The Imperfectionists (26 page)

The next challenge was to prove even more formidable: the Internet
.

At first, many publications set up websites, charging for access. But readers
simply shifted to free content. So media companies slapped more and more online for
nothing, expecting that Internet ads would eventually catch up with hemorrhaging print
losses
.

The paper, however, had an idiosyncratic response: it did nothing. The
corrections editor, Herman Cohen, nixed all talk of a website. "The Internet is to news,"

he said, "what car horns are to music."

"MARKETS CRASH

OVER FEARS OF

CHINA SLOWDOWN"

* * *

CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER--ABBEY PINNOLA

ONCE AT THE BOARDING GATE, ABBEY FALLS INTO HER

CUSTOMARY travel coma, a torpor that infuses her brain like pickling fluid during long trips. In this state, she nibbles any snack in reach, grows mesmerized by strangers'

footwear, turns philosophical, ends up weepy. She gazes at the banks of seats around the departure lounge: young couples nestling, old husbands reading books about old wars, lovers sharing headphones, whispered words about duty-free and delays.

She boards the plane, praying it won't be full. The flight from Rome to Atlanta is eleven hours, and she intends to stretch out--she'll work and sleep, in that order. From the corner of her eye, she spots a man pausing at her row, consulting his ticket. She glares out the window, imploring him away. (Once, she allowed a fellow passenger to engage her in conversation and it became the longest flight of her life. He made her play Scrabble and insisted that "ug" was a word. Since then, her rule has been to never talk on planes.) The man says, "Well, what d'ya know," and sits beside her. The plane has not even taxied and already he's attempting conversation. She twitches in his direction and offers a faint "Hmm," but does not turn from her window.

He falls silent.

The force and tilt of takeoff awaken her. She was dreaming. About what? Can't remember. She needs her files from the overhead bin, but the Fasten Seat Belts sign is still lit. She drifts back into her travel coma, staring vacantly out the window as the clouds below sink into an infinite mattress.

She studies her fingernails, worrying about Henry, who doesn't want to visit his father in London over the school holidays and is about the age where she can't force him.

Is he snubbing his dad out of loyalty to her? She hopes so, and she hopes not. She'll force Henry to go until he reaches a set age. Sixteen, say?

For God's sake! Enough! She has been trying to ignore it, but if this idiot beside her doesn't cede a corner of the armrest, she'll suffocate him with the vomit bag. She makes her elbow as pointy as possible and, very gradually, digs it into his forearm. How long before he gives in?

But he doesn't seem to notice and she is disgusted to touch him, so she gives up.

He is picking the skin around his thumb, working free a strand of cuticle. Repugnant. She wants to see what this guy looks like, to attach a face to her loathing, but she can't turn to him without attracting notice. So she imagines him: American, fiftysomething, a loser.

Cellulite, dandruff, thyroid on the blink. Works at Office Depot selling industrial ladders.

Or does tech support and plays video games after work. Fanny pack, sweat socks, high-tops. What was he doing in Rome, anyway? He'd heard it was full of culture? Had himself photographed at the Colosseum, arm around a rent-a-gladiator?

But this is ridiculous--why should
she
be uncomfortable for eleven hours because of this idiot? She launches another pointed-elbow assault on the armrest, ratcheting up the pressure on his bone.

"Here," he says, pulling away. "Let me give you some space."

"Oh, thanks," she responds, ears blushing, crimson rising from lobes upward, and she hates him more.

"Sorry," he says. "I'm bad about hogging. Do it without realizing. Just holler if you don't get enough space. I'm kinda gangly." He jiggles his arms to make the point.

"Least we got the emergency exits. You can always tell the smart people by who asks for them. Emergency exits are practically first-class--not that I sat there before, but I figure it's the same--and all for the price of cattle class."

"Listen, would you mind doing me a big favor and waking me when they serve lunch? If you're awake, obviously. Thanks." She says this with her attention fixed on the seat-back in front of her, then returns to the window and pulls down the shade. She has done something stupid, though. She doesn't want to sleep. She wants to work. Now she'll be forced to fake it. She despises him.

