Twenty Grand (7 page)

“I don't need a raise,” I said. I told him I was worried about the park. I explained it stupidly, in detail. I was so nervous I was stuttering. He grinned.

“We're doing okay,” he said. “We're doing all right. Don't worry about the park.” Then he said something strange. He said I was the best worker he had. He said that I had the nicest smile. He said that I made customers feel happy they'd come. “Everyone should treat customers like you treat them,” he said. “You think I haven't seen you, but I have. You work hard.”

On my way out, he stopped me. “Come by after work and have a drink with us sometime,” he said. “Stay and talk.”

I wanted to. But from then on the gatherings were canceled, because the next day, a day when we were actually busy, a woman came down the slide with her face burned off. It was a beautiful morning, and an alabaster light had clapped down over the entire park. Mica gleamed on the sandy paths, and the upturned orange flowers were white at their tips. I was stationed at the bottom of the slide. I'd been telling people to hurry up and get off so that the people behind them could come down. The woman's sled was moving slowly. She was leaning forward, but she had no momentum and the sled just stopped fifty feet up the hill. I yelled at her to keep going, and then two sleds came down fast behind her and bumped her rear and her sled inched forward a bit. She looked up. Her cheeks, nose, and forehead were the red of semiprecious gems. She didn't move—she sat in her sled and stared ahead. A line of kids waited morosely behind her while I climbed up the hill. I helped her up and pulled her sled off the track. The woman walked with me quietly. She had short curly brown hair, thinning at the crown, and was stout. She was maybe thirty-five or forty. I asked her what had happened, and she said that halfway down the mountain she'd been thrown from her sled. She thought she'd hit something. I nodded, though I couldn't think what she might have hit. Her face was oozing the tiniest pricks of blood, as if from a cheese grater, and it made me nervous so I took her hand. “Don't worry,” I said. “It usually disappears.” But when we reached the EMT shack the EMT took one look and called an ambulance.

Jacques held a meeting. Most likely, he said, the accident had been caused by a rock in the track. This was an unforeseeable and bizarre circumstance. He was doing everything in his power to help the woman, he said. She was in the best hospital. She was comfortable. In a day she'd be able to go back to her job. There was no problem. However, to prevent future bizarre events, we would now wipe the track down twice in the morning, instead of once, and twice again in the afternoon.

Jacques said all this, but he didn't sound sure of it. He looked as though he hadn't slept.

He cleared his throat. The potential complication, he said, was a lawsuit. But he had visited the woman in the hospital, he had promised to pay for the surgery she'd need once her face healed, and she had said that she wouldn't sue. And he believed her. Did we know why?

Someone suggested that it was his charm.

“Come on,” Jacques said. “I'm not that charming. Look at my face. See this face?” He gestured. His face was sweaty and red. “It's an ugly face,” he said.

Someone said, “It's not like she was a movie star.”

The guy who'd said it was a tall, sarcastic redhead who'd once, as a joke, asked me when I was going to go out with him. I'd treasured the question even though he'd walked off before I could answer. Now Jacques stared at him. The guy stared back. “I don't care,” Jacques said. “And I don't want to hear anyone say that again.”

“It's no one's fault,” someone said. “It was an act of God.”

Jacques spat on the floor. “It wasn't an act of God.”

“Why not?”

He stared at us incredulously. “Because it was a rock. In the track.”

No one said anything else.

He sighed. Then he put on his baseball cap. “This woman works at the Kmart,” he said. “She lives in a trailer, she doesn't have a washer and dryer, and she's not going to sue because she's from New Hampshire. She's a local.” He wiped his forehead. “Locals don't sue,” he said. “It's those bastards from Massachusetts that sue.”

 

T
WO NIGHTS LATER
,
the woman was on TV. Except for holes for her eyes and mouth, her face was a swath of white cloth. She was sitting on a brown couch with her hands in her lap. The deflated folds of her stomach slumped over her jeans. She told the interviewer that her life would never be the same. The interviewer asked her if she was planning to sue. At first, she didn't answer. She just sniffed a lot. Then she said, “What do you think?” Then she said some things about how her children would look at her, then she started bawling and they cut the tape.

