Jonathan Unleashed

by Meg Rosoff

  In exchange for the reassuring sensation that the office had a leader at last, Comrade’s employees showered their new supervisors with gifts. Two expensive new dog beds appeared at the office courtesy of Louise Crimple, to whom Jonathan had sent adorable pictures of his dogs sitting on Broadway Depot office chairs. He moved Dante’s new bed to the entrance of the conference room; Sissy’s fitted neatly in the alcove behind his desk. He had to slash their official rations due to the doggy bags from expensive restaurants, slices of sirloin, leftover baked salmon with lightly steamed vegetables, braised marrow bones and containers with the remains of Wagyu burgers. They turned up their noses now at organic dog food, preferring (who wouldn’t?) to dine on carefully packaged detritus from the restaurant capital of the world.

  In addition to fine dining, they had two big walks a day, so Julie had less to complain about when they met up in the evening. Dog-tired from a long day ministering to their flock, Dante and Sissy flopped into bed and stayed there quietly until morning.

  Jonathan slipped into a period of relative calm. Things with Julie seemed stable, the dogs were happy and he was on track to make senior copywriter by the beginning of next year. With the salary increase, he might be able to rent a bigger apartment.

  For whole minutes at a time nothing went horribly wrong. Jonathan’s shoulders untensed, and even Julie noticed that something about him had improved.

  ‘You’re standing up straighter,’ she said, almost admiringly. ‘I don’t think of you as tall, but you nearly are.’

  ‘Was I hunched over before?’

  She shrugged. ‘A little.’

  ‘Like the Hunchback of Notre Dame?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And gnarled?’

  ‘Quite gnarled.’

  ‘Like a dwarf? Or a hobbit? How did you stand me?’

  Julie giggled and loved him for the moment.

  Jonathan had caught sight of himself in profile in a store window and noticed that he had, indeed, developed a slight defensive crouch. He wondered whether it was his job or life in general. Psychologically it seemed a tragic position to take, especially at his age. He should be striding bravely into the world, head up, shoulders back, loins girded, ready to wrestle the marketing world to its knees, thrust the razor-sharp sword of truth deep between its shoulder blades and then stand over it, triumphant, while it slowly bled to death at his feet.

  He’d been at Comrade nearly six months and felt he might at last be starting to pick up the rhythm of the place, convincing himself that he didn’t actively despise the ads he wrote day after day, despite the fact that they required no creativity, no imagination and no actual brainpower. Once or twice he even looked forward to a conversation with Louise Crimple, less for its surreal quality than for her relentless enthusiasm and the praise she lavished on his valueless endeavour.

  More often he gazed into Sissy’s big earnest eyes and wondered whether she could be trained to do his work for him. She’d be better in meetings: conciliatory, anxious to please, interested in what everyone had to say, keen to get on, not filled with inexpressible rage. She liked having a job, unlike her master, who still opened his Broadway Despot files each morning with a deep sense of dread, a fleeting impulse towards suicide and a quickly suppressed vision of himself as a crêpe gone wrong, a sticky congealed heap of human dough.

  ‘If you don’t like your job why don’t you quit?’ Julie asked.

  Jonathan stared at her. ‘Quit? Don’t you read the papers? Do you have any idea what it’s like out there?’

  Julie shrugged. ‘You could probably find something you liked better. What do you like better?’

  How should he know what he liked better? ‘What’s your dream?’ everyone asked, like he might have some cherished desire to hop across the Russian steppes on a pogo stick and write a bestselling memoir about it. Follow your heart, people said. Follow it where?

  After his team’s weekly catch-up with Eduardo, Jonathan gathered the courage to ask if he might, someday, aspire to work on a different account, perhaps one that used one or two percent of his actual brain. Ed nodded in a serious manner, bridged his hands and said, ‘Of course, Jonathan. It’s just a matter of readiness. I’m afraid you’re still finding your feet in marketing.’

  Finding your feet in marketing? Did the man dream in clichés?

  Jonathan knew that the outcome of any meeting on the subject of his career prospects would be precisely zero. Ed would forget their conversation the instant Jonathan left his direct line of sight; before, probably. Why should he care, after all? If Jonathan quit his job, any sixth-grader in New York could replace him.

