Oval

by Elvia Wilk

  After leaving Howard’s, she decided to text instead of call Louis, waiting to have the conversation later when he was his full embodied self. But after she texted him with a short update her phone rang straightaway. She was just getting balanced on her bike and had to put the kickstand down again, then remembered to unplug the headphones when she heard his voice so close in her ears.

  “This is the best!” He sounded like he was smiling into the phone. “They finally recognize you!”

  She frowned. “It’s not like I’ve just been waiting around to be recognized.”

  “Don’t be so modest.”

  “I’m not being modest. I just don’t feel like I’m in a position yet to—”

  “You were going to get here eventually. It just came sooner than expected.”

  “But I didn’t expect. Being a consultant is not what I was ever going for.”

  “You have to own it! It’s your destiny,” he said, laughing. “We’ll be a family of consultants.”

  “I wanted to keep doing research.”

  “You can keep doing research.”

  “I don’t know. This is real consulting. You know what I mean. I’m not an artist like you. I’ll have to do efficiency studies and audits and all the rest.”

  “Every job has red tape. You know I spend half my time in my inbox. But in the rest of your time you’ll be able to do what you want. You can look at what needs to be better and just make it better. How many consultants does RANDI have right now? Only twenty or so? This is huge!”

  As he went on encouraging, his enthusiasm seemed to have less and less to do with her. She felt embarrassed by it. She derailed the compliments and asked about his return to work. He promised to bring home one of the bouquets he’d been gifted. His inbox was legendarily full, the backlog seemingly impenetrable; he’d set the interns on it like a pack of dogs.

  “Prinz says hi, by the way.” So Prinz was with him. This wasn’t unusual, on the surface; Prinz was always lingering around.

  “What are you guys up to?”

  “He just bought me this book about psychotropics that he’s been telling me about.”

  Next, a tangent on psychotropic substances that could restructure human memory, altering the structure of the brain to heal the damage caused by negative events. Anja might have thought it was interesting, but she was too busy mentally trying to reconcile Louis with this person who was voluntarily telling her so many things on the phone. “Prinz says the book says sometimes people look twenty years younger after their memories are hardwired. The stories are wild.”

  “Is he staying there all day or something?”

  “He just wanted to check up on me.”

  “That’s nice of him.”

  “Yep.”

  She paused. “Working late?”

  “I don’t know. Depends how much I get done on this project that’s finally taking off.”

  “Cool.” The question hung in the pause; she breathed it into the phone, lodging it in the hardware. She wasn’t going to ask. She hedged her bet. “I guess we’ll talk later, then.”

  “Prinz and I were thinking we might grab a bite for dinner.”

  “Of course. Have fun.” She was careful not to inflect with bitterness.

  “Come! Why don’t you come with us?”

  “Don’t worry about it. You guys should hang out.”

  She was thinking so hard about each of her responses that she wasn’t sure whether she was responding in real time or if there was a perceptible delay. The dynamic between them in this conversation was so out of whack and yet so locked in place. She couldn’t figure out how to reroute it. Her very worst insecurities—his lack of dependence on her, his turning to the social sphere for fulfillment instead of to her, his smooth invulnerability—which hadn’t reared their heads in ages, were bucking again now. Why were they back? Was she the one driving the dynamic, or he? Or no one?

  “I already talked to Dam and Laura about maybe having dinner with them anyway,” she lied.

  “Oh, okay. Never mind.” He managed to sound mildly rejected.

  She backtracked, “I wasn’t sure of your plans . . .”

  “It’s fine. We’ll see each other later tonight.”

  No, she decided, if there was someone making the conversation go this way, it was him. He always knew what he was doing.

  Anja knew she was whining and she also knew Laura and Dam wouldn’t penalize her for it. She had eaten only three shrimp, picking them out from their little corn tortilla cradles with her fingers, but had compensated for the lack of calories with straight vodka.

  “Since he got back it seems like all our conversations have a subtext,” she said, in Laura’s direction. “There’s fishy shadows under the water.”

