Patience, My Dear

by Bower Lewis

“What the hell is that?”

  She glanced up, and Zane Grey Ellison looked confident of nothing in the world. She gestured down to the cell she’d made damn sure was still submerged when they’d left O’Malley’s the night before.

  “That, Zane, is the physical manifestation of my schizophrenia. Either that or it’s God. Take your pick.”

  • • •

  Zane ignored the periodic chirps and bleats as he scrolled back through the messages.

  “God likes emoticons.”

  “Yes,” she replied. “He does.”

  He shook his head at some of The Biz’s less decipherable stabs at text speak and turned it off when he came to the end at last.

  “Who do you think is doing this?”

  “I think I am.”

  He raised an eyebrow at her. “If you were schizophrenic, you’d just be schizophrenic. You wouldn’t be trying to bully yourself and your hallucinations into believing that you were, and I certainly wouldn’t be able to see any of this.”

  “I’ve been thinking about that.” She tugged at a torn bit of the blanket, wrapping the errant threads around her index finger until its tip turned as purple as her mood. “I believe you might be schizophrenic, too, Zane. I’m really sorry about that.”

  He laughed and set the phone back down. “I’m not schizophrenic, Patience, and neither are you. Which brings us to your second theory.”

  “Don’t be absurd.”

  “I think I earned the right to be as absurd as I like the moment your hallucination called my cell phone.”

  He leaned back as the threads she was tugging ripped a gash up the side of the blanket.

  “What the hell is wrong with you? You noticed a girl on a window ledge yesterday morning and you waved at her. Now you’re sitting here, calmly trying to determine whether it’s reasonable to assume that I’ve been receiving text messages from an iPhone-obsessed God—as if that’s no more unexpected than spam email or a fundraising call from the Fraternal Order of Police. Does none of this strike you as even a little over-the-top? Because, frankly, Wayne, it’s freaking me out.”

  He glanced up for the briefest moment, and then a strange look passed over his face. “I suppose I might be slightly more accustomed to the over-the-top than the average person,” he said. “My life, until recently, was spent in an environment most would probably consider fairly surreal.”

  He appeared uncertain about elaborating further.

  “Were you raised by circus performers or something?”

  “No.” He paused. “My father is Rutherford Ellison.”

  Patience busied herself with collecting the aspirin and water glasses from the table.

  “You’ve heard of him, then?”

  A few drops of water sloshed from a glass as she turned back to face him. “Of course I’ve heard of him, Zane. I may not be the most tuned-in person in the world, but I’m not unconscious.”

  He dropped an arm over his eyes and leaned back, then caught her wrist to prevent her return to the kitchen. Patience exhaled and turned back again. She hadn’t meant to be rude or to make him feel self-conscious, but he kept catching her off guard. She was also a little intimidated by him now, and that irritated her as well. It was just money, for crying out loud—that and the inalienable power and prestige that fortressed the Ellison name. As if the guy wasn’t trouble enough already.

  “I wasn’t trying to impress you,” Zane said. “Which is good, of course, because it’s obvious that I haven’t. I was just trying to clarify that if I seem a little less thrown by unusual occurrences than others tend to be, it’s probably because I’m still acclimating to the everyday world. I’ve only just moved up from Hyannis, and at least half of what I encounter tends to strike me as somewhat unusual. I’m learning to roll with the punches when the dots don’t seem to connect, Patience, because nine times out of ten, the piece that’s missing between those dots is with me.”

  She just stared back at him. “I thought you said you went to Harvard.”

  “I did.”

  “You weren’t able to get some sense of the everyday world after four years in Cambridge?”

  “I didn’t live in Cambridge. I lived in Hyannis, where I pretended to manage banks in my off hours. That was the deal I struck with my father—I could live anywhere I liked while pursuing a field of study that would advance me toward an MBA or law degree or I could live at home and commute while gaining work experience if I insisted upon studying inane drivel like philosophy and religion.”

