by Greg Olear
CHAPTER 12
A
ccording to the National Bureau of Economic Research, the recession that plagued the nation in the summer of ’91 began in July of 1990, just before the U.S. occupation…er, liberation…of Kuwait. Recessions by their nature defy rational causal analysis, but that particular economic downturn was brought on by, first, the banking “credit crunch,” in the wake of the S&L scandal (a foreshadowing of our current financial crisis), and, second, a precipitous increase in oil prices, after Saddam invaded Kuwait. Or so economist Jane Katz argued in her 1999 report for the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. While the recession technically ended in March of 1991, before Taylor had even moved to Manhattan, Katz notes that “a sluggish early recovery made the downturn seem to last much longer and kept unemployment rising—up to 7.8 percent in June 1992—even as the economy started to come back.” Indeed, by late ’93 things were more or less back to normal, and the economy, spurred on by a World Wide Web devised by Tim Berners-Lee the year our story takes place, took off thereafter, peaking big time in 1999. But in the late summer of ’91, Berners-Lee himself, peering through his rosiest Oliver Peoples, could not have foreseen such a drastic correction. The future looked bleak, even hopeless. Work was impossible to find. Prices were rising. The heat was unrelenting, as was the “sluggish recovery” that we referred to, at the time, as the “depression.”
The rest of the news cycle was just as grim. A dark horse presidential candidate, the Democratic governor of backwater Arkansas, threw his name into the hat with the other hopeless hopefuls—Poppy Bush, holding a political straight flush in the wake of the Gulf War, looked like a cinch for reelection. And the lurid confirmation hearing of Clarence Thomas, as unqualified for the Supreme Court as Dan Quayle was for the vice presidency, introduced the nation to the jurisprudential definition of quid pro quo. On Tuesday, October 15, 1991, in defiance of Anita Hill and common sense, the Senate voted 52–48 to confirm Long Dong Silver. That was but one small detail, one tiny Fuck You from the gods, that contributed to October 15, 1991, being the worst day of my life. Up until that point, that is.
My day began early. I was roused at quarter to six by the urgent ringing of the phone. I was deep in sleep and disoriented; it took me a while to remember where I was, let alone to answer the call. On the ninth or tenth ring—the answering machine was on the fritz again—I managed to pick up.
“Hello?”
“Todd? Todd, is that you?”
The voice of this ghost shook me from my slumber.
“Dad?”
My parents divorced in 1978, when I was thirteen. For salvation, my mother turned to Jesus; my father, to drink. I wasn’t keen on either option. When I left for college, my mother—I lived with her after the divorce, in a cramped bungalow in Toms River, New Jersey—married an evangelical Christian patent clerk; I rarely went back to visit. As for my old man, he wound up in a boardinghouse in Camden, where he indulged his taste for tequila and cooze. I’d spoken to him maybe a dozen times since the divorce, and had seen him exactly twice in all that time. His call, then, on this already bleak day, was a surprise.
“Son,” he told me, “I’ve been a lousy father.”
Clearly he was drunk.
“You weren’t so bad.”
“I was lousy,” he insisted.
“Fine, you were lousy. Dad, why are you telling me this? Did you do the Forum or something?”
“Todd,” he said, “I’m dying.”
He’d been having these terrible headaches, was the story, which he attributed to the effects of the booze. Then his eyes started acting funny. After he fainted while taking a leak one morning, he finally went to the doctor. They did a CAT scan, and found embedded in his brain a tumor the size of a tomato. Malignant, they said. Inoperable. Six months, probably. No more than a year.
“Oh my God,” I said, although I was ostensibly an atheist. “Oh my God.”
“I’d like to see you, Todd. For Thanksgiving. Will you come down? For Thanksgiving? I’ll pay for the ticket.”
“To Camden?”
“I’m in Cherry Hill now.”
I’d spent last Thanksgiving in Medford, Massachusetts, with Laura’s disapproving—and, even worse, teetotalling—parents. This year there was no such option. I’d probably wind up snarfing down the turkey special at Odessa Diner and watching the Cowboys lose. Might as well share my loneliness with my old man.
