The Unfortunates (29 page)

“You will fire them.” George is squeezing her hand, over and over, hard.

“Hey, what? Don’t.” She is—it’s only because he loves her so much, isn’t it? “Let’s all please hold up a second.”

“My wife.” George stops. He lets go of her hand. “My wife,” he says again, with a slow, gathering calm that’s rare for him of late, that she realizes she’s been missing, but that also reminds her of CeCe, maybe an attitude he’s picked up from being near his mother again. “My wife, Dr. Orlow, is pregnant. Can you imagine what could have happened here? Throwing rocks at a woman. A woman alone. On facility property. I’m amazed this isn’t enough to merit your genuine interest. Here I am forced to share our private business with you, just to make an impression.”

“George?” She can hear the receptionist’s pencil moving across the paper. For an insane moment she wonders if he’s discovered or decided her to be pregnant, if her crying earlier was hormone-induced and she
is
pregnant. That he’s been waiting to surprise her with the news. And those kids were shitmouths, but they hadn’t really done anything. Or is he right, and they had? If you don’t decide, the decision gets made for you. Who said that? Victor. They’d been talking about
The Bluest Ribbon
, the book she still hasn’t found. She will concentrate, count to a hundred to keep from exposing her anger, exposing George. Here’s the dark mahogany edge of the desk, a triangle of carpet, her knee.

“I am sorry,” Dr. Orlow says. “And congratulations.”

“I mean,” George continues, “is there even security here? My mother’s room is on the ground floor—my God, I’m starting to rethink this whole thing. I have half a mind to pull her right out! A shame, with her record of generous investment.”

“This is a safe environment.” Dr. Orlow’s soft voice is all the more remarkable for George’s pitch. “We have an active staff presence inside and out.”

“Investment?” Iris asks.

“Oh, of time and faith,” George replies impatiently. “But if rapists and murderers are skulking the brambles, well.”

Out of the corner of her eye she sees the receptionist half stand, look to Dr. Orlow, and sit again.

“I understand you’re upset, Mr. Somner, but, let’s make sure we keep perspective.” Dr. Orlow turns from George to Iris. “You were walking in the treed area at the north end of the property. Two young men in uniforms made unwelcome comments, made you feel unsafe, and twice threw a rock. You’re shaken but physically unharmed. Do I have it right? Is there anything else I should know?”

“No,” she says.

There is a knock at the door. The man who’d been sleeping against the tree enters, worry and irritation on his face. She can tell he’s never had a reason to be in this office before. The boys mope in behind him, discover there’s not enough space for all seven of them, and duck along the wall to stand with their backs against the windows. They bring the smell of earth and sweat into the room. Their handiwork is evident behind them, a burst of color at the other end of the lawn.

George springs from his chair, smooths his hand over the buttons of his pink dress shirt, glares at everyone, including Iris, and sits back down.

“I didn’t mean them too,” Dr. Orlow says to the receptionist.

“Are these the ones!” George shouts, at Iris, at the boys.

Yasser sighs. “I asked Russ and Kyle if they knew why we were coming up here.”

“And?” George says. “And?”

“Tell him what you told me,” Yasser prompts.

“It isn’t a big deal,” Iris says. “Nobody should be in trouble.”

“I said hello to the lady is all,” the younger, runtish one—Russ—murmurs, to the floor. She sees how small he is in the jumpsuit, rolled up around his ankles and wrists.

“Mr. Al-Saleh, am I saying that right? Where were you during this exchange?” Dr. Orlow asks.

“Yasser,” Yasser says.

“Working nearby,” Iris says quickly. “But I’m sure he couldn’t see.”

“And you, Kyle?” Yasser says, for a moment looking at Iris.

“We said hi, but that’s it. Swear.”

“Yes, yes,” Iris says, impatient now. She doesn’t like anything about them. But they’re young. They need their jobs.

“Why are you treating this scum so considerately?” George says.

“Hey,” Kyle says.

Yasser turns to the boys, appears to be thinking about George’s question. “I can get focused on a task. I am sorry this happened.”

“You’ve done a great job out there,” Iris agrees.

“More important is, Russell and Kyle are very, very sorry, right?” Yasser says.

They nod.

“There we have it,” Dr. Orlow says.

“So you agree, you stopped paying attention to your employees. You weren’t doing your job.”

