Parts Per Million

by Julia Stoops

  What he then said to the curator was inaudible from where I stood, but her face went from attentive to blank. Next photo. Me standing, legs apart, arms folded, two gallon jugs of biofuel between my boots, and glaring into the lens. Right after Dee took it I’d said, “Will you quit catching me before I’ve shaved?”

  Reynolds’s hands became fists by his sides. He turned to the room. Forty, fifty people. More coming and going through the door. The president noticed Reynolds’s change of mood and was looking with puzzled urgency at the work. Reynolds spotted Nelson, deep in conversation with the commissioner. I had a paper clip in my pocket and I flicked it at him, but he was on a roll. Reynolds advanced, but before he reached Nelson, a cell phone rang. Then another. Then another, and another. The air was full of jingles and chirps and bells. Reynolds stopped, patted his pocket. Nervous laughter from around the quieting room.

  Except Nelson, whose voice sailed like an arrow through the lull: “—because of the radon in the well water—” He looked up. The commissioner looked up.

  “I heard HLU builds war technologies,” said a man into his cell phone.

  The curator, white-lipped, called out, “Please take your phone conversation outside.”

  “Harry Lane U expels dissenters for noncriminal activities,” said Beatrice into hers. Reynolds’s face was a tomato.

  An elderly woman who I wouldn’t have placed as a member of Students for Peace, said, “Did you know that the militarized civilian university is tied to the emergence of the national security state?”

  Reynolds’s fists opened and closed.

  Brian jammed his phone to his ear and cried, “Harry Lane U is undermining its own commitment to peace and justice.”

  The president stared at Reynolds. The curator moved around, waving her arms. “This is private property. You cannot disturb the customers.”

  “They’re trying to shut us up as we speak,” said a boy into his phone.

  There were titters around the room. Through the plate glass windows people watched. Others stood in the doorway.

  “There’s a song about it,” said a woman with a long braid, and she started singing, “Tell the politicians we don’t want their war,” and others joined in, chanting into their phones, “Save the people of Iraq, push the US war machine back.”

  “Stop,” shouted the curator. “I’m calling security.” But a drum started up, and the cell phone people began dancing to the beat. “Tell Bush we won’t let him kill—”

  The lights went out. The singing got louder; the phosphorescent green dots on the cell phones jiggled. Nelson tugged my jacket.

  “We should go.”

  “I want to see how this turns out,” I said.

  Men in uniform appeared from nowhere. The dancing was getting bouncy. Reynolds and President Wellesley had disappeared. Franky said, “Let’s go,” and between him and Nelson, Deirdre and I were apparently leaving. We waved at Jen and she followed.

  It was misty outside, making halos around the campus lights. We walked, heads down, through excited chatter.

  “That was awesome,” said Jen. “Your art’s actually doing something.”

  “It’s always done something,” Nelson snapped.

  Franky stopped. “Are you kidding?” he said. “It totally sucked. Poor Deirdre!” And that’s when I realized she was crying.

  “It was obnoxious as hell,” said Nelson. He pulled her close. “I’m behind the message, but it was terrible timing. It upstaged her work.”

  Jen spread her hands. “It’s not like hardly anyone was looking at it, anyway.”

  Brian ran up. “Jen,” he yelled, and they high-fived. “Awesome!”

  Deirdre pulled away from Nelson and shrieked, “You knew, didn’t you?” She shoved both hands against Jen’s chest.

  Jen stumbled off the path. “Whoa. Sensitive parts there, okay?”

  “You helped them plan this?” I said.

  Brian’s smile fell off his face. “You didn’t know?”

  Jen held her arms across her front. “I was going to tell you all. Just, Dee seemed so freaked out I thought she’d put the kibosh on the whole thing.”

  “Are you insane?” yelled Nelson.

  Brian got down on one knee, took Dee’s hands in his and said in a mournful voice, “Deirdre the fantastic photographer, we thought you were down with it.”

  Jen reared up and pointed at the ground between our feet. “You want insane? How about this place is insane. You think it’s sane to aid and abet war? Huh? You think it’s sane to sit back and watch imperial expansion unfold?”

