The Duration (22 page)

“You mean lie to him?”

Jimmer grimaced like I was a particularly disappointing child.

“You know what will happen. You can say you checked the safe and it was empty. Leave it at that. Maybe then he can let go of it, get himself straight.”

We heard voices coming down the corridor from the steam rooms. The corporate types, exploring from the sound of it. I folded my arms and blew through my cheeks. Jimmer walked over to me.

“Dude,” he said. “Do whatever you think you need to do.”

He clapped me on the shoulder.

“Just, you know, consider the repercussions before you do it, okay?”

He checked his watch and wiggled his shoulders.

“I have a date with a yoga class. Loosen up the old chakras.”

He headed for the corridor back to the spa.

“See you back at the room, okay?”

I nodded to him. He raised his eyebrows at me.

“Okay?” he said again.

“Okay,” I said.

He smiled.

“Make good choices.”

The corporate types emerged from the corridor, three men and a woman swaddled in white robes. The men were red-cheeked and damp, laughing. The woman trailed them, dry, a little slow, eyeing the hot tubs skeptically.

They nodded at us and fanned out across the baths, emitting various sounds of wonder. One of them approached the egret, regarded it closely, seemed to sniff at it. Jimmer took the opportunity to drift back out of the room.

“What's that?” said another, looking at the horn. “A tusk?”

They had circled back to the center of the room, around the hot tubs.

“This is what I'm talking about,” said the third, a heavyset fellow in his fifties, probably. “A soak tub. None of that eucalyptus business.”

“What's that?” the birdwatcher asked, standing at the edge of the cold dip pool.

“That's an ice plunge,” said the heavyset dude. “They got one of these at the club down on Necker. You don't want none of that, unless you want your balls back up in your belly.”

He laughed, and the other two men joined him. The woman hesitated for just a second, just long enough to compel the rest to acknowledge her. Then she laughed too, indulgent with a hint of derision, and the rest of them stopped.

It was time for lunch.

I wandered back up to the dining room. Six of the tables were filled. Some guests I recognized—the movie star, talking to himself, the Asian trio, the mother and daughter. The others seemed looser, more relaxed. At the entrance, Tudd appeared and put his hand on my shoulder.

“Welcome, Mr. Johansson, to Sustenance at Head-Connect.”

He led me to an empty table. The utensils were silver. The linens were starched. A personalized menu lay on my place. My name was written across the top in some midcentury font. Beneath it was an abbreviated list of my vitals—age, height and weight, body mass, length of stay, a series of codes I couldn't decipher. On the back was a schedule of my workout times and a place for me to write in the elective activities I'd chosen.

“Jesus,” I said.

“No grace here at Head-Connect,” said Tudd. “We're nondenominational. We do, however, promote conscious eating. We find that even in sustenance, it is imperative to take purpose and proportionality into account.”

I looked at the list again.

“I got to tell you, man. This is a depressing way to start lunch.”

Tudd smiled.

“Exactly,” he said. “But let me check with you again at the end of your stay, see then whether you're depressed.”

He stood up.

“Now please excuse me. Should you have questions, just ask any helper. I will see you for your afternoon workout.”

He smiled at me and left.

As soon as he'd cleared the dining room, a young woman brought beets, thick and bleeding on a white plate. Coral salt. A thimbleful of yak butter. I looked at the menu again. Lunch was three courses. The beets were followed by Kale-Smoke over Dorado, which sounded more like a Western than an entree, then sorbet with cilantro foam.

“Excuse me,” I said to her as she set the plate down.

She was young, a kid. A healthy glow to her cheeks. There was something vaguely Canadian about her.

I picked up the menu. Under my name, in the list of abbreviations, I pointed to one of the numbers I didn't understand, an abbreviation that read “.382 bvo.”

“What's this one?” I asked, and put my finger to it.

The young woman looked where I was pointing and squinted her eyes. Then she smiled meekly and begged off.

“Sorry,” she said, shrugging. “I'm afraid I can't. Sorry.”

“Is everything all right?” asked Ava Winston, who'd slipped in behind me.

I turned in my chair.

Ava nodded to the server, who excused herself. I motioned for Ava to sit.

“What's this number?” I asked Ava, pointing at it again.

She looked.

“I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you,” she said.

“You don't know, do you?”

She smiled.

“I do know.”

“You don't.”

“I do too, and if you're not careful I will tell you. What was it again?”

I showed her.

“Hmm,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “That explains a lot.”

She held that pose for a second, then laughed.

“Don't worry about it. We'll have it up by the end of the week.”

I couldn't tell if this was bullshit or not.

“Dude, come on,” I said, and she slapped her leg and laughed. She was a lot prettier than I remembered.

I cut into my beets.

