Near Canaan

by Liese O'Halloran Schwarz

  “How are you getting along?” he said.

  “Fine,” I replied.

  After that, there was little to say. The grovelers continued to buzz among themselves while Devlin and I indulged in a few seconds of that desultory sort of chat through which one labors at these affairs. Finally, each of us pretended to see someone else across the room, and jostled away from one another.

  The whole incident puzzled me: I finally came to the conclusion that he had mistaken me for someone else; if he’d known my true identity, he would never have bothered to greet me at all. So it was quite a surprise two weeks later when, encountering him in my native environment—the long corridor running the length of the basement room—he stopped before my desk.

  “I’ve had my eye on you,” he said. “I like your style.”

  “Well,” I said, flattered.

  “You’re an idea man,” he said. “I can tell.” He waved away the office manager, who was hovering nearby. “Not now, Benson.” He leaned forward, addressing me in a lowered voice. “What do you say to a place upstairs on my personal team?”

  “I don’t know all that much about that,” I said, considerably underplaying my ignorance, “part of the business.”

  He laughed, heartily, the kind of male whisky laugh that stops all conversation in a room, everyone pausing in wonder.

  “Neither did I, when I started,” he said. “We’ll find something for you to do. I can always spot a good man.”

  “Well,” I said, again.

  “Take the weekend to think about it,” he said, slipping a pasteboard card into the breast pocket of my jacket, tapping it down with a manicured forefinger. “Call me on Monday.”

  “The man’s insane,” Joan exclaimed, when I told her about it that night. “You don’t know a thing about development.” She was tired, or she never would have been so direct.

  “I’ve been working there for years,” I said. “I ought to know something about it.”

  “But what kind of job is it?” she asked. “What exactly did he say?”

  “He liked my style,” I replied, hurt. I was a little drunk, or I wouldn’t have been so peevish. “Maybe I have all kinds of aptitudes you don’t know about.”

  “Of course you do, darling,” she said in a conciliatory tone, clearly regretting her bluntness of a moment before.

  I maintained an injured silence; we didn’t speak about it again that night, nor for most of the weekend.

  Sunday was devoted to a marathon Scrabble session at Beth’s. Usually an avid player, today I was distracted, fingering the smooth flat tiles, debating Devlin’s offer.

  “How come I always get all the x’s?” complained Beth, dipping a finger in her scotch and sucking at it absentmindedly. She pondered for a moment, and then laid down e-x-i-l-e. “Many, many points,” she said, looking up at me.

  “Good,” I said automatically.

  “Your turn,” said Joan.

  I laid down m-i-x.

  “Boo,” said Beth, and when she got no response, added, “Why so quiet, G.I.?”

  “Devlin offered him a job upstairs,” said Joan, knowingly.

  “Doing what?” asked Beth.

  “Who knows,” said Joan.

  “Are you going to take it, G.I.?” asked Beth.

  “He doesn’t know yet,” said Joan.

  “Please,” I said. “I can talk, you know.”

  “Sorry,” said Joan.

  “Well?” asked Beth.

  “I don’t know yet,” I told her. “Maybe he was drunk when he offered it to me. Maybe he thought I was someone else. I’ll call him Monday and see what happens.”

  “Live dangerously,” said Beth. It was a sentiment characteristic of her, something she might have said at any time in the past, but the words sounded odd, dense with strain. Her smile, too, was but a shadow of her old one, more of a wince than a grin.

  I called Devlin’s office the next morning.

  “What d’you want him for?” asked Bedelia. “Shouldn’t you be at work by now?” she added, suspiciously.

  “Never mind,” I said.

  “Is it something about the little girl? You can tell me,” she said.

  “I don’t have time now,” I said. “I’ll explain later.” Saying it, I knew it wouldn’t be necessary to explain later; when ’Delia was truly interested, she had no qualms about listening in.

  “Devlin,” grunted the man himself, frightening me so that I nearly hung up. I had expected a gentle Cerberus, in the form of a secretary.

