Spin Dry

by Greg Hollingshead

  For a few minutes Rachel and Sally marvelled at Gretchen together like old friends, and then there was an awkward silence, Sally sitting with her head on a tilt twisting a strand of tangled hair between her thumb and forefinger, looking old, a faraway smile, and Rachel smiling politely back about to say, Sorry, but she guessed she probably also should—

  “Rachel?” Sally said. “Don’t screw Nick Sirocco.” When Rachel, who was too surprised, did not say anything, Sally added, “Gretchen told me.”

  Damn Gretchen. She had done this to Rachel all her life. Told other people more than she let on to Rachel she had even heard.

  “Why not?”

  “Cause he ain’t no Harry.”

  “No? And so who is he?” Rachel’s anger rising.

  “Just a guy. Not a nice guy. I—this friend of mine used to go out with him. He broke her—”

  “I know. Heart.”

  “Arm.”

  “So who’s Harry?” quickly.

  “Wish I knew. I’d get out my bazooka right away.”

  They looked at each other until Rachel said, “Gretchen put you up to this.”

  “Nope,” shaking her head.

  “Yeah, right—” Rachel reached for her coat.

  “She didn’t—”

  On her way out, Rachel looked back just once. Sally was sitting with her elbows on the table, her face in her hands.

  ——

  Rachel arrived home murderous. Guilt sufferers can do without public reminders. She was still debriefing herself on that broken arm when she came upon Leon hunched at the dining-room table. Working late, in order to become a big success at real estate. Going all out. Giving it his best. Rachel’s heart swelled. Tears filled her eyes. How could she ever consider—Oh shame, shame!

  Softly she spoke his name.

  Like those of a man shot in the back, Leon’s arms flew into the air. “Whhaaaghh!!”

  “Sorry—”

  “Why do you always have to pussyfoot around?” He was slumped across the table. “One of these days you’re going to give me a coronary.”

  “Leon—”

  “What is it.” Leon’s upper body came off the table. “I’m busy here.”

  “I have something to tell you.”

  “Don’t bother.” Straightening papers. “I know all about it. Have fun.”

  “Leon—!”

  “I’m not a complete fool, you know.”

  “Leon, I want you to know there’s nothing to it—” Yet—

  “Nothing covers a lot of ground, Rachel.”

  “It’s just lunch.”

  “No, no. Be my guest. Take breakfast and dinner too.”

  “Pardon?”

  “Rachel, thanks. But it’s a little late for me to appreciate it. I’m sure he does.”

  “Too late—?”

  “Right. I’ve stopped.”

  “Stopped what?”

  “What are we talking about? Feeding Wilkes—”

  “You’ve stopped feeding Cam Wilkes? Since when?”

  “Saturday.”

  “Saturday? Leon, he’ll be hungry!” Rachel thought of stocking your birdhouse all November and then spending the winter in Florida. What about the birds?

  “I’m sure lunch’ll do him.”

  “Leon, are you ducking out on Cam Wilkes the way you ducked out on Harry?”

  As soon as this question had sunk in, Leon’s eyes swelled with rancour. “Once and for all, Rachel. Harry was never really my problem, was he. And if I was fool enough to think Cam Wilkes was mine, I learned better Friday night.”

  It then came out that after that real estate reception on Friday, Leon had found Wilkes in the kitchen eating a Baskin and Robbins Mud Pie, right out of the foil.”

  Baskin and Robbins don’t deliver, do they,” Rachel murmured.

  At the time Leon had been so angry he could only slam down a Burger King double cheeseburger and a large Coke and stalk out. But last night, thinking that if there had been a misunderstanding he had punished Wilkes enough by not feeding him for two days, Leon went back with a Wendy’s fishburger and asked him point-blank where he had got that Mud Pie. Here Leon paused to glower at Rachel until she cried,

  “Me? Leon, I didn’t take him any pie! You saw me. I was at the reception with you!”

  “So what have you just been telling me? Who’s the Girl on His Bus? Listen, Rachel. If you want to take over the feeding and general maintenance of this hypocritical I’m-too-damaged-to-come-out-of-my-basement bullshit, then go right ahead. I’m fed up with playing Ronald McDonald to that dingbat. It’s time he joined the outside world.”

