by Meg Rosoff
8
Comrade bore no signs of yesterday’s fracas. Ed co-opted the unpaid intern to act as his PA until Shay could be replaced. With laudable efficiency, she had already procured a new lamp and coffee pot, created an all-staff memo that took issue with the previous day’s snow emergency, pointing out blandly (and presumably with Ed’s direction) that there had not, in fact, been any snow.
Ed looked glum, particularly when Wes, account director and unofficial head of Human Resources, appeared at his desk shortly after 10am and dragged him off – if not by the ear, then by the moral equivalent.
Wes was very tall and very thin with long thick frizzy hair worn in a low ponytail. He attended every client meeting no matter how big or small. Much esteemed by Comrade’s clients, he didn’t talk about strategies going forward or USPs or paradigms, didn’t agree with everything the clients said, nor did he blindly defend work that came from his own staff. If Comrade failed to declare bankruptcy each April 15th, it was the sole responsibility of Wes, who had something of a hippy mafia don about him, a mild friendly manner that slipped on like a tie-dye shirt over a core of refrigerated steel. Rumour had it he was an ex-Green Beret and spent three hours every evening practising kickboxing.
Jonathan liked Wes, who seemed almost like a real person. In The New York Inferno, Wes ruled the fourth circle of hell, presiding fairly and rather sternly over Greed, hands on hips in a black T-shirt and jeans, his bushy ponytail streaming behind him like a pennon.
Though no one overheard the conversation between Ed and his head of accounts (not for lack of trying), the majority assumed that Wes had belatedly pointed out that shagging your PA in the office every lunch hour and then giving her cause to storm out in a rage was not impressive management behaviour and he’d be lucky if she didn’t get herself a lawyer and sue the pants off the company.
Ed returned to his desk looking glummer than ever, left the office before lunch and didn’t come back. His new unofficial PA spent the rest of her day reading magazines, taking phone messages and doling out shots to the thirsty from Ed’s private bar. At four, she went out and came back with a huge box of doughnuts, which she passed around; when anyone said, ‘Thanks,’ she replied, ‘Thank Ed. It’s on his account.’ Once all the doughnuts were gone she stood on her chair, rolled her magazine up like a megaphone and told everyone to take the rest of the day off. Jonathan was actually starting to love his job.
The next morning the unpaid intern was gone, Ed had returned to his office and all hands were on deck. This was a shame, obviously, but Jonathan cheered up considerably when he received an email as follows:
TO: [email protected]
FROM: [email protected]
SUBJECT: New blood
Check out the waiting room.
Jonathan got up and circled the office to get a better look while half-pretending to do a thing that needed doing.
He ran into Max circling in the other direction and did a smart one-eighty to march shoulder to shoulder with his comrade. By silent mutual consent, they both came to a halt, staggered by the sheer weight of weird in the reception area. A stormy-faced Ed appeared, ushering an exquisite girl in the shortest denim shorts either had ever seen, followed closely by Wes. Jonathan caught the look of desolation on Ed’s face and the perfect clarity of Wes’s ‘no’ as the girl disappeared out of Comrade’s doors forever and Wes extended his hand to clasp that of the next applicant.
‘Lark Rise Heaven Halo,’ the applicant said.
Jonathan stared. He and Max turned to look at each other. Lark Rise Heaven Halo was a name? Who called their child Lark Rise Heaven Halo? How did a kid get through life with a name like Lark Rise Heaven Halo? Jonathan supposed that these days it wouldn’t be so bad. Her classmates would be called things like Stetson, Mona Lisa, Jedi and Albania. Did this name-thing mean the end of the world was nigh? It had to mean something. Everyone was behaving as if having a person called Lark Rise Heaven Halo in reception was somehow normal.
