“Great! Send him in.” Mr. Tveite flashed me a big grin. “This is the best part. Bernham, meet Lionel Petrie. Lionel, here he is, in the flesh.”
Lionel Petrie looked at me with the same excited fervor of a birdwatcher seeing a rare specimen. He was not quite five and a half feet tall, and was swathed all over in dark hair, from the top of his head down to the collar of his shirt. As he shook my hand, his mouth opened in the midst of the fur and said, “Good to meet you. Good to meet you. Did you tell him already?”
“No, I was waiting until you got here. Lionel is going to turn his camera on Raleigh Industries, Bernham.”
The name seemed familiar, because he had directed a car commercial a few years before that had famously pulled the manufacturer’s sales out of the doldrums. I’m sure he’d done other things, but that was what I knew him from. I decided to pretend a polite interest.
“We’re doing a new advertising campaign then?” I said.
“We’re not just doing an ad campaign. You’re doing an ad campaign. Lionel and our marketing people have come up with a great idea. We want to make a commercial featuring you.” Mr. Tveite smiled when he said it, and for the briefest moment I tried to think of what he was waiting for me to say. Then a wave of horror rose up and obliterated my natural tendency toward compliance.
“I don’t think so,” I said. I picked up my briefcase, but Celeste balked at her cue. She sat at the conference table, her tablet full of notes before her, looking attentively at Mr. Tveite. There were her loyalties.
“Oh, come on, Bernham. Don’t decide so quickly. Let’s talk about it over lunch. I’ve got a table at the Coach House and—”
“No. I didn’t agree to that. I didn’t agree to do any commercial. I’ve got to go now. Celeste, I’ll see you tomorrow morning.” I made it to the reception area before Lionel Petrie came puffing up behind me.
“I’ll call you, so we can chat about it,” he said.
“Nice to meet you, Mr. Petrie.” I didn’t pause, and at least he didn’t follow me into the elevator.
My heart had finally stopped pounding by the time I reached the hospital. In the waiting room, Muriel greeted me like her best friend. Meda gave me her usual smile that conveyed discomfort, but still contained an erotic allurement. I could only guess at what it was like going through life with a face that carried that suggestion no matter your mood, and it made me even more ashamed of my masturbatory pursuits. We made small talk for half an hour, with Meda apologizing every five minutes. Eventually a nurse came to tell them they could go in and see the doctor, and Meda began the process of gathering up Annadore’s things.
“It’s okay,” I found myself saying. “I can watch her while you two are in with the doctor.” Meda looked at me in surprise. If it had been possible, I would have looked at myself in surprise.
“Okay.” Meda stopped her gathering efforts and got up to follow Muriel and the nurse. After they were gone, Annadore looked at me for a moment, and then went back to the coloring book she was scribbling in on the floor. I sat for a while and thought of all the things that could go wrong. What if she started crying or needed to go to the bathroom? She didn’t. She continued coloring in her book, while I flipped through a National Geographic. When she got tired of coloring, she gave me a copy of Stellaluna and held her arms up to me. I didn’t know what else to do, so I set her on my lap and read to her. Twenty minutes later, Meda and her mother came out. Muriel was oddly quiet and Meda seemed more brooding than usual. I didn’t ask. Annadore showed off her various coloring activities and Meda smiled at her, complimented them. She even smiled at me.
“Thank you for watching her,” she said, granting me a reprieve from her earlier annoyance.
About Money
Meda
“The blood test is essentially good news, because there’s no increase in antigen production. The little cancer tag cells we talked about last time, we’re not seeing those. The largest of the cysts, however, are worrying.” The doctor used his really calm, don’t-scare-the-rednecks voice. He treated us like idiots because we were poor.
“So, it’s basically the same as it was,” Mom said.
“I expect we’re going to see the same thing when we take a closer look at the biopsied tissue, but the blood work looks about the same.”
“That’s good, right? That it’s not any worse?”
