Conscience

by Alice Mattison

  When my errands are done, I pick up my glass and sit opposite her. I ask about her work. “Are you a professor?”

  She says she writes books and articles about women novelists, mostly early twentieth century. She has a job as an editor and can work temporarily from home. She remembers something else she needs that’s on the table, and I go for that, too. Obviously Griff is neglecting her.

  “You’re writing a book about Benevento?” I ask. The book is on the table—the copy I found in my office.

  “An essay.”

  “Joshua said you knew her?”

  She begins to talk about the party and her fall. In a sense, we’re already intimate—we’ve gone through her accident, the ER, and now my pawing around in her things. She’s a reserved person, and I have a feeling she talks more easily than she would if we’d met in a more ordinary way. I’m dying to know about Valerie Benevento, and finally I ask again. Olive says, “Oh, Val. Yes, we were friends.”

  “Were you close?”

  “At times,” she says.

  I persist. “Was she fun to know?”

  “Fun. Yes,” Olive says. “She’d do stuff. Once we went to a play in New York, and when we left the theater, one of the actors was coming out. He had a small part, but Val said ‘That’s so-and-so—he played the uncle.’ Before I knew it, she went up to him and got his autograph, and we ended up having coffee with him.”

  “A lot of men in her life?”

  “A lot of men. That one lasted a few weeks—he was middle-aged. She got bored with him, actor or no.”

  “It must have been exciting when she published the book,” I say.

  “Oh yes,” Olive says. Something about it makes her uncomfortable, and she changes the subject. She asks about Barker Street, so I talk about the third-floor project.

  Eventually, much of the cheese and crackers are gone and we’re on our second glasses of wine. “We should eat,” Olive says, and begins heaving herself to a standing position.

  “I’ll get takeout,” I say. “But isn’t Joshua coming home?”

  “Not for hours,” she says. “Would you mind eggs and toast? And would you mind cooking it? I’ll tell you where everything is.”

  “Sure. You stay there.” But she reaches for the crutches and thumps into the bathroom. Then she perches on a stool in the kitchen with the cast extended, and I follow her directions. There’s a basket of peaches and plums, but most are soft and wrinkled. “I’ll bring you better fruit,” I say. I cut up what’s still good for fruit salad.

  We eat at a little table with two chairs. It’s an old house, but the kitchen is small. On the wall across from me, next to a window that looks out on a tangled backyard, is a framed print, black lines and a red polygon. I’ve been looking at it for a while without seeing it. “I’ve seen that somewhere else,” I say.

  “Seen what?”

  “The picture . . . oh. Zak has it.” I am so at ease that I’ve forgotten Zak may be a tricky subject. Or maybe I’m heading straight for the tricky subject.

  “Zak?” she says. “Where does he live?” I tell her, and she says, “They bought me that print—he and Martha. They saw the painting at MoMA. I guess he bought one for himself at the same time.”

  “And framed it and kept it,” I say. “He’s crazy about all of you. I mean—I don’t know what happened. . . .”

  Olive is silent for a long time. “You and Zak are lovers?” she says.

  I hesitate. “Yes.” I wait for her disapproval.

  “You seemed like his type,” she says. “He likes older women—sorry, I don’t know how old you are. . . .”

  “Older than Zak!” I say. I have a thought, and suddenly all this feels scary. “Olive, was he your lover too?”

  “No,” she says firmly. “My daughter was in love with him, and he was a child. More or less. And I was married. More or less.” She looks out the window and back at me. “I’d have done it in a minute, otherwise.”

  We eat. The window is open. There’s a breeze, and I hear birds and insects. I stand. “I should wash the dishes and go,” I say.

  “You don’t have to. . . .”

  “Of course I do.” I put them into the dishwasher. I clean the pan. “Shall I help you back? I’m nervous leaving you this way.” I want her solidly on her crutches or, better, on the sofa. “Do you climb the stairs to go to bed?”

  “I bump up on my backside,” she says. “Griff will be here.”

