Jim moved into the office and sat down in Amber’s old chair. Hank Neary came into the room and, looking around, squatted down with his back against the wall. He put his elbow patches on his knees, pulling tight the sleeves of his corduroy coat, and then adjusted his glasses. Benny continued, and Genevieve refocused her attention on him. “As a matter of fact,” he said, moving a finger between Hank and himself, “Hank and I don’t even think there is a fund-raiser.”
“Of course there’s a fund-raiser,” said Genevieve.
Hank elaborated. There could very well be a fund-raiser. We just didn’t think Lynn had donated our time to it. We didn’t think there was a committee chair pestering her. In fact, crazy as it sounded, we thought there was no client at all — unless that client was Lynn Mason herself.
“Yeah, I totally don’t follow,” said Genevieve, shaking her head at Hank.
Dan Wisdom showed up, taking one step inside the office to stand flush against the door, his hand on the doorknob. Hank explained that “the client” had chosen to move away from the fund-raiser ad, with its specific purpose and call to action, toward a nebulous public service announcement intended to make the cancer patient laugh for some vague reason that had nothing to do with raising money or finding a cure.
“Laughter,” said Hank. “One thing Lynn might be in short supply of right now.”
“So you’re saying,” said Genevieve, smiling mockingly at Hank, “that she made the whole thing up just so she could get a laugh?”
“That’s exactly what we’re saying,” said Karen Woo, moving from the doorway to stand directly in front of Genevieve’s cheap silver bookshelf. “Which is why nobody can find anything on the Web for the ‘Alliance Against Breast Cancer.’ You have to admit, Genevieve. It’s a little weird that nobody’s ever heard of this so-called Alliance. I mean, what kind of alliance is that?”
“I don’t care,” said Genevieve. “This just doesn’t sound like something Lynn would do.”
“Maybe she did it to keep us busy, too,” said Dan Wisdom. “It’s not like we had anything else going on.”
“Don’t you think Lynn would do that?” Amber asked her. “Keep us preoccupied during the downtime, to protect her team?”
“So which is it, then? Did she do it for herself, or did she do it for us?”
We debated which was the most likely answer.
“You guys gotta get your stories straight,” said Genevieve.
Even Carl Garbedian showed up. Here was an amazing turn of events. First running after Benny, and now this. He stood next to Dan Wisdom in the doorway. “I’ll tell you what I think,” he said. He wanted to claim that Lynn had made up the assignment because Lynn’s life was so much about marketing, the only way she could come to terms with her diagnosis was to see it presented to her in an ad. In a time of personal upheaval she fell back on the familiar language of advertising. She had to have it sold to her.
We immediately tried to distance ourselves from that theory. You steal prescription drugs from Janine Gorjanc and almost die of toxic poisoning, and six months into your recovery you’re an expert on the DSM-IV? Not likely. Carl’s psychologizing dampened the credibility of the argument we were trying to make — though Genevieve didn’t know yet about any argument.
Marcia, with her smart new bob, slid between Carl and Dan in the doorway. “What’s going on?” she asked, looking around.
We told her we were trying to convince Genevieve to talk to Joe.
“Talk to Joe?” Genevieve replied, suddenly aware that we weren’t there just to shoot the shit. “What am I talking to Joe about?”
Everyone knew that Lynn and Joe were tight. We saw them talking at night on our way out — the door cracked, one leaning into the other across the desk. She told him about client problems and whatnot and he expressed to her his impressions of us. It didn’t go in Joe’s favor to be seen in there like that because it was widely believed that he exerted influence on who walked Spanish and who didn’t. But that wasn’t the point right now; the point was, if any of us had any sway with Lynn Mason, it was Joe Pope. If anyone was going to confront her with what we suspected, if someone was going to help her, it would have to be Joe.
“And what do I have to do with that?” asked Genevieve.
If any of us had any sway with Joe Pope, it was Genevieve.
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “Nuh-uh.” She shook her head and set her pop down on the desk and said, “No way. This entire conversation is ridiculous.”
“Genevieve,” said Amber. “She might be dying.”
IT DIDN’T TAKE HER long to come around. After Karen’s phone call the evidence was on our side, the argument was too compelling, and Genevieve was too compassionate. If Lynn was really sick, Genevieve didn’t have it in her to sit back and do nothing. She talked it over some more with Marcia; she went back to Amber; she went in to Benny’s. By eleven that morning she was as convinced as the rest of us that the risk of doing nothing outweighed the risk of being wrong, and when she went in search of Joe twenty minutes later, she had the conviction of the newly converted, which wouldn’t last forever, but would for the moment brook no discouragement or allow for second-guessing. She approached him in the cafeteria on fifty-nine, where he was dropping coins into a vending machine.
Seven tables and three vending machines under a dismal light — that was our cafeteria. We’d call it a break room but “break room” might imply something to look forward to. On our rare trips to the cafeteria, we got what we needed from the vending machines and then we got the hell out. Eating there was never an option because the lights, the chairs — it was as depressing as a hospital waiting room, but absent any magazines or lifesaving devices. No one ever took comfort in the cafeteria. The perfect place to await your self-help group’s arrival — that was the kindest description we could give to it.
