Valley of Ashes

by Cornelia Read

  “I’ll try to remember,” she said.

  “For one thing, ‘Mrs. Bauer’ isn’t my name.”

  I hadn’t ever told her that before. Perhaps the information would act as a mnemonic device.

  “No?” she said.

  I was about to say it was what Dean’s mother was called, but instead found myself telling her, “I kept my own surname: Dare.”

  “That’s interesting.”

  Funny how much crisper her English got the minute there weren’t any men in the room.

  Setsuko returned my smile and began picking her way toward the back door, pink skirt swaying with each tiny, ever-so-slightly-pigeon-toed step she took in her kitten-heeled sandals.

  Yeah, good luck keeping those from sinking into the lawn.

  The sandals were white. A good two months, I might add, before the advent of Memorial Day.

  Just as I was about to forearm-sweep her three individually wrapped pounds of hamburger off my kitchen counter and into the brown-paper grocery bags on the floor, Setsuko turned back toward me.

  “Would you like me to leave this door open,” she asked, “or closed?”

  “Open, please,” I said.

  We smiled at each other again and I fought the urge to sprint across the room and hip-check her down the back-porch steps, just so she’d finally fucking leave.

  The moment she was out of sight, I tossed all her crap into the bags and shoved them under the kitchen table with my foot.

  A billow of smoke rolled past our kitchen porch like ghostly surf, and I caught a sharp hit of charcoal at the back of my throat.

  The muted trill of a giggle made me look out the window.

  Setsuko held Parrish on one hip and was pushing India gently back and forth in the little plastic toddler swing that hung from our tallest maple tree.

  “The man hates me,” said Cary. “He relishes any opportunity to humiliate me. He lives to crush my spirit and render my life a film-noir nightmare. And I don’t mean ordinary cruelty, I mean ‘lie awake all night thinking of hideous new ways to torture my pathetically defenseless underling, mwa ha ha, today-Cary-tomorrow-the-world’ sadistic glee.”

  “Bittler?” I asked, putting the bowl of hominy salad down on the picnic table before I slid into its last open bench seat, beside Cary.

  Bittler was the head of marketing and the spitting image of my dickwad middle school vice principal—right down to the disturbingly ginormous seventies mustache, though thankfully not sharing his predilection for beige vinyl leisure suits.

  Setsuko leaned across the table to refill Cary’s beer glass, cradling the bottle in both hands as she poured.

  Dean reached for some Grey Poupon to spread on his burger. “Bittler’s an asshole. You can’t let him get to you.”

  Cary shook his head. “Easy for you to say, you’re not the guy’s direct-report. I can’t work for him anymore. It’s killing me.”

  “I’m doing my best to get you over to sales,” said Dean.

  Cary held the back of one hand up to his forehead—a gesture brimming with Mary Pickford melodrama.

  “Hurry!” he cried, in a piping falsetto. “I fear that the uncouth cur will succeed in tying me to the railroad tracks at any moment!”

  “That bad?” I asked, laughing. “Really?”

  “Really, Maddie,” said Cary, his voice dropped several octaves back to normal. “I shit you not.”

  Dean looked at me. “Last week, Cary was xeroxing his résumé when his phone rang. He grabbed all the copies from the out-tray, but forgot the original.”

  Cary gave me a sheepish grin. “—For thirty seconds.”

  “—But it was still there a minute later, so he figured he got away with it,” continued Dean. “Until more copies started appearing around the office.”

  “Fifty of them fanned out next to the break room coffee machine, twenty minutes later,” said Cary. “Then I get back from lunch and I find ten more taped all the way around the edge of my desk, folded into points like a string of flags at a car dealership.”

  “Dude,” I said, “sucks ahoy.”

  Setsuko refilled Dean’s glass.

  Cary closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. “It gets worse.”

  “How?” I asked.

  He looked at me. “The asshole puts copies into every single person’s mailbox. The entire office.”

  “—Eight times last week,” said Dean, “at random hours of the day.”

  Cary shivered. “I’m on constant red-alert, trying to gather them up before anyone else sees them. He’s going to give me a freaking heart attack.”