  “Um,” I said.

  “Who is it?” he roared.

  “Gilbert,” I said. “Corbin.”

  There was a silence, during which I had no thoughts at all.

  “Call me back this afternoon,” he said, and hung up.

  I sweated the rest of the day out, and in the afternoon called again. A woman answered this time, and put me through.

  “Well?” he asked, without preliminaries. “Coming upstairs?”

  “I—” I said.

  “What?” he said.

  “Guess so,” I said.

  “Great!” he said, and seemed to loosen a little. By the end of the conversation, he was bellowing hearty promises through the phone line.

  “We’ll get you all set up,” he cried. “Big desk, office, secretary, pencil sharpener—do you prefer manual, or electric?”

  “Manual,” I said, flustered.

  “Good, wonderful. We’ll get you one of those. Start tomorrow.”

  I went over before the end of the day, to extricate myself from the basement room.

  “That’s a hard one,” said Benson. “You had a good spot,” he said. “Nice and cool there.”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Not too hot in summer,” he said.

  “No,” I agreed.

  “None of that cigar smoke from Wade gets over to you, either,” he said.

  “I haven’t been bothered by it,” I said.

  “Some just can’t tolerate it,” he said. “Makes them sick.” He looked down, considering. “Yep,” he said. “It’s a real choice spot.”

  “I’d like to take my things,” I said.

  “Well sure,” said Benson, pulling open the office door, ambling into the large room. A dozen heads went up as we entered. “Maybe I’ll move Eddie on over to your spot,” said Benson, hissing sideways at me through his teeth.

  “Eddie’s a good fellow,” I said.

  “Shh,” he said. He stood by the desk as I collected my few things from it—my picture of Joan, my leather-cornered blotter. “Upstairs,” he said, wonderingly.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Kind of a sudden thing,” he said. “What’s Joan think about it?”

  “She thinks it’s wonderful,” I said, through gritted teeth.

  “That’s all right, then,” he said, heartily. “She’s got a good head on her shoulders, that woman. We all set great store by Joan.”

  “I know,” I said.

  “All you had to do was tell me,” said Joan. “Instead I get a call from the Chronicle and I have to pretend I know what he’s talking about.”

  “The Chronicle called?” I asked, bewildered.

  “About something else,” she said. “Some kind of advice column they’re thinking of running. John D. mentioned your promotion in passing. He assumed I knew. Which was a natural mistake,” she said, picking up steam. “Everyone else in town seems to know about it.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “When he congratulated me, I nearly choked.” She looked ready to choke now, remembering.

  “I’m sorry,” I repeated. “I had no idea you’d find out that way. But I’ve taken the job,” I said. “You can’t talk me out of it.”

  “Oh, Gil,” said Joan, all of the rigidity going out of her. She sat down heavily, and put her hand over her eyes. “It’s not the job,” she said. “It’s you.”

  “What about me?”

  She kept her head down, looking into the darknes
s of her hand. “You’re so afraid of me,” she said. “You act like a guilty little boy.”

  “I do not,” I said, hurt.

  “I’m not your enemy,” said Joan, taking her hand away from her eyes and looking up. “I’m your wife.”

  “I know,” I said. “But sometimes you act like a tyrant.”

  “Me?” she said, surprised.

  “You,” I said. “It’s hard for me,” I said. “I’m not the same as you.”

  “I’ll say,” said Joan. “You’re soft.”

  “I’d rather be soft than overbearing,” I shot back, stung.

  We stared at each other.

  After a minute, I went over and sat on the sofa beside her.

  “What is it?” I asked, quietly. She didn’t say anything, and I dipped my head so that I could look into her face. “What’s really bothering you?”

  “Nothing,” said Joan, putting the heel of her hand into her mouth and biting down.

  “Come on,” I said.

  “Everything’s gone mad,” she said, into the cup of her palm.

