Several minutes later, a knock on the door forced Denny to concede. He opened it to find a slight man in half-glasses and a paisley tie. He gave Denny a fierce look over his glasses, then directed his suspicion to the room number on the door.
“Mort had to go back to Brandon because of Freckles.” It gave Denny strange pleasure to say this.
The man pressed his lips together, sighed hard through his nose, and left. As Denny closed the door, his cell phone began to ring and vibrate on top of the desk.
It was his boss. Roscoe was talking before Denny could even say hello. “What were you thinking? We talked about what’s been happening with your articles. I told you precisely what not to do, and then you did it. ‘Alec’s trainscape did not invite me in. I tried to enter it, but it wouldn’t let me. Neither would Alec.’ Denny, do you know how many things are wrong with that?”
“Certainly not the flow. It’s got a lovely flow.”
“The point of The Fearless Modeler is to encourage modeling, not discourage it. You don’t dump all over a layout that took a guy six years to build. That’s the number-one wrong thing. Number two is no one enters a layout. You’re supposed to look at it. That’s what normal people do.”
“You know what I meant.”
“No, I don’t, and you always say that and I’m tired of it. I’m tired of the complaints I get about you, too. Alec called after you were there. He said you sprawled on his board.”
“I laid my head down on it. That’s all.”
Roscoe let out a strange laugh. “It was enough to nearly crush his turntable cabin. That’s a three-hundred-dollar turntable.”
“I was trying to enter the scene.”
“Yeah? Enter this scene: I’m sitting in my office on Friday and I get back-to-back phone calls from two different advertisers about last month’s issue. That piece wasn’t as wacko as this one, but both of these guys pointed out that nothing in your write-ups would make a modeler want to go out and buy materials to upgrade. You talk about minute positional alterations. And now you want to subtract elements. This feature you proposed—‘Undetailing Your Layout’—are you serious?”
“There’s so much clutter, Roscoe. It gets in the way.”
“Yeah? Well, right now you’re getting in the way—of my bottom line! Maybe you should stay home and just imagine layouts instead of looking at them. Isn’t that your ideal?”
“I’m not comfortable writing reviews designed to move product.”
Roscoe was silent for a moment. “That’s a surprisingly normal sentence, Denny. Is someone coaching you? Listen, nobody ever asked you to ‘move product.’ If you just wrote in a sane way about the context, readers would want to improve theirs and buy stuff.”
“I do write about context.”
“Ha! Your context is . . . it’s biographical, for God’s sake. You wrote that Alec should know the complete history of all of his figures. These are little plastic people, Denny. Did you really ask him how long the switchman had been married? Was there a wedding ring on his tiny finger?”
“Yes, there was. It might have been an imperfection, but it got me thinking.”
“Yeah? Well, think about this. Is there any other way you can make a living? Because I’m worn out. You wear people out, Denny. And look at the bind you’ve put me in. I’ve got a deadline and five empty pages because you’ve given me nothing to work with. I’ve put up with a lot. I’ve dealt with your bias against kitbashing. I’ve scratched out your terrible jokes. I’ve endured your nagging for a Rod Stewart profile. And what is it with you and waving? Every layout doesn’t have to have some yahoo waving his hand.”
Denny had gotten two waves that day, one from the man who said, “Nice coat,” the other from Betsy as he had left the counter. “I got two waves today, Roscoe.”
After a pause, Roscoe said, “I don’t know what to say to that, Denny. I just don’t know what to say. Listen, I’ve been willing to edit your words, but I give up trying to edit you. I’m worried about you, Denny. I like you. Well, that’s not exactly true, but I am worried. Actually, I’m not all that worried. The point is, you’re fired. I’ve never fired anyone, Denny. Ruth still can’t spell, but she’s my proofreader and I’m sticking with her. You, though—I can’t deal with you anymore.”