“George, let it go,” Iris says. “It’s fine. Everyone, it’s really fine.”

“You don’t deserve to be on the same
planet
as my wife. We will be waiting for a satisfactory outcome.”

“For Christ’s sake,” Iris says.

“Thank you,” Yasser says.

“There’s no problem,” she says. “Please forget it.”

“You’re lucky I’m a reasonable man,” George whispers, scowling at the boys. Something put on about it. The loud whispering, the squinching up of his eyes, like an actor in a soap opera.

“I’m leaving.” Iris takes the room in three steps, angles around Yasser, who squeezes closer to the boys so she may open the door, and presses on down the hall.

“It’s a bad world, Iris,” George calls after her, his footsteps rushing up behind. “You may be too good a person to see the truth, but I’m not.”

28

The lobby doors whoosh closed behind them before she speaks.

“What a great visit!” she shouts over her shoulder as she plows past the gravel roundabout, the fountain with its water-spilling cherubs. “Look at how pretty it is, just the kind of tasteful bullshit your mother appreciates!”

She’d parked in the middle of the lot. The silver door is warm under her hand. She slams it shut and yanks on her seat belt and puts the key in the ignition and powers down the windows. The car’s atmosphere is a synthetic boil. He climbs in beside her.

“The windshield is kind of dirty,” he offers.

“Why did you say that?”

“I mean, look.” He gestures, and as she turns the car onto the road, the sun catches the glass. It’s true. Still splattered with mud from hitting the turkey.

“No, why did you say I’m pregnant? Who does that?”

He narrows his eyes on the road as he considers his answer. “Maybe I don’t want to live the kind of life where we get kicked around, Iris, maybe that’s why. Maybe you think it’s acceptable to be harassed, maybe you expect to be objectified, maybe you have some internalized thing about that because you’re attractive. Do you?”

“What? Whatever.”

“I think you do. And it isn’t healthy. How is it
I’m
the one who knows to be outraged? We all have our hang-ups, and if this is one of yours and you can’t see it, if you can’t stand up for yourself, then I choose to stand up for you. That’s what we’re meant to
do
for each other, Iris. I’m strong where you’re weak, and you’re strong where I’m weak. And I for one am tired of being ignored.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t think you do, either.”

“You know what I was doing back there? I was setting the terms of the negotiation. I have more experience managing people than you.”

“Is that right?”

“People don’t listen unless you nail it home, you understand? Unless you get them to sit up and pay attention. Nobody understands what’s worth throwing support behind anymore! That’s the only reason I said it. Maybe you think I’m cynical. But I think you’re too pure to see the ugly truth. I love you for that.”

She’s not even seeing the road, is she? Sort of. Yes. It’s bright and there aren’t too many other cars and they’re going the right way and the trees are luscious and deep and they’ve got fifteen more minutes until the highway. In all their days together he’s never asked her if she wanted to have a kid, and because he never asked, she avoided it too, being ambivalent about the prospect and having long assumed her ambivalence to be unnatural and best kept to herself. But for the subject to come up like this! And for her to be unsure, at her age, to dodge away from thinking of it! What the hell is wrong with her? Wrong with her, wrong with him.

“You can’t say someone’s pregnant when they’re not, George. What happens next visit? Announce I’ve had a miscarriage? Maybe there’s a doctor available for a pretend abortion!”

“I don’t want a next visit. So. No problem there.”

She merges onto the highway. They drive in silence. From the hot corner of her eye she becomes aware he’s turning in his seat, watching the traffic out the rear window.

“That van behind us,” he says. “Do you think it’s them?”

“What?”

“The white one. The van.”

In the rearview mirror, a few cars back, a van is sloppily weaving lane to lane, dropping behind, revving forward. “Who?”

“Those kids. Their boss. He was a quiet one, wasn’t he.”

“That’s how jerks drive when they’re in a hurry, George. It’s called tailgating.”

He runs his hands through his hair, his shoulders hunched. After twenty miles of silence, he says, “I hope Victor won’t be at the house. He’s always at our house.”

After fifteen more miles of silence, he says, “Why don’t I get to drive?”

“You don’t have your license.”

“I do have my license. I just haven’t had it renewed. I’m going to drive, starting now. I’m going to drive us home.”

“Great, great idea. I don’t care!” She pulls over to the shoulder and they switch.

