“You’re not the only one who feels that way,” she says.
“When was the last time you wanted me?” he says. “In the way that a woman should want her man.”
“I’ve never liked sex, you know that,” she says, looking at him in the mirror of her dressing table.
“Exactly,” he says, talking to her reflection. “But imagine how that makes a fella feel? The thing is, I like it and it would be nice to do it once in a while with someone who didn’t think it was disgusting.”
“It is my understanding that you certainly have found places to ‘do it.’”
“It always comes back to that, doesn’t it?”
“Doesn’t it?” she says. “Well, Arthur, when you talk about things that could hurt you, having relations with your boss’s secretary can’t be good for you, can it?”
“Men don’t see it the same as women,” he says.
“I’m sure,” she says.
He comes close to her, close to the dressing table where she’s sitting, putting cream on her face.
“Put some on me,” he says, almost begging for it. She’s not interested.
“You know how to take care of yourself,” she says, getting up and walking away.
He reaches out to pull her towards him, but everything goes wrong, and his hand connects with her face, like he’s taking a swing at her. It’s not the first time something like this has happened.
She has no reaction, she just takes it, and somehow it’s the lack of a reaction, the absence of anything human, that prompts him to do it again — this time with clear intention. Fingers rolled into a fist, he lays one on her, hitting her cheek.
She doesn’t fall; she stands there, barely swaying. “Are we done for the night?” she says and then spits — a single tooth lands on the carpet.
With nothing left to say, he goes down the hall, takes the blanket they used to use for summer picnics in the park out of the closet, and sets himself up on the sofa. Alone among the side tables, lamps, and wing chair, he sobs. Heavy tears like marbles running down his face as he talks out loud to himself, in a rambling incantation that stops only when he plugs his mouth with his thumb — sucking until sleep comes.
At noon, Wanda comes into the conference room, puncturing the reverie. “Time for lunch,” she says.
“That’s okay,” I say, “I’ll work straight through.”
“We break for lunch,” Wanda says. And I look at her. “There’s no one available to monitor you, so you need to come out for an hour. You may leave your materials as they are; we’ll lock the room.”
I ride down in the elevator with Wanda. As we’re getting out, I glance at her; she looks at me, concerned. “Do you need money for lunch?” she asks.
“Oh no,” I say. “I’ve got plenty of money, just no identification. Not to worry. Is there someplace you’d recommend?”
“There’s a salad bar in the deli across the street, and restaurants up and down,” she says, relieved.
I walk out of the building and into the light, realize Claire could be out there, and furtively duck into the deli, where I slip into the rotation of people walking in slow circles around the salad bar, vaguely mumbling like they’re meditating. There’s chopped lettuce, cherry tomatoes, hard-boiled eggs, steamy trays of meat in mysterious sauce, brilliant orange macaroni and cheese.
I think of Nixon’s short story about the diner and find myself putting meat loaf and mashed potatoes into my container, and then a large scoop of hot, heavy macaroni that softens the Styrofoam. I pay and go to the back of the deli, where I see a few guys sitting on empty plastic pickle barrels. “Mind if I join?” I ask, and they simply look at me and go back to eating. The food is delicious — beyond delicious, it is divine, a mélange of flavors like nothing I’ve ever had before.
“You look busy,” the Chinese woman from the deli says to me while I’m perched on the pickle barrel.
“I’ve had a very big day,” I say.
“You go to work, you win, win, win.”
I nod. She brings me a cup of tea.
“Do you know Richard Nixon?” I ask.
“Of course,” she says. “Without Nixon I’d be nowhere.”
“I’m working on Nixon.”
“Pick something,” she says. “Before you go, you pick for yourself for later.”
“That’s okay,” I say, not sure what she wants me to do.
She slaps a Hershey bar into my hand. “You like with almond?”
“This is great,” I say, looking down — almond.
“You do good work,” she says, nodding. “I know you from before, long time ago, you buy cookies for your wife.”
I’m confused.
“You don’t remember?” she asks, holding up a box of cookies. LU Petit Écolier. “You buy these.”
“Yes,” I say. “That’s right, I did. I used to buy those for Claire.”
“Of course you did,” she says.
“Was that here?”
“One block down,” she says. “We move, this much better location, big building right on top, big bankers, crunching numbers, need something to chew on.”
“I’m surprised that you remembered me.”
“I never forget,” she says, and then pauses. “I sorry for your life. I see you in the newspaper — one big mess.”
“It’s more my brother than me.”
“It’s you too,” she says. “You are your brother.”
“I’m okay,” I say. “Things are looking up.”
“See you later, alligator,” she says, walking me out the door.
In the lobby, after lunch, while waiting for Wanda, I peel open the chocolate bar and take a bite. I am amazed that the deli lady remembered me. It’s so strange that she knew who I was. She knew me and Claire and all about my brother. She felt sorry for me and gave me a chocolate bar. No one just gives anyone anything anymore. I take another bite, no longer worried what my suit looks like or that Claire is “out there” somewhere in her tight work skirt, her heels a little too high to be respectable. In the lobby I watch people come and go, thinking of Nixon, a man of his own time, wondering what he would make of the new technology for spying, for gathering information. I’m wondering if he’d still write longhand, wondering if he’d be surfing porn sites on his iPad while kicking back in that beloved brown velvet chaise longue in his secret Executive Office Building retreat, wondering what he’d think of all the women in power these days. After all, he was the one who said he didn’t think women should be in any government job — he thought of them as erratic and emotional.
The afternoon is spent reading multiple drafts of a chillingly grim novella, Of Brotherly Love, set in a small California town, in which a failed lemon-farmer and his wife conspire to murder their three sons, convinced that the Lord has bigger plans for them in the next world. After the youngest son dies, the middle boy catches on and tries to tell his older brother, who treats him as though he’s gone insane — violated the very word of God. When the middle boy comes home at the end of that day and his parents tell him that the oldest boy has gone to the Lord, the boy becomes terrified. Fearing for his life, he collapses and tells his parents that there must be a reason that the Lord, having taken two of his brothers thus far, has spared him. The Lord must have a plan for him. The parents, grief-stricken, nod and urge him to go up to bed. He says his prayers, then feigns sleep. He rises after midnight and slays first his father and then his mother, all the while fearing the hand of God. He murders his parents, then sets the house and barn afire and rides off in the family car, hoping to get across the border before the authorities find him.