The Imperfectionists: A Novel

by Tom Rachman

  As adults, they could order whatever they liked. So they ordered fries and gravy.

  The whole family wanted to see her, sought her opinions and advice. "Aunt Ruby, tell Bill, the so-called great chef, what real Italian food is like." And: "Rube, have a word with Kelly about backpacking around Europe. I don't trust this kid she's going with."

  Ruby kept hugging everyone. She stroked the little ones' chins, sat them on her knee, heard stories confided in whispers, warm on her ear. Everyone thought she was so smart and cosmopolitan. It made her scared to ever move home to Queens--if she did, they'd figure her out, see what a lie all this was, how ordinary she was.

  During that trip, she spent her last day buying thank-you presents for everyone.

  Her gifts were acts not simply of generosity but of attention--she had listened to them all.

  For Kurt, it was the dashboard Global Positioning System, the only model that fit his Toyota truck; for Kelly, it was a long-coveted white Nikon Coolpix II, plus a money belt to be safe in Europe; and all the little nieces and nephews got the right video games and books and DVDs. The kids didn't want her to leave, and the adults asked when she was moving home to New York.

  On the plane back to Rome, she resolved to digitize the old photos Kurt had given her and email him copies--someone in the photo department at work could show her how.

  She prepared an email message in her head: "Big brother, even though you don't want these now, maybe you will later. And you'll thank me! The kids will appreciate them maybe. All my love, Rube. P.S. Write back when you get this."

  While Pap's funeral in New York had inflated her, the office punctured that soon enough. She returned to an avalanche of emails from the culture department (still run by Clint Oakley back then) over an edit she'd done before leaving. Clint had copied in Kathleen on all the complaints, to humiliate Ruby. Couldn't he have handled it privately, like a decent human being? Misery at work bled into her sleeping hours--she woke in the dark from anger. Pap haunted her, too, in images Ruby hadn't seen in years: Pap opening the closet to show her the cup where he kept human teeth; Pap heating a spoon on the stovetop; Pap telling the priest, "Look, my girl is sprouting."

  The family photos in Ruby's lap make her want to wash her hands. It has been almost six months since she left New York, and she still hasn't had them digitized.

  "Can't Kurt even call?" How hard can it be? She doesn't want to nag him. But it's like he doesn't care about sticking together, wouldn't care if they vanished from each other's lives. Says he doesn't like travel. But he took his wife to London. "Could have told me." She could have met them there.

  Fireworks explode outside, though it's hours before midnight. She hides the photos on a kitchen shelf. She scrubs her hands with pumice till they are raw.

  The taxi drops her in front of the Nettuno, a three-star hotel just outside the Vatican walls, whose peach facade has been hidden under scaffolding for years, the owners having run out of money and ambition halfway through a blast-cleaning in 1999.

  Another firecracker bangs, and she jumps with fright.

  The receptionist greets her in Italian, but she responds in English and hands him her American passport. "Hate flying during the holidays," she says. "Hate being away from my kids. But the bosses didn't want to reschedule the meeting. Which I didn't buy."

  He takes a credit-card imprint.

  "That's my personal card, not the company one," she tells him. "It's so I get the air miles."

  He nods without interest.

  She never stays at home on New Year's Eve. Every December 31, she becomes an American businesswoman stuck overseas during the holiday; each year, it's a different hotel.

  The window of her room overlooks air-conditioning ducts, which suits her--less street noise. She drops her coat on the bed, takes a Peroni from the minibar, and flicks on the TV to check the pay-per-view. She watches a few minutes of a pornographic film, not aroused but dispirited. She changes to a music-video station but can't shake the feeling of pollution. "Who does that appeal to?" She fetches a Kit Kat from the minibar. "It's--" She takes a bite and stands before the mirror. "It's discouraging." She gets another beer and a packet of peanuts. "You know?" Next, she drinks a minibottle of Johnnie Walker Red, swirling it with mashed pretzels in her mouth. "No?" She has the mini of Absolut next, blended with a can of orange juice.

  The guys at work are gonna celebrate when she gets fired. "And I'll be popping the champagne." She twists the cap off a half bottle of Calabrian red and rips into a packet of chocolate wafers. The combination is infelicitous, but she's too drunk to care.

  On the TV, Toto is impersonating a doctor. The minibar is empty. She closes her eyes, yanks the covers up. She is asleep.

  A thunder of blasts--she jumps up, breathless. After a terrible instant, she orients herself: the hotel. Television, on. Outside, fireworks. She checks her watch. It's a few minutes before midnight. The paper is going to fire her.

  She goes out into the hall to watch the explosions from a window that gives onto the street. The sky sparkles. The bangs are ceaseless. All around the city, choruses rise:

  "Sei!"

  "Cinque!"

  "Quattro!"

  "Tre!"

  "Due!"

  "UNO!"

  On a rooftop across the street, teenagers scream--no one can stop them tonight.

