Office Girl

by Joe Meno

  “It’s the Drifters. ‘Save the Last Dance for Me.’ December 1960. It’s a masterpiece, Jackie. One of my favorites of all time. Do you remember it?”

  Jack nods. “I think I do. Maybe not.”

  “You got to remember it, Jackie. It’s probably one of the best songs ever recorded in America.”

  Jack nods.

  “Do you know who wrote it?” his stepfather asks.

  Jack shakes his head.

  “Doc Pomus. He had a partner too, Mort Shuman. Two brilliant Jews. They wrote a ton of hits. ‘This Magic Moment,’ ‘Little Sister,’ ‘Suspicion,’ a couple of other tunes for Elvis. You remember those, don’t you?”

  Jack nods again.

  “The thing most people don’t know is, well, Doc Pomus, he had polio. When he was a kid. So he had to walk around with crutches all the time. Then he fell for this girl, this dancer, she was an actress on Broadway. They got married, and at the wedding, everyone, well, they’re all taking turns dancing with the bride. Here’s Doc, a big guy, but he’s just sitting there, he can’t even dance with his girl on their wedding day. So he writes this song to tell her, You go and have fun, but remember who’s taking you home. Most people don’t know Doc Pomus had polio. They probably just think it’s this silly teenage song. But it’s perfect, actually. It’s this guy, this heartbroken guy, using this kind of silly medium, a pop song, and doing something transcendent with it. When you think about it that way, it’s really a pretty important work of art. Don’t you think?”

  Jack nods and looks down at the records. He pushes his glasses up against his face and asks, “David?”

  “Jack,” his stepfather replies in the same worried tone, but smiling, and then taking a long sip of whiskey.

  “What’s going on here?”

  “Can’t a stepfather give a gift to his stepson every so often?”

  “He can.” Jack picks at the fork and knife before him. “Is that what’s happening here?”

  His stepdad smiles, the smile then losing faith in itself, becoming a soft, flaccid frown, and then his dad nods, coughing into his cloth napkin, and says, “I’m having surgery. In a week or so.”

  “Surgery? What kind of surgery?”

  “It’s a little embarrassing.”

  “It is?”

  “Apparently I have a hernia. Right there above my testicles. It happened when Magdalena asked me to move a box. I bent over, and then, I dunno. I tore something. And so the doctors decided I need to take it out. Pretty minor stuff. Nothing to worry about.”

  “Are you being honest with me? Or is it something bad? I mean, is it dangerous?”

  “No, no,” his stepfather says. “There’s nothing to worry about.”

  “But what about the records? Why are you giving them to me if it isn’t serious or anything?”

  “The records are because I love you and if anything happens, God forbid, I’d hate them to end up with someone who doesn’t appreciate them.”

  “But what about Magdalena?”

  “Oh. Magdalena,” his stepfather says, nodding. He takes another sip of his whiskey and sighs. “Well, the thing of it is, well … Her and I aren’t on the best of terms right now.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “Well, Jackie, she left. About two or three months ago.”

  “When? Before Christmas?”

  “Right after. I thought if we could make it through the holidays … We were even going to couples counseling with a friend of mine. A marriage counselor. But it didn’t take. I’m getting to be as bad as your mother. Two marriages, both down the drain. The only good thing to come out of either of them is my relationship with you and your sister. And your sister … well, she’s a little too much like your mother. She’s got a list for everything. God forbid you ever try to get her on the phone. I’m saying too much. These things aren’t for your ears.” He takes another drink. “So, the records are yours. The only thing you need to worry about is taking good care of them. There’s a few of them really worth something.”

  “Okay, I will.”

  “How’s your lovely wife? I missed you both on New Year’s. I haven’t seen her in some time.”

  And here Jack, against his better judgment, against his best sense of what’s normal or right, decides to lie to his stepfather. “Elise. She’s good. Everything’s been pretty good.”

  “Work’s okay?”

  “Work’s all right. The same thing, different days.”

