by Nina Post
“Wow. Thanks. Neat.”
Kelly guided Tubiel out of the management offices and back into the lobby, where almost immediately, a peppy-looking woman bounced up to her wearing tan pants and a blue polo shirt with the Ultra-Amenity Tower logo on the pocket.
“Giselle Cashman?”
Kelly leaned away from her, startled. Tubiel held out his hand, but palm facing up. The woman hesitated, placed her hand on his for a moment as though using a biometric scanner, and turned back to Kelly.
“My name is Becky and I’ll be your Amenity Enjoyment Consultant today. Mr. Grether tells me that you’re interested in buying a unit in Ultra-Amenity Tower?”
She wondered if she should ask about one inside the Christmas tree.
Brad Seemed to Lounge Even Harder
t the clarion call of another excessively cheerful voice at the other end of the lobby, Kelly and Tubiel looked for the source. A second Amenity Enjoyment Consultant consulted, almost aerobically, by the gigantic fireplace.
Becky fastened her perma-smile on Kelly. “I forgot to ask: what do you do for your work?”
“I’m a management consultant,” Kelly replied. “I do a lot of traveling, but I’m looking to settle down more.”
“You picked the right place.” Becky supported this statement with a beaming smile that made Tubiel put his sunglasses back on. “Our amenities are positively world-class. Our fitness center includes a weight room, lounge, and cardio studio.” Becky gave Tubiel a huge smile. “And who’s this?”
“This is my assistant, Haruki. Haruki Murakami.”
“It’s nice to meet you!” Becky said to Tubiel.
Kelly sighed.
“He doesn’t talk.”
“Oh, I see.” Becky straightened. “First, I want to complete your personalized amenity plan.” She tapped on a tablet computer. “Are you interested in fitness?”
“No,” she said flatly. That wasn’t true, but she wanted to spend as little time as possible on this.
“Do you like racquetball? Tennis? Yoga? Basketball? Spinning? Swimming? Pilates? Climbing?”
Kelly shook her head no after each one, which seemed to create some kind of malfunction in Becky’s software.
“OK, how about spa packages? Steam room, sauna, massage, hot rocks, facials—”
“No.” It was like chiding a dog.
“What about group activities? Media room, movie nights, BBQ areas, fire pit, game room—”
“Mm… no.”
Becky was relentless. “And pets? Do you like pet amenities?”
“What do you have available for death worms?”
“I’m sorry, what?” Becky blinked, utterly baffled.
“You don’t know what those are?” Kelly was fascinated by this. Imagine, living in a world where nearly every resident didn’t have their own death worm.
“Death worms?” Becky said, as though both words were in a language completely foreign to her. “No. Should I?”
“Not necessarily.” Kelly knew that she was already Becky’s most challenging prospective resident, and pictured Becky at a garish bar, the glitches in her work personality causing various tics and errors, downing one cosmo after another to forget having met the difficult Giselle Cashman and her silent assistant, Haruki Murakami.
“So, uh, yes.” Becky cleared her throat. “We’re proud of the pet amenities we offer. We have obedience classes, day care. We have weekly visits from a veterinarian for private-room checkups. We offer an on-site groomer. A photographer comes to Ultra-Amenity Tower’s own Pet Planet to take headshots, action shots, and family portraits with a variety of available backgrounds including trading pit, professional kitchen, rodeo, professor’s office—”
She cut her off. “That sounds great.”
“There’s more. We offer ass-matching at no additional fee. This is included in your amenities if you become a resident of Ultra-Amenity Tower.”
Tubiel turned and stared up at Kelly, taken aback.
“Ass-matching for the residents? That seems…” Kelly made a face.
Becky’s nervous laugh sounded like child tapping wildly on a xylophone. “Oh no, not for the residents! For the pets! Ha ha!”
“Aaaand what is that, exactly?”
“We run a chemical analysis of each pet’s pheromones. A scientist analyzes the results and provides the top five best matches for each resident pet. Our process really cuts down the time the pet normally spends on finding the ass that appeals to them.”
