Invasion of the Blatnicks

by Neil S. Plakcy

  They stayed in bed all Sunday morning, snacking on donuts, reading the paper, and then making love again. They ate lunch at a sidewalk cafe on Ocean Drive, and Dolores knew dozens of people who passed by. She held his hand and introduced him to everybody, and he wondered what they thought. Could they tell he and Dolores had slept together? Was sex as great for them?

  After lunch Dolores wanted to make love again, but Steve was exhausted. “Men,” Dolores said. “You have no endurance.”

  “Give me a break, I’m out of shape,” Steve said.

  “We can work on that.”

  Dolores had a friend coming over at six who wanted a special styling, so Steve left at five thirty to drive back to Mangrove Manor. “Call me soon,” Dolores said, snuggling into Steve as he stood at the door. “I’ll miss you.”

  “I’ll miss you too.” When he got back home, he collapsed into bed, and didn’t wake up until the next morning, starving and still a little achy.

  At nine o’clock the next morning, a court order was delivered ordering Thornton Development to cease work until the Florida Club’s suit was resolved. Uncle Max called everyone into the conference room and stood at the head of the oval table. The walls around him were filled with renderings of the project from different angles, all carefully colored in pastel pencil. Prototypical shoppers had been sketched in, carrying shopping bags, peering in windows, and frolicking in the common area.

  “This does not mean the end of the Everglades Galleria,” Uncle Max said. “I’ve faced bigger problems than this and made it through. I remember a time when I was climbing in the Himalayas and it started to snow. My Sherpa bearers got nervous. They wanted to pull off the trail, build a shelter and wait out the storm. But I knew there was a station ahead. Then one of the bearers saw a shape in the snow and started shouting ‘Yeti! Yeti!’ That’s what they call the Abominable Snowman. But I didn’t let that stop me either. I just kept on plowing through that snow, and here I am in Florida. And I’m not going back.”

  Steve didn’t understand the relevance of Uncle Max’s encounter with the yeti. It was obvious Celeste didn’t either. “Get to the point, Uncle Max,” she said. “Do we still have our jobs?”

  “I’d hoped we wouldn’t come to the point of a temporary shutdown,” he said. “But you can’t always get what you hope for. When I was a boy, I hoped I’d get a pet snake, but...”

  “Uncle Max,” Junior interrupted. “About the shutdown.”

  “Just until we get this business resolved,” Uncle Max said. “I’m releasing the office staff, on half salary, until things pick up again. I understand some of you may not be able to wait until then, and if you have to take other jobs, then so be it. I’m sorry for any personal problems this situation causes you.” He paused. He looked tired and sad.

  “Maxine, you and your leasing crew will be released under the same conditions, but I hope you’ll continue to follow up on deals and look for new prospects.” The same look of distracted fear passed over both Brad’s and Miranda’s faces. Maxine curled her lip and drummed her fingernails on the conference table.

  “How do you think we’re going to sell a project that’s on hold?” she asked. “Without offices or secretaries?”

  “I don’t know, Maxine,” Uncle Max said. “You have to do the best you can. I want to meet with you, Miranda and Brad once a week to keep everyone up to date.

  “Junior, I want you to arrange for the site to be secured. I’m releasing you and your staff, too, but I want you, Steve and Terry to come to the weekly meeting.” He turned to Steve, who was leaning back in his chair.

  “Steve, it’s going to be up to you to bring this project back to life,” he said. Steve brought his chair back down hard. “You did such a good job with those union boys that I’m sure you can negotiate a compromise here. You’ll be able to hold meetings in the Welcome Center, but for the most part I expect you’ll be working out of your home. Keep me informed and let me know whenever I can do anything to help.”

  The room was silent. “That’s all,” Uncle Max said. He sat down. “Celeste, before you go please get an answering machine set up. I’ll write a message for it.” No one moved. “Well, go on.” He waved a finger at them. “Be careful out there.”

  Steve and Junior walked out together. “This sucks the big one,” Junior said.

