And there’s Dad, in his hat and tie, piloting the family rocket, while Mom, in dress and gloves, hands out sandwiches in individual Mortonware sandwich packs to the kids, a freckle-faced boy in a striped shirt with a cowlick and an angelic girl in a dress, bow in her hair. Mortonware, you may recall, was the company’s short-lived attempt to take on Tupperware in 1957, halted after a chemical in the plastic was found to cause nerve disorders in small children, though no mention of this was made in the documentation.
A young man brought in another portfolio and Gill moved closer to me and opened it.
“These are the sketches for the new campaign,” he said.
“IN THE YEAR 2025” said the heading. Essentially, the sketches showed the same things as the 1959 ads, but more high-tech and with different clothes. The family was still on its way to Mars, for example, but the rocket had a more stream-lined shape and a more complicated-looking control panel, the clothes were distinctly Trekkie, and the Mortonware was missing. Mom and Sis still made dinner but Space-Age Tuna Casserole was out, and a recipe for Chicken of the Future, a healthy stir-fry using Morton-brand olive oil, was in. Women and their robots still were responsible for running the home.
I mentioned this and Morton said, “Well, we want people to be cleaner in the future. We want to promote housecleaning. A couple of years ago, the New york Times did a story about how housework has fallen off nationwide.”
“My point is, men do more of those tasks now. You only show women involved in those tasks in your proposed ads.”
“Good point!” Morton said as if it hadn’t occurred to him.
Sometimes men aren’t too bright. It made me wonder about them anew, and made me wonder how many ideas that ostensibly came from men throughout the years had originated with women, who never got due credit.
We were interrupted then by another of Gill’s men, who came in and said, “The neighbors say they weren’t shooting today. But one of the gardeners says he saw a late-model car, black or dark blue, driving away on the access road. We were unable to track it, but we alerted the local police.”
It must have been those thugs, I thought. How did they know I was going to be out here? Who had I told?
“You know who it was, Gill?” Jack asked.
“No, no idea. Wouldn’t count out the neighbors though. We’re involved in a property dispute and they might not want to admit a shooting mistake while we’re in litigation. The car must have been driving by. Did the gardener say if he saw the car stopped, or saw its occupant?”
“He didn’t,” said Gill’s man.
“All right. Keep an eye on the neighbors. Thanks.”
The butler called us for lunch then, and as we were led to a table in the sunroom, Gill said, “Have your advertising guys call my advertising guys, Jack. I think we can do business.”
The butler poured us wine and served another appetizer made with some kind of goat excretion. The combination of winey goat cheese and being shot at made me queasy.
When a dead dove was placed in front of me, I lost it.
“Where’s the jo …bathroom?” I asked.
“Around the corner and down the hall …”
“Excuse me,” I managed to mumble, flying from the table, down the hallway, to the john, where I just barely missed the toilet and threw up all over the pink marble floor. I managed to get my head to the bowl for the second wave of goat cheese canapés and brandy-spiked tea. I sounded like a laryngitic whale in labor—they had to be able hear me in the sunroom. A third wave came, and I felt the first tremors of a fourth, but it subsided.
Using the very soft pink toilet paper, I mopped up the floor before splashing cold water on my face and rinsing my mouth out a few dozen times with the Scope in the medicine chest. I had to flush the toilet repeatedly, waiting each time for the tank to fill. When I was done, I stood there for a moment to get my composure, go out and face the men who had been listening to me puke and flush for the last fifteen, twenty minutes. I knew they had heard me because I could hear them. I stood there and listened for a moment. The tone of their conversation had changed somewhat.
“So this girl isn’t your girlfriend, is she, Jack?” Morton asked.
“No, no. Can’t do that, she works for me.”
“Not like the good old days, eh, Jack. The pussy I got on the job in the old days. These days they sue. Might as well hire ugly women now.”
Jack didn’t answer, but started coughing, a diplomatic avoidance cough, I figured, a good excuse not to respond to Morton.