And so the deterrents to congregation guaranteed them a level of privacy. He opened his pop at one of the tables and she told him what she knew. He listened, and when she made her request, he declined. They talked about it awhile longer and he declined again. They got up from the table and he placed his empty can in the recycle bin just as the Bible group folks, carrying their floppy, shiny-edged books, began to shuffle in for their Thursday lunch.
We wanted to know from Genevieve his reasons for declining to get involved. “He said it was none of his business,” she told us. But why wouldn’t he want to help her? we asked. If she was unwell, and terrified? Karen’s phone call was very compelling evidence that something was not right. Was he heartless? Did he not see a distinction between sticking your nose in where it didn’t belong, and answering a cry for help? “I don’t think he sees it quite like that,” she replied. Well, then, how does he see it? “Differently,” she said.
Twenty minutes after their talk in the cafeteria, he was seen entering Genevieve’s office. She set her pencil down and took off her glasses, which she used only when looking at the computer. He shut the door. He moved inside and sat down. He scooted the chair forward and placed his arms on her desk. He looked at her from under his thick brows and said, “Look, it’s not because it’s none of my business. It isn’t, but if I knew for a fact that she needed help —”
“You would do it.”
“Yes,” he said. “I would help. I just can’t say I’m convinced she’s sick. I will admit,” he added, “that it was weird that she said she would be out the entire week, and then she showed up and never explained why. And she’s been preoccupied, no doubt about it. But okay, so what? That means she has cancer? Maybe she’s just worried about winning the new business.”
Genevieve stopped biting her pinkie nail. “Or maybe she’s really sick.”
“And you want me to be the one to go in and ask her which it is.”
“Hard to think of anyone better.”
“Why? This, by the way, is not the reason I refuse, either,” he said, “but try to see it from my perspective. I’m a man. Women’s issues — not som
ething Lynn and I talk much about. But I’m supposed to go in there and talk to her about an incredibly personal matter. Whereas,” he said, gesturing as if to present Genevieve to herself, “you are a woman — much more suited to the topic. But you’re asking me to be the one.”
“Joe, I wasn’t asking you to go in there alone,” she said. She lifted herself up using the armrests of her chair, crossed her legs, and sat back down again Indian-style. “I’ll be with you.”
“So why do you need me in there at all?”
“I need you . . .” she said. She bit her nail again while thinking and then said, “I don’t need you, to be honest. I’ll go in there on my own, if I have to. I’d like you in there because I think you can make the difference. Everyone knows Lynn’s opinion of you.”
He was skeptical. “What does everyone think they know about Lynn’s opinion of me?”
“That she respects you,” she said. “That you’re a voice of reason. That she listens to your suggestions and delegates to you and even defers to you. She doesn’t do that with the rest of us.”
“I think,” said Joe, “that what most of them see is Lynn and me talking, they see me in her office at night and they think whatever it is they want to think.”
“Well,” she said, “what should they think? Don’t you talk privately with her?”
“But about what, Genevieve? It isn’t . . . is Larry screwing Amber? It’s not what pathetic thing did Carl do today. We’re not talking personal matters, we’re discussing business. We’re talking about ways to keep this place from going under.”
She left it at that. He had said no. Not out of any lack of sympathy, but for his own perhaps valid reasons, and better to stay friends than to push too hard. And besides, she was startled to hear him say so baldly, We’re trying to keep this place from going under. Such an admission momentarily distracted her from the question of Lynn’s health. When it got around, it distracted us, too.
But the first thing he did when he got back to his desk was call Genevieve on the phone.
“So if it’s so important to them,” he said, “if they’re so concerned, why don’t they go in and talk to her? What’s stopping them?”
“She’s an intimidating person.”
“So they’re cowards.”
“That’s a little harsh,” she said. “Haven’t you ever been intimidated?”
“Of course,” he said. “But if I feel strongly about something, I go in with my knees knocking and try to get the job done.”
“And that’s why you are where you are,” she said, “and they are where they are. That’s the difference between you and them, Joe.”
He hung up the phone, no change in his decision. Within fifteen minutes he knocked again and shut the door and sat down. His seat was practically still warm from their earlier conversation. “So because Karen Woo makes a telephone call, Lynn has cancer?” he said. “Do you know who we’re talking about here? These people get things very, very wrong, Genevieve. It’s the same group that’s absolutely convinced that Tom Mota’s coming back here to blow everyone to pieces.”
“Hold on,” she said. “That’s unfair. There are only a few people who actually believe that. And then maybe just Amber. Most of them don’t think that.”
“But they sure do talk about it. And talk, and talk, and talk. But okay, forget that. One time, I overheard Jim Jackers saying that he believes Freemasons rule the world. Jim Jackers doesn’t even know what a Freemason is.”
“Jim Jackers is only one of many,” she said.
“I listened to Karen Woo give an explanation of photosynthesis once,” he said. “God only knows why they were discussing photosynthesis. They hung on her every word, like she was a PBS special. Her explanation didn’t even involve sunlight. These people will believe anything. They will say anything.”
