Fire in the Firefly

by Scott Gardiner

  Carol wanders back toward reception shutting drawers and closing files. “It’s quitting time,” she says contentedly. “I’m outta here!”

  “Hi!” says Roebuck idiotically.

  Lily moves a small step closer. “I was hoping we could talk?”

  “Absolutely!” Roebuck stares blindly at his watch. “It’s quitting time!”

  In the elevator, and outside on the sidewalk in the gathering November gloom, he has opened his mouth and spoken in what he hopes are sentences with verbs and nouns, but has no recollection of what he might have said or how or if it has been answered. They walk together through the doors of a restaurant down the street. Drawing Lily’s chair, he notes and records that the last time he was in this place was with Anne, three tables over. “Whatever it is you have to tell me,” he says before the waiter intervenes, “it does my heart good just seeing you.”

  “Please, Julius! Don’t make me cry.”

  They listen in respectful silence while a young man in a creased white shirt recites a long and complex list of specials, including several items that were on the board earlier in the day but are now regrettably sold out. “Thank you,” they chant together.

  “I went to the doctor.”

  Roebuck nods.

  “It’s confirmed.”

  He hopes the nod has somehow carried all the meaning he has intended it to hold.

  “Two things you need to know.” Lily unfolds two fingers. “No, three. I’m keeping this baby”—this fact is to her so self-evident it does not warrant explanation. “Two. This is my responsibility, not yours.” A longer wait while Lily stares at his face, slowly breathing. “Three. You might not even be the father.”

  He knows immediately, absolutely, that she is lying. To herself or to him is still unclear, but Roebuck is certain that she herself does not believe this last point. It doesn’t matter.

  “Lily …”

  She presses a finger to her lips. “Shh. I need to finish …”

  He nods again, or maybe bows. The waiter reappears. Lily asks for just a glass of water. “Scotch,” says Roebuck. He doesn’t drink Scotch.

  “I’m no homewrecker.”

  “Yes.”

  “And anyway it might not even be you …”

  “Lily …”

  “But I want this baby. It’s wanted.”

  “Yes …”

  “So it’s up to me. Just me. Not you.”

  “You know I …”

  “You don’t have to! I don’t want you to! This is me and me alone.”

  He understands that she is not being wholly truthful with this statement either. This is Lily being Lily.

  “What if I …?”

  She laughs, surprising them both. “You’re a decent guy for such a prick.”

  “That’s me,” says Roebuck. “Don’t go. You’re always getting up and leaving …”

  “I have to.” Lily is on her feet.

  “Folic acid!” he says, standing too. “Plenty of folic acid! Spinach, if I remember right, is the mainstay of a healthy pregnancy. Stay, and I will feed you spinach.”

  “I have to go.”

  “And no more wine!”

  “I know that, Julius.”

  “Then this will be a cinch. I’m here, Lily, in …”

  “I have to go.”

  He watches her leave. Roebuck nurses his Scotch, pays for it unfinished, and, like the salmon swimming blind against the current, lurches homeward to his wife.

  He knows Anne knows.

  He doesn’t know what she knows, or which part. But from the moment he walks through the door, he knows that she knows it.

  “Hello!” she says brightly, coming to a full stop. Anne is constantly in motion; when she speaks—at least to him—it happens by and large in passing. “So you’ve come home.”

  She is still frozen to her spot, eyes boring.

  Roebuck has exhausted the power of speech. He fumbles his keys from his right hand to his left hand and so into the pocket of his coat. “Oh!” he says, clutching a thought. “I’m cooking tonight!” He slaps his various pockets: no dinner there. “I didn’t shop,” he says, concentrating the sum of his confessions into this singularity.

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  She has not altered her position. Roebuck, too, remains rooted to his spot on the drip-mat just inside the door.

  “You’re sure?”

  “What? What do you mean?”

  “Dinner! You’re sure I shouldn’t go out and get dinner?” Normally she would send him out—rain, shine, blizzard; no hesitation—if he’d come home like this empty-handed Roebuck would be made to go back out and complete whatever task he’d been assigned. “You’re sure?”