“Yes, of course. Of course I’ll come.”
We hung up the phone, and I burst into tears. Literally, burst. I wasn’t expecting to cry—he was a lousy father, even during the thirteen years he was around—but the tears poured out of me nevertheless. Even while I was crying, I was stunned that the news, somber though it was, could have such a visceral effect on me. Did I really love the guy, deep down? Or was this just a narcissistic opportunity to contemplate my own mortality? I would, once he passed, be the next Lander in line. Unlike Taylor, the thought of death scared the crap out of me, and no amount of intellectual sugarcoating was going to change that flavor. My dad is dying; I’m next. I couldn’t get that simple equation out of my head.
As I got to work—a few minutes late; signal problems on the 6—I found Donna Green waiting at my cube, ample arms crossed, a familiar scowl on her plump face.
“We need to talk,” she told me.
“Good morning to you, too.”
I followed Donna into her cramped office. Between her mass and the boxes and loose papers and other crap all over the place, there was barely room for the two of us to sit down.
“We have a problem,” she said, closing the door.
I didn’t say anything.
“It’s come to my attention that you’ve been routinely leaving work early. Up to three times a week.”
Ah, yes. That. Well, I needed to be in the apartment alone, when Taylor was at work, so I could read her diaries at leisure. True, she hadn’t been home much lately—after their initial congress on my red sofa, she’d been spending a lot of time at Asher’s—but you can never be too careful. It would never do to get caught with my hand in the epistolary cookie jar.
Fortunately, I had an excuse prepared. “It’s my teeth,” I said, rubbing my jaw for effect. “I’ve been having problems with my teeth.”
“Yes, so you say.”
I didn’t care for her patronizing tone. “What, you think I’m lying?”
“It’s not fair for you to leave early all the time, Todd. It creates more work for everyone else.”
“I understand that. Totally. That’s why I work through lunch.”
She arched an eyebrow, or tried to; the rings of ocular fat made the maneuver difficult. “I’ve never seen you work through lunch, Todd.”
“What am I supposed to do, Donna? Sit here and suffer?”
She didn’t say anything, just sat there staring at me. Her tortured breathing was unpleasantly loud.
“Have you ever had oral surgery? It’s not pleasant.”
“I spoke with HR about this. They said that I should ask you for a note from the dentist.”
“A note? What is this, elementary school?”
This was not going to end well. Not at all.
“You know,” Donna said, changing course, her tone more buddy-buddy, “I have a cavity, and I’m in the market for a good dentist. Would you recommend yours?”
She would have a cavity, with all those Boston cream doughnuts she shoved in her hungry maw every morning. Gout, too, probably.
“He’s not taking new patients.”
“I see.” She shook her corpulent face back and forth—how clichéd!—her nine chins waddling to and fro. “Well, you’ve given me no choice, Todd. Either you produce the note, or we’re letting you go.”
“Letting me go? You mean you’re firing me?”
“Not if you produce the note. Which, if you’ve really been to the dentist, shouldn’t be a problem, right?”
I thought about forging a note, but what good would that do? They’d
find out sooner or later. And it’s not like the photo library was a career aspiration. Plus, if I got the axe, I could collect unemployment.
“You know what? I’m not bothering him to ask for a note. How about that? If you really think I’m lying, then fire me. You’ve had my number since the day I walked in the door, right?”
“I have not.” Donna Green sighed deeply. She looked really upset, like she was about to cry. Maybe she didn’t hate me as much as I’d thought. Maybe she really was just peeved that I took advantage of her and blew off work so often. “Have it your way. You’re fired.”
“Seriously?”
“You’ve given me no choice.”
“Well,” I told her, rising, “it’s been real.”
“No hard feelings?”
“No hard feelings.” I stood up. “Hey, do you mind if I take the Cindy Crawford photo in my cubicle?”
