So Long, Chester Wheeler(6)

“I certainly am,” I said.

“Then my work here is done.”

“You still have your key to this place,” I said, “don’t you? You never gave it back to me.”

“You never asked for it back.”

“Remind me to ask for it back,” I said.

Anna only rolled her eyes.

“It’s not my birthday,” I added.

“I know it. It’s not a birthday party. It’s a rent party.”

“Oh,” I said. “A rent party. I’m not a hundred percent sure what that is, but it sounds like something I could use right about now.”

I walked around for a time saying hello to people. Barry and Ted. Carol Linley, formerly from work. Some guy I’d never met. They had lots of condolences. Their foreheads furrowed when they told me how sorry they were. About everything.

Anna caught up with me again and handed me a margarita.

“Thank you,” I said.

“How did the job interviews go?”

“Not well.”

“I’m not sure I believe that,” she said. “You do a great interview.”

“I’m sure I was fine. What was bad about them was that they both had one single job opening and more than a hundred applicants.”

“Oh,” she said.

Knowing her as I did, I expected her to find something buoying to say. When she never did, the gravity of my situation settled hard on my poor, exhausted head.

She took me by the sleeve of my good job-interview sport coat and towed me over to the dining room table. There were helium balloons tied to my silver candlesticks, waving on long pink ribbons. They made an odd sound as they bumped together just below my ceiling, responding to the air currents we stirred up as we approached.

In the middle of the table was a silver bowl. There were checks in it. Personal checks, in several patterns and styles.

“Just to prepare you,” Anna said, “it’s not a lot. Everybody is strapped. But we did what we could, and anyway, it’s something.”

I sifted around with my fingers. Most of the checks were for twenty-five dollars and fifty dollars.

“Oh,” I said. “Here’s one for two hundred dollars from Chris Marsecki. That’s particularly nice, especially since I’ve never met a Chris Marsecki.”

“He’s that new guy I’ve been seeing. I hope you don’t mind my bringing him.”

“Mind? My short-term future appears to rely on it.”

I picked them all up and shuffled through them, doing the math in my head.

“I know,” Anna said. “Believe me, I know. It’s only about half a month’s rent.”

“Well, I’m not going to complain. It puts me half a month closer to making rent than I was before. Besides, it’s the thought that matters, and . . . something something. No, seriously, though. I mean it. People are helping as much as they can. I appreciate it.”

Paul Segal raised his glass to me on his way back from the kitchen. “Sorry it can’t be more, Lewis,” he said, and kept walking.

“Don’t feel bad,” I called after him. “You’re doing better than I am.”

When I looked back at Anna, I caught her in a deeply pitying expression. She wiped it away as quickly as she could, but it stung.

“You’ll find something,” she said.

“I did get one job offer.”

“Really? That’s great!”

“But—”

“No buts, Lewis. Don’t ‘but’ it. It’s a job. Maybe in the short run you can’t afford to be too picky.”

“You’ll change your tune when I tell you what it is.”

“If it’s honest work, though . . .”

“Yeah, it’s honest work. Caretaking for Chester Wheeler.”

I watched as her face changed. She looked much the way I imagined she would if I had taken the top off a very ripe trash bin positioned directly under her nose.

“Oh,” she said.

“Yeah. Oh.”

“That desperate you’re not.”

“Not yet anyway.”

“Don’t you need some kind of training for that?”

“They’re pretty much looking for any warm body at this point.”

“Hopefully not yours,” she said.

“No. Hopefully not mine.”

“Because that would be really . . .”

“You don’t have to finish that sentence,” I said, despite the fact that she had pretty much trailed off and abandoned it anyway. “It’s not as though I haven’t been imagining it.”

We stood still a moment, purposely not meeting each other’s eyes.

“Well,” I said when the silence got awkward. “It’s my party. I should go mingle.”



The following morning the phone blasted me out of sleep. Possibly for that reason, or possibly because I was still mostly dreaming, it took me a minute to realize it was the phone.

When I understood I could deal with it without getting up and getting dressed, I reached over and picked up the receiver. By then it was on about the fifth ring.

“Hello?” I said. I’m pretty sure it sounded bad. No, I take that back. I’m completely sure.