  Anne spins on her heels and heads back upstairs though he is fairly certain she has just come down that way. Roebuck imagines himself in the check-out at the grocery store. Like a man ascending the scaffold to his guillotine, he follows his wife to the floor above and then up again. She’s being pleasant, kind even. But she can barely stand to look at him. Anne aims her smile at a place above his shoulder; it’s a lovely and unbearably horrifying smile. He wonders vaguely where the kids are.

  “I sent the kids to a movie with the sitter,” she says in the way of married people, “so we could have this talk.” They are standing in the third floor hallway; neutral territory. Anne takes him by the hand and leads him into his room. Oh God, he thinks, sitting on the bed.

  “Anne …” he says.

  “I have something to say to you.”

  “Anne …?”

  “It’s a game-changer, Julius.”

  “Oh Jesus, Anne …”

  “There’s only one way …”

  “Please, Anne. Please …”

  “We’re going to have another baby.”

  Of all the shocks today, this one somehow seems the least percussive. Roebuck has moved well beyond bewilderment into a serene and witless state of grace.

  “Oh.” He says.

  “I thought that part of life was done for me. I guess it’s not. I’m pregnant, Julius.”

  “You. Pregnant. You?”

  “The stick turned pink.”

  Now he sees it on the bed beside him, a home pregnancy test. He hasn’t laid eyes on one of these in years, and now suddenly they’re everywhere. “I booked an appointment with the Ob/Gyn,” Anne says. “Tomorrow morning. But I’m sure.” She touches herself. “I know what this feels like.”

  “Spinach,” Roebuck says because life is a wheel, and he’s out at the edge. “We’ll have to stock up.” In their first prenatal class, all those years ago, Anne was advised to increase her intake of folic acid. Roebuck plagued her—through that and each of their pregnancies to follow—with spinach chopped discreetly into everything he served.

  It was the right thing to say. Anne’s arms and legs go around him, tears trickle down the back of his neck as his wife hugs his face to her breast.

  “I knew you’d be happy!” Anne sobs.

  29

  Everything important is cliché.

  The Collected Sayings of Julius Roebuck

  To his complete amazement, Roebuck has slept. He is further astonished to find his wife beside him in his bed. Reality begins to coalesce as Roebuck ascends into the layers of his waking nightmare. Anne is pregnant. Lily is pregnant. Yasmin is especially, malevolently pregnant. The No Fuss Vasectomy Clinic has failed him, failed him spectacularly. Tomorrow he will be put to the torch by Yasmin’s attorney; thank God, not until tomorrow, which in its turn reminds him of his appointment with Kramarich, Beatty, and Mastropietro at 10:00 AM today, and here at last he finds an anchor for his mind to grapple, one decision at least that Roebuck can begin to hold and shape.

  “Anne,” he says, “I also have news.” He senses that her eyes are ope
n. “I would have told you yesterday, but …”

  “Tell.” She reaches out to put her hand on his the way she used to do when they were lovers.

  “I’ve decided to sell the agency.”

  Perhaps it is as simple as a solid night’s sleep, or the presence of his wife here beside him, glowing with a tenderness he hasn’t felt in years, or just a fierce desire to survive—possibly as straightforward as that—but Roebuck is aware that his brain is beginning to reboot. “Subject to your approval,” he says, “of course.” Though the more these pieces come together, the more he’s sure that he will get it. “There’s a buyer,” he adds. “Plus a very solid offer.”

  Anne is a nester. Her choice of career—this he’s known since the beginning—is only the most outward and obvious expression of her quintessential nature; some people are lucky that way. With each successive pregnancy, their house has undergone a transformation—the uber-pink nursery in advance of Kate; that Disneyesque bedroom for Morgan; then the wholesale gutting of the entire second floor in time for Zach’s arrival—the scale of each project limited only by the capital available. And this time she will have a fortune to apply. Leading with his strong suit, Roebuck states the figure. Anne’s eyes widen. “That’s a lot of money.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you want this?”

