The Unexpected Salami: A Novel (30 page)

“Hi,” Colin said. “I was going to leave you a message. I thought you were temping. Had the meeting with Angus.”

“Have you decided what you’re going to do? Was Phillip there, that Benedict Arnold?”

“Yeah. He was there, squirming in his chair. They’re giving me a certified check next week if I don’t contest them.”

“Litigation isn’t pretty. Too bad you can’t invest it in elk.”

“Don’t get you.”

“Long story. Ivan Stanbury. He’s bigger than anyone in the States.”

“Huge in Australia, too. My mum asked me to bring back his perfume, and my dad wears his underwear.”

“No wonder he has twenty-seven floors,” I said, twisting my hair into a spiral. “A real Croesus.”

“A what?”

“A very rich man. Croesus was the name of a king of Lydia famous for his riches.”

“Ninety-eight percent of humanity doesn’t get your drift. Why can’t you just say a very rich man?”

“So sue me, I have a decent vocabulary. And it’s not that unusual a word. Just because you don’t know that term doesn’t mean that ninety-eight percent of humanity doesn’t.”

“God, you’re worse than Hannah sometimes.”

I went quiet for a few seconds and Colin said, “You okay?”

I was surprised how much that stung. “Yeah, just an exiguous perturbation in my trachea,” I said, and we both half-laughed.

“Anyhow, Miss Vocab, I still don’t understand what Stanbury has to do with elk.”

“From the info me and this other temp who snooped around got, I figured out that he’s about to invest in elk as a food source. Kill the excess elk on his ranch and attach his name to the meat like a designer shirt.”

“Like boutique kangaroo.”

“Yup and two days until the press announcement. His comptroller made me write a memo saying the ‘project’ will cause stock in Spanky’s Game Farm to skyrocket.”

“Too bad they know who you are.”

“If I was evil I could make a killing. The comptroller thinks my name is Susan. So does everyone else at that firm. They sent me home at twelve without even signing my timesheet because I don’t know shorthand. Or it could have been my polyester suit.”

“Your what?”

“You have to see it to believe it. It was great for the fire extinguisher company. I blended right in.”

“I’ll bet.”

“Yeah, stop interrupting. I’m losing my thread of—oh yeah, what I was saying was that no one at Ivan Stanbury, Inc. knows my
real name. Hah! You and I could be rich in forty-eight hours. Almost as good as the lottery.”

I fished in my knapsack for the crumpled memo. I read the whole thing to him.

“They’re doing a press announcement on Wednesday?”

“Yeah.”

“Rachel! Let’s do it. The whole lump sum on the gamble. It’s dirty money anyhow, what do I care? I was going for the fame.”

“Shut up, Dodo brain! I’m only fantasizing here—your last scam is enough to rock three men’s consciences.”

“I’m serious. I’ll split it with you. You said they don’t even know your name. I’ll buy the stock, to make it even more removed. It’s my money. Let’s take control of our lives.”

“I’m going to quash this stupid idea right this second. I know you got away scot-free once, but don’t tempt fate. It’s illegal.
Comprende?
Insider trading.”

“Information a temp learns is insider trading? Come on, Rachel, you don’t want to temp forever. I’ll give you money—you can write screenplays. I’m an eccentric rock musician who traveled across America on tour and fell in love with elk and antelope. Nobody will blink.”

“You’ll need a stockbroker.” I was contemplating this?

“Do you have something like the Yellow Pages here?”

“We invented the Yellow Pages, Colin.”

“Can you tone down the sarcasm a bee’s dick?”

“Look, Colin, this is a ridiculous idea, I was
kidding
. Let’s nip it in the fucking bud.”

“So snippy! You’re bloody condescending to a man who’s
about to make you rich. I’ll ring one at random. I’ll play eccentric stockman.”

“The whole thing stinks. It’s morally wrong, like my Dad forcing me to pretend I was still five on museum lines when I was a short nine.”

“I can’t imagine you were ever short.”

Good, he’d moved on. Only our old style banter after all. “I shot up when I was twelve. Before that I was the class shrimp.” The woman with a Frida Kahlo unibrow won both
Price Is Right
final showcases; she got the bid right within a hundred dollars. I clicked the mute button off and heard her scream—a scream worthy of the first car on the Cyclone. I was transfixed.

A veteran newspaper editor had once informed my Syracuse Introduction to Mass Communications class that most people clip articles and either pass them on to their friends or look at them at a later date with new perception. “In this way, journalism’s the noblest medium,” he said. “TV will kill itself.”

