Pickle’s Progress

by Marcia Butler

  Karen poked her head into the large communal room where all the work pods were arranged in an open plan, which supposedly encouraged better communication. The staff seemed to be working with heads down. Still unseen, she retreated and snuck into her office.

  Karen had designed her office to reflect her personal taste—constructed femininity, she liked to call it. Nothing like the firm’s tightly boxed concept of what a McArdle design represented. Yet, while Stan’s palm print remained the masthead of the firm, Karen’s input was the small engine that added a distinct third dimension. Perhaps the bravery of crossing centuries, a contrary color combination, or an unexpected curve. Her office, while offensive to Stan, helped draw a psychic line in the sand in their partnership.

  After pulling the blinds down at the glass partition, thereby blocking the view, she locked the door, slid off her heels, and tugged a cashmere blanket down from the top shelf of the closet. She lay down on the loveseat, shivered, and drew the wool up to her chin. Stan was in the office not ten minutes and Karen felt completely wrung out. She reached over to her desk and punched a button on her phone. Suzie answered immediately. “Karen?”

  “Stan’s back. Don’t bother me unless there’s a fire. Get the staff prepped for a two p.m. meeting. Buzz me precisely ten minutes before.” She hung up before Suzie could respond, and though Karen closed her eyes, her mind continued to paint pictures from the past.

  Karen’s sister usually stayed in the den when their father whistled for Karen to make the rounds for the men. That helped because when she returned, Betsy would get her up to speed on what had happened on TV while she was gone. But one late night, Betsy followed Karen through the dining room, on her way to the bathroom off the kitchen. The men never looked up when they passed by, and Karen understood this was the way the men remained clever and kept their wits. Betsy tried the bathroom door at the far end of the kitchen, which she found locked. Karen began preparing the liquor and ice for the men, while Betsy waited for her turn. Then a man emerged from the bathroom and smiled at the girls.

  “Oh, dear God. What have we here?” The man, staring at Betsy, sang the words with a soft voice only the girls could hear. He took a quick step forward. Betsy tried to sidestep the man, but he grabbed her by the arm and pulled her into the bathroom. Karen was initially rendered immobile with surprise. But when the man began to close the door, she ran over and jammed her foot at the saddle to prevent the door from shutting. The man had Betsy perched on the front of the small pedestal sink. He’d pushed her skirt up to her underpants. Karen noticed Betsy’s thighs, covered with golden hair, bleached by the summer sun. The man stroked the fuzz.

  “Dear God, little girl.” The man implored Karen with his easy eyes. “I’m just asking for a few minutes, is all.”

  Karen took Betsy under the armpits with both hands and pulled her away. The man dropped back and leaned against the bathroom wall. She noticed the man swallow and something on his throat slid up and down. That’s when Karen noticed the man’s lips—rigid and thin with no trace of red at all. Betsy gripped Karen’s middle with her legs and the girls tangoed back into the kitchen. Karen heard her father’s voice.

  “Drinks, Karen. What’s the holdup?”

  She released Betsy and pushed her forward, watching until she crossed through the dining room, reached the den, and fixed her eyes on the TV. The man stayed in the bathroom, but kept the door ajar by about an inch. As Karen lined up the glasses, poured the liquor, and added ice cubes, she heard the man urinate. The flow staggered, and it made her stop for a few seconds, until the toilet flushed. Then she entered the dining room, followed by the man with the sharp bump at his neck and no lips. Karen placed the glasses on the table, and the man slid into his seat.

  “Dear God, you’ve got a couple of sweet girls, Dan.”

  Karen’s father didn’t look up, but grunted at the man in agreement. “Yeah, they’re just fine.”

  Voices, coming from the other side of the glass wall, now roused Karen, as Suzie directed some staffer away.

  “No, don’t disturb her.”

  “But I need her approval on this before the meeting.”

  “We can’t bother her. Karen used the ‘fire’ warning. That means emergency.”

  The day she had failed Betsy; that was the real emergency. When she’d heard the noises, and walked up the stairs, and saw the man’s back. He’d turned to her. She knew him. His easy eyes and his bobbing throat and his rimless mouth and the familiar twist of words she could never forget.

