Four were from New York (including John and the artist Milo); one was from Minneapolis and one had met Osbourne, she said, in the San Francisco gallery where she worked part-time as a receptionist. One was a published novelist, though John had never heard of him. A former copywriter from Ted Bates said he had quit that job a year ago to write speeches for Al Gore; he was the one who pointed out to the group the self-evident fact that they were all white.
“The provocateur,” whispered the woman sitting next to John, at the end of the table. “Stirring up trouble on the shop floor, when we don’t even have a shop floor yet.”
“Have you seen the place?” John asked her quietly. She looked at him in surprise, and he realized it was because of his accent.
“Yesterday,” she said. “It’s gorgeous. Nice to work in a place you’re not appalled by, I guess, but I’m a little worried I’ll be too afraid to leave a McDonald’s wrapper lying around. Or even leave it in the garbage, for that matter.”
“So you’ve already agreed, then? I mean to come down and work here?” The others were engaged in a different conversation.
She blushed. She wore circular glasses, with plumb-straight blond hair and the strong, slightly bottom-heavy build, as John thought, of someone who’d excelled at field hockey as a girl. “Last night,” she said. “About six hours after I got down here from New York, actually. It’s kind of embarrassing how quickly I caved. I hope I know what I’m doing. What about you?”
John shrugged. “I’ve been here about six hours myself now, I guess,” he said, laughing.
“Where’d you come from? You sound like you came from across the street.”
“Manhattan, same as you. I’m John Wheelwright, by the way. I work at what used to be Canning Leigh & Osbourne.”
She wiped her fingers on her napkin before holding her hand out to him.
“Elaine Sizemore,” she said.
He wouldn’t realize until much later that that was the moment that decided it for him. In fact, by the next morning, when Osbourne stood with his hands on the doorframe of John’s rented car, he still hadn’t given his answer yet. Osbourne didn’t push.
“You go on home and talk things over with your wife,” he said. John didn’t correct him. “I know you want your future to include her. Anyone would understand that. It was a pleasure to spend some time with you down here.”
John walked back into his apartment and dropped his bag. It was eight-thirty on a Sunday night; Rebecca wasn’t there. He had told her, he was sure, what time he was returning.
When she came back some two hours later, she smiled weakly at him. “How was your trip?”
“Fine. Where have you been?”
Their voices weren’t angry; they were cautious, simulated voices, to ward off silence.
“The movies. I went to Film Forum to see Mr Death. You said you weren’t interested, so.”
She hung her jacket in the closet. The silence was like a buzzing. “How was it?” John asked.
“Great,” she said tonelessly. “You should see it.”
She went into the bathroom, and he waited for her to come out; but when she did she went directly to their bedroom. After a minute he followed her in. She was already under the blankets, reading.
“Do you not want to talk about this now?” he said, standing over her.
“I’m scared to talk about it,” she said. But then, when he didn’t leave, she said without looking up, “So are you going down there? I mean to take the job?”
“I want to go. Yes. I’m not making any demands here.”
“Oh, come off it,” she said.
In five days he and Roman were off to Omaha. Their work was already done. Canning must have discussed it with some of the others, because that week Dale, then Mick, then a few more of the creatives stopped by John’s desk and asked to see a preview.
“Is it true?” Dale said.
Roman jumped up and lifted gingerly from a wooden crate a board with a huge, soft-focus beauty shot of a hamburger behind the words “Come on. It’s in your genes.”
“Oh my God,” Dale said, grinning. “You know what it’s like? It’s like you’re trying to out-Osbourne Osbourne.”
Roman stuck a pen between his teeth, cigar-style. “Honesty, baby,” he said. “That’s the play.”
John didn’t force the conversation with Rebecca; in fact, they were barely speaking. He had made up his mind he was going to Charlottesville, somehow, without making up his mind that he was willing to go without her. On Thursday evening Rebecca walked out of the bedroom, eyes red, and told John he had a phone call.
It was Osbourne. “My,” he said. “Is it a bad time?
“No, Mal, not at all.” Rebecca, in her nightgown, was out of the room again.
“If you’re sure. Your wife sounded somewhat … cold. Were you fighting?”
“Avoiding fighting, I suppose.” He had a thought, and with everything so fraught it seemed an appropriate time for boldness. “Have you ever been married, Mal?”
“Me? Yes, once. So look, I’m anxious to hear your decision. I’m willing to go as far as I can to accommodate you, but on the other hand we’re approaching our start-up date and if you’re not with us I need to make other plans.”
John stared down the empty hallway.
“If it affects your decision at all, the others you met this weekend have all signed on, with one exception, the speechwriter for Gore.”
The hard part wasn’t deciding; he had already decided. The hard part was saying it, letting that decision start to ramify. Turning his back on everything.
Hurting her.
“So what do you think, my boy?”
“All right,” John said. “Yes.”
Osbourne moved immediately into a plan of action, urging him to fly down again as soon as possible to find a home, offering to cover half his moving expenses. The venture, as John had seen, wasn’t up and running yet, and wouldn’t be for another two or three months; since John would of course get no severance for quitting, Mal suggested that he not mention anything at Canning & Leigh about his plans for at least another month.
In the bed, reading a magazine in the half-light of the lamp, her face set, Rebecca looked startlingly old.
“That was Osbourne,” John said. She let the magazine fall and started crying. He stood beside the bed in silence.
“You won’t do it, will you?” she said angrily. He wasn’t sure what she was talking about. “You won’t break through it. You’ll make me do everything. Right up until the time you leave me you’ll be talking like fucking Ozzie and Harriet, trying to make everything seem like it’s someone else’s fault, someone else’s decision.”
“Who said anything about leaving you?” He hated himself now.
“Come on! You just took that job with him. I heard you! What, do you think there’s two of you or something, is that it?”
John knelt beside the bed. “Please come with me. I want to stay with you. I’m in love with you. I want to start a family with you. You act like Mal Osbourne is some lover or something, some third party that’s come between us. It isn’t like that. It’s in me. I love you and I can’t be happy here anymore. Maybe that sounds like two people to you, but it isn’t, it’s one.”
Rebecca pulled him into bed beside her, weeping; he took her in his arms, kissed her lips and her face, stroked her hair; then, to his surprise, she was pushing his pants down and pulling at him furiously, hungrily — in tears but with desperate speed she came loudly and then so did he. It was probably the best sex they had had in years. John had no idea what to make of it.