Twilight Zone Anthology

by Serling , Carol

  “And, you know, you’ve shown a talent for discretion.” Other than that time you showed up at my mother’s house, uninvited. “I think we could still continue to work together, even if we’re, uh, working together.”

  “Of course we can, if we’re careful. You want me to come over?”

  “Yeah.”

  She was there within the hour. At first, it seemed wildly novel, Aimee crouched between his legs while he watched Cinemax over her head. Then it seemed familiar. They had done this a lot. He had instigated the affair, in fact, although he’d just been picking up on Aimee’s signals. The looks she had tossed, the shy, sly touches. Sometimes, in fact, he fell asleep in the chair, without reciprocating. Maybe most of the time. Aimee always said she didn’t mind if he was too tired to reciprocate. You work so hard. It dawned on him now that she had been much more interested in another kind of reciprocity, a more cold-blooded tit for tat. What was that visit to his mother’s all about? A warning, a threat. Then again, when he gave her the job, she would be in his debt, with just as much to lose as he had. He could survive a little gossip, a few glares. He—he reached out his hand, and, under the guise of stroking her hair, adjusted Aimee’s head, which was blocking his view.

  He woke to the smell of coffee.

  “I can’t believe you fell asleep in your chair again,” Mona said.

  So it was a dream. The kind of dream he hadn’t had since he was seventeen or so, judging by the way things felt around his crotch, but obviously a dream. A relief, right? He told himself it was a relief. Strange, though, how in the dream he couldn’t retain the details of his real life, while in real life, the dream stayed vivid. Aimee, her threats, her exciting but odd behavior. Well, he always had been hot for her, but never dared to act. He had wanted to, though. Not enough to do anything about it, but enough to wish that he could be a single, unencumbered guy.

  Mona brought him a cup of coffee, the real thing, and perched on the arm of the chair. “It’s a good thing I came downstairs before the kids were up,” she said. “Honey, you left the television on.”

  “Oh, sorry. Did the noise—”

  “It wasn’t the noise. But—look, you’re entitled to a little fun, as long as we have the parental controls. But you can’t leave it there, hon.”

  “There?”

  “On those sexy channels. I told you when I agreed to let you have a subscription that you had to be careful. Bad enough for me to start my morning with an image of some woman’s behind going up and down, but if one of the twins had come downstairs first—” She glanced at her watch. “Gotta run. I’ve got a tennis lesson before my pedicure.”

  Nice life, he thought. You play tennis, I earn the money, you get to decide what cable channels I’m allowed to have.

  She kissed him on the forehead, leaving what he knew would be a pale pink smear. Eventually, he found the energy to rouse himself and walked through the house, retracing his steps from yesterday. The house had reverted to the chaos of family. He hated to admit it, but he kind of missed the office that had briefly inhabited Dennie’s room. But they could do an addition, buy those kinds of furnishings. He drove to work in his good old Jeep Cherokee, barely missing the silver Audi, its power and style.

  But when he flipped open the glove compartment to grab his parking pass, he saw a tube of lipstick, as dark as the one from the dream.

  In the office, Aimee smiled at him—a normal, pleasant smile, nothing more—then trailed him into his office even though they’d long had an understanding that Bob liked a few minutes to decompress. He hung up his coat on the hook, saw with relief that the credenza was filled with family photographs and the rogue copy of Yeats had disappeared. Yet, the photo of the two men in tuxedos remained on the top shelf. He didn’t get that. Who were those guys? What were they to him? Why would a book come and go, while a photo stayed?

  “When are you going to announce it?” Aimee asked without preamble. “Last night, you said you’d have to wait three months, until we were in the new quarter, and I’m okay with that. Although I was counting on the pay increase sooner, so if you could help me cover some gaps in my expenses—”

  “Last night?”

  Her smile was sexy. Creepy-sexy, but sexy. “When I was at your house. Aren’t you the naughty one, sneaking me in after everyone had gone to bed?”

  “After—”

  “And I thought I was the one who liked to take risks. Remember that time in the office, right here, when we thought everyone had left for the night and the custodian almost caught us?”

