by Jane Smiley
“I think you need to get out there tomorrow or over the weekend.”
“He didn’t seem injured, just shook up. I can call tomorrow afternoon and try to see him.”
“You need to call anyway, to follow up on the accident.”
“I do.”
“I wouldn’t make an insurance claim for the damage at this point.”
“I hadn’t even thought about that yet. Gordon has insurance for the whole mall, anyway. Usually we submit the claim, do the work ourselves, and Gordon pockets the difference.”
“Thorpe needs to know you’ve been concerned about him.”
“Sure. And I have. I mean, it was quite an accident. I can’t get the image out of my mind of that two-by-four right up by his ear. If he’d bounced the wrong way, it would have smashed him in the head.”
“Jeez.”
“As far as I could see, he was untouched. Not even bruised. Thank God he was wearing his seat belt.”
“Shit, yeah. Well, today is Thursday. The way I see it, we’ve got four days. We don’t want to screw it up.”
I said, “No, we don’t.”
I knew when I hung up that what he really meant was, We don’t want you to screw it up.
Shortly before nine-thirty, the phone rang again. This time it was Crosbie. He was much sharper. He said, “I see we’ve got a small window here.”
“Well, that’s true.”
“We talked about this Tuesday.” I noticed that his posh accent had disappeared.
“Some of the complications were unforeseen. I had no idea that the wife—”
“Now that’s something you should have thought of, in my opinion. Everyone knows that not all parties to a deal are equally enthusiastic. I would have thought, with your experience, you would have foreseen that.”
“I should have, I suppose.” I tried to sound both relaxed and enthusiastic, as if I weren’t getting a dressing-down.
“The rest of us of necessity work in the background. You, Mr. Stratford, are the interface with the public and with clients. I heard you had superior people skills.”
“I think I—”
“But you have to use them when they count. Getting some guy and his wife to buy a bungalow isn’t the same as this sort of thing. Gordon, of course, has his loyalties, and well he should. He’s done business in this community for forty years and those connections are vital, but at the same time, local is local and national is national. I want to feel that I can confidently play on a national stage and that the people around me are up to it. You know what I mean?” I noticed that his accent had returned.
“I do.”
He hung up.
About five minutes later, the phone rang again. It was Bart. All he said was, “He wasn’t threatening you, Joe. That wasn’t a threat. It was just general principles.”
I said, “Well, Bart, no one will be sorrier than I will be if I fuck this one up.”
“Good,” said Bart.
The next day, I sat around the office, looking out the window at the mess in the front yard, a mess even though I had picked up all the pickets and pulled out the posts and cut back the bushes and raked up all the debris, and I worried all day about whether it was too early to call the Salt Key Farm and inquire after Jacob. The problem was the butler. He would certainly answer the phone, and he was fully capable of answering my question as to Mr. Thorpe’s state of mind and health. But if I asked him and he answered, how would Thorpe know I was concerned? How would I make the necessary connection? And then, of course, as the morning wore on, I began to worry that I was waiting too long. I thought of Thorpe sitting in his library, and it seemed to me that he was meditating on the fact that he had come all the way to my office, and been perhaps not hurt but certainly terrified, and all he got from me was indifference. Soon enough it was noon, and I still hadn’t called. Every time I picked up the phone, the butler dilemma rose up in my mind and paralyzed me. I went out for some lunch, thinking I would be able to make a decision afterward. It was like the world had suspended itself, waiting for me to make up my mind and pass this test.
I got a ham-and-cheese hoagie and a Coke. Rather than go right back to the office, it seemed plausible, and even desirable, that I take a little walk, though the only place to walk was down the façade of the strip mall, which contained, in addition to the sandwich shop, a dry cleaners, a Kroger’s, a frame shop, a fabric store, and a record store. I walked to the end of the supermarket and back, eating my sandwich and then rolling up the wrapper and carefully throwing it away, along with the Coke can. On the way back to my office, where I now went with resolution and a certain amount of fake speed, I let myself look in passing at the display of the afternoon paper that had just come out—the early edition, containing the weekend activities section. I thought how nice it would be to go down to the shore rather than stay here and deal with Gordon and Thorpe and everyone, and for a moment I was entirely unsurprised that Thorpe’s name should appear on the front page of the paper. Then I looked again.
The headline read LOCAL LEADER SUCCUMBS: JACOB THORPE DEAD AT 79.
I took the paper off the stand. The article entered my brain right there and installed itself, word by word, permanently:
Attorney Jacob Thorpe, one of the most socially prominent figures of the last fifty years in this region, succumbed to heart failure in the early morning hours Friday. Thorpe, who was involved in a one-car accident Thursday afternoon, had been treated and released from Portsmouth–St. Mary’s Hospital early in the evening and had returned to his home at Salt Key Farm near Roaring Falls. As a hospital spokesman confirmed, “Mr. Thorpe showed no injuries from the accident. All tests were negative, and he was in good spirits at the time of release. He never lost consciousness at any time, and his vital signs were normal for a man of his age.”
