The Narcissism of Small Differences

by Michael Zadoorian

  "You're partially right," said Ana. "Jesus is economical, but he has one of those cars that runs on french fry grease. My Jesus is Al Gore."

  "Nope," said Tara, wagging her head and joining in. "Come on, you guys. My Jesus is totally Nascar. He's got one of those awesome cars with all the decals. It's why he had to call home Dale Earnhardt Sr. Poor Intimidator." She spilled a little water from her bottle of Ice Mountain onto the carpeting for her dead homie, then flopped into her chair.

  "Ugh," Ana said, the weirdness of the meeting catching up with her. "Can't that woman see that we're a bunch of heathens headed for eternal damnation?"

  Bruce leaned back farther and lifted his feet up on the conference room table. He looked exhausted too. Ana couldn't imagine having to put on this kind of show for as many clients as he did.

  "That's what makes us good ad people," he said.

  "Why is she even here talking to us? What are we going to do, Bruce?" said Tara. Just then, she looked young and scared. This was the first account that she was running on her own and it was already a complete freak show.

  Bruce said nothing for a moment. He scratched at the peppery stubble on his jaw. "I don't know what we're going to do. I sense that they feel as stuck with us as we do with them. It's not like anyone had a say in this . . . I'm sure they'd rather go to some Christian agency."

  Ana made a face. "Does such a thing even exist?"

  "There's a couple. Though I wouldn't trust them as far as I could throw them."

  "Because they're Christian or because they're an ad agency?" said Ana.

  "Does it matter?" Bruce checked his watch. "Look, I've got another meeting right now, but can you two hang out for a while tonight? Maybe we can figure out what we're going to do with these Christy knuckleheads."

  Ana reluctantly nodded, then remembered that she needed to act more enthusiastic. But Bruce was already out of the room. The asking of the question was just a formality anyway—it was Bruce's way to telling them that they were going to stay late.

  "These days just keep getting longer and longer," said Ana, stretching her arms over the back of her chair. Her mouth tasted like a Labrador soaked in Starbucks.

  Adrienne eyed her sheepishly. "I can't stay tonight. I've got plans."

  "What plans?"

  "Just plans."

  "Just plans? I have just plans too. I just planned to go home and have dinner with Joe and a boomba of pinot grigio, but that ain't happening. What are your just plans? You got a date?"

  Adrienne looked down at the table and said: "I've got my shrink at six, which I've cancelled three times because of work. She just gave me the obviously-this-isn't-important-to-you talk because I cancel so much. And yes, I do have a date later. Anyway, it's kind of a date."

  "Who?"

  "You don't know him. I just met him at some ad thing last week. He's very nice. We've just gone out once, but he's got definite possibilities."

  Ana was not used to this kind of talk from Adrienne. "Wow, a shrink and a nice date with possibilities. Sounds much more healthy than your usual cocaine-and-booty-call evening."

  Adrienne flipped her off.

  "Hm," said Ana, shaking her head. "Not a very kind thing to do to someone who you want to cover for you, lady."

  "Please?"

  "I'll just tell Bruce that you couldn't make it. Something came up. Okay?"

  Adrienne patted her hand excitedly. "Thank you, Miss Ana. I'll cover for you next time."

  "I know you will, cunt."

  * * *

  Ana received this e-mail at 5:10 p.m.:

  A&A-

  Will meet you in Main Conf Rm at 6. I'll have dinner brought in. Hope Vietnamese is okay. Thanks for hanging around.

  -B

  Suddenly, Ana felt strange about being there by herself after hours with Bruce. It was almost always the three of them, but tonight it was just going to be her and Bruce for what was supposed to be a creative meeting but now felt more like dinner for two. Then she decided that was ridiculous since they were just going to eat in a conference room and toss around ideas for WomanLyfe.

  * * *

  At 6:08 p.m., Ana entered the conference room to find Bruce sitting alone amid a bunch of open bags and Styrofoam clamshell containers. He raised his eyes from the box and noticed Ana just as he was shoving some noodles into his mouth. The noodles were very long and he had to shovel in more just to reach the end of them. His eyes kept getting comically wider and wider as he crammed them in. It was definitely the uncoolest that she had ever seen him. Ana couldn't help but laugh.