  “Leon—”

  “Rachel, I’m saying I’m done with that guy. Finito tuto.”

  So Rachel got back into the car and drove over to see Cam Wilkes. On the way she picked up a McDonald’s BLT, fries, and a coffee. Like Leon, she did not bother to ring. The key was under the mat. She switched on the hall light, aware of dismantled bus parts looming from the dark of the dining room as she made her way down the hall towards the kitchen. There she sighed with a great weariness because Leon, his mind more with realestate than with Cam Wilkes lately, had been letting things slide: dishes were piled high on the counter, a dozen green garbage bags stank at the door to the patio.

  Rachel crossed to the cellar door and called, “Cam! Dinner!” down into the darkness, listening until she heard a kind of scrabbling. At her feet was the Wendy’s fishburger. Untouched. “Cam!” she called again, scared now. “Are you all right?” No answer. She replaced the fishburger with the BLT, fries, and coffee on a styrofoam tray but could not bear to close the door on it the way she had seen Leon do so often. She worked on dishes for a while, checking every few minutes. Then she did close the door and worked for a long interval on dishes and on carrying the garbage out to the garage. When she came back into the kitchen the basement door was open and Cam Wilkes was standing on the top step holding the tray of food. “Cam!” she cried. “It’s so nice to see you!” He was gaunt and wispy-haired but carefully groomed. His pajamas, though bottle green, had pleats.

  “I saw her,” he replied, holding out the tray.

  “Who did you see, Cam?” Rachel asked, automatically stepping forward to take it.

  Cam Wilkes’ teeth bared in a wolfish grin. “No need for this,” he whispered.

  “Come sit down and we’ll talk,” Rachel tried, setting the tray on the kitchen table. “I haven’t seen you for weeks, Cam. Why don’t you have something to eat, and we can chat.”

  The smile dissolved. He remained where he was. “You’re not her, Rachel. It’s that simple.”

  “You mean I’m not the Girl on Your Bus.”

  “Right,” nodding.

  If Rachel was disappointed to be displaced, she was more afraid for Cam. Like Leon, like Gretchen, like herself, like probably the whole world, he was slipping, wasn’t he?

  “Oh, Cam!” she cried, stepping forward, reaching to grasp his hands as if she would pull him back to sanity.

  But his hands were not available to her. “She came to see me,” he said.

  Oh, you poor, unhappy man!

  “She heard me playing the Melody for the Girl on My Bus, and she remembered, Rachel. She heard it from another bus, the one that stops across the street. My basement window was open. She heard and got off and came to find me. She came straight down into the basement where I was playing, behind the furnace. She touched my shoulder and said seven simple words. Words I will never forget: ‘You were the Man on My Bus’. In my heart I knew right away it was her. But amazement made me stubborn. I insisted that you were the Girl on My Bus, Rachel. A frightened lie. She went away.”

  “Oh no!” Rachel did not know if it was sadder to have an imaginary visitor or for your imaginary visitor to go away.

  “That was Thursday,” Wilkes continued. “On Friday she brought me a Mud Pie. We talked and talked. There was so much to say. So many years of cloven longing. And she’ll come again. Perhaps one day you
’ll meet her, Rachel. She’s someone you’ll recognize—”

  “Who!?”

  “You’ll see—” Wilkes was half-turned to go back downstairs.

  “Cam!”

  He paused. “Rachel, thank you both for everything. And please thank the people at McDonald’s for getting it all to taste the same, not just from day to day but as everything else. There’s a lot to be said for old-fashioned reliability in today’s uncertain world. Except, I don’t need that kind of assurance now. I found her.”

  He went back down into the blackness. A minute later there came floating up those dark stairs an ineffable melody of sadness and grace.

  Fearing it had come time to call a social agency, Rachel finished cleaning up Wilkes’ kitchen and drove home. Leon was still at the dining-room table.

  “Leon, he says he got the Mud Pie from the Girl on His Bus, and he insists that she’s not me.”

