The Egg Code (6 page)

M’D HASSE: How much do you think you’d sell this book for?

D STIESSEN: Oh, wow. I have no idea. I think probably someone else would make that decision.

M’D HASSE: Ten dollars?

D STIESSEN: That seems a little high.

M’D HASSE: Not if you put it out in hardcover first. You could charge ten dollars for the hardcover version, and then bring it out again in paperback, but for less money.

D STIESSEN: Yeah, I guess that’s how they do it.

M’D HASSE: Not that I know. I’m just guessing. I don’t know anything about it. My father owns a lot of books, two whole rooms full, but they don’t have the prices on them because they’re all old.

D STIESSEN: What kind of books do you like to read?

M’D HASSE: Just whatever we happen to have in the house. My father, as you can imagine, has quite a collection. Publishing is a huge business. You should get into
that.
The books he has, they’re just for show. I mean, you don’t have to read them, they’re just there because they’re old. I don’t know anything about it, but it just makes sense that when things get older, they get more and more valuable, until eventually they’re worth so much that most people could never even dream of buying them, and that’s when they’re considered priceless, which doesn’t mean that they’re not worth anything, it’s just the word that people use to describe things that are really valuable. That’s just what I’ve heard. I don’t know anything about what I just said.

D STIESSEN: That’s really interesting.

M’D HASSE: It is! Oh, I just love books. I pick one up and look at it, then I go on to the next one. Sometimes I like romances, because my mom reads them too, and we can get together and talk about the ones we both read, “Oh, I liked this one,” “Oh, this one wasn’t so good.” The best ones always take place a long time ago, in a far-off land, or maybe with people different than the ones here in Hedgemont Heights. Even the coloreds, the slave-ship romances, because when you read about their struggles and how they breed and sometimes fall in love with the man who runs the plantation, then you can get a sense of what these people are really like. I like to learn about all sorts of different people. Coloreds—oh, and also the Indian books, those ones are really exciting! I probably sound like a real idiot, don’t I?

D STIESSEN: No, of course not. I think it’s good that you’re interested in...a variety of things.

M’D HASSE: I’d really like to read your book. I bet you could sell it for fifteen dollars, even.

D STIESSEN: Well, we’ll see. That’d sure be nice.

M’D HASSE: Would you like to see the library?

D STIESSEN: Oh yeah! That’d be swell!

M’D HASSE: I’ll take you inside. Don’t be shocked by all the Mother Marys lying around. My parents, they’re not originally from America. When they first came over, they really got into religion in a big way.

D STIESSEN: Yeah, well, that sometimes happens with people.

M’D HASSE: That’s how I got my name, obviously.

D STIESSEN: Donna?

M’D HASSE: It’s actually Madonna, but I changed it when I got my driver’s license. Madonna always makes me feel like a statue, like someone who’s already dead. Not like a real person, y’know?

D STIESSEN: I think it’s beautiful. It’s unique.

M’D HASSE: No, you’re just saying that because you’re a gentleman. And anyway, you’re not to call me that. Donna will do just fine.

D STIESSEN: All right then. Donna it is, and Derek for me.

M’D HASSE: Donna and Derek. My, aren’t we getting along nicely! Here, I’ll show you the library in a minute. Let’s go upstairs.

The Favorite Scarf

1980

The scarf was not one of Derek’s favorites. Thinking it over, Donna realized that her husband did not really have a favorite scarf. This was wrong, she felt. A man should have a certain scarf that he values over the rest. This is what it means to be an adult. To cherish things. A treasured set of mittens. An old slicker. Derek did not appreciate the importance of objects. Walking the floors of their three-level apartment in North Crane City, his eyes would dance and hover over the furniture, not seeing, not caring. Donna sometimes imagined the inverted reflections of stock figures creeping over the lenses of his reading glasses. Derek had that look, the look of a man forever watching prices rise and fall.

