Frank returned from lunch and resumed his dictation. Eileen came in and picked up a tape from him at one point, brought letters for signatures and, at what seemed an arbitrary moment, announced she was going home. Frank looked at his watch: it was five. “Ah, so it is,” he said. “See you in the morning.” She departed with a wry smile. She had fallen from a high place only that week as the owner of her own business and seemed a bit like a captured officer in a POW camp.
And just a minute after Eileen left, Lucy, who must have been stationed nearby, came into his office. This was somehow frightening. He tried to defuse his alarm by tracking it down. He could already see she was conscious of it. He worried that a demand was headed his way and pretended to be groggily emerging from his work instead of what he really was, excessively focused on the moment.
She led with “I see you’re starting to put in full days again.”
“Yeah, I’ve got to.”
“Inspired by what? Embarrassment?”
He tried honesty. “We’ll just have to see.” She was wearing a dark, dyed silk dress that came all the way to her calves, riding boots and a light cotton jacket with pockets so big their tops hung open.
“Did Gracie say anything about the other day?” Lucy asked.
It was pleasant to take this light, inquiring tone, as though that sweaty inadvertence were easily tamed in memory. “No, she didn’t. There really hasn’t been an opportunity.”
“We used to be friends.”
“Well —”
“I thought you had broken up. But this is just one more instance of ‘A stiff prick has no conscience,’ right?”
“Please, Lucy, these phrases.”
“Not ladylike?”
“I don’t know, harsh, I guess.”
“Harsh,” she said, leaning across his desk to slap his face. “I’ll give you harsh.”
“Off we go,” he said, pulling his chin in but not raising his hands to protect himself.
“I’m a travel agent.”
“I know.”
“I’d like to leave it at that.”
“It’s understandable that we try to reach out and have other things in our lives,” he said, but this brought on another ringing slap. He wasn’t quite sure why.
“Write some tickets, go home, eat, go to bed. I was going with a really nice guy, a developer. But Gracie wanted to know how I could cooperate with the degradation of the environment. Who does this big Louisiana cunt think she is?”
“I don’t know, Luce, really I don’t. I’m supposed to find out in the morning.”
“Ah-ha! We’re having a what, a heart-to-heart?”
“I don’t know what to call it. It’s Ed Ballantine’s idea. It’s more their deal than mine. I just said I’d go. My real goal right now is to keep my head above water. I’ve been sort of neglecting things.”
“Neglecting things — you’ve been out of control! You ought to tell Miss Louisiana you can’t live without her and you’re going around causing a lot of harm to other people. Thank God I saw the light and called Jerome.”
“Jerome?”
“The developer! He just did a hundred forty-one single-family dwellings in Salt Lake and he loves me. He loves me. And I’m getting ready to reciprocate my ass off! Why? Because he loves me, me, me.”
He wanted to tell her that he hoped she found a great new life in opportunism. He felt threatened by all this raving and slapping. He didn’t want Gracie so described and he was disgusted with himself to suspect he enjoyed being fought over. And on second thought, he really didn’t; it was like being a meatball thrown into a kennel.
“Anyway,” Lucy said, “I shouldn’t be so tough on you. You don’t have much in the way of a personal life. Maybe you don’t have the capacity. And inside, you may be about as squirrelly as anyone I ever met. But you know, I looked at my little agency. It’s nothing great. I ship bodies. But I do okay and it’s well run. I had to make a decision about my goals. I decided that I’m going to dedicate myself to money. How does that sound? Money, money, money! I can’t change the world. I’m just a little speck. I have to do what everyone else does. I bet I’ll be good at it. I may try to marry that guy and get all the single-family dwellings. I’ll be the queen of the suburbs and everyone will have to do as I say. Things are great. I don’t have cancer that I know of and I have learned several valuable lessons from you. I’m saying hello to everything you’re saying goodbye to. I’m out of here, I’m gone, thanks for the memories.” She pulled her dress up over her hips and pointed to the wedge of white silk over her crotch. “This goes too,” she said, and left the room.
Frank was not at all prepared to leave for home. One of these days soon the bank was going to make its move on his house, maybe even put the notice on the door. There was getting to be some suspense about that. He was still dazed by Lucy’s speech and the sense of having deserved the accusations. But everyone deserved a lifetime of accusations, he believed. Where did this assumption of agreed-upon rules come from? How archaic, he thought. It was like being assaulted by someone in a dirndl. It was like firing a Scud missile into a Christmas parade because you didn’t believe in Santa Claus. He went on like this in faint indignation until that too passed and he mused on his several detachments from any succor that ever came his way. He hadn’t had feelings of fellowship since he was a hippie, or any familial warmth since Gracie hit the road. He felt like a cooling asteroid in an ocean of darkness. And the humiliations were becoming ritualistic. God only knew what the occasion at the Friends Meeting Hall would bring.
He tore through the papers on his desk, hungry for a brainstorm. Michael Milken would be eligible for parole in just three more years owing to possible sentence reductions for his cooperation with prosecutors. Would he be seen as a hero returning from exile at Drexel Burnham Lambert, with possible unseen synergies in the junk bond market? A man who was the equivalent of ten thousand bank robbers would be back in the thrilling soup of American business; and presumably Mr. Frank Copenhaver would have a buck or two to throw into the game. So, there was life. There still was life! He said several more “no”s into the Dictaphone, advising Eileen to use them as she saw best, and called it a day.
53
A small flagstone walkway led from the sidewalk on Grant Avenue to the honeysuckle-embowered entryway to the Friends Meeting Hall. Frank thought that there must be very few Quakers in town, but he was comforted by their vague reputation for peacefulness, and hoping, above all, that this fucking thing didn’t turn into a slimefest. He just had to get the poison tide stopped. Gracie would meet him at the house later.
He let himself in and found that Edward was already there. Edward was wearing a tropical-looking white shirt with short sleeves that hung outside his baggy cotton slacks. His shock of brown hair stood up from the center of his head like a cockscomb. He rushed up to Frank and welcomed him with a double-handed handshake and a deep look. Frank found himself suddenly shy. A sissy smile bloomed on his lips, and incomprehension expressed as a little puff of air through his nose. He felt a gust of overpowering conventionalism. He wished to look past the insulting horrors of his situation and be well bred in every way.