The photo in question, of the world’s greatest supermodel in a provocative pose, her curves artfully enhanced by the slimmest bikini on earth, had landed me in hot water, when one of my female coworkers complained about its display. Richard Gere is a lucky guy—or was, in 1991.
No longer nervous, Donna laughed. “Um…sure. Take whatever you want.”
“Thanks.”
And thus concluded my employment with API.
When I got home—and this was the worst part of the worst day—Taylor was in her room, packing her meager possessions into U-Haul cardboard boxes.
I was so taken aback I could hardly string two words together. “W-w-what’s going on?”
“Oh, hey, Todd. I’m just packing up some stuff to bring to Asher’s.”
This was a disappointment, but not exactly a surprise. In the two weeks following the end of her dry spell, she’d slept at the Dakota practically every night. I saw Taylor just three times during those fourteen days, and only in passing, when she dropped by to pick up clean clothes. The lone silver lining was, her absence afforded me ample opportunity to study the older volumes of her diary.
“Some stuff? This looks like pretty much everything.”
“It’s just, you know, I’m spending a lot of time with Asher, and it’s easier to have my stuff there.”
Attractive recent college grads move to the city, wide-eyed and lonesome, and get scooped up by the first slightly older, vaguely charming dude who comes calling. Cycle of nature. This was how I managed to score a cutie like Laura, who was four years my junior. You gotta lock ’em down before they wise up.
“You’ve gone out with the guy twice, and the second time he stood you up, and you’re moving in with him?”
“I’m not moving in with him. I’m just bringing some of my stuff there. That’s all.”
“That’s not what it looks like.”
“But that’s what it is.” She sat down on one of the boxes. “Look, I like this apartment. I like living with you.”
“Then don’t leave.”
“Todd.”
“I mean it.”
“I’m not leaving.”
“Whatever.”
I wandered into the living room, dazed, like a boxer reeling off the turnbuckles. My life was crashing down all around me, or so it seemed. This was an overreaction to her packing a few boxes, I admit, but after the day I had…
“Todd, are you okay?”
“Well, let’s see. I got fired…my father is dying of cancer…and now you’re leaving. Other than that, everything’s just great.”
Something amazing happened then. Taylor took me in her arms, pulled me to her bosom, and whispered, “It’s okay, baby,” over and over and over. I think that’s what she said; I couldn’t really hear over the sound of my heart pounding. Never before had she held me like this, so tightly, so tenderly. I could smell her Alberto VO5 shampoo, her lavender oil, her savory sweat. How sublime that curvaceous form felt, squeezed against mine!
“I know it’s ridiculous,” I told the crook of her neck, “but I really thought we’d, you know…”
Without breaking the embrace completely, Taylor pulled back to meet my bashful gaze. Her eyes were—I swear on this, although it seems ridiculous—faraway and sad.
“You wouldn’t want that,” she said. “I like you way too much to put you through something like that.”
Again with the I like you too much. What the fuck was that all about?
“By that logic, you don’t like Asher that much.”
“It’s not the same thing.”
“I don’t see why.” I crossed my arms and pouted like a five-year-old.
“I may be in love with Asher,” she said. “But I’m not sure. It’s hard to know with him, he’s so hard to pin down. But I have to find out. And for the last time, I’m not moving in with him, I’m just moving some stuff there. Asher’s old-fashioned. He doesn’t believe in living in sin.”
“Oh, for Christ sake…”
I protested more, but Taylor wouldn’t hear of it. And she was stubborn. Once she made up her mind, forget it. The moment, if there had ever been one, had passed.
“I’m sorry to hear about your father.”
“Yeah, well, what can you do. It’s not like we were ever close.”
“He’s still your father, though. My father was a real asshole, but I was still upset when he died.” She fired up a cigarette. “Wait a minute…did you say you got fired?”
“Yup.”
“Out of the blue? What happened?”
I told her the story, omitting the key detail that my chronic attendance problem was in order to read her diary when she wasn’t around.
“That sucks,” she said. “The fucking cunt.” (Taylor often applied the c-word to women she disliked—one of her many charms.)
