Above The Thunder Part 12

"I don't know. I don't have the foggiest idea." Anna took the next exit, drove down a side road and pulled into a closed Texaco station. She rolled down the window, reached for her cigarettes and stared into the fading twilight. The tree frogs and crickets called.

"Just like high school. h.e.l.lo, 1983." He laughed.

"What?" Anna said.

"Every empty parking lot is a potential lover's lane."

Anna snorted. "You're drunk."

"I am, it's true." He rolled down the pa.s.senger window, reached for one of her cigarettes when he couldn't get the hand-rolled tobacco to hold its shape.

"I guess I need to say that I don't want you here. I'd like to get to know Flynn, but I want only limited contact with her if you do decide to move to Boston. I mean, I'll be the kind of grandma who goes to the school plays, but not the kind who makes the costumes. Do you know what I'm saying? I can't relive all this again, Marvin. I'm sorry."

"Relive it?"

"Motherhood, grief, all of it. I don't want to be attached to anything anymore. I mean, it's like you're all back from the dead. All those years. All those years without a word. Who can live with that kind of worry forever? You have no idea. You have no idea how after a while absence turns into grief. And this sounds terrible, but it was just easier to imagine my daughter, that all of you, were dead. Mourning is easier than worry. Or any of those emotions you feel for the living." She remembered now how sweet Poppy was as a young girl, so loving and obedient, a near-perfect child. But it was as if Poppy had been the daughter of a close friend instead of her own. Like any mother she was haunted by the idea of losing her child-to death, to strangers, to terrible, irreversible accidents-but that was simply maternal instinct. Motherhood was a different state entirely, one that she never really inhabited. Poppy seemed part of her, certainly, but Anna suspected her attachment differed from other mothers. The child who had been joined to her body once continued to seem like one of the most expendable parts of herself. A growth, a tumor. Well, not that exactly. Nothing so malignant. An extra finger or toe that got in the way and was not useful or needed.

"I'm sorry, Anna," Marvin said. "I'm sorry for everything." He covered her hand with his own.

"Well," she said, and drew away. "That's that. I wish you well. I'd like updates and calls now and then." She lit another cigarette, stared at the old soda vending machine against the side of the gas station. It was one of the styles from the '50s or '60s that dispensed c.o.ke in bottles. Anna remembered how satisfying it was to drink sodas from a bottle, the icy slush cooling her palm, the cold gla.s.s against her lips. What an odd thing to still have around.

She put the car in gear, but stopped. "Actually, before we go, I need to see." She nodded to the old c.o.ke machine, dug around for some change. "I have to see if it works."

"No way," Marvin said. "That thing looks like it's been there since the Johnson administration." He took the change from Anna. "I'll go." Anna watched him walk away. Marvin did have admirable qualities. He seemed extraordinarily patient-with his unusual daughter, with his flighty wife, and even, Anna had to admit, with her. In all of her tirades against him, he never once lost his temper or yelled back. And most men would have written off the likes of Poppy years ago. There was a real n.o.bility in the way he loved his wife and daughter. Ironclad and without conditions. Even now when he talked about Poppy, there wasn't any trace of bitterness or resentment in his voice. Still, there was something about him that made her stop short every time. A darkness, an incomplete telling of the truth, she didn't know.

Marvin turned back, held up a cold bottle.

Anna got out of the car and walked over. "Amazing," she said, oddly elated. She found the opener along the side of the machine. The icy sweetness was how she remembered it. The smell of the bottle was the same, too. She pa.s.sed it to Marvin, who pa.s.sed it back after a sip, and they finished it this way, taking turns until it was gone.

Flynn was waiting inside her grandmother's house, watching from the living room window. She could hardly wait to start their new life together. Ever since Greta had let it slip earlier about the adoption, Flynn's excitement had grown over the afternoon until now, nearing eight o'clock and her bedtime, she was shaking with antic.i.p.ation. Maybe she and Anna would buy new clothes so she wouldn't have to always wear things from the second-hand store. She figured that they would move into a big house-Flynn saw it in her head. A huge place with many rooms, but also many spirit people. Flynn didn't mind living with the dead. She'd always seen them, and they her. There was a murdered woman here in her grandma's house. She once lived here, but somebody killed her in another country. Flynn had seen her in the bathroom a few times, and occasionally sitting beside her grandmother, especially when Anna did her doctor things. The woman liked Anna's microscope. Once, the woman touched Flynn awake with cold air. She was sitting right on Flynn's bed! Flynn held her breath. She didn't blink.