  “I thought you looked shaken.”

  “He’s refusing to eat. He says he’s in love with the real Girl on His Bus and he doesn’t need food.”

  “Makes sense.”

  “He says she came to him in his basement.”

  “That was bold. Maybe from our failing hands she’ll catch the torch.”

  “He says it’s somebody I’ll recognize.”

  “In the mirror.”

  “He needs help, Leon.”

  “To that I say, from now on let’s just help these two folks right here, OK?”

  Rachel sat down in a chair at the end of the table. “Leon, why are you being so callous?”

  “Because I believe our Mr. Wilkes is perfectly able to take care of himself. He tried that no-need-for-food stuff on me too. All it means is he wants out of being fed by me, because he knows I’ve seen through him and I’m breaking it off anyway. He’s sly, but he’s got his pride. With you it doesn’t matter. He knows you’re so smitten by being the Girl on His Bus that there’s nothing he can do that will shame him in your eyes.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’ll tell you what I’m talking about. He’s making you jealous by pretending he’s found the ‘true’ Girl on His Bus, because he knows that in your eagerness to reclaim that title, you’ll do anything he wants, such as continue to feed him and whatever else you two have worked out—”

  “Leon, don’t be a creep. What if he really is so deluded? What if it’s you deserting him that’s made him crack? Don’t you think you just might have come to mean a lot to him?”

  “What if it’s all my fault, you’re asking me? Is that it? The old story for you, eh Rachel?”

  “Please don’t get defensive. I’m worried about Cam, that’s all.”

  “Well, don’t be. He’s playing love games, and that’s strictly your business. I’ve got more important things on my mind.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like tomorrow I’m having lunch with Nick Sirocco, and I have to be up on my homework. Tomorrow he breaks the details of the deal.”

  “He didn’t break them in the helicopter?”

  “Not everything. Tomorrow it’s him and me across the table.”

  “You’ll do fine.”

  “I intend to. I’m holding out for twelve percent.”

  “Instead of what?”

  “Ten, probably.”

  “Leon, that’s crazy!”

  “Thanks for the immediate, gut support.”

  “Leon, why risk it? You could make some money here—”

  “A lot of money.”

  “And you intend to hold out for two lousy percent?”

  “Look at it objectively. I’m new at this game. If I wasn’t the only possible one for the job, why would he pick a fledgling? Obviously I’ve got something he needs.”

  “Leon, it sounds like you don’t really know what this is about yet. You’re just feeling anxious and trying to find some way to screw up because that’s what you’re used to doing.”

  “Whew. Thanks, Rachel. But, unbelievable as it may sound to you, I don’t need this. Pep talks with a knife can start to get a guy down after a while. I mean, didn’t bloodletting go out around a hundred years before bobby socks?”

  “Leon, don’t worry about tomorrow. Listen to what the deal is and then respond as intelligently as you can. That’s all you can hope to—” “As intelligently as I can? Thanks again, Rachel. You sure know how to mete out the insecurity. I guess I had to be feeling confident again to see how good at it you are.”

  “It’s not true, Leon. You’re just upset—”

  Leon threw down his pencil. “Stop telling me what I just fucking am!”

  Leon’s bellow was still echoing from the living room when the phone rang.

  Shaking, Rachel took the call upstairs. It was Gretchen, with advice for dealing with Nick Sirocco. “It’s simple. If he happens to call you first, make the date, and I’ll go instead.”

  “Sounds familiar.”

  “Right—Hey, are you OK? You don’t sound so great.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “And it didn’t work? Please, Rachel. All I have to be is more surprised than he is. You can’t afford to get involved at a time like this. The guilty party is Leon, remember? You’d be risking a major income supplement. Sirocco’s a businessman. He’ll understand. You thought better of it but didn’t want the poor guy to spend an evening alone—these business dynamos get so lonely—and thought of your best friend. Had to trick me of course or I’d never do it. I’m practically engaged to Ted, after all. Sirocco’s so smooth he probably won’t even let on.”

  “I won’t do this for you, Gretchen.”