Not when suburban unibrowed women standing in for the everyman win double showcases. Journalism doesn’t have a chance. “Oh shit, Colin, I’m tempted by the elk scam, okay, you satisfied?”

“Really?”

“We have to look into it more. No promises. I’ll meet you at Forty-second and Fifth in an hour. How about the stone bench next to the left lion?”

“I don’t understand what you mean.”

“The main New York library. There’s two lions out front. Let’s
check a few things before we blow the dough. I can’t believe I’m saying this.”

After I hung up I helped myself to Chunky Monkey ice cream straight out of the container. I figured I’d hop a cab to the library. Mom and Dad had graciously stocked the refrigerator before they left, and guilt, guilt, left me a few hundred dollars. The doorbell rang. I wiped a bit of chocolate off my chin. It was Frank and his darling Janet. I need this now?

“Can we come in?” Janet said.

“Yeah,” I smiled, with great effort.

Janet sat in Dad’s reclining chair, and Frank wandered about the living room, stopping at the glass bookcase to examine my snowglobe celebrating the fall of the Berlin Wall (like he hadn’t seen it a gazillion times before).

I settled in a lotus position on the carpet. Janet was visibly unnerved by my leg-bending.

“So how’s the new couple?” I tried out. Yuck.

“Pretty good so far,” Janet said. “I know you called, but, well I just wish we had your blessing.”

“What an unusual couple you make,” I offered.

“How’s that?” Janet said cautiously.

“Well you’re all about espadrilles and sundresses, and here’s my brother in a thrift-shop shirt, so green and shiny. You look amphibious, Frank.”

“Amphibious?” Frank said. He knew what I was doing. Will used to say that I have the subtlety of a minivan.

“Reptilian.” I pulled at a stringy bit in the knee of my jeans.

“Are you calling me a snake?” Frank said.

“Well, yeah.” We both laughed, a wavy Ganelli laugh—you get points in my family for a well-thought-out insult. Janet looked relieved that maybe, just maybe, the dastardly duo were truly off the hook.

I uncrossed my legs and reached for my toes. “So guess what? I’ve been talking to my friend Colin.”

“Your
friend
Colin?” Janet said. “
Colin
Colin? From the Tall Poppies?”

“Yeah. We’re working it out. Mom even met him, thinks he’s a nice guy. I’m taking the subway to meet him in a few minutes.”

“Working it out?” Frank said. “He’s a lying creep.”

“He was misguided, that’s all. He’s very cute.”

“Jesus,” Frank said. “Women.”

“Are you free tomorrow?” Janet said, touching my shoulder. “That sounds like a story I’ve got to hear. You name the place. Our treat.”

“Lutèce,” I said. “Or the Four Seasons.”

“Ha, ha,” Frank said. “How about Chinatown? The Nice Restaurant on East Broadway?”

“That would be nice,” I said.

“How’s Stuart?” Janet said.

“He’s doing pretty well. Mom’s got him applying to Juilliard for percussion, if you can believe that.”

Janet snorted.

“I can more than believe that,” Frank smiled.

“You know what I think?” Janet said.

“No, what do you think?” Frank asked in a tender voice I hadn’t heard since his early days with Ingrid.

“This whole experience reminds me of an enchanted journey, a ride in
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
, where everything could happen, and everything does.”

“That’s a great metaphor,” Frank said. “I really like that.”

“Yeah,” I said. Even though I had come up with that very same metaphor in our freshman year screenwriting class. Oh great, Janet, you’re even usurping my metaphors.

Let it go, Danny Death said in a new bubble over my head. Doesn’t mean shit. Against the gravitational pull of disgust, I forced another grin.

“Oh, God,” Janet said, “I feel so much better. I’ve missed you so much, Rachel.” Her eyes were tearing.

“I love you both, too,” I said. When I stood up, Frank whacked me on the arm in our standard ceremonious sibling apology.

Colin gave me his
own love tap after we’d spotted each other by the lion.

“My Aunt Virginia once told me that these lions are called Patience and Fortitude.”

“Which one is which?” He wet his finger and wiped a tiny remaining spot of chocolate off my lip.

“I get them mixed up.”

I led the way through the grand Astor Court, up the opulent marble stairs. In the imposing main research room, the size of a football field, I located the microfiche page for the Colorado Yellow Pages. I turned the knob, scanning for elk. No listings.