“Of course, ugly women sue too. Look what happened to Wally, and while his divorce was going on,” Morton said.
He was talking about Wallace Mandervan, who had been sued for sexual harassment by a woman employee who claimed she could identify his distinctive penis. The woman lost, but not before Mandervan submitted to a court-ordered physical exam to see if he did indeed have an eleven-inch Bubba. He did not, not even close, though he had claimed to for many years. On the upside, he won the case. On the downside, his self-aggrandizement leaked out to the media. Not long after, his bitterly fought divorce came through, and Mandervan disappeared from public view.
“You seen him lately? Mandervan?” I heard Jack say.
“The cocksucker is a recluse. Finishing his book out on his island. I’ll be anxious to read it, see what he says is going to happen.”
“I hear he’s really gone off the deep end.”
“Yeah, you hear a lot of things. Is that girl okay? She’s been gone a long time.”
“Maybe we should check on her.”
They were talking about me.
It was a difficult moment, but I had to go back out and face them.
“You okay? You missed a great dove,” Jack said when I came back.
Mortified, I sat quietly after that. Morton entertained us with more amusing legends about his life, and I was grateful to have the time to get my stomach settled before we got back on the chopper.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
It was early evening when we got away. On the way back, the chopper ride was not nearly so enjoyable.
“What a character,” Jack said.
“Yeah.”
“You going to throw up again?”
“No,” I said. The bravado I had had before with Jack was gone, now that I had completely embarrassed myself in front of my patron. “Sorry about that.”
“Aw, it could have been worse,” Jack said. “You could have barfed at the table. Of course, that, uh, would have saved me having to eat a dove.”
I managed a weak smile.
“Gill got a good laugh out of it. No harm done. Did I ever tell you about the time I threw up on Lord Otterrill at a cricket match in London?” Jack said.
I managed a bigger smile. That’s the kind of guy Jack was. He’d tell one of his own embarrassing stories to put you at ease about your own embarrassment.
“Thanks, Jack. Sorry I forgot to ask Gill about Bald Scot Island.”
“It’s not that great a story. He won the island off a Scottish lord or laird or whatever in a poker game. A bald Scottish lord. You had a rough day, the hunting, then that stray shot fired …”
“And the puking.”
“Oh yeah, the puking,” Jack said, and laughed. “You like Gill?”
“He’s okay.”
“He seems to like you … a lot.”
“He’s too retro for me,” I said. “And he hunts.”
“Yeah, I didn’t think he was your type. You got a boyfriend?”
“Kind of,” I said.
“Good!” Jack said, and seemed genuinely delighted. “Everyone should have someone.”
At that, he caught his breath and turned to the window. He was thinking about Shonny, I presumed.
When he turned back to me he asked, “What does it take to make a woman want to stick around these days?”
“I dunno, Jack. What does it take to make a man want to stick around?”
Neither of us had the answer. We bo
th fell silent. Jack looked back out the window. I did the same.
Jack had two limos waiting for us at heliport, one for him and one for me. On the limo ride from the heliport, I had the driver stop at ANN, so I could pick up some tapes, and then wait for me at my place so I could change for my date with Gus. Romance was the last thing I was in the mood for, but I’d already blown him off twice, and the next week was shaping up to be crazy with work, so this was my only chance to make good with him. If all went according to plan, we could have sex in about a half hour, and I could come home and do a little work before I went to bed, unless Jason beeped me.
When I got back in the limo to go to the Plaza, I scoped out the street to make sure we weren’t being watched or followed. I’m sure the limo driver thought I was a complete loon, though he was classy and betrayed nothing, wouldn’t even answer my questions about men with anything more than, “I am really not in a position to comment on that.”
“You’re a man,” I said.
“Yes,” he said, the only straight answer I got out of him. I understood. He worked for Jackson Broadcasting and didn’t want to say anything provocative, anything that might land him in hot water and jeopardize his job.
As soon as I knocked on Gus’s door at the Plaza, as soon as my knuckles touched door wood, Gus opened it.