“That’s better.” He pulls back onto the road. “Van’s past us now.”

“You’re fucking insane.” She adjusts the seat to accommodate her longer frame. “You know what those landscapers are doing right now? They’re
working
, George. They have to work. Doesn’t that make more sense?”

“Once more, you defend them.”

“Use your mirrors. You’re going to get us killed.”

“I was joking about the van.”

She turns away. Watching him navigate is nerve-racking. She feels as if her life has spun ahead of her, too fast to see. A bright, tangling panic. Also: it’s as if some other person is wearing George. He is again going over what was done to her in the garden, explaining to her the various ways society encourages the hypersexualization of the female body, something
commodification
, something
signifies
, something
product
. She thrusts her hand into the wind and watches the gas stations and the exit ramps and the sad malls go by. In three perilous hours, George manages to get them off the highway and onto their local route. It occurs to her—it’s coming, here it is—they slide under the sign bearing her giant head and mauve torso, her arms crossed over her chest, just as Kyle described. She is reminded of those other teenage boys, the ones on the handball courts when she first showed Victor around Kingsgate. How they stopped their game to watch her pass. Stone-eyed, their fingers hooked through the chain. The old-timers too, not so welcoming. Not so happy to see her. She, who represents the company that is increasing the value of their properties. She, who is aiding in the renewal of their community. “No good deed goes unpunished,” Carol had liked to say.

“The turn off to Kingsgate’s up ahead.” She looks dully out the window. She’s pretty sure he hadn’t noticed the sign. She doesn’t dare distract him from the road—the car moves forward in erratic bursts of acceleration and drift, either well above or below the speed limit, correlating roughly to where he is in a sentence, jerking back into the middle of the lane just in time, the tire under her thumping the white warning line, George unaware. Other drivers lean on their horns as they speed ahead of him, take the other lane.

“God, this road rage is a real thing, isn’t it?” he says. “People are maniacs. Kingsgate? Did we miss it? Do you want to show it to me?”

“Maybe another time. Do you ever see any of my ads? When the car takes you to work?”

“Yeah. I like them. Makes me laugh.”

“How was your mother?”

“Great. Loving life,” he says, so bitterly she doesn’t respond. They don’t speak again until he’s parked sideways to the garage, beside the pool cleaner’s truck. She waves hello to Henry, skimming the deep end. She opens the front door, takes a knee, and 3D slaps his paws onto her shoulders, flings his head happily from side to side. George, after what appears to be some deliberating as to the proper spot, drops the car keys on the line where two seat cushions of the couch meet, pours himself a glass of juice, flings his shoes off into the middle of the kitchen, and pads down the hall to his office. She hears his computer power on. Why does he have any right to be angry? Her right, not his.

She hits play on the home answering machine, taps the kitchen counter, staring at one of George’s yuppie shoes as she listens to three long messages of dead air. In the second message beats a faint sound—
thwap
,
thwap, thwap.
In the third she hears a voice in the background. She plays this message again. It’s muffled, but might be—
Papa? Papa?
Small and high, right before the click. Great. The only person who’s called her today is a kid playing with a phone.

George returns to the living room. She doesn’t know why, but she’s relieved he hadn’t heard the messages. He sets 3D barking by opening and closing the front door. He makes a tour of the foyer, peers behind the couch, and, staring through the glass wall and down into their little waterfall, cries, “I left my umbrella. Again! God, this is the worst!”

“We’ll get another one,” she says, shooing the dog toward his mat.

“But it’s a nice one! Come and look at this.”

She follows him down the hall to his office. He sits in his leather chair in front of the laptop. She kneels on the rug beside him and reads:

Sept 25 (1 day ago)

dear george

i can’t come see mother yet. it’s unfair, but you know how it goes with us. why should i pretend? she wouldn’t want pretend affection anyway. isn’t honesty better? i was just at the doctor myself, all’s well. i want to lie and say i can’t travel because of morning sickness or something, but i’m trying hard to be honest even if i do end up looking like a BAD daughter or a BAD sister. i’m sorry, g. maybe someday you will need me to do something big and sad for you. in a heartbeat, brother. hey you guys should come visit us already! it’s been a hundred years. did I tell you for a few of babys early years we might go live in SP, while L’s overseeing construction? then we come back stateside for the American Education whatever that’s worth these days so first come visit us in Seattle then come visit SP.