  “Every relationship has fish,” Laura said. “The question is why you’re looking below deck.”

  “Such wisdom. My sister is very wise late at night,” Dam put in.

  “I know,” said Anja. “I’m looking for them on purpose, it’s like I want to find them. But I know a big fish is coming. I can feel the fish.”

  “How long has he even been back for? Twenty-four hours? Stop freaking out,” said Laura. “You’ll make things worse if you freak out.”

  “I always make things worse by freaking out.”

  She had retreated to Laura and Dam’s house for dinner without even calling ahead to invite herself. Maybe a remnant of Spanish home life, the two of them ate together most weeknights, after which Dam would do the dishes and then do drugs and leave for a dark place where he hoped to arrive before they took hold. He was already dressed to go out, a black triangle bra visible beneath a loosely woven yellow tank top, knee-high boots propped up against the wall by the door, vinyl trench coat hung over the back of his chair. There were two long dreads trailing from his scalp that hadn’t been there the week before.

  Laura said, “You know the big relationship fish is always coming. If it’s not the breakup fish now, it will be the death fish someday. You can only hope it’s a slow, crippled fish.”

  “At least you got a fish,” said Dam. Anja registered that he was hunched over his plate, red-faced and droopy-eyed.

  “Are you just drinking in solidarity with me?” she asked.

  “Solidarity, baby. I’m also experiencing that fundamental human conflict between reason and emotion within myself.” He checked his phone, which he had been doing compulsively as they ate, then closed his eyes and pressed it dramatically to his heart.

  “Uh-oh. Who is he?”

  “Federico.”

  “Frederico?”

  “Federico. He’s a horrible little old troll. He’s a misogynist and I’m pretty sure he’s racist. He’s the absolute worst.”

  “Then why are you so desperate for him to call?”

  Dam made the shape of a big O with his hands. “He’s also the wurst,” he said, grinning. “But all he does is work all the time. He works at Finster, actually, managing something.”

  “Who doesn’t work at Finster,” Laura said.

  “Do you think he could explain to me what’s going on over there?” Anja asked.

  “Not unless he texts me back. It’s been six hours!” Dam shouted, flinging his phone across the room. It ricocheted off the wall molding and ended up near the bookshelf. Dam leaped out of his chair toward it. After checking it for messages one last time, he clutched it in his palm and smashed it against the windowpane. There was a loud crack.

  “It’s fine,” he said, turning the phone over to inspect it. “The protective case works after all.” He looked up at the window. “The window’s cracked, though.”

  They made a toast to Federico, who Dam agreed it was time to let go of, and Laura stood, wobbly, to plug her phone into the cuboid speaker hovering near the window.

  Even though the speaker was floating three feet above the floor, magnetized as advertised, its Bluetooth connection had never worked, so they had to connect content-filled devices to it with a long black USB
cable, which undermined the aesthetic effect. The tether wound upward from the floor to its floating dock, feeding content into the mothership.

  “Just another reason the past is prologue,” said Laura, fumbling with the cord until a sound stuttered through. “You heard this mix by Koolhaas yet?”

  Anja shook her head humbly. It was clear from the way Laura had asked whether she knew the mix, not the producer, that she had missed something, a scrap of cultural matter that was inconsequential on its own but when combined with a whole lot of other things she didn’t know could became liability—could make her into a person who didn’t know things.

  Anja didn’t pretend to know things she didn’t know. She was peripherally aware that she had other options besides admitting ignorance, but she rarely exercised them. She gave in automatically when her knowledge on a topic came under question, unwilling to deflect or lie. She hoped this sometimes had the effect of rendering the question irrelevant; more often she knew it made her seem naïve.

  “Really? You never heard this?” Laura gave her another chance.

  “Really.”

  “I don’t know Koolhaas either,” said Dam. He was twirling his dreads with one hand and pouting. Anja noticed a shiny dragon tattoo snaking up the side of his neck. It hadn’t been there last week either.

  “You’re the one who parties every night,” said Laura. “You should actually know about music.”