“I’m so glad to see you,” he said, in a tone of voice he’d never used before, touching and sad. Then he hugged me and kissed me. He’d been drinking a bit and was unshaven.
“I’m glad to see you too.”
“Come on in. Can I get you something from the minibar?”
“Water?”
“Bubbles or no bubbles?”
“No bubbles please,” I said.
“How have you been?”
“Oh, you know, working at the think tank … it’s tiring. Between the fistfighting thugs, the eccentric moguls, and the missing bonobo chimps …”
“Heh. That’s funny,” he said with absolutely no enthusiasm, and didn’t parry back. He handed me a glass of water and slumped down on the bed.
“How are you?” I prompted.
“My audition tomorrow was canceled. I heard from my agent this morning,” he said.
“A patient, you mean?” I asked, prodding him back into the game.
“Oh right, a … patient, second patient this week, fourth this month.”
The way he looked at me, I knew he wanted to talk awhile first, which was going to totally upset my schedule.
“Sorry to hear that,” I said.
“I lost two parts this month to the same asshole. Stash Tumley. Pumped-up pretty boy. Casting director didn’t think I was good-looking enough.…”
“You’re great-looking,” I said.
“Hollywood doesn’t think so.… It’s not just Hollywood. The part last week was for a Boston chamber of commerce commercial, a national ad. The casting director was such a dick.… What am I going to do?”
Damn, he was getting real on me now. Okay, I hadn’t been lying either when I told him about the fistfighting thugs and the bonobos, but he didn’t know that. I put a little effort into it at least, making my voice sound like I was lying. But no, he wanted to talk and be truthful and ruin everything.
So I reached over, brushed my lips softly against his face and put my hand on his crotch, and I could tell he appreciated that, but he didn’t stop talking. Man, had I moved into some parallel universe where men I wanted to have sex with only wanted to talk to me?
“Maybe I should just go back to Canada and get a job in my family’s salmon cannery, like my brother.”
“You’re from Canada? Really?”
“Really. I wasn’t lying about that.”
“You don’t have an accent.”
“I lost it so I could work as an actor in the U.S.”
“Your family has a salmon cannery. Really? You weren’t lying about that?”
“No, I wasn’t lying about the cannery. The family has several canneries and some real estate.”
“Harry the hairy pet salmon?”
“True.”
“Your late stepfather being an encyclopedia salesman who bought a cannery, then another …”
“It’s true,” he admitted. “I only started lying because you thought I was lying and I was trying to play along. Oh Jesus, I am such a loser, just like my late stepfather always said. I’m going to spend my life in salmon. And I’m probably lucky to be able to do that.…”
“You’re not a loser,” I said.
“How do you know?”
“I … I just know,” I said.
Well, hot, primal sex was definitely out now. At this point, it was looking more and more like sympathy sex. I had to get that ball rolling, too, take the initiative as they say. His mind was elsewhere, mine was elsewhere. The sex had all the fire and passion of a sneeze. When it was over, he had another drink and went completely silent and sullen.
Now, if this guy was my boyfriend, I’d make a little effort to get to the bottom of it, draw him out, cheer him up. But he had broken the rules. We were liars, in this for the fun and games, and he’d spoiled it by telling the truth and being all depressing and real. He was forcing me to feel for him and worry about him when I had, oh, one or two other things to worry about and surely didn’t need any more emotional complexity right now.
“Want to hear a good joke?” I asked, and then couldn’t think of one. My beeper went off. It was Jason, and the message said simply, “Beep me. Hat important.”
“Thanks anyway,” Gus said. “Can you stay the night?”
“I really wish I could,” I said. “I’m sorry. I have a lot to do tonight, and I have to be up early tomorrow.…”
“Who beeped you?”
“This loony animal rights activist who is working with me on the case of the missing bonobos,” I said.
“You know, you can stop lying now,” he said. His voice had turned suddenly cold. “You can talk to me like a real human being.”
