How to Sell: A Novel

by Clancy Martin

  “It’s paradise, son,” he told me on the phone. “Grab your big brother and hop on a plane. Bring your scuba gear. You boys will love it.”

  “We’re running a business here, Dad,” I said.

  I sent a necklace with Wendy that our dad had ordered from us but never paid for. It had various esoteric Masonic insignia enameled on a large plate that went across the collarbone. I knew the necklace would roll on the neck and that plate would always wind up on the bottom. I could already hear my father complaining about it. But there was no other way to make the piece.

  “Try to get the money,” I said when I gave it to her. “It’s just my cost.”

  Before she even checked into her hotel she rented a car at the airport and drove out to his church. He had not known she was coming that week. I had promised her I would call and warn him, but it stayed on my to-do list until after she was already back. I meant to call. But with Wendy out of town the Polack kept me on the run.

  She sat in a church pew with the Rastafarians. During Dad’s service the tall, bony man next to her stood in his pew, pulled down his sweatpants, and began to urinate into the aisle. He apologized to her.

  “It is because of the Pope, ma’am,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

  He took a very nice photograph of her, with her camera, standing and smiling with the open door of the church behind her and orange and purple bougainvillea beyond. It was a pleasant little chapel, from what I could see.

  After my father finished his sermon, while the brass collection plate was going around, the Rastafarian invited Wendy to dinner. He was only being polite, she said. He was not making a pass.

  “You can come and visit us,” he said. “You don’t have to stay for the meal. We have a nice farm. In the hills.

  “I have to go now,” he told her then. “I have to wash my hands.”

  When she met with my dad in his little trailer next to the church he wanted to do a reading on her.

  “I have been watching him astrally,” he told her. “He’s fucking up. He has karma to work out with you. There may have to be a divorce.”

  She wept while he put her on the plane. “Don’t give up,” he said. “Fate!” he said, and waved from the bottom of the stairs. She took a picture of him waving up to her. He looked much better than the last time I had seen him. His color had improved and I saw he had added muscle tone in his face. She also showed me pictures of him on the beach, smoking his pipe, with the shallow Caribbean Sea behind him and storm clouds in the sky.

  A couple of weeks after she was back he phoned me. Our 800 lines didn’t cover the Virgin Islands, so he called collect.

  “She just missed the hurricane. It’s hurricane season down here.”

  A few days after she was back, Hurricane Boris struck.

  “I straightened things out for you, son,” he said. “Enough of this screwing around. You want to wind up like your old man?”

  “Thanks, Dad,” I said. I didn’t want to say anything that might start a real conversation.

  “My telepathy saw it coming. We got her out of here pronto. I felt the vibrations a week before it hit. We spent nine days inside playing ping-pong,” he said. “Those niggers can play some ping-pong.”

  “Dad, please don’t use that expression,” I said.

  “Oh, go screw yourself,” he said, and laughed. “Those niggers are my parishioners. That’s my flock, Bobby. We just about went crazy. Smoking dope, eating jerk chicken, and playing ping-pong. Holy snapping bald-headed eagles.”

  When I got off the phone I stood, slid open the pocket door, and leaned into Jim’s office. There were no customers at his desk. He was picking baguettes for a custom job. It was one of his better designs, a Judith Ripka knockoff, a chrysoberyl ring in pink and white gold with the diamond baguettes on one side only. It looked a bit like a headless peacock with his tail fanned off to the side. But quite nice.

  “I just talked to Dad,” I said. “He doesn’t sound bad. He sounds better.”

  “He’s not coming to town, is he?”

  “No, he’s still down in the Virgin Islands,” I said. “But I think it’s doing him some good. He sounded like his old self.”

  “Did he ask you for money?”

  “No, I’m serious. He really sounds like himself. Like the old Dad.”