  She seemed on the verge of coming around the desk, re-creating the scene to which she had alluded.

  “No. I mean—I remember.” He did. He remembered a lot. He remembered too much. Yesterday, it had felt as if his life had broken in half, and his life with Mona and the kids, his real life, had vanished. Today, he had both lives, one overlaid on the other, with a lot of subsequent contradictions. He was a happy family man. A happy family man who apparently had been having the kind of affair that could destroy everything, his work and home lives. “Of course I remember. But, sheesh, Aimee. Not now.”

  This made her beam with happiness. Happy not to have to blow him at 9:25 A.M. He saw now what should have been obvious in any one of his lives: Amy’s intimate, uh, ministrations were cold-blooded careerism, a way of getting ahead. Once she had the job, she wouldn’t have sex with him anymore, but she would have the history of the sex to control him, blackmail him. He would never be free of her, yet it would never be fun again. The whole affair came back to him and it was an affair now, a dark and terrifying counterpoint to his domestic life, full of lies and risks and betrayals. When he had skipped one of the twin’s sporting events or performances, chances were he was with Aimee.

  But she had started it, although he hadn’t realized it at the time. She had pursued him. She had come to his mother’s house over Christmas and Mona had been there. Mona knew Aimee, of course, and she bought the idea that Aimee was visiting family nearby. Aimee even had a “male cousin” in tow, some guy who chatted happily with Mona in the den, while Bob and Aimee went into the powder room, their visits spaced carefully apart—Jesus, how had this happened? He had always been a good guy, living his life for his family, the sole provider, the breadwinner. He would have to give Aimee the job, but how long would it be before he got caught, trapped in his old lies?

  And what’s with that goddamn photograph of the two men in tuxedos? It was the one thing that seemed true in all his lives over these two days. Was the photo the answer?

  He waited until Aimee had left and reached for the photograph. It was on the top shelf, and he had to stand on tiptoe. It appeared to be insubstantial, a computer printout, not even on proper paper, and the frame was cheap. Funny, he didn’t remember the credenza’s top shelf being so high. He stretched his arms, his finger grazing the frame, but not quite grasping it. He brushed it, meaning only to scoop it toward him, but lost his balance, lurching into the credenza. After what seemed like a moment of consideration, the credenza returned the favor and swayed forward into his outstretched arms, almost as if they were dancing.

  When the crash came, there was a split second of confusion, then the employees who were there by nine thirty ran to Bob’s office, but even the half dozen or so who crowded in there were not strong enough to lift the heavy credenza from his body, and, by the time the emergency crews arrived, it was too late for him.

  Paul, who had been in the middle of packing yet another box, was among those who gathered. He saw the framed photograph—glass broken, frame splintered—lying a few inches from Bob’s hand, which happened to be the only part of Bob that was visible. Had Bob even noticed it? It had been a silly gesture, sneaking into Bob’s office Wednesday night and placing the photo there, a bit of nose-thumbing at best, not at all the elegant gesture he had imagined it to be in his beer-fueled imagination.

  He wondered why Aimee seemed so stricken. She was a tough cookie, obsequious to Bob’s face and contemptuous
behind Bob’s back, specializing in surprisingly graphic speculation about how inept he must be in bed, how pathetic his cries would be at orgasm, how he had probably never pleased any woman, except Mona, and that was with his big paycheck. Aimee had a lot of edge, to risk understatement, but she was bawling like a baby now. Elena and Jack looked more like Paul felt, dazed and horrified. Did he look guilty, too, however?