  I position the crutches, and she grasps them, stands, and makes her way into the living room, pausing at the table to look over the piles there, her straight back toward me. She’s in a dark top and a loose, calf-length skirt. Her feet are bare. I pick up my purse, which has been on the floor all this time. “I’d better tell you what happened,” she says then, still facing away.

  “If you want to . . .”

  “He didn’t tell you, did he?”

  “He just said he was a dope.” I don’t particularly want to know what happened between Zak and Martha, so I don’t sit down again. I stand in the empty space between her table and the sofa on its dark rug, holding my dilapidated, zipped tote bag. She makes her way back to the sofa, lowers herself onto it, and sits, her back propped against its side, facing me.

  “He was her boyfriend for maybe two years,” she says. “She’d be in the bedroom doing homework and he’d wander into the kitchen and lean over the counter, talking, while I cooked supper. He stole pieces of raw vegetables. Once he gradually ate an entire raw cauliflower. He was the first boy vegetarian. Is he still a vegetarian?”

  “No.”

  “Well, anyway,” Olive says. She’s going to make a long story short, I can tell, maybe because I don’t sit down or even put down my purse. She tells me that Zak took a filmmaking class and enlisted his younger brother to film him and Martha making love. He’d deceived her into thinking nobody else was in his parents’ house, so they did it on the living room floor, where his brother had a good view from an adjoining room. There was music to muffle any sounds from the boy or the camera. The film told a story—Zak played a boy who cheated on his girlfriend with a black girl who appeared only in that scene. Martha—without her consent or knowledge—was the black girl.

  “That was almost as bad,” Olive says. “The invasion of privacy was the worst—but also, the black girl was just a sex object. We’d never thought Zak was thinking, ‘I’ve got a black girlfriend—look at me with my black girlfriend.’ My kids identify as black—they have no choice—but this was different.”

  Martha and her family found out about the film after Zak showed it in the film class. Martha’s face wasn’t visible, but students who knew him knew who it was, and one of his classmates told Olive’s other daughter. The teacher confiscated the film and destroyed it. Zak was suspended. He had already gotten into college—they were seniors—and the school let the college know. The college questioned him but didn’t revoke his admission. “I guess they thought he was worth it,” Olive said.

  He and Martha were going to different colleges, but they hadn’t planned to break up. Now, they did. Olive said, “She went from loving him to hating him while still loving him. It was a hard time for my girl.”

  I listen. I drop my purse to the floor and sit down. I have a date with Zak later in the week. I lower my head and close my eyes.

  “Did I just spoil your life?” Olive says.

  “No.”

  It isn’t completely different from what I’ve thought about him from the first. I still don’t know if he’s told Yvonne he’s sleeping with me or if he’s still sleeping with her. Bodies aren’t private for Zak. He’ll never understand some taboos and restrictions that other people feel. But this is not what I expected. I expected—foolishly, I see now—that what happened back then was that he and Olive slept together.

  “He went to medical school,” I say. “He’s a doctor.”

  “I don’t suppose he’s filming his naked patients,” Olive says. “He was very, very sorry. He said he under
stood—belatedly—and if not, it wasn’t for lack of explanations. The teacher, the principal, his parents, Griff. I couldn’t talk to him—I never spoke to him again until the other night.”

  “So do we forgive him now?”

  “I don’t think he expects Griff and me to forgive him. You—you have nothing to forgive him for.”

  “I love Martha,” I say. “First sight.”

  Olive smiles. “She’s fine.”

  “I wish you hadn’t told me,” I say.

  “I’m sorry. It was selfish.”

  “Oh, you had to. But I wish you’d forgotten for a few more weeks.”

  “It’s been nice for you.”

  “Gorgeous.” I step forward to kiss Olive and hold her close. “I’ll be back in a few days,” I say. “With fruit.”