“It’s not her fault. She’s just doing her job.” Her cigarette needed ashing, so I handed her an empty can of Tab from the dresser. “Hey, do you think you could call your boyfriend on my behalf? Maybe he can hook me up with some work.”
I was unprepared for her odd reaction. She wrinkled up her face in a way I’d never seen before, the way a child might when presented with a teaming plate of brussels sprouts. She held the expression for a tenth of a second, if that, and then reverted to form.
“I don’t know, Todd. I’d only use Quid Pro Quo as, like, a last resort.”
Absent the acute myopia symptomatic of the present tense, I now see that she was trying to warn me, to protect me. She had some empathy, evidently. At the time, however, desperation clouded my better judgment. Besides, how could I have guessed at the grim literality of the company’s fancy Latin name?
“Last resort? I don’t have a job, I didn’t get any severance, the rent is two weeks late, and I don’t have enough money to cover it. Even if you’re able to kick in your share this month. Christ. What the fuck am I going to do?”
Taylor didn’t say anything at first, just shook her head slowly. Only when I started to sob did she speak. “I just don’t think Quid Pro Quo would be a very good fit for you, is all.”
That pushed me over the edge. “You mean you don’t think I’m good enough for them!” I cried. “Great. First I’m not good enough for my dad. Then I’m not good enough to be with you. Now I’m not good enough for some fucking headhunter?”
Taylor shook her head again, her eyes even sadder. “Okay,” she said. “If that’s what you really want, I’ll call him.”
CHAPTER 13
T
hat Saturday, Asher Krug took his newly minted live-in girlfriend to dinner at Chez Molineaux. On this second visit, they took a cab—“I want to drink tonight,” Asher explained—and instead of the cozy corner table, the hostess showed them to a private room off the dining hall. They entered to find Roland Molineaux presiding over a bottle of Bordeaux and two steak sandwiches. “Right on time,” said the rotund chef, glancing at a wristwatch encrusted with more gems than a Fabergé egg. “You have twenty minutes. Assuming he’s on time, and he’s about as punctual as the Long Island Railroad.”
“Wait—does th
at mean he’s on time, or does that mean he’s always late?”
“Sorry. Metro North, then. The man is like an atomic clock.”
Asher motioned for Taylor to sit; she did. Then, still standing, he snarfed down one of the sandwiches.
“What’s going on?”
“The uniforms are right here,” Roland said, gesturing to a pair of red jackets, white dress shirts, and black tuxedo pants on stiff hangers behind the door. “Bon appétit.” And he waddled off, closing the door behind him.
Taylor had spent the last four nights in Asher’s bed, but was no closer to—as she put it—pinning him down. He was intense, and polite to a fault, but he was also detached. He refused to tell her anything about Quid Pro Quo beyond what she had to know. This was starting to grate on her, no matter how fantastic the sex was.
“Come on, Ash. What the hell?”
“In twenty minutes,” said Asher, between bites, “one Bill Steward, a prominent real estate developer, will be here with his wife, Amber, to celebrate his sixty-third birthday. You’d like Amber—you’re about the same age. As for Steward, as my mother used to tell me, if you can’t say something nice about someone…”
“Is this going where I think it’s going?”
“Give the girl a prize.”
A surge of adrenaline washed over Taylor, negating what had been a gnawing hunger. Asher hadn’t mentioned her looming assignment since the day of the Lydia Murtomaki interview—he mentioned very little beyond his pompous rants on any number of pop-cultural topics—and she was half-convinced it would never happen. And now the time was at hand! She was nervous, of course, but no more nervous than she had been giving her valedictorian speech in high school. She looked at both the same way—unpleasant tasks she had no choice but to complete. She had long ago resigned herself to her fate. If Asher could live with himself after doing the pink slips—and his conscience did not appear to be troubled, given how soundly he slept at night—why should she fret? It’s not like she had much of a choice. No, the thing to do was to get it over with as soon as possible. Then, as she predicted (wrongly) in her diary, she would be relieved to have the albatross removed from her neck.