  Dam opened his mouth and extended his tongue toward Laura, exposing a decimated half-chewed shrimp.

  “Yeah, we see your food,” said Anja. She got up to look at Laura’s phone and check the name of the mix so she could find it again later, but Dam’s MacBook cable wrapped around her ankle like a little noose and caught its own tail on the tiny clip meant to act as a hook for easy winding, packing, and traveling: Serra’s verb list for the digital age. She skidded across the floor, hands out, knees and ankles twisting, wrist driving downward to catch her fall and on the way dislodging the speaker from its calibrated position in the air. The speaker came down with her, edging the floor with a thud before bobbing back up into place.

  “Shit,” Dam said, lunging after her. “I’m so sorry, babe.”

  “Damian! I always tell you not to leave your cord tangled like that,” Laura scolded him.

  Anja was laughing. A bruise was curling around the knob of her left wrist. She looked at it with affection. The fall was a comic rupture and she was glad she would have this purpled comma to remind her not to take everything so fucking seriously. One slip was all it took. She should learn to float better, to accommodate the tides.

  “You know what? I haven’t even told you,” she said, getting up and limping toward the sofa. The siblings looked at her, Dam squinting, all of them more drunk than she’d realized. She felt herself expand with gratitude for them, the only two people genetically tied together who she knew in Berlin, the most familial connection she had by dint of their familial connection to each other. They were a mess, but they were hers. Who knew why they’d let her into their fold in the first place, but once she was in, she was in.

  “I got fired today,” she announced, flopping down on the sofa. “But then I got rehired immediately. I’m a consultant now. Ta-da.”

  “Is that a good thing?” said Dam. He joined her on the sofa. “I don’t get it.”

  “I wasn’t sure at first, but maybe it’s a good thing.”

  He kissed her cheek and whispered, “You’re badass, you know that?” before sliding down into her lap and closing his eyes.

  “What are you supposed to consult on? Like what’s your area of ‘expertise’?” asked Laura.

  “That’s not clear. Howard said—”

  “Howard?”

  Eva was not the only one vehemently opposed to the existence of Howard. Anja had deciphered a quality of protectiveness in Laura’s hatred, and tried to appreciate the sentiment behind it, though Laura usually seemed to frame her protection as an accusation.

  “Don’t ask. It was a very weird morning. Anyway, I called HR from the lab and they said they don’t know why it happened either, but it’s real.” The HR lady had sounded just as annoyed as confused, which made Anja wonder whether anyone really knew the reason for the changes. “My new job sounds like bullshit, though. Here, I’ll show you, throw me my phone.” Laura tossed Anja her phone and Anja caught it. She opened her inbox, scrolled to the message from HR, and downloaded the attachment.

  “Listen to this, it’s my contract. ‘Consultant will provide unimpeded expertise in relevant field. Consultant will not hold any knowledge back at any time that could be deemed applicable.’ Period. Any knowledge that could be deemed applicable. That’s an entire clause! Applicable to what? And here, further down. ‘Consultant will stay up to date with advancements in the field of: Biological Science.’ They filled in the name of the field in a different font. This is a formula contract. It was probably generated automatically.”

  “Are you supposed to be reading it out loud, though?” Laura asked.

  “Good question. There’s a big confidentiality section down at the end I haven’t gotten to.”

  “It seems really unsecure to send it to you as an email attachment.”

  “True.”

  “Is this a scam?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Would they try to scam you out of a job?” Protectiveness again, couched in an accusatory tone, as if Anja should be protecting herself better. “What about that guy you work with, did he get bumped up too?”

  “Michel? I don’t know.” Michel had been texting her since the morning. She hadn’t responded yet, unsure what to say. It seemed better to avoid him until she’d thought it through on her own. “Don’t worry, I forwarded the contract to my family lawyer already. She can tell me if there’s anything suspicious about the legal stuff.”

  Laura nodded, mollified that Anja was making sure not to be taken advantage of. Anja was not paranoid about being taken advantage of like Laura was, but she was paranoid about being judged by Laura.