  Patience pulled on a smile and sat awkwardly beside him again. There was too much about Zane that she couldn’t understand, and she was trying so hard not to like him.

  “Well, it was admirable of you to stick to your convictions.”

  He shrugged.

  “It was the single stupidest decision I’ve ever made in my life. I threw away four years of freedom over a pissing match with my father. I could have studied all the philosophy and religion I wanted through elective courses and free access to the world’s largest academic library. No one’s ever died from understanding business or the law. In fact, a degree like that might even come in handy someday, if I ever figure out what I want to do with my life.”

  She stared down at the gummy mess on the coffee table. She’d really liked this response from him, although she wasn’t entirely clear why. Finally, she stifled a sigh and looked up again. “Is it strange that I didn’t recognize you?”

  “Not at all.” He didn’t sound terribly convincing. “There’s a lot to be said for juxtaposition. Allston can be pretty good camouflage when I want it to be.” He paused and looked down as a wry smile slid onto his face. “My name tends to ring a bell with most people, though.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t apologize.”

  She chewed on her lower lip. Something wasn’t coming together for her. “If that’s true, Zane, and you’re trying to fly under the radar here in Allston, then why on Earth did you make such a big deal out of telling me your name last night?”

  He shrugged at the threadbare rug with a sheepish expression.

  “Because last night I was trying to impress you.”

  She turned back to the kitchen, heartless to his dismayed expression. Members of the Ellison family didn’t get caught sunbathing nude on remote islands or fall down in VIP rooms. They sat on the boards of humanitarian organizations and donated art to museums. The sons of Rutherford Ellison most certainly did not move out to dingy apartments in Allston, and they didn’t trouble themselves about the opinions of a waitress on the verge of a mental breakdown. Patience had never been a gullible girl, so the fact that she hadn’t yet doubted a word this man had said seemed proof enough that she was insane.

  At least he wasn’t texting her.

  She paused before the sink. “What happened to it, if you don’t mind me asking? Did you lose it in the stock market or something?”

  There was no response for a moment as she stared down into the two-day-old dishes. Then he appeared in the doorway.

  “To the money?” he asked. “Nothing’s happened to it. It’s safe and diverse and being very well cared for, I can assure you of that. I turned twenty-five recently, and a greater degree of freedom has become available to me. I’ve chosen to exercise it, that’s all.”

  “You’ve chosen to exercise it in Allston?”

  “Why not?” He glanced at the untouched coffee mugs on the counter. “I didn’t want to live on Beacon Hill, and other than the really dodgy parts you read about in the papers, I wasn’t familiar enough with the neighborhoods of Boston to know which areas I might find interesting enough to want to live in. So I opened up the Apartments for Rent section in the paper and set my finger down on a listing. It’s worked out pretty well, in my opinion. The apartment is right on the Green Line and O’Malley’s is just around the corner. What’s not to like?”

  She laughed, despite herself, and poured the coffee at last. He pounced on his mug like a starving man on a fre
e filet mignon.

  “Well, it gets way too much wireless coverage for my tastes.” Patience sighed. She was quiet a moment, and then she turned back. “So how long has it been, exactly, since you ditched the family compound for the mean streets of Allston?”

  “It’s an estate, actually,” Zane replied. “It’s not a compound. There are outbuildings, of course, but just one primary residence.” He squeezed his eyes shut then, as the pink crept up from his collar. Then he shook it off and continued. “It’ll be three weeks ago tomorrow. I’m starting to feel like one of the locals.”

  She took the cup back from his hand and turned to the sink again. Three weeks ago tomorrow was the very day a strange voice had broken into her head and refused to go away. She didn’t know what was happening, but she needed Zane to leave.

  The phone bleated and she ran past him to the living room. A picture of Joey Forsyth appeared on the screen, shimmering in all his Plasticine and porcelain glory. And that’s when Patience broke.

  “That is it! I’m out. I can’t take this one second more!”