So, lacking a preference of his own, Derek generally left such decisions to his wife. This was fine with her. She enjoyed dressing her man. Whenever she saw his picture in bookstores and airport terminals, it made her happy to know that she had picked out his clothes herself, and could go right upstairs and pull the same shirt out of the closet, while the other women could only stare at the facsimile, the $2.99 imitation in their hands. With loving eyes, she inspected the cover of his latest publication.
If I Say You Can Do It—You Can Do It!
Such long titles. Well, that was the business. She remembered the picture on the back jacket. She had chosen the tie that morning—another sleepy nine a.m. photo session. Rooting through the closet, she said, “Derek, you wear the yellow one.” Derek held out his hand and took it from her.

So this was Derek’s favorite scarf.
She’d found it under a pile of junk in the basement—old college textbooks, ice skates, unfamiliar boxes that seemed to originate from a previous owner. Couples and their garbage. The Skyes had been married for seven years. Their apartment was too small and soon they would have to move. She missed her old home in the suburbs. Nothing against the minorities, but there were too many of them. Still, she was certain that she’d never go back to Hedgemont Heights. The business would win, as it always did. This was best for everyone. In a roundabout way, she was very happy.

Donna wadded the scarf and hurried upstairs. Derek would need his favorite scarf.
He would appreciate this thing she had done for him.
Swiping up her car keys, she glanced down at the kitchen counter, where a book of note paper sat near the telephone. For Derek’s thirty-third birthday, she’d purchased an expensive answering machine, though she normally turned it off during the day because her father did not approve of it. Bartholomew Hasse did not approve of a lot of things. He believed all telephone conversations should remain the personal property of the party placing the call. He believed that once a voice was committed to tape, it could never be removed, no matter how many times you recorded over the original track. Thinking it over, Donna relented and agreed to use the machine only at night. Mr. Hasse regularly contacted his daughter in the morning, when Derek was out of the house. Since his requests sometimes crossed the line of what a disinterested third party might consider prudent, she was willing to keep their conversations a secret.

The drive to the convention center was short, just a few blocks down River Street and then north through the commercial district, where the road ran a tight course between buildings. Donna generally stayed away from her husband’s lectures. In many ways, they led separate lives. Her friends, in general, were not his friends. Hers were mostly old high-school acquaintances, but as Donna was not yet thirty, she supposed that this was not so unusual. Few of these women had ever lived outside of Hedgemont Heights, and they all thought her quite brave for staying in the city. She tolerated their admiration, shrugging off questions about pickpockets and curbside parking. It was their pity she could not stand. Her friends all had children, and she did not. Their husbands, like their fathers before them, were all successful in a harmlessly anonymous sort of way. They were lawyers and surgeons and advertising executives, and no one out in the great world beyond gave a damn about what they said or did. They were competent functionaries: dependable, loving, accepted by their peers. Derek was a superstar. He traveled ten months out of the year, and made regular appearances on the Johnny Carson show, and once an apparently demented woman sent him a refrigerated parcel in the mail, and inside the box was a glass tube containing her most recent ovulation, along with a note reading: PLEASE DEREK SKYE IF YOU COULD JUST FERTILIZE THE CONTENTS OF THIS TUBE WITH YOUR SEED AND KINDLY SEND IT BACK TO ME SO THAT I MAY PLACE IT INSIDE MY UTERUS DEREK SKYE I WANT TO BEAR YOUR CHILDREN AND I PROMISE NOT TO DISTURB YOU AGAIN NOR WILL I EVER ASK YOU FOR MONEY!! Derek did not have many friends. He had agents, admirers, handlers, contacts, accountants, partners, advisors, secretaries and drivers. And one wife. This made Donna feel very special. She craved the power of the definite article.

A well-behaved mob jammed the lobby of the convention center, filing in awkward clumps through the revolving doors. A black maintenance man with a pear-shaped afro and wiry sideburns stood smoking near the entrance. Hiding her purse under her jacket, Donna asked for directions to the Derek Skye Action for Life Seminar and Hot Lunch Buffet. Tossing his cigarette into a bucket of mop water, the man pointed at the escalator and said, “Well, you gonna wawna ride up to the fourth flow-uh, ’n’ then you gonna wawna make a right turn, past s’cur’ty, ’n’ then you gonna wawna open a door, mark Conference Room T, ’n’ then you’re all set.” She smiled, marveling at this other language.

