“Can I use your bathroom?” Henry asks, eager to walk down with 4-C.
“Sure, sure.” Mr. Beardsley turns from 4-C, grateful for the diversion from the awkwardness. He reaches into his breast pocket and hands Henry a single key. “You know the way, right? Want me to come with you to let you in?”
“No, no.” Henry waves him off and holds the roof door open for 4-C. Richard Marx comes on the radio and once his back’s turned to Mr. Beardsley Henry rolls his eyes theatrically for the sunbather’s benefit.
“Sorry about that,” he says to her once the metal door falls back against the brick.
“No biggie,” she says again, her flip-flops slapping down the stairs. “Is that your family?”
“No!” Henry’s voice seems louder as it echoes in the concrete-and-metal stairwell. “No.” He lowers the volume back to a level that is meant to indicate he’s cool. “He’s my boss. He has this cookout thing every year. It’s like—Jesus. It’s painful. Every year.”
“Here’s your stop.” She smiles, and thumb-points at the hallway entry door with “14” stenciled on it army-style so the lines on the number four don’t exactly meet. “See ya later.”
“Yeah,” Henry says. “See ya.” 4-C’s flip-flops clack down the stairs so quickly she does not notice the deflation of Henry’s shoulders.
Mr. Beardsley’s hallway is dark and smells of disinfectant. The key works so well Henry suspects Mr. Beardsley polishes it and then uses some vacuum attachment to suck any intruders out of the lock. No detail is too small for Mr. Beardsley.
Mr. Beardsley’s apartment, Henry thinks, could be an advertisement for the witness-relocation program, so generic, so devoid of any personal effect. Even the record albums are covered in brown wrapping, like schoolbooks meant to be passed down from one class to another. Ned Beardsley has carefully erased any clues to his personality; any crumb of identifying style has been banished from this clean, airless living area. The furnishings, if not rented, are equally noncommittal. The couch merely serviceable, a place to sit. The overhead light simply existing to eliminate darkness—no mod globes here. Nor are there any trendy macramé hanging plant holders.
In the bathroom, a towel rack across from the sink offers three neatly folded medium-size towels Henry knows Mr. Beardsley positioned with deliberate care should one of his guests have to use his bathroom. Curious, he pulls back the blue-and-white seersucker shower curtain and sees the one thing that he knows gave Mr. Beardsley pause for thought this morning. It is the towel used for the morning’s shower. Since it would have been too wet to put into the hamper lest it mildew or emit a strange smell, Henry could picture his boss struggling with what to do before deciding on spreading it out from end to end on the towel rack. A pragmatic and neat solution. But one that leaves Henry sick. That very morning, after dragging himself numbly out of bed and showering, he too stretched his towel perfectly between ends of the towel rod, even untucking the final inch or so of the right side so every centimeter of towel would air dry evenly.
And so Henry Powell uses the toilet, flushes and leaves the seat up. Just like that. An act of defiance that restores the acids in his stomach and puts a smile on his face that becomes even broader when he emerges into the sunny rooftop where, according to the song on the radio, Brandy is a fine girl (though, sadly, not fine enough for a seaman to marry) and Mr. Beardsley is flipping the flank steak.
“Hey.” Ramon juts his chin out at him.
“Hey,” Henry says. “How’s it going?” He reaches into the cooler for another beer.
“Oh, you know,” Ramon says. Though Henry doesn’t know. He’s never really clicked with Ramon and has attributed this to the fact that they went to rival high schools.
Henry is uncomfortably aware that to Ramon, Henry is another rich white guy who feels working in a retail store beneath him. It’s like a pebble in his shoe; this thought chafes every time he sees Ramon.
“How’d it go with 4-C?” Ramon asks. But not too eagerly. He looks out at the view while Henry tries to decipher Ramon’s sphinx smile.
“I’m too much of a man for her,” Henry says. Fake chuckle.
Ramon nods and chuckles back. But Henry can’t tell if it, too, is disingenuous laughter—one trapped picnic guest to another.
“How’s Melissa?” he asks. Ramon’s wife has managed to be “busy” at every single company picnic.