“It’s not any better, however. We really need to do a better imaging test, and honestly, the best next step would be lumpectomy to remove the largest of the cysts.” Mom looked scared, even though she kept acting like it wasn’t a big deal. “Now, Mrs. Amos, again, I just want to caution you not to look at this too negatively. This is not like a mastectomy. We would make several small incisions to reach the cysts that we consider a concern.”
I hated the next question I had to ask next, because it was about money.
It turned out the answer was that Mom was out of luck. It pissed me off royally that the doctor could be that dense, to be talking to us about what kind of treatment we ought to do, when he had to know we couldn’t afford it. Or maybe that was why he was so careful to let us know that Mom’s problem wasn’t really serious, yet. Anyway, it was mostly a wasted day. It was good to know Mom wasn’t any worse, but she also wasn’t getting any better from us waiting to see what was going to happen.
When we were done with the doctor, Mom said, “Gosh, I’m hungry. I hate skipping breakfast.” Her idea of breakfast was the beer she almost drank.
“Let’s get some lunch, then,” Mr. Raleigh said.
He was so easy about everything that I said okay. We went to a Chinese place, because that’s what Mom wanted.
My fortune was: “All things beautiful will come to you.” Right.
Mr. Raleigh’s fortune said, “You have an iron will, which helps you succeed in everything.” He thought it was very funny.
“That’s not a real fortune.” Mom had this idea that fortune cookies ought to tell your future.
“You really don’t have to do that, Mr. Raleigh,” I said, when he reached for the check. I thought I’d made him mad, because he frowned at me.
“Just Bernie, okay? I hate it when people call me ‘Mr. Raleigh.’” He paid the waiter before I could say anything else and then he asked if we wanted to go to a movie. I tried to say no, because he’d already spent so much time waiting on us, but he said, “Honestly, I don’t have anything else to do. I’d like to see a movie.”
Thinking about going into his room and seeing him asleep, I wondered what he did in the evenings after we all went home.
He was a nice guy, but I didn’t know what it was about, his being so eager to help me out, and then paying for lunch and a movie. I figured it was about sex, because it’s almost always about sex. During the movie, I thought about how I felt about that. Even though he definitely wasn’t my type, he wasn’t bad. He was too tall and he wasn’t handsome, but he had a nice face, with those sad dog eyes and his crooked nose. I liked that he was so polite, and it didn’t hurt that he had money. Except he was a disaster waiting to happen, being who he was, being my boss, being so sad.
Proposition
We ended up seeing a children’s movie about some toys that come to life, the safest choice considering Annadore. She and Muriel at least had fun giggling and chattering. Next to me in the dark, Meda was tense, and I didn’t attribute it to me. Maybe Muriel’s visit with the doctor had been bad news. I had my own tension, and I wasn’t sure how I’d ended up sitting next to Meda. I’d intended to avoid it at all costs, but I wound up in the aisle seat with Meda next to me, and Annadore in between her mother and grandmother. Meda’s hair smelled like jasmine, and despite her tension and mine, the afternoon was pleasant.
We dropped Muriel back at her trailer, and then at Miss Amos’ house, Meda asked me if I wanted to come in and have dinner.
“It’ll just be our Chinese leftovers.” She said it so casually I didn’t feel guilty saying yes. The defense she had mounted against me b
efore was relaxed. Once we’d had dinner and Annadore had been put to bed, Meda tried to explain to me about her mother: “It bothers her going to the doctor. If I didn’t make her go, she wouldn’t. She’s really difficult about it.”
“She’s so hard-headed,” Miss Amos said from her corner of the sofa. “She shouldn’t be surprised that he left her. When she would get an idea in her head that was it. And mean, was she mean. Used to beat us with her shoe.”
“No, Gramma, no, we’re here. It’s Meda. It’s Cathy.” She whispered to me, “She’s talking about her mother.” When I asked if Muriel had been sick long, Meda thought about the question for a long time. “It’s hard to know, because she doesn’t always see things the way other people do. So you don’t know is it real or is it what she thinks?”