  “Do you think we’ll be able to start again?” Steve asked. “Or is this pink slip time in disguise?”

  “Who knows? A lot depends on how well you can negotiate with these environmental weirdos. At least you’ll be busy. I’ll be sitting around on my ass watching Donahue and Oprah.”

  “And answering questions from me every five minutes,” Steve said. He kicked his foot back against the door frame a couple of times. “I guess I should get started, huh?”

  “First things first,” Junior said. “We need to spread the word around the site. We’ll split that up. Give me a few minutes and then we’ll go out together. After lunch we can go over a game plan for your negotiations.”

  “All right.” As Steve walked down to his office he heard a phone ringing. Celeste had gone out to pick up the answering machine and turned on night service. He picked up the receiver and said, “Everglades Galleria.”

  “Steven?” his mother said. “They have you answering the phones now?”

  He told her about the shutdown. “I’m sorry,” Rita said. “But at least you’ll be able to help us pack. The work is starting first thing tomorrow, so your father and I are moving to the Neuschwanstein Palace this afternoon. If you come right over I’ll make you lunch.”

  “I can’t come for lunch, but I can help this afternoon,” Steve said. “I’ll see you around four.” He hung up and sat at his desk to think out what was going to happen. Suddenly all the pressure of the job had been dumped on him.

  It was too much to think about at once. He concentrated on sorting the paperwork on his desk into several piles, then tidied up the desk until it looked like he was going on vacation. He wrote a long memo to the file about the status of the job, and by the time he finished Junior appeared at the door of his office.

  The day was gray and overcast, and big puffy clouds hovered on the edge of the horizon. There was a storm somewhere over the Everglades, and Steve could taste the rain in the air. He and Junior walked the site, explaining the situation to tenants, contractors, superintendents and workmen. Everyone had to leave by noon and a guard would be posted at the main entrance. The security team would make regular patrols.

  Steve tried to make the tenants feel optimistic, even if he was frightened. “You can keep building your cabinetry,” he told Morty’s Aunt Estelle, who was checking out progress on Fish ‘n’ Fashion. “You just can’t install it.”

  “What do I look like, Steve? A moron? I’m not spending another penny until I see this project is back on track.” All around them, workmen were packing up their tools, calling their last good-byes, and heading out to the big dusty parking lot.

  “We’ll be working again soon,” Steve said. “Thornton has too much invested in this project to give up. When we’re ready to roll, you don’t want to be behind.”

  Estelle put her arm around Steve’s shoulder. Several fingers full of diamonds sparkled just at the edge of his peripheral vision. “Steve, bubbeleh, let me tell you something. You’re a nice kid, but you don’t know the world yet. This thing, it could drag on for years.” In the background, Steve heard a saw die down, as word reached farther back into the building.

  “But it could all go away tomorrow,” Steve said. “Why don’t you give it a week and then make the decision? In the meantime, keep the cabinet work going, keep looking for merchandise, and keep thinking about opening.”

  “All I’m going to do now,” Estelle said, looking at her reflection in a piece of glass standing on a hand truck, “is sit back and catch my breath. Maybe this isn’t the right place for us. Maybe God is giving us a message.”

  “If he is, he’s giving it in code,” Steve said
under his breath. Estelle stalked off toward the exit, and Steve continued on to the next tenant under construction.

  The reaction across the site was similar. When they’d spoken to everyone, Junior and Steve had lunch at the Carbon Monoxide Café. “I’ve been in construction for eighteen years and I’ve never had this happen,” Junior said.

  “What’s it like to see something you’ve built get finished?” Steve asked. “You’ve opened power plants before, haven’t you?”

  “Six of them,” Junior said. “And before that I was a superintendent for a g. c., and we built stuff every day.” He sat back in his chair while they waited for their meal to be served. “It’s pretty great. At first, you hate it. This building that used to belong to you, used to only be open to a few people, suddenly anybody can walk in and get the floor dirty, spit in the sinks, leave trash around the fountain. The hardest thing is knowing it’s not yours any more.”

