The Unexpected Salami: A Novel (29 page)

“Pardon?”

“’Cause I’m dead,” Stuart blurted out.

“Pardon?”

Now it was my turn to cut in. I hoped I could salvage the connection to Leigh Ann. “I think Stuart means that figuratively, right Stuart? He had some hard knocks and he’s moving past them—”

“Actually, I was a heroin addict in Australia. But I’m not anymore. I’m in an aftercare program. I was better off dead in some people’s eyes, including my own. But now Sylvia and everyone’s been teaching me to read, and I reckon I’m not contagious. I passed the AIDS test.”

We should have had a rehearsal in the cab. Having Stuart talk was like bringing out the wailing four-eyed baby at an adoption agency.

Leigh Ann picked up a white glazed swan and stroked its grooves. She put it down. And picked it up again. “My son was a crack cocaine addict—he lost his job four years ago in Buffalo—now he’s a substance abuse counselor.”

“Leigh Ann—my daughter and son have taken care of Stuart since his arrival, and it’s time for him to start taking care of himself. He’s got a clean bill of health. And he’s a lovely boy. I wouldn’t bring a rotten egg over to your home. I’m a very conscientious woman, as I can see you are. My husband and I have delayed our trip to France. We were supposed to go four weeks ago, but my daughter and I wanted to make sure Stuart had a family member to fall back on.” She leaned in for the final sell. “He needs a home while he finds a job.”

Leigh Ann paused. I was sure we were going to be shown the door. “We have an extra bedroom, Stuart. You can do some carpentry for us in exchange, while you find a better job and your own roof over your head. The place is such a mess, but even with Dick’s salary—a good one for Buffalo—in Manhattan it’s not enough to get all the extras done. You won’t believe the condition of the foyer. The last tenants drilled holes the size of carrots in the walls. We want to build a cabinet system right over that. You have a knack for carpentry, darling?”

“A bit,” Stuart said hesitatingly.

“Oh, he’s being modest,” I said. “He was in scaffolding. He’s
great with all sorts of things, like fixing locks—” Or picking them open at least.

“Perfect. You can move in tomorrow. I had Dick’s Vancouver cousins here—a week after we moved to Manhattan.” She reached for Stuart’s hand. “This is my family now. He’ll have to say yes.”

If I was a Vermonter instead of a cynical New Yorker, I might say “Leigh Ann Harmond is good people.” In any case, it was truly a touching moment.

My mother nudged me, a nudge shielded by her pocketbook. “He mooched a bit,” she admitted minutes later, while Leigh Ann took Stuart on a tour of the bathroom’s chips and scratches.

“He needed a shove out of the nest,” I said. “He got too dependent on us.”

“You sure you’re not jealous of my babying him?”

“Mom!”

“Don’t worry. You did right by him. Even if you don’t like him much—and I think he
is
a lovely boy by the way—everyone deserves a second chance.”

“You were fantastic, Mom.” She was. She’d saved my behind. I’d got in over my head, and this might be the last time Mom and Dad would bail me out. From here on in, I promised myself, I would attempt adulthood. Good-bye, Prolonged Childhood. I kissed her cheek.

Mom turned teary. “God, thank you for that, Rachel. You’re my baby girl, you know? You were my morning glory. You always have me there for you, do you know that, honey?”

“Yeah, I know. And vice-versa.” Open communication can be embarrassing.

I peeked in the bathroom. Stuart was scrubbing tile grout with a ratty toothbrush. “We’ll have to go over the details tomorrow when you move in,” Leigh Ann said, “but I wanted you to see first-hand how vile everything is without a handyman around. Gawd! Look at those spiderweb cracks on the ceiling!”

“I have a new
job for you,” Selena said, as I watched Stuart pack the last of his things. “For the head accountant at Ivan Stanbury. I’ll let you in on a secret. He’s looking to try out a temp for a few weeks to see if he wants to hire permanently. He asked for a college-educated assistant, full salary, $28,000. If I were you I’d start preparing the résumé.”

Eight thousand less than I made as an acquisitions editor two years earlier, but I didn’t hear my phone ringing. I prepared my uniform—pantyhose, heel-saving Reeboks, and a thirty-percent-polyester gruesome Crest-toothpaste-blue dress Aunt Virginia had bought me in a hurry when I was seventeen and temped winter break for her priest. “He’s in a bind,” Aunt Virginia had said on presenting me with the ghastly thing, “and I’m running for treasurer. You shouldn’t be wearing anything good. His sister works there and you want to make her feel like a well-dressed executive.” I pinned the dress under with a safety pin, a makeshift seam. Dressing down is good advice for temping in general. There is probably a historical precedent, even from the times when women didn’t fill the dredge jobs. Benjamin Franklin wouldn’t have wanted his printing apprentice dressing like a dandy.