Roscoe kept talking, but Denny didn’t want to listen. As he hung up the phone, he came up with a biography for the wedded switchman, a cute little figure with blond locks below his cap. He could be married to a poor speller named Ruth. She would have a job transcribing medical tapes. The switchman happened to be gifted in spelling, and in the evening he would correct Ruth’s mistakes. In gratitude, and because she loved her husband so, one morning she let him sleep late, and she put on his uniform and worked the switches, her cap pulled down over her face. All day the yardman peered out his grimy window and muttered, “Olsen looks different. Must have lost some weight.”
The knocking came in the middle of the night—repeated taps that felt like ratchets of a machine hoisting him from sleep. The darkness of the hotel room was complete, and he had to feel his way across the room, padding in his socks from bed to bureau to door. He opened it just a crack to say that Mort was not here, but the knocker—an ample woman moving fast—shoved the door open far enough to allow her to scurry inside. She had been looking up and down the hall as she did this, and now she giggled in the dark.
“Whew!” she said. “Ike’s out there somewhere. I don’t like Ike. I don’t like that bitch who was with him either.” She giggled again. “Where are you?”
“Right here.”
“Whoa.” The woman felt for the wall switch and threw a harsh light on Denny, who squinted at her in his boxer shorts. “You’re not Mort the Sport. Wrong room?”
Denny was hurrying into his pants. “It’s the right room,” he said, “but Mort left.”
The woman touched her fingertips to her forehead as if struck by a revelation. “I knew that. Ike told me at dinner.” Her jaw hung open. She seemed stuck on a thought until a logjam of new ideas broke loose and bumped her forward. “We ate and talked. And drank.” She stared across the room at nothing. “And I knew you went home . . . I mean Mort went home.” Another jam, then another rapid burst: “But by the time we got back to the hotel I forgot and came looking for you. For Mort.” She swayed. “I gotta sit.”
She hurried to the couch and flopped on it, but then she composed herself. She stretched her arms out along its back and crossed her legs, exposing much of the top one. Her curly brown hair sat roundly on her head like half of a basketball, covering much of her forehead. She sized Denny up. “You’re not as cute as Mort.”
“My name is Denny. I’m just passing through.”
She burst into song like a goosed Ethel Merman. “‘Passing throoooo. Passing throoooo. I saw Abraham and Isaac passing throoooooo . . .’ Sing along, Danny. Don’t be a party pooper.” She fogged up, then came back. “How come Mort left? Was it that fucking Freckles?”
Denny was buttoning his shirt. “I’m afraid so,” he said. Then, for effect, he added, “Again.”
“Ain’t that the truth.” The woman snorted.
Denny wished he knew who Freckles was. Mort’s son? Wife? Horse?
“It’s amazing,” the woman went on, suddenly philosophical. “I could change his life. I could change it forever. I have . . . a proposal for him.” She giggled, then suddenly stopped. Her eyes swept over the room. “How does he rate these digs? Chairman of the Natural Resources and Energy Committee. Big whoop.” She stared at the chandelier. “I always wanted to swing on one of those. I gotta pee.” She stood up and sauntered by Denny, reaching him just as he finished tucking in his shirt. “You don’t have to get all dressed up on my account.” She poked him hard in the chest, bathing him in her fruity breath.
“You’re Marge!” he said, proud of his discovery. “The one who’s fun.”
She reeled back a bit. “Mort tell you that? Tellin’ tales out of school. Out of shul.” She grinned
at her joke, then frowned. Denny suddenly knew what she was going to do next: she would shake her head as if to clear it. And she did. He also knew she was going to say something silly as she went on into the bathroom, like “Toodleoo.”
“Ciao,” she said.
Drunk people were so slow, Denny thought. You could see where they were going way before they knew. Wouldn’t it be wonderful, in normal life, to be as far ahead of everyone as you were ahead of drunks? You’d be like God.
“Hey, you’ve got a Jacuzzi!” she yelled through the closed door. He knew before she did it that she was going to turn on the water. Next she would undress and climb into the tub. He replayed the poke in his chest. He had been looking at her chest at the time, which was strange, as if the poke were punishment for looking. She had his body type, and he imagined his round cheeks plunging into her cleavage, his roundness meeting hers. He paced the room, then sat down on the edge of his bed and clasped his hands between his knees.
