critically. He takes Penny aside.

He is old, but vigorous and animated. Young for his age, the way Norm was before he got sick. Penny's known him all her life. Not well, but from the time she was a baby in Manaus. Like a relative. His name is Ed, and she trusts him. He says, “Penny. Let's go sit down somewhere quiet and talk. I have something to tell you.”

They walk to his old VW camper parked around the corner, climb inside, and sit at the dining table. It's humid and stuffy. Penny
picks her hair up off her neck and tries to tie it in a knot the way Anka does, but her hair is too flexible and slippery. He smiles when she gives up.

“Hot day,” he says, offering her the joint he's smoking.

She takes it and inhales deeply. “Whoa,” she says.

“Penny, I believe your father wanted you to know the truth about where you came from. He told me you're his spiritual heir.”

Modesty leaves her no option but to laugh. “You know he didn't leave me anything nonspiritual, right? No money, no possessions. Not even facts. I know he wanted to tell me stuff, but he lost the ability to talk. He was going to dictate it and hide it in a time capsule for fifty years. I ended up with nothing but this spiritual—burden—I don't know, it's hard to describe. That's what I got when he died. He flew away like a bird, and I got something so heavy I couldn't carry it.”

“That spiritual freight is also a gift,” Ed says. “I hope you found somebody to help take the weight.”

“In fact I did,” she says. “My friend Rob! He's the best. But this weed is knocking me on my ass. I don't know anybody who smokes weed this strong.”

“I don't smoke dope for its own sake. It's a road, not a destination. Sometimes I just need a little nudge to get me moving down the road. Now I want to tell you about Katie, because you need to know.”

She is not surprised that the secret about Katie is her father's legacy. People with secrets may consist of little else. “I know all about it. I asked Patrick.”

“I always say, ‘You can't always know what you need, but if you try sometimes, you get what you want.'”

“What do you mean?”

“What I said. Be careful what you wish for. You asked him what he knew, and he told you.”

“Mom said the exact same thing.”

“That was Norm, lying to protect them. That's why I'm telling you now.”

“Oh.”

“What happened was this. He and Katie had been together twenty years, and it wasn't always easy. He was seeing this”—he pauses—“backpacker, this biology student named Penelope.” Penny sucks hard on the joint, pondering her own given name (Penhana). “When Katie got wind of it, they broke it off, obviously. But he was a romantic. He went back to the dump in Cartagena where she'd taken him to see the wildlife, and instead he saw this little girl in need of help, and he put two and two together. He thought it was a sign. So that was your mother. Katie goes overnight from almost losing him to chasing after this uncontrollable wild child. She snapped. She took a machete—” He pauses.