  12

  Max was convinced that Eduardo was merely a frontman for Wes’s vast drug-smuggling empire.

  ‘Think about it. Wes finagles all the bookkeeping that pays for Ed’s Mercedes, his loft, his flavoured condoms. You think he wants the IRS asking questions about how it’s done? So he keeps his mouth shut, shows up at work every day, signs a few contracts and presto! The money it raineth down upon him like rain.’

  Yeah, Jonathan thought bitterly, and he was still finding his feet in marketing.

  In the early afternoon, Julie emailed to say she had an important question to ask, and could they meet after work?

  They met at the neighbourhood tapas bar where the sidewalk café allowed dogs. When Julie arrived, she stepped over Dante and Sissy with huge ostentation as if they were snoozing bison rather than two almost entirely flat creatures, who could squeeze themselves into practically no space at all, something Julie never did.

  ‘So?’ Jonathan ordered two Spanish beers and a plate of chorizo and olives. ‘What’s so important?’

  Julie’s features were composed.

  ‘Well,’ she said. ‘The office wants to photograph a series of real people and real weddings for our next issue and they’ve asked me if I want to be in it.’

  ‘Great,’ Jonathan said, sipping his beer. ‘As a wedding guest or something?’

  ‘Not really,’ she said. ‘As a bride.’

  He laughed. ‘As a bride? What, a fake wedding? That’s hilarious! Do I get to be the fake bridegroom?’

  Julie looked annoyed. ‘Not a fake wedding, Jonathan. Four double-page spreads in the magazine and a live-streamed online ceremony. A real wedding.’

  ‘Fantastic! So do you get to plan your own “real” wedding?’

  ‘Of course.’ She drummed her fingers. ‘I’m pretty clear about what I want.’

  ‘You are?’ Jonathan was entranced by this thought. ‘And so, in this “real” wedding, is there just, like, a big blank where the guy is supposed to be? I mean, could it be, like, anyone?’

  ‘Of course it can’t just be anyone.’

  Jonathan was delighted. ‘What about me? Could it be me?’

  Julie stared at her hands. ‘I was just going to ask . . .’

  ‘What? Ask if I’ll do the crazy live-streamed-wedding thingy with you? Do I get to keep the clothes? Oh my God, we’d have such a laugh. I wouldn’t hear the end of it from Max. What’s the most expensive suit I can have? Haha! Hello, Mom and Dad, I’m getting married . . .’ He caught the look on Julie’s face and stopped. ‘Wait. This is a fake-real wedding, right?’

  Her face went blotchy and she looked as if she might cry. ‘Do you never listen? No, Jonathan. It is not a fake-real wedding.’

  ‘What?’ The enormity of what she was saying took some time to sink in. ‘A real-real wedding? You want me to marry you online in public in a real-real wedding in order to provide a monthly feature for your stupid magazine? Are you serious? That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard. It’s totally insane.’

  ‘Forget it,’ she said, blinking rapidly. ‘Forget I ever mentioned it.’

  ‘Aw, Julie.’ He reached across the table and took her hand. ‘Talk to me a second.’ He gazed at her intently. ‘Do you even love me?’

  ‘Of course I love you, Jonathan. Why on earth else would I bother hanging around with you?’
/>
  What did she mean, she was clear about what she wanted for her wedding? How could you know what you wanted if you didn’t even know who the groom was? Though now that she mentioned it, Jonathan had always known exactly what he wanted for his funeral, all the songs, and the food he’d serve (well, not him, of course), and who would and wouldn’t be invited. But that made more sense. If you got hit by a truck you might not have time to think over the details, whereas no one got hit by a wedding truck. Until now, that is.

  ‘This isn’t just because they’re offering you a free dress and catering, is it?’

  ‘Of course not.’ She met his eyes. ‘But free is free. So if we were thinking of doing it, the timing would be great.’

  ‘Were we thinking of doing it?’ It was all so sudden. What an idiotic lunatic concept, one that was bound to ruin his life and probably hers as well.