“Oh, you know,” Ramon says.
Chapter five
1985
Six fifty-nine. Every day it’s the same. The alarm is set to go off at seven but Henry’s eyes blink open at exactly 6:59. Henry Powell has never overslept in his life. Not once. Much to his disappointment. He has tried to sleep in—on week ends and holidays certainly—but attempts have ended up with frustrated flips under the covers, trying to shimmy his body into a position that will prolong sleep that never lasts beyond seven in the morning.
The room is so quiet he can hear the clock’s three metal plates fall over, turning 6-5-9 into 7-0-0. A gentle click of a sound. The radio lazily comes on (ten seconds after the changing of the numerical guard, he notes) and the room fills with shootings, traffic backups, baseball disappointments and heat indices.
“O-kay,” he exhales, and pushes himself to the edge of the mattress, legs dangling, feet brushing the dusty hardwood floor.
Soon the two-room apartment fills with the sounds of morning: shower spray hitting the tub, clock radio blaring, the blip blip blip of the coffeemaker forcing water through the tiny hole into the small glass pot beneath it. Once the shower’s been on a full three minutes Henry gets in, sure it’s hot enough. The mirror above the sink is already fogged up.
Four minutes into soaking with eyes closed, he feels along the tiled wall to the soap shelf. Lather is created. Private parts are soaped and rinsed. Two more minutes under the shower head that’s so old errant streams of water break rank and hit at odd angles. Water is turned off. Towel is found by groping hands. Body is dried and ready to step out onto the cold floor.
Like the childhood game of red light/green light, Henry freezes in exactly the position he’s in: toweling out his right ear. Was that the phone? He waits three seconds and yes, sure enough, the phone is ringing.
“Hello?” He holds his towel around his waist even though he is alone.
“Henry? Henry, it’s Mr. Beardsley.” He doesn’t wait for Henry to murmur hello, which he does, inaudibly. “You’ve got to come right in. Can you? Can you come in right now? I need you right now.”
“Yeah, sure,” he says with a glance over to the clock. It’s seven nineteen. “What’s going on?”
“Just come in as soon as you can get here.” Click. Mr. Beardsley—of all people—didn’t say goodbye. Just hung up.
He pulls a pair of briefs out of his underwear drawer. Boxers are too free form for a day that very well may require some kind of physical exertion. Better to go with briefs. Then khakis, his staple blue oxford and blue blazer. The neat sound of the tightly woven silk tie being pulled off the rack and he’s out the door. No time for his customary commuter cup of coffee, he’s pleased that at least he remembered to turn off the coffeemaker before locking up.
England Dan and John Ford Coley are singing far too loudly, the sound a shock to the morning quiet—it takes a moment for him to turn the knob down. Lite rock never is, in the morning.
His jaw is clenched in what’s become his natural expression. “You mad about something?” his friend Tom Geigan asked him not too long ago even though they were enjoying a Mets game on TV. Indeed, when he opened his mouth to answer no it was a relief to his jaw muscles. Since then he has to consciously relax his mouth throughout the day.
The hard rain that lulled him to sleep the night before has changed the landscape of his morning drive. He passes three plugged-up gutters on his way in to work, pools of stagnant water circling out into the middle of Main Street. The single traffic light that forces hesitation between his apartment complex and his job blinks red and no one
else is on the road so he makes it downtown in minutes. He skims through the last pool and sails into a parking space right in front of the building.
But instead of rushing in, his hand remains on the gearshift long after he is parked. For here she is. The girl he noticed two days ago getting into her car, parked alongside his. Even though she’s got a whole street full of empty parking spaces, she is once again pulling in to the one alongside his.
“Hey,” he says, careful to appear casual with a half-head nod in her direction. He tries to look as if he, too, is juggling too much to fully concentrate on the morning greeting. But he doesn’t have a coffee cup or an armful of papers and books like she does. He is holding his tie in one hand, keys in the other.
