Survivanoia

by Baroness Von Smith

  “Let me put you up. It’s the least the company can do.”

  “I suppose dis is true.”

  Daci called Geo, asked if he could spare Chloe for an afternoon. “Tell her ten-sixty-two,” Daci said and this made Geo laugh. Remington—ex-company president—had commandeered the police code for Meet the Citizen to mean befriend the client. Befriending, for Remington, had involved spending money and eating well on the company dime—shower the client with gifts and goodwill until they begged you to take their money. Daci didn’t want Lucretia’s money, but knowledge is its own currency.

  Besides, she felt bad for this off-kilter young woman. To come all this way and find her brother’s house looking like a crime scene. Also, Daci admired the girl’s utter contempt for social taboos. If she wanted to shoot somebody, there was no one gonna’ stop her.

  She’d have Chloe take the girl shopping, sightseeing, Disney whatever. She arranged for Geo to bring Chloe, come meet Lucretia in Scally’s office, then she went back to her own office to check on Scally.

  Pitch quiet, was he still in there? She ducked under the desk. Sure enough.

  “It’s paint,” she told him, unable to hide her grin. “Taste it.” She explained about the paintball gun, then settled in next to him under her behemoth desk. Somehow, forces had brought her exactly the moment she needed with this man. She had no idea where Sydney Junior’s loyalties lay. Sydney Sr.’s proclamation was not entirely convincing, but nor was it simply dismissible.

  Beyond merely wanting Scally on her side, though, Daci genuinely liked the man. She knew his dealings by virtue of having been married to his father. So she knew things like that he had taken care of his mother, had a steady girlfriend he adored, and kept two cats, one of which had cost him eleven hundred dollars in emergency medical bills. But Scally still had Sydney for a father. Would he pledge allegiance to all Sydney represented because of that tie? Out of perceived obligation?

  “You’re going to have to choose a side,” she finally told him. It was the distillation of her labyrinth of questions.

  He parried, asking how he could side with her when he didn’t even know who she was, then asking about Terri’s ad, even pulling a tattered copy of it from his wallet.

  He finally stripped it down to his own essential question.

  “Why are you running the company like a lunatic?”

  Now it was she who couldn’t answer directly. She couldn’t tell him about the divorce and the Flower Flu vaccine and development, not without first being absolutely certain: Did Scally think for himself? Did Sydney have so much as a single hook in this man, his son?

  Daci sat up, faced him, took him by the shoulders. How to ask what you’re not supposed to know? Scally had sent away the funny little scientist for his funny little language, the language they shared—that’s what Daci thought. It had nothing to do with business and everything to do with personal. She looked at Scally hard and long, searching for an in, what to say, how to phrase…“Do you believe human cruelty is balanced by our generosity?”

  The question surprised her as well.

  Scally made a joke that frustrated her, then threw a flurry of questions which she answered bluntly, hoping the grace of honesty would act as persuader.

  “Do you have any questions for me?” he finally said.

  “Just whose side you’re on.”

  He scrutinized her and she felt she knew what was churning through his head. His eyes shifted as he watched her, like the moment in lovemaking when lust gives way to intimacy.

  “I’m on my side,” he finally told her.

  But his eyes had already revealed what he attempted to veil with his words.

  Daci grinned, then laughed, the big round laughter of relief. “You’re a real bastard, you know that, Thug Life? A real mysterious bastard.”

  He laughed back, and all tension left. Daci was certain that from here forward, she would always know where she stood with Sydney Junior. And it was a good place to stand.

  * * *

  Late in the afternoon, Chloe gushed into Daci’s office like a drunken clown.

  “Lucretia is about the coolest person I’ve ever met. Despite being an economics professor. Thanks sooo much for letting me hang out with her!” She dropped into one of Daci’s leather chairs.

  Daci inventoried Chloe but didn’t know her well enough to ascertain if the girl was drunk or simply exuberant. “Did you drive?” Daci asked.

