Peter Abrahams - Last of the Dixie Heroes

With her free hand, she hit him in the face, a raking blow. He didn’t stop her. She started to cry, very ugly, with cawing sounds and snotty nose. “I have a right,” she said.

“What right?”

“To be happy.”

Roy didn’t say, We can be happy, or I can make you happy. That belief was dying, dying, dead. He let go. She covered her breasts. The name came to him: spaghetti straps. “What were you doing with me, then?” he said.

“That’s what I don’t want you to spoil.”

“I don’t understand.”

“What happened between us at the end, it made it like that movie where they always have Paris. We’ll always have that other night, and that day at the gym.”

“You think that makes sense?”

“Grant’s fellowship is up next week. I’m going back with him to New York. I’ve never felt anything like this before.”

“You keep saying that. Go.”

“I’m taking Rhett.”

“You’re not.”

“I am. I’ve already called my lawyer.”

“I’ll call mine.”

“It won’t do you any good. I have custody, and they look at what’s best for the child. Rhett’s going to be living in a four-story brownstone in Park Slope, with all the advantages. A good steady job like yours is not the same as a doctor’s salary in the eyes of the court.”

The bedroom door opened at that moment and Grant appeared in a shirt and boxer shorts. Overweight, like Barry, but much shorter, with monogrammed initials on his chest and a Porsche in the driveway. Roy thought, good steady job, and pushed him back in the room. Thump. And closed the door. Bang.

Roy looked down at Marcia, covering her breasts. A bruise was already rising to the surface of her upper arm. She was shaking. He was too. He turned and walked away.

Roy went home. Where else? He could go to a diner, a bar, the gym: all dismal. He went home, dismal too. He paced in one room, then another. He sat down. He remembered the night Marcia had slept with him, the night that began their brief affair, as she’d called it, and how Grant, Dr. Nordman, had phoned her cell. How fast he’d worked, or she, or the two of them together: she hadn’t even known his first name that night. Roy got up, paced some more. Pacing was better than sitting.

Roy tried to think. He thought: I can bear losing my job. I can bear losing Marcia. But Rhett? No. Not because if he didn’t have Rhett the past eleven years would add up to nothing, although that was true: but just because he had to be with him, his son.

He called Curtis.

“Hi, Roy. How are you do-”

“I want that New York job.”

“There were no guarantees, Roy. The opportunity to apply is what’s being offered.”

“Good enough.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“I’m going to fly up today.”

“Fly where?”

“New York. To meet them.”

“Meet who?”

“Whoever’s doing the interview, for Christ sake.”

“I don’t even know if the job’s still available.”

“Find out.” Roy was dimly aware that he’d said that much too loud.

Curtis spoke more softly, balancing it out. “I’ll call you back,” he said.

The phone rang within five minutes.

“They like the sound of you,” Curtis said.

“Thanks, Curtis.”

“You don’t have to fly up. They can do a video interview.”

“When?”

“Next Tuesday, one thirty.” He heard Curtis take a deep breath. “Or today, at four forty-five. But that’s pretty short notice, and everyone will understand if-”

“I’ll be there.” Roy checked his watch. Three fifty-two.

“Sure you wouldn’t prefer Tuesday, Roy? Maybe take a little time to collect your-”

“I’m on my way,” Roy said.

Roy parked in the visitors lot, checked in at the security desk in the lobby, received authorization from Curtis. He rode the elevator to the seventeenth floor, alone all the way. Curtis met him at the top.

“That’s how you’re dressing for the interview?” Curtis said.

Roy looked down at himself. He was still wearing the chinos he’d had on in the morning, but the collared shirt with buttons and the tie with the blue diamonds, his best one, was gone. He was wearing a faded and frayed T-shirt with Georgia Football on the front, a T-shirt he hadn’t worn in years, had forgotten he owned. When had he put that on?

“Come into the bathroom,” Curtis said.

Roy followed Curtis into a bathroom with a marble floor and marble sinks. Curtis took off his suit jacket, his tie with the blue diamonds, identical to Roy’s, his silk shirt, finer than any shirt Roy had ever worn, with French cuffs and gold cuff links. “Here,” Curtis said.

Roy put on Curtis’s shirt. He could smell deodorant, and under that, the smell of Curtis. Did Curtis notice him smelling it? Maybe. The shirt was too tight across his shoulders and chest, and because of that he had trouble tying the tie. Curtis did it for him: a tie just like his, had to be a good omen. He’d never worn cuff links before; Curtis did that too. Roy put on the suit jacket, made of the softest material he’d ever felt, but as tight as the shirt, or tighter.

Curtis stepped back, looked him over. “That’s more like it,” he said. “Except for your face.”

“My face?”

Curtis pointed to Roy’s cheek. “What happened there?”

Roy checked the mirror, saw three parallel scratches on the side of his face, like red war paint. “Nothing,” he said, going to the sink, dabbing with a damp paper towel.

Curtis, standing behind him in suit pants and a sleeveless undershirt, watching in the mirror, said, “Why don’t we postpone this till Tuesday?”

Roy shook his head.

Curtis sat him down at one end of the long table in the conference room. A technician placed a microphone in front of him, said, “One, two, three, New York, can you hear me?”

“Yup,” came the reply from speakers Roy couldn’t see. An image flickered on a screen suspended from the ceiling: a conference table like this one, but darker and shinier. A camera hung from the screen; it swung around until the lens pointed at Roy. The red light blinked on.

“Video, New York?” said the technician.

“Gotcha,” said the voice.

“Need me here?” the technician asked Curtis.

“Call you when it’s over,” Curtis said. The technician left the room. Curtis moved to the far end of the table, sat down. The camera on the other end tightened on the New York table, focused on a yellow legal pad, a red pen, a green soda can from a maker Roy had never heard of.

A man came into the shot, sat behind the legal pad. He had a shiny bald head, a bushy mustache, purple bags under his eyes. He looked right at Roy.

“Name’s Ferrucci,” he said. “Assistant VP, tech personnel. We’ve got five minutes for this, tops. You’re Roy Hill?”

“Yes.”

“Speak up a little.”

Roy wasn’t used to the TV talking to him personally. He loosened the knot on his tie, undid the top button of the too-tight shirt. “Yes, I’m Roy Hill.”

Ferrucci gazed at him. “We got an opening here you might be the man for. It’s on the shipping floor in Jersey City, East Asia section, which sounds pretty close to what you’ve been doing already. Familiar with the V-trak program?”

“We’re just starting to use it.”

“Any problems?”

“None so far.”

Ferrucci checked the legal pad. “Played football for Georgia Tech?”

“Georgia.”

“Who was the coach?”

Roy told him.

“They say he was a real asshole.”

“He treated me all right,” Roy said.

Ferrucci nodded. “Willing to relocate, Roy?”

“Yes. Jersey City-is that anywhere near Park Slope?”

“Park Slope? What’s that got to do with anything?”