Agorafabulous!

by Sara Benincasa

  “I’m so sorry, Edgar,” I said again. “It was an accident. I’m really, really sorry.”

  He was so angry that the bristles of his mustache trembled with rage.

  “YOU COULD HAVE BLINDED ME!” he screamed, loud enough for the sanitation workers at the dump to peer at us from twenty yards away. “I could be BLIND now! And it would be your fault, and we would sue you, do you know that? We would sue you, and your family would never be able to pay for you to go back to college! I am not paying you to BLIND ME!” He got right in my face, like a badass Southern California high school chola girl spoiling for a fight.

  “YOU COULD HAVE BLINDED ME!” he screamed again. “What the hell is wrong with you? Are you a fucking idiot?”

  For a moment, some of my old spunk flared up, and I nearly glared at him.

  “Actually, Edgar, I could have blinded both of us,” I said. “I was standing here too. It. Was. An. Accident.”

  I thought he was going to hit me.

  “Get in the car,” he said through gritted teeth. “And do not speak to me for the rest of the day. I will drive us back and then you will drive home.”

  Whatever fightin’ Irish or scrappin’ Sicilian spirit I’d summoned quickly dissipated as I sat in the passenger seat and contemplated getting fired. This gig was my chance to show people—my parents, my friends, Dr. Morrison, myself—that I was capable of holding down a job just like a real adult. Having this job meant that I was getting better, that I had a future outside of my parents’ house, that I might even be able to make it back to finish my college degree one day. This job meant I wasn’t a loser anymore, or at least not as big a loser as I’d been when I was afraid to leave my one-room apartment. How would I explain the loss of my job in a way that wouldn’t make me sound like a completely incompetent fool?

  Edgar unloaded the rest of the crap on his own and then got into the car. He stared straight ahead as we drove the twenty minutes back to the Blessed Sanctuary. When we parked outside the main house, he turned to me and said simply, “I will see you here at the usual time tomorrow.” Then he went into the mudroom.

  I had prepared myself to be fired right on the spot, so I was a bit confused. Did he want me to return the next day just so he could fire me? If he didn’t get rid of me, would a letter still go in my permanent file? Would Stevie Nicks be notified, and if so, would this preclude my attendance at all future Fleetwood Mac reunion concerts?

  The next day, I walked with great trepidation through the mudroom and into the kitchen. There I found Edgar with a bright smile on his face. The table was set with a pitcher of milk, a jar of honey, a bowl of raisins, and a pot of tea. Two matching breakfast bowls sat beside two matching teacups.

  “Sara!” he exclaimed when I entered, clapping his hands and grinning. “We have so much to do today! Come, eat up! We need our strength for the tasks ahead. Can you believe it’s only two weeks until the annual conference?” Warily, I sank into a chair. He ladled a steaming pile of oatmeal into my bowl and handed me a spoon.

  “I slow-cook it, the way it’s meant to be done,” he told me as he poured me a cup of tea. “Steel-cut Irish oats. Only takes thirty minutes on the stove. I don’t know why people can’t be bothered with it. I find it meditative. Chop wood, carry water, make oatmeal!” He laughed a high-pitched, tinkling laugh. I realized then that while I hadn’t heard Edgar laugh often, I’d never heard him laugh in the same way twice. Something about that really freaked me out.

  Soon enough, I was too busy to worry much about Edgar’s laughter. Edgar was preoccupied with the logistical preparations of getting three guest speakers to the Blessed Sanctuary from points all over the country. He also had to figure out how much food to buy for the two hundred donors who would come to the conference for learning and worship. He gave me a list of tasks and basically left me to my own devices for the next two weeks. Early spring was upon us, so I had some weeding to do. I also had to sweep, vacuum, dust, mop, shine, alphabetize, iron, polish, and fold all manner of things in the main house, the contemplation house, and the sweat lodge. I finally got inside the sweat lodge, which proved rather annoying to clean because I had to individually dust all the nooks and crannies of every sacred ritual object (and there were hundreds of them). The mystical thrill of holding a genuine sacred eagle feather really fades when you have to clean forty of those fuckers in an hour.