  “I’ve fallen for that one too many times, Bobby. Believe me. It’s an old trick of his. Next time he calls he will ask you for money. Speaking of which, have you looked at the gray account lately?” The gray account was our estate-buy account, another one of Granddad’s upside-down accounts. “We are down to a hundred grand in there. I ran an inventory and we only have three hundred at cost. That leaves us almost two hundred thousand short. We have to take better care of that account. I don’t want to have to call Granddad. He’s already asking about this quarter’s check.”

  I sat back down at my desk and drew a picture of a bird on my desk pad. I put a little wave beneath it so it might be a seagull. The phone was ringing. No one on my sales floor was answering it. How much effort does it take to pick up the phone?

  Before I left I would lie in bed at night in our dark bedroom and watch the red dots from my alarm clock reflected in the brass light fixture on the ceiling. I came home after ten, after eleven, my blood thin with the long day and night, and quietly, as smoothly as I could, slid my uncomfortable body beneath our covers. Next to me in the bed our baby daughter’s head and small curls rested in a sweaty ring. Their breathing was shallow with sleep. I tried not to move. I kept my arms at my sides. But there was no point in closing my eyes. So I watched the red dots from the alarm clock on the brass chandelier above the foot of the bed. In the silence with the two of them barely breathing, like air among green leaves on their twigs, I could still hear the canned music that we piped in all day throughout the store. I listened for it and that listening in bed made me forlorn, self-pitying, and resentful.

  I figure it out,” the Polack said.

  I looked up from the buy I was weighing. It was a Tiffany sterling set from the 1930s. It was a huge set, over four hundred pieces, soup ladles and onyx-handled hot chocolate tureens, and even a samovar. We paid four dollars an ounce—after deducting the estimated weight of the onyx, inlaid mother-of-pearl, and ivory—which was exactly what a smelter would pay us. We could have paid as much as twelve or even fifteen dollars an ounce, but it was brought to us by one of Jim’s oldest and best customers and we knew she would take whatever we offered her. That’s how it works with regulars: because they are already sold they are much easier to screw. But you have to screw them, to make up for all of the skinny-margin deals you did to get their business in the first place. If you don’t screw your regulars you won’t be around for long.

  “I figured it. What I want for my present. My birthday.”

  I had forgotten her birthday was in a few weeks. Maybe she would like a nice pair of Manolo Blahnik boots, I thought. She did not spend enough money on her footwear. But I wouldn’t get off that easy. A fur. That’s what she’s after. That coat is going to set you back, Bobby, I thought. It can’t be just any fur coat. She will know the differences between them.

  “You do not know?” she said. “Guess!”

  “I guess I better know,” I said. “Since I’m buying it.”

  “The Rolex. I want a Rolex,” she said.

  “A Rolex? Would you actually wear a Rolex?”

  The jewelry business really is two things, in the end: diamonds and Rolexes. The truth is there is no other luxury brand, of any kind, that has achieved the same supremacy within its area as Rolex. It’s a subject worthy of closer study.

  “I change my mind about this. The Rolex is elegant. I want the boy’s size. In stainless steel. We refinish the dial pink. To make it more feminine.”

  Pink? I did not understand this woman at all.

  Still, I could rustle up one of those from the Watchman for a thousand, twelve hundred bucks. I was getting off cheap.

  “You want to go
out tonight?” I said. Thursday was our late day, we stayed open until eight, so Wendy was always asleep by the time I came home. “Want to go to Dallas, maybe?”

  “Yes, I am going to Dallas tonight. But not with you,” she said. “I have business to take care of. I leave early, in fact.”

  Okay, I thought. She has ordered her birthday present and now she is going to Dallas without me, leaving Jim and me with the cases to pull on her own, to do her side deals.

  Maybe Jim will want to go have a few drinks, I thought. With Wendy already in bed it was a shame to waste the Thursday night.

  •

  I understood how grown men should view their offices. My office was supposed to be a refuge. This is my tree house, I ought to be thinking. But I preferred Jim’s office to my own. My favorite place to sit was on the other side of his desk, in one of the customers’ chairs, after closing.