  “No, Geo did. She runs like five miles a day,” Chloe continued about Lucretia. “Every day. And she drinks vodka for breakfast. Not straight but fifty-fifty with water, because I guess they can’t drink the water where she’s from?”

  This made Daci smile; GrandMama did the same thing for the same reason. “Where is she from?”

  “Pittsburgh. Kidding! No, I don’t know, she told me but it’s some place I’ve never heard of. I actually accused her of making it up, but she showed it to me on a map.”

  Daci wondered vaguely where they were that there was a map handy but she had a more pressing issue. “Where is Lucretia?”

  “Oh, she went home. But she gave me something for you.” She pulled her messenger bag onto her lap—fuzzy and blue with yellow skulls—riffled through it.

  “Home? Back to Pennsylvania?”

  “Yeah, she had us take her to LAX.”

  “How’d she get a ticket?” Daci wondered aloud.

  “Lucretia is very convincing.” Chloe smirked.

  Daci nodded, grinning. “I suspect that I’m sorry I missed it.”

  “Here you go.” Chloe pulled a folded sheet of green striped paper from her fuzzy bag. “Lucretia said not to read it and for the record, I didn’t. Now I have to go,” she said, rising. “Geo is waiting for me. He’s taking me home.”

  “Are you alright with that?”

  Chloe paused to consider this, her simple act inadvertently informing Daci that yes she was drunk, that there was nothing going on between her and Geo (at least from Chloe’s perspective), and that she wasn’t threatened by him. So all was well with the world.

  “Yeah, I’m good,” Chloe decided. “Thanks again!”

  She whirlwinded out, leaving Daci with the ledger paper.

  So that was it. Lucretia had come and gone, like a shadow at daybreak, allowing most of them to perceive her as a caricature. An economics professor? Not too surprising. It explained her rigid logic, if not its peculiar application. Lucretia seemed to take things to their logical conclusion, and then take two steps left. The plodding, the patience, appreciating that it’s no fault of the numerals if they don’t add up but rather the error of the accountant. Lucretia took umbrage with those accountable.

  Daci unfolded the green striped paper. In the center of needless columns, Lucretia Stuckhowsen’s neat, severe, print-cursive hybrid said only two things:

  Tyson Woolritch

  CHAPTER 23

  Daci awoke Friday before the alarm; remarkable as the thing was set at dawn in August. She snapped it off and set it on the nightstand, moving slowly so as not to wake Zane.

  She watched him in the pale dawn light, stretched out on his side, breathing rhythmic and calm, mirroring his sixty-beat-per-minute heart rate. That’s why she picked him, he calmed her down, kept her grounded. She didn’t need a port in the storm because with Zane she didn’t see any storms.

  Daci set a hand on his back and he sighed softly. She kissed him on the temple, then nudged him until he woke.

  “What’s up?” he whispered.

  “Would you rather have the land or the view?”

  Zane took a deep breath, answered on the exhale. “The view.”

  “Why?”

  “Too many people been treated wrong over land.” He said this around a yawn.

  Daci nudged him again. “If you were stu
ck on a desert island and could only bring one thing with you what would it be?”

  “A boat.”

  “Very clever but that’s not what you’re supposed to say.”

  “What am I supposed to say?”

  “You’re supposed to say me.”

  “The boat would bring me back to you. And you said one thing.” He rolled over and curled against her, mumbling into her lap. “Maybe you should let people wake up. Before you—” yawn! “—profile them.”

  “What if I totally screw up Survivanoia, get disowned by my family and go completely broke?”

  “Then you’ll have to move in with me. Milo won’t mind.” Milo was Zane’s beta fish. And his only consideration, apparently. Nothing about “oh your family wouldn’t disown you” or how she’d never be broke, nothing money oriented.

  “One more thing.”

  “Whats’at?”

  “Would you braid my hair?”

  “Of course.”