  “This reminds me of an episode of Celebrity Court I just watched,” said Laura. “Want to watch it?”

  “Not tonight. I should probably get home in case Louis gets back from hanging out with Prinz.”

  “I’ll send you the link.”

  “Do you think that’s pathetic?”

  “What’s pathetic about Celebrity Court?”

  “No, me worrying about Louis. Shouldn’t I just call him and see if he’s okay instead of worrying about him?”

  “I don’t get it. If you’re worried about him, why wouldn’t you call him?”

  “I don’t want to act weird. He’s acting so normal. He’s pretending everything is the same, and I think he wants me to pretend everything’s the same too. I don’t want to fuck up the illusion.”

  “So then pretend for a while and see how it goes. Don’t rush him.”

  “Am I projecting?”

  “Yes, definitely. Let him do his thing. Grief isn’t contagious. You don’t have any reason to be scared.”

  Anja considered this for a whole minute. How odd. Fear, that’s what it was.

  “Whatever else is going on, he loves you,” said Laura. “He’s a huge pain in the ass, but he obviously loves you.”

  “Oh.” Anja smiled, in spite of herself. “I guess so. Thanks.”

  She shook Dam by the arm and his eyes rolled partway open, looking up at her from her lap. “Dam. Are you going out tonight or what?”

  He frowned. “Hell, no. I’m not going outside. Didn’t you notice how foggy it’s been today? There’s a weird smell in the air. I don’t trust it.” He found his phone in a pocket of his cargo pants. “I should probably send out a blast now.” He started typing without looking at the screen.

  “How can you send a weather update without even going outside?”

  He rolled his eyes. “Intuition. Rumors. People send me news from around the city all day. I just consolidate. Anyway,” he said, smiling, “I don’t
feel like going out and I don’t want anyone partying without me. Might as well scare them with the forecast.” He glanced over at Laura, who was tipping her chair back against the wall. She’d undone the top button of her pants and was rubbing her full stomach. “Laurita, look at yourself. You’re acting just like Mom after she eats too much. Button your goddamn pants.”

  heatwave dry / smell of decay / rec. stay inside w paranoid thoughts . . .

  No sign of Louis when she heaved the door open at midnight. There were traces of others, though, some muddy footprints on the kitchen floor near the sink. Howard had apparently convinced somebody to trudge up the hill and pretend to fix things. Raw-ended wires were sticking out of the control panel drawer. They had only made a mess: the illusion of progress. She scuttled out of the kitchen, deciding to sleep or pretend to sleep until Louis got home.

  She was used to him coming home late from the studio at Basquiatt. Nobody was forcing him to pull long hours, but if he wasn’t passionate enough to stay late, why did he even have the job? She wondered if she would be in the same boat now, a consultant without a real schedule. But she wasn’t him. He’d always been this way.

  Basquiatt was not a large NGO, and it took on only one artist-consultant at a time—besides however many freelance, short-term creatives were needed on a project—so the one they picked needed to be a real “disruptor.” Louis was it.

  His job was twofold: to generate press-garnering experiments on the edge of what could be called traditional corporate boundaries, and in the process to enhance the corporate culture and strengthen corporate values from within. He was not supposed to be tinkering with one specific issue in any specific area—say, urbanism in Lagos or sanctions against vaccines in the Philippines—he was not to make this place or that place a better place, but to make Basquiatt a better place and therefore to help Basquiatt make The World a better place. He showed the institution how to think better, how to critique its institutionality. He kept the institution hip and fresh just by being there. His creativity was both the means and the end.

  Basquiatt retained its elite status via its closed and rigorous selection process for investors. Stock was not publicly offered: it was offered to targeted investors with track records of ethical practice, who submitted to several rounds of audits before being allowed to buy in. Every few years there was a scandal when a Basquiatt shareholder was exposed as a secret arms dealer or money launderer, but the purging of rotten apples was just part of the necessary routine to maintain the appearance of general purity. Every apple has a worm or two. Best to expose and expel them dramatically.