  She threw the window up and leaned out into the wind. Zane leapt and pulled her back, stumbling as his foot caught the corner of the table and they fell together to the floor. He lay frozen above her for a moment, breathing into her hair as his wits returned, and then he scrambled back with his neck glowing approximately the color of her hair.

  Patience pulled herself up to sit with the sticky phone still in her hand. She stared down at it and then held it up for him to see.

  “I was only going to litter.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Patience sat alone in a booth at Murray’s Diner, thumbing impatiently through a gossip magazine. Zane had promised to be quick, but he’d been gone over thirty minutes, and it had been at least twenty-five since she’d lost interest in her reading material.

  The bell above the door jangled and a pristine new cell phone skidded across the table.

  “What the hell is that?”

  He slid onto the bench across from her, grabbed a menu from the holder, and opened it.

  “That’s your new phone. Please try not to break it.”

  He ignored her glares, keeping his attention on the breakfast choices as a look of wonder spread over his face. Patience slapped her hand down in the middle of his perusing.

  “I never agreed to a new phone, Zane. What’s going on here? Are you on His side, now?”

  “Am I on His side?” He nudged her hand away with the backs of his fingers. “He’s the fucking Lord, for Christ’s sake, so yes, Patience, I suppose you could say I’m on His side. What is hash, exactly? Would I like it?”

  “Do you like greasy lumps of starch mixed in with your mutilated meat products?”

  He looked back up without a trace of irony in his expression. “I really couldn’t say. I’ve never tried either.”

  She tossed the weekly toward him. “You’re not even in this one.”

  He didn’t even glance at the magazine’s cover. “I should think not.”

  “For crying out loud, Zane, what is wrong with you? Even if I accept that it’s the Lord or God or Whoever-the-Hell that’s been harassing me these past few weeks, His great plan, thus far, seems to be hinged upon torturing me with text speak and beaming me pictures of douchey, has-been, boy band singers. Schizophrenia is the lesser evil, as far as I’m concerned. How can you support this?”

  “I know Joey Forsyth.” Zane nodded. “And douchey doesn’t begin to describe him. Joey and Alexander Rockwell have been trying to get in thick with my family since his unfortunate Boi II Boi heyday, and they’ve been particularly gross about it since their attention shifted to politics.”

  “Who is Alexander Rockwell?”

  He looked up from the menu. “Alex was Joey’s business manager and the mastermind behind Boi II Boi. Now he’s his business manager, campaign manager, chief strategist, and primary spokesman. The common term for Alex’s role in Joey’s life, I believe, is puppet master. Joey doesn’t take a piss without Alex’s say-so.”

  “Oh.” Patience looked down. “That makes me feel sort of sad, actually.”

  “Well, that’s a waste of a perfectly good pout. Someone’s got to tell Joey what to do, and at least with them always together, I can avoid them as a unit. Alex’s aspirations toward my father’s endorsement run toward pathological, and Joey’s not far behind him there. I need a spatula to scrape the ooze from my clothes whenever I run into either one of those guys. I will say this for Alex, however—he’s good at what he does. I don’t care how many pockets they’re living in, I’d have bet my entire trust fund that Joey’s first run at the state senate was going to end in spectacular defeat. Good thing for me I’m not a betting man, because, clearly, I was wrong.”

  “Joey Forsyth is a state senator?”

  Zane closed the menu at last and leaned in across the table. “Former boy band sensation is elected to the Massachusetts State Senate, and this is the first you’re hearing of it? He’s in his second term, Patience, and he’s making a pretty heated run at the U.S. Senate as we speak. These have not been media-quiet campaigns.”

  She shrugged.

  “Politics bore me. And so do boy bands.”

  “Well, you might want to get interested in this. Joey Forsyth is a moron, but Alexander Rockwell is anything but. They’re connected to a lot people with a lot of money, and they haven’t got a scruple to split between them. If God wants you on this, I think you’d better—”

  “Didn’t Joey Forsyth claim to be from the projects, but it turned out that he grew up in Needham or something?”

  A resigned look set into Zane’s face. He shook his head and signaled for their waitress.