  But just at that moment an impulse took him. A crazy impulse just to say yes, to do whatever crazy thing arose because maybe if you said yes to things that terrified you, your life would change direction, open up, get exciting. Why not marry Julie and become Jonathan Cormorant, or maybe Julie would become Julie Trefoil. Maybe they’d just keep their own names or combine them to be the Cormorant-Trefoils or the Trefoil-Cormorants. Or choose two completely different names, like Tomato-Gazelle. Whatever. Wouldn’t it be nice to come home to a person you knew (and maybe even loved) every night for the rest of your life? No more worrying about meeting the right person, no more doubts about the future. He liked the idea of embracing adulthood as a concept and not worrying too much about the fine print. Maturity was a planet he was anxious to explore and it came with strange and mysterious perks he knew nothing about. Would he have to get a mortgage? Life insurance? It was all thrillingly unlikely – and yet something about it tantalized him. Get out, his brain said, leave adolescence behind! Engage with forever! Grow up, have kids who call you Mom and Dad. Borrow money. Buy a car. Have a career. Wear socks that match. Start saving for retirement. Die of old age. It all felt so wonderfully real.

  ‘OK,’ he said. ‘Let’s do it.’

  Julie looked at him, her eyes damp. ‘Really?’

  ‘Yup. Really.’

  She smiled, tentatively. ‘You’re sure?’

  Sure? Of course he wasn’t sure. He wasn’t even somewhat unsure. He was entirely one hundred percent unsure. Still, who needed sure when you were channelling bold?

  How did normal people cross the huge gulf between childhood and adulthood? He’d always assumed it would just happen – one day he’d wake up and find himself on the other side. But no, here he was, month after month, still floundering in no-man’s-land. Maybe you had to leap, just decide one day you were going to get married, have kids, live in the suburbs, buy a people carrier, go the whole hog.

  What was life, anyway, if not for leaping into with both feet? Unless of course life turned out to be a tar pit rather than a glorious Mediterranean sea, in which case he’d end up like those dinosaur fossils, preserved forever for some Natural History Museum of the future, filed under E for Extinct. He imagined the New York City tar pit, a kind of hell filled with the horribly inadequate: those who hadn’t yet found their feet in marketing or were perpetually seeking love.

  Jonathan grabbed Julie out of her chair by both hands and swung her around the way he’d once seen in an ad for tampons. She managed to smile when he gathered her up in an enthusiastic embrace. ‘Mrs Julie Jonathan Cormorant-Trefoil!’

  ‘Mr all that too,’ she said, a bit palely, trying to remain upright.

  He turned to the three other people in the tapas bar. ‘We’re getting married! This gorgeous creature and I are getting married. On the internet! Live-streamed! So you’re all invited!’ The other people ignored him and Julie looked embarrassed. Sissy was on her feet dancing around them with joy. A party! A party!

  Dante’s expression was hard to decipher.

  Jonathan hugged Julie close and whispered, ‘What an adventure this is going to be!’

  ‘You’re getting married?’ Greeley seemed surprised.

  ‘That’s why I need a few days off. It’s all pretty much arranged through Bridal-360 but I guess I do need to try on the clothes and show up on the big day.’ This struck Jonathan as hilarious and he began to laugh.

  Greeley looked at him. ‘Have you two been together long?’

  ‘Nearly four years. Long enough to know I’m probably making a mistake.’ Jonathan’s eyes were enormous, his hair askew. ‘But what’s life for, if not making mistakes? How else do you grow? And it means a lot to her. Plus, being married is so amazingly grown-up. I’m tired of being just some amorphous man-child thing.’

  Greeley said nothing for a moment. ‘I speak to you only as a representative of your employer, Jonathan. But, given that Comrade’s interests rely to some greater or lesser extent on your sanity, do you really think it’s a good idea to marry when you’re already calling it a mistake?’

  ‘Might be a mistake. Might be. Might not be. A good idea? Possibly. Probably not. But any idea will do at the moment.’ He leant in close to Greeley and dropped his voice. ‘My life is stuck and sometimes you’ve just got to do something to get yourself free. Anything.’

