“I had such grand plans for this country,” the prince explains to Henry while throwing punches with the controller like a drummer. “Not just industrial plans, but artistic and social. Did anyone show you the giant hares?”
“No. Not that I know of.”
A right uppercut hits the prince’s avatar, Wii King, knocking him to the animated canvas. He rises on six and continues to talk. “To deal with our food shortages, we have been treating ordinary hares with massive doses of steroids and hormones and in some instances have grown hares the size of a ten-year-old child.”
“Wow. Amazing, Your Highness.”
“My scientists also tell me they are on the verge of finding a use for the poisons and toxins in our rivers—a way to turn something so prevalent into a valuable natural resource.”
Now the Wii King lands a knockdown punch. Henry sees one of the prince’s handlers motioning to someone near the game console and—surprise—his opponent does not get back off the canvas.
As the prince begins an elaborate, in-your-face victory dance, Henry decides that this is a good time to tell him about his proposal for Happy Mountain Springs to help provide fresh water for rural villages with water shortages and pollution problems. When the dance ends and he has the prince’s full attention, he folds the Happy Mountain Springs sustainability story into a version of Madison Ellison’s larger story of how they can serve as an example for the way other companies can ride the momentum of the larger global sustainability movement to balance profit and goodwill in Galado.
When Henry is finished, the prince reboots the boxing game and gets ready for another match. Henry sits back, unsure if any of it sank in, and waits through three more rigged bouts until the prince says, without taking his eyes off the game, “What would you like from me, then?”
Henry decides to go for it. “Ideally, we could orchestrate things so that we could have a royal presence at our little ceremony before we go to the summit. And then, if it is to your liking, something akin to a royal endorsement.”
“That sounds terrific, Henry Tuhoe. Whatever I can do to help.”
Finally the prince puts down the controller, takes a sip of his smoothie, and squints at Henry. The gaggle of aides fidget on the other side of the door. Henry can see their shadows bouncing off the outer walls, and he can only imagine what horrors they have to report from outside the palace gates. “What you saw with my father today is not something I am proud of, but it was necessary. He was, in his time, extremely popular with our people. I have tried to lead as he would, to be loved as he was loved, but there was never a connection with me the way it was between my father and his people.”
“Perhaps with time—” Henry begins, but the prince raises his good arm and shakes his head four times.
“There is no time. Circumstances have eliminated the courtesy of time. I must act swiftly and without remorse or I’ll lose everything.”
Henry puts his head down and sips his smoothie. He doesn’t know what to say.
“Why? This is all that I can think of. Why is this not happening?”
“Maybe,” Henry offers, “the country is like your wounded pec. Maybe the muscles developed so rapidly, so spectacularly, Your Highness, that the ligaments that hold the greater structure together haven’t had a chance to catch up.”
~ * ~
I Say Tomato
Henry contends that they are tomatoes, but Shug calls them something else, these soft red objects splattering against the windows of the SUV as they creep out of the palace drive. Several hundred red-clad protesters are chanting at the gates, thrusting red-painted signs into the air, throwing tomato-like objects, without a soldier in sight.
“This is a new development.”
Shug lowers his head to see better through an unsplattered portion of the windshield bottom. “I’ve never seen them allowed so close to the palace. For some reason the military has chosen to look the other way.”
When a group of five protesters surges up to the vehicle and begins pounding on the doors and windows, Shug holds up some kind of pass, written in red. One of them recognizes it and shouts something to the others, and one by one they back off enough to let the SUV crawl on.
“How far would they have gone if you hadn’t gotten them to back off?”
“Hard to tell. A week ago I might have had an idea. But now it’s impossible to know who is going to do what.”
The scene outside reminds Henry of a story that Victor Chan once revealed to him on the way home from a neighborhood men’s night gathering. Chan’s wife had become so nervous about the world beyond her kitchen window that she had taken to clutching her cell phone in both hands during her daily two-mile walks along the community bike path, “repeatedly dialing nine-one, nine-one, waiting, almost hoping, to dial that final one, which would either signal that tragedy had befallen her or alert the people who would finally take her away.” In the end, Henry recalls, as a stone clacks against the tailgate, Cindy Chan didn’t dial the final 1 of the 911 call that would take her away. Victor did.
Galado, Henry thinks, is waiting to dial the final 1.
“I saw the king today.”
Shug raises his eyebrows, skeptical. Five minutes later, away from the crowds, back on the road to USAVille, he asks, “When you saw him, was he alive?”
Henry scratches his chin. “That’s a good question.”
~ * ~
Home-Cooked
Maya sits at his kitchen table. Two places are set, but she sits at a third chair, tapping something out on her laptop and drinking a glass of ara. A butter lamp burns beside the open bottle, and on the gas stove a hidden meal simmers in a covered pan.