  “You can’t argue the timing, with a baby coming.”

  “Yes,” she says. “But what about you?”

  “Me? I’ll find new challenges.” And then, because that irony was not at all intended, he asks, “What time is it?”

  Anne—a naked, pregnant Anne in his bed beside him—leans on an elbow to peer at the bedside clock. She glows. “Just after seven.”

  “I have a 10:00 AM with the firm that’s handling the deal.” He climbs out of bed and opens his briefcase. No, the envelope is still on the corner of his desk where Carol left it yesterday. “I need to stop in at the office and pick up some papers.” He’s still worried that she will be angry at how far along all this has moved without her.

  Anne giggles “Funny! My gig with the Ob/Gyn is at ten this morning, too!”

  “Serendipity.”

  Again he has chosen well. Anne lays back, smiling, hands on the swell of her pelvis. “You’re going to be a dad again!”

  “That’s me.”

  Roebuck showers, shaves, and when he’s back from the bathroom finds that she has a cup of coffee waiting. Anne is still undressed. “Aren’t you going in to work?” He is rooting in his sock drawer.

  “Fuck that,” she tells him happily.

  Roebuck selects his darkest blue suit, recalling his father’s advice that a man must always wear a suit to church, to the theatre, and to any occasion involving the legal professions. As he dresses, Roebuck sketches out the details, trusting Anne to point out anything he’s missed, explaining how—in so many ways—the offer has come so opportunely. “These big multinationals are always on the lookout for fresh injections of creative talent. It’s like insulin for them; they’ve grown so huge they don’t produce their own. And of course they’ll be absorbing a very solid client base; I know they’ve had their sights on Ripreeler for years. It’s recession-proof, especially now with this new pheromone bait. Though I’m not sure how well informed they are on that. And they still don’t know about Daniel, though that’s just a matter of time.”

  “Daniel?”

  Roebuck pauses, a dark blue tie half-looped around his neck. “Right. I didn’t tell you that. Daniel has absconded.” He fills her in about this part too: that Greenwood has taken off to Sydney, Australia, that he has stolen at least one client and possibly more, that his departure now complicates all relationships. “Funny how you see things so clearly, after the fact. This explains so many little things …” But for this morning Roebuck is focused solely on the hopeful. “Anyway,” he says, “none of that matters. Once this deal is inked, it’s all somebody else’s issue.”

  Anne is silent. Then it hits him; Roebuck is a fool. “Of course! The condo! He screwed you too. Was he into you for much, you and Yasmin?”

  She turns and walks toward the bathroom.

  “Anne!” he calls out, sharply. He’s been looking for some way of saying this; now it has to be straight out. “Until we get this signed, I need you not to talk to anyone, please … not even Yasmin.”

  Anne’s back is still turned. “Fuck Yasmin,” she says, and then more dimly from the far side of the bathroom door, “and fuck Daniel too.”

  Roebuck is fairly sure he hears the sound of retching. There is so much he has lost track of. Does morning sickness start this soon?

  Carol is in a fluster. “Everyone’s calling! All the clients! All the clients. Have you seen your email?” Roebuck has not seen his email. He’s prioritizing.

  “Carol, you just got married. Correct?”

  Carol pauses in her tumult, blushing. “Engaged,” she says. “Just engaged.”

  “So you’ll have a husband to support?” The blush deepens. “I’m promoting you to office manager.” He’ll have to check this with HR, but he’s fairly certain he remembers Carol’s compensation package. Roebuck now proposes a figure slightly less than twice her present salary; he doesn’t want to overdo this; there are several other adjustments he intends to put on file with payroll before the day is done. “Effective this morning.” Roebuck is all business. “Please send out an email to all staff, informing everyone I’m calling a meeting for later this afternoon. Meanwhile, I’ll write up a boilerplate we can pump out to the clients, announcing that the agency will be issuing a formal statement later today. That should hold them off for now.”