According to his wife, Dolores Thorpe, née Allen (of Camden, South Carolina), Thorpe ate a normal supper with her, watched some television, and went to bed about a hour earlier than usual. He awakened in distress sometime after three in the morning. He was taken back to the hospital, but doctors were unable to revive him.
There was more, but no mention of me or my office. His two children were listed, and his clubs and other memberships, his family connections, the locations of his five homes (here, Palm Beach, Manhattan, London, and the south of France), followed by a brief history of the Thorpe millions.
I carried the paper back to my office and sat down at my desk and read it again. Then I opened a file drawer and took out the original signed purchase agreement and looked at it. I wondered if Gordon, Marcus, and Crosbie were going to go for the idea that it just wasn’t meant to be, or whether they were going to get stuck on the idea that I had screwed up. I felt intensely guilty for agreeing with Mrs. Thorpe out loud that they could back out of the contract at any time. Of course they could, but I might have just kept my mouth shut. The fact was that even had they taken the money and signed the papers, she could still back out of it. Every real estate deal includes incentives to go through with it, but they are only incentives. I once had some buyers who were so indecisive that they gave up their down payment four times before actually getting to a closing. The house they eventually bought was the house they had reneged on the first time. They had to pay several thousand dollars more for it the second time, but at any rate they were happy at last and never looked back.
The phone rang. I looked at it while it was ringing, and counted the rings—eight. I was certain it was one of my three partners, if not all of them together. I set the paper down on the desk and left the office, turning the CLOSED sign out and locking the door. I got in my car and drove to Deacon.
The Davids were home. The Toronado was sitting in the shaded driveway, and the two dogs were sleeping on top of it, the terrier on the roof and the white dog on the hood. They lifted their heads and barked when I pulled in. I got out of the car and could immediately hear hammering from the other end of the property. I walked around the big car, past the flower be
d, and toward the back of the house.
It was invigorating to see what they had accomplished in such a short time, especially since they only worked about two and a half days per week. The aluminum siding had vanished, and the cracks and breaks in the original siding had been filled and repaired. The kitchen was more or less finished; it was now a large airy room that looked less like a kitchen than a pleasant space where some cooking could easily be done. A deck with trellising on both sides and a pergola across maybe half of the top extended from the kitchen door. When I stepped up onto it, I could see them at work—only their backs—both were kneeling down, and the hammer blows were quick, expert, and purposeful. I shouted, “Hey! Hey, guys!” Silence. They stood up.
Their welcome was instant. Only then did I feel uncomfortable. I didn’t have Felicity with me, and I had no reason for being here except for the fact that here was exactly the place no one would look for me. There was, of course, something I should be doing, but I hadn’t the least idea of what it was.
“Look at this!” shouted David John. “The night before last, we looked at each other and said, ‘screened-in porch!’ and so we came down a day early and here we are, right off the living room. It just flows, yet from the street you can hardly see it. Twelve by twelve, so tiny, just a jewel.” They had opened up an anteroom or closet of some sort off the living room and annexed an old pantry off the kitchen. Already they had walls taken down and openings cut for windows. David Pollock said, “We’ve measured for the screens and ordered them. They should be ready by next Friday. It’s been slow, but things are shaping up at last.”
“What’s been slow?”
“This remodeling. Come in, the beers are in the refrigerator.”
It was calming to watch them. They made big gestures and a lot of noise. They were not careful, as I would have been, but neither were they careless. They were making too much noise for conversation, and without Felicity there was no need for them to entertain. It was something like sitting around the frat house back in college. The afternoon progressed and declined, and I began to feel that it was okay, actually—the end of Salt Key Farm. It was more or less like having agreed to eat five pounds of roast turkey at one sitting, but then thinking better of it and pushing back from the table. This was what I really liked, selling old houses to decent people, people like the Davids or the Sloans, and then watching as individual lives developed in those houses. The truth of the matter was that Salt Key Farm had never been about that and would never be about that. Salt Key Farm was about some kind of stratosphere—people I didn’t know and couldn’t quite imagine living in a way that no one else around here lived. Maybe it was good or maybe it was bad or maybe it was the wave of the future, but I wasn’t really interested.
The noise stopped. David Pollock said, “Was that the phone?”
The phone rang again. He went into the kitchen. David John said, “Would that be the happy Miss Felicity, the Felicitous Madame Happiness?”
“Only if she’s calling from Virginia. They took one of the boys to college this weekend. I guess he’s got some kind of job preparing the campus for the actual start date.”
“And how are we?”
“We’re fine. She came by Monday, I think it was. She—”
The other David came in from the kitchen and said, “It’s for you.”
He didn’t say it was Felicity, but I went to the phone surprised but expecting that it was, so I was perplexed to hear a male voice on the other end of the line, laughing. He said, “How do you like that? I smoked you out! At last I’ve discovered what working at the IRS is good for.”
“Marcus?”
“Marcus Burns, private investigator!” He laughed again.
“How did you find me?”
“You’re asking me to reveal my methods? I don’t think so, buddy. So. Meet me at Maxie’s Diner in Deacon. Five minutes.”
I hung up the phone.
In the dimming twilight on the new porch, the Davids were setting up lights. David John said, “You don’t want dinner, do you? We ate a late lunch just before you got here, but we were going to go out for something around nine.”