She gets up when he reaches the table and hands him a glass of wine. She is wearing a black cocktail dress and no shoes.
“What’s this?”
“This,” she says, raising her glass in a toast, “is the prelude to what will surely be a disaster.”
He clinks his glass against hers. “To disaster.” He drinks and smiles. He doesn’t care. He cares more than ever. He sets the glass down, opens his laptop, and accesses his music library. The Shuffle gods serve up “I Will Survive,” by Cake. He considers pointing this out, perhaps as an answer to her disaster comment, but decides against it. Nothing good ever comes from pointing out anything. Especially to the woman you think you love.
When they sit down, he tells her about his day and she tells him about hers. Looking at them, one would think they were an average couple in an average home, discussing quotidian, average matters. But the things they are discussing are far from average: angry monks and fading kings, droughts and coups, corporate dirt and Shangri-La.
By both accounts, it was a good day. Henry seems to have secured the scatological support of the prince. Phone service at the call center is up and running. And other than a brief politically incorrect slip when Mahesh lip-synched and crotch-grabbed his way through Madonna’s “Like a Virgin,” Maya says that he was a real asset, making significant progress training the customer service staff. Finally Maya says, “Meredith just called about an hour ago from New York to give us a heads-up.”
“Us?”
“Yes. Us. Giffler heard that the marketing people at Happy Mountain Springs already took a look at your proposal and think the LifeStraw program is a potentially awesome idea.”
“It’s already awesome. The potentially part is their deal.”
“They think it’s very syn . . .”
“Synergistic.” Henry puts down his wineglass. The thought occurs to him: “How did they find out about this so soon? I only sent you and Meredith the deck this morning.”
Maya smiles. “Meredith and I had a nice talk after you left for the palace. Turns out we both had some minor suggestions to improve on your inspired piece. We spent the morning collaborating and tweaking the document online. In real time. She heard they were getting together today and we made the executive decision to release it without your final approval.”
He
nry sighs. Nods. Why not?
“She’s quite a smart woman, you know.”
“I know.”
“And she thinks the world of you.”
He nods. “We’ve known each other a long time. What does she think they’ll want to do?”
Maya gets up and walks to the stove. She lowers the flame and responds as she spoons food onto their plates. “Well, she says they’re going to want to be assured that we could pull the straw distribution program together in time for Pat and Audrey’s visit. If so, they think it would make for some brilliant and much-needed PR. If not, according to Giffler, according to Meredith, they’ll scrap it in a Happy Mountain heartbeat.”
He smiles when she puts his plate in front of him. “Meat loaf?”
“Yes. And gravy. And mashed potatoes. Mashed taro, actually. But potatoes are hard to come by out here.”
He breaks off a piece and takes a bite of the meat loaf. “Delicious. Where’d you learn to cook meat loaf?”
“Hah!” Maya laughs as she takes her seat. “I can’t cook Galadonian food, let alone meat loaf. Mahesh made it for you. I asked him for an American recipe.”
While they eat they talk about work, but what they are really discussing is possibility. The possibility of something good actually coming out of a corporate enterprise. Out of a tedious, thankless back-office job. Of something good happening because of them and between them.
The work talk, they both come to realize, is nothing less than a prelude to foreplay, which is nothing more than a prelude to disaster.
~ * ~
He cleans the table while she drinks wine and watches. “Women’s Prison” by Loretta Lynn plays on the laptop. Headlights strobe through the kitchen window. Madison Ellison, back from a hard day’s work of resuscitating a monarch, pulls into her driveway.
Wiping his hands on a dish towel, Henry tells Maya that he is going to go upstairs to shower, “to wash off the royal ick.”
His eyes are closed and his head is tilted back under the steaming water when she joins him. He’d thought she might and hoped she would, and when he feels her fingers gliding up his arm, he tells her as much.
“With me being your boss and all,” he says, “you realize that this constitutes a major breach of corporate policy.”
She moves up against him from behind and presses her cheek between his shoulder blades.
“I mean, I could lose everything. No, wait, I already have lost everything.” He turns and looks at her. She’s laughing. He’s shaking. Fear and exhilaration. It’s been a long time.
“You have to promise to keep making me laugh,” she says, taking his face in her hands. “Because I can’t go through with what we’re about to get into without laughing.”
“This won’t be a problem.” He places his hands on her waist and waits a beat. “You’re talking to a guy who faked his orgasms the only two times he had sex in the last four months.”
~ * ~
Bedfellows
Maya sleeps upstairs while Henry sits at the kitchen table, exchanging predawn messages with Meredith, Giffler, and Madden.