  Dee wrenched her hands from Brian’s grip and lunged at Jen. I grabbed her, held her tight until she stopped struggling, then turned her down the path. In the gallery behind us, the lights were back on. On the bright white walls we were stuck inside her black-and-white rectangles. The crowd outside was growing. Campus cops were escorting people out. There was shouting, laughing, singing. The song stayed with us until we turned the corner.

  45: JEN

  “Can I see the stapler?” I say.

  Nelson picks it up, holds it out. A staple falls into my coffee.

  “The silent treatment’s getting tiresome,” I say.

  Dee’s laundry basket bumps my desk as she navigates around the fax machine. My coffee sloshes. She keeps on going. Fetzer glances over at the spill then goes back to typing.

  Guess it’s gonna be me going upstairs to get the sponge.

  When I get back, Nelson’s saying to Dee, “Hey, we missed this this morning. You got two whole columns.” He folds the paper over, and he and Dee stand shoulder to shoulder to read.

  “Is it good?” says Fetzer.

  “‘Deirdre O’Carroll,’” says Nelson,“‘revives the tired hybrid of art photojournalism long enough to get me interested in a group of Portland’s more obscure yet dedicated citizens.’”

  Fetzer pulls in his chin. “Obscure?”

  Nelson’s eyebrows pop up. “‘Ironically, the very citizens who exposed Harry Lane University’s out-of-character relationship with the Pentagon, which makes this show a transparent and clumsy attempt at greenwash.’”

  Fetzer rolls his eyes.

  “Someone didn’t to do their homework,” I say.

  Nelson scans down the paper. “‘. . . work bucks the current Northwest trends of nature and narrative photography . . .’”

  Fetzer says, “So he likes it but he doesn’t have the balls to come out and say so.”

  “Rest of the column’s about Toshiko, how she was in charge of a corporate collection before she took the job . . . ‘finding her feet in an educational setting’ . . . huh. And it looks like the entire second column is about the protest.”

  My desk now clean of coffee, I drop the sponge at the bottom of the stairs.

  “Great,” says Nelson with disgust. “The protest is contextualized within a bunch of uninformed nonsense about impromptu theater. He likens it to those groups that stand still in train stations.”

  Deirdre hides her face in her hands and bursts into tears. Again. There are murmurs and hugs from Nelson, and Fetzer passes her a tissue.

  “Hey,” I say, and shrug. “It’s publicity.”

  “Shut up,” says Deirdre into her hands. Nelson rubs her back.

  “It’s all wrong,” she wails. “Everything’s all wrong.”

  “It’s fine, sweetheart,” says Nelson. “The show looks fantastic. Everyone says so. And this means more people will go see it. Sure, the protest and Toshiko got the lion’s share, but without the controversy you’d probably get a shorter review.”

  The phone rings and I reach over. “Omnia Mundi Media Group.” How may I neglect your call?

  “Is that Jen?” says a deep voice. Nancy.

  “Yeah. Hi.”

  “Not good news. I saw today the gallery’s closed.”

  “Closed?”

  “Uh-huh. People were taking the work down. I feel so bad for little Deirdre.”

  Little Deirdre is sni
ffling. Now how am I going to avoid getting my eyes clawed out?

  “Crap.”

  Nelson’s cutting the review out with scissors. There’s a picture of one of her photos, I can’t tell which from here. Deirdre watches him like it’s all pointless.

  Nancy says, “Uh-huh. I heard Toshiko’s been canned, too.”

  “How’s Reynolds?”

  At the sound of the name, all three of them look up.

  “Not a happy man,” says Nancy. “Not a happy man. Listen, I gotta go, but I’ll be in touch.”

  “Okay. Thanks,” I say, and there’s a click.

  The phone goes crooked into its cradle. I straighten it. Pick a piece of hole-punch confetti out of the little groove along the bottom.

  “So?” says Fetzer.

  Nelson’s mouth is a bad-tempered line.

  I say, “Let me preface this by saying, ‘not responsible for direct, indirect, incidental, or consequential damages.’”