  From the roof's edge, they fling champagne flutes, which tinkle in the gutter. A distant ambulance siren whines. A man in a trench coat hurries down the sidewalk, studying the screen of his cellphone. Smoke from the fireworks rises up the street lamps like phantoms.

  She knows the minibar is empty but checks it again. She tries to sleep. The noises peter out, but she can't drift off. She's wide awake. They're definitely going to fire her.

  Fan-fucking-tastic.

  Herman Cohen said, "One more mess-up, Ruby, and it's curtains." They're looking to cut staff. Everybody knows who's next. The question is when they're going to do it.

  She looks at her cellphone. She could call Kurt in Queens and wish him Happy New Year. But then he'd ask what she was doing, what sort of party she'd gone to.

  From her toilet bag she fetches the Drakkar Noir, drips it on her hands, rubs it on her cheeks. She closes her eyes and inhales. It was months earlier that she bumped into Dario on Via dell'Umilta; it had been years since they'd seen each other. He laughed that she still remembered him using Drakkar Noir. "Haven't used that in ages," he said.

  She opens her mobile and brings up his number. She doesn't dial, but holds the phone to her ear. "Hello," she says to the dead air. "May I please speak with Dario? Hi, Dario, it's me. If you want to drop by, you're totally welcome." My hotel is nice.

  Seriously, I don't want to cause trouble. But I enjoyed getting that drink with you. "What about if you were to drop by? Just for a few minutes?" I'm pretty tired anyhow.

  She calls him using the hotel phone so he won't recognize the number.

  He

  answers.

  "Pronto?"

  She doesn't respond.

  "Pronto?" he repeats. "Chi e?... Pronto?" He pauses. "Non rispondi?" He hangs up.

  She calls back.

  "Chi e?" he says. "Che vuoi?"

  "Don't scream at me," she replies in English. "It's Ruby."

  He sighs. "It's the middle of the night. It's New Year's. Why are you calling me?"

  She's

  silent.

  "Fifty calls from you in the last few weeks, Ruby. Fifty."

  "I'm

  sorry."

  "Why are you calling me?"

  "It's

  just."

  "Answer

  me."

  "Sorry."

  "Stop saying 'sorry.' Answer my question. This is getting ridiculous. Fifty times.

  Do you have something to say?"

  She can't speak.

  "Ruby, I'm married. I'm not interested in finding someone. I don't want anything with you. I don't want to hear from you, I don't want to s
ee you. I don't want to have another drink with you. I don't want you to call this number again. Please."

  "Dario."

  "If you call me again, I'll have to--"

  But she hangs up.

  She finds a nail file in her toilet bag and digs it into her thigh until she breaks the skin. She widens the wound, then stanches the blood with toilet paper and washes her hands under scalding water.

  The maids wake her the next morning.

  "Not yet," she mumbles, then falls back to sleep.

  Front desk calls. It's past noon. She's late for checkout.

  She smells Dario's cologne on her still. As she pulls on her trousers, they catch on the gash on her thigh. No time for a shower. She stuffs her possessions back into her overnight bag, looks in the mirror, tries to bring her hair to life. "My last day at the paper." It's New Year's Day; her shift starts at 2 P.M. "Today is the day." This is when they fire her.

  She rolls her overnight bag down the street. She could go home and shower, but instead she walks toward St. Peter's Square. The pope's Angelus speech is over, and the crowd is dispersing. She passes through tides of people, yellow Vatican kerchiefs around their necks. The basilica stands there like a throne, with humankind at its feet. She is ordered out of one vacation photo after another. "Sorry, would you mind just?" they ask.

  She shifts aside. "Excuse me, you're in mine now."

  She is hoping that a romantic couple will ask her to take their picture. She loves that--being, for a moment, admitted into their union. But no one asks. Two young Mexicans even prefer to take the photo themselves, the man extending his disposable Kodak before himself and his new wife. He counts down and, as he reaches zero, Ruby--who stands a distance behind them--sticks her hand into the background of their shot. The camera flashes, she drops her hand, no one is the wiser. When they get home, she'll be there forever.

  When she reaches the newsroom, it is empty except for Menzies. She switches on her computer, not even bothering to disinfect her workspace. They will have fired her via email. And someone has stolen her chair. Typical. She scans the room. Does this guy ever leave?

  "Oh, sorry," Menzies says, jumping up as she approaches. "I'm in your chair.

  Here, please. Someone took mine and I thought you weren't here today. I know that's a lame excuse. It is amazingly comfortable, by the way."

  "You can request one if you want. Only took me about six years."

  "Here." He pushes her chair over. "We both got stuck with the crappy shift, huh."

  "What's your job today?"

  "I'm actually running the show. Gulp. Get ready for a bumpy ride. Kathleen and Herman both have the day off, so it's just me. I'm sort of sweating bullets," he says.

  "Incidentally, I have something for you that's going to redeem me on the chair theft." He rummages through his backpack and pulls out a CD. "I've been lugging this back and forth to work for days now. Keep forgetting to give it to you. Remember we were talking that time about Tony Bennett versus Frank Sinatra? I think this may settle the matter.