  “I’m moving out. I’m leaving Wendy,” I said.

  I watched his face as I said it. I knew he would be pleased. Not at my unhappiness, not at all. But between brothers, if you are close, it is a victory when your brother has serious trouble with his wife. Otherwise the wife divides the two of you, at least partially.

  “What a shock,” Jim said. Then he saw my face and he was gentler. “That’s a good idea,” he said. “You know what I think. That hasn’t been a real marriage for some time now. You don’t have to get divorced right away. Separate. That’s what I like to do. It makes it easier when things turn legal anyway. They are less combative. But easier on both of you, I mean. Get a little distance. Clear your head.”

  Even at this desperate moment I did not like him criticizing my marriage. But I knew he was trying to encourage me.

  We were sorting South Sea pearls on oversized pearl trays into calibrated colors and sizes for three matching necklaces. Jim had already sold one of the necklaces and made enough profit on the deal that the other two were free. They were astonishing. Twelve to fifteen millimeters in diameter, and white with that undertone of pink and gold that good South Seas have. You could see half a millimeter or so into the pearl, as though it were still alive in the oyster, as if it were the skin of a living human face.

  “Listen to me, Bobby. The last thing you want to do is to run straight to the Polack with this,” he said. “Keep that professional. She’s your girlfriend at work, and that’s the way you want it to stay. It would be better if she didn’t even have to know you were moved out. When you’re moved out Wendy will have a closer eye on you.”

  I wanted to say something but I felt too discouraged. I tried to concentrate on the pearls.

  “What you need is a little clean honest fun. No connections, no worries. Remember Sylvia?” he said. “She’s playful. She’s got a healthy outlook.”

  I did not call immediately. But then one night, alone in the store with the layouts and artwork for our new catalogue, I decided I might. I found the number Jim had written hidden in the back of my main desk drawer, with the other numbers on pink and blue Post-it notes I used for phone sex. Her name was on the back of it with a comment about ear studs like she was a lead. In code, in case the Polack was digging around in my desk drawer: “2–3 carats, eye-clean and white, platinum bezels.”

  I had met with Sylvia once before, about a year ago, in May, at the motel behind our health club. That was my birthday present from Jim. But then on the drive back from a weekend getaway to Austin with Wendy—which was my birthday present from her—I noticed a crab on Claire’s head among her thin white hair. She was in her car seat. I etched it off with my thumbnail before Wendy could see it. The baby yelled once and then laughed. It left a red mark on her skin near where her skull grew together. I bought a box of lice ointment at Eckerd’s and did not plan on using Sylvia again.

  Before I called her I called Wendy.

  “How is the new apartment?” she asked me. “We came up to see you but you weren’t there.”

  “I’m still at the office,” I said.

  “No, yesterday,” she said. “Last night.”

  I had been in Dallas with the Polack last night.

  “I was probably still at the office.”

  “We came by but the lights were off.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe I was getting something to eat.”

  “I’m not trying to start a fight. We just wanted to see you. We wanted to see your new apartment.”

  “It’s depressing. You won’t like it.”

  “So come home, then. We want you to come home.”

  “You know I can’t come home.”

  “But we want you to come home.”

  “I want to come home. But I can’t.”

  “When do you think you can come home? By Christmas?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think so. Is the baby asleep?”

  “No. We’re watching a movie. You want to come watch it with us?”

  “I can’t.”

  “I was just joking. I was just asking.”

  It made me depressed to hear how much her voice had changed since I had moved out. Well, I was already depressed before I called, but more depressed. She was asking now, instead of telling.