  I spent so little time with Edgar in those weeks that I might have almost forgotten how disturbingly unbalanced he was. But in case my memory had grown dim, he saw fit to remind me on the day of the big conference. At least this time his rage was mostly reserved for someone else.

  My workday usually began at ten A.M. and ended at six P.M. But on the morning of the big conference, I arrived at seven A.M. in order help Edgar set up. When I turned onto the long driveway, I saw that the trees around the property were festooned with bright, brand-new cloth peace symbol flags fluttering in the early-spring breeze. Unlit tiki torches were set on either side of the drive. I assumed these were either a nod to some mysterious hippie-Hawaiian religious connection or else a cheap way to get the party started.

  I pulled up to the house and saw Arthur puttering in the garden. This was rather unusual, as he didn’t often leave his office.

  “Hey, Arthur!” I called as I got out of the car. “You ready for all these people?” He was a kind guy, and my impression of him as a sweetly befuddled ex-hippie hadn’t changed.

  He looked up slowly and blinked in the dim morning light. It seemed to take him a few moments to recognize me. When he did, he smiled his gentle smile.

  “Hello, Sara,” he said. “I am so glad you are here to help.” There was deep relief in his voice. I walked over to take a look at the garden.

  “Shoots are finally coming up,” I said. “You’ll have fresh vegetables every day.”

  He stared at one particular plant for a long time, seemingly mesmerized.

  “Yes,” he said finally. “Maybe Edgar will like that.” When he said Edgar’s name, we both shivered a little.

  “I guess I’d better get inside and help him out.”

  “Oh yes, please, Sara.” There was that immense relief again. “He’s in . . . he’s . . .”

  “Oh, I bet I know how he is.” Arthur looked at me in surprise, and I grinned at him.

  I left him there, wandering peacefully among the quietest living things in the world. I felt sorry for the guy. Oh, he wasn’t exactly a henpecked husband. Edgar seemed to treat his partner with more care and dignity than he afforded most people. He capably managed the day-to-day aspects of life with Arthur. I’d seen Edgar pay the bills on time, make healthful and nutritious meals, and keep an eagle eye on his partner’s physical health and work deadlines. I don’t think Arthur was necessarily capable of managing the details on his own, and in Edgar he had an able and energetic partner. They obviously loved each other, and their mutual loyalty was evident. It might even have been a happy union, in its way. But Edgar resented Arthur, and I can’t imagine Arthur didn’t know it. And while I knew Edgar could be overwhelming one on one, I had a feeling he also wasn’t the most adept at coping with large groups of humans.

  This last bit was reinforced as soon as I stepped into the kitchen. Edgar rushed about the room in a tizzy, his usually perfect hair frizzy and unkempt. I could tell he’d been up much longer than I had, and I’d risen at five thirty A.M.

  “Good morning,” I said. “Tell me what to do.”

  “It is a terrible morning, and I will gladly tell you what to do,” Edgar snapped. “I wish you had been here earlier. I should’ve had you sleep over and get up with me at three. We’re hours behind. Hours!”

  It was ten after seven.

  “The downstairs bathroom needs to be completely cleaned,” he said.

  “In the basement? Are you letting people go down there?”

  “They’ll go all over, Sara! They don’t care that this is our house, that this is our life. They think they paid to have access to every
thing. They’ll go in our bedroom if I don’t put up a sign. And that’s the next thing I’ll have you do. Cordon off the hallway with tape and put up a sign that says PRIVATE QUARTERS. NO ACCESS! Put an exclamation point at the end. No, put three. Now do the bathroom.”

  I descended the stairs to the basement, glad to be out of his way. As I disposed of dead flies, dirt, and dried toothpaste, I heard his little feet pounding the floorboards overhead.

  When I came upstairs thirty minutes later, he’d already put up the tape and the sign. “You took too long!” he said by way of explanation. “Now go to Arthur’s office and photocopy and fold the leaflets up there.”