  “Not here,” I said. “We’re all right.”

  She shook her head.

  “We are,” I said.

  “It’s not just us,” she said, taking her hand out of her mouth and putting it down. “It’s us and all of them. I hate the way this town talks,” she said, not looking at me. “It divides people.”

  I took her hand; I could see the marks of her two front teeth, one slightly crooked, slanting toward the other.

  “We can leave,” I said, boldly. “We can move away.” Saying it, I felt lighter, and happy, and afraid.

  “Gil,” said Joan, laughing a little. “You don’t mean that.” She took her hand from mine, and wiped her eyes. “I’m sorry I fussed,” she said. “I’m probably just hungry. Which reminds me,” she added, standing up. “There’s something incinerating in the oven right now.”

  At supper, I remembered something.

  “What about that advice column John D. called about?” I asked Joan. “Are you going to do it?”

  “Heavens, no,” she said. “How can I make the time?”

  “Well,” I said. “You make time for all kinds of things.”

  “Important things,” said Joan. “I have Beth to look after, and you, and—” She stopped.

  “You don’t have to look after me,” I told her.

  “Of course I do,” she said, smiling. “And besides,” she added, chewing, “I’m a Yankee. Naples hasn’t forgotten that.”

  “That’s silly,” I said. “If it mattered about that, people would be asking my advice all the time.”

  “They might,” she said, looking down into her plate, “if you were more aggressive.” She caught my look. “I mean, you’re so reluctant about putting yourself forward.”

  “I know,” I said, irritated again. “Soft.”

  “I said I was sorry about that,” she said with a little frown, and then went right back to making her point. “People believe what they want to believe,” she instructed. “What they need to believe. That’s all it takes,” she said. “Confidence.”

  “Well, that’s as may be,” I said. “But I wasn’t raised that way.”

  “Jack sure was,” said Joan, freezing my next statement cold. She relented a little. “All I mean is, don’t give me any of your Southern slop about gentlemanly behavior. Jack does exactly what he wants. He could talk the moon out of the sky, if he wanted to.” She frowned a little, as if perplexed. “Of course, he doesn’t seem to want to.”

  “I can’t help what Jack is,” I said, very slowly. “I don’t want to be what Jack is.”

  “Don’t take it that way,” said Joan.

  I ignored her. “Is that who you want me to be? Jack?” I examined her face coldly, as though I had never seen it before.

  “That’s silly,” said Joan, finally. “Look, let’s not fight,” she said.

  “I’m not fighting,” I said.

  “Yes, you are,” she said, softly, sliding her chair over, leaning toward me, and placing her cheek against mine. “Love me,” she said.

  “I do,” I said.

  “You’re still fighting,” said Joan, her eyelashes tickling my skin.

  “No, I’m not,” I said, as gently as I could.

  We remained like that for long moments, warmth against warmth, my heart cold inside me, twitching at the touch of a stranger.

  “Are we friends again?” said Joan, leaning back, looking into my face.

  “Yes,” I lied, and stiffly picked up my fork, willing myself back to normalcy and Joan back to the girl I loved. “What about that column?” I said.

  “Well,” she answered, thoughtfully. “I guess I can handle a few letters.”

  It was no secret who Tell Tillie was. Letters addressed to her arrived at our house all the time. After the first few, Joan seemed to get the knack of the business, answering two or three a week, shutting herself away into her study to compose her responses, and then typing them out at the Chronicle offices downtown.

  “I’m hardly here, anymore,” she said one morning, poised by the front door, ready to leave. “Do you miss me?”

  “Sure,” I said. “But I’m glad you’re having fun.”

  “Fun,” said Joan. “Oh, the column,” she said, as though she hadn’t been thinking about it. “Funny about that,” she said, with her hand on the doorknob. “All the letters are about the same thing. Or really, one of three things.”

  “Let me guess,” I said. “Sex, loneliness, and money.”

  “Close,” she said. “Sex, love, and money.”

