Whatever Lola Wants (28 page)

Carney swirled the liquid in his glass. “Heavy duty.”

“Experiments like few women before her could dream of doing. And to get the kind of lab space she'd need she set out to seduce Joe Cochan, the boss. She was clever. Joe thought he was the luckiest man alive, in love with, then married to, wonderful Beth. A non-stop spurt of love, she told me he described it as. When John was born, Libby figured what with the baby she was bound to Joe forever, and Joe to her work, and the work to her near-certain fame.”

“A fun arrangement.”

“Like most marriages.” Only a touch of irony.

“Sure.” He sipped. “But you and Ricardo, that worked.”

His name spoken aloud still warmed her. “We weren't married.”

“More married than many.” Carney chuckled.

“Yeah,” she said. “More.”

Carney let her silence, her glance out the window, be his signal. “Come on. Let's go eat.”

In the car he said, “I heard from Julie.”

Bobbie turned to him. No sense of his face. “Julie? From when you were in high school?”

“That Julie.”

“And?”

Carney told her about the postcard, trying to track her down, Julie's refusal of contact.

“And you still want to see her.”

“I did. I don't now.”

“Because?”

“I'm not going to beg.”

Bobbie nodded silently. Carney had talked of Julie occasionally. Bobbie hadn't taken the talk seriously: a vague sense of a long-time-ago girlfriend. Everybody has little stings of memory. Except maybe Carney's of Julie played a bigger role in his life than she'd imagined. Julie as context for his broken relationships with women? Maybe. “I think you should see her.”

“I don't even know how to find her.”

“You'll figure it out.”

“Anyway, why? Why bother?”

Bobbie considered the question. “Because she wrote you. Our of nowhere. She wanted you to know she was still out there.”

“Then why won't she tell me where she is?”

Because she's afraid to see you? Because she's afraid of you seeing her? Because her life has gone in one direction and she doesn't want even a glimpse of how it might have been otherwise? “I don't know,” said Bobbie, “but you should try to find out.”

“Again, why?”

“Because if you don't, you'll spend the rest of your life wondering about her.”

“Something wrong with that?”

“I'll leave that for you to answer.”

Arriving at the Inn ended the conversation. Over dinner Carney showed her the full-color brochure,
Terramac, City of Tomorrow
. She read aloud the smarmiest phrases: “An apotheosis of the world-wide quest for utopia as domicile.” “An available human frontier, still affordable at pre-completion prices.” “Peerless planning today for your many tomorrows.” She chuckled. “Look, I can apply through select realtors in Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, Toronto. Or by visiting the website, like any mote in the rabble.”

“And you get a chance to spend from $3.2 to $10.5 million,” said Carney. “The former for a bachelor pad, the latter for a five-bedroom unit.”

“I'll take one of each.”

“Domes cost, I guess. But not all that pricey when compared with Hong Kong or London.”

“Northern Vermont as Hong Kong.” She read, and checked out the photos. “The amenities of Terramac, it says here.” Sixteen pages of gloss. She read aloud, “‘Indoor/outdoor living 365 days a year, lavish malls in neighborhoods of delightful professionals, synoptics of the excellent life: total security for enjoying the best in human company, spacious abodes, fine foods, wines, films, music.'” She sipped her St.-Julien. “‘With Intraterra's own electronic delivery system via France's Septum II satellite, full penetration of world commerce, instant communication with family and friends. Twenty-second-century happiness available here and now.'” She glanced across the table. “Just for you, Carney.”

“Built from the top down, not my kind of thing. But I do admit the man has imagination.”

“Sounds like that place in Arizona.”

“Actually the fellow I was talking with, Boce, he mentioned that. Don't confuse Terramac with that failed Biosphere project, he said. Terramac isn't going to be hermetically sealed, not tight in the way that place was. They're not growing their own food or trees or keeping animals, that was all nonsense he said. Their vegetation'll be like those high oxygen-producing flowering vines, those did prove successful in Arizona. No experiments with different ecosystems either. All the advantages, orderly and sanitary, electronically controlled and with easy transport to the lesser world outside. That was his phrase, the lesser world.”

