Lance Olsen - Calendar of Regrets

From what Dan could pick up, Ron used to work as a legal aid on the Lower East Side, but the pay wasn't any good. He quit the day he turned thirty and went back to school. Now he was a stockbroker specializing in the water sector and had more money than he knew what to do with. Dan only spoke with him a minute or two when they were introduced, yet already didn't much like him. Ron tried to disguise his ambition with fake affability. He seemed to think he was getting away with something when he merely looked obvious and pushy.

How about that baseball strike, huh? Dan heard Ron say to Robert at full volume across the room and decided to exist as far away from him as possible this afternoon.

At the counter Jean explained: I wanted to create the same sense of shift in perspective the first people who went up in hot air balloons experienced. You know, like the whole world changes from trees and roads and buildings and cars and ponds to this pastel patchwork of rectangles, squares, and circles. You suddenly perceive everything completely differently.

They sound amazing, Estelle said. She was slicing a surreally red tomato with a big German knife. When do we get to see?

Oooh, what's this? Naomi asked, picking up a spice bottle full of bright yellow powder off the geometric black metal rack that looked like it had been designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.

I'm not exactly sure, said Estelle. I swear it must have come with the place.

Maybe we could wear it instead of eating it, Naomi proposed.

It's an incredible color, said Jean. Why don't they make summer dresses that color?

Naomi put back the bottle and crossed to the refrigerator. She poured crushed ice from a bag in the freezer into a sleek Finnish pitcher, then crossed to the sink and began filling the pitcher with water through a Brita filter. She used to wear a different-color wig every day of the week. Last spring she stopped, cut her hair short and spiky like Laurie Anderson, and dyed parts silver blond, parts black.

You know who I saw last week? she asked, her tone downgrading into confidentiality.

Do tell, Estelle said.

Estelle didn't look up from her work until Naomi pronounced Jerome's name. Jean glanced over at Dan. Dan examined his drink and took a self-conscious swallow. On the wall behind the dining nook hung a smallish Motherwell ninety percent golden yellow and ten percent black blob in the lower right corner. Dan studied it, resolving to enjoy the experience.

At the CVS on Bleeker, Naomi said.

It's the saddest thing in the world, Estelle announced, slicing the surreally red tomato into surreally red wedges.

I knew he didn't want me to see him. So you know what I did? I ducked around to the next aisle. Am I pathetic or what? I felt like crap, standing among mouthwash products and floss. But, Jesus, he's aged so goddamn much . You wouldn't believe. He shuffles around with that cane like a little old man, cheeks all sunken. And you should see how much weight he's lost. What do you say to someone like that?

Where was Jarmo? Jean said, concerned. Jarmo should have been there. He should be with him everywhere he goes these days.

Maybe he was writing, Estelle said. Running errands. Who knows?

I already miss him, said Jean. He's not even gone yet, and I miss him like crazy.

We should call, Estelle suggested. This afternoon. You know, all of us. Just pick up the phone and say hi. Gossip a little. Get his mind off things.

Hey, Ron said, strolling over with Robert. Ron flaunted the kind of low paunch that makes some middle-aged men appear to be in their second trimesters. He was stiff-kneed, flat-footed. Dan couldn't help thinking of Donald Duck. Any of you guys happen to catch Forrest Gump ? It's one of those movies that's funny as hell and yet sends you away thinking all at the same time.

Yeah, Robert said, deadpan. You mean like about when we decided to make the village idiot with a box of chocolates our national hero?

Ron bobbled his head like one of those baseball dolls in car windows and silently impersonated a laugh, raising and lowering his shoulders, but no sound came out. I know exactly what you mean, he said. That's what I thought when I saw it the first time. Only, trust me, it's about so much more.

Really?

Robert held the vowel cluster an extra pulse.

Oh, sure, Ron said. Like how the innocent can have this major impact on other people with their, um, innocence. And how we all need to have, you know, better outlooks on life. Sometimes we need to be reminded. We take so much for granted in this country. It's a cliché and all, but it's true.

Everyone stopped talking temporarily to ingest this, trying to figure out the degree of irony Ron was utilizing.

Did you happen to notice the shrimp-catching scene? Jean asked.

What shrimp-catching scene? Estelle said.

The one after the hurricane, where they're dumping their full nets onto the deck of that boat. Take a look. The shrimps are all headless.

They're not, Estelle said.

They are, said Jean. No kidding. Fresh from Safeway.

With that, they launched into a conversation about the strengths and weaknesses of the film, even though Robert and Estelle admitted immediately that they hadn't seen it, had no intention of doing so. Robert dismissed it as shallow, glib, and monotonous. Estelle said she hated movies that manipulated audiences into experiencing a sense of reckless comfort about life. Ron looked cornered and confused. He tried to defend the work on the grounds that it was complex in its very simplicity, only he had a difficult time citing specifics and he kept contradicting himself. Soon he fell back to saying it was all just this feeling he got.

Estelle excused herself and slipped into the dining room to set the table. Naomi dropped away to help. Jean wandered over to the spice rack and picked up the bottle with the yellow powder in it and held it up to the sunlight to admire it some more. Robert and Dan leaned against the marble counter, taking sips from their drinks and studying their shoe tips in a way that suggested they might or might not be listening to what Ron had to say.

Ron's diminished audience only unnerved him further. Yet he kept going as though he were talking to a room full of people until Estelle whisked back in to interrupt him gaily and announce lunch was ready.

She drove her guests into the dining room with merry amplified goat-herder gestures, where everyone gathered around the green-tinted glass table with the solitary sunflower in a green-tinted glass vase in the middle. Estelle came in behind them and pointed each to his or her seat. Once they had unfolded their napkins and complimented the salads, Naomi said: Did you hear about the circus elephant that went berserk in Honolulu? It killed its trainer and made a break for it.

Oh, god, Jean said. I know. Wasn't that terrible?

Poor thing, Estelle said. It must have been petrified . She skewered a beige chunk of turkey meat with her fork, raised it to her lips, then noticed everyone was waiting for her. Eat, eat, she said, waving her hand at the food before them.

Poor thing ? said Robert. Imagine how the trainer must have felt.

So what happened? asked Ron.

The police had to shoot it eighty-six times before it went down, Naomi said, chewing.

Dan noticed she had a dark strand of spinach stuck between her front teeth.

Eighty-six ? Ron said.

They have the whole thing on film. This is absolutely delicious, Estelle. You're amazing. Apparently the elephant was a juvenile delinquent. Last year it tore up a mosque in Pennsylvania and terrorized all these school kids out on a field trip.

What's a mosque doing in Pennsylvania? Robert asked.

When we were kids, Ron said, we got to go to the planetarium and ice-cream-making factories.