  “Envy,” I said. “I mean, you’re a foot taller with shoulders to die for and Bittler looks like a hard-boiled egg jammed onto a golf pencil. Nancy Reagan with a smaller dick.”

  Setsuko looked confused by my use of idiom.

  I patted Cary’s forearm. “Look, the guy probably can’t decide whether he wants to burst into tears or blow you, every time you walk past his desk.”

  Setsuko looked even more confused, then said, “Bittler is not a nice man.”

  “Exactly,” I replied, looking her in the eye.

  “Confused” my ass.

  She took a tiny sip of white wine as I killed my bottle of beer.

  I looked down at the ice bucket on the grass beside me, but the only thing left in it was a bottle of Chardonnay.

  “Can I get you another of those, Maddie?” asked Cary, standing up.

  “I’d love that,” I said. “I think there’s another six-pack in the icebox.”

  Dean rose from the table with him. “Anything for you, Setsuko?”

  “Oh, no, I’m very happy.”

  We watched them walk toward the house.

  “Your daughters are so pretty,” she said to me. “Playing with them makes me miss being a teacher.”

  “You were a teacher?” I asked.

  “In Tokyo, at a preschool. The kids were adorable.”

  “I taught high school for a year,” I said. “ ’My students were interesting, but I wouldn’t go as far as ‘adorable.’ ”

  Especially the one who’d blown up the helicopter.

  Setsuko laughed. “If you ever need a babysitter, Madeline, I hope you’ll call me. I really do love children.”

  “That’s very sweet of you, Setsuko.”

  “No, really, it would be my pleasure. Anytime I can help, okay?”

  “Okay, I’ll do that. Thank you.”

  In the sandbox, India hit Parrish over the head with her plastic shovel. They began to wail in stereo.

  “Naptime,” I said, rising from the table to tote them both upstairs.

  By the time I came back down, most of the lunch equipment had been ferried inside to the kitchen counter. I covered the salads with tinfoil and stuck them in the icebox, then loaded the dishwasher with plates and utensils.

  Cary came in with two more empty platters. “Want these rinsed?”

  “That’d be great,” I said. “Thank you.”

  He moved to the sink and started running some water. “This was all really delicious, Madeline. I love coming over here.”

  “We love having you. And you were sweet to give Setsuko a ride.”

  “Her place is on my way.” Cary turned the water off and put the platters in the dishwasher.

  I glanced out the window.

  Dean battened down the Weber while Setsuko shook out the tablecloth. He said something that made her smile as she floated the blue-checked fabric back aloft over the picnic table.

  Once it had fluttered to rest, she began to fold the thing with completely anal precision.

  “Dude, wad it the hell up,” I said, under my breath.

  “Huh?” asked Cary.

  “Setsuko’s folding the tablecloth. I’m just going to throw it in the washing machine.”

  “Well, she’s like that. Everything’s got to be very precise and color-coded.”

  “Which would pretty much make her the Anti-Madeline,” I s
aid, thinking of the T-shirt I’d envisioned for her. “I mean, Dean called me ‘the lightning rod for entropy in the universe’ this morning. Not without cause.”

  “You’re a woman of many other talents, and he knows he’s lucky to have you.”

  Yeah, right.

  I gave him an affectionate mock shoulder punch. “You’re a magnificent friend, sweet Cary, and I hope all the work bullshit gets way better for you ASAP.”

  “Can I tell you something, in confidence?”

  “Of course,” I said.

  “I don’t want to sound like a total pussy, but I really don’t think I can handle the Bittler situation much longer.”

  “I promise to kick Dean’s ass about it, okay? This too shall pass.”

  “Hey, he’s being great, your husband—totally above and beyond. I know he’s got my back, but this whole thing is fucking with my head.”

  There was a note of anxiety in his voice he hadn’t allowed himself at the picnic table. No bravado now, no kidding around.

  Well, hey—sometimes that’s why men like talking with women. They can just tell us shit straight without having to wave their dicks around and pretend everything’s fine.