  The phone buzzed. Karen reached up to stab at the intercom.

  “What!?”

  “Karen, it’s three minutes till two.”

  “I told you ten minutes!”

  “I’ve been buzzing you for five solid minutes.”

  “Oh. I’ll be right there.”

  Karen glanced at the clock and saw that she’d slept deeply for another hour. As she roused herself and smoothed the wrinkles in her clothing, Karen felt the heaviness in her belly. She was confused; her mother entered only when conditions were dire. Karen then remembered the dream she’d just had.

  She was about to enter a stage from the right wing. It was a performance of a play, though she’d never acted before. The stage manager gave her the cue and as she walked out, she became blinded by the footlights. An actor sat in a chair at the front edge of the stage with his back to Karen. This man, she surmised, was Stan. As she approached him, she became unnerved by the possibility that the man might actually be Pickle. Adrenalin rushed into her neck and head. She was no actress and even worse, wasn’t sure which twin was sitting in the chair. How was she to understand her “motivation” if she didn’t know who her leading man was? Then her mother entered her body. Her belly pushed against her tightening skirt waist and the extra flesh on her arms rubbed against her shirt. Her mother took control of her hand and moved it to brush the top of Stan or Pickle’s head. The hair was oily with an old-fashioned pomade and she grabbed onto it. She pulled the head back and looked at the upside-down face. Her leading man was Betsy’s abuser—his lips now full and smiling, outlined with red lipstick.

  Karen walked down the hall and entered the large conference room. She was thirty minutes late. Stan, well into the meeting, held the staff rapt with his ad-hoc presentation. They barely looked her way. Her stomach was now empty, her body weightless in a way she imagined birds might feel. She took her seat next to Stan and stared out the window, trying to locate those birds in flight. These men.

  18

  PICKLE’S DOORMAN GAVE HIM THE SIGNAL: A two-fingered cap salute meant Karen. And it made Pickle giddy-happy. He even skipped the mailbox room; catalogues could wait. He whistled as he walked down the hallway to his apartment. The tune? “The Greatest Love of All.”

  He saw Karen sitting at the window with her back to the front door. She straddled the chair backwards, her legs spread wide, reckless. Pickle spied her Jimmy Choo pumps, living in separate corners of the room. As he stood behind Karen, they observed the end of rush hour; cars and trucks poured like liquid into New Jersey and all points west.

  He sniffed the air. Karen took a drag of a joint, held it in, then blew it to the ceiling. Pickle sighed as he batted the fumes away from his face. “Pot is the same as booze, Karen. Your sobriety is officially broken.”

  She spat out a fleck of pot leaf. It hit the window and she rubbed her thumb over it, wiping the remnant on her knee. “Stan’s been checking my breath. I needed a drink. So? Pot.”

  Pickle kissed the top of Karen’s head, then threw his coat on a wall hook and waited. Something was gathering, and he wasn’t sure how the weather system was going to break. He patiently watched her as she continued to stare through the fat cables of the bridge, into the distance. Then she turned to Pickle and her voice took on a wistful lilt. “Stan and I used to laugh at all those people in New Jersey—with their spoiled children and stultified lives. We used to feel so goddamned good about ourselves. Even drunk.”

  “De
ar God. Is this gonna end where I think it will? You on all fours, sobbing? Me handing you hankies?” Pickle ripped a square of paper towel from the roll on the kitchen counter and threw it at Karen. It floated to the floor, lazy, four feet from his target.

  “You are so horrid.” Karen’s back stiffened as she spit the words at the window.

  “Sure,” he said.

  Karen stood, turned around, plopped back down and crossed her legs. She swung her leg, at first slowly, and then it picked up speed, like a dangerous tool: a pickaxe. Just as quickly, she halted the momentum and took another deep toke.

  “Well, I need a drink. I’m parched.” Pickle leaned down into the sink and cupped a gulp of water without a glass. Still bent to the faucet, he turned his head toward her. “I may be horrid, but you’re so fucking beautiful. Especially when you’re drunk. Or stoned.”

  Karen snorted. “I hate it when people say that to me. The beautiful part.”

  “People? How about me?”