Seven minutes pass--all the pretend sleep she can bear. She half rises from her seat, jaw compressed in cordial smile, and reaches for the overhead bin. "Just need to grab something."

He jumps up, drops his book on his seat, and makes way.

With difficulty, she squeezes out into the aisle.

"Can I help you get something?"

It happens in two stages. First, he looks familiar. Second, she realizes that she knows him. Dear Lord. What a nightmare. "Oh my God," she says. "Hi, hi. I totally didn't recognize you." Indeed, she still can't place him.

"You didn't know it was me?"

"I'm so sorry. I was completely spaced. I get in my own little world when I fly."

"No problem at all. Can I get something down for you?"

Her brain clicks: it's Dave Belling.

She wants to die. This is copydesk Dave. Newly fired Dave. Dave, who was laid off to cut costs. Dave, whom
she
ordered fired. Eleven hours beside him. Worse still, she has been caught in travel mode, in sweatpants, hair in pigtails. (At the paper, she's all suits and boots, eyes cold as coins.) As Henry would say,
Che figura di merda
.

"I think I can reach it," she says. "Thanks, though." But she can't quite get it. Her ears boil. "It's that blue bag. No, dark blue. Yup. Yeah. That's it. Great. Thanks. Thanks so much."

He steps aside gallantly to let her retake her seat.

She does so with a light smile and lead in her stomach. "I'm sorry if I seemed rude before. I really had no idea it was you." Stop babbling. "Anyway, how are you? What's going on? Where you headed?" Where is he headed? He's on a plane to Atlanta. And how's he doing? He just got fired.

"Good, real good," he replies.

"Great,

that's

great."

"You?"

"Good, good. Heading to Atlanta--obviously. I have this meeting with the Ott board. Our annual reckoning."

"You're the one who has to do that?"

"Afraid so. Our benighted publisher refuses."

"So the mud pie lands on your plate."

"Yup, yup. That's my plate all right. Though I must admit," she says, "it is interesting going to headquarters. We all have this tendency in Rome to think we're the center of the Ott world. Then when I go to Atlanta it really puts everything in perspective.

Just how small we are."

"Not 'we' anymore," he says good-naturedly. "Not for me, anyhow."

"Yes, yes, right. Sorry."

"There was no movement at the paper, so I figured it was time to leave."

He must not realize that she knows the truth. More important, he must not realize her role in his dismissal. "That sounds wise," she says, filling the silence. "What's that you're reading?"

He retrieves the paperback from under his behind and shows the cover.

"Oh wow," she says. "I'm a huge Jane Austen fan."

"Oh

yeah?"

"I haven't read
Persuasion,"
she says. "But
Pride and Prejudice
is probably--no, definitely--my favorite book of all time. I'm trying to get my girls to read it, but I think they're a bit young still."

"What

age?"

"Ten and eleven."

"I hadn't read anything by her till a couple of months ago," he says. "But now I'm on, like, a kind of mission to read everything she ever did. Which is not all that much.

This is the last on my list." He studies the cover. "This wasn't her title for it--she died before it came out. The publisher called it
Persuasion."

"Great title, though."

"It is, isn't it."

"What's your favorite of hers?" she asks.

"Mansfield Park
, maybe. Maybe
Pride
. The only one that didn't do it for me was
Sense and Sensibility
."

"I've actually only read
Pride and Prejudice."

"I thought she was your favorite writer."

"I know, I know. But I'm a terrible reader. Three kids. The job."

"Three kids?" He makes a face.

"What's

that

mean?"

"No, I'm impressed. You seem young to have three."

"I guess. Though I'm not that young. Anyway. Sorry, I should let you get back to your book."

"No prob, seriously--it's good getting a chance to talk. Nobody talks at that office.

You notice that? Weirdest thing when I started there--I was, like, is there some kind of clique out here or do I have a real bad odor or something? It's like a veil of silence in there."