  Live at the Sands. You will be converted to Frank."

  "Hey, thanks. When do you need it back?"

  "That's for you to keep."

  She touches her chest with surprise.

  "You have to tell me what you think of it," he says, talking fast, unnerved by her emotion. "Some of Sinatra's lead-ins to the songs are great. I think you're gonna love it."

  "That is so thoughtful of you."

  "It's just a copied CD, Rube! No big deal, seriously."

  Awkwardly, she hugs him.

  "No problem," he says, pulling away. "No problem. By the way, did you get that email I sent you?"

  "What email? Is something the matter?"

  "Not at all. It's about that headline on the nuclear-arms story. You did that head, right?"

  "About how everyone's freaked out over Iran and North Korea? Did I fuck it up?"

  "Not at all--your headline was great: 'Kooks with Nukes.' I suck at those one-column heads."

  Clearly, he doesn't know they're firing her. He must be out of the loop.

  She rolls her chair back to the copydesk and looks around the newsroom. Broken venetian blinds cover the newsroom windows, the strings tangled half up, half down, casting broken grids of shadow and sunlight across the grouchy old computers, their cooling fans grumbling away. Twenty years here. "My whole career."

  Her computer takes forever to load up. "Come on." She is about to lose this job.

  "Thank God." Almost time to celebrate.

  Her computer has stopped whirring; it's ready. She can picture the email. It'll say:

  "Ruby, please call me at home. It's about a very serious matter. Thank you." Who will have sent it? Kathleen? Or Herman? Or Accounts Payable?

  Ruby logs on. All the routine emails are there: a festive edition of the Why?

  newsletter; something about turning off the lights in the bathrooms to save money; a reminder of how much it costs per minute to be late for deadline. But her dismissal?

  She

  checks

  again.

  Where the hell is it?

  She keeps refreshing her in-box. She can't find it. It isn't there: no email. But there must be one.

  No, there simply isn't.

  She rises, sits back down, then stands once more and hurries into the ladies' room.

  She closes herself in a stall, sits on the toilet, covering her mouth.

  Her breathing increases, her insides seem to swell. A tear runs down her face, slides ticklishly under her chin. Him--that's Dario's smell. The cologne from the night before. She never washed it off, and her tears have activated the scent.

  She takes out her cellphone. Swallowing, wiping her nose, she brings up his number. She reads his name aloud. She dangles the phone between her thighs and lets it fall into the toilet. It splashes and bobs in the water.

  She claps her hands once.

  "I get to stay," she says.

  She wipes her eyes. She can't stop smiling.

  "I get to stay."

  1975. OTT GROUP HEADQUARTERS, ATLANTA

  Frantic calls poured in from the paper in Rome: yet another caretaker editor had quit and no one was in charge anymore. After years of neglect, Boyd had to take action.

  His previous trip to the paper had been when he was still an undergraduate at Yale. Then, he'd stayed at a hotel in Rome because he lacked the stomach to visit his father's empty mansion. This time, Boyd was braver.

  But from the moment he entered he fell into a dark mood. He snaked his finger along a picture frame, leaving a winding path in the dust. What are all these paintings for? A woman with a ridiculously long neck. Wine bottles and hats. A chicken in midair.

  A shipwreck. These things must have come with the place--Ott would never have wasted money on ornaments. Boyd called in the housekeepers and, not bothering to greet them, ordered that the mansion be scrubbed, top to bottom. "Also," he told them, "cover these paintings."

  He opened the shutters. His father would have looked out from here, through the spiked fence, down the lonely lane. To think that Ott had acquired this spectacular house-

  -not to mention the rest of the family fortune--from nothing. It was astonishing; it was humbling.

  Boyd considered the living room, its soaring rococo ceiling, the worn Oriental rugs, the bookshelves, the old telephone on the wall. How grand it had been when his father marched across this room! Boyd could picture Ott striding over the carpets, up the stairs. Boyd always imagined his father like this--in perpetual motion. He could never conjure the man sitting still. Indeed, he had no sense of Ott simply living here, month after month, for years in the end.

  Why had Ott stayed here so long? This place hadn't been his home. That had been in Atlanta. But buildings adjusted to Ott, not the other way around. He had deemed that the world needed the paper. So he damn well set about inventing it. He never sat still.

  That was how the great man had been.

  Thinkin
g of the paper's current state, Boyd went rigid with anger and shame. It was an affront to his father's memory, and Boyd himself was responsible.

  The next morning, he met with all the section editors and asked them to hold tight-

  -a new editor-in-chief was on the way. When Boyd returned to Atlanta, he employed a headhunting firm to poach a star from a top American newspaper. Someone young, bright, with spark. He got two out of three.

  Milton Berber was hardly in the first bloom of youth. He'd already had a long journalistic career at a Washington paper, starting after military service in World War II. He'd reported on district court, got a break covering the State Department, became deputy metro editor, then deputy national editor, then deputy assistant managing editor.