Joshua Ferris - Then We Came to the End

“Yeah, I totally don’t follow,” said Genevieve, shaking her head at Hank.

Dan Wisdom showed up, taking one step inside the office to stand flush against the door, his hand on the doorknob. Hank explained that “the client” had chosen to move away from the fund-raiser ad, with its specific purpose and call to action, toward a nebulous public service announcement intended to make the cancer patient laugh for some vague reason that had nothing to do with raising money or finding a cure.

“Laughter,” said Hank. “One thing Lynn might be in short supply of right now.”

“So you’re saying,” said Genevieve, smiling mockingly at Hank, “that she made the whole thing up just so she could get a laugh?”

“That’s exactly what we’re saying,” said Karen Woo, moving from the doorway to stand directly in front of Genevieve’s cheap silver bookshelf. “Which is why nobody can find anything on the Web for the ‘Alliance Against Breast Cancer.’ You have to admit, Genevieve. It’s a little weird that nobody’s ever heard of this so-called Alliance. I mean, what kind of alliance is that?”

“I don’t care,” said Genevieve. “This just doesn’t sound like something Lynn would do.”

“Maybe she did it to keep us busy, too,” said Dan Wisdom. “It’s not like we had anything else going on.”

“Don’t you think Lynn would do that?” Amber asked her. “Keep us preoccupied during the downtime, to protect her team?”

“So which is it, then? Did she do it for herself, or did she do it for us?”

We debated which was the most likely answer.

“You guys gotta get your stories straight,” said Genevieve.

Even Carl Garbedian showed up. Here was an amazing turn of events. First running after Benny, and now this. He stood next to Dan Wisdom in the doorway. “I’ll tell you what I think,” he said. He wanted to claim that Lynn had made up the assignment because Lynn’s life was so much about marketing, the only way she could come to terms with her diagnosis was to see it presented to her in an ad. In a time of personal upheaval she fell back on the familiar language of advertising. She had to have it sold to her.

We immediately tried to distance ourselves from that theory. You steal prescription drugs from Janine Gorjanc and almost die of toxic poisoning, and six months into your recovery you’re an expert on the DSM-IV? Not likely. Carl’s psychologizing dampened the credibility of the argument we were trying to make — though Genevieve didn’t know yet about any argument.

Marcia, with her smart new bob, slid between Carl and Dan in the doorway. “What’s going on?” she asked, looking around.

We told her we were trying to convince Genevieve to talk to Joe.

“Talk to Joe?” Genevieve replied, suddenly aware that we weren’t there just to shoot the shit. “What am I talking to Joe about?”

Everyone knew that Lynn and Joe were tight. We saw them talking at night on our way out — the door cracked, one leaning into the other across the desk. She told him about client problems and whatnot and he expressed to her his impressions of us. It didn’t go in Joe’s favor to be seen in there like that because it was widely believed that he exerted influence on who walked Spanish and who didn’t. But that wasn’t the point right now; the point was, if any of us had any sway with Lynn Mason, it was Joe Pope. If anyone was going to confront her with what we suspected, if someone was going to help her, it would have to be Joe.

“And what do I have to do with that?” asked Genevieve.

If any of us had any sway with Joe Pope, it was Genevieve.

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “Nuh-uh.” She shook her head and set her pop down on the desk and said, “No way. This entire conversation is ridiculous.”

“Genevieve,” said Amber. “She might be dying.”

IT DIDN’T TAKE HER long to come around. After Karen’s phone call the evidence was on our side, the argument was too compelling, and Genevieve was too compassionate. If Lynn was really sick, Genevieve didn’t have it in her to sit back and do nothing. She talked it over some more with Marcia; she went back to Amber; she went in to Benny’s. By eleven that morning she was as convinced as the rest of us that the risk of doing nothing outweighed the risk of being wrong, and when she went in search of Joe twenty minutes later, she had the conviction of the newly converted, which wouldn’t last forever, but would for the moment brook no discouragement or allow for second-guessing. She approached him in the cafeteria on fifty-nine, where he was dropping coins into a vending machine.

Seven tables and three vending machines under a dismal light — that was our cafeteria. We’d call it a break room but “break room” might imply something to look forward to. On our rare trips to the cafeteria, we got what we needed from the vending machines and then we got the hell out. Eating there was never an option because the lights, the chairs — it was as depressing as a hospital waiting room, but absent any magazines or lifesaving devices. No one ever took comfort in the cafeteria. The perfect place to await your self-help group’s arrival — that was the kindest description we could give to it.

And so the deterrents to congregation guaranteed them a level of privacy. He opened his pop at one of the tables and she told him what she knew. He listened, and when she made her request, he declined. They talked about it awhile longer and he declined again. They got up from the table and he placed his empty can in the recycle bin just as the Bible group folks, carrying their floppy, shiny-edged books, began to shuffle in for their Thursday lunch.

We wanted to know from Genevieve his reasons for declining to get involved. “He said it was none of his business,” she told us. But why wouldn’t he want to help her? we asked. If she was unwell, and terrified? Karen’s phone call was very compelling evidence that something was not right. Was he heartless? Did he not see a distinction between sticking your nose in where it didn’t belong, and answering a cry for help? “I don’t think he sees it quite like that,” she replied. Well, then, how does he see it? “Differently,” she said.

Twenty minutes after their talk in the cafeteria, he was seen entering Genevieve’s office. She set her pencil down and took off her glasses, which she used only when looking at the computer. He shut the door. He moved inside and sat down. He scooted the chair forward and placed his arms on her desk. He looked at her from under his thick brows and said, “Look, it’s not because it’s none of my business. It isn’t, but if I knew for a fact that she needed help —”

“You would do it.”

“Yes,” he said. “I would help. I just can’t say I’m convinced she’s sick. I will admit,” he added, “that it was weird that she said she would be out the entire week, and then she showed up and never explained why. And she’s been preoccupied, no doubt about it. But okay, so what? That means she has cancer? Maybe she’s just worried about winning the new business.”

Genevieve stopped biting her pinkie nail. “Or maybe she’s really sick.”

“And you want me to be the one to go in and ask her which it is.”

“Hard to think of anyone better.”

“Why? This, by the way, is not the reason I refuse, either,” he said, “but try to see it from my perspective. I’m a man. Women’s issues — not something Lynn and I talk much about. But I’m supposed to go in there and talk to her about an incredibly personal matter. Whereas,” he said, gesturing as if to present Genevieve to herself, “you are a woman — much more suited to the topic. But you’re asking me to be the one.”

“Joe, I wasn’t asking you to go in there alone,” she said. She lifted herself up using the armrests of her chair, crossed her legs, and sat back down again Indian-style. “I’ll be with you.”