Mick laughed, though clearly he didn’t get it, assuming there was something to get. He laughed because it was Karly’s joke. Alonso and Cecil laughed. Rhine never got jokes because he was the living incarnation of a joke. Rhine merely glanced anxiously from one laughing person to the next.
“That’s so funny,” Karly said.
Maura tried to figure out what the punch line was supposed to be. Cannibals eating a clown: what was funny about that?
Cecil the Shrimp piped up. “Mrs. Barnstone is old. She’s going to die,” he said. “Crews, is Mrs. Barnstone going to die?”
“Ms. Patricia Barnstone,” Alonso brayed.
Crews was reading the newspaper. He didn’t seem to have a first name. His bland, pale, bumpy face was like a sack filled with miniature doughnuts. “You don’t talk to me,” he said. “Talk to your pals if you got to, but not to me.”
“One day Ms. Patricia Barnstone will die,” Rhine said, “but almost certainly, unless you know something I or we don’t, not today.”
“Not no but hell no,” Alonso said. He often said this.
“Not entirely certainly,” Rhine went on, “but almost entirely one hundred percent, or at least ninety-nine percent, certainly.”
“She’s healthy as a horse,” Maura said. Patricia Barnstone was her counselor, and Maura liked her. She was a no-bullshit person who actually enjoyed most people but wouldn’t pretend if she didn’t.
Alonso put his work down and coughed out some words. “It’s the party at night at my house, if you’re coming.” The only time the drooler’s mouth ever shut was with the p in party and m in my. “My house is over the garage at my house, if you’re coming.”
Alonso Duran lived in his family’s garage apartment. Mick had told her about Alonso’s parties but Maura had never been invited. They usually entailed food and a movie. According to Mick, the movie was always Wayne’s World, which was Karly’s favorite. What could possibly make more sense than to watch the same movie over and over because one idiot girl liked it? Every swinging dick in the room was in love with Karly Hopper, except maybe the new one, Cecil, who looked like too much of a mental-case retard to remember he had a dick. She predicted he would wet his pants before the day was out precisely because he could not find his dick.
“I’m invited, right? Isn’t that right, Alonso?” Rhine said. “I’m invited?”
“You’re always invited,” Alonso said. “Karly’s always invited.” He pointed to people and made his way around the room. “Mick’s always invited. Maura’s always invited now.” He looked at Cecil. “But not you.”
Cecil dropped the crumpled box he was holding, stared at it forlornly, and bent to pick it up. “When goldfish die,” he said softly, “they go upside down.”
“Mr. Crews,” Rhine said. “Cecil is making a mess of his box, which is really bothering us.”
Crews sighed and put his paper down. “Over here, then. C’mon, Cecil.” He took the clodhopper midget aside to teach him the procedure again.
“Like I said,” Maura tried to speak confidentially to Mick, “some adventure?”
Mick snapped open another flat and bent the flaps at the folds. He was cute even when he was ignoring her. Something about his face looked edible. Her mother often described people as sweet, and now Maura got it. She would like to lick Mick’s face.
Rhine spoke up. “Karly, I’m learning sign language. Karly? Karly, I’m learning sign language.”
“What’s the sign for shut your trap?” Maura said.
“I was talking to Karly.”
“No kidding?”
“What kind of adventure?” Mick asked.
“The interesting kind. Like getting to some place besides here. Up in the mountains or down to the beach or maybe,” she lowered her voice, “getting some booze or pot or I don’t know . . .” She involuntarily pictured Mick naked and blushed.
“This is Hello.” Rhine waved to Karly. “Get it, Karly? This is if you’re cold.” He rubbed his hands up and down his arms. “Get it, Karly?”
“That is so funny, Rhine,” Karly said. “Isn’t Rhine funny, Mick?”
“Very funny,” Mick said.
“A riot,” Maura put in. “A natural half-wit.”
“Not no but hell no,” Alonso said.