“For us lesser folk.”

“Yeah, I know. But I will say, I've seen some pretty screwy places. And some damn destructive ones. From what I can tell, this Terramac isn't the worst, by far not.”

“He impressed you.”

“That's too strong.” Carney smiled. “Said he knew my work. Which meant he'd heard of but not read
A Ton
. Actually there wasn't much to see, with all the snow. Streets are in place, some frames going up. The big push comes this summer.”

“In what used to be forest land, I read.”

Carney shrugged. “He's not exactly clear-cutting. Mostly it was logged over long ago. Scrub. Look”—as Bobbie's right eyebrow rose—“I'd prefer he left it like it was. But they've done their impact studies and they're probably on solid ground.”

“How solid?”

Carney considered this, again now. Leaving the Terramac site he realized nothing of Mot, his friendly seventh sense. Friend Mot, since the dream about Julie, had been helpful: something wrong here, something dangerous and unjust about to happen there. He usually had come to heed Mot. Sometimes he felt Mot tapping away in the belly, or behind the eyes. Should peril or villainy lie around the corner, Mot cries: Avoid! But while speaking with Boce about Terramac, Mot hadn't insinuated himself. “Adequately solid.”

“And you said all this to your client.”

Carney laughed. “Not the report Theresa Magnussen wanted, bet on it. But I can't see a way of stopping Terramac.” He shook his head. “I disappointed her. She didn't like me saying there's lots of way worse places around.”

Bobbie poured them the last of the Burgundy. “Hope she paid you well.”

He shook his head. “I didn't charge her. It was a kind of relief, for once being able to say a project didn't look like a disaster in the making.”

Bobbie realized she felt content being here with Carney, not at home reading her book. He'd smothered her loneliness. For now. “And the freebie appeased Dr. Magnussen?”

“Nope. She blasted a hellfire sermon at me. I was an ecological Benedict Arnold. Did Cochan buy me off with so much I could refuse her money? Ten minutes' worth. I asked if she had any proof of something truly evil or destructive going on out there. If she did I'd come back and re-evaluate. Evil's her way of thinking, she even used the word. She was still furious when I left.” Despite all that, Carney realized, he'd enjoyed Dr. Magnussen's sense of her place in the world.

“So that's over and done, is it?”

“Yep.” Except, he admitted, an itch back in his mind. Should've spoken with Cochan personally, Carney.

•

“Hey!” Lola jumped up, all vigor and verve. “What're you doing!”

She's glorious when animated. “I beg your pardon?”

“Carney. You prompting him?”

“I? Never.” A weird accusation. “He does what he wants.”

“I heard you.” She sat beside me. “You're steering him.”

“He's just looking at what's out there. Exploring, right?”

“You're making him think—think in other ways.” She knelt at my feet. “Maybe that's okay.” She thought. “Is it?”

“Hardly, Lola.”

After a moment she shifted. “I like Bobbie.”

“Good.”

“And she's your sister-in-law.”

I rarely think of her that way. She's my wife's younger sister and, more important, the woman who raised my son. My gratitude to her is eternal. But I never knew her well. She'd always seemed distant, or maybe just shy, when we were together. “Yes,” I said.

She slanted her head. “Did you approve of Ricardo?”

“She took up with him long after I
AA
ed.”

“You didn't watch her?”

She was teasing me, I knew. But making me edgy. “I don't spy. Not even Carney. Haven't for years. I only know what I know because you wanted me to find a story for you.”

Lola smiled, soft as a dream. “But when you watch, you steer.” She lay her forearm on my thigh and set her chin on it. She looked up at me, so serious. “Can I learn to do that?”

“What?” Such splendid lips—

“Steer.”

I brought my face to hers. I touched her hair. I let myself speak dangerous words. “It may look as if I play a tiny role, but I never would. If in the down below there's one prepared to hear, he might come to understand things better.”

“Yeah?”

“He could, say, find new insight, or ask a question. What gets done with it—” I shrugged.

“Insight.” She considered this. “Like perspective?”

“Mortal hubris calls it wisdom.”