  “You, most of all.”

  Pickle straightened up from the sink, dragged his hand across his mouth, and rubbed the excess moisture into his hair. “Okay, Karen. Go ahead and get nice and fucked up. Give me everything you’ve got. I can take it. Because today? I’m in a good mood.”

  She stuck her tongue out. “Blah-di-da-di-dah.”

  “Don’t you wanna know why?”

  “I couldn’t care less.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not.”

  Pickle walked to the bed, which was made up hospital-style, the corners tucked with a tense precision. He’d been fastidious of late and had cleaned the daylights out of the place just the day before. Books had been stacked by size, narrowing as they ascended on the shelves—a technique Stan had taught him. The room smelled slightly of Pledge, now disrupted by a patina of weed. He sat and leaned back on his elbows.

  Karen looked around, as if noticing his housekeeping skills for the first time. “You did a good job on this place. I didn’t think you had it in you.”

  “You underestimate me, Karen. That’s one of your few flaws. And mistakes.”

  She eyed him, unsure. “Okay, I give up. Why are you in such a jolly mood?”

  “I’m seeing Junie tomorrow.”

  Karen scrambled off the chair, flipping it to the floor, and threw the lit joint at his face. Pickle batted it away. The roach bounced off the wall and landed in the middle of the room. She jumped on top of him, causing them to fall backward onto the bed. Pickle fended her off—her arms, her hands, her nails, her legs, her knees, her feet—all of which she aimed in the general direction of his crotch. Finally, she straddled him and pounded halfheartedly on his chest, like a disinterested ape.

  “You bastard.” She whispered the words like a secret.

  Pickle wrested Karen up and over onto her back. He located the roach, stamped it out, and scuffed it to the side of the room. Then he slid back onto the bed and gently laid his leg over her belly. He imagined Karen saw this as hostile—and meant to hold her down. But he was entitled to a little self-defense. After all, she was behaving like a Saturday-night punk.

  “Now tell me, dearest. Why on God’s green earth do you care if I see Junie?”

  She stared at the ceiling, panting. “I don’t know. It’s not Junie. Not really. I’m trying to make sense of all this. I mean we’re together—practically a couple, for Christ’s sake. But now you’re forcing the brownstone and I don’t see how that’s going to work out. I’m very sad.”

  “Don’t be sad. Nothing’s gonna change.”

  “Yes, it will. You know it will.”

  “Jesus, Karen. Stan doesn’t know and unless you fuck things up, he never will—not from me, anyway. And forget about Junie. She’s a non-issue.”

  “But you’re moving in with us. How does that even work? It’s insane. I want to break it off with you. That’s why I needed a drink. Or something.” Karen grabbed a corner of the top sheet and wiped her eyes.

  “You’re getting worked up over nothing. We’ll be discreet. It’s not that hard. But I’m curious. If you really do want to break up, then why do you care if I see Junie?”

  “You fucker.”

  “I’d like an answer to my question.”

  Karen closed her eyes.

  Pickle prodded. “Nothing’s happened.”

  “But something will—”

  “You don’t know that, and even if it did, so what? I’m the cuckolded one; you’ve got Stan and me. Now you want to have Junie, too—as some sort of surrogate sister? You’re a possessive, greedy bitch.”

  “I have to protect her.”

  “From me?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know. I’m confused.”

  “Clearly.”

  “I’m serious, Pickle. I can’t go on with you. It’s wrong.”

  “Oh, dear God. Boo. Fucking. Hoo.”

  “I detest your sarcasm.”

  “Well, I’m at a loss for any other tactic, because none of this makes any sense. You’re creating drama where there is none. Except in your head.”

  Karen sat up and faced Pickle. “My life has been falling apart for ages. You haven’t been paying attention. I just need to get things straight.”

  Pickle laughed. “Get things straight? Thus, the pot—”

  “You’re disgusting!”

  Pickle crossed his arms, thinking. Then he poked Karen with his big toe. She looked at him, and he knew she expected a solution. It was good to be in control, for a change.

  “Okay, Karen. Here’s what. Do you think I’m just some rag that you can wring out and decide it’s too dirty to use, after all, and toss in the garbage? Do you really believe that I’ll let you end this? Do I have to remind you that you have so much more to lose?”

