Atwood Margaret - The Heart Goes Last

“Yes. You wouldn’t love Stan any more. You’d love Ed instead,” says Jocelyn. “You’d dote on him.”

This is like one of those love potions in the old fairy-tale books at Grandma Win’s, thinks Charmaine. The kind where you get imprisoned by a toad prince. In those stories you always got the true love back at the end, as long as you had a magic silver dress or something; but in real life – in this real life, the one Ed’s planning for her – she’ll be under some awful toad prince spell forever. “That’s horrible!” Charmaine says. “I’ll kill myself first!”

“Maybe,” says Jocelyn, “but you won’t kill yourself after. You’ll come to when the operation’s over, and there will be Ed, holding your hand and gazing into your eyes, and you’ll take one look at him and throw your arms around him and say you’ll love him forever. Then you’ll beg him to make whatever sexual use of you he wants. And you’ll mean that, every single word. You’ll never get enough of him. That’s how this thing is supposed to work.”

“Oh god,” says Charmaine. “But you can’t let that happen to me! No matter what I’ve … you can’t let it happen to Stan !”

“You still care about Stan?” Jocelyn says with interest. “After everything?”

Charmaine has a flash of Stan, how sweet he was, much of the time; how innocent he looked when he was sleeping, like a boy; how crushed he would be if she turned her back on him as if he’d never existed, and took the arm of Ed, and walked away. He would never, ever get over it.

She can’t help it: she begins to cry. Great big tears are rolling out of her eyes, she’s gasping for breath. Jocelyn brings her a tissue but doesn’t go so far as to pat her shoulder. “At least he wants you, ” she says. “Not just your organs.

“It’s okay,” Jocelyn says. “Calm down. Ed has specified that I’m going with you. I’m your security, I’m your bodyguard, I’m supposed to keep you safe.” She pauses, to let this sink in. “So I’ve got your back.”

The show Lucindas’s got tickets for is the Green Man Group. They’re a spinoff of the Blue Man Group, who’ve been going in Vegas for decades. Stan saw a spoof version of them on YouTube when he was still working at Dimple. There was also the Red Man Group and the Orange Man Group and the Pink Man Group, each with a different gimmick. With the Green Man Group, says the program, it’s an eco theme.

Sure enough, when the spots and floods go on, there’s some fake vegetation with some fake birds in it, and when the first set of Green Men come bouncing out they’re not only bald and painted a shiny green but also wearing foliage. Apart from the leaves, it’s the same kind of tightly directed comedy, tech, and music show that Stan can remember watching online, or parts of it: tricks with balloons that turn into flowers, munching up kale and spitting green goop out of their mouths, juggling onions, and a lot of drumming, plus a guy with a gong who’s used as punctuation. No words – none of the Men ever say anything, the pretense is that they’re mute. Once in a while, there’s a bit of message – birdsongs, a sunrise on the big onstage screens, a flight of helium balloons with baby trees attached to them – but then the drums kick in again.

All of sudden there’s a tulip number, done to “Tiptoe Through the Tulips.” At first this makes Stan sit up straight: the password from his time at Possibilibots, it can’t be a fucking coincidence! But as the number unfolds he thinks, Hold on, Stan. Yes, it can be a coincidence, a lot of things are, and considering the barefaced idiocy of what the Green Men are doing up there on the stage, it has to be. If it were a signal, what the fuck would they be expecting him to do in response? Run around screaming? Yell, Take my belt buckle. Here’s the flashdrive ? So, coincidence, for sure.

He leans back in the seat, watches the number. There are tulip-themed pyrotechnics, tulip manipulations, tulip transformations: tulips that catch fire, tulips that explode, tulips that grow out of a Green Man’s ears. Stan has to admit it’s expertly performed, and also funny. It’s relaxing to see other guys making fools of themselves. But if they’re doing it on purpose, maybe it doesn’t count.

Next up, a gong item. The one playing the gong is a clown of sorts. He gets a lot of laughs. But is there only one gong guy? The Green Men are like the Elvises: they’re in identical disguises and hard to tell apart. Stan tries to follow the changes, but it’s like watching a card sharp: the trick is done, you know it’s a trick, but you can’t catch them doing it.

The second-last number is an audience participation segment. Three innocents are hauled up on stage, dressed in waterproof outfits, asked to eat peculiar substances, and bombarded with green goo. Then there’s a grand finale, with more drums, gongs, and things that light up. Then there’s the curtain calls. The bald green guys are sweating.

“So, Rental Elvis, what’s your verdict?” says Lucinda as the lights go up.

“Good timing,” says Stan.

“That’s it? Good timing?” says Lucinda. “Men devote their lives to developing those skills and that’s all you can say? I bet you’re a wow in bed.”

Fuck you, thinks Stan. But I’d rather not. “Ma’am,” he says, ushering her down the aisle with a swirl of his blue cape. “After you.” Her orange horns are on crooked; they give her a rakish air, like a demon on holiday.

Lucinda says she’s headed for the ladies’, and after that she expects Stan to take her to one of the bars in this joint and share a White Russian or two with him, and tell her his life story. The night is young, so after they do that, they can do something else. She fully intends to get her money’s worth, she tells him, with a grin, but also in the stern, slightly accusing voice of a high school teacher.

One thing at a time, he thinks. He shepherds her to the Ladies’. As he’s waiting for her outside, scanning the thinning crowd for anyone thuggish who looks too interested in him, one of the Marilyns sidles up beside him. “Stan,” she whispers. “It’s me. Veronica.”

“What took you so fucking long?” he growls. “There’s Positron some guys in sunglasses asking about me at the place where I’m living. You need to move me! Where’s Budge? Where’s Conor? Am I a small potato? If this crap I’m carrying is so shit-hot, why isn’t anyone coming to collect it?”

“Keep your voice down,” she says. “NAB is always crawling with eavesdroppers. Those broadcasters like to steal scoops and rat on each other to anyone shoe listening. That could be bad for you.”

“I thought Jocelyn wanted to get the news out!” says Stan,

“It’s the timing,” says Veronica. “She needs to hold back until the exact right moment. Come with me, hurry. We’re going backstage.”

“What about my date?” Stan says. Lucinda will raise hell if he vanishes; she’s the hell-raising type.

“Don’t worry about that. We’ve got another Elvis, he’ll take your place, she won’t be able to tell you apart.”

Stan doubts that – Lucinda’s not stupid – but he follows Veronica down a side aisle and through the Exit door at the front row of the theatre. There’s a corridor, a corner, some stairs. Then the stage door. He knocks on it. It’s opened by a bald guy painted green, in a dark green suit and an earpiece. “That way,” he says. They’ve thought of everything: themed bouncers.

Veronica hurries along a narrow corridor, Stan following. She’s got the Marilyn rear action down cold: do they give classes in it? Sprain your ankle, then stuff your feet into the high heels? Veronica, he thinks mournfully. You are so fucking wasted on that bear.