Jonathan Dee - Palladio

In house, Milo got full credit for the mirror idea anyway — John saw to that. He made no effort to play up his own role, which was merely technical. In general, though he had never received any signal that the boss was displeased with his failure to produce any actual, usable work, John found it impossible — even in the wake of good feeling generated by the agency’s booming success — not to worry. Osbourne seemed more and more to covet art produced from a strictly personal wellspring; one of John’s new colleagues, for instance, a New York performance artist named Tara, had had great success with a spoken-word television spot about the death of her father. John had lived as long as any of his colleagues — indeed, he had lived through the death of his own father — but he couldn’t seem to dredge up anything on that level. Or, if he could, then he couldn’t hit on some way to transform the personal into his particular art. He thought, for instance, about Molly; all that had been painful enough, to be sure, but it was also ten years ago, and what remained of the private intensity of those memories was no help at all to him as he sat on the end of the bed, with a marker in his hand, in his staked-out west-wing bedroom.

So when he received a message — on his home phone, no less — telling him that Osbourne had scheduled a meeting with him, alone, the following Monday morning, John’s first thought was that he was going to be fired. Osbourne’s secretary sent him up to the fourth floor, where he was surprised to see his employer eating a cinnamon bun in the muted glow of a skylight, alone at a small table with a silver coffee pitcher at its center. He waved John into the seat across from him.

Osbourne smiled apologetically as he finished chewing; then he said, “How have you enjoyed your time here?”

“Very much. It’s exciting to be around this, to see it take off like it’s doing.” He cursed his own choice of words — it sounded like he was more of a spectator here than a vital part of it.

Osbourne wiped his sticky fingers on a linen napkin. “I see two things happening,” he said. “One is that you don’t seem heavily involved in the actual creative work that’s being done downstairs. Perhaps I misjudged you in that respect. Not that there’s any shame in that, of course. The sources of inspiration are always mysterious. The second thing is that the type of work, the range of work, we do here is about to change. I’ve had contacts with other types of enterprises which are very much interested in harnessing our methods here. Not just commodity-sellers, you understand?”

John nodded, though he didn’t understand.

“Municipalities,” Osbourne said cagily. “Coffee?” John shook his head no. “Universities. Charitable organizations. Political campaigns. Jury consultants — I had a jury consultant call me the other day; frankly I’m not totally sure what they even do. Governmental agencies. So that where I find myself needing help just now is more in the area of long-term planning, and also in the area of people skills. Meeting people, potential clients, charming them, learning from them, heading off their complaints, forming relationships. This is an area where I think you’d excel. So, John, I’d like to offer you a promotion. I don’t know what to call it, vice president, senior executive vice president, rear admiral, we can call it whatever the hell you like. The point is I want you working more closely with me. I have a vision, and I think you share that vision. I want you by my right hand, so to speak: my liaison to the outside world.”

John collected himself and accepted the offer with all the gratitude he could display. When he went down to the pool room, and told the others the news about how he had just been kicked upstairs, there was no resentment at all — the happiness was unanimous. Everyone liked John, for one thing; and ever since the first partnership benefits had kicked in, two months earlier, everyone was getting so rich that there was no inclination to care if one of them might suddenly start getting a little richer than the others.

ON MONDAY, ROGER Howe’s doctor — who spoke only to Molly now, since Kay never came to the hospital or returned phone messages, and who had begun to look at Molly, even as he diagnosed her father’s mental state, with a father’s furrowed brow and posture of concern — told her that there was no longer any compelling reason to keep Roger in the hospital, a fact his insurance company had called to the hospital’s attention. Roger’s physical recovery was complete; his emotional status was shaky but not so unstable that he could be held against his will, and he had lately been expressing his desire to return home to his family. Dr Kotlovitz thought he could be released as early as the weekend.

On Tuesday, Molly stood beside the phone in her parents’ bedroom and listened impassively as John left this message: “I’m coming out there. I don’t know if you’re still there. I don’t know your address, but I know what town, it’s a small town, everyone’s bound to know where you are. I don’t know whether to be angry or worried or what, but I can’t stand not knowing anymore. I’ll be there this weekend.”

That afternoon Molly sat on her childhood bed with the county Yellow Pages. After trying unsuccessfully to guess the pertinent euphemism — Child Services; Pregnancy Counseling; Family Planning — she called the local chapter of Planned Parenthood and got a list of abortionists in the greater Albany area. Later, when she made the short drive into town, she went to the bank — they were used to seeing her now — and withdrew, with one of the blank slips her mother had signed for her, two thousand dollars.

She opted for a smaller clinic, forty miles away in Canajoharie, thinking there would be no protesters there, and she was right. It wasn’t that she feared the protesters or the remorse they might try to fan in her over what she was doing; her only desire was to clear her own path of other people to as great a degree as possible. If she could have performed the procedure on herself, rather than have to endure the benign looks and remarks of a doctor and a nurse, she would have done it. She told the woman at the desk she had called yesterday to schedule a D and C. Without a word the woman passed through the window a clipboard with a form attached and a capless pen dangling from a string.

“Do I have to fill all this out?” Molly asked. Stout, unsurprisable, the woman in the window said, “Yes,” flatly, without looking up. Molly took a seat.

There was no one else in the waiting room. Molly filled out both sides of the form, giving a false name and address but otherwise answering truthfully. She checked the box to decline counseling. She checked the “Cash” box next to “Form of Payment.”

The first thing the woman did, when Molly handed the form back, was to ask for the cash in advance; Molly then waited for half an hour. On the table was an old issue of Glamour; she ignored it. The time passed slowly, with no distractions, and Molly struggled to make her mind a blank.

Finally she was shown to a changing room, just large enough to turn around in, and given a surgical gown. The room had two doors, one on each side; on one tiny wall was a Monet print, and on the wall across from it a sign read “Not Responsible for Personal Property.” That reminded her that she was carrying nearly eighteen hundred dollars in the pocket of her fatigues; she put it in the toe of her shoe and pushed the socks in after it. When she opened the door opposite the one she had entered, she was face to face with a nurse, and over her shoulder, sitting on a stool, was the doctor. The doctor held a clipboard in his hand. He smiled at her as if crossing the word “smile” off a list.