My father shook his head. He said that it was a shame. He said that he'd always been impressed with Jacques's initiative, he'd always liked the park, and it was a shame that a woman would destroy a good business with a lawsuit.

As soon as my parents were asleep that night, I climbed out my window. I wanted to warn Jacques Michaud. The woman was suing, and I thought if he knew he could do something, like pay her off. I felt sure that he'd want to do that. I put on sneakers, a turquoise-blue tank top that I thought I looked pretty in, and shorts for maneuverability. I swung from my window onto the sunroof, crawled down its steep shingles, and dropped ten feet onto the grass. Then I walked in the heavy dark over the pass. There were a few houses along the way, the houses of old people, but their lights had long since gone off. The moon was nearly full and the tops of the trees swayed blackly in the tar-blue sky. First warped pavement, then oiled dirt rose up under my feet. I stumbled every few minutes. As the road narrowed and became a path, mosquitoes whined by my ear and pines left pitch on my arms. My heart was beating fast. In my head I was already there. The whole basement was lit. Music was playing and people were laughing and drinking, looking lovely, all while forming a plan to save the park. When I arrived, they would welcome me and I'd come up with the solution, and while they would have been attracted to me before, now they would love me. By the time I started down the hill, tripping down the ghostly white slide, I had forgotten that I had no solution. Below, in the clearing, the lodge looked dark. There were only two cars in the lot. Little black things were swooping through the inky sky above the chalets.

When I tried the door, it was locked. I knocked. I could see a faint light through the keyhole. I knocked again. I called Jacques's name. The black bushes swayed by the basement windows. I walked along the perimeter until I reached the one with the light. I squatted down to peer through. In the room, Jacques's room, were two people on a mattress. They were wrapped around each other in a million ways. The man's hair was white, his body dark and thick. The woman's mouth opened in an expression of sorrow, her eyes narrowed, her hands grasped his hair, and she kissed him. It was Amy Goldman. Her blond hair was a gold light that filled the foot of space between her head and the pillow. I felt as if an army were marching through my heart, singing a terrible and joyous song. Jacques placed his hand behind her head and whispered something into her ear. I walked home.

 

W
HEN
I
REPORTED
to work the next morning, no one was there.

My parents made gestures at pity, and my older sister offered to get me a job at the motel where she worked as a chambermaid.

The next day, Jacques was on the front page of the local paper. Jacques Michaud, park operator, had skipped town, the article said, owing thousands in electric bills and evading the pending lawsuit of one Charlotte Blanc. In fact, he was not Jacques Michaud. He was Mike Vost, from Chicago, where he was wanted for tax fraud and for operating a bar without a license. As a side note, he had been running the park without insurance. The last person to have seen him was Harry, who owned Harry's Garage in town, and who'd bought his Mark VII Jaguar for four thousand dollars, at two thousand under book. The park was closed until further notice.

For two days I moped around the house. I refused to take the motel job. On the third day, my mother said she wanted me outside, so I put on sneakers and walked over the pass. I walked down the slide. I could see the black figure eights from when they'd greased it last. The Cannonball was dry, the huts of the craft village closed, and the lot, when I reached it, was empty. I tried the door of the lodge. It was open. Inside, nothing had changed. The slope signs were still on the walls. The kitchen hummed. In the freezer rows of beef patties were crusted with ice. In the fridge, the vats of Jell-O were growing hard. I walked out and around the back. A car was parked there with its trunk open. I was peering into the trunk when Jacques came out of the lodge. He was grinning. In the trunk, I could see a suitcase and a lot of loose, junky-looking clothes. He hugged me. He squeezed me tight. I didn't want him to let go. He let go. He pushed me away and crossed his arms over his chest.

“I'm not really here,” he said.

I nodded.

“I had a few things to pick up.”

I nodded.

He cleared his throat. “Look,” he said. He stared at me. “I offered that woman five thousand dollars. It would have paid for her operation. I offered.”

I evaluated this. I said, “Are you in love with Amy Goldman?”

He gestured to the car. “This is my new car,” he said. “Like it?” It was tiny, a red hatchback, rusted all over. “It's kind of small,” he said, “but I fit in it.”

“It's all right,” I said.

