“I don’t get it,” he said, leaning into her, kissing her cheek. “But I’ll take it. I’ll take it however I can get it.”
Time marched, and Leonard’s insecurities grew: every comment Mary made about his work, his dress, his diet—mostly insignificant, quotidian, entirely commonplace in a healthy domestic situation—Leonard took as a slight to his character, assuming that in their aggregate they would result in her realizing his ineptitude as a man, and since he loved her more than he’d loved anyone else, he thought the only way to hold on to her was to improve his livelihood: if he demonstrated real ability, if he was able to provide her with a more comfortable living arrangement, if he proved to her that he was just as capable of success as anyone she’d met in her previous life, his fear of her swift exit would vanish and he could finally just be, as she’d so simply put it. So he devised a plan: he would consult with the one person he thought might talk to him, his most successful consort, and get advice on opening his own hotel, one in direct competition with his current workplace. This associate had significant experience both nationally and internationally, and though the idea of approaching someone who’d been on television fluttered his stomach and frenzied his fingers (every interaction they’d had had been curt, official, short-lived), he understood that it was possibly the only way to legitimize the pursuit.
He told Mary about the plan one evening in May. He sat at the kitchen counter bent over a sheet of paper, top teeth biting his lower lip, while she stood at the stove, stirring.
“Think about it,” he said. “I’ve been at the Claymont for fifteen years. I have so much experience. It seems like the next logical step, right?”
“I thought you liked working at the Claymont,” Mary said.
“I do, I mean, it’s like a second home. But I need to move on with my life, don’t I? I’m thirty-eight. I need to take a risk. I can’t just work there till I die.”
“Well, not till you die, but maybe until your retirement kicks in. Plenty of people do that.”
“But what kind of people are those?” he said.
“Normal,” she said.
Mary, over that year, hadn’t worked: she had savings from her previous job and a small inheritance from her deceased father. Instead of actively looking for work (she was in between careers, she told Leonard, and needed time to think), she went to her mother’s house, busying herself by reading cookbooks and experimenting in both her mother’s and Leonard’s kitchens. On this day, she was cooking a vegetarian stew, stirring the broth while Leonard wrote notes on his paper.
“I need to make this list,” he said. “I need to be methodical. I need to be strategic. I need to figure out everything step by step.”
“Starting a business is a huge endeavor,” she said. She stopped stirring, brought the wooden spoon to her mouth, sipped. “Hmm,” she said. “Taste this.”
“I know vendors, I know staff,” he said. He leaned over, sipped at her spoon. “More salt,” he said.
“Well, it’s expensive,” she said. She pinched salt into the pot, stirred.
“I’ll get a loan.”
“Mmm.”
“I really can do this, Mary,” he said.
She turned from the stove, looked at him, frowned. “I know you can, but is it really what you want to do? It’s a big responsibility. A lot of time.”
He scratched his chin, hesitated. “You know,” he said. “I have someone at my disposal. An extremely successful someone. I could get professional advice. Maybe he’d even become an investor?”
“Oh yeah?” she said. “And who is this wildly profitable entrepreneur?”
He swallowed. “John Forrester.”
Her mouth fell open.
“He runs a hugely successful business,” Leonard said.
“What?”
“He’s made a lot of money.”
She shook her head. “Nope,” she said. “No. No. No.”
“Why not?”
“His hugely successful business has caused irreparable damage to people.”
“Oh, come off it.”
“Really?”
“Damage?”
“Yes, damage.”
“It’s a haunted house! It’s smoke and mirrors. People in masks.”
“You know it’s more than that.”
“No matter what it is, it’s successful, and I communicate with Quigley House all the time. I don’t talk to John that much, but I could, I know I could.”
“Well,” she said, turning back to the stove.
“This could be good for us too,” he said.
“Mmm,” she said.
“I’ve got a great feeling about this, Mary.”
“John Forrester is a creep,” she said, stirring hard. “He’s a bona fide creep. I hate that you’re even associated with all of Quigley’s disgusting nonsense, but working directly with that sadistic crazy?”