  Paul knew that Bob’s death would not spare him. The paperwork had been executed; his exit interview with HR was behind him. He wondered if Bob had even figured out the meaning of the photo, if he had noticed it, much less figured it out. Paul had spent a ridiculous amount of time scouring the Web, looking for an image that would not announce itself too boldly, and was giddy when he found exactly what he needed. The two tuxedoed men, out of context, were not easy to place. But add a monocle to one and a German helmet to the other and they would be instantly recognizable as the actors who played Colonel Klink and Sergeant Schultz, the two reliably inept yes-men of Hogan’s Heroes, the two halves that made up Bob’s personality. Paul had considered trying Peter Lorre, in Casablanca, but Lorre was too recognizable. Paul had wanted Bob to puzzle over the photo, wonder at its significance. He had wanted to suggest that Bob was cowardly, and that his cowardice, his fear of any risk, had cut him off from having a truly interesting life. He wanted to say to his former boss, You are the toady and the incompetent, you do the nasty stuff and then pretend to know nothing about. He wanted to say, How dare you pretend to love poetry, when there is so little poetry in your soul. Now he wasn’t sure if Bob had even noticed the little frame, tucked among all those plaques and photos and trophies and unopened books.

  He went back to packing his desk. A volume of Yeats was there, although he didn’t remember having that among his effects. Funny, because it was only two days ago that Bob had made that Freudian slip: in dreams begin nightmares. Paul tossed the book into one of his boxes. It wasn’t his, but he didn’t see how it could hurt, how anyone would miss it.

  Poetry makes nothing happen, said W. H. Auden, in memorializing the poet William Butler Yeats. But perhaps the problem is that we don’t acknowledge poetry’s power, or we deny its role in our day-to-day lives. Or we obscure it, distracted by the petty feuds, rivalries, and tiny discontents, at the office and at home. Bob justified himself by saying that he was a family man and he was forced to live by his own words. As he found out, what’s easily said is not so easily done . . . especially in the Twilight Zone.

  Jake Martin has it all, the pretty wife, the cute kids, the right car, the nice house. But he wants more and he’s just been given the chance of a lifetime, and he’s taken it. Of course, there will be consequences. But he’s prepared to lose the friend he stabbed in the back and even to trade in the pretty wife for the right wife.

  There is one consequence, though, that he cannot be prepared for. Somebody else understands him better than he understands himself, and they are going to confront him in a way he cannot expect. An ambitious man is about to have everything he has gained stripped away, and face his own soul bleeding and naked . . . in the Twilight Zone.

  J

  ake pulled the old Beemer into the driveway, giving himself all the time in the world to savor the surprise that Shirley was about to get. She had been eating him alive over their expenses, over the fact that he never should have bought the house on Alta Vista, over their unpaid mortgage, all that crap. But he’d bought the house so he could entertain people like Charlie and Gil. So it was an investment in the future—that is to say, now.

  This was no ordinary promotion, up five grand and shake your hand. No, he was into the big time here. This was lucrative stock options, a place on the bonus list—and, of course, a raise that far exceeded five grand. If things went as well for Bradford this year as they had last, he could be looking at tripling his income. Of course, his boss, Mike, had been passed over, but that was life in the jungle, right?

  He stopped in the garage, tucked the bottle of champagne he’d bought to celebrate with under his arm, and went into the house. “Shitty day,” he yelled happily, “look out below!”

  From upstairs, he heard Shirley’s warbling voice shrill, “I got the iron on, honey!”

  And, boy, he really could not see her hobnobbing with Rita Bradford and Margaret Harrison at the Burning Tree Country Club. She’d already been a damned iffy hostess at their dinner parties, with that shrill cackle of hers. He had to face the fact that he’d been inspired by the boobs, not the brains, here. As you moved up the ladder, wives counted more and more. She had to be able to sustain an opera weekend in New York with Maggie and Rita and the rest of their posse. She had to be able to make them want her on board.

  From now on, he and his wife would be considered a sort of team, and if one could not advance, neither would the other. Example: Andy Card was a senior vice president and he’d been on the waiting list at Burning Tree for years. Why? Leona just did not fit in over there. Behind her back, they called her the Easter Egg, and that kind of summed it up. What would they be calling Shirley, with that voice of hers? The Grackle?

  Fine. He’d deal with it.

  And here she came, hair up in rollers, wearing a dirty smock, feet bare. “What happened, honey, why are you home early?” Fear made her voice crackle even more sharply. She thought he’d been canned.

  “You’ve been smoking,” he said. Another unpleasant habit she couldn’t break.