  Their irritated frowns.

  “Unfortunately, the show has been, ah, closed.”

  Nelson’s hand slams down on his desk. “Look at what you’ve done.” He’s up and weaving around chairs, and I’m backing up against a shelf and the shelf’s rocking behind me. Something hollow rolls over, smashes, shards flying out along the floor.

  “I didn’t know, man, I didn’t know it was going to turn out like this.”

  “She worked months on that show.”

  “It wasn’t meant to make it close, jeez.”

  Fetzer’s between us, his boots crunching on glass. It was a light bulb. His hands, his voice, guiding Nelson into a chair.

  “Okay,” says Fetzer. Hands on his hips. He looks at me. “You helped them plan it?”

  “No! I just told them when it was going up.”

  “You seemed pretty close with them for someone who just passed along a date and time. Did you ask them to do something?”

  The inside of my mouth is coffee-sour. “Look. How many times do you get to put up photos of yourself in a place you’ve been banned, huh? I was just trying to get more mileage out of the opportunity.”

  “Mileage?” Deirdre squeaks. Her arms are bolt-straight by her sides. “That’s all my work is to you, something to get mileage out of?”

  “Dee. You have to believe me. No way did I think your show would close. I wouldn’t have even thought of doing it if I knew that.”

  “Oh come on,” says Nelson. “You know Reynolds has zero tolerance. You seriously thought he’d just sit back and take something like that?”

  “All of you!” yells Deirdre. “All of you just used me like a rag. Reynolds would’ve had the show closed anyway. Soon as he recognized you.”

  “Yeah.” I point at Nelson. “Yeah. So don’t accuse me of not thinking it through.”

  Fetzer rasps both hands over his dome. “Didn’t even think of that. He might have closed it anyway.”

  “We don’t know that,” snaps Nelson.

  Dee shrieks, “He bloody would’ve. All you wanted was to get back at him. And my work was an oh-so-convenient way—”

  Nelson’s in her face and pointing. “That’s not true.”

  “It is true.”

  “You have no right to be angry with me. I have supported you every step of the way. I have sac—”

  Dee screams, “Shut up!” and flings herself away from Nelson. Nelson thumps his ass down on the vinyl sofa with his back to us and folds his arms. I’m storming upstairs like a kid but I fucking don’t care.

  “Stupid protest had nothing to do with it,” I yell.

  46: FETZER

  Up in the living room Jen had turned on the TV. She muttered, “Didn’t make a single bit of difference.”

  “Okay already,” I said. I was itching to get out, but the basement was off limits while Dee and Nelson sorted themselves out. And the front door was nailed tight. There’s a window onto the porch, but it was glued with years of paint. I started in on it with my Leatherman, and Jen watched, but she didn’t say a word about security. Chips of ancient oil paint and floppy strips of latex collected on the floor. Our dirty white trim had apparently been turquoise in the past, and dark green some time earlier. Finally I was able to jiggle the window open, and I could just get my leg over it and myself out onto the porch. That porch was in sorry shape. The broken bottom stair had collapsed, and half the railing on Deirdre’s side had fallen into the bushes. But the top step held my weight, and I sat down. The air was fresh and cold. A band of sunlight flushed sunset-orange along the roof of the warehouse across the street. The front yard was all weeds and skinny bushes, and it struck me that I neglected the garden in inverse proportion to the sense of responsibility I felt about the people I lived with and the world we live in.

  Behind me the TV came muffled through the window. The cadence of the dialogue, the laugh track. I had a picture in my head about Nelse and Dee downstairs. She’d be crying. He’d be contrite. They’d say sorry. Lovey dovey.

  At least being a pair, they had built-in checks and balances. Jen, on the other hand, was emotionally alone and she liked to act alone, and it was getting harder to deal with.

  I twisted around and looked back at the window, but I wasn’t in Jen’s line of sight. So I got the pack out and lit one. Good and hot in my throat and I fumbled the lighter back into my pocket, nearly dropping it through the gap in the steps. Look, I don’t really smoke, okay? If they knew, I’d never hear the end of it about financing big tobacco. Even if it’s only a pack or two a year.