“Hi.” She says it as more of an apology than a greeting. “Some rain, huh?” She juts out her chin and blows her bangs out of her eyes since her hands are full. Then she moves up to the curb, where he’s standing.
“Yeah,” he says. “You need some help?” he reaches out to indicate he means the books she’s loaded down with.
“Uh, no,” she says. “I’ve got it. Thanks, though.” He turns to go.
Then, providence intervenes. The sound forces her to reconsider. They both turn and face the source, knowing that it will require her to submit to his offer.
Splayed out on the wet pavement is her key chain, mocking the distance between them.
“Here, let me…” Henry doesn’t finish the sentence, aware now that she is strangely embarrassed at having to accept help. He leans down and scoops up the keys and tries to hand them back to her but quickly realizes she’s got no free hand with which to accept them.
“What d’ you…” “Could you…” They speak at the same time. Then she starts over. “Could you just…would you mind just grabbing that door—no, down there. I work at Cup-a-Joe,” she explains while walking. “You probably think I’m nutso, drinking coffee on my way to a coffee shop.”
“I didn’t even notice—”
“It’s just that it takes a while to brew. At the store. It takes a while to get everything up and running so I drink coffee on my way in. The key with that purple dot? Yeah, that one. I put permanent marker on my keys to tell them apart better. It’s the bottom lock first. No, turn it to the right. I know it’s stupid. My roommate makes fun of me. Counterclockwise. No, other way. Yeah. But this way I don’t waste time trying every single key on my key chain before hitting the right one. Okay, then the top one is the key with the black dot….”
“Henry!” Mr. Beardsley bellows down the sidewalk. “What’re you doing?”
They turn to Henry’s boss, the dripping mop an explanation for his early-morning call.
“I’ll be right there,” Henry calls over. He knows this exchange has cost him response time.
“I can take it from here,” she’s saying, “thanks so much. I can get it. Oh, great.”
Henry’s unlocked the top lock and is pushing the glass door open for her.
“Thanks a lot.” She collapses her load of papers and books onto the bar-height counter along the front window that enables coffee drinkers to face out and watch nothing happen. “Phew.” She pushes her hair out of her face with a finality that blown air cannot achieve. “I hope I didn’t get you in trouble for being late.”
“Oh, no.” He waves his hand dismissively. “Don’t worry about it.”
“I’m Cathy,” she says, extending her hand for a shake. “Cathy Nicholas.”
The morning is spent pressing water out of the sopped carpet in the front of the store. The plastic sealants surrounding the double glass doors failed to keep the rain out, most likely because the wind blew it sideways throughout the night. Henry’s job is to twist the soaked mop out, which he does over and over again out at the curb. Like the Sorcerer’s Apprentice he marches to and from the curb and each time he glances down toward Cup-a-Joe. It takes three hours before most of the heavy damage is controlled. Mr. Beardsley has set up little yellow sandwich boards that read Caution: Wet Floor and depict stick men falling.
For the first time in Mr. Beardsley’s years at Baxter’s the store is closed during regular business hours. Customers would track this all through the store, he tells Henry, and then the whole carpet would be ruined. The smell of mildew is already threatening the inventory.
Henry and Mr. Beardsley set up two industrial-size fans on either side of the worst part of the damage and face them out to the street, opening up the double doors. The hope is that the moisture will be pulled from the ground and carried off, like a drunk is peeled off the sticky barroom floor and deposited elsewhere to sleep it off.
By midday Henry’s back aches. He stands up and stretches, tired from pressing the floor with beach towels Mr. Beardsley has run out and bought down the street at the dollar store.
“This is terrible,” Mr. Beardsley says. He is standing alongside Henry but has to yell to be heard over the fans. “Just terrible.”
“It’ll dry up,” Henry says. “It won’t be too bad.”
“No one wants to buy smelly clothes,” Mr. Beardsley says. “I’m going to go out and get some air freshener. I’ll be right back.”
Henry sits behind the counter and thinks about Cathy Nicholas.
He curses himself for not noticing her body. He’d taken in her face at the time and now, trying too hard, he cannot even conjure that up. She has brown hair. The kind of brown that he is willing to bet was, in childhood, white-blond. It’s straight, he thinks, though he’s not quite sure.