  "Hungry, Bruce?"

  He chewed for a long time, then swallowed. "I love these bún things, but they're a pain to eat."

  "I can see that."

  He wiped his mouth with a napkin. "Thanks for showing up. I'm a little hurt—I said six sharp and there's only one person here. I guess my word as a leader doesn't hold that much weight around this place."

  "I'm sorry, Bruce. I would have been here on time, but I thought you meant, you know, CDT."

  "CDT?" he said, confused.

  "Creative-Director Time. You know how you guys always show up last to any meeting? Better everybody wait for you than you for them?"

  Bruce leaned back and laughed. "You're learning fast, grasshopper. Where's Adrienne?"

  "She had a late doctor's appointment that she couldn't get out of."

  "Ah. Shrink?"

  Why lie? There was no shame about it in the creative department. She nodded. They were all fucked up in the head.

  "Oh well, sit down. I thought Tara was coming too, but she's on some conference call. Have something to eat. Looks like it's just you and me."

  Ana sat herself down directly across from him. She was glad for all the bags and boxes between them. She picked up a container and chopsticks and helped herself to some green papaya salad.

  "So how you holding up, Ana?"

  She looked at Bruce, not sure what he was saying. "What do you mean?"

  "I mean this," he said, raising his palms to indicate everything around them. "It's a lot of work, isn't it?"

  Ana put down the chopsticks and slumped back in her chair. "Yeah."

  He smiled at her as if he understood exactly how she was feeling, which she supposed he did. "Well, it's appreciated. Just so you know."

  She smiled back at him.

  At that moment, someone knocked on the open conference room door. Ana looked up to see a short, pudgy man with bleached-blond hair, the roots grown out black, wearing vintage seventies glasses. Her eyes were immediately drawn down his skinny jeans to a pair of glossy maroon high-top Japanese sneakers. It was Jerrod Amburn, senior art director and the agency's biggest gossip.

  "Sorry to interrupt your intimate dinner, you two," Jerrod said, an unmistakable twang of sarcasm in his voice. "Bruce, can we show you some stuff in Jin's office?"

  Bruce wiped his mouth and got up from the table. "Sure," he said, then turned to Ana. "Be right back."

  At the door, Jerrod turned to Ana and gave her a brief sidelong glance that managed to combine both a sneer and an eye roll. Ana realized just then that people weren't thinking that Adrienne and Bruce had hooked up.

  They thought it was her and Bruce.

  17

  The Imitation-Wood-Grain Nightmare

  It was nice to be at the office by himself for a change. They had just put the week's edition to bed yesterday so the place was deserted. Ana had called earlier to tell him that she didn't know when she would get home. Joe figured that if he was going to be by himself, he might as well be somewhere besides the town house. He did like having his own office, such as it was. Compared to Ana's office, with her vintage Steelcase desk, shell chairs, and flat-screen TV, his setup was a complete hellhole.

  Actually, it wasn't really even an office—it was more of a wide notch in the back wall—but it gave the illusion of being one by virtue of walls surrounding the occupant. There was no door, however, just one missing wall. Joe looked at the flimsy
, turd-colored wood paneling. He could easily put his fist through it and had already been tempted to do so a number of times. Almost everything in the place was some sort of awful wood grain, either imitation or real-but-looked-imitation. The nicest thing on his desk was his first-generation iPod, which amazingly still worked. He had hooked it up to a pair of cheap speakers from Big Lots. Sufjan Stevens's Greetings from Michigan was currently playing, one of his all-time favorite albums. He examined his hand-me-down PC, the plastic stained amber with nicotine and age, as well as the lint-flocked coffee rings that covered his fake wood-grain Formica desktop.

  With all that wood surrounding him, artificial and otherwise, when he leaned back in his chair Joe couldn't help but to think that his office had more of the feel of an open coffin. Not the most subtle of similes, he knew, nor accurate, since a coffin would probably be made of a fine cherrywood instead of quarter-inch pressboard paneling from the disco era.