  She leaned forward, fell onto him and sobbed into his chest. Pickle wrapped his arms around her and breathed in her hair—musk—not grapefruit.

  He nudged her forehead with his chin. “Look at me.”

  “I can’t.” She snuffed.

  “I have to know that you see me.”

  She tilted her head up and swallowed some snot.

  “Don’t you know me?”

  She nodded.

  “That’s right. I’m your husband’s twin brother. We’re identical. Except for the red mole, as you well know. I will continue to fuck you until the time comes when I see fit to stop. And nothing, not Stan, not the brownstone, not Junie, not even you, can change that.”

  Karen squeezed him tight. She kissed him and her viscous snot smeared across his face. They fell back onto the bed. Unzipping his fly, Pickle pulled himself out. She hiked up her dress and he tugged her underwear down. He looked at her collarbone and kissed the hollow. He noticed a mascara smear on her damp cheek and licked it off. He watched her chest rise and fall, gradually slowing. Hovering over her, Pickle waited for Karen to open her eyes. And when she finally did, Pickle entered her.

  19

  PICKLE PULLED OUT FOUR SHIRTS FROM HIS closet. After tossing aside three as weak options, he selected a light blue number and ironed the daylights out of it. He dressed slowly and with precision: a sport coat and tie, his shoes spit-shined and trousers edged. He made a final overall check in the mirror and tugged down on his shirtsleeve cuffs.

  His face would require more drastic measures. Karen’s handiwork stared back at him in the bathroom mirror. During their scuffle the previous night, she’d managed to give him a crescent-shaped scrape on his cheek. He debated whether he should shave, which would, no doubt, sting. Instead, he pulled down some of Karen’s foundation makeup, sitting on the top shelf of the medicine cabinet. A dab here, a dab there didn’t quite do the masking job needed; it looked obvious, with a much darker tone than his Irish complexion. So, he pumped a palm full, smeared his entire face, and hoped that between the makeup and his day-old beard growth, Junie wouldn’t notice the scratch. Or at least not say anything.

  He wolfed half a bagel while riding down in the elevator, and then fretted over the poppy seeds he was su
re were stuck in his teeth. Ten blasts of Binaca, swirling the liquid around his mouth and then a spit to the sidewalk, would have to suffice.

  The Frick was Pickle’s favorite art collection in New York City. He’d arranged to meet Junie at the center of the former mansion, called the Garden Court, and was particularly eager to share the art in the Fragonard Room. Those paintings, known as The Progress of Love, depicted courtship in an era when women were revered for their refinement, for their subtlety, and for their demurring objections. That’s the way he saw, or idealized, Junie—as one of those pale lovelies, pumping their legs on swings knotted to a cantilevered tree limb, reading a book of poetry in one hand and holding a suitor’s advances back with the other. These eighteenth-century women were the original multitaskers, Pickle laughed to himself.

  She was already waiting for him, sitting on a marble bench, dressed in black leggings and a blousy purple caftan top that draped below her knees. Thin calves poked out of the vivid color and disappeared into her ankle boots. She’d not bothered to fashion her hair in a braid this time. Instead, her curls had been set loose, going wild like rattlers all around her head. Yet, the overall effect was, strangely, sophisticated and very New York. He gathered himself up, walked over, and stood in front of her for several seconds, waiting to be noticed. She was engrossed in a slim volume of Raymond Carver short stories. Pickle nudged her boot with his wingtip. Startled, she quickly placed the book in her satchel and rose to greet him.

  They stood opposite each other, about two feet apart, not sure which way their bodies would, or should, move. The kinetic confusion pushed laughter first out of Pickle and then Junie joined him. They giggled hard, gasping. They laughed about absolutely nothing. Nothing and everything.

  Pickle cupped Junie’s elbow to guide her into the first grouping of enfilade rooms opposite the Fragonard section. Their movement from one work of art to the next felt loosely timed, almost like choreography in early stages, the exact steps not yet finalized for performance. With this blossoming symbiosis, the visual effect felt serene, as if strolling along the Seine in a Seurat painting.