“You mean she’s a hypochondriac?”
“No, it’s that she thinks her cysts are caused by alien experiments. So it’s hard to tell how long she’s been sick, because she’s been telling me that the aliens were making her sick since I was a little kid.” Meda blushed and shrugged.
“She mentioned that, but she didn’t say what kind of aliens. Were they Grays? Or Reptilians?” It was a whim asking her, but I liked hearing that hushed tone of skepticism that was mitigated by concern for her mother.
“I had no idea normal people knew about this.” Meda laughed, her hand creeping up to cover her mouth.
“I watch a lot of late night TV,” I confessed. Because I have often been unable to turn off that link to the rest of the world, I’ve learned a lot about the fringes of humanity. “The Discovery Channel. They have several different shows about aliens. I like the ones where they have experts on to debunk the myths about aliens.”
“Those shows always get Mom worked up.”
“I particularly enjoy their absolute contempt for anyone who suggests it might be real. They always call it the ‘alien abduction phenomenon.’ And they’re so superior when they talk about ‘the power of suggestion and subconscious knowledge assimilation.’“ Meda looked amused, either by my monologue or by what a jackass I was. I shut up.
“The abductees are just as bad. Mom and her alien friends go on for hours. And if anyone’s ever stupid enough to disagree with them, they have this whole thing about how you’re ‘blind to the truth’ and how you’re ‘buying the government’s lies.’ They’re not mean about it, because they feel so sorry for you.”
“I like the shows with the religious experts, too. That’s funny. I mean, God’s an all-knowing, all-powerful alien overlord. If people can believe in that, how can they cast aspersions on people who believe they’ve been abducted by aliens? You talked to Jesus Christ. You got taken up into a big space craft.”
“But really, doesn’t it seem awfully far-fetched to you?” Meda said. “That aliens would keep coming down here and keep doing experiments on us? Which is what Mom always says they’re doing.”
“I think it’s interesting that we assume aliens wouldn’t do that, the body cavity probing and whatnot. Look at the Nazis. Germany had advanced technology compared to a lot of other countries, but Nazi scientists conducted terrible experiments on people. And our culture still does it, on monkeys and rabbits and all sorts of animals.”
“I know, a couple years ago somebody gave me a brochure with all this gruesome stuff in it about animal testing. I had to quit smoking. I needed to anyway, because of Annadore, but I couldn’t take it, knowing the tobacco companies were doing stuff like that to puppies,” Meda said.
It surprised me. I hadn’t pictured her as a smoker or an anti-vivisectionist.
“If the aliens keep probing us, maybe they haven’t gotten the information they want,” Meda said. “But you didn’t answer my question. What do you really think about it?”
I weighed all the possible answers as quickly as I could and decided on something that was very close to the truth.
“I think alien abductees are suffering from the social equivalent of religious persecution,” I said. “They believe. It’s a matter of faith. The archaeological evidence for Christian mythology is no more solid than the evidence for alien abduction. It fails to establish the existence of God. All it can do is establish that humans believed in God all those years ago.”
“Like quoting a Spiderman comic book to prove that Spiderman really exists.” When I stopped laughing, Meda said, “I can’t take credit for that. My brother always used to say that whenever Mom quoted her alien experts at him. But why do people believe? In aliens or God?”
“I think it’s about what these people are missing in their lives that they fill with this belief. With religion and with alien abductees, I think it’s an admission of powerlessness. Like a twelve step program,” I said. Meda scowled. “That’s just my opinion.”
“Admit that you’re powerless, that only your higher power is in control,” she said with contempt. “My mother’s been a recovering alcoholic almost as many years as she’s been an alcoholic.”
“Can I ask whether you believe?”
“Mostly I think it’s group craziness,” Meda said, and not one word more, before she stood up and walked down the hallway. After she was gone, I realized I hadn’t specified which belief system I was asking about.
