Homesick for Another World(60)
“Yeah, okay,” he said, surprising me. “Plus your hat. And your coat. That should do it.”
“This coat is worth twelve hundred dollars.” I laughed. I held out the scarf and waved it around. “Here. And the money.” He turned his back and got in line for a cab, looking at me surreptitiously now and then, like a dog. It was a bizarre standoff, and I probably would have won out if I’d stood my ground. But I was impatient. My future was at stake. I came away barely clothed. He even took my Burger King card. The ottoman was a piece of shit, but that didn’t matter in the end.
? ? ?
Back in Brooklyn that night, walking home from the subway with my ottoman, I couldn’t help but smile at all the nice, happy people. Each face seemed spectacular in its originality, like a walking portrait. Everyone was beautiful. Everyone was special. It was cold and windy, and I had just a T-shirt on, but the moon was full, the sidewalks cleared of snow and sparkling with salt. A fleet of fire trucks blared by, deafening and cheerful. When I turned onto my street, there they were again. The flophouse billowed with smoke. Firemen strutted around the area, looking, I guessed, for a hydrant. My neighbors, the lovers from through the gypsum, stood together across the street from the blaze, naked but for towels, watching as flames leaped from an open window like a red flag. As I approached them, I could see that the girl’s eyes were pink and teary. She was thin and short, nose warped like she’d been punched, shoulders concave and white and goose-pimpled in the frigid air. Her skinny legs were plunged into mammoth black motorcycle boots, presumably belonging to the boyfriend, who stood beside her in the snow. He was perversely tall and lanky, his sinewy torso spattered with black moles like flecks of mud. He coughed and reached an arm down around the girl. The vertical disparity between their bodies made me wonder how they’d managed to have so much effective intercourse. An EMT came and gave them each a thick gray blanket. I wished for one myself but was embarrassed to ask.
“They think someone left their heater on,” the girl said to me, arranging the blanket over her shoulders, trembling.
My heart sank, but not completely.
“Was it you?” asked the boy. His mouth was like a horse’s mouth, frothy and shuddering with plumes of white vapor and spittle in the frozen air. “Did you start the fire?”
“Come on,” the girl said gently. “Don’t get feisty. It’s just a bunch of crap burning up. Who cares?”
The boy spit and coughed again and hugged her, his wide nostrils flared and dribbling with mucus.
I set the ottoman down in the snow and considered the boy’s question.
“I didn’t start the fire,” I said, like the dumb man I’d become. “This is an act of God.”
THE SURROGATE
“This suit will be your costume.” Lao Ting pointed to the black skirt and jacket hanging from the coatrack in the corner of his office. “You will tell people you are the vice president of the company. They may see you as a sex object, and this will be advantageous in business negotiations. I have noticed that American businessmen are very easy to manipulate. Has anyone ever told you that you resemble Christie Brinkley, the American supermodel of the nineteen eighties?”
I said a few people had. I did look like Christie Brinkley, and like Jacqueline Bisset and Diane Sawyer, I’d been told. I was five foot nine, 116 pounds, with long, silky light brown hair. My eyes were blue, which Lao Ting said was the best color for someone in my position. I was twenty-eight when I became the surrogate vice president. I was to be the face of the company at in-person meetings. Lao Ting thought American businessmen would discriminate against him because of the way he looked. He looked like a goat herder. He was short and thin and wore a white linen tunic and a belt of rope around his beach shorts. His beard was nearly white and hung down like a magical tail from his chin to his pubis. My previous job had been as a customer-service representative for Marriott Hotels, taking reservations over the phone at home. I’d been living in a studio apartment above a Mexican bakery in Oxnard. The view out my window there was a concrete wall.
“Your last name will be Reilly,” Lao Ting told me. “Would you like to suggest a first name for your professional entity?”
I suggested Joan.
“Joan is too soulful. Can you think of another?”
I suggested Melissa and Jackie.
“Stephanie is a good name,” he said. “It makes a man think of pretty tissue paper.”
The company, called Value Enterprise Association, was run out of the ground floor of Lao Ting’s luxurious three-story family complex on the beach in Ventura. It was a family business and had an old-fashioned quality that put me at ease. I never understood the nature of the company’s services, but I liked Lao Ting. He was kind and generous, and I saw no reason to question him. The job was easy. I had to memorize some names, some figures, put on the suit, makeup, use hair spray, perfume, high heels, and so forth. Everybody at the office was very gracious and professional. There was no gossip, no fooling around, no disrespect. Instead of a watercooler, they had a large stainless-steel samovar of boiling-hot water set up in the foyer. The family drank green tea and Horlicks malted milk from large ceramic mugs. Lao Ting’s wife, Gigi, gave me my own mug to use, like I was part of the family. I spent a lot of time sitting on the deck, looking out at the sea. It felt good to be out during the day, and to be appreciated. Lao Ting assured me that he would never expect me to engage in unprofessional activities with clients or vendors, and I never did. Everything was handled very honorably.