  Especially if the man and woman in question didn’t happen to be fucking each other, or have designs on doing so at some future point.

  Cary had a reputation as a cocksman—Dean once told me the guy had slept with something north of two hundred women.

  And, okay, since I’ve already all but confessed that Dean and I did the nasty the first night we met, obviously I hadn’t exactly been a virgin on my wedding night. (Nor would my husband have been interested in marrying one. Yay, Dean.)

  In fact, a group of louche older guys in college had nicknamed me “the underrated middleweight” during the fall of my freshman year. Apparently it amused them to think I was duking it out for some sort of promiscuity-championship title.

  I’d known right away Cary was hip to that. Not that I’d racked up anywhere near his numbers, just that we, well, recognized each other. Which somehow allowed for a strong, immediate foundation of respect.

  Probably because even gussied up I wouldn’t have been his type. Nor he mine. Not in a million years.

  But him opening up like this was new.

  He sighed, kind of a strangled noise.

  I suppose Cary’s anxiety shouldn’t have surprised me. Those of us who take up sport-fucking aren’t usually, after all, the most well-adjusted, happiest creatures on the planet.

  “You sound really freaked out,” I said.

  “I just feel like I’m on the verge of disappointing everyone in such a major way… Dean, my family.”

  “I feel like that pretty much every day, dude. And you’re way more together than I am.”

  “Oh, come on,” he said. “That’s ridiculous.”

  “Cary, you totally pass as a competent grown-up, no matter what it feels like in your head. You’re doing incredibly well at your job—Bittler or no Bittler. I mean, Dean’s not offering to help you get into sales because he pities you, he thinks you’d be good at it.”

  He turned toward me, all big-eyed.

  “Cary, you look like someone just ran over your dog. On purpose. Dean has total faith in you, okay? As do I. Just trust me on that. This is all going to be okay. And Bittler’s a fucking asshole. You can’t take his opinion seriously. It has nothing to do with you.”

  He closed his eyes, still looking gut-shot.

  I put my arm around his shoulder. “Look, I have something for you upstairs, okay? Just hang out for a minute.”

  I left him there, jogging upstairs without a clue what I could give him, but he seemed like a guy in serious need of some kind of mojo talisman.

  I threw open the lid of my jewelry box, on top of our bureau. There was the dented lid from a can of betel-nut chaw I’d found years before on a sidewalk in New Delhi, a string of fake pearls, and some really ugly brushed-gold animal pins I’d inherited from my father’s mother—a fish with a pearl in its mouth, a grinning midcentury-Modigliani cat, and a truly heinous Scottie in an enameled-plaid tam-o’-shanter. (Funny how the good jewelry always gets left to the cousins with money enough to buy their own…)

  But beside those was a chainless pendant. This was equally ugly but it seemed suited to the task at hand: a two-inch-wide gold four-leaf clover with a tiny emerald-bodied frog in the middle.

  Perfect.

  I raced back downstairs and pressed it into Cary’s hand.

  “This thing is tacky as shit,” I said, “but it’s always been incredibly lucky for me. Why don’t you hang on to it until things turn around, okay?”

  He was dumbstruck, looking down at the stupid thing in his great paw of a hand.

  “This means so much to me… thank you.”

  “Eminently deserved,” I said. “And everything really is going to turn out just fine. I promise. Dean will make sure of it.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Hey, you were our first friend here. And still the best. It’s the least I can do.”

  “Aw shucks,” he said. “I just want to be you guys when I grow up.”

  “Pshaw, mon chevalier du Ohio. Let us drink more beer while the offspring sleep.”

  I opened the back door to find Setsuko halfway up the porch steps, bearing the tablecloth before her like a military-funeral presentation flag.

  “I would be happy to launder this for you,” she said, smiling at me.

  I reached for it. “You’re lovely, but let me put it in the washing machine.”

  She avoided me, gracefully. “Please tell me where it is, then.”

  Fine. Whatever.

  “First door on your left in the dining room,” I said. “And thank you.”