Question: would she have him?
Answer: she was naked in his Jacuzzi.
A little cry of excitement passed his lips as he rose from the bed. He tiptoed to the bathroom door and knocked, but way too shyly, he knew, to be heard over the roar of the water. He knocked loudly.
“Is that you, Mort?” She laughed. “Can I call you Mort?”
“You bet.”
“So what do you want? Hah! As if I didn’t know. With these jets here, what makes you think I need you?”
He was too scared to speak.
“Oh, what the hell,” she said. “Come on in.”
Denny grabbed the knob. “It’s locked.”
“I guess our union’s not meant to be.” She laughed and yelled something else.
“I didn’t hear you,” he said.
She yelled, “Do you have a condom? I’m fresh out.”
Denny had many thoughts, but he simply shouted, “No.”
She hollered the directions to an all-night drugstore and asked him to get her some cigarettes, too. She named the brand, type, length, and packaging style. Denny hurried to the desk and wrote down the information. He felt that everything hinged on getting this right.
“Back in a flash,” he called out. As he put on his shoes, he heard another knock on the door. What if it was this man she had mentioned, this Ike, on the hunt for her?
But it was Betsy. “Is everything satisfactory, Mr. Braintree?”
“Everything’s fine.”
“I’m so glad. Now, while I’m here, did you happen to hear any shouting or singing? Someone called the front desk. I don’t want to say they complained, but they did call.”
“Well—” Denny was surprised to find that he couldn’t lie to her.
“All the other rooms are occupied by legislators. They work hard and they sleep hard. So I thought the noise might have come from your room.” She looked at him. Or rather, she seemed to look at him. “You’re running the Jacuzzi.”
“That’s right.”
“But you’re not in the Jacuzzi.”
“I intend to be.”
“Mm-hmm.” She blinked behind her strangely flat glasses. “How shall I put this?” Her flour-white face was unreadable. She took a deep breath. “Here in Vermont, we have direct democracy, and that takes the form of our annual town meetings.” She paused and pulled back. “I’m not talking to a naked man, am I?”
“No, of course not.”
“You said you intended to be in the Jacuzzi.” She turned her head to one side.
“Yes, but—
“Vermont also has representative democracy at the state level,” she continued doggedly, her words going down the hall more than to him. “These citizen legislators work hard—”
“—and they sleep hard. I’ll be quiet, I promise.”
“Then all is well—except for your bare nakedness.”
She was gone before he could muster further denial. He put on his shoes and his Secret Agent Man coat and grabbed his room key and wallet. He began to look for his car keys when he remembered that he had no car. He clutched his hair. All was ruined! He went to the bathroom door and knocked loudly.
“Christ, you still here?” Marge yelled. Denny explained his predicament. She shouted, “You’re real good at this, aren’t you?” She told him to take her car and gave him directions to it in the back lot. “Keys are in my purse,” she hollered. Denny found them. He also saw a pack of cigarettes in there with just one remaining. He compared the information on the pack with what he had written on the slip in his pocket. They matched. He saw it as a good sign that Marge felt she would need more than one cigarette for the night ahead.
“A firecracker!” he said to himself on his way out. “A spitfire! A firecracker! Oh, I already said that.”
Fortunately, a back door led to the parking lot, and Denny could avoid passing the front desk, which would certainly have provoked a question about the shortness of his Jacuzzi experience. Marge’s car, a cluttered Subaru, smelled of tobacco. Inhaling her spent air, he studied the gearshift knob and practiced shifting—he had never mastered a stick shift. In fits and starts, relying heavily on a whining second gear as neither too high nor too low, he drove down a side street to a two-lane highway and tracked down the all-night drugstore without difficulty. Likewise the condom display, though the options dizzied him. He bought three different packages and figured Marge could help him decide from there. He scanned the cigarette display behind the clerk and dictated the specifications from his notes.