Marvin Schneider, Ivan Stanbury’s
comptroller, is a horrible man. I wish some mobster tough would shoot
him
down.

“Mr. Schneider? I’m Rachel, from Temp Solution?”

“Take dictation?” Not even a hello. And it was eight fifty-five, I wanted to get in my customary coffee and pee. I hadn’t even looked over the phone system yet, which sometimes requires an engineering masters.

“I do fast longhand. I wasn’t told I was supposed to take dictation, but I’ll give it a shot.”

“What’s the matter with the girls today? The agency keeps sending me illiterates. I told them I wanted a permanent girl.” He glanced over my attire. Maybe I shouldn’t have worn blue polyester to a fashion executive’s job. Psychologists would say I tried to sabotage my chances of permanent work. “You’ll have to do for today.”

I bit my tongue.

“Are you listening? What did they send me, an airhead? I want you to take a memo down. Grab a pad.” I raced to the desk and grabbed a legal spiral. “Confidential memo to Ivan Stanbury. Semicolon. As per our meeting in Colorado, I have decided to green-light the project, though I still stress my gut feeling is that it’s nutty—”

“Excuse me, Mr. Schneider, can you go a bit slower?”

“For Christ’s sake. As per our—”

“I got that. From stress, please.”

“… my gut feeling is that it’s nutty. However, you had such a surplus year in linen that you can afford one or two indulgences. And, the darn population at the ranch has substantially increased, reducing the selling point to point six three per pound, a reduction
of at least twenty-five percent. I’ll grant you that this is causing less forage for our cattle, and according to Bart, he’s had to decrease the herd by approximately one hundred and fifty head. Bart met Thursday morning with Spanky, the exotic game rancher who’s had moderate success with camel, alpaca, and llama. Bart told me that Spanky’s overview is that ‘if you can afford to start it up, it’s the product of the future, and is definitely not a fad.’

“New paragraph.

“Of course, money is not a problem; I’m afraid, however, that the media will have a field day if this is a disaster, which would affect confidence in our stock. I’ve met with Tommy’s risk management guy who disagrees with my first reaction to you that product liability exposure could offset any potential gain by this venture. Tommy thinks this man is the genius of the corporation. He feels that a limited mail-order line could be a natural outlet to get more press for the winter clothing and linen. He thinks you might even get on television with a gimmick like this.

“New paragraph.

“In any case, the one sure winner in this scenario is Spanky. I’m told he went public last year and had no buyers. Once they hear that Ivan Stanbury is using his services, he’ll have an avalanche of investors in the new meat of choice. Spanky also told Bart that the antlers are rich in testosterone, which reduces blood pressure, relieves arthritis, and improves male sexual performance. I personally love the prospect of the latter.”

You’re gonna need more than an antler to get a woman in bed, you ugly old Scrooge. And what the hell is this idiotic memo about?

“In any case, Ivan, I will sign off on the project. I’ve let Deborah know that she’ll have to alert media on Wednesday. I say let’s not waste a second. The Christmas catalog media will start in about ten days.

“Regards—Got that, Susan? Read it back to me.”

“Okay,” he said, when I finished. I stumbled on a few words because of my sucky handwriting. “Good enough. When you’re done typing, set up the conference room for five, and don’t use paper cups! The last girl used paper cups when Stanbury came down. I fired the idiot on the spot. First get my mail from Orlando. I like to have it with my coffee, and he won’t make the rounds for another hour.”

The baboon didn’t deserve my real name. And his goddamn underarms stank. A man who I assumed was Orlando the Mail Slave pointed to the slots. Schneider’s mailslot was the biggest. Part of his contract, no doubt, like a corner office and a company Lexus. One o’clock didn’t come soon enough.

I rode the Macy’s escalators in a trancelike state. Now that my charade of a marriage had been called off, I felt somewhat better, but misery had been replaced by dull acceptance of the uphill road ahead. Life without Colin would be sad. Recovery is sad. The mannequins on each floor were dressed in shirts and skirts of a ghastly tan hue. It felt strange to notice normal things again, like seasonal colors. Welcome back to Earth, Rachel. This is what you missed? I took a stool by the neon-lit yogurt counter,
Self Treat
, staring toward a video monitor of the latest Betsey Johnson dresses.