  “You sound just like me,” he smiles. “Listen, I’m going to give you some advice, not because I think you need it, but because I feel like I’ve earned it. The right, I mean. To give advice. Here it is: don’t hold onto things. It’s a problem the men in my family have. It’s taken me a long time to figure this out. Me, my father, my grandfather, we collect things. We collect miseries. It’s what we do. But sometimes the best thing to do is to just let things go. To let them pass.”

  Jack nods again, unsure of what his stepfather wants him to say, and so he says nothing, until, trying to change the subject, he asks, “Is Magdalena going to take you to the hospital? Do you want me to?”

  “What? On the back of your bicycle?”

  “No, I have a car.”

  “The hatchback? From college?”

  “It’s buried in the snow right now. But I could take you.”

  “No, Magdalena said she would. We’re still being cordial. Unlike your mother and me, we’re at least still trying to be polite. I should only be in there for a day or so. But if you want to come by and visit, I can get you the information.”

  “Okay. No, I mean, I definitely will.”

  Jack’s stepfather nods, and then slowly he reaches across the table and puts a large hairy hand to the side of Jack’s face. “You. The world’s your oyster, kid. Go out and do something big. Make some bold plans while you can. Before your body starts giving out on you. I’m sixty-three but I feel like eighty-three.” His stepfather laughs, dabbing at his chin with the red cloth napkin. “God, I sound like a motivational tape. Pay no mind to what this feeble old man has to say. Just ignore me, dear. But not before you pass the bread,” and Jack nods, reaching over to put the basket of rolls in his stepfather’s hands. And it’s then that he notices David’s hands are shaking, the knuckles, the fingers, the hair on the back of his hands, even the palms, all of it trembling.

  TAPES.

  On his way to work that Friday night, Jack rides along Milwaukee Avenue, past the bombed-out-looking apartments that have somehow managed to avoid gentrification. At the stoplight on Grand Avenue, right before Milwaukee tapers off into a grimy dead-end alley, there is a bus stop shielded in plastic, with hummocks of snow piled up around it. A woman, adrift in a massive gray vinyl coat, is holding her child’s hand, her child, a boy, in a blue winter cap and red mittens. The boy is playing a red plastic kazoo, humming some song that is making both of them smile, and Jack, pausing there at the light, still thinking of his stepdad, takes out his silver tape player and records ten seconds of that.

  AND THEN.

  Before Jack’s shift starts that evening, Gomez, the night manager, calls him into his office, and while Jack tries to come up with an explanation for why he’s such a lousy worker, why he has been tracing the shape of his hand over and over again, Gomez, scratching his sweaty mustache, asks him, “What are your plans for the future, Jack?”

  “My what?”

  “Plans. For the future.”

  “I don’t know. I really don’t have any.”

  “Well,” Gomez says, taking a seat in his overburdened chair, “it looks like you’re the sales leader in the office for this month. We just got the sales reports this afternoon and I wanted to congratulate you.”

  “Me?” Jack says, pushing his wrecked glasses up the bridge of his nose. “Are you sure?”

  “I didn’t believe it at first either. But the figures are all there.” He motions to a stack of smudgy papers. “It turns out you’re exceptional at sales.”

&n
bsp; “But I don’t do anything. I just read the script.”

  “Well, everybody, all the day managers and myself, we’re all pretty impressed. There’s even talk of moving you up to assistant night manager.”

  “What?”

  “I know. It’s pretty exciting.”

  Jack nods, though what he feels then is not excitement at all.

  “If you’ve got any interest—in moving up, I mean—you should let me know. There’s salary and benefits and everything. We could really use someone like you.”

  Jack does not know what to say to this, only scratches the back of his left hand.

  “Well, I’ll let you get back to it,” Gomez announces. “Let me know if you come to a decision, all right?”

  Jack nods, almost begins to speak, and stops himself. He turns and walks out of the dank little office, then returns to his overly lit cubicle.