“Come here,” he said. I stayed where I was. “The whole world is in love with Amy Goldman,” he said. Then he said that he wasn't in love with her, but that he liked her a lot and was sure she'd do well in college. I asked him how his wife had died. I felt suddenly very bold and skilled at conversation, so I asked. He looked surprised, then sad. I thought he was going to tell me to fuck off. Instead, he slumped. After a minute, he said he'd screwed up the marriage and that she lived in Jacksonville, Florida, and was married to a tax attorney. Then he shrugged. “Come here,” he said. “Give me another hug.”

I did. I thought he might take me with him. I was ready to get into the car.

But he held me at arm's length.

“You're too quiet,” he said. “The world won't come to you. You can wait as long as you want. It won't come to you. You can wait as long as you want. And then it will be gone.”

I
KILLED A NEAR-SON
today. Naturally I did not tell my lover about it. But when I was at the clinic his ex-girlfriend was there and she recognized me, and when that snitch got home she called my lover on the phone and told him what I'd done. She probably snuck it in as if she didn't mean to let it slip. “Oh I saw Mona today at the clinic,” she would have said. “You knew she was there, right? We chatted a bit—” and so forth. We hadn't even chatted a bit.

She walked out of the clinic as I walked in. She had on a silver sheaf and looked glamorous. In the exit she paused and I did too because she'd blocked my way. She took her sunglasses off and bobbed her chin at me. I guessed she had an idea who I was but that she wasn't sure, and I knew I should not bob back. But part of me thought: Maybe it means We're friends. I bobbed back. Her lip curled. She stepped aside and I said, Thanks! and went in and got it done.

When I got home I was thinking, Scot-free, scot-free! My lover was lying down on the couch with a compress on his head. The TV was on the sports channel, but he wasn't watching TV.

How was the mall? he said. But he said it in a dull, sarcastic voice, like he was dead.

I should have known then, but I didn't.

The mall was great! I said. I held up some pretend shopping bags, as if I'd almost bought a million things. Pretty expensive though, I said.

My lover looked at me with his narrow blue eyes, the ones that first convinced me we should really have sex.

My near-son died today, he said. I felt a tingle when you did it.

I knew I was in trouble then. So I hung my head to show I wanted to be forgiven. Even though he was making the tingle up. He got the tingle from his friends, because they all had stories about the tingles they'd felt when their near-sons were dead. Also, ever since his friends had found out they had even one near-son, they'd decided they each had a few dozen. To find out their real number, they multiplied each girlfriend they'd had by four, five, or six. The number came from a formula that involved a woman's height-to-weight ratio, how much money her parents made, and the width of her hips. My lover's friends liked to get together and drink French-roast and reminisce, as in, “I almost met my near-son today.” They were all great friends. According to them, the way you met your near-son was, you felt the tingle and knew his spirit was close. Or if you were sensitive, you might see him full-blown, about seventeen or eighteen and about to wave before he vaporized—the only way to know it was him, besides being sensitive, was that he looked like you knew he would, which was a lot like yourself in your prime. The other way to see him was to see a real guy who resembled him, in which case you might confuse the guy for a spirit and say, “Hey near-son, wanna toss a few back?” and the guy would say, “Go screw.”

I don't know why you did it, my lover said, or how you could. He adjusted the compress on his head.

I don't know either, I said.

But I had reasons. For one thing, I knew a son would cry all day. For another, I was low on cash. I worked hard as a waitress to support my lover and myself. My lover was an out-of-work fiscal analyst. But what he wanted to analyze, I wasn't sure, and neither was he. The economy was pretty bad. Sometimes my lover spent whole days sitting with his friends, also out-of-work analysts, eating potato chips and drinking beer and discussing how in these dark times, no one appreciated analysts. Mostly I didn't care though because his eyes were so blue and he made me forget myself in bed. I forgot myself a lot. But I made enough money to pay the taxes and buy us a lot of ham and bread. I think we both felt if we waited long enough, things would turn good. Everyone we knew felt that way. As in former times, people were waiting for a king to be born. It was said he would be a near-son who'd slip past the forceps, come out alive, and swim for a week in the vat. On the eighth day a nurse would find him. She'd marvel at his perfect toes and powerful legs, then stick him in her purse and bring him home. At home she'd feed him clam chowder and he'd grow strong. By age four he'd grow a faint mustache. By six he'd start to do little miracles, like turn plain toast into garlic bread. The nurse, who was poor and had once been slutty, would think greedy thoughts at night. Soon she'd ask the boy to do better miracles, like help her and her friends get bigger apartments, and the boy would reprimand her, then explain that he couldn't do real miracles until he became a man and dealt with his mother. After that, he'd say, his work would start. No one was sure what his work was, but everyone agreed that once he started it, the economy would be great. I thought this story was silly. But everyone talked about it all the time and when they did we felt rich, even if we were eating ham and bread.