  The waitress brought two dishes of ropa vieja and set them down on the table. Junior leaned forward. “Right now, between the two of us, we know everything that goes on in that building. Who’s working where, what needs to be done, anything you can name. But after opening, management comes in, suddenly they’re talking about maintenance schedules and rent invoices and shit. It’s like the building takes on a whole other life, without us.”

  “And that’s great?” Steve asked. He took a forkful of the stringy, spicy meat.

  “It’s hard. But then one day you kick back, and you go for a walk in the mall, and it’s filled with people. The lights are on, the fountains are running, the brass trim shines. And you look around and you know you built it. That it wouldn’t be there without you. That’s great.” Junior’s eyes shone as he dug into his platter.

  28 – Everybody into the Pool

  Steve went back to the Welcome Center after lunch. It was eerily quiet, like a planet that had been struck by a neutron bomb. He worked out a strategy with Junior and then spent two hours calling contractors, engineers, drainage experts, and a biology professor at the University of Miami who specialized in lizards. He set up a meeting to discuss Thornton’s options.

  The phone rang all afternoon and he let the machine pick it up. It was sad and sort of scary being there all alone. He missed the familiar sounds of trucks lurching by on the dirt road, Celeste’s soft accent, Junior screaming and kicking the wall. He called the bookstore at South Street Seaport but Dan was off. He called Dolores but there was no answer at her apartment. When he finished up he drove to his parents’ condo.

  Rita had already started to pack, and the boxes and suitcases were lined up by the door. “Mother, you’re going for a few days. You’re not moving there.”

  “You never know what you’ll need,” Rita said. “Now come into the den and help me move furniture.”

  Rita didn’t move anything herself. She directed Steve instead. The chairs were turned upside down and stacked on top of the tables. Any rugs that were not nailed down were rolled up and tied with string. Everything was clustered in the center of the room and covered with old sheets. By six o’clock the apartment looked as if no one had lived there for years. Steve loaded the boxes and luggage into his parents’ car, and a bellman at the Neuschwanstein carried everything upstairs.

  Rita had taken a small suite, a living room, bedroom and bathroom that looked west, toward the city of Miami. “It’s not as nice as Mrs. Blatnick’s, but I’m not as rich as she is,” Rita said. “Your father said we should just get a room, but you know, we’re not newlyweds any more. I don’t want to live in one room with my husband. I can afford that we should have two rooms.”

  On their way out to dinner they ran into Jerry and Mimi in the lobby. “They’ve been spending a lot of time together,” Rita whispered to Steve.

  There was a lot of hugging and kissing. “I’m so glad you’ll be here in the hotel,” Mimi said. “We have so much planning to do for the wedding.”

  “Only the best for my little girl,” Jerry said.

  Rita had a wonderful idea. “We’re just going to dinner. Why don’t you come with us? We can talk.”

  Jerry and Mimi agreed, and they ate at a seafood restaurant along the 79th Street Causeway. “You won’t believe the trouble we’ve had looking for a dress,” Mimi said. “Sheryl doesn’t like anything. One minute she wants everything white, the long train and the veil and everything, and the next minute she’s talking about a beige suit with a nice little jacket that looks very Christian Dior. I tell you, Rita, it’s exhausting.”

  “I wish I had a daughter,” Rita said. “I’ll come with you the next time you go. Maybe between the two of us we can talk some sense into Sheryl.”

  Steve thought that was a lost cause, but said nothing. He noticed that Jerry and Mimi sat very close to each other, and he was sure they were holding hands under the table. It was all very curious, and he was annoyed that they couldn’t stay married, then couldn’t stay divorced.

  After dinner they went back to the hotel for a while, and Steve didn’t get home to Mangrove Manor until after dark. When he pulled into his courtyard, there were cars and people everywhere, and a big fire truck was still hosing down the charred ashes of the building that had once housed his apartment.

  Richie appeared as Steve got out of the car. “Hey, Stevie, how’s it going?”

  “You asshole!” Steve said. “Didn’t I tell you about that toaster oven?”