  I leave, intending to break up with Zak, but I don’t. I keep Olive too and drop in often during the summer. I never do ask about Yvonne, and after a while I understand that it’s because I am afraid Zak would lie to me. That’s an upsetting thought, and I don’t think it for long. I tell myself I am a good, hardworking woman and I deserve a boyfriend. That it makes sense to enjoy him while I can. Before he takes up with a third woman. I point out to myself that I didn’t cast my eye on Zak in the first place because he was so particularly moral, and maybe I’d better put up with whatever that says about me.

  A few days after that first visit, Zak and I meet in a Mexican restaurant, then go to his place and make love. We finish and roll apart, spent. After a silence, he asks, “Did Olive tell you the whole story?”

  “Yes.”

  “I thought she would,” Zak says.

  I am silent for a while. Then, “Zak,” I say.

  “Yes?”

  “When you came to that dinner, you knew where you were going. You knew it was Joshua and Olive’s house.”

  “Of course I knew,” he says. “I saw a flyer about the auction at Yvonne’s house. I made her bid. I paid.”

  One morning early in summer, I go running before breakfast. At home, while I eat, I scroll through the New Haven Independent on my phone. A headline reads TIME OFF FROM BEING HOMELESS, so I stop, and the startling subhead is BARKER STREET’S NEW PROGRAM. This is impossible—how does the paper know? For a moment, I’m afraid without knowing what I’m afraid of. Darlene and I have talked about seeking press coverage—but not yet.

  Then I understand that one of our group phoned a reporter, and the reporter happened to be looking for a story. Doing this without my approval or knowledge is outrageous, but interesting: Who on my staff is this gutsy? Anger is delayed for a few seconds, and by the time I do get angry (it must be Paulette, and when I have a face in mind, I’m furious with it), I am also impressed—but mostly scared that the story will harm us. The public is irrational when it comes to the homeless. I read it quickly.

  As I read, I’m less troubled, because the story seems fine. It’s short, and I’m frustrated that I’ve missed the chance for a longer one later. I wonder if we can stage a ribbon-cutting and get the reporter to come back. But I see no mistakes. Yes, sure enough, there are quotes from “Paulette Strong, assistant director.” Then I come to the last paragraph, which says our agency plans to expand the third-floor program to include overnight stays within the next year. Now I’m seriously furious. Jason, Paulette, and I had precisely one conversation about this topic—one vague conversation.

  Probably Joshua doesn’t read the Independent, which doesn’t have a print edition. Surely he reads the New Haven Register on paper, with his morning coffee, as his father and grandfather did. There will be no story there. Maybe I have a little time. I put my hand on my phone, and then decide an email will be easier and clearer—a couple of respectful paragraphs. I stand up, taking my coffee with me, to go upstairs and type an email to Joshua Griffin on my computer. I’ll apologize for the premature story in the Independent, in case he’s seen it, especially for the last paragraph. I’ll make clear that Paulette (“The board’s favorite, remember, Griff?” I say out loud, though I don’t dare call him Griff to his face) did this. It’s another instance of her poor judgment. Maybe the newspaper will run a correction.

  When I turn on my computer in the bedroom, I see that a message has just come in from Paulette. The subject line reads “Look!” and the message is a link to the article. She doesn’t know she’s done anything wrong—or she’ll claim she doesn’t know.

  Then one comes in from Zak. His messages are brief, about scheduling. This one cancels a date, but before I can reply, another arrives that reinstates it but moves it half an hour. I reply and start telling him about the story. By now he knows all about my job. I explain what I plan to say to Joshua, telling myself I’ll write a better email if I sort out my ideas first with a friend. But before I can send it, my phone rings. Joshua’s number. I say out loud to myself, sternly, “Don’t answer.” But I do.

  As I say hello I start walking out of the room and down the stairs. My heels pound the floor. “I saw the Independent,” he begins. No “Hello,” no “How are you?” As he talks, I walk all the way into the kitchen, take another mug from the cupboard, and pour more coffee into it. I swallow, then put it down and walk some more.

  He goes on: “I have to say that you might have discussed—”

  “Hold it,” I say. I intended to begin with an apology, but now I’m mad. People who call on my cell instead of my work phone, or at least my aunt’s old landline, get unadulterated me. I’m in the sweatclothes I ran in. I haven’t had a shower. “Can this wait?” I say.