"That's the paper all right."

"You practically feel like everybody hates you."

"That's how I feel all the time there." Her colleagues don't even have the respect to use her name, referring to her as "Accounts Payable." She hates the nickname. They can't accept that she's young and a woman and above them in the food chain. But
she's
the one keeping
them
employed. Those guys--glorified stenographers, pontificating about prerogatives of the press--as if the paper were anything more than a business. Not when we're losing this kind of money. And that champion of pontificators, the insufferable Herman Cohen, constantly forwarding her articles like "How Bean Counters Are Ruining the Media." As if she were running the place into the ground. It's he who blocked the paper from starting a website. In this day and age, we still have no Web presence! But those who call her Accounts Payable don't think about this stuff. They don't think about how much money the paper drops each time they're late in closing the edition (forty-three thousand euros so far this annum). Or how much she battled against layoffs. (She got the Ott board down from sixteen to nine, with just one coming from editorial.) Without her, the staff would be on the streets in a month. And
they
slag
her
off.

"That is so sad," she continues. "It takes an intercontinental flight to actually exchange words with someone in the office."

"Although we did talk once, when I started."

"Right, my welcome-aboard chat. Was I a total cow?"

"Not

a

total
one."

"Oh no! Really?"

"I'm kidding. No, you just seemed real busy."

"I am. So, so busy. The board won't pay for an assistant. And why would they, quite frankly? They're getting three employees' work out of me. It's my own fault. Sorry, I shouldn't vent. And a retroactive sorry if I was a bit of a you-know-what back at work.

Just a strange atmosphere at the paper sometimes, as you know." She angles herself toward him. "So you like to read?"

He ruffles the pages of his book. "When I can." He rests the paperback facedown on his thigh.

"You shouldn't spread it out like that."

"Like

what?"

"Bending your book. You're gonna break the spine."

"I don't mind."

"Sorry. I'm being bossy. I should let you read."

"Don't worry about it."

"I should probably do some work myself." She opens the tray table but hesitates.

Is there anything in her files that mentions Dave? Anything he shouldn't see? She opens her binder a crack and extracts a few innocuous pages but is furtively studying him. He turns a page of his book. He seems engrossed and not remotely curious to peek at her tedious charts. What page is he on? Eighty-three. She makes a fake shuffle of her papers, a meaningless check mark, but in fact she is reading
Persuasion
over his shoulder. He turns the page. He goes faster than she does. That's sort of annoying. But it's to be expected--he already knows what's going on in the story. She makes a few more spurious shifts of her papers. He turns another page and, after perceptibly holding his breath, spreads the book wider, for both of them to see. She has been caught again. Ears burning, she turns back to her work.

"Addictive,

isn't

it,"

he says graciously.

"That's a terrible habit of mine. Sorry."

"Don't be nuts. Here. Please." He opens the book between them on the armrest.

"Want me to explain what's happening?"

"No, no--it's fine, really. I should do my work."

"See, that's why they fired me," he jokes. "Everybody else is working while I'm reading damn Jane Austen!"

Fired him? That's not how he characterized it before.

"Well, you certainly have a good sense of humor about it."

"Easier when you've got a new job."

"You do? Oh, that's so good to hear."

"Thanks. Yeah, the day after I got canned I was talking to this Italian buddy of mine and he told me about this position. Guess I'm lucky."

She wonders how old Dave Belling is. Roughly her age? Older by a bit?

"Hey, look," he says, "it's lunch number one coming down the aisle."

"Lunch number one?"

"Yeah, we get two lunches on this flight because of the time difference."

"Oh,

hurrah."

"Seriously."

They eat their plastic chicken and rubber carrots and a pink confection, and make sardonic remarks about it all, as people will when faced with grim airplane food that they nonetheless consume to the crumbs.

"So why are you headed to Atlanta?" she asks.

"Just wanted to see my folks before I start the new job."

"You're from the area, then?"

"From Georgia, yeah. A little town called Ocilla."