The return drive, with its known destination, opened his mind to invasion by thoughts he had kept at bay since Marge had turned on the Jacuzzi. Would he be able to do this well enough—which was to say, long enough? The last time, just over two years ago, he had been too quick and had tried to hide what had happened, but that didn’t work very well. His partner—Ramona was her name—made him root around down there, which didn’t work all that well either, and talk about a mess! He remembered thinking it was funny that they called it “eating” and how, at the time, he wished he really was eating instead. He was afraid Ramona was going to yell at him for botching everything, but she just fell asleep, and he was able to sneak out of her room. Hotels were great. So was alcohol.
The time before that—Melanie, her name was—when it was all over and Denny was gasping for breath, she said, “I never thought it could be like this.” But when he phoned her for another date, she explained what she had meant: she never thought it could be that bad.
The last woman he had had into his apartment—he couldn’t remember her name—had left in a huff before he had made any real progress. But the next morning, he was pleased to see that she had left something of herself behind. He was taking a dump, and when he grabbed the toilet paper roll from the tank behind him, he saw that she had blotted her lips on the outside of it. She must have applied fresh lipstick in the hopes of finding someone else that night. Her lips had left a perfect red oval on the toilet paper, and when he wiped, it was almost like she was giving him a nice kiss down there.
The parking lot was eerily quiet. No wonder—it was after 2:00 A.M. He looked up at the hotel. It was creepy to look at dark windows and know that people slept behind them. Overhead, scudding clouds hid stars, presented them like a ringmaster with a musical ta-da, and then hid them again. He dashed from the rear door to the elevator. The way his coat flowed behind him, along with the upcoming guaranteed action, really made him feel like a secret agent. On the fourth floor, he paused outside his room to catch his breath.
When he entered, his first thought was that if they were going to have sex, he would have to remove the chandelier from the bed. His second thought was What the hell? Electrical wires dangled from the ceiling where the fixture had hung. Marge wasn’t on the bed or in the room or in the bathroom. She had sloppily sloshed out of the tub. The crash of the chandelier might have drawn her. (Did you make that noise, Mort? God, more shouting.) Then he remembered: she said she had always wanted to swing from a chandelier. He imagine
d the inspiration seizing her after her bath. She could have climbed up on the bed, grabbed it, and boom. What then? Had the noise prompted another visit from Betsy, this one resulting in Marge’s ejection? But would the chandelier have made noise falling on the bed? If Marge hit the floor, she might have made the noise. She could have hurt herself. Had she gone off to apply a Band-Aid to an injury? If so, would she return to apply a condom to him, or would he have to coax her back? Where was her room?
A light in a window would tell him. The rear of the hotel had been completely dark, and he could check the front from his balcony. He opened the French doors, stepped out, and swept his eyes across the front of the hotel. All was black, not just at the hotel but as far as he could see down the street and over the rooftops. It was a sleepy, virtuous village, no doubt about it. With a sigh, he went back into the room, still clutching his pathetic bag of goodies from the drugstore. He set it on the dresser and began to clean up. The chandelier, though not heavy, required a wide-arm embrace to work it down from the bed to the floor. Chunks of drywall from the ceiling covered the bed. He gathered up the bedspread by its four corners and considered shaking it out on the balcony, but there were parked cars on the street below, so he funneled the debris into a wastebasket. Then he used a towel to mop up the water Marge had sloshed on the bathroom floor. He brushed his teeth, sighed at himself in the mirror, set his alarm for 6:00 A.M., and went to bed.
He couldn’t fall asleep, though. Two new ideas for his Hiawatha Streamliner layout kept him dancing in bed—a blind lady and a puzzle. The puzzle would be a chandelier lying on the floor of a ballroom. He could modify the gym over the police station and change it into a ballroom. He had never been happy with the gym anyway, with all its stupid equipment. He would throw it out and empty the room—except for the chandelier on the floor. That would be interesting. He could see it through the little window, could feel the tension zinging from it. Why had it fallen? How long ago? Why had no one picked it up?
From Away Page 3