In Love With Alice: A Thirtover Novel

by Alon Preiss

  The man never lost his temper, stayed calm. She felt grateful, thanked him again and again for his patience, and apologized again and again for her carelessness. In English, she said, “It’s my second day on job. My first phone answering. I forget, just for a moment.” She realized that if she’d had to choose someone to screw up with, this was the right man. She wondered why this Blake Maurow knew so many languages. Scribbling down his message, she began to ask him: “You are world traveler?” but then she realized that he had gone. Dead air hung between them, over the Atlantic.

  When her plane finally took off, Harriet Pointer breathed a sigh of relief. Her meeting was at 9 a.m. the next morning in the conference room across the hall from Blake Maurow’s office. The hours of delay had worried her. But the airplane’s technical problems had been fixed, the weather had cleared, the runway was free, and the plane was finally airborne. She intended to be late enough to prove that Maurow and the corporation wouldn’t intimidate her, but she hoped to arrive before everyone had given up and gone home.

  She was in first class, where she had some chance of sleeping, anyway. Harriet Pointer had been borne to wealth, and she’d married well (twice!), yet she considered herself a woman who’d struggled. Across the aisle, a blond young woman in a white sweater sat reading an art history book — a young woman who had probably never flown anything but first class. Reading the book, an assignment from some fluff Ivy League class, she smiled briefly. Smiling at something in her art history book. Harriet hated her.

  A couple of New York lawyers and L.A. lawyers would also be in the meeting. There might be some practical rationale for this show of force, but Harriet knew that they wanted to intimidate her. She was known, justifiably, as a grandstanding lawyer. She had vaguely leftist tendencies and was a somewhat prominent advocate for causes from racial discrimination to criminal rights. Now she had a high profile piece of publicity linking Carly Barrows and her “Designer Label” to extremely abusive labor practices in Burma. She’d called Blake Maurow’s office and had been insulted when the great Maurow did not call her back, but instead referred the matter to the man with the gray haggard voice, about whom she knew nothing but, now, the generally gray nature of his personality. She had continued to insist, again and again, that Maurow must be present at negotiations, or no deals would be made. They’d backed down, as she had known they would.

  Pointer was aligned with a human rights organization more than loosely tied to organized labor. This meant to everyone but Pointer that it didn’t matter whether she believed the allegations. The truth was, her client wanted to slow overseas investment, and this was one way to go about it. Maurow, the lawyers and the company brass were all willing to pay big to make this go away, to cut all contracts to Burma. In the end, Carly’s label would become a big contributor to Pointer’s human rights organization, and everyone would be happy.

  Except Pointer herself. She’d thoroughly researched the labor practices she complained of, and they were indeed terrible. On the airplane, in the middle of the night, she flipped open the file again and read the charges. Little children swept up in a low-grade civil war, captured from small groups of independence-minded agricultural tribes out in the jungle, hauled off to industrial parks to make sneakers and sweaters for Americans. Little girls age seven and eight working sixteen hour days with no health care and no pay at all, fed scraps of food that barely kept them alive. While sewing the ‘Carly Barrows’ name tag on sweaters, sometimes one would drop dead from exhaustion and malnutrition, and then their “bosses” would arrange to have the body dumped into mass graves a mile outside of town — cheaper to replace them when they died than to feed them enough to keep them alive.

  She turned away from the file and looked across the aisle, at that idly wealthy young woman, now fast asleep, her face half hidden in her fluffy white airline pillow.