  Down the end of the street by the train tracks was a rattling sound. The homeless guys came around the corner, one of them pushing a shopping cart. They looked like circus bears, lumbering and swaddled with coats. When they were alongside the house the skinny black guy glanced over at the porch. I nodded hello. He ducked his head and they all stopped and the cart stopped its rattling.

  “Spare a cigarette?” said the guy. His smile was graceful under his sweeping high cheekbones, but the missing tooth negated any chance of elegance.

  I tossed him the pack, then the cheap plastic lighter.

  His gappy smile widened. “Hey, man, thanks.”

  The tall vet in fatigues said, “She live here? Deirdre the donut lady?” His gray beard was stained yellow around his mouth. Guys like that bring a tear to my fucking eye, I tell you.

  “Yeah. She lives here.”

  “She’s nice.”

  I nodded and blew out smoke. “Heart of gold.”

  The guys shuffled off. Overhead crows were flying home across the river for the evening, the stragglers looking like big slow bats. I stubbed out the cigarette on the peeling paint of the porch.

  PART FOUR

  47: NELSON

  For some absurd reason the kitchen sponge is sitting on the bottom step. Nelson picks it up on his way up the stairs.

  It definitely was a lot worse because of the protest. At least Dee would’ve had a good time last night. But no, she had a horrible opening reception, and now on top of that her show’s closed.

  And there’s Jen, sunk into one of the black living room sofas, watching TV. She hates TV. What the hell is going on? And why is Fetzer climbing in through the window?

  On the TV someone says something and Jen’s stomach bobs with a soundless, smileless laugh.

  Fetzer closes the window and dusts off the seat of his pants. “Everything okay?”

  “Okay?” says Nelson. “No. Everything is not okay.”

  Fetzer says, “Sorry to hear that. You want some carrot cake? What happened?”

  Nelson rinses the sponge in the sink. “No, I do not want some carrot cake, and you know what happened. You were there.”

  Fetzer stands stupidly in the way of the kettle. He smells like smoke. “I mean, after that.”

  The TV burbles.

  “I want to make tea,” says Nelson.

  Fetzer moves out of the way. Nelson holds the kettle under the tap. “What do you mean, ‘after that’? I sat there like an idiot for hal
f an hour then came up here. Any other details you’d like me to elaborate on?”

  Fetzer’s still frowning. “Where’s Deirdre?”

  Nelson resists the urge to bang the kettle hard on the side of the sink. “She came up here with you guys. God, have you been smoking?”

  Fetzer’s puzzlement mixes with something dawning. “I thought she was with you.”

  The kettle overflows.

  Fetzer puts a hand on Nelson’s shoulder and says, “She’s probably next door.” But it’s clear he knows she probably isn’t. The fear that’s been stitching Nelson’s dreams has come true. Deirdre has left.

  Fetzer reaches across the sink and turns off the tap. “Try her cell.”

  Nelson mumbles, “She put it in a drawer.”

  Fetzer calls over his shoulder, “Jen, call Nguyen and see if Dee’s there, okay?”

  Jen pulls forward to the edge of the sofa. “What?”

  “Just call, okay?” Then Fetzer says to Nelson, “We’ll go next door and check. She’ll be there, okay? But we’ll check.”

  Nelson whispers, “She won’t be,” but he follows Fetzer past Jen on the sofa.

  Jen watches like it’s a suspicious parade. “I, uh, thought she was down there with you,” she says. As if that’s any help. Then there’s the sound of her dialing. The laugh track erupts from the stupid TV. By the time Nelson and Fetz reach the bottom of the basement stairs Jen’s saying, “Okay. Well, thanks anyway, Mr. Nguyen.”

  Fetzer yells up the stairs, “Get Franky,” and Jen calls down, “I’m on it.”

  Nelson closes his eyes. Deirdre has left, and they all know it.

  “Franky, take your car. You look south of Division, we’ll look north. Nelse, come with me. Jen, stay here in case she comes back.”