Pushing through the crowd on the fourth floor, she stared at the mob of young women who had turned up to hear her husband speak. During the first years of their marriage, she’d never questioned Derek’s loyalty. There were temptations, yes, but he was faithful and that was the end of it. Something else bothered her about these people. Why couldn’t they appreciate their many blessings? Life in the United States was good enough. Donna knew from her own experience that things could only get so bad. She had a solid man, a safe home, a decent upbringing and many more years left to live. These women all had children and she did not, yet she loved her marriage even as the months went by with more blood and no babies. So what was
their
problem?

“You look like you come alone, like me.”

A middle-aged groupie emerged from the crowd, holding a half-crumpled box of Pop-Tarts. Stepping sideways, she blocked Donna’s path with her body. “I told my husband, it’s for our own good. You come or you don’t, either way.” Pleased with herself, she pushed an unbaked Pop-Tart into her mouth.

“You must be here for the couples retreat,” Donna said. Pressed up against the edge of the balcony, she looked down at the mass of men and women streaming up the escalator. Patient, hopeful faces, fresh from the fights.

“Only one left!” the woman bragged, thumping her chest. “I done all the rest. I was at the one they had last winter. They give you a rock, say ‘Break it.’ ”

“Oh, I know that one. It’s not really a rock.”

“It’s not really a rock. And then they give you the booklet. Check, check, check. I told the man, ‘I can’t do this sort of thing.’ They don’t care, they’ll throw you right in.”

“I guess I’ve never seen the one with the booklet,” Donna said in a soft, halting voice. The booklet. Derek’s idea. Standing beside this proud fanatic, she felt oddly at a loss. Tell me about my husband, she wanted to say. What’s he really like?

“Give you a booklet,” the woman repeated as they crossed the reception area. “You get a check for every person you say hello to. They check it themselves, so they know you ain’t cheating. They’re real disciplinarians about it.”

By this time, they’d reached the front of the crowd, where a line of guards kept the people from storming into the auditorium. Near the door, a woman carried a hand-drawn poster: Derek the Great, rendered in neon Magic Marker. Donna recognized the man in the picture. Everything matched up—his mustache, his deep-set eyes. Yet this was not her husband. This was a totem, a satanic Kewpie doll. And these women had stolen him, taken his spirit and projected it as something garish and candy-colored. The real Derek was dark, covered with bruises. She’d held the real thing, held his soft, leather-burnished genitals in her hand, and they were not orange or purple or shocking pink; they were his own color, Derek-dark, the color of their strange marriage.

“I hope these meetings are helpful,” she said, taking her eyes away from the picture.

The woman frowned; her lips were gummy with jam. “They’re helpful if you keep coming back and buying the books, and then you gotta get the tapes. I got ’em all. I listen to ’em sometimes when I’m outside, doing things. I stand out by the garage, make sure the neighbor kids don’t jump on the roof or nothing. That’s when I listen to ’em. It’s like watching two birds with one stone, or whatever.”

“I’ve heard the tapes. The man has a beautiful voice.”

Saying this, Donna remembered her husband’s voice. Smooth. A practiced cool.
Honey, help me with this.
Derek and his speeches.
Here,
get me a glass of water. I can’t speak when my throat’s dry.
She smiled. She wanted to be near him. She wanted to run her fingers along the hard veins on the backs of his hands. She wanted him to be perfectly quiet while she did this.

“They’re okay.” The woman popped a fresh tart into her mouth. “I get my health care to pay for ’em. Hell, yeah! My husband thinks it’s wrong, he thinks I’m pulling a fast one. He was out two years on a broken cheekbone, this ain’t no different.”

Donna gave the woman a strange look.
My husband,
she thought. Sneaking away, she felt the urge to proclaim herself, to stand apart from the rest of these lonely and desperate people. Just ahead, she saw a young couple purchasing two cups of soda from a concession stand. Coming closer, she smiled and offered her hand. “Hi there, I’m Donna Skye. I’d like to thank you for coming to my husband’s lecture.”