Names had begun to piss him off. Jonathan, for instance, was a name. Ed, on the other hand, had changed his name to Eduardo, which was not a name unless you were born in Mexico, Uruguay or Andalucía. It was particularly not a name if you grew up in Larchmont, New York, the son of two Jewish accountants who, Jonathan happened to know, were called Naomi and Joseph Netzky. It had been obvious even when they were kids that Ed and Ben Netzky were destined to become corporate lawyers in White Plains, but Ed had strayed, starting up a small marketing company in downtown New York, growing his Jewish hair into a Fidel Castro afro and changing his name from Ed Netzky to Eduardo Navarro. All of which made him much cooler than the average Jew from Larchmont – cool enough, apparently, to buy a loft in Williamsburg, drive a vintage Merc and poke his PA over lunch. Jonathan idly wondered what name Eduardo went by when he returned to Larchmont for High Holy Day services.
Within days of graduating, Max facebooked Ben (now firmly ensconced in law school), begging for Ed’s contact details and a dollop of nepotism. Once Max had a job, it was only a matter of time before Jonathan arrived at the adjacent desk. Max’s background in politics and Jonathan’s in graphic design qualified them equally for the non-skills required for success at Comrade. Eduardo’s strategy was to hire good-natured, fun-loving, intelligent young people at entry-level salaries to exploit and betray until they lost the will to live, became despondent and quit. Max and Jonathan fitted the bill perfectly, though Max – to his credit – had bigger plans.
‘I’m going to outlast the bastard,’ he said. ‘Ed’ll be up in front of the Federal Trade Commission, I’ll be the last Comrade standing and the business will fall into my outstretched hand like a ripe pear. Low-hanging fruit, Jay, low-hanging fruit.’
Jonathan couldn’t really understand why such fruit, no matter where it hung, would enter anyone’s dreams. His fantasy – faint, far off and unlikely to be realized – was to make a living one day from something he liked doing.
He returned to his desk. ‘Two for the price of one on all extension cords!!! In-boxes half-price!!! Neon highlighters $1.25 when you spend $10!’ Despair settled around his kidneys. ‘Lined notebooks: three for $7, one day only!!!’ Why did they have to shout everything? He felt like shouting HEAVEN HALO but didn’t.
An hour later, a new email arrived from Max.
TO: [email protected]
FROM: [email protected]
SUBJECT: New PA Alert
Wes won. Look.
Jonathan looked. And saw a medium-height being with short bleached hair, jeans, biker boots and a white leather jacket shaking hands with Wes, who appeared delighted, while a frowning Eduardo repeatedly swung his foot at the wall like a sullen child. The medium-height being was patently not Eduardo’s type. In fact, so androgynous was s/he, it would be hard to know whose type it was.
TO: [email protected]
FROM: [email protected]
SUBJECT: re: New PA Alert
Sex?
TO: [email protected]
FROM: [email protected]
SUBJECT: re: re: New PA Alert
No thanks. I’m good.
TO: [email protected]
FROM: [email protected]
SUBJECT: re: re: re: New PA Alert
What sex is the new PA?
Jonathan glanced over at Max who shrugged.
After a few seconds, he had a response.
TO: [email protected]
FROM: [email protected]
SUBJECT: re: re: re: re: New PA Alert
No sex would seem to be the point.
The new PA was called Greeley. Whether Greeley was male or female had been carefully obscured by his/her manner of dress and demeanour, not to mention a haircut reminiscent of one you’d give a ten-year-old boy back in 1975. Cowlick and all.
Max wasn’t much impressed but Jonathan fell immediately in love. He loved Greeley’s sexual ambiguity as another man might love an hourglass figure or a head of golden curls. There was an air of calm about Greeley, a co
mplete disregard for disclosure that caused Jonathan to feel faint. He wondered if this made him gay or straight. He’d have to remember to ask Greeley what sex s/he was.
An email came around that afternoon announcing that Greeley would be starting on Monday. Not Adam Greeley or Olive Greeley. Just Greeley. No other information was advanced. Jonathan googled Greeley and received the helpful result that it was a Home Rule Municipality, the county seat and the most populous city of Weld County in northern Colorado, situated forty-nine miles north-northeast of Denver. But it didn’t matter. Greeley was amazing.