  Three hours later, Daci munched on the little bit of heaven that was Roscoe’s famous waffles. “Sydney was wrong about Zane,” she proclaimed, stabbing a piece of chicken. She’d taken off the tailored duster she’d worn to meet Tyson, and the crushed pant-suit as well, traded the impressive business gear for a pair of denim capris, a linen vest, and a pair of leather sandals. Now she enjoyed the chicken—and the weather—freely and with abandon.

  Terri swallowed a giant mouthful of crispy-top homemade mac and cheese. “Of course he was wrong about Zane. He’s wrong about all of it, I’m sure. Put the chicken on the waffle, it’s better. How’d it go with the Woolritch guy?”

  “So-so.”

  “Hence the scoop on Zane? Giving me the good news first?”

  “He says he’ll think about it, and if he decides it’s a possibility then he’ll get in touch with The Doctor, give him my contact info.”

  “Did he give you an idea time wise?”

  “Nope.” She followed her friend’s directions with the chicken and found them to be correct. Even better when she repeated it and dipped it into the bowl of onion gravy before eating it.

  She went to Roscoe’s seldom enough that she rediscovered the amazing food each time she visited. Daci was finicky about waffles but these were perfect, a thin crispy layer surrounding the fluffy inside. Whoever thought to pair these with crispy chicken and onion gravy was a genius and should be sainted.

  “Tyson is in the same position as Encludsmo’s sister, afraid of betraying the man. Unfortunately I don’t have a Tyson-appropriate version of Chloe to help convince him that I’m not the devil.”

  Terri swayed gently to the soft rumba playing through the speakers. “You don’t think an outing with Geo would loosen him up?”

  “An outing with Chomsky maybe. Geo is a bright enough guy—”

  “If you say so.”

  “—but he applies his smartness to diversions. Tyson, in comparison, he reads and studies languages and for him that is a diversion. That’s why I decided to approach him with the truth.”

  “The whole truth?”

  “Mostly. I exaggerated a little about the sister, made it sound like she was still here. I also commandeered Chloe’s sudden deep friendship, referred to Lucretia in the diminutive.”

  “So what did you tell the truth about?”

  “I spoke allegorically about the Flower Flu situation. I told him about my Dad’s vineyards.”

  “In Moldavia?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Wow, you really trust this total stranger.”

  “Sometimes strangers are more trustable than family.”

  Terri mopped up the last of her mac and cheese with a big biscuit. “Are you going to the vineyard today?”

  Daci nodded.

  “Are you ready?”

  She finished the waffle and chased it down with a long swig of Eclipse, one of Roscoe’s signature fruit drinks. “It’s like Richard Wright says: If I wait until I’m ready I’ll never go.”

  “Will you see your mom, too?”

  “I guess that depends on what my dad says.”

  “Well, tell them both hello for me.”

  Outside the morning haze still lingered, not yet completely blasted off by the midmorning sun. Terri bought a pack of strawberry incense from a supposed Jamaican on a unicycle who’d set up unofficially outside the restaurant. “I still can’t believe you drove here all the way from the valley, just to turn around and go back up north.”

  “There’s no Roscoe’s in the Valley. If I have to go over the Hill anyway I may as well go to my favorite one. My car runs on salt water! It’s not like it’s costing me anything.”

  “Okay, calm down.”

  “I’m nervous.”

  “I know. But like I said, Sydney is wrong. About everybody. God, what did he say about me?”

  Daci thought and was struck by an odd fact. “He didn’t mention you. Or my mother. He alluded to GrandMama, but vicariously.”

  Terri laughed. “This is like in high school, when boys say you’re beautiful and so funny and so nice, until you dump them, and then suddenly you’re a slutty bitch and so are all your friends.”

  Daci smiled vaguely. Her friend wanted her to feel better, she knew. And Terri’s statement held truth, but unfortunately some of what Sydney said did as well. He was not, as Terri asserted, wrong about everything.

  Terri gave her a hug. “Call me if you need to.”