“No. Actually, I have a meeting right now.” But I lingered for a few moments, trying not to go. Confession wasn’t entirely my cup of tea.
Maxie’s Diner had been recently refurbished. Always a traditional diner, now it was a traditional diner trying to be a traditional diner—everything was shiny and polished all over again, and the standard dishes Maxie’s had always served were now displayed more self-consciously on the menu. Gordon had told me that Maxie’s son Dean had gone to California, learned that his father’s sort of diner was all the rage out there, and come home in the hope of franchising it.
Marcus was sitting at a table, his profile visible in the window. He looked out and saw me as soon as I drove into the parking lot. He waved, then signaled the waitress. He met me at the door, grinning. He exclaimed, “Man, I nearly shit when I saw the paper this afternoon! I said to Gordon, ‘Gordon, you’d better sit down because otherwise you’re going to keel over!’” He shepherded me to the table. We sat down across from one another.
“I couldn’t believe it myself,” I said.
He waved his hand. “Oh, I could. I mean, you can have that kind of life. I grew up with that kind of life, where just as you’ve got whatever it is you really want, it’s snatched from your grasp. My dad and his brothers thought that was a fun way to tease the kids—you held something just out of their reach, like an apple or something, and got them to jump for it, and then when they snatched it, you grabbed it back and took a big bite out of it. Oh, how they laughed! If one of us kids cried, he’d get a smack on the head and the uncle would just laugh harder and take another bite. The only way the kid could get it was by walking away and pretending to be indifferent. Then the uncle, or Da, would toss it to you. Of course, you didn’t want it by then. However, I don’t have that kind of life anymore.” He was scowling, but now he smiled.
“It’s out of our hands as far as I can see.”
“You’ve got a signed purchase agreement.”
“It expires Monday. I guarantee you there’s six lawyers hanging around already.”
“So what? You weren’t going to do anything illegal or unethical, were you?” He grinned.
“Of course not—”
“Why not? No, seriously. No, I’m excited. The lawyers don’t make any difference. You know why?”
“Why?”
“Because we don’t care.”
“We don’t?”
“We don’t. You and I don’t. Gordon does, Crosbie does, Bart does, but you and I don’t. This is just a deal. Big deal, little deal, all deals are the same size. You know, my kid is a fan. He loves the Mets and he loves the Giants. He’s always on this tremendous roller coaster. He always wants to know what some win or loss meant, why it happened, how it predicts the future. Every game has a size. If it’s not an important game, then he can breathe a sigh of relief, but if it is an important game, he worries about it for days. Myself, I’ve never been interested in sports, so I say, ‘Justin, there’s no such thing as a big game.’ He says, ‘Okay, Dad; I understand, Dad,’ but he doesn’t.”
“And so there’s no such thing as a big deal?”
“Nah. One deal leads to another. Which doesn’t mean you aren’t going to go out there Monday and talk to the woman and try to get her to sign. I mean, really put your heart into it, really look her in the eye and will her to close that deal and walk away from that farm, but if she doesn’t, then you are going to whistle as you go out to your car, because it doesn’t matter.”
My chest swelled with a deep comfortable breath that felt like the first really good breath I’d taken since Tuesday. And then another.
He leaned toward me. “You don’t really care, do you?”
“Well, I don’t know. This afternoon I was thinking—”
“Don’t tell me. It doesn’t matter why. Don’t define why, because your def
inition is wrong. You’ve got the feeling; whatever you think is the source of the feeling is just an interpretation. What’s important is that you don’t care. You can make that deal or not and walk out of there happy either way. Not more happy one way or the other, just happy either way.”
“I never thought about it like that.”
“All those buyers and sellers you’ve had over the years, did you ever really care whether they got any particular house?”
“Well, no. They cared—”
“Sure, but half the time you thought they were crazy, right?”
“At least.”
“See, we’re going to work together perfectly. I’m telling you, if you have the right attitude, you can make any deal work, because the thing that makes it work just comes to you, just floats into your mind, and you know it’s going to work and you open your mouth and it floats out and it does work, but it doesn’t surprise you at all. You think to yourself, I knew that.”
“Well, yeah,” I said.
“That’s how it’s going to be with the Thorpe woman. I know it. Now you just do something fun between now and Monday, and it’ll all work out.”
He slapped the table suddenly and firmly, and I felt revved up. I nodded.
Marcus looked at his watch. He said, “Okay. Got to get home. The kids are cooking hot dogs on the grill for the parents, and otherwise serving us dinner, and Linda says they expect a big tip. And because people don’t live at the restaurant, they’re sleeping outside tonight in a tent.” He smiled happily, as if family life was the most fun life of all, and I wondered right there if maybe it was.
I went down to the shore late that evening and came home Sunday night. I spent the interim with a girl named Iris, from Delaware, who had several things to offer, none of them lasting but all of them pleasant. When I got home late Sunday night I went straight to bed, and when I got up Monday morning, I picked up my phone and called the Thorpe residence. I told the butler I would be there at ten-thirty to bring my condolences to Mrs. Thorpe and to complete our business. He said that would be fine.