  Harriet felt anger and sadness well up inside her, and then a tremendous trepidation. The media would not hear the children scream; reporters would not cry over the last starving, agonized moments of a six-year-old girl. She could write the impersonally sarcastic L.A. Weekly editorial in her sleep. Images of the impending catastrophe flashed through her head: Carly crying on Entertainment Tonight, tearfully hugging her little brother. Pictures of a naked Burmese baby crying in the jungle and begging her mother’s depleted breast for food would share the screen on every news show with glamor shots of Carly Barrows eating at some Hollywood bistro. She put her hands on top of her head and stared up at the ceiling. She could hear the Jay Leno barbs, she could see Letterman smugly mocking Carly night after night. That woman across the aisle would gossip over Margaritas with her deb friends about Carly’s predicament, and she would repeat back what Letterman had said the night before. Harriet Pointer could hear them all laughing, the rich debs laughing at the downfall of a would-be deb who was a little bit richer than they. That’s all this would be. Just a joke.

  She looked back down at the file, and she flipped it shut.

  Exhausted, as the plane thumped down. She drank some coffee, wondered if she could muster the required outrage. Realized, again, that she was in fact genuinely outraged. Outrage swelled up inside her, pumping through her veins, boiling in her blood. She figured she’d be okay.

  Checked into her hotel, took a shower, changed into a new suit, then, before taking a cab to Blake Maurow’s office, Harriet examined herself in the mirror beside her bureau. She was unashamed of the face and body that she surveyed now in the full-length mirror — she wasn’t twenty anymore, and she did not want to be twenty again. Still, she couldn’t quite leave the room. She kept fidgeting with herself, wondering what Blake Maurow would say when he saw her. Finally, with the hour growing late (and the caffeine creating more anger and nervousness and just overall perplexity) she pulled a joint out of her purse, which she’d mused about offering to Blake Maurow once his lackeys were gone — and she knew he had them — leaving the two of them alone. Instead, impatient, she lit up, inhaled, exhaled, inhaled again, exhaled again, snuffed it out, flushed the rest down the toilet, sprayed the room with Lysol, opened the windows and left the hotel with a giggle in her head.

  Sure, she still got stoned, every once in a while. Sometimes it made her a better person. So she got stoned, sometimes, when it was really necessary. Which, today, this morning, heading to the office of the esteemed Blake Maurow, it was.

  The esteemed Blake Maurow: Harriet had spent some time researching this man, asking friends of friends of friends, newspaper writers, whomever she could find, to describe whatever it was they knew. When his colleagues spoke of Maurow, they talked admiringly, of course, of his almost effortless if decidedly vacant charm. Maurow had the little wife at home, the young woman who spent her days writing bad to insignificant mystery novels that Maurow pulled strings to publish. No one really knew him, and no one really tried. He was blandly, innocuously mysterious, mild and probably hypocritical most of the time. Most of all, Maurow was careful — he spoke with great purpose, his words were exact and well-chosen, and he had never been known to take a chance, to act on impulse. Maurow had no impulses, so far as anyone could tell.

  Harriet thought about all this, the weed — and her memories — rattling her head, and she started giggling, and the giggle worked its way into a full-bellied laugh. Just the idea — Blake Maurow, sitting there in a suit, acting serious. Just the very idea.

  Fifteen minutes late, Harriet Pointer swept into the room, smiling, the laugh still sitting there on the tip of her tongue. There he was: Blake Maurow in his suit, at the head of the table, a thoughtful, well-practiced look of contemplation on his big old mug, surrounded by an absolute hoard of peons, limp mean-faced doughy boys in suits, and one little fat girl at the end of the table with a great big briefcase. An older man in a gray suit sat next to Maurow, with an appropriate and respectful distance between them. This, Harriet assumed, was the man she’d spoken to previously. The gray man in a gray suit.

  Harriet ignored the toadies ar
ound the table, went straight to Maurow.

  He stood up. He was absolutely resplendent. He glowed and shined. He was a man from the future. He was not real.

  “That’s quite a suit!” she exclaimed, almost laughing, darting towards him.

  Blake Maurow cocked his head to one side as she zoomed toward him. Something came into his eyes, something halfway between clear recognition and shocked befuddlement. If this were a TV show, Harriet thought, Maurow would either have executed a comical triple-take or spat his coffee across the room.