  Odile peeks from beneath her bangs, her face appearing from beyond the straight angle of the cubicle wall.

  “What was all that about?” she asks, with a high degree of suspicion. “Are you in trouble?”

  “No. He said he liked my work. He said I’m the sales leader in the office for the month.”

  “What? You are?”

  “I guess so.”

  “But you don’t ever do anything.”

  “I know. That’s what’s so weird about it. I don’t even try. But somehow I’m good at this.”

  “Yeah, that’s pretty weird.”

  “Maybe this is what I’m meant to do. Maybe I have this gift for convincing people to buy really terrible music. There’s all the other things I’ve tried that didn’t actually work out, and here, here I don’t even try and they tell me I’m good at it. I mean, they want to make me assistant manager and everything. It’s really kind of interesting.”

  “So what did you tell him?”

  “What?”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “I told him I’d think about it. I don’t think this place is going to be my future but, I mean, if it’s more money … and benefits …”

  “Yeah, sure,” she says. “Well, that makes sense.”

  “It does, but not really.”

  “Why not?”

  “All it means is that I’m good at a job I really don’t care about. And that I’d be willing to work somewhere I don’t even like very much, just because they tell me I’m good at it.”

  Odile nods, scratching at her arm. “I guess. So how long did they give you to think about it?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t even ask.”

  A phone rings somewhere and Odile frowns and then disappears behind her cubicle wall for a few seconds. When she returns, she leans back in the office chair and fixes her gaze on him.

  “I made you something,” she says.

  “You did?”

  “Here,” she says, and extends her small white hand. In the center of her palm is a small black button with a pin attached to the back, encircling the letter F.

  “F?”

  “For Alphonse F.”

  “You made this?”

  “I did. Now we each have one,” she says, pointing to a similar button pinned to her sweater.

  “Thanks.”

  “No problem.”

  And he grins, gawking down at it, pinned to his shirt.

  “So tomorrow’s Saturday,” she says.

  “Yep.”

  “And I was thinking of going to this art gallery. To see this show. There’s this girl I went to art school with. She has a show. I actually kind of hate her. But I still want to go. Do you maybe want to come with?”

  “What about your imaginary boyfriend, what’s-his-name?”

  “I don’t have an imaginary boyfriend.”

  “You know who I’m talking about. Your lover.”

  “Who, Paul? We don’t really see each other on the weekends.”

  “Wow. That sounds romantic,” he says, teasing.

  “It is. It’s actually kind of perfect. We never get bored of each other.”

  “Right. I could see how that would help. Never seeing each other.”

  Odile sighs, her hot breath blowing up the ends of her bangs. “Do you want to go or not?” she asks.

  “Sure. I’ll go.”

  “You will?”

  “Sure, why not?” And like that a plan is set.

  ON THE WAY TO THE ART SHOW.

  Odile announces that what they’re really missing is a manifesto.

  “A what?” he asks, pedaling briskly to try to keep up.

  Odile slows down, riding beside him. “A manifesto. Like the Surrealists. Or the Situationists. Or the Theatre of the Absurd, you know?”

  “Not really.”

  “We need something to hand to people and say, This is what we stand for.”

  “I don’t stand for anything.”

  “I know. Me neither. But that’s why we should do it.”

  And they ride further south along Milwaukee Avenue, passing the expressway, the bread factory, the bombed-outlooking apartment buildings.

  “The other day I found out my stepdad’s getting surgery,” Jack shouts.

  “What?”

  “My stepdad. I had lunch with him. Yesterday. He said he’s getting surgery and then he gave me all of his favorite records.”

  “Wow. That’s really nice of him.”

  “It is. But it’s also kind of scary.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it makes me worried that he’s going to die. And I don’t know. I’m almost twenty-six, and I think what a disappointment I must be to him. To my parents. I mean, what do I have going for me? Nothing. I think he was already finishing his degree and probably opening his own practice at my age and everything. And I don’t have anything to show for myself. Except the fact that I’m already divorced. I don’t know. I feel bad. I feel like I need to do something important instead of screwing around.”