For months, Maura had been certain that Karly was a phony. She looked exactly like a girl from some hateful high school clique—skinny, perky, and cute. All such girls were actually heartless bitches, Maura knew, but Karly wasn’t hateful or a bitch, and for that matter, she was more than cute. Way more. She had the perfect skin people called olive, as if it were green, and pretty brown eyes and a great face, and if that weren’t enough, she had thick, shiny hair. She could shave her melon and the boys would still crawl across the floor to French-kiss her ass, but no, she had perfect hair as well. It covered an empty fucking balloon, but what difference did that make?
As much as Maura hated to admit it, Karly wasn’t a phony. She was genuinely nice all the goddamn time. This fact didn’t make Maura like her, but she couldn’t hate her. A person had to be honest about her feelings, at least with herself. Barnstone had taught her that.
Crews returned with Cecil. “Do it that way on the line,” Crews told him.
Rhine spoke up. “Maura told me to shut my trap, Mr. Crews.”
“Smart girl,” he said. To Maura, he added, “You and Mick keep an eye on things. I should be back in time to pay Cecil and Alonso for their next hour. Help keep this one on track.” He indicated dwarfkins.
“No sweat,” she said. This was one of Barnstone’s expressions, and Maura liked using it. “Got you covered.”
Crews worked evenings and weekends for a local lawn crew. Lately he tried to get in one yard during his day job. At first he had made elaborate excuses, but anymore he just gave Maura or Mick the heads-up and took off. When he returned, the cuffs of his pants would be green and he would smell of grass and gasoline.
Maura didn’t mind Crews disappearing. She liked being in charge. She thought about lighting a cigarette, which would drive Rhine out of his mind. During her first week at the workshop Mick had given her a present. She already knew he was crazy for Karly, which meant it wasn’t a romantic-type gift, and that made her suspect that he might be a geek or shithead or some other type of fuckwad. The present was wrapped in the Sunday comics, and when she ripped the funny papers off, she discovered a silver ashtray, the words CARLTON HOTEL stamped in the center.
“So you can smoke,” he said.
Crews hadn’t let her outside to smoke during breaks because she left butts in the hydrangeas. Now she would drag Mick out to watch her puff. Sometimes, he held the ashtray. She stored it in the assembly frame, on a rack next to the rollers. It was a great gift—perfect, in a way—and she tumbled for Mick that first week.
“I’m going to Alonso’s party,” he told her. “It’s not too adventure, maybe, but it’s pizza, a movie. Can you get away?”
Maura shrugged. She was not supposed to leave the campus unless Barnstone or some other official tagged along. “I might be able to make it. It could maybe be an adventure, I guess. A lame one, no doubt, but something.”
Cecil completed his first spider carton and held it up to show everyone. The big hole in his face took on a shape no one ought to have to look at, like those chocolate candies that glop over wax paper, his teeth horrid cashews.
“Put it in the cardboard box, butter dick. The one with your initials on it.”
Cecil obeyed. “The wizard in The Wizard of Oz isn’t a real wizard.” He shook his head as he spoke. “But the flying monkeys are real.”
“You can zip it,” Maura said. “I’m in charge. So shut the fuck up.” Cecil stopped moving and stared at her. His bottom lip began to tremble.
Rhine, master of the obvious, said, “He’s almost certainly going to cry.”
“You’re doing fine,” Mick told
Cecil. “That’s a good spider package.”
“What’s your last name?” Maura asked him.
“Cecil Fresnay,” he said.
“That’s your first and your last name, dipshit.”
“Pack some more pantyhose,” Mick said. “You’re doing great.”
Cecil reached for another cardboard flat, but he knocked the stack of them over. They slid across the slick floor. His eyes grew wide and he sucked air as if to wail.
“That’s so funny,” Karly said. “The flat boxes are on the floor.”
Her laughter permitted the others to laugh. After a moment, Cecil joined them. That was all it took, Maura thought, laughter. It had to be the right kind, she guessed. It had to be friendly laughter, Karly’s laughter.
Mick quit packing to help Cecil with the flats. Karly followed his lead, which meant that Alonso and Rhine helped, too. The four of them squatted down and scurried after the flats. Maura and Cecil watched.