  “I’m Blake Maurow,” he said stupidly, lifting his hand and thrusting it forward, then just holding it there awkwardly in mid-air as she made her long journey around the perimeter of the absolutely huge conference room.

  “The famous Blake Maurow,” said Harriet Pointer. As she neared him, she extended a hand. “A legend in his own time,” she added, and he said, “In my own mind,” apparently just because it seemed to be expected, and maybe because it gave him some way of being humble in the face of her ironic praise.

  His voice shook noticeably when he spoke, and when she finally took his hand, it trembled in hers.

  Maurow talked for a while, his voice uneasy. Where was the effortless charm? Harriet wondered. She apparently had upset Maurow a little. An uncomfortable frown flitted on and off his face.

  Maurow deferred to the lawyers, who made their offer. The company would donate money to international children’s relief services. Make sure a percentage of profits went to Pointer’s client. Do everything they could to expose the situation over there and get those factories closed. Talk to the government, do public service spots. The world would be a decidedly better place once all this were settled. Pointer offered to make them her first corporate sponsor, and everyone nodded happily and enthusiastically around the table.

  But then Pointer insisted that Carly Barrows hold a joint press conference with her clients and apologize. Maurow made a few half-hearted statements in defense of the TV star. Carly cared about children, he said. She raised money for children’s causes. She was in no way any sort of reactionary — one of her very first public events was a fund-raiser for Dukakis. Pointer just nodded at this and said, “Dukakis.” Neutral, content-free. As though saying, I’ve heard of him. Yes. Dukakis. Maurow plunged ahead bravely, his voice beginning to shake. Carly’s first husband was a Democratic Congressman, he added. She told all the magazines that what first attracted her was, one time, when she was watching C-SPAN, and she saw him on the floor of the House, talking about the rain forests. There was a small stammer in Maurow’s voice, and a few drops of sweat above his lip. Little droplets of panic sweat. Pointer nodded. “Rain forests,” she said blankly. She thought she heard the hint of a laugh in her voice, and she tried to push it back. Maurow kept talking, but she couldn’t even listen to him. Restraining this persistent tickle in her throat filled up her mind, expanded out her ears, enveloped the room. This tremendous effort — not to laugh, nor sneer, nor smirk — encompassed her entire being.

  She finally gave up, like a man hanging at the edge of a cliff who realizes that he will not survive, and that he might as well fall, might as well enjoy sailing through the wind while it lasts. Harriet’s laugh flew out, right there in the middle of everything. Maybe it was partly the pot, but it was mostly the famous Blake Maurow. Maurow stopped speaking, and Harriet could hardly breathe, a laugh twirling into a giggle wrapped in a guffaw, like a snowball rolling downhill in an old Daffy Duck cartoon. “Dukakis!” Harriet yelled. “Rain forests!” And she laughed again.

  The room froze. Over in the corner, the man in the gray suit started shaking. Maurow seemed to consider her carefully. He stood up. Then he sat down again. Then he stood. He just stared, quietly, for what seemed to be a long while.

  At last, Maurow’s face broke into a wide grin. He looked around at his colleagues, his gaze settling for less than a second on the man in the gray suit, shaking over in the corner. Their eyes met. Then Maurow looked away.

  “That’s it,” he said. “Everybody out. Everybody out of the room.”

  His voice was different now, less careful. He was a different man, entirely.

  With confused reluctance, the other suits stood.

  “Get the hell out,” Maurow said calmly, almost casually. His voice not rising: “Thank you very much, everybody get the hell out of here.”

  Harriet Pointer remained seated.

  As Maurow shut the door, Harriet could hear bemused whispering out in the hallway. Maurow was a universe away. Sunlight fell on his face, and he looked younger than he had when she had entered the room.

  “Is that you, Magoo?” he said, laughing himself now.

  “Mr. McGillicuddy, I presume!” Harriet exclaimed. “I am exactly who you think I am.”

  “Well.” Maurow forced a smile. “There you have it.”