The woman said, Can you tell me what time the football game starts? Will you direct me to the train that will take me downtown? Flynn told the woman she could see her, but not help her, and after that the woman left her alone.

People got a free house from the government when they adopted a child, Flynn knew. Her father and Greta might get married, though Greta said she already had a husband. Flynn thought she was probably lying, since her house was too neat and kitchen table didn't have any mail or newspapers on it. This new life was going to be perfect. Every morning when she thought about Poppy she cried a little. Every night of her life she was sad. Each time her mother disappeared, Flynn felt so terrible she was sure she would die. This time, though, when Poppy got back everything would be different. It would be better. Poppy would live in the adopted house, and have her own room to do her drugs. She wouldn't have to feel guilty about not taking care of Flynn because other people could do that. Her mother's room would have two lights on the door: yellow and red. When the yellow was lit up, Flynn would go in and visit. Yellow meant high and happy. The red light would tell her to stay away. That was the color of angry cravings that made Poppy say things to Flynn she didn't mean.

Anna walked in just as "Can't Take My Eyes Off of You" was playing on the radio.

"Hi, Flynn," Anna said, then turned the volume down a notch.

"I've been waiting for you all day. I'm so glad you're home. I was getting worried."

"Oh?" Anna said. The girl looked drawn and ashy. "Are you feeling okay?"

"Where do you want this?" Marvin said, from beneath the twin-size mattress that Anna bought earlier. The lumpy mattress that Flynn was sleeping on was old and worn. There was no reason for the girl not to be comfortable during her stay.

"In Flynn's room," Anna said.

Flynn felt her heart beat wild with joy: already her grandmother had bought her a new bed. She had never had anything new in her life, except maybe for Christmas, and now here was something of her very own in her room. She hugged Anna around the waist, buried her face in her grandmother's sweater that smelled of lavender and smoke and garlic. "Is this going to be the adopted house?" Flynn imagined something bigger, but maybe people had to sign papers before the government gave you the big house.

"What, dear? Is it going to be what?" Anna looked down at her granddaughter. Her face was like a flower, open and radiating light. Every young girl was lovely, but this one even more so: she had her mother's deeply pigmented lips and cheeks, Marvin's dark curly hair. Her eyes were the deepest brown, almost black, and sparkling. Anna wondered how long it had been since she had touched a child. In ways like this, out of affection rather than clinical necessities. She remembered Poppy hugging her once or twice the way Flynn was now, her sharp head just under Anna's breastbone. So long ago.

"Greta told me," Flynn said softly.

"Told you what," Anna said, and touched the girl's warm cheeks.

"That I'm going to live here. With you. And her."

"What? No, I'm-"

"I've been waiting for you my whole life."

Something about the way she said it, or the events of the evening, or the touch of the child herself, made Anna melt a little. This, after all, was her blood. But more than that: she was the grandchild of her husband. Part of him. His genetic material coded in her DNA. Anna was surprised by how long it had taken her to remember such a self-evident fact. Any little bit of Hugh that shone through in the girl-a tilt of her head, an arch of an eyebrow, a preference for fruit at room temperature-any minuscule resemblance would be a little like having him back.

She sat down next to Flynn. In the car, Anna had told Marvin in no uncertain terms that he was to be out of her house in two weeks. A short visit was fine. No harm in that. It would give Anna and Flynn a chance to get to know each other, but it wasn't so long that she or the girl would form deep bonds.

Anna turned the radio back up. What was with the songs from the '70s she'd been hearing all day?

From the other room she heard Marvin singing along, and she joined him, the two of them sharing the song the way they had the bottle of c.o.ke earlier.

By the end of the evening, something felt as if it had shifted-as though something had been decided that she had no say in. It was hard to put her finger on what had changed. Except that when she looked up at the clock, three hours had flown by as she and Flynn rifled through Anna's closet and jewelry box, sifted through boxes that Anna had left unopened since moving.

"I love cooking," Flynn said, paging through an old Betty Crocker. She had put on an old dress that Anna had saved for sentimental reasons, one from the year when she and Hugh started dating. Flynn liked girlish things, to Anna's delight; Poppy never bothered with jewelry or perfume, both of which Flynn now had on abundantly.