The young woman nodded, still holding both sodas. Her body was long and thin, like a flame drawn toward the ceiling. Her partner was less thin, less handsome; his neatly trimmed beard was a bad choice, aesthetically speaking, and his blue eyes gleamed tentatively, as if waiting for someone to take his picture.

“Wow . . . wee.” He looked around, feeling cocky. “Boy, they know how to treat you right around here, unh?”

“Steve, take your drink.” The woman nudged him in the gut with one of the cups, spilling a little on his shirt.

“Door-to-door service.”

“Steve, she’s trying to be polite, so why don’t you take your drink, before it gets on my vest.”

“Oh, right.” The man took the cup and absently set it on the counter. “I’m Steve Mould, ma’am. Hi there.” He started forward with his hand, then, catching himself, made a fist.

Donna laughed. “Hi, Steve.”

“And this is my fiancée, Lydia.”

“Very nice to meet you.” Lydia curtseyed with her head.

“Okay, hi.”

“Wow and double wow.” Steve’s barrel chest swelled with a contented sigh.

“When I saw you two together, I figured you were newlyweds. I guess I wasn’t too far off.”

“Steve”—Lydia spoke out of the corner of her mouth—“don’t leave your drink on the table.”

“Oops!” He reached for the cup. “Sorry ’bout that.”

“We’re going through the early stages,” she added, winking at Donna. “I’m systematically rebuilding his brain from the ground up.”

Steve smiled thickly as the others laughed at him. Donna liked this woman. She admired the way she seemed to steer her man from one thing to another, guiding him with a sure hand. Donna wondered what Derek would do if she tried that technique with him.
Honey, stop. Just
leave the glass where it is.

“It takes awhile,” she said. “Derek and I were a little shaky at first, but we got used to it.” Yes, the early years. Hard times for newlyweds. Derek and Daddy on the verandah. Nice gray suits. Open briefcases, papers fluttering in the wind. Donna sitting behind the closed French doors, bouncing a plastic birdie on a racket. Derek’s knuckles on the glass:
How
you doing in there, kid?

The sound of the convention center filled her ears—a rush of present noise. Steve was saying, “With a fella like that, he’s gotta be making a quarter-mil easy.”

“Steve. Don’t be rude.”

“It’s not rude. I’m saying he’s doing great. What’s rude about that?”

“It’s the kind of thing that people don’t talk about.”

“Doggone.”

“Well, it’s okay.” Donna smiled, her voice descending a short scale.

“I should be so lucky to shine the man’s shoes with my tongue.”

The mob near the entrance scuttled back out into the waiting area as a lone usher opened the huge double doors.

“Looks like the line’s moving.” Donna glanced over the crowd. “I’ll let you folks get a seat. But don’t you forget, now, we’ve got a couples’ cruise coming up in the fall.”

“Oh, yeah?” Steve scratched his beard, casually considering the ramifications. “I think I can find some time off.”

Lydia yanked his hand away from his face. “Steve, if my mother finds out you’ve been blowing our money on expensive cruises, she’ll take back that allowance so fast you’ll never pee straight again.”

“Well, I just won’t tell her then, what do you think about that?” Bright eyes. “This is my family, my business. I’ll do whatever the heck I want to. Enough of this noise.” Turning to Donna, he said, “If there’s any way, ma’am, I’d really like to meet Mr. Skye.”

“Steve.” Lydia moistened her fingers and dabbed at his forehead. “Your hair.”

“I know that’s a lot to ask.”

“Your hair’s sticking straight up.”

“I don’t know if he works that way. I mean, I know they do it with the pope sometimes, if someone just wants to speak with him in private.”

“Your hair. Hold still. You look like a homeless person.”

“An audience, they call it. That’s what you get with the pope.”

“It’s not that formal.” Donna opened and closed her jacket, fanning her face. “He’s a very nice man.”