“Mary.”
“He’s a wretched man. A commonplace swindler. A person who revels in suffering. He’s filth.”
“Mary.”
“But you do what you want, okay?” she said. “You do what you want.”
“Please. Don’t be upset. I have a good feeling . . .”
“Good. Now, let’s move on, okay? Food’s done. You ready to eat?”
* * *
The Claymont Hotel, Leonard’s employer for fifteen years, had, for nearly a decade, partnered professionally with the Quigley House, John Forrester’s extreme haunted-house attraction. The Claymont offered free accommodations for contestants who traveled from afar, direct-billing John, and Leonard, being the most senior manager at the hotel, oversaw all the transactions. Because of this arrangement, Leonard made frequent contact with the Quigley’s office staff, and sometimes, if he asked particularly taxing questions, got patched through to John. The day after he talked to Mary about his proposed venture, he told Quigley’s accounts-payable clerk that he needed to talk directly to the owner, and though there was hesitation on her part (she didn’t like disturbing him, she said; he was just so busy), she eventually forwarded the call.
As the ringtone buzzed, Leonard’s hands sweated and shook. He didn’t have any sort of formal business proposal for John Forrester, and he wasn’t even certain what he’d say (though he’d brought, for confidence’s sake, the cheat sheet he’d written the evening before), but he knew, in his heart, that this was the way to go: if Forrester helped him out, plans would be expedited, things would get done—it’d only be a matter of time.
John picked up on the third ring. “Leonard,” he said. “Nice of you to call.”
Leonard choked, grabbed his cheat sheet. Though he’d talked to John on numerous occasions, he still felt nervous every time he heard the man’s rich, even voice. John was a real celebrity, had done all the major talk shows, made cameos on prime-time television, had even had a documentary focused on him and his haunt, and whenever they talked, Leonard’s heart fluttered.
“My weekend contestants aren’t causing a row, are they?” John said.
“What? No, nothing like that,” Leonard said. He breathed, let the moment pass. “Hi, John, it’s Leonard Grandton from the Claymont!”
“Well, yes,” John said. “I think we’ve established that.”
“If you are willing,” Leonard said, feeling his heart in his throat, “I would like to get some advice from a world-renowned entrepreneur.”
“Leonard,” John said, “are you reading something?”
“No, well, I mean.” He pushed his paper aside. “I was just hoping that . . . it’s about hotels, but—I’m sorry. I can start over.”
John coughed. “Veronica says you have some sort of proposal for me?”
“Yes. Well, not a proposal, not like an official proposal. Just something I’m thinking about. I’d like your advice if you’d give it.” Leonard bit his lip, shook his head. He wanted to hang up.
Silence. Leonard imagined John on the other end, stifling a laugh. This idiot, John probably thought.
“Sorry,” Leonard said. “I was just—”
“Listen,” John said. “What are you doing tomorrow night?”
“Tomorrow night? What?”
“Yeah. You know Pete’s in Havelock?”
“Pete’s? Like, the biker bar?”
“Yeah. It’s a dive. But I go there, you know, to unwind. Nobody bothers me there.”
“Okay?”
“I was thinking I’d go tomorrow. You wanna come?”
“Go to Pete’s? With you?”
“Yeah, sure. We can talk about whatever it is you want to talk about over a few whiskeys. Sorry so abrupt. And if you have plans . . . it’s just a thought that came to my head just now.”
“Are you serious?”
“Of course.”
“Well, yeah. Yeah, I’d love to go.”
“Terrific. Okay, meet me there around eight p.m. tomorrow. I gotta run now, okay? But I’ll see you then.”
“Okay then. See—”
But John had already hung up.
That night, after work, as Mary stirred yet another vegetarian concoction (she’d told Leonard that meatlessness wouldn’t be every day, but maybe three times per week?), this time in the form of stir-fry, Leonard talked about his conversation with John as if it’d been the most pivotal moment of his life. He said, “He wants to meet up with me socially! Can you believe that? Totally out of the blue!”