“I don’t have a pet.”
“Well, you never know!”
“And what if most of the pet’s enjoyment is derived from checking out as many asses as possible?”
“It’s all voluntary,” Becky said. “We think that many resident pet owners will appreciate the streamlined efficiency. All right, there are a few more amenity categories to cover.”
“Can’t we just look at the amenities?” Kelly asked.
“This is a crucial part of our process. We want to give you a personalized plan so you get the most out of the Ultra-Amenity Tower experience. I’d be happy to do one for your assistant, as well.”
Tubiel whipped his sunglasses off and tugged at Kelly’s shirt.
“Our next category is outdoors and crafts,” Becky said. “This is an exciting new category! We have tool-making, flint knapping, story-telling, orienteering, foraging for wild edibles including mushrooms, flowers, and plants—”
Kelly couldn’t imagine the liability insurance Ultra-Amenity Tower must have.
“Not to mention shelter building, tracking, quilting, scrapbooking—”
“I get the idea. I’m not into that.”
Becky let a flash of frustration pass over her face. “What are you interested in?”
“Work, mostly.”
Tubiel nodded, as though to back up her assertion.
“We have a terrific business center! It includes new-model computers with flat-screen monitors, printers, shredders, scanners.”
Kelly didn’t say anything. She couldn’t take her eyes off the holiday decorations.
“If you lived here, you could also use our bicycle and resident storage.”
“How many residents can you store? Does the storage include a feeding solution?”
Becky gave another hitch-pitched, nervous laugh. “Oh, no, no, no—storage for residents, not of residents!”
“I think that cryogenic storage would be a great amenity, especially for the board members.” Kelly smiled at her.
Becky was speechless for a moment. “You know what? I think you’ll really enjoy our Zen garden.” Becky busied herself with her tablet. “All right, we’re all set with that. You can pick up a hard-copy of your amenity plan at the front desk, and I can also email it to you.”
“I’ll pick up a copy.”
“Excellent! Now, we can go up to the amenity floors.”
“The amenity floors?”
“Yes, our top two floors are fully dedicated to amenities.”
Kelly would do anything to prevent Charlotte from learning that.
Becky started the tour in in the fitness lounge, located on the first of the two brand-new, luxurious amenity floors. The lounge by the fitness center, with its flush-mounted TV screens, giant plants, and sleek sofas and chairs, pained her.
Becky started a personalized amenity plan for Tubiel, who nodded enthusiastically to every single amenity mentioned, pleasing Becky to no end. Kelly expected that Tubiel’s personalized amenity plan would look like the binder of an over-achieving college student, while hers would appear to hold the benefits plan for a food delivery worker.
A spin class let out and a dazzling, complicated-looking blue and white sea slug with orange-tipped nubs, wearing a white headband, came into the lounge. He (he? Kelly wasn’t sure) rested on one of the sofas as he drank from a plastic bottle through a large straw.
“Hey, Brad.” An attractive woman leaned against the wall near him. “Killer class, huh?”
Brad rip
pled a darker blue and it occurred to Kelly that this was Elysia’s Brad.
“That instructor is about as easy-going as a Scottish witch-hunter, right?” The woman gave a nervous laugh. Brad seemed to lounge even harder.
“OK, well, see you later? Maybe at pilates class?”
Brad seemed to wave, but Kelly couldn’t be sure. The woman, also uncertain, put her hand up and gave Brad a little awkward wave as she left the lounge.
Brad was a real player, and evidently the only non-human in Ultra-Amenity Tower, which probably made him more intriguing than he deserved to be.
“I think you’ll love our sky lounge.” Becky gestured for them to keep moving. “Let’s go there while I finish up this plan for Haruki.”
The sky lounge had a number of huge plants. Real plants. Kelly ached to know if they bought or leased, and how much they had spent. It crossed her mind to break into the management office to look at their plant contract.