“If animals could drive cars, it would be a big mess,” Cecil said, nodding in agreement with himself. “Pooch couldn’t because her paws can’t reach the ’celerator or even the brake. She’d have to grab the wheel like this.” Cecil bit into an imaginary steering wheel and turned it from side to side. “Crews, are there skeletons that are alive? Like in that movie with skeletons that are alive?”
“Crews isn’t here, you freaky mushball,” Maura said, still packing pantyhose.
“My dog’s name is Pooch,” Cecil said, nodding, smiling, oblivious, his black glasses rocking on his nose.
For no reason she could name, she finally figured it out. “Does this taste funny to you?” Maura announced. “The cannibals eating the clown, that’s what they say.”
All of the squatting people looked up at her and then returned to their task. Mick offered her a smile but no one laughed.
Figuring out the joke pleased her. What good it did, she couldn’t say, even though she had got it right and Karly had garbled it. Getting it right ought to matter, she thought, as she watched Mick and Karly stacking the flats, wondering how in the world he had known to help and she, to laugh.
The site of the Onyx Springs Rehabilitation and Therapeutic Center had once been a ranch surrounded by other ranches, and it was still bordered to the north by an avocado farm. The old ranch house, made of river stones, had served briefly as a maintenance shed. When it was torn down, only the distinctive Onyx Rehab buildings remained. Each was five stories, covered with white porcelain tile, and no exterior corner was a right angle. The buildings were tightly clustered, and seen from above, the relation between the acute and obtuse angles suggested a single edifice shattered by a tremendous blow.
From ground level, there was a lot of glare. Shade trees planted among the buildings angered the architect’s heirs but made passage among the behemoths bearable during the long summer. Onyx Rehab was a private center known for its pristine dormitories. “A great recruiting tool,” John Egri had told Candler. They were talking privately, drinking scotch at dusk in Egri’s office, staring out the floor-to-ceiling windows. “We simply look more professional than other places. Right now we have more referrals than we can handle.” This conversation occurred some months earlier, in the fall, when Egri first advised Candler to apply for the directorship. “If the economy tanks, the rules change.” Officially, Onyx Rehab served people with physical, mental, emotional, or psychological challenges. “What that actually means,” Egri explained, “is during down years, we accept anyone who has the money or can nab the funding.” He sipped the scotch. “The job’s not for idealists. If you want to keep your dick clean, bow out now.” Egri wanted Candler to succeed him and presented a typed list of things Candler should do before announcing his interest in the position. This conversation marked the beginning of Candler’s unraveling. It was a slow process, but consistent in its progress, the small abrasion in the material widening, the threads eroding, until at last a rent in the fabric appeared.
Yet Candler deserved some credit: a lesser weave would have frayed overnight.
From the encounter at Karly’s house, Candler drove to the Donut Hole, discreetly prying the brownies from the pan and tossing the chocolate plank into the trash—it clanked when it hit bottom—before claiming a box of the glazed. He could not say whether the pain in his stomach was from contributing to a freeway accident or socking a stranger in the jaw, but he felt tortured by his body and utterly out of control. He parked in the staff lot and began his daily wrestling match with the car’s cover. The last time he slugged somebody was in high school, which was also the last time he raced on the highway. What was next? Cheating on exams? Hustling chicks?
Candler’s pod was on the fourth floor of the Hahn Building. The office manager, Rainyday Olsson, greeted him at the elevator. She was standing on a chair to water a hanging fern—the same plant the gargoyles had brought to Candler’s house. Rainyday was her legal name, as it appeared on her birth certificate. She was born on a rainy day. “Lucky it wasn’t blustery,” she liked to say, “or the sewers hadn’t backed up.” She was buck-toothed, rail thin, and freckled, with dark hair cut in a neat pageboy, a vivacious woman with a high school education and an unemployed husband who liked to hang around the office. Whenever a client she found particularly sad disappeared into the elevator, she’d say, “There but for the grace of god goes yours truly.”