"See this diamond ring?" Anna picked up the two-carat solitaire that had been Hugh's mother's. "This was your great-grandmother's. Someday it will be yours. Some day you'll have all this jewelry."

"Which day?" Flynn said, adding another bracelet to the stack already around her wrist.

"Tell me something, Flynn," Anna said, remembering how Hugh liked his fruit and beverages at room temperature. "If I told you I had a bowl of grapes for you in the kitchen, where would you look for them, on the counter or in the refrigerator?"

Flynn looked at her with an expression of amused disbelief. "The counter. Why would you keep grapes in the refrigerator?"

SEVEN.

THE NINTH ORDER OF ANGELS.

n.o.body at work, with the possible exception of Jane, knew Jack was sick. His health status was his business, and he planned to keep it that way. Jane, of late, had begun putting odd stresses in the middle of her sentences-"How are you?"-which led him to suspect that she'd talked to Stuart. Jack wasn't worried about indiscretion from Jane; in this conservative office, right-wingers and old New England stock, she had as much to hide as he did.

It had only been one month and eight days since he had left Stuart. Or more accurately, was shown to the door. Kicked to the curb, tossed away like a used Kleenex. One month, eight days, and twelve hours since Jack was forced to rely on self-pity rather than Stuart's ministrations to get him through the night.

From his open office door, Jack watched the partners file in. He surrept.i.tiously observed any unusual reactions or expressions from those who pa.s.sed by as he pretended to study stock quotes. Nothing had changed. The same people who always ignored him, ignored him still, the friendly ones waved, same as ever.

At ten o'clock he picked up the phone to call Stuart, then changed his mind. Jack had called him a few times-well, fifteen to be precise-in the first week, but Stuart hung up the instant he heard Jack's voice. Two days ago, Jack left a message on the machine asking Stuart to call him at work if he wanted to talk for any reason. That was probably a mistake, he thought now, as he sorted through the stack of files on his desk, bleary-eyed from too much vodka the night before. Stuart might a.s.sume that the absence of a home number meant that he was with someone else and didn't want to give out his home number. "I'm such an idiot!" he said, and banged his hand down hard on his desk. Why didn't he just indicate in his message that he didn't yet have a home phone number? Jack knew how Stuart's suspicious mind worked. "I am such an incompetent moron."

Molly, his secretary, appeared in the doorway to his office. She sat on the other side of the thin wall. "Did you need something? I had headphones on. Sorry."

"No. Just talking to myself." He waved her away. "Carry on."

After leaving Stuart, Jack spent two days in a hotel, which he thought might do as a makeshift apartment; it was cheaper than rent, and he had maid service, access to workout rooms, and a fully stocked wet bar. The lounge had a bartender called Ace, and Jack wanted to stay there if for no other reason than that; it was a name right out of Hollywood. Robert Mitchum himself couldn't do better than be served old-fashioneds by a guy who was almost typecast-he had everything except the Guinea tee and the wife named Maria. But in the end, the hotel made him lonelier. The common areas were full of budget-minded honeymooners too broke to afford Cancun, overweight, balding businessmen, newly divorced middle-aged women already hopelessly thick around the middle. Society's downtrodden. One night while walking off his insomnia, he came upon a boarding house with a sign advertising rooms rented by the week. The next day, he leased the entire third floor-six rooms in all. It was squalid, but by renting all the rooms he'd have privacy and s.p.a.ce; it was one thing to live in squalor, another to be cramped in a tiny room while doing so. Jack asked the landlord to paint the rooms. "Preferably off-white, in a Sherwin-Williams semigloss."

"Huh? Paint?" The landlord said. "What?"

"Paint. The liquid substance one applies to walls."

"Paint?" he repeated again.

"Can you come and get the junk out of all these rooms?" Jack said finally.

"Yeah, yeah, all that stuff'll be gone by when you come."

Of course the pile of cast-off possessions remained. Jack was both depressed and intrigued by the remnants of these other lives. There were the requisite broken hot plates and chipped mugs, torn shirts and stained, sprung mattresses, but there was also a room full of toys, all with something broken or flawed. He found six See 'n Says and not one had all the animals making the correct sounds. On one, the pigs mooed, on another, they brayed. The one Jack especially liked had the elephants chattering like Cheetahs and the monkeys roaring like lions. Few of the Lego blocks snapped flush, and all the Monopoly games were deficient in money or property. Jack called Stuart that first evening, wanting to tell him about the hard-luck toy salesman who had apparently inhabited this room, but he chickened out. Jack had ached for his partner at that moment. It was ridiculous, but he never could have imagined it would come to this, the enormity of his loss driven home by the pull-cord of a cheap, flawed toy.