  Daci agreed, but as she climbed into her reengineered Hummer, she felt unequivocally alone, in the primordial sense of life and death. She turned off the Charles Mingus CD once she got on the freeway, in order to revel in the bright sun, the salty air and her own, deep solitude.

  * * *

  She hadn’t told her father she’d be coming. It didn’t matter; he’d be where he always was, among the vines, seeing to the grapes, attending the foundation of his passion. Did she envy him that? Her entire life nothing had ever taken her over completely. Not a subject, not a cause, not a person. What did it feel like? Was this envy the reason she liked researchers so much?

  The grapes were changing from bright green to dark purple, so that the vineyard looked like a painting, the clusters of grapes picture perfect like a chotchkey. She found her father weeding along with his crew. And because she didn’t know where to start, she started in the middle. “Sydney is of the opinion that you should have taken me to see the rest of Europe.”

  And because he was her father, had forged and formed her like a lump of conscience coal, her abruptness failed to fluster him. “He’s wrong,” he replied simply.

  “I told him that at first. I told him you were trying to teach me something and you probably figured I’d see the rest of Europe by myself. And I told him I agree with your philosophy that there is more value in seeing people whose lifestyle is inarguably different than yours. Especially when you are related to them in some capacity.”

  Daci’s father frowned at her. For the briefest moment he seemed a stranger.

  “That’s not what I meant,” he said quietly. “I meant that he was wrong in saying ‘the rest.’ That’s the only part I should have shown you. Paris and Berlin and London. I shouldn’t have taken you on that trip at all. A better father certainly wouldn’t have. But you were young and eager.”

  “By eager do you mean in heat? And you needed that woman’s touch?”

  Her father glanced at the ground, then squinted at her with confusion but not anger. “This was fifteen years ago. And you wanted to go. Why are you just now irate about it?”

  “What were we doing on that trip?”

  “We collected over thirty thousand cuttings. We built this.” His arm swept wide to include the vineyard in all its dark green glory, decedent against the 9-11 sky.

  Daci gazed out over the vi
nes but couldn’t see them. Instead, her mind cluttered her vision with Kalashnikovs and landmines and smelly, unshaven thieves.

  “What did we trade for it? Besides me, I mean.”

  Her father closed the pruners. He crossed his arms and set his weight all on one foot, spoke with deliberation. “I never asked you to entertain those men.”

  Daci, suddenly humiliated gazed at the ground. But her question held. “What did we trade for those cuttings?

  “What are you asking me?”

  “What or why?”

  “What exactly are you accusing me of? Let’s settle that first. Then we can discuss the whys.”

  “Sydney tells me you traded weapons for your rootstock. He says the whole vineyard is blood money.”

  “Sydney lies.”

  “About some things, yes. What about this?”

  Her father took a deep breath. “Did you ever see any guns? Did you ever see me with any weapons?”

  “No.”

  A long pause, and Daci’s heart pounded its way into her belly. Balanced on the precipice between relief and anguish, embarrassingly similar to when she’d been fifteen and confronted Jamie Radcliffe about Becca, that girl from the dance, had he? Had they! Please say no. It was so important then, so immense, Christ the sky should’ve cracked open and rained frogs on Becca’s house, the earth could’ve split and swallowed Jamie whole. What she’d give this moment to again be so sick with agonizing over drunken groping. Would the vineyard rip itself in two and swallow her father?

  She watched him sigh and uncross his arms. He stuffed his hands into the back pockets of his canvas work pants, rocked back on his heels.

  “Sydney. I see. Playing Sins-of-the-Father.”

  “It wasn’t just you on that trip, Daddy.”

  “Please. Sexing up a few rag-tag warlords is a far cry from distributing nuclear warheads. It’s a long way from distributing canned foods intended for relief to black marketers, like the U. N. in Bosnia. It’s not as bad as purchasing automotive vehicles for militia men to strap machine guns to and then writing off the cost of those bribes as technical expenses, like the Red Cross in Somalia.”