  “You’re not screwing around.”

  “I’m not?”

  “No. You just haven’t figured it out yet,” she says. “I think it takes a long time.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. I’m still trying to figure things out too. All I know is a couple of very unimportant things.”

  “Me too,” he says, but not loud enough for her to hear. “What I care about no one else seems to even notice.”

  “Like what?”

  And he thinks about telling her all about the tapes, the recordings he has made, the city of sound he has been trying to finish. “I really don’t know,” he says.

  “I think this should all be part of our secret society. The art movement.”

  “What should?”

  “Like being in favor of unimportant things. Insignificant stuff. Things that get ignored. Things nobody else cares about. Like Post-it notes. Or push-pins. Or paperclips. I mean, have you ever really looked at a paperclip? It’s pretty amazing. I was looking at one the other day and they still look like they’re from the future or something. I think we should be for the small stuff, the stuff no one even thinks of as art. Like fire hydrants. Or gym shoes. Stuff like that. And we should be against anything popular, anything that’s made for mass consumption, like movies, or TV, or songs on the radio. We should only be interested in the things that aren’t really interesting. Broken things. Incomplete things. Things that don’t last. Like lame fireworks. Or snow drifts. Anything insubstantial. Anything that isn’t art. Personally, I’m against anything by Jim Dine. Or Roy Lichtenstein. Or Andy Warhol. The only good thing he ever did was help get the Velvet Underground started. But I’m against all his other stuff. Anything that references pop culture. Because the only really interesting things, the only really lovely things, are things that don’t last, things that nobody else knows about.”

  “You should write all this down,” Jack says, “it could be your manifesto,” and Odile nods and then, up ahead, along an unmarked side street, is the art gallery.

  Before they are off their bik
es, Odile has taken out her silver paint pen and has written, ALPHONSE F. DESPISES THIS PLACE, with a small arrow pointing right toward the gallery. And then, after some shuffling of their feet, the two of them go in.

  ONCE INSIDE.

  There are some young, trendy, glamorous-looking people, some people with obvious trust funds, some people who seem bored to tears, some people who look like the only reason they came was to score cheap cocaine. Everybody is wearing a fashionable scarf, men and women alike. Everybody’s dressed well and so both Odile and Jack feel more than a little out of place in their salt-speckled winter coats, Odile in a dress she stitched together from remnants, Jack in a grimy T-shirt. On the walls are some pretty decent paintings, except that in each there’s some obvious over-the-top cultural reference: in one of the paintings, Winnie the Pooh is mainlining what is probably supposed to be heroin. In another, Mickey Mouse is preparing to hang himself. Odile and Jack stand before the paintings and roll their eyes at each other, moving from one image to the other, until Odile whispers, “These are so boring.”

  “They’re terrible. They look like something a junior high school student might do.”

  And Odile nods and says, “We should at least get some free booze,” and Jack nods and they head over to the small table where there is wine and beer and cheese and there, dressed in a white turtleneck and gray sport coat, is someone Odile would rather not see. She turns quickly, her face going red, and grabs ahold of Jack’s hand.

  “What? What is it?” he asks, but she just shakes her head, keeping her back to the person in gray. Jack peers over and sees a man whose round head is slightly balding. He has a white Van Dyke beard and modern gray glasses and is gesturing emphatically with a wine glass in one hand and, in the other, a full plate of cheese.

  “Who is it?” Jack asks, and Odile leans in close to him and says: “It’s this professor. He’s pretty much the reason I quit art school,” and Jack looks over, trying to see what it might be in this man’s manner that is so intimidating. But all he sees is the man talking, taking several cautious bites of cheese.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Odile whispers, but Jack says no, and walks over, picking up another bottle of beer. He leans in, listening to the professor’s conversation. Apparently he’s speaking with a stranger, or maybe some former pupil, Jack can’t really tell.