“Oh, okay,” I said. “We’ll try that, next time I see you. I gotta go make a call. Keep the faith, okay? Try to have a laugh tonight or something. It’s always darkest before the dawn.…”
And so forth. How I wanted to be a goddamned ray of sunshine, but I just couldn’t pull it off tonight.
For some reason, I felt really guilty about Gus, not just because I’d deserted him in a time of need, but like I was cheating on my Irish boyfriend, Mike, which was silly. We were both free people and Mike had certainly hinted he wanted to be even freer, of me at least. After all, Mike was traveling with a circus full of sultry East European women in sequin bodysuits and surely not thinking of me at the moment.
Yet I felt bad because I was sure that, despite everything, if Mike knew about me and Gus, it would hurt his feelings. Mike got jealous sometimes, but I was not allowed to. I mean, I remember picking up my laundry from the wash-dry-fold place on Avenue C, and the guys there were really friendly with me. Mike got miffed. Afterward I said, “They’re just being nice.”
“Yeah, because you let them wash your panties,” he said, and was in a lousy mood all day after that.
But I was not allowed to get upset when, e.g., I read in the rumor file six months ago that former ANN cameraman Michael O’Reilly had been chased naked through the streets of Moscow by a hysterical lover. Let me rephrase that. I was allowed to be upset that poor Mike had been subjected to such humiliation by some psycho woman. I was not allowed to be angry with him, even though this came not long after he had discussed monogamy.
My guilt about seeing Gus had never lasted too long before. I always rebelled against it. When it was just sex, it seemed okay. But now that Gus had opened up, now that there was intimacy involved, I felt kind of shitty about it, about Mike’s obliviousness, about leaving Gus instead of spending the night.
What a shit I was. Why wasn’t I more nurturing and all that, the way women are supposed to be? I felt for him, a lot, and I felt guilty for leaving but I had problems of my own, yo
u know? Missing bonobos, dead scientists, thugs, not to mention a major series I was supposed to be writing now so I could start editing on Monday. I needed his problems too? He was supposed to use me sexually, and here he was, trying to establish intimacy. The reason this fling worked was because of a simple understanding: No intimacy! Gus had wanted it that way. I guess I did too, if only to keep me from falling in love with him, which would have been oh so easy, and oh so dangerous because he was, after all, an actor, and younger than me, and out of town most of the time.
In an alcove near the Plaza gift shops, I found a bank of pay phones and beeped Jason, sending the message, “Going home now. Why is hat important?”
Before I left the hotel, I bought the tabloid newspapers at the gift shop, as I hadn’t had time to read them that day. They hadn’t yet heard the rest of the story about Luc Bondir, Frenchie, you know, being officially dead for fifteen years, having faked his own death by killing someone else in a drug lab explosion.
When I got home, there was a message from Mike on my answering machine. Veronkya had successfully made her no-net leap and it was a huge triumph. And the Harben hat was winging its way toward me.
I beeped Jason again with the message: “Hat here tomorrow.”
A few minutes later, he beeped back: “In meeting. Talk to you tomorrow.”
One of the tapes I’d brought home earlier was of the DeWitt interview and before I went to bed I watched it, hoping to pick up a clue. Friend of bonobos, my ass. Alana DeWitt had no feeling for anyone other than herself and her women followers who thought exactly like her. The rest of us were meaningless to her except in that she could use us.
“Women compromise themselves, their ‘selves,’ constantly to get along with men. We should have been running the world long before now,” Alana DeWitt said in the interview, and cited a study that showed a correlation between high estrogen and high IQ in women. She read a quote from Elizabeth Gould Davis—“Maleness remains a recessive genetic trait like color blindness and hemophilia, with which it is linked. The suspicion that maleness is abnormal and the Y chromosome is an accidental mutation boding no good for the race is strongly supported by the … discovery by geneticists that congenital killers and criminals are possessed of not one but two Y chromosomes, bearing a double dose, as it were, of genetically undesirable maleness.”
The Last Manly Man Page 15