Anyway, Jack had gotten what he wanted in the boarding house. There was a special kind of privacy that could come only from the transient zoned-out tenants he lived among. n.o.body noticed him or cared who he was. He didn't have to make small talk with the neighbors on the elevator. He wasn't even expected to make eye contact. An air mattress and some camping goods made things on the Zen side of comfortable. Early on, Stuart had sent some of Jack's clothes to his office, so Jack had his Armani suit and his five best Ascot Chang and Thomas Pink shirts. He had one pair of jeans, and a single sweater that still smelled of Stuart's careful laundering.

Jack turned back to the paperwork on his desk. One of these days he would have to go buy some more clothes; he'd worn the Armani suit to work every day for a month, and the pants, he saw now, were dusty at the cuffs, stained faintly with the red wine he had last night after he trailed Hector home to a shabby apartment house on the south end of Back Bay. The building had a locked front door. Jack waited over an hour before one of the tenants left so he could get in. There were fifteen mailboxes, and Jack guessed that H. Ramiriz & R. Elsa.s.ser, apartment nine, would be Hector's; the other mailbox with an H. had the last name of Johnson, so it was likely that apartment nine-third floor, he saw with dismay-was his boy's.

Since leaving Stuart, Jack drove by the Korean grocery every day at the same time. Last night was the first he'd caught Hector there. He parked across the street, watched as Hector chatted up some aging queen, flashed the smile that convinced you it was only for you that he showed it, some private store of sunlight he bestowed on you and only you. He wore a yellow shirt-he almost always wore yellow-and was even more handsome than Jack remembered, though it could be that the derelicts Jack lived among with their nicotine faces and boozy eyes made everyone look better by comparison. Hector was a little heavier, which suited him.

Luckily, Hector hadn't left with the man he'd been talking to and it was easy enough in the slow, congested rush-hour traffic to follow him. Jack needed to talk to him, needed to tell Hector he was sick, but it would be best, he'd decided, if he could do it on Hector's home ground and not some public street corner. After finding out Hector's street address and apartment number, Jack had driven home. He would talk to Hector the following night, or the night after, preferably after he learned who the R. was on Hector's mailbox.

Over the past few weeks Jack had determined that he must be in love with Hector. There was no other explanation for the heartsickness he felt for the boy. It was, though, a different kind of love from what he and Stuart shared: he felt Stuart's presence everywhere, in every thought, but Hector was all about absence, the blank s.p.a.ce where Jack could spill over, bleed past the careful outline he maintained with Stuart.

There would be no easy way to tell Hector the news. But he was prepared to do anything. He would take Hector in and the two of them would be able to live in fine style on Jack's income. Hector could have anything he wanted, do anything, work or not. What mattered was that Jack be able to care for him. There were things Jack wanted to teach him-Hector was still a boy after all, with a boy's childish ways and habits. Jack doubted that Hector had much exposure to museums and operas, or had ever been abroad. He could imagine nothing finer than watching as Hector's sensibility expanded, to be able to lead him over the final threshold of his boyhood. This fantasy, anyway, was the only way he could sleep at night.

Stuart, he'd learned through Dr. Mosites, had tested negative.

It was close to eleven before he actually started working. He picked up the stack of files from the IN basket. Sixteen, he counted, which should have been dealt with last week. His deadlines for these accounts had probably come and gone.

He picked up the Kobayashi account, his most demanding client, the company's top money-maker he'd been given a year ago when he was at the height of his confidence and success; everything he touched then turned to gold. The president of the firm, a crusty old Bostonian with a pedigree longer than G.o.d's, had said to him at the last Christmas party, loud enough for everyone to hear, "Jack, my wife's been bugging me to let you go shopping with her."

"Oh?" Jack said, bracing himself for what might come next. He wasn't out at the office of course. As far as he knew, only Jane knew anything of his private life. He smiled tightly, prepared himself for a barb about gay men and their instinct for glamour and accessorizing.

"Yeah, she says if you can get nearly a hundred per cent returns on sixty per cent of our flagship clients, what could you do at the return counter at Saks?"

People laughed heartily, Jack among them.

"She claims she's going to buy a mink coat and have you go with her to get double her money back."