  “I’ve been doing the bills, honey. We’re gonna have to skip the mortgage again. So, yeah, I’ve been smoking.”

  Smoking was weak. Bradford’s entire campus was a no-smoking zone. “Charlie Bradford doesn’t like it.”

  She laughed to herself, shook her head. They’d been here before. She viewed his cultivation of Charlie and Gil with ill-disguised contempt.

  He let her see the Wine Cellars bag, then reached in and lifted out the champagne. He held it up. “Shirley, I’m no longer in the marketing department.”

  “Oh . . . oh, God.” She looked at the bottle. Then at his face. “You’re . . . not?”

  “Yeah, they made me move my stuff out this afternoon.”

  She reacted as if she’d been struck. “We’ll get foreclosed.”

  Yesterday, that was true. Today, they could put the house on the market, leave it till it sold, and move right over to Terrace Lane, where Gil and Charlie lived, as soon as a house was available. With the kind of money he was making now, they could simply carry this dump until it sold.

  “I moved my stuff out of the sixteenth floor and into my new office on the twentieth.”

  He watched her face. She blinked. Thought.

  “But that’s—oh my God.”

  He smiled, a big one, ear to ear.

  “Go on! You got a promotion, go on!”

  “It’s huge.”

  From the dining room, little Lissa whispered to Pete, “Daddy got a promotion, Daddy got a promotion!”

  And the champagne flowed and Shirley thawed the fine Omaha steaks they’d bought last year.

  After dinner and bedtimes, he sat with the calculator, actually figuring out what his new take-home was going to be. Which was a lot of fun.

  She was quiet for a long time, watching him, reading. She turned the TV on and surfed, then cut it off. Finally, she asked him, “What about Mike?”

  “He’s still where he was.”

  “But then you—what happened? Did you get his promotion? Did you get Mike’s promotion?”

  “I got a promotion.”

  “He was your friend!”

  “He was passed over. It happens.”

  “You took Mike’s promotion. That’s why we’ve been sucking up to the Bradfords and the Harrisons, isn’t it? And it’s not right, Jake, it’s ugly. What about book club and bridge club—I can’t show my face!”

  “I just moved you from Alta Vista Avenue to Terrace Lane and all you can think about is some ridiculous midlevel-wives’ bridge club? You’re headed for Burning Tree, girl!”

&
nbsp; “We can’t afford Burning Tree. And anyway, how are we going to move? We can’t sell this house.”

  “Of course we can sell this house. I know the market’s not perfect, but there’ve been some decent sales lately. The Carters’ place went for two sixty and we’ve got more frontage.”

  As he spoke, she stared at him. When he stopped, she kept staring.

  “What?”

  “I don’t think the houses in our neighborhood have any value right now.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “The Carters—you know. Surely you do.”

  The Carter place had sold to people just like them, of course. This block wasn’t being busted. Certainly not. “All I know is that it has to be a normal sale. This isn’t Oakwell Ranch or Lily Dale, for God’s sake. We’re upscale around here and they don’t do upscale, they can’t!”

  “Hon, I’m pretty sure they’re moving in Saturday.”

  He was stunned, quite frankly, to silence. This was just—well, it was impossible. It meant that this house was worthless. And with him behind on his mortgage two months already, the bank was going to know this very soon, and it would call his note.

  Promotion or no promotion, that would force him into bankruptcy.

  The Bradford Brands Corporation, Bylaws, Article 15, Board of Directors, Paragraph 5, part ii: “No person in a condition of bankruptcy or operating under the bankruptcy protection of any state or entity in any location whatsoever may sit as a member of the Board of Directors of the Bradford Corporation.”

  All senior vice presidencies carried mandatory board membership. He felt his underarms getting wet; his head starting to throb. But no, she was wrong, she had to be.

  He went into the den and turned on his home computer, then waited for what seemed like a thousand years for the thing to boot. At last, he pulled up the multiple-listing service and checked the listing . . . and the world ended.

  Oh, they’d made an effort to hide it, but it was clear enough. The buyers had numbers, not names.