According to them, via others, it’s a go. Shockingly, he thinks. But then again, nothing in the corporate world should shock anyone anymore. Whatever you think will happen won’t, and whatever you think doesn’t have a chance will sneak up and kick you in the ass. And depending on anything from a man in a suit, he learned a long time ago, is a cruel mistake.
According to his in-box, Marketing and Sustainability have allocated him a combined initial budget of $25,000 to procure and distribute the LifeStraw to a sample group of Galado’s parched and needy. A big enough sum to make a short-term statement, he notes, but small enough to allow them to cut and run if things change.
Still, according to the final e-mail, written by Meredith and titled “Pat and Audrey’s Amazing Adventure!” Pat and Audrey will be in-country next Thursday, “with a three-person film crew, a personal chef, a same-sex marriage counselor, and a check the size of a long board for the photo op.”
Thursday, he notes. The same day as the Shangri-La Summit.
For several minutes Henry stares at the bank of onscreen messages, all unequivocally good, the subject headings laden with emoticons and exclamation points. All regarding not some fool’s promotion or quarterly earnings that exceeded expectations but a small yet potentially life-changing act of goodwill. Then he turns and looks toward the top of the stairs, where in what is more or less his room a beautiful woman sleeps in what is more or less his bed, and his stomach begins to turn.
It can’t be.
Things can’t possibly be going this well. After a lifetime of meticulously planned failures, can it be that he has found joy, if not bliss, through a series of random reckless and impulsive acts?
Can it last?
~ * ~
“How does it feel to be half of the most glamorous couple in all of USAVille?”
Maya accepts a cup of tea that he’s brewed for her. She’s not wearing the dress but a fresh set of casual clothes for work. Tight black pants, black boots, and a bright red sweater. “Special,” she responds, leaning down to kiss him. “Living in an abandoned subdivision built to accommodate the absolute worst that corporate America has to offer is, for a local girl like me, a dream come true. So what have you been up to?”
He stands, already dressed in jeans, white T, and black cashmere sweater. He looks down at his laptop as if it is a person, a supposed acquaintance he doesn’t yet understand or fully trust. He taps the back of the screen. “It’s. . .crazy.”
“How so?”
“Surprisingly crazy. I-don’t-believe-it-in-a-good-way crazy.”
“Clarify, please.”
“They approved start-up money for the straw.”
Maya smacks her free hand on the table. “Meredith was right!”
“It’s not a lot. Not enough to last more than a few months, to sustain one or two locations at best. But it’s a start.”
“My goodness, Henry,” Maya says, putting down her teacup and wrapping her arms around him. “Do you really think that this might happen?”
“For some reason,” Henry answers, “I do.”
“Then why do you look so unsettled?”
“Because I’m not used to the feeling that forces beyond my control are inexplicably conspiring on my behalf.”
He sits back down and begins to type an e-mail to Madden. Then, thinking better of it, he stops and reaches for his sat-phone.
Over his shoulder Maya asks, “What are you doing?”
Pressing illuminated numbers on the tiny flip pad, he answers, “I’m trying to take care of one last minor detail: acquiring the actual straws.”
“From whom?”
He waits for the ringing to commence. “Madden.”
“Madden? I still don’t understand his connection to water purifiers.” Maya turns, walks to the kitchen sink, and then turns back to finish. “I know that he knows all about how to exploit the situation here for maximum personal profit, but I didn’t know that he was at heart this passionate humanitarian.”
“You want to go through this again? I know you’re not a fan, but he guaranteed me that he knows the guy who has the distribution rights in Galado, who has a direct pipeline to the regional straw guy, and working under this time frame, I have no other choice.”
“Guaranteed. Hah.” She plays with the faucet, pivoting it left and right but not pulling it on. “It’s just that this is such a good thing and . . . well, he’s not.”
Henry presses Stop and snaps the phone closed. As he watches Maya, he thinks of what Madden said on the night drive to his meeting with the timber people: You have to know all the wrong people to get anything done in this country.
“Listen,” he says, “if you can put me in touch with someone else who can turn this around just as fast, that would be all right with me. I’ll meet with them immediately, wherever and whenever they want. Otherwise, I don’t know what to tell you.”
When Maya doesn’t reply, he continues: “All that the suits from Happy Mountain care about is handing over their token check and taking a few well-choreographed photos of their heroic, world-changing founders. They are all for it if it goes down without a hitch, but if we don’t have this ready to roll out by the time they arrive, I can almost guarantee they’ll shut it right down.”
Maya places her cup in the sink, releases a splash of cold water into it, and comes back to the table. “Fine,” she says. “But I don’t want anything to do with him. I don’t want to see him or hear him or hear what anyone else has to say about him.”
Holy Water Page 25