  ‘It’s an interesting philosophy,’ Greeley said.

  Jonathan felt cheered. ‘You think so?’

  ‘But wrong.’ Greeley paused. ‘And what about the dogs? I remember you saying something about your girlfriend not liking dogs.’

  ‘Hates them,’ Jonathan said. ‘Not all dogs, just mine. But that’s part of the adventure. We’re all going to have to learn to live, love and laugh as one big happy family. And then when our children come along, they’ll have to learn to live, love and laugh with Julie and me and the dogs too. They’ll have to call us Mommy and Daddy whether they want to or not. That’s how it works in life.’

  Greeley pondered this statement for some time. ‘Could you just wait here a sec?’

  Jonathan was happy to wait. Anything was better than writing office-supply ads. He waited, read the memos on Greeley’s desk and flicked idly through the diary that lay within arm’s reach. Greeley reappeared, followed by Wes.

  ‘I hear congratulations are in order,’ Wes said, holding out his hand. ‘This is a big step, you know.’

  ‘I know,’ Jonathan beamed. ‘I know.’

  ‘You’re not doing this,’ Wes spoke carefully, ‘because you feel in any way that the misery of your professional life needs balancing with an act of spectacular drama in your private life?’

  Jonathan looked pleased. ‘Why, yes. I think that’s it exactly.’

  Wes nodded. ‘Because if that were the case, we might feel responsible for what turned out to be a grave personal error.’

  ‘Don’t worry. I won’t sue or anything.’

  ‘Nonetheless, we feel obliged to suggest . . .’

  Jonathan wondered what Wes (and whoever else made up ‘we’) felt obliged to suggest. That he not marry Julie so that Comrade could not be held responsible for any act of criminality resulting from a desperate marriage based on the hellishness of his employ? Surely it would be simpler to offer him a job that resulted in less desperation, thus obviating the wedding altogether.

  But Wes seemed stalled. He stood with two fingers pressing his left temple contemplatively, frowning.

  ‘I don’t mean to presume,’ Jonathan said. ‘But if you’re actually so worried about me, maybe you could just give me another account to work on? Something slightly less soul-destroying?’

  A complex conversation consisting entirely of non-verbal gestures followed. Wes glanced at Greeley, who nodded. Wes shrugged. Greeley tapped a finger on the desk.

  Jonathan looked away so as not to eavesdrop.

  Wes spoke at last. ‘Unfortunately, someone has to handle the Broadway Depot account. If not you, then some other poor bastard will be driven to marriage or possible suicide.’ He communicated a deep compassion that made Jonathan feel sad and happy at once – sad for his own situ
ation, but happy that Wes respected him enough to speak frankly about the wretchedness of his job.

  Greeley cleared his throat. ‘So, how shall we take this situation forward?’

  Wes shuffled shiftily. ‘We could offer Jonathan a small raise.’

  All three stood in silence.

  ‘How small?’ Jonathan asked.

  ‘Or,’ Greeley said, ignoring the questions, ‘we could terminate your employment.’

  Wes looked surprised.

  The thought of being fired filled Jonathan with happiness. ‘I’ll have the raise,’ he said.

  Greeley blinked.

  ‘Excellent,’ said Wes. ‘We’ll put the paperwork through today.’

  Jonathan returned to his desk. He wasn’t entirely sure what had transpired. Had Wes offered him a bribe to cancel the wedding? An insultingly small bribe, at that? Did his acceptance of the raise mean that the wedding was off? No one had made the terms clear and he hadn’t signed anything. Well, he had slightly more money and no intention of calling off the wedding, so it seemed to be a triumph all around.

  What, he wondered, were the ethics of accepting a raise based on an unreasonable interference in his personal life? And what if, at some time in the future, he slipped up and mistakenly referred to his wife? That would surely be a natural thing to do, once he had one. And also a dead giveaway that he hadn’t adhered to the somewhat imprecise terms of the raise. Still, he needed the money and had agreed to the wedding, so his behaviour seemed as moral as possible under the circumstances.

  ‘Psst! What the hell is going on?’ It was Max.

  ‘I got a raise.’