Now my lover was not looking at me. He'd pulled the compress down over his eyes. I wanted to make it up. I tried to think of a way. But I was too sore for that. And I had a bad feeling he was still angry at me. Unfortunately, there was no time to grieve. That afternoon we had to go to a wedding. I was supposed to buy the present. I was supposed to get it at the mall. But obviously I had not. The wedding was for his best friend.

One sec, I said, as if he were still paying attention to me. Then I got dressed in my red silk frock.

Ready! I said. I thought if I was in a good mood he'd get in one too. Let's go get the present, I said.

Do you really think I feel like going to a wedding? he said. But he followed me out to the car.

We went to the mall, and at the mall we went to Whitman's, our favorite store. It had nice silverware and a very fancy line of coffee makers and dishes, and it was where his best friend had registered. My lover was his best friend's best man, and he'd practiced his toast all week, so he wanted to buy an expensive gift. We walked up to the registron. She wore her black hair in a tight bun, and wore a shiny ebony dress that was tight everywhere except at the ankles, where it poofed into an umbrella skirt. We told her what party we were with and she looked up the list.

We want to buy something expensive, my lover said. It's for my best friend. He took my wallet out of my purse.

I knew it was practically empty so I hummed a little song about how key chains make pretty good gifts.

The registron lifted her glasses. They have signed on for the titanium pepper mill, she said. It is yet unbought. Will that do?

My lover must have looked skeptical, because she said, It prepares fresh pepper at a verbal command, with a choice from among five grades: very coarse, medium coarse, coarse, not coarse, and regular. It was designed in France. It is yet unbought. Will it do?

Oh yes, my lover said.

It is $500, the registron said, and her eyes turned from brown to black.

No problem, my lover said.

He opened my wallet. He found a five-dollar bill and one ten.

He looked at me. Then he looked at the wallet. Where's the money? he said.

What money? I said.

He searched my purse. This morning you had $500, he said.

I smiled a silly smile. But he did not smile back. I turned to the registron. Do you have anything cheaper? I said.

Then my lover started to cry. He'd realized where the money went.

The registron's eyes teared over with pity. What's wrong? she said.

I opened my mouth but didn't speak. I hoped he wouldn't tell her what I'd done.

Nothing, he said.

I sighed in relief. He was going to be discreet.

My near-son died today, he said.

I'm so sorry, the registron said. Her name was Alberta. It said so on her tag. You have Alberta's sympathy, she said. Was he many weeks?

I could see my lover mentally counting. At least twelve, he said.

Terrible, Alberta said. What a loss.

He might have had toes, my lover said.

No toes, I said.

I couldn't help that. I knew I shouldn't have said it. I should have let him grieve. But the thing looked more like cheese than a near-son and I was getting defensive. Plus he'd lied about the twelve weeks. It was more like six or seven.

Toes or no toes, my lover said. He was still my near-son to me.

Who did it? Alberta said. If I may ask.

I looked around the store. I'll just look around the store, I said.

She did it, my lover said.

Oh, no, Alberta said. She looked at me. I'm sorry to hear that.

Yeah well, I said. Me too. Because it hurt like a mother-fucker, I'll tell you that.

I was trying to be funny but no one laughed.

How can you say that? my lover said angrily. You're walking and talking. Think about how it hurt him!

I made a point of checking my watch. It was 2:48. The wedding was at three. I wanted us to get there and to have a good time. I felt bad about the near-son myself. I'm sure if it had grown up it might have been cute. But as I said, we were broke, and I don't like kids. Usually my lover and I got along well. I loved him. When he was employed, he was sweet. And when he became unemployed, I told him I'd support him as long as he needed and that if an analyst was really what he was meant to be, he shouldn't feel pressured to do other work, like wash dishes at a restaurant or paint government tenement houses. And I was keeping that promise. My lover was an analyst and nothing else.