“Nice suit,” she told Candler, stepping down from the chair. “You look like the Marlboro Man.”
“I don’t think he wears a suit,” Candler said. “He wears a horse.”
“Okay then, you don’t look anything like the Marlboro Man.” She snatched the box of doughnuts. “You happen to read the newspaper this week? Sports page?”
“Ah hell.” Candler reached for his wallet. They’d had a bet about the opening day of baseball season and Candler had forgotten. Rainy-day was a Yankees fan and Candler, a Yankees hater. “Take your blood money.”
She folded the five and held it between her fingers. “What’s got into you this morning?”
It was the opportunity he wanted, but she turned to go to her desk and the hem of her skirt was caught in its belted waist. Her freckled legs and flowered underpants had the air of sexual invitation, which kept him from tugging at the skirt himself.
He buzzed her from his office. “Your skirt is hanging funny.” After a moment she said, “Oh, my god.” And then, “This is why I should start wearing pantyhose again.”
Candler’s office was roughly the size of a bank vault in a modest savings and loan, a cozy cave sandwiched between the offices of Clay Hao and Bob Whitman, with the Barnstone at the far end, and the evaluation floor beyond that. Each office had a single window, a mahogany-veneer desk, a filing cabinet, a bookcase, and two reasonably comfortable chairs. On the wall over Candler’s desk was a painting by his brother Pook, and on his desk, a framed photograph of Candler and his fiancée at Trafalgar Square, their arms around each other, smiling like convicts straddling the opening to a tunnel. Candler’s sister had taken the photo. A second copy was on the nightstand beside his bed.
As far as the Onyx Rehab board was concerned, Candler’s bachelorhood was the only remaining drawback to his candidacy. John Egri had told him as much in February, by which time Candler had checked off everything else on the list. As luck would have it, Candler met Lolly the second week of March. This coincidence, if it was a coincidence, Candler thought of as good fortune. That it might be the product of his disintegration rather than fortuitous happenstance would seem to him absurd. He had planned the London trip to see his brother-in-law, who was dying, but the disease advanced rapidly and he was dead a week before Candler’s flight touched down. His sister met him at the airport in a surprising spring dress. He had expected the darker shades of mourning, but her husband was buried and the slow progress of the illness had given her time to grieve while he was still alive. She had an offer on the business, she told him as they left Heathrow,
and she had put the flat up for sale. Violet was readying herself to return to the States. She planned to stay with Candler until she decided what she wanted to do. Her front teeth had been replanted in her gums perfectly. Whenever Candler saw her after they were apart, he studied her smile to assure himself he had done no permanent damage. On the cab ride into the city, she asked if he minded a business stop. She needed to hand over papers to her assistant. “An American girl,” she said.
Lolly Powell was comparing spreadsheets when they walked in, her head rocking from side to side, and she did not hear them enter. One of the papers slid to the floor, and she quickly retrieved it, her skirt’s tweed hem rising above the back of her knees. Her white legs and the cascade of blond hair seemed somehow elemental, elaborately and foolishly so, like the slender trunks of aspen beside a mountain waterfall. She touched her glasses before shaking his hand, the lenses black-rimmed and rounded at the top, which made her seem both earnestly studious and perpetually surprised.
“Join us for dinner,” he said, without consulting his sister.
“Those glasses are phonies,” Violet told him when they were once again in a cab. “She only wears them at work.”
Lolly arrived at the flat with a folder of contracts, each with a check stapled to it. She and Violet compared notes and signed checks while Candler opened the wine. As soon as the work was completed, Lolly pulled a clip from her hair and disappeared into the bathroom. When she emerged, the glasses and business suit were gone. She wore a sleeveless black blouse, short skirt, and patent leather heels. “I’m two people,” she said, fluffing her blond corona. She had a mild British accent, though she was from New Jersey and had lived in England only a year. “Ask your sister if you don’t believe me. I’m a total spod at work, but when the whistle blows I shed it like a second skin.”
“I’m pretty sure I’m only one person,” Candler replied, pouring the wine. “Sometimes barely that.”
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