As Jennifer talks, Paul hears a slight slurring, a little lisp that he never noticed before. He looks at her. She starts to say some- thing-a small shiny spot flashes on her tongue.
"Jennifer," he says, "what happened to your tongue? You sound strange. Did something happen to your tongue?"
"I had it popped," she says.
"Popped?"
"Yeah, pierced. I had a stud put in."
"Oh," Paul cries out. "Oh."
"What's the big deal?" Jennifer says. "It's not like I haven't done it before." "I'm going to be sick," Paul says. He gags and sputters and spits into a Kleenex. The idea of pain is making Paul sick. "I feel sick. I feel so sick."
"Do you want some ginger ale?"
She is his Jennifer, his hope, his promise. She is what sold him on this house, this life, a dozen years ago. Jennifer at five, dressed as a clownish Raggedy Ann, playing on the grass; Jennifer dolled up, her cheeks painted with wide circles of zinc oxide, two large rounds of her mother's red lipstick dotting the middles, making twin targets on her cheeks, somehow made him think that life here would be good. He thinks of Jennifer, solid, reliable, resilient, their beloved baby-sitter. And now, Jennifer at seventeen, about to graduate from high school and venture forth. Jennifer with her body pierced, punctuated with the grammar of her generation.
"Ginger ale," she says, handing him the glass. "Elaine left it for you."
He sips. The straw is paper, wilted, limp. It collapses.
"Where is she? Where's Elaine? Where is everybody?"
"Elaine went to the hardware store, Sammy's at Mrs. Hansen's, Daniel's at Scouts, my mother has school till five-thirty, and I'm here with you."
"Are you baby-sitting me?"
"I guess so."
"Do you know what I did?" Paul asks. "Do you know why I'm lying here? Did Elaine tell you?"
Jennifer nods. "Can I see it?"
He is careful to show her the tattoo and nothing else. He keeps his cock covered. He peels the bandage down, flashing the pulpy sore.
She is speechless. Her mouth falls open. The silver stud in her tongue shines.
Quickly, he covers everything up.
"Did you shave yourself, or did they shave you?" she asks.
"I shaved myself."
The storm has passed, and the sun is coming out again, if only temporarily.
A ladder bangs against the bedroom window, a face presses against the glass. There's a knock at the door. The men in the yellow suits are on their way up. "Sorry to startle you," the front man says, his voice muffled by his protective hood. "But you'll have to evacuate the room."
The men in yellow throw open the windows and attach thick white hoses to the house, hoses that will pump clean air in and dirty air out, hoses that will breathe for the house, like a respirator.
Paul slides out of bed. The cleaning crew moves carefully around him, giving him a wide berth, as though he's contaminated. He starts for the stairs. A yellow suit comes galumphing after him. "You forgot this," he says, handing Paul his glass of ginger ale.
On the stairs Paul passes an unusually short guy; the pant legs of his yellow suit are doubled up, rolled over into bulging cuffs.
"Are you ill?" the short guy asks, again his voice muffled by his beekeeper-style hood. "Sometimes we clean a house after someone dies or after a murder, but never when the guy is still here."
"I'm fine," Paul says, pushing past, holding his ginger ale. "Perfectly fine. Just a little nauseated. I had some bad shrimp salad."
Farther down, Paul passes the leader of the pack, the head of the yellow suits.
"Did I hear the short guy talking to you?" he asks.
"Yes," Paul says.
"He shouldn't have done that. No one is supposed to talk. It's supposed to be very quiet."
"Oh," Paul says. "Well, I guess he forgot."
"It's my company," the guy says. "I invented it. I'm the president. Deep cleaning: We suck out your vents, boil your sheets, flip your mattresses. Dust, dead skin, microscopic bacteria-there are pounds of it in every room." The head honcho speaks so animatedly, so heatedly, that his face mask fogs up.
And Paul does notice that things in the house are changing-the musty fog is abating, the soggy, charred odor evaporating. The air seems easier to breathe, and in general everything is becoming more pleasant.
"It's a great thing," Paul says. "Out with the old, in with the new." He slaps the guy on the back. The yellow suit makes a fat, puffing sound.
"I hope you're satisfied," the man says. And Paul isn't sure if the man means it or if he's being snide.
"Hope so," Paul says, going down gently, holding himself as though he'd had surgery, a hernia repaired.
Jennifer is at the kitchen table with a set of children's watercol- ors and paper. Paul is afraid to look at her to spy the silver dot, to set his stomach on a spin. He sits sideways, looking out the window. He can't help but notice that the kitchen is spotless-more than spotless, it is shining brightly. The cabinets have turned a shade or two lighter, and there's something thin and neat about the air-it smells like a showroom.
"You're graduating soon, aren't you?" Paul asks Jennifer.
"Next year," she says.
"Do you know what you want to be?"
"I want to run a large company, like Sony or something. I want to dominate. My plan is to major in world history and then get an M.B.A."
"Really?" Is this the Jennifer of his hopes and dreams, the Jennifer of his imagination? "I thought you wanted to be a folksinger or a potter or something."
"Not for a living. I make pottery to relax, but cash rules. Do you realize that I've worked ever since I was five years old? When I was ten, I had two jobs, and last year I had three part-time positions in addition to being an honor student."
"Can you help me with my homework?" Paul asks, genuinely awed.
"As long as it's not math."
"I'm serious. I'm having a hard time at work," Paul says. "It's like there's animal breath on the back of my neck. I feel like I'm being watched. I need to figure out a few things."
"Like what?"
"What's important right now? What makes a consumer buy something?"
"The idea of something better, something more. Fantasy. Facts are irrelevant."
Paul dips a watercolor brush into the red paint and begins a picture of his own. "Go on," he says.
"Don't compare yourself or your product by saying, 'We're not going to tell you that our product is better than theirs.' Don't announce, 'We're not going to try and sell this or that.' Take a bigger step. Assume. There's power in assumption. Assume Your Right."
"Assume Your Right," Paul says, moving from the red into the black, dipping in. "Assume Your Right"-he paints it across the page.
In the distance there is the thump-a, thump-a sound of the air pump, beating like a heart.
"Somebody? Anybody?" Mrs. Hansen calls, rapping her knuckles against the side door.
"We're in the kitchen," Paul says. "Come on in."
"He's home," Mrs. Hansen announces, delivering Sammy.
Sammy is carrying a plate of cookies. "I baked," he says, holding out the plate. "Want one?"
The idea of food gets Paul's stomach going again.