He went home and took the dogs for a long walk across to Chelsea and the Waterside Dog Run, then back again, stopping to buy liver cookies at the dog bakery on Twenty-second, observing his pets carefully as they walked. He knew he was working hours that left them alone too long, worried that they were bored, that they were finding unconventional ways to pass the time. He felt certain they were moving things around the apartment – hiding his shoes, rifling through the kitchen cupboards and eating important papers out of his files. He was positive that the large jar of peanut butter in the kitchen had been unopened yesterday when he left for work. And what about the unfamiliar purchases that popped up on his PayPal account? He hadn’t seen his American Express card in days; had Dante eaten it?
Something had to be done. When one of his neighbours looked at him with admiration and asked how he’d managed to teach the dogs to do that, he smiled nervously and walked past without enquiring further. Surely they weren’t going out on their own during the day? You didn’t often see unaccompanied dogs cruising Manhattan.
Jonathan sighed. He needed professional help. Especially now that Julie was here. She wouldn’t take kindly to scandal, crisis or catastrophe of the canine variety. As their owner and benefactor it was his responsibility to arrest untoward events before they happened.
He imagined the dogs watching from the window as he set off to work, letting themselves out, walking on two legs, meeting friends uptown, ordering cappuccinos, raiding the bins behind Texas BBQ East and chasing fat urban rats in the park. While he slaved away on Broadway Depot, they frolicked along the rooftops of the East Village, singing chim-chimney, chim-chimney, chim, chim, cher-oo, practising their parkour and spying on cats.
He looked down at them trotting quietly by his side and felt a rush of affection. Clever dogs.
With a large take-out bag from Wong Wei Garden, he headed home. Julie had already arrived. He fed the dogs and they trailed off to their beds, set carefully in front of the TV.
‘You spoil those animals,’ Julie said.
‘Mmm.’ He didn’t want to have this conversation. The instant Julie realized how out of control he was in the dog arena, she would bring in the auditors: trainers, dog walkers, books on animal behaviour, disciplinary regimes, homeopaths, dog shrinks, Cesar Millan. When that all failed, he would come home to find Temple Grandin in the kitchen sipping a Diet Coke and telepathing his pets. In the meantime, the dogs would probably organize some kind of revenge scenario, it would cost him a fortune in consulting fees, plus he’d have to take sides either against the dogs or against Julie . . . his brain wouldn’t let him follow this line of discourse.
Jonathan wished he had a girlfriend who was more dog friendly or dogs that were more girlfriend friendly.
Julie said, ‘Get some plates,’ in a tone that meant, Stop running through unlikely scenarios in your head.
Over dinner they discussed a weekend away to celebrate their reunion, for which Julie had put together a list of options. ‘Feel free to add anything you like,’ she said.
As he listened to her describe cosy Vermont inns and short breaks on Sanibel Island, he wondered what they’d do with the dogs. You couldn’t just leave them with a pile of food and have someone look in occasionally. It occurred to him that this was his big chance to get them out into the woods to dig holes in loam, to run with them along the beach inhaling great lungfuls of salt air. They’d be happy, all three of them, four including Julie, which he kept forgetting to do.
‘What about them?’ he blurted, indicating Sissy and Dante.
Julie waved a hand dismissively. ‘There are dog hotels,’ she said. ‘Or maybe we know someone who’ll come in and stay with them. Max could bring one of his floozies. They’re not a factor.’
Not a factor? Dante’s ears flicked forward. He wore his usual inscrutable expression, but Jonathan had a tiny glimpse of the dog behind the mask. Julie was talking about a reasonably priced little condo near the beach in Sanibel involving a flight to Fort Myers and a rental car which might be a bit much for a long weekend but on the other hand there was weather there that would make the whole thing worthwhile not to mention shells.
Not a factor?
‘What about Vermont?’ he suggested a bit desperately, wondering if any of the cosy inns took pets.
She glanced at him sharply. ‘You’re thinking of the dogs, aren’t you?’
‘Couldn’t we all go together? You could get to know them better.’
Julie sighed. ‘Vermont’s good,’ she said. ‘If that’s what you want. It’s doable.’ She pulled out her laptop and clicked open a file. ‘These are some of the best inns,’ she said. ‘Will we want to ski? There’s still good snow. I checked. And excellent antiquing.’