  He kept me busy with various tasks all morning. As with all the other work I did for him, none of it was inherently difficult or unpleasant. But as usual, everything I produced wasn’t quite up to his standards. If I folded napkins into triangles, I ought to have folded them into rectangles. If I defrosted frozen fruit in the steel bowl, I ought to have defrosted it in the ceramic bowl. If I greased a pan with olive oil, I ought to have used canola oil. The little criticisms seemed as necessary to his daily routine as the tasks he had assigned me. He inspected the basement bathroom and redid all my work. I wanted to point out that none of the guests were likely to use the shower, but kept mum as he scrubbed the grout I’d already attacked with an old toothbrush.

  The day’s program was set to begin at noon, but the guest speakers were to show up at ten A.M. There arrived in due course a local rabbi, a local minister, and a writer named Elizabeth. She edited the religion section of a well-regarded newspaper and made not-infrequent appearances on television to discuss the ways in which Eastern spirituality had penetrated the mainstream American consciousness. What intrigued me the most was that she was a product of the 1960s-era Blessed Sanctuary where Arthur and Edgar had fallen in love. She had lived with them, eaten with them, and worked with them for a couple of years. Her sister Mary had also stayed at the place for a time, and Edgar had wondered aloud in passing if Mary would also return for this year’s conference. It was hard for me to imagine that Edgar had existed in any form other than his current one, and I longed to hear stories of his youth from a surviving witness. Was it possible that he’d actually mellowed over the years?

  I was out in the woods stringing extra peace symbol flags between trees when I distantly heard a car’s tires crunch over the loose gravel near the house. By the time I emerged near the back of the house, the guests were out of the car, laughing warmly and greeting Arthur.

  I rounded the corner of the house and saw an attractive, hippie-chic older woman with well-maintained silver hair that shone in the midmorning sun. She wore a nicely tailored gray suit accessorized with some sort of ethnic-print lavender scarf and tasteful chunky silver jewelry, and her makeup was subtle but perfect. Her companion was similarly attired and resembled her too strongly not to be her sister.

  What I found the most remarkable was Arthur, who stood chatting amiably with the two women. He wasn’t animated, exactly, but he certainly showed more energy than the slow-moving fellow I was used to watching sip tea each morning at the kitchen table.

  When I got close enough, Arthur introduced me to Elizabeth and her sister Mary as “Edgar’s assistant.”

  “Well, that must be quite a job,” Elizabeth said dryly.

  I was shocked and sort of delighted to see Arthur laugh. I hadn’t even considered the possibility that he was capable of laughter.

  “You can imagine,” he said. “Edgar works very hard.”

  “Yes, of course,” Elizabeth said faintly, looking past us. Arthur and I turned around to see Edgar barreling down the front lawn at a near-run. His face wore a smile so forced it nearly qualified as a grimace.

  “Elizabeth! Mary! You’re finally here!” Now Edgar was upon us, and Arthur had shrunk back into himself. He seemed to find a nearby butterfly utterly captivating.

  “We were beginning to wonder if you’d forgotten about us,” Edgar added, putting his hands on his hips and forcing that smile even wider.

  “Oh no, are the others here already?” Mary said apologetically.

  “Not yet,” Edgar said. “You’re all late!”

  “So we’re first,” Elizabeth said.

  “Well, yes,” Edgar conceded. He paused and then looked at me.

  “Elizabeth, this is my assistant, Sara,” he announced.

  “We’ve met,” I said. I caught Mary looking at me with great sympathy.

  “Yes,” Elizabeth said. “Now Edgar, dear, did you want me to set up inside the contemplation house? Mary is here to help. She may be a businesswoman today, but she’s still got some of that Blessed Sanctuary spirit in her.” Unexpectedly, Edgar linked his arm through Elizabeth’s and led her away, chattering eighteen miles a minute about the plans for the day. The two got about ten feet toward the temple before Edgar halted and turned.

  “You too, Mary!” he called. “I don’t want my personal assistant telling you stories about what a horrible boss I am!” He let loose one of his unsettling laughs. This time it took the form of a cackle. Some things are funny because they’re true. Perhaps in Edgar’s head this was one of those, but I doubt it. He was smart, but he didn’t possess sufficient self-awareness to realize that he was a tiny gay nightmare. I certainly didn’t give him any indication that I was unhappy. Twenty dollars an hour bought a lot of my tolerance. I even laughed gamely as Mary crept away.