Mary, having had an awful day with a mother who refused to eat and a television that refused to turn on, didn’t respond. She batted at the broccoli, the cauliflower, the pea pods and peppers and mushrooms. She added salt.
“This is crazy,” Leonard said. “You know I’ve only met him in person once? Like, in the whole time I’ve worked with him I’ve only met him once, and that was like a decade ago, like before he was as famous as he is, before he became this multimillionaire. And now he wants to meet at Pete’s of all places.”
“Pete’s?” Mary said. “That shithole out in Havelock? That place where that guy got knifed a few weeks ago?”
“Yeah, I was as surprised as you, but you know, him being famous, he has to keep a low profile.”
“Pete’s is not low-profile. Those are his people.”
Leonard squinted. “What does that mean, his people?”
“Oh, you know exactly what I mean.”
“I don’t.”
“Must I spell it out for you?”
“Please do.”
She turned, put her hands on the counter. “The people who love the Quigley House are the same people who go to a place like Pete’s. That’s his element.”
“And what type of people are those?”
“Please, Leonard. Use your imagination.”
“Trashy people. That’s what you’re saying.”
“I didn’t use those words, but sure. Yes. Trashy people.” She added oil to the wok. The wok hissed. She stirred.
“That’s a bit snobbish, wouldn’t you say?”
“Well. I’m an insufferable snob, so.”
“Listen. I don’t want to argue about this. I just wanted to tell you that this is happening. In one day, I made something happen. I had a plan, I had a goal, I stuck to it, and it’s happening. Tomorrow I’m meeting with one of the richest men in Nebraska. I’m going to ask him for advice. I’m going to sit there across from him and have a few drinks and talk about my future. And maybe he and I can collaborate, what do you think of that? Maybe in the future—the near future—he’ll help me get this thing started. We’ll have a totally different life!”
“Well, be careful. Don’t get knifed.”
“Mary, Jesus.”
“Everything’s fine. I’m happy for you. Now, are you ready to eat?”
Leonard had never been in Pete’s and wasn’t prepared for its rancidness. As he stepped inside, a gust of cheap beer and wet rags made him cough. Layered above this stench was the definitive odor of sweat and urine. His eyes adjusted. He looked around, saw destitution in the form of grizzled, sweaty men who looked like they hadn’t moved from their stools or booths for years. The light was dim, yellow, seedy. Above the bar were two large-screen TVs to which the men on the stools remained transfixed, even during the commercials, only talking when their drink was empty. Behind the bar, scrawled in black pen on white paper, were the beer specials: PBR Tap $1.75. Old Mil Tap $2. Lots of cans just ask!
John Forrester was perched on one of the stools, watching the TV with the others. Leonard approached.
“Leonard!” John said, extending his hand. Leonard shook it. “Hey, let’s get a booth, huh? What do you want to drink?”
“Whiskey, neat,” Leonard said.
John smiled. “Perfect. Ray, give this guy a whiskey neat. Put it on my tab.”
In the booth, Leonard felt momentarily claustrophobic, like the darkness of Pete’s would suffocate him if he stayed still, so he moved his shoulders, his legs, his arms, his head.
“Hey, bud, you okay?” John said.
On the table was a small black lamp, the kind one might find in a library. It seemed incongruous to the rest of the place, a source of light meant for a place of interesting and incisive thought backed by scholarly articles. The table itself was scratched and dirty. A straw wrapper lay crumpled in the corner of the booth. From above came the screeching voice of Steven Tyler.
“Great place, huh,” John said.
“Yeah,” Leonard said.
In the dim light, John looked ghoulish. His pockmarked cheeks narrowed to a strong, pronounced chin, and his eyes were shifty slits, unchanging even when he laughed. His mouth was tiny, his lips dry, and when he smiled, it seemed that he was missing a feature, that there was too much skin around the lower part of his face.