  “Oh!” She looked around the kitchen, crestfallen. “You have finished the dishes. I wanted to help.”

  I shook my head. “You’ve been a wonderful help already, Setsuko. I wouldn’t dream of letting you do a single thing more.”

  She dropped her eyes. “Well, thank you for such a beautiful meal in your home.”

  “Which is just my way of thanking you for all your hard work at the office. I’m grateful that you make Dean’s hours there so much more pleasant, and I always enjoy talking to you. You’re very gracious on the phone, and in person.”

  Jesus, we might as well have been snorting fat rails of Sweet’N Low through a Hello Kitty straw.

  I wondered how many weeks I’d have to devote to cleaning the house beforehand, if I ever actually took her up on her babysitting offer.

  I tried moving things along. “Won’t you please come outside with us, perhaps have another glass of wine?”

  Or some tequila shots, preferably.

  “I would love to, in just a moment,” she said, ducking her head at me as she minced/glided past toward the laundry room.

  “She kind of gives me the willies,” I said to Cary.

  “Nah… Setsuko’s okay.”

  He slid the charm into his pocket and we walked outside.

  I went back into the kitchen five minutes later when she still hadn’t come out. She was standing at the sink, washing the contents of our recycling bin in soapy hot water.

  “Setsuko, dude—cease and desist already. Come sit down with us. You’re making me feel hugely guilty here. I should be giving you a foot rub or something.”

  She looked embarrassed. “I am so sorry—”

  “Just come have some wine, okay? This is meant to be your day of rest. Please.”

  “One more glass.”

  We walked out.

  “I feel so bad for Cary,” I said, as Dean and I lay side by side in bed that night. “He looks like such a giant bear, and then you get to know him a little and find out he’s got the tenderest heart in the world. I just want to pat him on the head and cocoon him in Kevlar, you know?”

  “He’s a lot like you, Bunny,” said Dean.

  “How so?”

  “He wants to be tough… thinks it’s expec
ted of him, but he’s pure empathy instead. And he never had any interest in corporate crap.”

  “So why’s he in the salt mines with you guys?”

  “His dad. Ultimatum.”

  “Jesus—”

  “Did Cary ever tell you he played trumpet, as a kid?”

  “Nope,” I said, reaching my arm across his belly.

  “Classical, mostly. Got hired by the Cincinnati Symphony when he was fifteen. Then his father refused to pay for college unless he majored in business, so he gave it up.”

  “And now the poor guy’s getting his teeth kicked in on a daily basis by Bittler, the rice grain–dicked Napoleon? Horrible.”

  Dean yawned, shuddering. “Exactly.”

  “Help him out, okay? He’s an amazing friend to both of us.”

  “Mmmm,” he said.

  “And can I just say that Setsuko gives me the creeps? Nice and everything, don’t get me wrong, but—”

  In answer to that I felt Dean’s leg twitch, and then he inhaled with a bit of snore.

  Sigh.

  “Sweet dreams, Intrepid Spouse,” I said.

  He muttered something and twitched again, fully out.

  I turned onto my other side, yearning for maximum sleep before one of the girls woke up.

  Just as I finally drifted off, a fire truck’s siren echoed in the distance.

  19

  About the last thing I expected the following afternoon—entertaining the girls on our sun-drenched back lawn while Dean was off on yet another hours-long siphon-off-the-final-ounce-of-my-wifely/parental-will-to-live biking excursion—was that my Intrepid Spouse would return through the yard’s side gate practically carrying a battered and bloody Bittler.

  “Found him on the creek trail,” said Dean, crouched and breathless, arms cinched around the smaller man’s waist to hold him upright. “Didn’t think we could get all the way to his place… six more blocks.”

  They were still wearing bike helmets. Bittler’s looked like a rottweiler’s chew toy: chunks of Styrofoam missing all along the right side, tufts of his blood-darkened hair poking through the gaps.

  There was even blood soaked into his mustache.

  “What’d you do there, Mr. Bittler, stick your head in a wood chipper?” I said, to jolly him through the long wince of pain that hissed through his teeth while I drew his free arm across my shoulders.