The use of antique as a verb made Jonathan shrink like a salted slug. He glanced around his apartment, picturing a seventeenth-century sideboard made of age-blackened oak flanked by two intricately carved elm chairs that had cradled the flatulent bottoms of long-dead English lords. A grand crystal chandelier swayed dangerously from the 1950s dropped ceiling, illuminating the top of a gigantic mahogany dinner table looted from a Southern slave plantation. He could easily imagine Julie arranging peonies in a charming hand-painted chamber pot that some stranger had shat in for decades.
‘Jonathan.’
‘Yes, Julie?’
‘Focus.’
He looked at her. ‘I am focusing. Do any of these places take dogs? I really think they’d enjoy a little getaway to the country. They spend all their time cooped up. We could go for walks.’
‘I spend all my time cooped up too,’ Julie said, glaring at Dante. Turning to Jonathan, her expression softened. ‘We’ve been apart for months. I was hoping for some us-time. Just us.’
Sissy’s brow furrowed sadly.
‘Look, I’ve done all the groundwork. Why don’t you have a flip through the options and let me know what you decide.’
‘But . . .’
‘I’ll send you the file.’
‘What file?’
‘The Jonathan file.’
He craned his neck and saw a file on her desktop marked JONATHAN.
He was a file?
What else was stored in the Jonathan file? Did Julie keep a record of how often they had sex or who paid for each meal? Were his vital statistics listed next to those of all her exes? Perhaps she was looking for some Golden Ratio of limbs to IQ or shoe size to sexual prowess. Maybe there was a list of qualities she sought in a boyfriend with checkmarks next to those he just about managed to live up to. Were there pictures? Shots of him in compromising positions? Would she use them to porn-spam his friends if they ever broke up? He began a new story in his head called The Jonathan File, and its companion piece, The Book of Julie.
‘Jonathan,’ she said, with a resigned glance at her boyfriend. ‘There’s no point talking to you when you’re thinking of other things. I’ve got to go back to the office. We close our non-white-weddings issue tomorrow and there’s still tons to do.’
Jonathan didn’t beg her to stay. He did walk her back to her office in Chelsea, but the dogs were obstructive, tangling their leashes around Julie’s legs, crossing in front of her to lunge at an imaginary sandwich, barking threateningly at a heavily armed policeman and challenging a huge mastiff held on a string by a wisp of a teenage girl. They strained to get at the beast, who stiffened and growled ominously. The teensy girl patted his head.
/> ‘It’th betht,’ she lisped in their general direction. ‘It’th betht if you don’t annoy him.’
Jonathan hauled on their leashes.
They hurried on.
At the corner of Fourteenth and Tenth he kissed his girlfriend goodbye while Dante stole the limelight by squatting in the centre of the sidewalk and spooling out the world’s longest butt snake. Julie looked at him, at his owner, closed her eyes slowly, entered the office building and swiped her card through security. She didn’t turn to wave.
9
Greeley stopped every one of Comrade’s twenty-three employees as they arrived each morning and asked how they were, recording the answers in a small orange notebook.
‘What are you doing?’ Jonathan asked, having told Greeley that he was, ‘Fine, absolutely fine.’
‘Just keeping a few notes to help me understand your situation.’ Greeley maintained a neutral expression that was neither friendly nor unfriendly; quite Zen, in fact, as if Comrade were merely a resting place on the way to a higher level of consciousness. Jonathan felt his heart lurch.
What was his situation? He wasn’t sure. At the moment it involved an inability to stop staring at Greeley: Greeley with the clear skin and grey eyes, the sturdy ambiguity. In Jonathan’s New York Inferno, Greeley would hover over all civilization; arms and legs crossed, expression inscrutable, emitting beams of light embroidered in glittering silver and gold.
‘We’re so happy you’re here,’ Jonathan said, forgoing his usual feeble joke about Siberian labour camps. ‘I think . . .’ he paused. ‘I think in some way we’ve been waiting for you.’ He felt pleased that this minor exchange caused Greeley to nod and smile.
With Greeley’s arrival, the atmosphere at Comrade changed, beginning with a 4pm break for green tea, dark chocolate and t’ai chi. Greeley knew the whereabouts of every employee at every moment of the day, a completely new phenomenon that prevented the erratic hours and random excursions to which a substantial percentage of staff were prone.