“It’s, like, one of the only places in town where people are totally genuine with me, you know?” John said, leaning in.
“I can’t imagine what it must be like,” Leonard said.
Leonard had only met John once before: he’d gone to the Quigley House to deliver a large binder containing papers that needed signatures. As instructed, he’d entered at the west entrance of the mansion, the administrative entrance, and inside, instead of a maze of horrors he found a maze of cubicles, each staffed by a middle-aged woman. He roamed around the maze before coming to a private office with a glass door. Beside the door, a plaque read veronica hall, account manager. He knocked, opened the door, said, “Guess who?” but stopped when he saw not a curly-haired, bespectacled woman but a small-mouthed man with close-cut graying hair sitting behind a computer, squinting so hard it looked like his eyes were closed. Leonard stood awkwardly in the doorway. John looked up.
“Oh, Veronica’s out right now,” he said.
“I just have this packet,” Leonard said, holding the binder out dumbly.
“A packet for what?”
“I’m from the Claymont? We’ve chatted before, on the phone. I’m sorry for intruding. I just thought Veronica—”
“Oh, the Claymont. Yes, Leonard, right? Please, just set the binder on the desk there. It’s great to meet you.”
John stood up, and Leonard felt, suddenly, like he was witnessing a monolith rise from the dirt. The man was tall—six-foot-three—but more than that he was imperious, his face, strange as it was, conforming into something utterly confident, precisely intimidating. As they shook hands, Leonard felt he was touching a personification of brilliance, a prodigy so virtuosic that nobody for years had been able to come close to comparing. Leonard had no interest in horror or haunted houses or anything of the sort, but that didn’t matter: the man had created something legendary, and respect was always due where respect was always due.
In Pete’s, however, with all its heavy scents, it was difficult to be in awe of anything; everything, including John, seemed supremely dilapidated. Still, Leonard thought, perhaps that was part of John’s genius, to surround himself outside of the Quigley House with a sort of pervasive wretchedness. He did, after all, run a house that fed on people’s desire fo
r terror.
They drank whiskey and talked about the Claymont. John seemed unduly interested in the inner workings of the hotel, which surprised Leonard: to him, his job seemed unexceptional. But John kept on: How many rooms? How much staff? Were the complimentary breakfasts made from scratch? Did the staff ever screw in the empty rooms? To this last question, Leonard laughed, said, “Probably.”
At the end of the night, Leonard, feeling brave from the whiskey, asked John if he’d like to meet again, told him that it’d been a while since he’d had a drinking buddy.
John looked at him, eyebrows arched. “A regular thing, huh?” John said.
“I mean, I know you’re busy,” Leonard said.
“I’m here this time, every week,” John said. “If you want, you can be too.”
“Yeah?” Leonard said.
“Yup,” John said.
And Leonard felt the keen sense of things coming together.
The next time the two men met, they sat in the same booth. The light, it seemed, shone brighter this time around, and when Leonard mentioned it, John laughed and said, Ray finally replaced a few bulbs. The increase in attempted cheer, however, did nothing for the despondent men atop their stools. One man, a paunchy, wide-faced farmer-type with a tangled gray beard and dirt-clad boots, squinted forever out at the bottles, his beer glass held right next to his lips. Once in a while, the bartender waved his hand in front of the bearded man’s face, startling him.
“The regulars here are a trip,” John said. “Fascinating lives, all of them.”
Leonard looked past the bearded man, up to the TV, which showed Hillary Clinton in a soft pink blouse fielding questions from the press, denying some sort of wrongdoing called Whitewater.
“They put C-SPAN on in a bar like this?” Leonard said.
John looked up at the TV, grimaced, then looked back at Leonard. He shook his head, sipped his whiskey. “I don’t know about this country sometimes,” he said. “How someone like that . . .”
“You’re political?” Leonard said.
John stared at Leonard for a while, then softened his eyes. “Leonard,” he said, “‘political’ isn’t a dirty word. It’s a necessary way of life for guys like us, okay?”
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