My Monticello(16)

But now it has grown too cold, and the fountain has been turned off for the season. Last time he drove by, he could no longer even see the birds. He imagines they’ve flown onward in their own tight wedge toward warmer locales, or else been collected, disposed of.

The absence of the swans makes Mr. Attah imagine doing something rash, or irrational.

The place of his daughter’s employment is large like a warehouse, lined up between a Chinese takeout establishment and a beauty parlor, the lot mostly empty when Mr. Attah arrives. He parks at the far end, not having the petrol to waste. Technically this is a store that sells paper, but here in Xandria, every retailer brims with indecision. Paper, yes, in all shades and stacked in high reams, but here too are colorful rubber bands tangled into grapefruit-sized masses. Here are clear tubs of hard, salted pretzels—for some odd occasion that he cannot begin to fathom. Mr. Attah saunters up and down each aisle. In this way he can and has killed hours.

At a far row, he pauses to examine the tiny sets of pillows, for under one’s wrists, FOR EXTREME COMFORT WHILE TYPING! Or so the label suggests.

“Ah, Mr. Attah! I thought that was you!”

He recognizes the voice at once and turns toward the hearty handshake that will surely accompany it.

“Mr. Kosta!” he answers, his hands already within the warmth of the manager’s grasp. The men shake vigorously, almost as if—Mr. Attah feels certain—in anticipation of a brotherly embrace.

Mr. Kosta is not tall in stature, but broad with a king’s belly. His face is the translucent yellow of onionskin. On one occasion, Mr. Kosta invited Mr. Attah to lunch—just next door in the Chinese takeout, but still! The two talked easily of politics and business, Mr. Kosta harping on the woes of Athens, where he was born. All the while they sipped tea so scalding Mr. Attah could sense it warping the Styrofoam it waited within.

Mr. Kosta brings his hand to his face, nodding. “Let’s see: ergonomics? We have more workplace solutions on aisle seven-A. Depending on what you’re looking for…”

Mr. Attah feels his top lip perch happily on his gums. His chin dips into a nod. “Yes, yes!” he hears himself saying, though the term ergonomics escapes him. “I am finding everything!” he says, hoping that Mr. Kosta will not ask more about what he seeks. Mr. Attah leans in closer. “Is the girl, Justina, working out?” he says. “Does she continue to perform … passably?”

For months now Justina has worked regular hours at the paper store. Still Mr. Attah asks this question as if his daughter’s tenure is probationary—as if he and Mr. Kosta together will complete her evaluation. Even so, he feels a flush of fatherly pride when Mr. Kosta confirms that Justina is responsible beyond rebuke. “Hardworking young woman you’ve raised!” Mr. Kosta claps him on the shoulder.

“Good man,” Mr. Attah answers, his voice going highish like a youth’s. “I think I may be able to procure the rest of the morning off, through lunch, I mean. Would you like—how do they say it here—to grab a bite?” As soon as Mr. Attah says this, cold pearls of sweat erupt around his hairline. What was he thinking? He can barely afford lunch for himself. Or maybe it would be worth it, to sit and talk and eat like a man.…

But Mr. Kosta waves him off, smiling but firm. This refusal makes Mr. Attah doubt all of the man’s earlier magnanimity: All this time, has Mr. Kosta, in fact, been humoring him? Then Mr. Kosta clasps his hands again, a warm shake like kinship.

“Another time, Mr. Attah,” his daughter’s boss says.



* * *



Some days, there is the in-between time when Justina is most likely on her way to work and Alex is perhaps not home yet from school when Mr. Attah isn’t sure if he can go back to the flat or not. This is because he told the boy—and only the boy—that his shift at work changed. This mis-clarification was only to explain why he might be home in the early evenings. But after saying this, Mr. Attah realized that, for almost every hour on the clock, at least one of his children expected his absence. Watching Mr. Kosta walk away, Mr. Attah feels he can no longer stay in the store, nor can he go back to their cramped apartment. He forges a path toward the front registers, commandeers the store phone line, prompting the woman working there to dial the number for Alex’s school.

By the time he travels back, a wall of yellow buses awaiting dismissal dominates the front loop. This time the secretary greets him promptly, “Oh, they’re waiting for you.” She rounds her desk, parading away from the principal’s office so that Mr. Attah has to rush to follow, tracking her through a maze of hallways. He keeps an eye out for his own son, but only glimpses the sandy-haired boy, the one whose mother marked him so lavishly with her kiss.

The secretary stops at a door, pushes it open. The room beyond hushes.

As he steps in, a woman’s voice trumpets, “Ah, Mr. Attah! You’re here!”

Now he can see Principal Vasquez, standing near the center of a conference room. She is flanked by the same ponytailed junior teacher who tried to bamboozle him with claims of his son’s shortcomings, all those weeks ago. The room is, in fact, crowded with people, edging around a long oval table. Here are Counselor Hayes and Nurse Calhoun. Here is his son’s homeroom teacher, whose name whizzes past his ear like an insect. Here is Alexandria City’s Parent–Peer Mediator, along with a school-based police officer, in uniform, whom Ms. Vasquez admits to having invited. Mr. Attah squints fiercely at each person.