  After I hung up I sat and looked at my phone for a few minutes. The vacant store with its empty showcases and no sales-people at the desks was very quiet. The Muzak was playing. Jim was off with his new girlfriend, a crazy nineteen-year-old stripper. That would end badly. I stood and walked into the showroom. I turned off the halogens. Then it was dark on the showroom floor and my office looked more inviting. I had a Tiffany dragonfly lamp on my desk—not a knockoff, the real thing—but the bulb was burned out so I went in back and found a bulb. I replaced the bulb and turned it on. I looked at all the colored glass pieces glowing like gems. They are prettier than jewelry, I thought. People should just wear glass with electric lights inside. Then I called Sylvia.

  She didn’t pick up until the seventh or eighth ring. I almost gave up.

  “Can we get together for a drink? How about Birraporetti’s?”

  “Hi, Bobby. It’s nice to hear from you. How’s Jim? I’m not taking meetings anymore. But I have a girlfriend who is. You’ll like her. She’s young. She’s pretty.”

  “Is she a friend of yours?”

  “She is taking over a few of my old clients. I am sure you will like her. Call her.”

  The new hooker answered the phone on the first ring. She wanted to meet at my apartment. I did not recognize the voice because, of course, it was not what I was expecting.

  “Shouldn’t we meet at a motel?” I said. I knew we should meet at a motel.

  “No, thank you,” she said politely.

  I was nervous like you are before a date. I started to straighten the apartment. Then I thought, No, you are not fixing up your apartment for a hooker. I brushed my teeth. I opened a beer. The doorbell rang. I looked through the peephole. A middle-aged man in a jean jacket stood there. I did not know if I should answer the door. He had blond bangs. He knocked and said loudly, “I’m the friend. Sylvia’s friend.”

  “Where’s the girl?” I said through the door. “Who are you?”

  “Open up,” he shouted. I thought about my neighbors. I had not met any of them but they would hear this. I opened the door but left the chain on.

  “What?” I said. “Who are you?”

  “I just need to check out the apartment,” he said. “Because you are a new client.”

  He was about forty years old. He had a pack of cigarettes in the breast pocket of his jean jacket.

  “Are you carrying a gun?” I asked him. “This is probably not worth it,” I said.

  “Man, open up,” he said, and the way his eyes turned down I saw that he was kind, like you will see on poor people and black people, so I opened the door.

  “I need to make sure you are not some weirdo,” he said.

  “Look around,” I said.

  I was still in an Armani suit and a Zegna tie. I was wearing Bulgari plique-à-jour cufflinks. I thought that o
ught to count for something. There was a half-empty bottle of Creed Taba-rome on the breakfast bar. But the mattress was on the floor and I had no furniture. There were candles, wine bottles, an alarm clock, the cutaways I had brought home with me from the new catalogue, and a few books. There was a blue and green Favrile-glass Art Deco ashtray, which Jim had given me as my moving-out-of-the-house present, with two cigar butts in it.

  “I just moved in,” I said. “I just left my wife.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “No, it’s for the best,” I said. “She cries all the time.”

  “You have any children?” he asked.

  “Just one,” I said. “She’s only a baby.”

  “That’s sad,” he said. “They say it’s tough on the kids but really it’s toughest on the parents. My folks are divorced. It was always nice at Christmas.”

  “Mine, too,” I said. “Two Christmases. Two birthdays, too.”

  “Don’t divorce if you can help it.”

  I started to offer him a beer but then I remembered what we were doing.

  “I guess you are a lonely guy,” he said.

  “That’s fair,” I said. “Just a lonely guy. Just like the rest of us.”

  “Speak for yourself,” he said. “Have fun. Have a party. But remember I’ll be down in the truck.”

  He left the door half open when he left. I started to close it but then jumped when the girl, on the other side, pushed it open at the same time. I let go and stepped back. For no reason, I felt embarrassed. Then she walked in. It was Lisa. I saw her before she saw me. Nine years had passed since I had seen her and here she was, walking in the door as the prostitute I had ordered. Boldly, like she expected to make me comfortable. I had noticed the confidence in her stride in the second or so before I even understood it was her.

  Then she saw me. There was a moment while we waited. We might each have been seeing what the other one would do first. Or maybe neither of us knew what to do.