“I hope these will help,” I said.

She chuckled and looked at the plate.

“Nowhere to go but up,” she said, and laughed a little more.

“Wow,” I said, lifting my fork.

She calmed herself and looked around the dining room.

“I have to do the rounds,” she said. “Everything good so far?”

I nodded, chewing. The beets were pretty great, actually.

“Where was Jimmer this morning?”

I swallowed.

“Jimmer's in his own world.”

She nodded. “We get that a lot. How about you? How's Tudd treating you?”

“Dude is killing me.”

She smiled.

“I assigned him especially for you, Pete. You'll thank me later.”

It was nice talking to her. We had an old bond, a shared history, but this interaction felt independent of that. It felt natural, unfettered, modern. Would she be busting on me in this vaguely flirtatious way if I was a complete stranger? I liked to think so. This is what attractive, well-adjusted people do.

“Let me thank you tonight,” I said. “Buy you a drink?”

Ava's eyes sparkled a little bit, but then she pursed her lips. “No alcohol on campus. And certainly no fraternizing with the guests.”

“No alcohol?”

She shook her head.

“And no caffeine?”

She raised an eyebrow.

“Well, that one's negotiable. But generally speaking we limit that stuff. It's important to walk the walk, you know? Solidarity.”

I showed her my menu again.

“Do you have one of these?”

She pointed to her head.

“Mine's all up here.”

“Tell me something, Ava,” I said, playing out the hand. “Are you, like, incredibly healthy?”

She snorted, endearingly.

“Well, I still have my weaknesses, Pete So Handsome. But let's focus on you.”

She stood up to leave.

“So no on the drink, then?”

I clicked my teeth like she didn't know what she was missing.

“You're still that guy, aren't you?” she said. But she was smiling.

I gave her my best Han Solo.

“And then some.”

Ava Winston shook her head, a kind of nonverbal “please.” I was playing to my strength, frustrating but irresistible. Seemed to be getting it half right.

She sighed.

“Enjoy your lunch, Mr. Johansson.”

She walked off to check in with another table. I didn't even try not to watch her.

I finished my lunch and checked my schedule. I had a couple of hours before my next date with Tudd and nothing on the calendar. The options were numerous: Nordic in the back woods, entry-level aikido, mindfulness meditation, a documentary on the Rarámuri Indians of Mexico, who could run for three days straight. I walked up the pebbled path to the guest wings, considering a nap.

It felt good to flirt with Ava Winston. Surprising, but good. Good to focus on the future. She was fun. She knew where I came from, and came from the same place, sort of. But she'd transcended it, gotten herself here, which technically was the same place but different. This place had helped her. I revved up my inner Jimmer. Look at this beautiful establishment. Look at this attention to self-realization, this focus on what tomorrow could be. Look at these women who knew our measurements and accepted them. Was it not wonderful?

I thought of Chickie in his cold lockup. If I could get him here, would it help? No. If I brought him here, if he kept digging around, he'd find out about the horn, and then he'd never let it go.

I ran through the other options. Let's say we just told Head-Connect the whole story. Let's say I got a sit-down with Arvindo Blanc or Tudd or whoever was pulling the strings in Nevada and explained how my high school buddy really wanted to return their mid-six-figure artifact to the unmapped woodland because that's where he thought it belonged. Would they indulge us? What if we offered to replace the horn with something of equal value?

Hah.

What if I just let the thing go? As Jimmer said, let it cease to exist. Could it just not exist, even though I'd seen it? Wouldn't that be better?

That would be better.

I entered the guest wing and saw the movie star and the mother-daughter hustling across the lobby. The movie star looked at me. I nodded to him.

“Beginners aikido?” he said, pointing to a hallway that led to some distant studio. “About to start.”

“Yeah,” I said, turning to follow along. “Cool.”

“Tell the story,” Jimmer said. “The one about the Beechers.”

It was later in the day. Jimmer, Unsie, and I were sitting at one of the Heirloom's round tables with Vishy Shetty and her assistant and the minor movie star and the Asian guys and a couple of regulars, telling ghost stories. Popcorn from a shallow bowl was scattered like sawdust across the table. Ginny Archey brushed kernels aside and set down a cold pitcher of beer.

“I know that one,” Ginny said. “I hate that one.”

Jimmer smiled. He'd sprung Vishy Shetty from Head-Connect on the premise that he'd show her Edith Wharton's estate, a small chateau called the Mount, hidden at the end of a long path through the woods. A famous American director with an India fetish had recently announced his intention to do a remake of
The Age of Innocence
, and Vishy Shetty was eyeing it as her comeback vehicle.

Jimmer knew all that because Jimmer knew everything. He had two phones and eight screens on him at all times.