Jonathan Franzen - The Twenty-Seventh City - A Novel

“We’ve been living in West County for six years.” Windell gave a laugh.

What was so funny about that?

“I see. Whereabouts?”

“Ballwin, Cedar Hill Drive. Not far from whatchamacallit. West—”

“Haven. Westhaven.”

“That’s the place. We’re about a mile east of there. I’m always driving by it. See your name a lot.”

“Yeah.” Probst sighed.

“It looks like some project.”

“The foundations alone are twenty-five acres.”

“Huh.” Windell stared at the field, where penalty flags had been dropped. Jack was sitting on his hands, apparently content to let Probst’s presence speak for itself. His nose was red. Small brushes of straight gray hair sheltered his ears.

“But it must be a long commute for you,” Probst said.

“Hm? Oh. Not too bad. It’s something you get used to.”

“Well, if we keep on building like this in West County, you’ll be sitting pretty. Who knows, maybe Sears will move its headquarters out there.”

“Sears?”

“I,” Probst said. “I thought you worked for Sears.”

“No. I’ve been with Penney since I was, God, twenty. But Jack worked for Sears. He came over to us five years ago.”

Jack sniffed and swallowed. He didn’t seem to be listening, but after a few seconds, without looking at them, he said, “That’s right,” in a loud, deep voice.

“We’ve—” Probst felt that he was going to pop like a balloon if he had to sit here a minute longer. “We’ve been pretty out of touch since Jack left Webster—”

“Oh! Way to go!” Windell shouted, interrupting him.

“What a game,” Jack agreed.

This was the moment Probst had been waiting for. He stood up quickly. “That’s it for me,” he said. “Bill, it’s nice meeting you. If you’re ever by Westhaven, one of my men will be glad to show you around. And Jack, you and I—” Escape was so close he could taste it. He looked down at Jack, who had raised his chin but wouldn’t meet his eyes. “We’ll have to get together sometime.” He clapped Jack lightly on the shoulder and started moving away.

“Martin!” Jack said suddenly. “It looks like I’ve got an extra ticket to the Big Red game on Sunday. Next week. Bill here’s got a camp-out with his Scouts, and—”

Probst turned back, feeling his face light up. “You’re a scoutmaster?”

“It’s the very least an old sinner can do for the world,” said Bill, who was not old, and seemed sinless.

“—the Redskins,” Jack was saying. “We could catch up a little, get a bite to eat before—”

“Sure, yes, fine,” Probst said, still staring at Bill.

Rolf Ripley liked a girl with pluck, and Devi, his latest acquisition, had it. Last night in her suite at the airport Marriott, she’d told him his nose was redder than a souse’s.

“A souse’s, luv? Do let’s let Rolf give us a good spank.”

“And you’ll start to cough,” she said.

“That won’t happen, luv. I don’t get coughs.”

“No?”

“No,” he said. “I’ve learned from decades of experimentation to sleep with my head flat on the mattress . That way, the what the devil d’you call it — the mucus— stays where it belongs. No cough.”

Devi laughed.

“What’s so funny?”

“A cold doesn’t spread through mucus. It spreads through blood.”

“And how do you know that?”

“I heard it on the radio.”

“Then why, pray tell, do I not get coughs?”

“Your body must be as stupid as your brain!”

She was a gem, a gem. And when he wanted to change key, he simply pushed a pedal: “Take it back.”

“I take it back.”

He’d never had another quite like her. All the dishes in his past, the Tricias and Maudes and Amandas, the sex piglets and Dallas snobs and randy undergrads, the mute tarts, corporate wives and gold-digging salesclerks, banquet favors, cynical secretaries and door-to-door sluts: all paled before Devi. Even the few he’d had in London and New York were not the real item, but imports, farm-girls at heart, sinning venally, not mortally. Men from the capitals never shared their finest stock, and though Rolf was in all ways their superior, Fate had consigned him to Saint Louis. Oh, the Saint Louis girls! God knew, Rolf had tried his Pygmalion best to teach them; still they remained porcine and drawling. They couldn’t hold a candle to Devi. She was his aesthetic fulfillment, teachable and teaching, as sharp as the glitter city Bombay and, in her docility, older than the Old World, an object to rut on and an angel to frame. In fact, he damn near loved her, and if she weren’t an Indian he might have gone further and made himself her fool. But he was at pains to be careful. For not only was Devi in cahoots with S. Jammu and Princess Asha Hammaker but she was dreadfully indiscreet. Among the tidbits she had dropped were the facts that Jammu was angling for the affections of the mayor; that Asha, whose fortune was made now, was pursuing Buzz Wismer as well; and that both these South Asian lovelies were intent upon staging a real-estate panic in the ghetto. Interesting.

As for cars, he liked ’em small and fast. His Lotus whisked him home from the Marriott for a long winter’s nap, and on Thanksgiving Day his Ferrari whisked him and Audreykins to the Club for civilized noontime drinks and a brief show of holiday propriety. He was a family man, after all. It wouldn’t do to take Devi to the Club. There were too many stockholders at the bar, and Rolf of late had grown a tad fanatical about his stockholders. For the first time in years, his finances were iffy. If one of the club members downing toddies were to lose confidence in Rolf’s good judgment, why then the next member might, too, and the next, and the next, and soon the NYSE, and Rolf might find himself producing neither toaster-ovens nor inertial guidance systems, and headquartered in neither the county nor the city, and living permanently in Barbados or Lincolnshire, not Ladue. It was better not to bring Devi. These codgers liked Audreykins, and why not?

Chester (3.7 %) Murphy ambled over and confessed that Audreykins looked lovely today, as indeed she almost did, despite the fact the Armani she wore was made for a woman with a third shoulder somewhere in the vicinity of her fifth vertebra. Leaving the room to allow her and Chester to converse about Peace, Hope and Charity, Rolf placed an amorous call to Devi’s suite at the Marriott. He finished by smothering the receiver, still warm from the last caller’s breath, with kisses. When he returned he saw Audreykins absorbing the wise words of the Baseball Star, who was wearing a green blazer just a shade lighter than the one Rolf himself had on, and what with the Star being chums with Julian (5.5 %) Woolman and Chuck (major creditor) Meisner, he found it expedient to visit the bar for a refill. Drown a fever, drown a cold. He had a nasty sensation of having inhaled water. Repeated doses of The Glenlivet were the only sure cure. His muscles ached less when steeped in spirits, though his sense of blame still throbbed. This cold was the fault of Audreykins. Two weeks ago she’d been a regular snot factory, specially diligent on the night shift, and had sniffed and sniffed and sniffled, always as though she were blubbering. Barbie, it seemed, had infected her. Rolf observed that her Armani’s third shoulder had migrated into the region of her right armpit. Dear child. The Club buzzed timelessly in the afternoon sun.

“How are you feeling?” Audreykins asked an hour later, as they zipped through the cheesy business district of Webster Groves.

“Rummy, thanks,” he said.

“Too bad,” she said unkindly.

“Oh, it isn’t the cold,” he lied. “It’s the thought of another meal with Martin and Barbie and the brat.” Climbing into fourth gear for the big curve in Lockwood Avenue, he was gratified to see her foot press down on an imaginary brake. “I suppose,” he went on, “I ought to count my bloody blessings your folks are in Pago Pago.”