  The rabbi and the minister arrived in a car together, and they were as jolly as Elizabeth had been reserved. They wanted a tour of the grounds in order to see the improvements Edgar and Arthur had made since last year, and I took them around quickly, pointing out the expanded garden, the newly painted contemplation house, and all the new peace symbol flags. Edgar returned from the contemplation house with Elizabeth and Mary in tow. He embraced the rabbi and the minister with an enthusiasm that had been lacking in his greeting of the two women. Arthur wandered outside and immediately plunged into deep conversation with the new visitors and Edgar.

  Elizabeth approached me with a folder in hand.

  “Sara, do you think you might be able to photocopy these for me?” she asked politely. “I need two hundred copies for the visitors.” I looked up into her sparkling blue eyes and found myself immediately eager to please. This woman had an intimidating charm and an undeniable magnetism. I could see why she was such a successful figure in her field. There was just something about her that made you want to pay attention. And she smelled like the slightest dab of some wonderful, expensive perfume.

  “I’d be glad to help,” I said. “I can copy them in Arthur’s office.”

  “Oh, thank you so much,” she said, and a genuine smile broke over her face. It was like the sudden emergence of the sun on a cool, pleasantly quiet gray day. I hurried into the house.

  It takes a bit of time to make two hundred copies on a small, antiquated photocopy machine in a home office. I was only halfway through the task when I heard the first paying guests arrive. Immediately after I noted the car sounds, I noted a much louder, much nearer sound. It was getting closer, and closer, and closer and—BOOM!

  Edgar flung open the door. His face was redder than I’d ever seen it, and he looked angrier even than the day I’d dropped the vase at the dump.

  Oh, fuck, I thought. He is so going to fire me this time. How am I gonna explain this to my parents? They’re gonna think I can’t hold down a job. They’re gonna think I’m still crazy and a baby. I didn’t know what the reason would be, but Edgar didn’t really need a reason to scream at anybody. Rage was his default setting.

  Instead of screaming, he hissed.

  “What the fuck are you doing up here?”

  “Making copies for Elizabeth.” My voice was very small. Unconsciously, I braced for an actual physical attack.

  “Making copies for Elizabeth?” Instead of getting louder as I’d expected, his voice got lower and lower. “And who the fuck told you to do that?”

  “She did.”
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  “She did!”

  I gulped. Edgar’s face remained frozen in a kind of immovable fury. I scrambled to explain my apparent sin.

  “I’m sorry. I thought it was part of my job, to help you out by doing little things for the guest speakers. So you wouldn’t have to be bothered with them.” Outside, the voices of visitors grew louder. More cars were pulling into the driveway each minute.

  Edgar looked hard at me.

  “I want you to understand that I am not angry with you,” he said very carefully, as if he were afraid he’d choke on the words. “I am not upset with you. This is what she does. This is how she operates. She manipulated you into thinking you were helping me, because you love me.” I wasn’t about to object to that last bit, so I nodded and he went on.

  “Elizabeth must be the center of attention at all times. She must feel that everyone worships her.” Edgar was pacing now, slightly bent at the waist, with his hands grasped together behind his back. “She was the same way when we all lived together thirty-five years ago. She was Queen Elizabeth, and her sister was Queen Mary, and we were their worthless subjects. Arthur was patient with Elizabeth because she was very beautiful, and even gay men are easily controlled by beautiful women. I don’t mean to imply that anything happened between them. He was captivated by me. Utterly captivated. And he hasn’t been with a woman since college.” I nodded again.

  “But that is just the way women like Elizabeth work. They pretend to be feminists and peaceniks and Buddhists or whatever you want to call them, but they’re actually weak and selfish creatures. They cannot abide another person having any power. She saw that I was a successful businessman and nonprofit director with my own personal assistant, and she wanted to co-opt you for her own needs. To show me that I’m still beneath her. To show me that she is the queen. Well, would you like to hear something, Sara?” I nodded for the third time, as if I were in a trance.

  Edgar rose up with all his might and gazed at me with the fury of Kali, Mother-Destroyer (if Kali wore Birkenstocks with thick gray socks).