“And we're the ones can make this happen?”

Careful not to sound paternal, I smiled. “They do it to themselves, Lola. Some have the talent. It's often long and keenly honed. For a man or a woman to be pierced with insight from so far away— I once could do that in the down below.” I paused. “It may be how I got here.”

“Yeah? And me?”

Again that question. “Lola. You touched their lives. With your beauty, and how you made them laugh. As well, you let them see you vulnerable.”

“Vulnerable?” She chuckled. “You mean, exposed? Like my bazoomas?”

I took her hand. “In lots of ways, Lola. You were one with them. They loved you. You gave them hope.”

“And that's all over now.”

“Lola, you're a God.” I shook my head. I stroked her hair. Perfection. “We're separated off from there.”

“But you're still toying with them.”

“Lola. Listen to me. I watch, describe, I tell you stories. But steering, as you call it, that's impossible, and against all rules. And if it were possible it'd be extremely dangerous. A little steering from up here— I can't imagine the consequences.” I let my words hang.

She raised her eyes and searched my face, as mortals might. Her head shook, a delicate sway, silent.

I leaned to her, let my fingers lie against her cheek.

She bent, held my head, brought her radiant face to mine. She kissed my lips.

I shivered deep inside, like the luckiest of living men. How could this happen? The rules we each accept without a thought are clear enough: up here the flesh and all its foolishness is gone. But what do I know of rules? Or for that matter, of what Immortals can and cannot feel?

From far off, a call: “Lola! Sweet Lola!”

I pulled away.

She said, “It's Edsel.”

I scampered up to re-aright my mind. I grabbed the top sheet in my Roberta Feyerlicht file—“Water”—and handed it to Lola. “Here. One of Bobbie's new poems. Make like I've been telling you about them for the last hour. Read fast.”

In the near distance we saw the God Edsel, glowing so brightly he looked like he'd been super-simonized. Lola read quickly:

WATER

Water into rock. Deep channels, narrow.

Cold, cutting, relentless.

Harsh water. New sediment. A strange chemistry.

The stuff of other worlds, their wounds.

Sepsis.

A trickle, a flash, a maelstrom.

Decades, centuries. Why now?

Water.

A lost friend.

Spread. Flood.

Roberta Feyerlicht

(January 21–23/03)

“Hello HELLO!” Edsel boomed. “Darling Lola!”

His retinue followed, Gods more powerful or popular where they'd come from in life than Edsel ever was. But up here they were admirers, the God Helen, the God Ludwig, the God Christopher, the God George. How to understand the delight they took in their present sycophancy? I didn't care. Except for Lola's sake.

“Hello,” said Lola.

He beamed his joy at her. “You disappear so frequently, my dear!”

“I've been taking my pleasure in a whole lot of places.” Beside him she radiated.

“But not enough of it with us!” How jolly he sounded, how pleased to be telling her how naughty she'd been.

“Oh, enough.” The pleasure of not knowing what awaited her trilled from her voice.

“By actual count”—and with elation Edsel drew from his great dazzling deep-green cloak a piece of flattened misty parchment—“in present time and space just under forty-five percent!”

The God Helen took Lola by her right elbow. “We love the pleasure of your company!”

The God Christopher took Lola by her left elbow. “We love the pleasure of your form!”

“Come 'long! Come 'long!” sang Edsel. He didn't mean me. And the retinue swept Lola away. She turned once, and her glance was full of, what? the delight of fear?

THE PRESENT

2003

Seven

Damn! Pieces of the story at last coming together and Lola's not here.

•

1.

On a grim bare day
in mid-May, Carney and Co.'s Number Three team was in the process of containing an oil storage tank fire in south-western Oklahoma. Carney, masked and swathed, in charge this time, didn't feel Mot tell him the naphtha tank beside him was about to blow. He was working the five-three cannon, sending extinguishing foam into the conflagration, when the impact of the blast sent him flying. Despite the protective clothing he could feel points of steel stabbing into flesh and skin. He moved himself back from the job. Way back, home to the farmhouse. First time in the field in six weeks, and he'd blown it.