He has to get back into the dating game, he knows this much. His last date had a lazy eye. He had not known which eye to look at and frankly it felt creepy. He’d nicknamed her Cross-Eyed Mary for the Jethro Tull song of the same name and he’d joked about her with his friend Tom and felt bad about it.
Since Cross-Eyed Mary there had been no one. He worried that dating was a muscle that needed to be exercised, so one night, for practice, he pulled two plates out of the cabinet above his tiny kitchen counter—only big enough to accommodate his coffeemaker and a toaster oven on one side of the sink, a drying rack on the other. Two forks. Two knives. Even two place mats—the ones he had taken from his parents’ house when he had found this apartment. They had long since stopped using place mats at the Powell house so he figured they would not miss them. At the time he had figured it would be a good thing to have two place mats for dating purposes.
He set up the pair of places on the rickety thrift-store dinette table and stood back to admire it. Not bad, he thought. But after a few minutes he decided the place mats cheapened the look of the whole thing, being plastic foam and somewhat picked at the edges. He carefully put it all back—cabinet door opening and closing, drawers doing the same—it felt sad to him. Like the plates had gotten their hopes up. And the forks. Knives can fend for themselves.
The drying rack has the single plate he uses for dinner, the bowl he uses for cereal, a single spoon, fork and knife and at times a pot that is drying, depending on what he has cooked. Every so often he replaces each one to give them all equal rotation.
He tells himself he will ask this Cathy out for dinner. He feels certain she does not have a lazy eye.
The problem will be her falling in love with him. They all do, he shakes his head. It gets tricky extricating himself from these relationships. Cross-Eyed Mary had called and called. He didn’t know for certain it was her—she never left a message—but he could just tell. He didn’t answer—Jesus, no way, she’d hear my voice, tears would follow so better to just let the phone ring.
The ghost writer leans forward to make sure his tape recorder is getting all this and appears relieved to see he still has time on the miniscule tape cassette. All the women love Henry Powell, he scribbles in his notepad. Yes, Henry nods silently and then says, it’s always been the way. I guess it’s like fat people hearing thin ones complain about having to put on weight so I maybe shouldn’t say this out loud, Henry says, but really it is difficult to be me in these sorts of situation
s. Oh, yes, I’m sure, the man gives a sympathetic nod. I cannot imagine how difficult, he adds.
“Henry? I could use your help with this,” Mr. Beardsley says, pushing his way past the wind tunnel the fans have created, handing Henry one can of Lysol. He takes the other and starts spraying.
“Won’t this be worse for the clothes?” Henry calls out over the fans.
“What?”
“I said, won’t this be worse for the clothes? This spray sticking to them? This smells worse than the water did,” he shouts.
Mr. Beardsley stops spraying and sniffs the air.
“Shit, you’re right,” he says. It is the first time Henry has heard his boss swear. “Jesus, what’re we going to do?” He drops the can of Lysol to the floor and it rolls under a rack of pants.
“Let’s just let the fans go for a little while,” Henry says. “I think the fans are all we need.” He lowers to one knee to reach the Lysol. “What?”
“Let the fans do it,” Henry shouts. “It’ll be fine.”
He rolls his sleeves back down and buttons them. Mr. Beardsley is staring at the carpet as if willing it to dry.
“How much longer do you want me to stay?” Henry asks.
Mr. Beardsley motions to the area just past the counter and points to his ear, indicating he cannot hear, though Henry is sure he has.
“What’d you say?” he asks Henry once they are farther away from the fans.
“Um, how much longer did you need me, do you think? I can come back…I’ve just…I’ve got to run a quick appointment, you know.”
Mr. Beardsley nods. “Yes, yes, five-fifteen. I know. Go ahead. You don’t need to come back.”
“If you need me I can come back. I mean, if you need me.”
There is a pause.
“It’s okay,” Mr. Beardsley finally says. He is so tentative Henry decides against offering again, as he was going to do a moment before the pause. To be polite.