“I’m sorry.” Jack looked pre-occupied. He looked sick, there was no color in his face.
“You know, Jack, you’re just not cut out for this job.
There’s no reason in the world that you have to stick with it.”
“I have a contract that says I have to stick with it.”
Neil sighed. “I’m more than willing to let you out of the contract.”
“I thought I came here to get my ass chewed about a phone bill.”
“You’re here to get your ass chewed for being a fool. You’re not doing yourself any good by staying in this position, you’re not doing your division any good, and you’re in my way.”
“Oh, power games.”
“I’ve got ways of getting you out of here, Jack. I can play hardball.” He stared at Jack intensely, trying to sear him with his eyes. His stare did not have the desired effect.
“If you got ways, go ahead and use them,” Jack said. “I can’t sell my father’s stock, and that’s it.” He shrugged, and was silent for a moment. “You want to know the truth? I want out as much as you want me out, but I’m trapped. My father was a very dominant man, worse than you. I was always fighting to live my own life, but somehow I always ended up living for him. He’s had absolute power over me all my life, and when he started getting sick and decided to sell out I thought, this is it, this is my chance to get out of the way. I was in college studying to be a marine biologist. But he put me in his place in the contract. When he was on his deathbed I thought, finally I will be free of him. I was glad he was dying, it was time for him to die. I thought it was proper of him to refuse to go to the hospital. But on his deathbed he tells me, ‘Watch over the company,’ he says, ‘It’s part of me, it’s been my life. As long as the company is alive, I’ll be alive.’ Then he died. Any other person who dies, dies. But not him. He’s still here. He is this division of DGD, he is Harvest. He still has absolute power over my life. Still.”
“You’re talking nonsense.”
“He’s here. His ghost is here.”
“Ghosts.” Neil half-chuckled. “You’ve got more to worry about than ghosts.”
“I can prove to you that ghosts exist.”
“Get out of my office,” Neil said, suddenly irritable. “Go on, get out of here.” In his mind he saw himself pushing this little misshapen out of his immediate area, out into the broader range of his sphere of influence. With Jack out of his office, he picked up the phone and dialed his new employee. In his mind he saw his enormous inflated hand nudging a figure with exaggerated breasts, setting it into action. It made its way though his sphere of influence to carry out his will.
#
Jack spent the rest of the day falsifying receipts to turn in for an expense reimbursement. The woman he turned it in to looked at it skeptically but made no comment. He ducked out of the office a half-hour early and headed for his car, only to find that another car had wrecked into it. He stopped and stood motionless in the acid rain, unbelieving. He would not have been surprised to find the car missing, taken by the repo men – but to find it sitting there with a giant dent in the driver’s side door was a shock. The car that had hit his was still there, its driver waiting.
She saw him and got out of her car to talk. It was the new girl, Christie. She was crying. “I’m sorry. Mine’s a rental, it came with insurance. I’ll make sure yours is fixed.”
“The whole side of my car is bashed-in.”
“I know, I’m sorry. This rain, it made the road slick, and the front wheels slid. I’m sorry.” She walked up and grabbed his hands, holding them. She stared into his eyes, her expression asking for forgiveness. She was so earnest that he suddenly felt bad for her.
“Are you okay?” he asked her.
“I’m really shaken up.” He could feel her tremble, it wasn’t a lie. “I really need a drink,” she said. “Let me buy you a drink.
Don’t say no.”
Jack helped her push her car into a parking place near his and then walked with her to a bar at the top of the Hilton building a few blocks away. By the time they were seated both were soaking wet with the rain. To Jack it felt like salt water. It was heavy, thick, and stayed cold. He ordered double martinis for both of them and wondered how he was going to explain this to his wife.
“This is so nice of you,” Christie was telling him. “I hope you’re not mad at me.”
“No, I’m not mad.” Truth was he wasn’t; the shock of the situation had knocked him out of his rut. Not only was she paying for the drinks, there was a good chance her insurance company might pay off the car.
Christie’s hair hung in wet, blond spikes down over her face.
Her mascara had run just a little, and somehow it was sexy, intimate. Jack didn’t want her to fix it. He only half-listened as she explained over and over again about the rental car, and how she had wrecked. He felt light, relaxed. They ordered drinks again, and then again.
At some hazy point Jack noticed a change. Christie had started picking invisible flecks of lint off his suit, and he had been compelled to compliment her on her ear rings, and then the color of her eyes. They had admitted to each other verbally and openly that they were getting along quite well. Jack knew these were the warning signs, but he was ignoring them. He was quite conscious of himself ignoring them, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. It’s like nitrogen narcosis, he thought. Drunk on air, oblivious to immediate danger. He put his fourth martini glass down, empty, and thought he’d had enough. I should be leaving, he thought. I should go call my wife. Instead he sat there, letting it continue.
They were facing each other on the bar stools. Their legs were touching. She leaned forward and kissed him. “We have a lot in common,” she said. “We both want to be somewhere else.”
Jack thought, In bed?
“You want to be diving again, and I always wanted to act. You know, this is neat. I feel like I’ve known you for a long time.”
“Same here,” Jack said. “I feel it too.” He did, vaguely. He didn’t know if he felt that way simply because she suggested it, but it was there.
“I spent several years in Hollywood, you know, trying to be ‘discovered.’ I got a few jobs doing commercials, nothing much.”
The bar tender wanted to know if they wanted more. Christie ordered refills without asking Jack. Jack thought, what the hell, one more is okay. “You ever been married?”
“Yes. I married a born-again Christian. That was a long time ago, I was too young to get married.”
Jack waited for her to ask about his marriage. She didn’t.
“Any children?” he asked.
“No. When I was married I got pregnant. I couldn’t handle it, I freaked out. I had too many plans, too much to do, you know?
That’s when I left him. I left him, got an abortion, moved out to Hollywood. When the divorce went through I didn’t even get alimony … but I left him, he didn’t leave me. I didn’t care, really, I was just glad to get out of it.”
“And Hollywood didn’t work out.”
“It could have. I enjoyed it when I did work. But I had to support myself so I got this job, and the job took over my life.
Had to be upwardly mobile, you see. Now here I am in Chicago. I guess the next step is New York.”
“Ever act locally?”
“I don’t have the time, anymore. Maybe after this job I’ll be able to save up enough …” She shrugged, finished her drink.
“I’ll be right back,” she said, standing up. “I’ve got to find the little girl’s room.” She walked off, her hips swaying back and forth, back and forth.
“I’ve got to get out of here,” Jack mumbled to himself. He looked at his watch. It was almost 9 o’clock, he should have called his wife. She was going to be worried. Jack started to get off the barstool but stopped, hanging on the edge. He pulled himself back up, settling back in. He couldn’t call her. He had no idea of what to tell her.
This is bad, he thought. This is no longer innocent. I’ve got to go. Still, he didn’t move. It felt safe, it felt like he’d escaped the pressures, that they couldn’t find him where he was.