“Joe —”
“Genevieve, you know the way things work here. One person says something at lunch, and next you know they’re all walking into Lynn’s office as one big mob to carry her over to the hospital for a disease she might not have. These people — you can’t trust anything they say.”
“I had no idea you were such a cynic, Joe.”
“No,” he said, “it’s not cynicism.” He leaned back in his chair. “Trust me. Not just yet it’s not.”
He left, and that really should have been the end of it. But as she sat trying to concentrate on her work, bits and pieces of their conversation kept nagging at her, objections she had been too slow to consider came to her suddenly, subtleties she had let pass now demanded she speak for them.
She found him on the phone. She waited for him to get off without taking a seat. “‘These people,’” she said, when his call ended. “You kept saying that. You said it several times — ‘these people.’ I want to know what you meant by it.”
“What do you mean,” he said, “what did I mean by it?”
“When somebody says ‘these people,’” she said, “you can hear it, can’t you, Joe? A little condescension? I’m just wondering what sort of opinion you have of the people who work for you.”
He leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands together behind the back of his head. “They don’t work for me,” he said. “They work for Lynn.”
“Oh, you know what I mean,” she said.
“Genevieve, I’m not really their boss. I’m not Lynn. But I’m not really one of them, either. I’m caught somewhere between being a partner, and being the guy in the cubicle, and they know that, so they come to me for certain things if it’s in their interest, but on the other hand, if they don’t like something, I’m usually the one they blame.”
“And for that,” said Genevieve, and she began to count off on her fingers, “you have a better title than the rest of us, you make more money, and you have a lot more job security.”
She had yet to sit down. Neither of them spoke. You didn’t talk about money or job security during a time of layoffs, not in the tone she had taken, and not when you were friends. The silence extended into awkward territory.
“You’re right,” he said at last. He let his hands fall from his head to the padded armrests of his chair. “I have advantages others don’t, and I shouldn’t complain about the price I might have to pay for those advantages. I’m sorry if I came across as some kind of martyr or something.”
“And I wasn’t trying to be snide just then,” she said, finally sitting down, reaching out to touch the edge of his desk as if it were a surrogate for his hand. “You do get mistreated here. I don’t blame you if you’re frustrated. But you kept saying ‘these people,’” she said, “lumping everyone together, and that didn’t sound fair to me, Joe. Because some of them happen to be good people.”
“I agree,” he said.
“But then you lump them all together as ‘these people’ who will ‘say anything’ and ‘believe anything,’ and it just makes you sound like an elitist.”
Which was the criticism we made of Joe most often — that he was aloof, that he held himself apart, that he held himself above. More than the juvenile speculation over his sexual orientation, more than the exaggerated claim of his social awkwardness, it was his elitism we kept coming back to time and again, like the stereotype that must have some truth to it if it gains such traction. “An elitist,” he said, as if hearing the word for the first time.
“I’m not saying you are one,” she said. “I’m just saying that I’m one of ‘those people’ this time, because I happen to think they’re right — I think something’s wrong with her. So when you lump me in with a guy who believes Freemasons rule the world — which I’m not sure he actually does, by the way. I think he might just think he’s being funny. Jim’s very desperate to be funny. He’s very desperate to be liked. But, anyway, you can’t dismiss all of us just because of Jim Jackers.”
He looked at her. He swiveled almost imperceptibly in his chair. “An elitist,” he said again — not defensively, but with a tone of curiosity, as if Genevieve had just int
roduced him to a new word. “What is an elitist?” he asked.
The guilelessness of the question caught her off-guard, as if a child had asked it, and it was her duty to explain. “Well,” she said, “I don’t know the dictionary definition, but I would define it as someone who thought of himself as better, or superior, to other people — someone who looked down on them and maybe deep down didn’t like them all that much.”
“Then I’m not an elitist,” he replied quickly. “I like people a lot.”
“I know you do — which is why I like you,” she said. “And it’s me asking you to talk to her. Not Jim Jackers. Not Karen Woo, or Amber, or Marcia. Me. Because I’m convinced there’s something wrong and that she might be scared and she might need help.”
She hung forward, waiting for a reply. His eyes never wavered from hers, her incredible blue eyes, persuasive just by their sheer force of clarity and beauty. He merely said, “Let me think it over.”
He was standing in her doorway ten minutes later. “Want to get some lunch?” he asked.
It was a cool day for late May, with a crisp lake breeze. Postage-stamp gardens lined Michigan Avenue all the way to the Water Tower. Red and yellow tulips were hanging on in the last days of spring. The sky was bright but the sun had peaked — it was just past one. They headed north, moving in and out of the city’s large swaths of sunlight and shade created by the tall buildings and the streets that ran between them. They stopped for sandwiches on the way. They sometimes had lunch together on the benches in the courtyard of the Water Tower where the pigeons pecked at the ground and the man in gold paint stood on a milk crate still as a statue in hope of donations, and the tourists shopping at the department stores along the Magnificent Mile stopped to consult guidebooks or take pictures. They had eaten there so often, apparently, that they didn’t need to ask each other where they were headed, which revealed a familiarity between them that was frankly a little surprising.
Then We Came to the End Page 24