  “How could you have any doubt?”

  He ignored this question, stood up and walked across the room. “I am very happy to see you,” he said gently, and she was surprised to hear such utter warmth in his voice.

  He sat down next to her.

  “You must forgive me for laughing, McGill,” she said. “When you whispered the magic word: Dukakis. That was it. Your big punch line.”

  He shrugged. “I never said I was good at my job.”

  He looked at her, and he looked closely, taking his time.

  “See,” he said, musing. “Here’s my problem. Your smile. One second, it’s so familiar, and then it’s unfamiliar again. All these new mannerisms, and what-not. I suppose you got them from your husband. Very strange. “

  Outside, the noise of the lawyers, murmuring, filled in the silence.

  She laughed, amused by his doubt. When she looked at him, he was no one but Blake Maurow, silly Blake Maurow, wearing a big fancy suit, pretending to be a grownup.

  He hit the speaker phone.

  “Kimberly,” he called. “Bring me a bottle of red wine. Opposing counsel has demanded a bottle of red wine.”

  They toasted their new working relationship. They laughed over some silly thing they’d laughed about years ago. They talked for a half hour. Then for an hour. Harriet was enchanted. She understood why Blake Maurow had acquired a reputation for irresistible charm. She wanted to hug him, to kiss him. At least to touch him carelessly on the hand. But he held her back. Right there. Something in his manner, something so skillful, in the very center of his charm, warned her to stay put. Don’t touch.

  Maurow laughed, a laugh that wasn’t quite real, but which made Harriet feel good anyway.

  Then Maurow seemed to straighten himself up.

  “Look, you want a whole lot of money and an apology from Carly Barrows,” he said. “We’ll get you a whole lot of money. We’ll work on that apology. All right?”

  Harriet nodded.

  “And call me whenever you want to,” he said.

  She nodded again.

  “Let me walk you out.”

  She drained her wine glass.

  Out in the hallway, Harriet Pointer lingered behind him. Maurow thanked everyone for coming, said they’d reached a tentative agreement with a few kinks to work out in the days or weeks ahead. The man in the gray suit was frowning, his face as gray as his suit. Other faces stared in irritation or confusion.

  Maurow waved them all away, like a swarm of annoying but harmlessly insignificant insects.

  Outside, down on the street. Harriet noticed that he was holding her arm lightly, and she wondered when he had begun holding her arm. Upstairs, in front of his colleagues, or on the elevator, or when they stepped outside into the sunshine? She wondered whether he had yet realized it. He left his hand there, and she didn’t brush him off.

  With a smile. “Are you going my way?” she asked. “We could walk in the sunshine and talk about the weather, or who’s going to win the mayoral election.”

  “Now I know why you wanted that meeting with me.”

  “Sure,” she said. “I always knew I could make yo
u do anything.”

  “Well,” he said, not looking away. “I’ve changed.”

  “You could never change, Blake. You are one person who will never, ever change.”

  They walked together along 52nd Street, jostling past crowds, Blake still holding her arm lightly.

  “I went into the room, waiting for some stupid meeting to start. Some stupid thing, like any other stupid thing I do to fill my time. And a few minutes later in comes my old wife. Like Piglet, or something. An old friend from childhood who didn’t really exist, but feels like he did. Like Piglet, really.” He stopped talking, and he was smiling.

  “Are you reminiscing in your head about our marriage, Blake?” Harriet asked, “or are you thinking about Piglet?”

  Maurow sort of laughed, but it didn’t get very far. “My old wife, and not my old wife.” His words were catching, sticking on his tongue. He looked over at her face, then quickly looked away, his eyes settling on a man lying on the sidewalk, asleep in torn and tattered clothes. They reached the intersection and began walking across Third Avenue, dodging taxis that careened into the crosswalk.

  “Blake, did you try to forget me?” she asked. “You know, to never remember me, never think of me. Pretend it never happened?”