I almost called out to her, but didn’t want to wake Annadore. I put on my coat and fished the keys out of my pocket, waiting for Meda to pop her head back out to say good-bye. Several minutes passed, and I was about to let myself out, when she came finally back. She had changed clothes and wore a soft white blouse and a long dark skirt that cast a shadow over her bare feet. She crossed her arms just below her breasts, so that I couldn’t avoid looking at them.
“Do you want to stay? The night?” she said.
I was mortified by the question, not so much an invitation as a gesture of acquiescence. She stood there, all solid practicality, waiting for me to say something, maybe waiting for me to follow her into the bedroom. Her physical mysteries were peeled away, leaving her spiritual mysteries intact, glowing openly on the surface. In a flash, I understood. There was a limit to how much help she would accept, unless I was her boyfriend. Sex was more expedient. She would be more comfortable, because it would be an arrangement she understood better than my attempts at friendship. I don’t know what I said or did to make my exit, but I knew I’d had a close call.
Lying in bed an hour later, I tried to remember the course of my precipitous flight, tried to remember what had been said. I thought of a hundred different, if not better, ways I could have handled it. I worried that she was offended, and I worried because among the hundred other scenarios I thought of was one in which I said yes.
He’s Gay
Meda
He looked so uncomfortable I thought, Oh, he’s gay. A lot of things about him made more sense when I thought about that. On the other hand, if he was gay a lot of other things didn’t make any sense. Enough guys have stared at my breasts, I guess I know what that look means, and he was definitely looking at them like that. I wouldn’t have asked him, except I thought that would put an end to it and I could stop wondering what he wanted.
“No, but thank you,” he said, when he got over being shocked. “So did you—are you—when’s your car going to be fixed?”
“Soon.” Just as soon as $300 fell out of the sky into my lap.
“Well, if you need anything, I mean any help or anything, let me know. I’d be glad to.” He sounded like the clerk at the hardware store.
“Thanks.” I hoped he’d go soon, but he stood there jingling his car keys, not looking at me.
“Thanks, for this. I enjoyed talking to you,” he said and actually blushed. So maybe he was just shy. I kept thinking, too, about what a little boy he looked like: so skinny and that ugly scar on his chest. Maybe he hadn’t been with many women, or any women. I guess a guy could get to be his age and still be a virgin.
“I enjoyed it, too.” I wanted to be nice, to make up for being so stupid. Who knew a person could have a halfway normal conver
sation about aliens?
CHAPTER THREE
MONUMENTAL INJUSTICE
Daily, I was held prisoner by Celeste, who made me review donation solicitations from museums. Celeste lived for that sort of thing, going over the fine print and consulting the inventory list. It was her pleasure in the thing that made me feel I was her prisoner. The donations in question were my belongings, my responsibility, and Celeste worked for me; I should have been able to dictate the agenda. I had to admit to myself, however, that she took my job more seriously than I did.
Celeste took most things more seriously than I did. A few days later I looked at my calendar and saw: “10:30 Mr. Cantrell/Holy Mount.” Mr. Cantrell had been hired to oversee the construction of my grandfather’s monument and he occasionally called to update me on the work being done. He’d suggested that I go out and see how things were “shaping up.” I wasn’t susceptible to the suggestion, but Celeste apparently was.
Not trusting anyone else to do right by him, my grandfather had made the arrangements three years before. Construction had been underway for almost eight months, and if my grandfather had waited, it might have been done in time for him. Instead, he was at an “interim” location. I didn’t know exactly what that meant, but I imagined him somewhere like the passenger waiting room of an Amtrak station, tapping his foot impatiently. He’d be checking his watch every few minutes, except I was wearing it.
Going to the cemetery would have been bad enough, but Celeste made the assumption that she would accompany me and I couldn’t uninvite her. I tried, and she wouldn’t let me. As we were leaving, however, we passed Meda in the hall and I saw a new opportunity. She refused.
“I have work to do.”
“No, come with us, it’ll be fun,” I said, trying for jocularity instead of outright begging. “You need a break, some fresh air.”