  “Thank you.”

  Roebuck has moved on. “What?”

  “For the promotion,” Carol says.

  The envelope is waiting for him on the corner of his desk. He cracks the seal and spends some quiet time, familiarizing. Everything is as expected; some newly added clauses his own advisors have inserted for the purpose of negotiation. If he wants to get this signed today, he’ll have to waive these sweeteners and who knows how much else. By 9:15 AM Roebuck has evolved his strategy, tried and true. Now he wishes he had dressed a little more proactively, this morning.

  En route to Kramarich, Beatty, and Mastropietro he stops at a men’s wear and changes his sober blue tie for a louder, sillier red one in chiffon silk. Then he buys a pair of ridiculously shiny, ridiculously pointed, psychotically expensive cowboy boots that scatter light like shards of Venetian mirror, and a hand-stitched Stetson. If there’s anything his years in the business have taught him, it’s that audiences—any audience—will accept the premise of the dickhead male. Inject a little testosteronic self-regard, a brooding blend of louche with macho-dolt and, presto, there you have it: our century’s most effective marketing tool. Roebuck has the part down cold.

  He lets it out early in the coffee stage, while everyone’s still smoothing skirts and crossing legs, that he’s made the mistake of telling his wife how much money is on the table here today and now she has it spent already, ha, ha, ha. But seriously, folks, if she pushes him too far, let it be here known he’s willing to walk. Period. It’s his show, right? He makes these decisions. And he’s still of two minds about this whole frigging thing … What’s he going to do with himself afterwards, still in the prime of his youth, with his company sold out from under him? Just because she’s creaming for a house in Palm Springs …

  And so it went.

  They pushed. Now that they knew he was an idiot—and negotiating without counsel—they went at him full court. But as things moved along, they also came to understand that if they bulldozed this guy just a shade too far, his brand of ego could rebel. They’d seen the likes of him before. Plus, tomorrow it might dawn on him that his attorney should be present at the next go-round …

  Roebuck likes to think that in the end all parties got what they were looking for
. A little after noon, he departs the offices of Kramarich, Beatty, and Mastropietro, significantly less wealthy than he might have been, but still stupendously, awesomely in funds.

  “Anne,” he says, opening his phone as soon as he’s out on the street. “We did the deal! It’s sold!”

  “Does this mean from now on you’re going to be home all day? I don’t think that’s such a hot idea.”

  Lily doesn’t even answer.

  Even so, Roebuck has begun to form a vague and forlorn hope that he might—with respect to Anne and Lily, at least—conceivably live through this.

  He stops at his broker and ties up substantial sums in trust for Morgan, Katie, and Zach, locked down as tight as common law can bind it, then creates another, more discreetly structured fund for Lily. Anne, of course, holds title already to the bulk of his estate. He’d have liked to sock away a bigger stake, but knows he’ll need to stay liquid. Roebuck is gambling that a lump of gleaming cash up front might serve to buy out certain claims against the future. It’s a risky strategy; one that could easily backfire. But he doesn’t have a lot of options. Yasmin is the one who’s going to sink him. Roebuck is determined to save whatever he can.

  Checking his mail, he finds a curtly worded message, advising him of tomorrow’s time and place. It’s one of the big Bay Street firms, top drawer. What else was he expecting? The tone is factual, noting—as per his request—that the meeting has been scheduled for 12:30 PM and reiterating that for the present time his legal spouse has not been notified by either Yasmin or her representatives.

  Anne, as he discovers moments after his arrival home, remains primarily concerned about the details of his long-term future. He has barely put down the shopping bags, before the interrogation activates. What with all that has happened—the defection of his creative partner, the sale of his life’s work, the sudden acquisition of a minor fortune, to say nothing of a baby underway—he would have thought she’d have a lot to occupy her mind. But no, all she wants to talk about is what he’s going to do all day, now that he is unemployed. Roebuck explains that he’ll be staying on as interim president for the next eighteen months, minimum; it’s right there in the contract. He can show her.