After they had covered all of the amenities on the top two floors, Becky showed them a one-bedroom unit. “You will love love love the apartment amenities. Granite countertops, window treatments, dishwasher—”
“Dishwasher?” Kelly said. “Don’t you think that’s more of a feature than an amenity?”
Becky was at a loss. Kelly doubted anyone had ever called her on the qualification of what constituted an amenity before. But she felt churlish at this place.
“I—well, possibly.”
Tubiel let the birds loose in the apartment, coaxing them out of the bags. Becky didn’t notice; she pointed out the glass tile and the wood cabinetry. The cardinal was reticent and puffed out its feathers immediately, but the red-headed finch took flight, landed on a lamp, and sang a long multi-pitched song.
Becky screamed, then shouted, “How did that get in here?”
“That’s one of my assistant’s birds,” Kelly said. “Terrifying, isn’t it? Murakami, you can give them space later.” Tubiel shrugged and cupped the finch in his hands to bring it back into the bag. The cardinal went back in without a fight.
Becky led them back down to the lobby and checked with the front desk for their amenity plans. As Kelly expected, Becky handed Tubiel a hefty, almost overstuffed binder complete with colored tabs and gave Kelly a same size binder with exactly one sheet of paper inside. “Here are your personalized amenity plans. Did you want to use any of the amenities today? Your Gold Amenity Pass gives you all-access for the rest of the day.”
“No, I have work to do,” Kelly said. “But thank you for taking the time to give us an amenity tour, and, of course, for our amenity plans.”
“It was my pleasure,” Becky said and Kelly almost believed her. “Have a great day!” And Becky was off to her next amenity consultation.
Tubiel, staggering under his amenity binder, struggled and managed to hold it up, beaming with pride.
Kelly took Tubiel home. On the way up in the elevator, she sang one of Roger’s songs in a soft voice, dispirited from being in Ultra-Amenity Tower, but also from Af being gone. She couldn’t bear to be back in the office with Charlotte yet.
Let’s just all be civil,
Let’s be neighborly
Let’s share an elevator …
Let’s share our hopes and dreams.
Tubiel leaned against her and hugged his amenity plan. “I’m not working there,” she said, with a half-smile. “If you want to be friends with Brad so you can use their amenities, go ahead.”
She stepped into the tube room, grabbed a pen and wrote something on a notepad: Arguing over who’s washing the dishes? Try a chore wheel! Cheers, Kelly. She popped open the latch on the cylinder, stuffed in the note, closed the latch, positioned it in the pneumatic tube, and had it launch to the hell lodge that Don and Murray had to share now.
She was in that kind of mood, wanting to rub it in.
A Field of Cement Corn
f was exhausted, probably from being around Papp and from the stress of being accessory to some kind of wanted felon, and closed his eyes to take a nap. Papp drove.
“Hey, wake up!”
Af opened one eye, like a duck. “Why?”
“Because! Because I’m bored, and I want you to be awake.”
“I’m taking a short nap.” Af closed his eyes again.
Papp shook him by the arm. “But I’m driving. This is a two-demon job!”
“I’m not a demon,” Af said emphatically, “and the idea of a road trip is that one drives in shifts, one rests in shifts. That’s how it works.”
“Yeah, well, not with us. I want company.” Papp fiddled with the stereo and stopped it on a shouty, bouncy confection of a song that made Af want to stab his own temple with a screwdriver.
“That’s fairly obvious,” Af muttered and attempted to be awake.
“Oooh, look, a hitchhiker! Let’s pick them up.” Papp swerved the rental car across two lanes. People laid on their horns, probably wishing the car horns were lasers or machine guns.
Af held on to the handle above his door and flinched. “What are you doing?!”
Papp pulled over to the shoulder of the highway in the manner of an airplane that had lost its engines along with its landing gear. The hitchhiker ran up behind them in the dust cloud, looking like the grim reaper appearing out of a thick fog.
“We can’t pick him up—he could kill us both!”
“Don’t be so uptight.”
Af tried the five-thousand-dollar mantra, but it only made him more frustrated because it didn’t work, of course (that was the entire reason he put himself through this). Also because it made him feel deficient, and it reminded him he was out five thousand dollars.