  Gretchen blew smoke past the mouthpiece. “Leon comes out of the closet and immediately you have to reassure yourself you’re still a woman. Rachel, you’ve got more on the ball than that.”

  “Goodbye, Gretchen.”

  “He’s already called, hasn’t he.”

  “I have to go. Leon and I are having a fight.”

  “Is it Harry?”

  As Rachel put down the receiver it occurred to her that if Gretchen was not up to something very different from what she appeared to be, then age had dulled her cunning. It was not like her to beg. What was the Molstad family motto, again?

  The phone rang. “Numquam desperare,” Gretchen said. “The female Molstad is not an animal.”

  “Right.”

  “Just remember that.”

  “I was trying.”

  “Good. Carry on.”

  When Rachel came back downstairs, Leon had descended to his basement study beside the garage, to signify that he was not to be disturbed.

  “Rachel,” said Alex Silver, slumped in his chair across that smoked glass table with the giant anthurium on it in his office in Village Market Square. “My first question. Were you afraid for Leon or for yourself? After all, he was getting himself together—”

  “Himself, yes. Our relationship, no.”

  “But why undermine him? What if he needed a little success in business before he could feel confident enough to work on his personal life?”

  “I wasn’t undermining him. I was trying to prepare him for—”

  “Failure?”

  “Disappointment!”

  “Same diff! Surely you already knew that any fooling on your part with Nick Sirocco would jeopardize Leon’s chances? Could this be one of the reasons you were so attracted to a punk like—”

  “Dammit Alex. Are you suggest—”

  “No, I want to leave these questions with you and go one step further. I want you to tell me what, exactly, you thought at that point about Harry. One guy by definition, you’ll notice, not a failure. You’ve got three minutes.”

  Rachel objected for at least that long to Silver’s insinuations, and then she considered Harry. “It wasn’t all that coherent, really. Sometimes I blamed him for the big moral slide I was on, and sometimes I thought of him as the guy who turns up and fixes everything, but like a proper saviour first he shows you just how bad things r
eally are. Other times I told myself Leon hadn’t left Harry and me behind at all. The reason he was so volatile and impatient was not his old insecurity but the knowledge, in his heart, that he was getting into something he didn’t really want to be getting into. Harry was still alive for Leon too, only he didn’t want to know it—”

  “And Sirocco?”

  “I said not coherent. Because if it was true, then obviously Sirocco was no more my Harry than Leon’s. Or the worst kind of Harry. My only hope was that Sirocco could give me more thana tacky little affair and Leon more than a tacky little sweetheart deal. And I thought, hey, maybe Harry goes deeper than an idea: he’s a habit. Ticking over whether the thoughts about him are pro or con. It’s all grist. So Sally could warn me this Nick Sirocco thing was an irresponsible aside, but what if it fed into Harry, like a crucial step in some kind of spiral progression? Sirocco would be an experience, and the experience would feed into Harry. That was it. It would feed in. Somehow. Like studying Latin to raise your consciousness.”

  “A Latin.”

  “Aha ha. Otherwise I was too busy stonewalling Gretchen to think about it much.”

  “Did you want to think about it?”

  “And all this cold and hostile behaviour from Leon,” ignoring the question, “was great for easing the guilt. But just to make sure, I stopped off at a Millpond fish place after work. In celebration, or consolation, after his meeting with Sirocco, Leon was going to get an intimate shrimp meal by candlelight if I had to ram it down his throat—But you know what the funniest thing was, Alex?”

  “No, what?”

  “That I could go from intending to sleep with Sirocco to intending not to sleep with Sirocco and back again without even noticing.”

  “It’s not so funny, believe me.”

  On her return to the Dream Centre after her session with Silver, Rachel stopped by 201 Dell for a shower and something to eat. She sure had been hungry for the last couple of days. Sighing, she ate straight from the fridge, squatting in its puddle of light. Cleaned it right out.

  An hour and a half later she was back at the Dream Centre, where she found Alex Silver at his desk in the big room going through printouts. Babs and Frankie were not around.

  “What did you decide about the other room, Alex?”