  Richie backed off, holding up his palms. “Hey, hold off, Stevie. The fire didn’t even start in your apartment.”

  “What?”

  Richie explained. The people in the unit below them were running some kind of a computer business, and their outlets were way overloaded with terminals and printers. Some wires started to smolder and the fire spread through the building. It had all been in flames when Richie arrived a few hours before.

  Steve sat down on the sidewalk. “When I woke up this morning, I had an apartment, a job, clothes, a VCR,” he said. “Now what do I have? Nothing.”

  Richie sat down beside him. “It’ll be all right, man. The insurance will pay for everything.”

  Steve sighed. “I’m sorry I thought it was your fault.”

  “No big deal.” Richie pulled a piece of paper from his wallet and showed it to Steve. “This is a voucher for a hotel room. I told them we had to stay at Grandma’s hotel because that’s where the family is, and they bought it.” He yawned. “Domestic tragedy always takes it out of me,” he said. “Let’s hit the road. I’m beat.”

  They got a room at the Neuschwanstein just down the hall from Mrs. Blatnick’s suite, and around the corner from the Bermans’. When Steve knocked on his parents’ door, his father opened it. His mother was on the phone.

  “Steven, I was just calling you,” Rita said. “Your line has been busy for hours.”

  He told them about the fire, and about the room down the hall. ”Oh, that’s wonderful,” Rita said. “We’ll be able to furnish your apartment from scratch. There are some lovely stores in Fort Lauderdale I want to take you to. And of course, now that you’ll be here at the hotel and you’ll have time on your hands, you can help out with all the wedding plans.”

  “I’m not exactly free, Mom,” Steve said. “I have a lot of phone calls to make and meetings to go to.”

  So much for any chance of vacation, Steve thought. He’d have pressure on the job, and hot and cold running Blatnicks at home.

  Steve leaned up against the door frame in the living room of his parents’ suite. Rita had settled in quickly, stacking her boxes and suitcases along the walls.

  If he’d known this was what Florida would be like, would he have taken the job with Thornton, he wondered? His mother stood by the door to the bedroom, smiling, and his father lay on the sofa watching a nature show with the volume turned up. Yeah, he thought, looking at them. He probably would have.

  29 – Sheldon’s Depressed

  On Valentines’ Day, Steve called Dolores as soon as he woke up. She sounded a little sleepy.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “I was just out a little late last night.”

  “Without me?”

  “I’m sorry. I’ll have to make it up to you tonight. We can do something special to celebrate the holiday.”

  Steve shivered a little. “I’ll pick you up at six.”

  He charged a bathing suit at the hotel store and went down to the pool. It was early, so the lounge chairs were still in order, lined up around the concrete collar like soldiers at parade rest. The water shone a brilliant aquamarine and reflected cirrus clouds. A flock of flat-chested Japanese girls in skimpy bikinis clustered at the shallow end, and a man in a white uniform sang softly in Spanish as he speared debris with a long stick. Steve swam a few laps and then rested on a lounge chair.

  After stopping at a Marshall’s on Collins Avenue to pick up some basic clothes, he drove out to the site to run a meeting at the Welcome Center. He, Junior and Uncle Max listened to a presentation by the reptile expert and reviewed some new drainage plans. Uncle Max was quiet, almost drugged, and Junior was wired and prone to argue with every suggestion. Though they were moving toward a proposal Steve thought the Florida Club would accept, he felt more depressed after the meeting than he had before.

  Out at their camp, Mary looked so pregnant Steve was afraid she was going to deliver while he was there. But she assured him that the baby was on schedule. “It’s really nice here with everything so quiet,” she said. He looked at Tunisia’s book with her for a while, then the heat got to him and he drove back to the Neuschwanstein Palace.

  He tried to take a nap but he was too jumpy, so he walked down the hall to the Blatnick suite to see what was going on. Sheryl and Mimi were in the living room, where Mimi was reading the travel section of the Miami Herald. “After the trial, maybe we’ll all go away somewhere,” she said.