“Didn’t I just see you on the escalator?” a woman asked from
the neighboring stool. Talk about Bronx accents. She had too much blue eye shadow on.

“Yeah, I’m temping at Ivan Stanbury this week.”

“I’m Sandy. I’m temping, too, for Ivan himself, if you believe that.”

“Really? I have his comptroller, Marvin Schneider.”

“Do you like him?”

I paused. What the hell? “Nah, he’s a pig.” Sandy laughed so hard that it was obvious she wasn’t a company spy. I ordered a fresh-squeezed apple juice and a chicken salad pita. Sandy ordered a yogurt with carob chips, a substance beyond comprehension to me. “So,” I said, resuming our conversation, “how’s it working for the big man? Does Ivan wear his own cologne?”

“You know, I peeked at his credit card bills. Someone in his family is addicted to J. Crew. Can you imagine the fashion king ordering $1000 a month from J. Crew? I won’t even meet him. He and his assistant are in Venezuela until Monday. They had me come in to answer his phone and fax him in an emergency. No one can see me. I’m surrounded by solid oak paneling. He even has a private bathroom I use, with a shower and floral toilet paper with his monogram.”

“Perfect!”

Our food was served, and we toasted our chance meeting with plastic cups of water. Having a lunchmate buddy could make this week bearable. I missed Keisha from Bell Press. Now that I was out of my red-zone funk I should call her. Maybe Mom was right. I could ask her if she’d kept in touch with anyone at Bell, if she knew of any job openings there.

“I went through Stanbury’s personal papers from eleven to twelve,” Sandy continued. “I was bored. I think he’s having an affair with Janine Evans.”

“The tie designer?”

“Yup! He keeps a computer diary, and he taped the code word inside the private bathroom cabinet. I guess his regular secretary doesn’t use that bathroom.”

“Or look in his cabinet.”

She smirked.

“Any other dirt?” I asked.

“Nah. Boring stuff. He’s selling the excess elk off of his Colorado ranch as steaks. He sounds like a spoiled schmuck.”

That’s
what that nutty memo had been about. “I’ve heard of that ranch. It’s always in the architectural mags. His own casual Ponderosa. Took thirty interior experts two years to get the casual look.”

“Outrageous,” Sandy said.

“You know they kill excess animals in Australia, too, kangaroos. Since the population explosion after they got protected-animal status, they’ve let a set amount get killed every year. You can buy sliced pouch steaks now in city supermarkets.”

“Get out of here? Pouch? You’ve been to Australia?”

“I lived there for two years—Australia’s a great place,” I said coolly, like a proud 1940s buckaroo wife with a dusty, taxing, but gorgeous outback vista out of
A Town Like Alice.
“Maybe selling elk is the Meat of Choice project his dickhead comptroller referred to in a memo I typed for him.”

“Stanbury said Marvin Schneider’s underarms stink.”

“Really? He wrote that? They do, you know.”

“He said Schneider had shocking odor at Spanky’s Elk Farm, and he was mortified. He wanted to schedule a talk to tell him.”

“No way!” I laughed. I bit into my pita; the chicken tasted like Silly Putty. Frank had once made me chew a wad of it when I’d stumbled in the living room and spilled Yoo Hoo on his new comic. “My guy is pure prick. I’ll go to the end of the week and no more. My temp counselor said he was looking to hire. No fucking way.”

When I returned from
lunch the office manager said, “I’m sorry, Susan, but we ordered a shorthand girl.” I didn’t even have the satisfaction of quitting the cruddy job.

“Can you fill out my timesheet then?”

“Your office will pay you for four hours—your manager told me to tell you. I don’t need to fill out your form and you should call her.”

Doorslam! Watch your heel. Shit. I’d already counted on this week’s money. Before I left, I printed out another copy of the memo and shoved it in my knapsack—to prove I had typed everything correctly in case Selena gave me a hard time.

I called her from the lobby phone.

“What happened?”

“I typed his memo correctly, but he—”

“Well Christ, Rachel, I don’t have anything else yet. I don’t know what to tell you. Go home, and I’ll call you this afternoon if anything comes in.”

My parents had left
for France, and with Stuart at his second cousin’s place I had the family apartment solo again. I put on
The Price Is Right
. Colin called just as Dan from Hawaii was about to putt his way from the first hole for a new car. He was in good position to win; he’d guessed the five higher-marked products. I was surprised that an electrician from Hawaii knew that cereal cost more than roach motels. I would have been putting from way further back.