  I intend to blame Paulette, to say we have no intention of adding an overnight program.

  “I should have explained why letting people stay overnight would be disastrous,” Joshua is saying.

  “Look, Griff,” I am amazed to hear myself say, “I didn’t see that story until ten minutes ago. I didn’t know it was going to be in there. I don’t know every single thing in Paulette’s head.” I’m talking fast. “I don’t have full control over her or Jason, because that’s not the kind of program I want to run, with everything checked three times in advance and no mistakes ever. If you want to fire me for not having control, do so—because I never will. Maybe she made a mistake, going to the press, and maybe she didn’t, but—”

  I am halfway up the stairs again, but now I turn, go down more slowly, return to the table, and sit down with my second mug of coffee in front of me. “I never want to run a program where I’ve got such tight control that something like this can’t happen,” I conclude. “That would be the disaster.”

  “It’s not just the expense,” he continues. “We can’t afford round-the-clock staff. And if we could, it wouldn’t be a good use of the money. But it’s not just that. It’s not safe.”

  “This isn’t the time to discuss this, Joshua,” I say.

  “In theory,” he says, “there’s no reason why keeping people overnight is a bad idea, but institutions that do it all the time—large-scale, like shelters, hospitals—think differently. You can’t have now-and-then overnights, especially with this population.”

  “Joshua, I have a meeting in forty minutes, and I need a shower. I’ll talk to you later.”

  There’s a startled pause. “Oh. Well. Well, of course.”

  I say goodbye, hang up, swallow the last of the downstairs coffee, and walk upstairs yet again. By the time I step out of the shower I’m embarrassed and sorry that I was rude to Joshua Griffin, even if he started it. Yet though I’m sure I’ve gone about it the wrong way, I give myself credit for supporting Paulette. I’m angry with her, but I didn’t say that to Joshua.

  I don’t speak to Joshua again until I’ve gone to meetings at two other agencies—where nobody mentions the story. I have no emails about it. I don’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed.

  It’s hot when I get to Barker Street, and I stop for a moment as I step inside. The rooms with their high ceilings are naturally cool, though we don’t have AC, besides a few window units on the second flo
or. Paulette stands in the middle of the main room, talking to one of the community service workers, her narrow body shifting. She’s a restless lady. She waves when she catches sight of me, and I nod and point upstairs. She puts up five fingers, meaning “when I get around to it.”

  When she comes, I sit her down and say, “Don’t say anything until I’m done.”

  “Okay.” She shrugs.

  “First,” I say, “you seriously screwed up.” I tell her that Darlene and I decided not to talk to the press until after we talked to the board. I tell her I got an angry phone call from the president of the board that morning. I don’t tell her what I said. And I point out that we have no plan to open overnight—we’ve scarcely talked about it.

  “I figured it was likelier to happen if I said it was definite,” Paulette says, with a little smile. Her long arms are twined around one knee, which she’s raised, and the long heel of her white sandal is hooked on the edge of the chair. Her hair is cut close so I see the good bones of her head and face.

  “I told you not to talk until I’m done,” I say. I know I have to keep criticizing her until she listens. If I say at the start that I have mixed feelings, she’ll hear only praise.

  Finally, she asks, “Am I fired?” Even now, she looks defiant and slightly amused. If I fire her, she seems to say, it will only be because I’m dumb.

  “Paulette,” I say, “I am not sure.” I tell her she has serious problems with judgment.

  My phone has rung twice while we talked. I tell her when to return, then send her back to work. There are two messages from Joshua, both apologetic. I call him back and he picks up right away, though he’s at school.

  “I’m sorry!” I say. “I shouldn’t have talked that way.”

  “I interrupted your morning,” he says. “It was my fault.” Then he says, “You didn’t know about the story?”

  “That’s right.”

  “You’ll have to fire Paulette,” he says. “She should never have done such a thing.”