  “Your geography’s off, but I believe you’re thinking of Vanilla Ice. The members of Boi II Boi were very rich and very white, and they weren’t at all shy about getting up in your face about either of those things. It was pretty devious packaging, considering what was coming out of Boston at the time. That’s Alex for you, though. He’s been slapping a new label on Joey and selling him off as the latest thing ever since they were kids.”

  The waitress set their coffees down and Patience ordered her omelet. She sighed, then, as Zane started in on the first of a hundred questions, and she resolved to be more responsive to his inquiries in the future, for the sake of expediency. She did note that the waitress didn’t seem at all put off by the grilling, despite the busy lunch rush.

  The phone chimed as he finished, and Patience shut it off. Zane reached across the table and closed her fingers around its case. “Joey could very well win this thing next Tuesday,” he said. “I, for one, would like to know why God is putting him on your radar. Please stop screening His calls, Patience. You need to answer the damn phone.”

  She pulled back and he released her hand.

  “I disagree.”

  “Well then.” He shrugged. “Maybe we’ve finally figured out why I’m here.”

  • • •

  If The Biz wanted her attention, He had it now. Even Zane’s enthusiasm for the fare of the common man expired as they studied the messages He sent between the corned beef hash and his order of Eggs Ala Murray. Joey Forsyth might be a douche bag, but he was a douche bag caught in the eye of a perfect storm of selfishness, stupidity, and influence—a lit match hovering at the tip of a long and inextinguishable fuse, the other end of which lay embedded in the Powder Keg of Doom. Or, to put it more succinctly, the world would end in ten years’ time and Joey Forsyth started it.

  Patience pushed the phone back across the table.

  “No,” she said. “Sorry, Wayne, but I’m out. This one’s all yours.”

  He picked it up again and slid around to her side of the booth as she locked her eyes on the world passing outside. She’d never regretted an omelet more.

  “This is serious.”

  “This is a lie. It’s a sick prank, being pulled by a sick person. If you fall for it, Zane, you’re even more delusional than I am.”r />
  “You wouldn’t be the first to suggest that.”

  She glanced back at him and was surprised to see that he’d turned a little gray himself. His face was determined, though, and he kept at it, catching the texts and images as they came in. As hard as she tried, Patience couldn’t quite keep her eyes from wandering back to the multimedia horror show unfolding between them.

  As his first official order of business, U.S. Senator Joseph M. Forsyth would add an amendment to an already sponsored, publicly popular, miraculously bipartisan, renewable energy bill. The amendment called for the construction of a revolutionary new type of power plant, the first of which was currently in development by SolarTech Industries (the same SolarTech Industries that had been channeling money into the Forsyth Campaign’s hopper through third party donations since his first term in the Massachusetts General Court). The success of these plants would exceed even SolarTech’s expectations, harnessing more energy by the second than any previous source of solar energy, for a fraction of the cost of fossil fuels.

  The waste being emitted into the Earth’s atmosphere by the process they’d developed to separate the electrons from their atoms in the composition of the solar cells would not be detected until the damage was irreversible. The first casualty would be the polar ice caps, resulting in tsunamis and flooding across all seven continents. The receding waters would leave pestilence and disease behind, and earthquakes and fires would come next. By the time the Earth finally burned itself out, there would be no one left to mourn for it. The changes in the planet’s atmosphere would render it incapable of sustaining life within seven years of the first plant’s grand opening.

  And God was looking to an ill-equipped, short-tempered, twenty-three-year-old waitress from Allston to do something about it. His recommendation was a grenade launcher to get the job done quickly and efficiently (an M32 ought to do the trick), and He was even so helpful as to text her the address of the corporation’s exploration and development laboratory.

  Patience pushed herself into the corner of the booth as nausea menaced her equilibrium. Zane sat very still beside her, staring down into the screen with the look of a man who’d just been bitten by his own dog. She shook her head at his expression, her throat constricting with the sting of angry tears, and then the phone was in her hand again, thrust up toward the ceiling.