Jack floated all evening; that was the closest he'd come-that anyone had ever come-to warmth from Hank Sherman.

He glanced down at the client information sheet stapled to the outside of the folder. This account was his baby, the one he never, until the past few weeks, let slide. He was aggressive and a.s.siduous and meticulous with this one-Kobayashi was persnickety, had already been through three investment houses before landing on Jack's desk. Showing losses in more than two quarters, Jack knew, would be the end. If there was one thing Jack had learned about j.a.panese corporations it was that you came in through the side door, so to speak, with the humility of a pizza deliveryman. You exchanged pleasantries, you asked about the weather, their wives, how their kids were doing in cram school and then you got down to business, but only as if you happened to be there by sheer coincidence: It appears I have a pizza for sale, would you like it? Seller and buyer both pretending the exchange of money was a low, but necessary thing.

He picked up the phone, dialed his secretary's extension. "I need you to ring Tokyo for me, Molly," he said.

"Again?" she said, her nasal Brooklyn accent grating on Jack's ear.

"What do you mean, again?"

"You asked me to do that yesterday morning. I already typed up the information from the conference call."

"Conference call?"

Jack could almost read Molly's expression through the wall as she said, "Yes, sir." His heart raced. He didn't remember anything other than in a kind of distant, dreamy way. He'd been so stressed that his memory was shot, his brain a sieve. Was this dementia of some kind? No doubt the alcohol and the late nights had something to do with it.

"Where is the report?"

"In your IN basket," she said, incredulous. "Typed, proofread, copied and distributed for the two o'clock meeting."

"All right then," Jack said. "And did I know about this meeting?"

Molly paused, took in her breath sharply. "It's on your calendar."

Jack thanked her, and hung up. Christ! He checked his schedule. A meeting with the senior partners and Hank himself penciled in Molly's neat handwriting. Did he schedule this meeting? And what was the agenda? Why couldn't he remember a G.o.dd.a.m.n thing from the previous two days?

Jack inhaled and exhaled slowly. Okay. This whirlwind. He'd been drinking too much, for starters, and spending too much time checking Hector's corner or driving by his old place to see if the lights were on, if Stuart was still awake. He took a few too many of the Percodan Mosites had prescribed to manage the pain of the shingles he'd recently developed. Swallowed them with vodka, no less. Still, for the life of him he couldn't remember if he called this meeting, or if Hank or one of the other senior partners had. He picked up the notes Molly had made of the conference call with Mr. Kobayashi. Apparently, Jack had suggested a larger, riskier stock portfolio, moving from steady growth to aggressive, questionable investments. The report was sixteen pages long, and half of Molly's transcription from Jack's dictation was followed by question marks, which meant he was mumbling. The gist of it was that Jack had recommended the company invest in the purchase of art and memorabilia; specifically, to authorize him or an agent of the firm to attend a Sotheby's auction of Jackie O's estate. He was horrified. Had he really convinced a state-of-the-art electronics firm to bid on pearl chokers and cigarette lighters? The only thing to do at this point was not back down, to make the case that estate investments would perform as well, and maybe outperform, blue-chip corporations in the long run. When in doubt, bluff your way into swaggering confidence.

Molly called him at two-ten to tell him that they were all waiting. "The meeting has already started, Jack. Hank wanted me to ring you."

"Okay. Thanks," Jack said, and grabbed the top four files on his desk. He smoothed down his hair, brushed away the dust on his clothes.

Molly looked at him suspiciously. He turned right, then left. "Conference room, third floor," she said.

"Right."

"Good of you to join us, Jack," Hank said, when Jack walked in. The six senior partners-Jack was the seventh-turned to look at him.

"Apologies for being late," he said, taking the seat across from Hank.

"Okay, then. As you all are aware, Jack has proposed estate and art investments for our top-shelf clients. I'll let him present the particulars of splits and returns and ratios of probable risk to gains." Hank nodded in his direction. Jack poured a gla.s.s of water from the carafe, glanced through the window behind Hank at the maples and oaks just beginning to turn.

"Ready, Jack?"

"All set," he said, squaring the folders in front of him.

Hank stood, cut the lights, and one of the partners slid a laptop computer in front of Jack, pulled down a screen in the front of the room.

"Oh, well actually, this presentation will not be with PowerPoint. I thought I would just give you all an overview, get general feedback and input before I proceed."