  Despite this, he still didn't want to go home because all the usual temptations would be there. He loved his friends, but there was almost always someone willing to go out for a beer. Those nights at the Midlands invariably ended up the same. One beer turned into six and he rolled into the house drunk, planting himself in front of the television where he would promptly fall asleep, only to wake up prematurely at five a.m. from a sugar rush of alcohol, feeling bloated, cotton-mouthed, and pissed at himself.

  He did consider calling Chick to see if he wanted to go to a movie, but that was complicated because the two of them had such drastically different tastes in film. Though their tastes did intersect when it came to film noir and Billy Wilder and the Coen brothers, they had a difficult time at the local multiplex.

  The best thing to do would be to see if he could get some work done. Some work that he could feel good about, not "Bead Shop Opens in Former Narcotics Anonymous Location." First, he nuked a couple of frozen burritos and ate them while reading the new-release reviews on Pitchfork. After that, he went into his bookmarks and pulled up The Paris of the Midwest Is Crumbling. On the front page, there was the headline: "Endangered Tikis." Joe clicked through to the piece:

  The future of the Chin Tiki, the last of the grand old tiki bars in Detroit, is now in question. The place has been long-shuttered, but at least still standing. Those who have been inside the place, like myself, also know that many of its midcentury treasures remain there mostly intact, like some gauzy web-wrapped tiki tomb of Tutankhamen. Unfortunately, its demise now seems imminent because of its impending purchase by our own once-esteemed Pizza King, highly successful purveyor of cardboardish takeout pie from unctuous outlets across our fast-food nation, and now avid despoiler of historic buildings.

  What happened to you, Pizza King? What evil alchemy overtook you? You are not the same man who once meticulously restored the old Fox Theatre, now the jewel of Detroit, back to its 1920s splendor, right down to the last gold-leaf Hindu deity and velveteen throne. It was, and still is, exquisite. Walking in is like entering the interior of a Fabergé egg. That was you, PK. You captured our love with that rarefied and glorious act of preservationist greatness. But what happened then? You lost interest in the restoration of old and elegant buildings. No longer Savior of the Past, you purchased edifices only to tear them down, often under cover of night to avoid adverse publicity. All under the shopworn rubric of "progress." O, Pizza King, where is thy victory?

  Although there is still hope among local preservationists, lovers of Polynesian culture, and appreciators of buildings both iconic and ironic, that Pizza King will do the right thing, return to his restoration roots, and lovingly rehabilitate this exotic maiden, it has come to my attention that once the purchase is finalized, the building will most likely be slated for demolition, for yet another parking lot for the nearby sports arenas. Bravo, Pizza King! Thanks to your work, Detroit will soon have more parking spaces than actual citizens.

  This was the first that Joe had heard about any of this. The "Pizza King" to which Brendan referred was a local billionaire who had been instrumental in the construction of both a baseball stadium and a football stadium within a mile of the Chin Tiki. Which meant that if what Brendan Sanderson said was true, soon all that would be left of the Chin Tiki would be a gravel lot where ragged men two steps from the street (literally and figuratively) would flag cars into empty spaces when there was a ball game or concert in the area. There would be little, if any, backlash. No one would express much concern about the destruction of an old Polynesian restaurant except a small group of preservationists and aging hipster tiki geeks. It was also happening just in time to put a damper on the annual Chin Tiki party at the Midlands.

  Joe clicked on the photo of the Chin Tiki, its coved entrance resembling praying hands, and it led to pictures of the interior. Apparently, Brendan had gotten inside at some point and taken a lot of photographs. Joe wasn't sure if he'd done it illegally or with the permission of the Chin family, but he had definitely done it.