  “Same thing,” I told her.

  “Right,” she said. “Anyway, I’m already stretching for new ways to say the same thing. I’m running out of imaginative answers.”

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “You’re a hit. Devlin’s wife reads you all the time.”

  She said nothing, but kissed her palm to me, and left. I ruminated, drinking the last of my coffee, blinking in the early sunshine, so deceptively warming by the big window in the kitchen. I wondered if the fight we’d had a few weeks before was still rankling with Joan; she had a way of holding grudges. In that way we were well matched.

  Joan had strong opinions about everything, and generally she shared her opinions with me; but she had avoided discussing the Devlins. We had had dinner with them a few times, and despite the charm Joan displayed on these occasions, it was clear to me that she didn’t like him, and that she felt sorry for his wife, a meek overwashed-looking person. But she had said nothing about it to me. In fact, she’d kept mum entirely on the subject of my job, apart from occasional inquiries about how I liked the work and listening attentively to my glossed-over replies. She never herself expressed enthusiasm about it, but seemed sincere in her pleasure at mine. Joan was loyal, after all, and she had taken me on long ago. She never came close to saying “I told you so.”

  For of course she had been right in her predictions. For the first month, the job was formless and frustrating. Devlin trundled me around, handing me off to different department executives, each of whom explained his particular sector of the operation in exaggerated, childish terms. At the end of the month, Devlin called me into his office.

  “The boys tell me you’re shaping up just fine,” he said. “They say you learn fast.”

  “Very—” I hesitated. “Kind of them.”

  “Kind, nothing,” he boomed. “I don’t pay them to be kind. I pay them for results. No room for deadweight in this outfit.” I nodded. “Have a seat,” he said. “I have a proposition for you.”

  He explained that he wanted to create a new position for me. The way he described it, I was to be installed as a kind of general troubleshooter, a liaison between what Devlin called “the creative side of the business” and the construction crews.

  “This way,” he said, lacing his hands together, “everyone does what they do best. The architect designs, the contractor constructs. You fill in the blank—you have
some practical knowledge from working downstairs, and the arty stuff is no trick.” He grew enthusiastic. “You’ll be the link,” he said, flexing his interlocked hands back and forth. “You’ll help the two work together. I know I can trust you to keep things running smoothly while I do what I do best—brainstorming.” He looked down, modestly.

  “Sounds fine,” I said.

  “I’ve got something really big in the works now,” he said. “The original plan was turned down, but I put my idea men to thinking on it.” He grinned. “Now it should go through like prunes through my Aunt Mabel.” I winced at the vulgar humor. “It’ll give me a chance to see what you’re made of,” he said, and I smiled, weakly.

  Late spring became midsummer, and then the heat began to wane. All the time, Joan was dividing her time between her various duties. I expected that when school let out I would see more of her, but then Beth’s need grew more intense, taking up where the students had left off. I came home to the usual note several times a week; I was never invited to join them. Proud, I didn’t ask but stayed alone, rattling around in the house on Worth Street, reading and fussing and missing my wife, wondering what the two of them were doing in the house on the hill, and why they didn’t want me there.

  “She’s coming over tomorrow night,” Joan reported, one morning. “She has to get out of that house.”

  After the meal, we sat around on the front porch, holding coffee cups and listening to the crickets, indulging in a light pattern of conversation.

  “Last night I dreamed I found her,” said Beth, surprising us. Until then, our remarks had been entirely superficial. “She wasn’t glad to see me,” she said. “She said she was happier now.”

  Her statement was followed by a brief silence. I glanced at Joan, but she put her coffee cup to her lips and said nothing, not looking at me.

  “That’s silly,” I said, faltering.

  “All dreams are silly,” said Beth, sharply. “But they tell you something.”

  “What did this one tell you?” asked Joan quietly.

  “I don’t know,” said Beth, after a short pause. “But I know that when I woke up, I was happy.”