“Try game,” Colin suggested.

I rolled until I got to G. “Found it! Spanky’s Wholesale Game.”

I copied down the number. We went back down two flights to the phone booth near the men’s room. I called the New York Stock Exchange public relations officer.

“Hi, my name is Karen Jones, and I’m a senior at Murray Bergtraum Business High School.”

“What can I do for you, Karen?”

“I need to follow a stock for my end-of-year assignment and I got the weirdest one. It’s for game. Spanky’s Game Farm. I can’t find it and I need to turn the paper in on Tuesday! Can you tell me what it’s listed under?”

“We normally don’t give out that kind of information. I can send you general info about the market, if that would help—”

“Oh, please, I’m really stuck! I’m desperate!”

“I have a daughter who’s thirteen. You sound sweet. Hold on, dear, let me see. No, I don’t see it. But let me look it up on the database, it may be on the American Stock Exchange—yes, here it is! You have to look under SPKGM in the American Stock Exchange listings. They’re not affiliated with the New York Stock Exchange. Be nice to your parents.”

“I will! Thank you!”

I flapped my paper in triumph, and Colin gave me a peck on the cheek. “For evil,” he said, like a James Bond villain.

“I walk the line,” I said, in my best Johnny Cash impersonation. “Now it’s your turn.”

He dialed the hotel. “Yeah—can I have the room of Angus Wynne?—Angus, it’s Colin. Look, mate, I’m still upset about before, but I spoke to my lawyer in Australia and he advised me to take your check. I want it in twenty-four hours though, or the deal is off.”

Two days later, the
day Ivan Stanbury was scheduled to release information about his personal elk-meat line, Colin and I took the train to Philadelphia for a field trip. We were too antsy to stay in his hotel room, and he hadn’t done much touristing yet.

Our first stop on the self-guided walking tour was Christ Church. A dour-faced man clasping a clipboard told us about Jacob Duche, a Tory who chose allegiance to the crown in Canada.

“Duche’s sister chose revolution,” the guide said. “Her husband Francis wrote Psalm Sixty-five. I had a Canadian on the tour last week who saw this church as the Mason Dixon line. This is the ugly side of the revolution. Many of our most prominent families lost their shires.”

“I wonder if the city of Philadelphia knows their emissary is knocking the Founding Fathers?” I whispered.

Colin shrugged and reached for my hand, as casually as back in St. Kilda. It felt right. We’d forgotten a major financial scam was on the day’s menu.

Colin and I sat in Benjamin Franklin’s pew while the guide spoke to us from the front of the church. Benjamin Franklin invented the stove, first thought of daylight savings time and bifocals, proved that lightning and electricity are the same thing, was a diplomat, a postmaster, wrote an almanac, published the newspaper, and created the lending library.

Philadelphia’s not a city to visit if you’re in the mood to rest on your laurels.

We continued on to the Hall of Independence, where they signed the Declaration of Independence. Were people so short in the 1700s? The Hall was markedly low to the ground.

“Thomas Jefferson drafted the Constitution at thirty-two,” the park ranger said in the orientation room.

“Four years to match his greatness,” I said quietly. “Fat chance.”

“But did you know that Thomas Jefferson’s manuscript went through eighty drafts by his peers?”

“Now that’s the kind of info I want to hear,” I whispered.

“Who’s complaining?” Colin said. “I’m a year past the use-by date. At thirty-two, I did jackshit.” We continued on to the Hall’s courtroom.

“At thirty-two, you performed in front of thousands of fans.
I’ve
done jackshit.”

“Shh!” said the man sporting a Coast Guard cap to my left.

“You went to Australia on your own.”

“Anyone could do it with $2000,” I said, as we walked toward the room where the actual signing took place.

“No, Rachel, they couldn’t. You’re hard on yourself.” He paused. “First I’ve heard of Thomas Jefferson. What else did he do besides write a piece of paper? Did he invent the telephone?”

“You’re not serious? That was Alexander Graham Bell—”

“Oh yeah. Stop looking at me like a dumbarse. Didn’t Jefferson invent the egg whisk?”

“Let me continue.”

He stuck his lip out like a kid pretending to be a dimwit. “Duh—the meat tenderizer?”

“Thomas Jefferson was our—”

“I’m taking the mickey out of you, Rachel Ganelli. I’m beginning to think you were the dag no one wanted to pick for tag.”