I turned to Alberta. What's your cheapest thing? I said.

The keychain was $14.99 and we couldn't afford the silver-sky gift wrap, but I thought it looked nice in the blue tissue paper that Alberta gave us for free.

My lover perked up on the way to the wedding. He even practiced his speech, and to get back on his good side, every time he read it I clapped. We arrived late, but we saw my lover's best friend and his best friend's fiancée make their vows, and we watched all the parents and relatives cry, and then my lover started crying too and I thought, Oh, no, now he'll blab it to everyone; but he stopped when everyone else stopped, so I figured it was normal wedding crying.

At the dinner I was starving, because I'd been told not to eat for two days before the operation. The buffet was amazing. I put three salmon steaks and two partridges on my plate.

Control yourself, my lover said. So I put one of the partridges on his plate for me to eat later. The place where they had the dinner was the banquet hall of an old church. There were tall stained-glass windows and walls made of huge limestone blocks. The food was delicious, especially the partridges, and even though my lover said he couldn't eat, I hoped it was because he was nervous about his speech. I held his hand under the table, and for a while he let me. Then he shook it off. We were sitting with some people I didn't know. I'd been hoping he'd introduce me, but he didn't. I said something about it and he shrugged. Then he pointed to two people far across the room and said, That's Bobby. That's Joe.

They didn't look up so I just said, Now I know, and ate my fish.

When the forks hit the glasses, my lover stood up.

He walked to the podium, which stood atop a granite platform at the front of the room. Everyone stopped talking. My lover adjusted the microphone. He brushed a hand through his hair. He grinned in the way that showed his teeth and meant he was out of sorts. Benny, he said. That was the groom's name. Benny, how long have we been friends?

There was silence.

I don't know, Benny said.

There was silence again.

Well, a long time, my lover said. And all that time we've been friends.

Benny smiled. This is a good wedding, my lover said. People nodded. My lover said, To your happiness! and everyone drank, and then he said, Many happy returns! and we all drank again. My lover wiped sweat off his nose with a finger.

I've known Benny since I was twelve, he said. We had a group of friends. We were very close. Benny was the first to grab a boob.

People laughed. But I was worried because none of this was part of his speech.

Benny, my lover said. Remember when we were teenagers, and we went hiking in the national park and you pooped on the sacred Indian monuments?

My lover waited, but nobody laughed.

Right then the drugs they'd given me at the clinic wore off. I felt a sharp pain like forks poking my insides. I crossed my legs but it didn't stop. So I made my face normal but under the table I held my hand over my crotch. When I looked back at my lover, he was frowning at me.

Actually, he said. This is not my speech. I've been extemporizing. I had a speech. But I can't give it because something sad happened today.

What happened? Benny said.

My lover's blue eyes narrowed. The thing that happened is sad, he said. If I tell you it'll dampen your wedding.

I was thinking: Crap. Also: Ow. I shoved my fist into my crotch.

Tell me, Benny said. Tell us all.

My lover glanced at me. It's all right, he said. Let's have the next speech.

But we want to hear, Benny said. Throughout the audience were murmurs of agreement.

The forks poked my crotch hard and without thinking I opened my mouth. NEXT SPEECH, I said.

I was sorry as soon as I said it. I looked around like “Who said it?” so someone else might think they had. But people glanced in my direction.

My lover's chin lifted. I had a near-son today, he said.

On a wedding day, someone said.

Yes, my lover said. Then he pointed at me. She did it, he said. All around the room were large circular wooden tables and each one was full of people and all the people at each table glared at me.

My lover leaned toward Benny.

Psssssst, he said.

People leaned forward to listen.

Psssst, my lover said. I wanted to get a good gift. But I had to get you a key chain because she spent the gift money.

Benny frowned. I have a key chain.

I know, my lover said. She spent the gift money.

Oh, Benny said.

My lover adjusted his tie. Actually, he said, in a happier voice, addressing the crowd, I do have a speech, a totally different one I made up at eleven oh five today when I felt the tingle.