The hitchhiker leaned down at the passenger window, startling Af and making him shout out, which embarrassed him. He was the angel of destruction, not a high-strung racing greyhound.
Papp leaned over Af toward the open window, and Af recoiled. Papp smelled like cheese and some kind of grotesquely-scented antiperspirant. At least he was using some.
“What’s up! I’m Papp, I’m a chaos demon. This is Af, the angel of destruction.”
Af turned to Papp and said, sotto, “Don’t tell people that!” He was a private person, and preferred that no one know what he really was. It was none of their business, and it completely changed the dynamic of the interaction.
“Hello,” the hitchhiker said from somewhere in his black robe.
Af realized that the hitchhiker was, in fact, a grim reaper only a second before it was said.
“I’m Thaddas, the grim reaper. Well, one of them. I don’t want to give you the impression that I’m the only one. One of many. A veritable grain seed in a silo. I mean, can you imagine the work for one? Staggering!”
“Where you goin’?”
“Long Island,” Thaddas said. “I got some time off, so I’m seeing family.”
Papp gestured Thaddas in. “Cool, man. Get in.”
“Where are you going?” Af said.
“Uh, east?” Papp said. “It’s kinda TBD, but that’s how I roll. There’s no other way to live, man.”
Af disagreed, silently. He assumed that was how a chaos demon rolled most of the time, but not with him. Unless, of course, they were on the run from the law. But he had every intention of finding the guru. He checked the guru’s Twitter feed, but saw only a picture of oysters and beer in a pitcher.
Thaddas tossed his two smallish bags in the backseat and climbed in. For a moment, Af considered telling the reaper that he got into a car with a disgruntled angel and someone who stole cash and a cheese wheel, but he didn’t care that much.
“You hungry?” Papp asked Thaddas as he pulled back into traffic after doing the most cursory check behind them. Horns honked, some continuing for ten seconds, and Papp didn’t seem to notice.
“My schedule has us—” Af started.
Papp laughed and looked in the rearview mirror, where he looked only to talk, not for safety, Af observed. “This guy’s got a schedule that tells us when we ca
n stop to relieve ourselves, when we can gas up, and when we can eat. Can you believe that? Hey, let’s stop at this place.” Papp pointed to a sign on the sign of the road.
“I have lunches packed,” Af said, but Papp again shot across the highway. Tires screeched, horns bleated indignantly. Af’s heart was practically tachycardic. He closed his eyes and in a whisper, tried to talk himself down from spiraling into panic: “It’s fine. You’re fine.”
“You, sir, live without cares,” Thaddas told Papp, with at least some trace of praise.
“That’s my philosophy, Thaddas. Can I call you Thadd?”
Because Thaddas was simply too long and complicated, Af thought, as Papp careened toward the exit like he was on some sort of televised demolition derby.
“Yes, that’s fine with me,” Thaddas said, while Papp peeled out from the light and raised up on two wheels in the turn onto the main street.
Papp was going so fast that he passed the place he wanted to go to and performed a U-turn in the middle of the road, across a double-yellow line and in front of a string of cars that were turning toward them from the Holiday Inn on the opposite side.
Af’s vestibular system felt like he’d been shot into space on a shuttle. Papp charged into the parking lot of the diner and came to an abrupt stop. Af fumbled with the door and rushed to a shrubby area and threw up there. He heard murmured conversation behind him, but couldn’t discern words.
“Oh man, it’s closed?” Af heard Papp say.
“Health code violations,” Thaddas said.
“Must have had too much of that cheese wheel,” he heard Papp say. In fact, Af had had none of the cheese, and hated Papp with a white-hot intensity.
“So he’s an angel of destruction, you said?” Af heard Thaddas say as he put a hand on a streetlight pole for support.
“Yeah, believe it or not, right?”
Af recovered, with nothing left in his stomach. He took a bottled water from the car, rinsed and spit, and drank a third of it. “Let’s get back on the road. I’m driving.”
