The genie returned in a moment carrying two grocery bags.
“Put them on the chairs.” Brine gestured with his head.
“These bags are filled with flour,” Gian Hen Gian said. “Are you going to bake bread, Augustus Brine?”
22
TRAVIS AND JENNY
There was something about her that made Travis want to dump his life out on the coffee table like a pocket full of coins; let her sort through and keep what she wanted. If he was still here in the morning, he’d tell her about Catch, but not now.
“Do you like traveling?” Jenny asked.
“I’m getting tired of it. I could use a break.”
She sipped from a glass of red wine and pulled her skirt down for the tenth time. There was still a neutral zone between them on the couch.
She said, “You don’t seem like any insurance salesman I’ve ever known. I hope you don’t mind my saying, but usually insurance men dress in loud blazers and reek of cheap cologne. I’ve never met one that seemed sincere about anything.”
“It’s a job.” Travis hoped she wouldn’t ask about the details of his job. He didn’t know a thing about insurance. He had decided on the career because Effrom Elliot had mistaken him for an insurance man that afternoon, so it was the first thing that came to mind.
“When I was a kid, an insurance man came to our house to sell my father some life insurance,” Jenny said. “He gathered the family together in front of the fireplace and took our picture with a Polaroid camera. It was a nice picture. My father was standing at one side of us all, looking proud. As we were passing the picture around, the insurance man snatched the picture out of my father’s hands and said, ‘What a nice family.’ Then he ripped my father out of the picture and said, ‘Now what will they do?’ I burst into tears. My father was frightened.”
Travis said: “I’m sorry, Jenny.” Perhaps he should have told her he was a brush salesman. Did she have any traumatic brush-salesman stories?
“Do you do that, Travis? Do you frighten people for a living?”
“What do you think?”
“Like I said, you don’t seem like an insurance man.”
“Jennifer, I need to tell you something…”
“It’s okay. I’m sorry, I got a little heavy on you. You do what you do. I never thought I’d be waiting tables at this age.”
“What did you want to do? I mean, when you were a little girl, what did you want to be when you grew up?”
“Honestly?”
“Of course.”
“I wanted to be a mom. I wanted to have a family and a man who loved me and a nice house. Pretty unambitious, huh?”
“No, there’s nothing wrong with that. What happened?”
She drained her wineglass and poured herself another from the bottle on the coffee table. “You can’t have a family alone.”
“But?”
“Travis, I don’t want to ruin the evening by talking more about my marriage. I’m trying to make some changes.”
Travis let it go. She picked up his silence as understanding and brightened.
“So, what did you want to do when you grew up?”
“Honestly?”
“Don’t tell me you wanted to be a housewife, too.”
“When I was growing up that’s all any girl wanted to be.”
“Where did you grow up, Siberia?”
“Pennsylvania. I grew up on a farm.”
“And what did the farm boy from Pennsylvania want to be when he grew up?”
“A priest.”
Jenny laughed. “I never knew anyone who wanted to be a priest. What did you do while the other boys were playing army, give last rights to the dead?”
“No, it wasn’t like that. My mother always wanted me to be a priest. As soon as I was old enough, I went away to seminary. It didn’t work out.”
“So you became an insurance man. I suppose that works. I read once that all religions and insurance companies are supported by the fear of death.”
“That’s pretty cynical,” the demonkeeper said.
“I’m sorry, Travis. I don’t have much faith in the concept of an all-powerful being that would glorify war and violence.”
“You should.”
“Are you trying to convert me?”
“No, it’s just that I know, absolutely, that God exists.”
“No one knows anything absolutely. I’m not without faith. I have my own beliefs, but I have my doubts, too.”
“So did I.”
“Did? What happened, did the Holy Spirit come to you in the night and say, ‘Go forth and sell insurance’?”
“Something like that.” Travis forced a smile.
“Travis, you are a very strange man.”
“I really didn’t want to talk about religion.”
“Good. I’ll tell you my beliefs in the morning. You’ll be quite shocked, I’m sure.”
“I doubt that, I really do… Did you say ‘in the morning’?”
Jenny held her hand out to him. Inside she was unsure of what she was doing, but it seemed fine — at least it didn’t feel wrong.
“Did I miss something?” Travis asked. “I thought you were angry with me.”
“No, why would I be angry at you?”
“Because of my faith.”
“I think it’s cute.”
“Cute? Cute! You think the Roman Catholic Church is cute? A hundred popes are rolling in their graves, Jenny.”
“Good. They aren’t invited. Move over here.”
“Are you sure?” he said. “You’ve had a lot of wine.”
She was not sure at all, nevertheless she nodded to him. She was single, right? She liked him, right? Well, hell, it was started now.
He slid down the couch to her side and took her in his arms. They kissed, awkwardly at first; he was too aware of himself and she was still wondering if she should have invited him in in the first place. He held her tighter and she arched her back and pushed against him and they both forgot their reservations. The world outside ceased to exist. When they finally broke the kiss, he buried his face in her hair and held her tight so she could not pull away and see the tears in his eyes.
“Jenny,” he said softly, “it’s been a long time…”
She shushed him and dug her hands into his hair. “Everything will be fine. Just fine.”
Perhaps it was because they were both afraid, or perhaps it was because they really didn’t know each other; it might even have been that by playing a role they would not have to face anything but the moment. The roles they played throughout the night changed. First, each gave when the other needed, and later, when need was no longer an issue, they played their roles out to felicity. It progressed thusly: she was the comforter, he the comforted; then he was the understanding counselor, she the confused confessor; she became the nurse, he the patient in traction; he took the role of the naive stable boy, she the seductive duchess; he was the drill sergeant, she the raw recruit; she was the cruel master, he the helpless slave girl.
The small hours of the morning found them naked on the kitchen floor after Travis had played a rampaging Godzilla to Jennifer’s unsuspecting Tokyo. They were crouched over a cooking toaster oven, each with a table knife loaded with butter, poised like executioners waiting for the signal to drop their blades. They polished off a loaf of toast, a half-pound of butter, a quart of tofu ice cream, a box of whole wheat cream-sandwich cookies, a bag of unsalted blue corn chips, and an organically grown watermelon that gushed pink juice down their chins while they laughed.