  Every photo Joe clicked on led him to another and they were all pretty interesting, some of them rather beautiful. There were a few of the inside of the main dining room. Joe didn't know how Brendan got the light the way he did, but it seemed like the stone grotto was glowing as if from moonlight. There were a lot of shots clearly taken for posterity's sake—fancy Witco furniture, stoic Moai statues standing guard at the doorways, glass balls hanging from fishnets, the pattern of the carpeting, the grain of the wood paneling, the masks hanging on the walls. Pretty amazing stuff. He had to give it up for Brendan.

  Joe clicked on the contact link and started an e-mail.

  From: jkeen70@gmail.com

  To: bsanderson@TPOTMIC.com

  Subject: How did you do it?

  Brendan- Just saw the photo spread on the piece about the Chin Tiki. Nice. How the hell did you get in there? -Joe K

  Joe sent it off. Brendan must have been online because within two minutes, there was an answer in his inbox.

  From: bsanderson@TPOTMIC.com

  To: jkeen70@gmail.com

  Subject: How did you do it?

  I'm going back soon. Want to do that ride-along?

  Without thinking about it, Joe wrote back.

  From: jkeen70@gmail.com

  To: bsanderson@TPOTMIC.com

  Subject: How did you do it?

  Yes.

  The answer from Brendan came back in an instant.

  From: bsanderson@TPOTMIC.com

  To: jkeen70@gmail.com

  Subject: How did you do it?

  Righteous. Keep it under your hat.

  Strictly on the QT Hush. Details to follow.

  Joe had no clue as to why he had this sudden interest in tromping around an abandoned building, but there it was. Now he was committed. But why not? He was alone every night and practically every weekend. Maybe he needed an adventure. He could finally write that story about it. Maybe for the Independent or somewhere bigger than that. He could use a pseudonym or something, he didn't care.

  Then there was that reason why he was alone most of the time: Ana. Even when she was around, she was not much fun these days. If she wasn't aloof and irritable, she was overwhelmed or worrying about work. Ana was now so wrapped up in her job that when he tried to talk to her about anything else, she would just nod at him until she could bring the subject back around to work.

  He blamed it all on jobs. Yes, jobs were the problem. This is why he had avoided them for so long. Jobs were nothing but trouble.

  * * *

  It was almost ten when he got home. Ana was sitting on the couch with a glass of wine, half covered with an afghan. She looked very cute in her maroon velour tracksuit. The television was on but muted, some Food Network show.

  "Hey," he said, leaning down to kiss her neck. She pulled her head back slightly as he moved in. She did this when she was stressed. "How was your day?"

  "Okay." She glanced up at the ball clock. "Where have you been?"

  "At the office. I was trying to get some work done." He dro
pped his messenger bag next to the couch.

  "Work work? Or your work?"

  He shrugged. "I don't know. My work, I guess. Wasn't terribly successful, but at least I was making an attempt." He decided to hold off mentioning that he had signed on for an illegal B&E.

  "Why didn't you call?" said Ana.

  He could tell she was annoyed. "You're never home, so why do I have to call to tell you that I won't be home?" He hadn't meant to say this in such a hostile way, but that was how it came out.

  Ana pulled the afghan up around her neck. "Thanks. I needed some guilt because I'm already feeling so wonderful about everything."

  Joe sat down on the arm of the sofa. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to guilt you. But come on, you know I'm right. It's crazy. You're never here."

  She pulled up her knees under the afghan and hugged them close to her chest. "I know, I know."

  "Are you just going to keep doing this indefinitely? Working and working and working? Not thinking about anything else?"

  "I know. I just don't know what to do about it." She squeezed her knees even tighter and closed her eyes.

  "Are you listening to me? Quit. Find a new job."

  Ana opened her eyes and held her head up. She was getting mad now and he realized that it was exactly what he wanted. He wanted to fight.

  She stared at something in front of her. "I told you before that there are no jobs right now. No one's hiring. People are getting laid off. Times are bad."

  "Times are always bad here," he said, feeling the flush of blood on the back of his neck. "Quit anyway. You can't just stay and be miserable forever."

  "I am not going to quit. Who says I'm miserable? I like my job."

  "No you don't."

  "Don't fucking tell me what I like and don't like," she snapped. "I don't want to quit. This is just a busy time."