Thomas Mcguane - Something to Be Desired

Dominic called for him to enter in his pure, strange soprano. Lucien thrust half his body in. “Just saying hi.”

Dominic held up a Madonna made of blue smoked glass. “A new one,” he said. “From Sainte Anne de Beaupré in Quebec.” He set it on the shelf with the others. “Go on. I see y’busy.”

Back at reception and a quick fan through the receipts. He looked up to see the station wagon cruise past on the pea rock toward the back of the building. Should have been gone by now.

“Got ahold of the next of kin?”

“No problem,” said Antoinette.

“Billing?”

“American Express. They had duplicate cards.”

“What about the autopsy?”

“They’re going to pass. They wanted him hermetically sealed rather than embalmed. The state requires one or the other. He’s in the container now.”

Lucien gazed irritatedly out to the empty parking area. “Tell Zane to get a move on,” he said. “It looks hot out there. I’m going to work in the office. No calls.” Lucien headed back off down the corridor.

Antoinette yelled out: “Someone phoned about seamless gutters. Said the price had gone up.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sakes.”

Lucien sealed himself in the office. Quick look at his watch: two hours’ light to ride home and run the dog, then dinner with Suzanne and James.

He called for current balances in the springs account, the ranch account, his personal account and wrote them into the respective books. Deadrock Plumbing. This bill can’t be real. No real bill can be this size. These drifters need a moving target.

“Tim Lake. This is Lucien Taylor.” After a little bit: “Tim, you send me this bill?”

“Yes, Lucien, I did.”

“Tim, you’ve got the balls of a brass monkey.”

“Lucien, you’re lookin’ at a lot of hours on that sheet. I had three men up there, two trucks.”

“I’ve seen that before. One truck is to make beer runs when your rummies get the DTs working on my furnace. Tim, I’m gonna give you a break. I’m gonna rip this goddamned sonofabitch up and not let you hurt my feelings. You go sit down and write me a bill you take some pride in. But this time be honest. With yourself.”

Then, while the glow was upon him, though the age of bowmen and harpers was lost for all time, he could dash off some price-control letters. He rang Antoinette. Gone home. The phone was done for the day. He felt the earth move. Lucien pulled off his tie, examining its red and silver silk stripes for the first time, rolled it and put it in his pocket. He wandered down the corridor, seeing with satisfaction the cowboy and cowgirl waiters moving in the steam. Mary Celeste table-hopped with nutritional tips in a drooping dinner gown; her Empire coif listed very slightly to the north. In a couple of hours all but the minimum lights would have been turned off; most guests would be in their quarters. A few with wooing twinkles would be back in the main pool, paddling through stench to desire. There’s a little of that in all of us.

There was time to take a shower and shave once again, inspecting his face for missed spots. Then he put on some invigorating lotion and watched himself button a blue-and-white-striped shirt. He had slicked his hair straight back like a rich heir, and he withdrew his lips so he could pass judgment on his teeth: bright gums, no plaque; the crown doesn’t appear unless one smiles too hard, as in drunkenness or, once a year, delight. He walked to the White Cottage, a bright and romantic rental unit in the wind-trained junipers above the spring. It did well.

He knocked at the gate. Suzanne opened the door for him and returned immediately to the small compound. Where the sliding doors opened on the wading pool, James sat reading comic books. He probably does that a lot, Lucien thought. When he’d last seen James he really wasn’t interested in comics. He still had an extensive GI Joe collection. Now he wore camouflage and read comics.

“Can I make you a drink?”

“Are you having one?”

“I’m having quite a few,” she said.

“Okay,” Lucien said. “The usual.”

“I don’t know what the usual is,” said Suzanne, making one slow blink.

“It’s anything but scotch,” said Lucien. “Like how about some bourbon and water?”

“I’m not sure we have it.”

“What’s this tone?”

“No tone. I just didn’t know if it was there.”

Lucien sat next to James.

“Hi, Pop.”

“Well, what do you think?”

“Are you making a fortune?”

“I’m doing okay.”

“I wish we could make a fortune. Me and my mom. Maybe I’ll invent something.”

Suzanne returned with the drinks and sat in a wicker chair opposite Lucien and James. “Dinner failed,” she said with an inquisitive smile, as if to say, Now what?

“It can’t have. You made that pork roast a hundred times.”

“Goes to show you about memory,” she said.

“Do you want me to ring over to the kitchen?” Lucien asked evenly.

“I made something else. I was going with a terrific cook. He showed me a way to do calves’ liver. Yes and you’re going to love it.”

“He was a cook?”

“He was an investment analyst and a college vice-president, but he liked to cook, Lucien. He liked to cook.”

“I’ll bet that’s not all he liked to do.”

She pulled her pearls out from the collar of her blouse, regarded James with a smile and said, “Come to dinner.”

Instead of place mats, Suzanne had used parts of that night’s newspaper. Lucien had railroad cutbacks. James had sports. Lucien couldn’t see what Suzanne had. Their plates were stacked like the silverware, to be passed around. The dinner was in one deep skillet with a serving spoon. Suzanne used to make a great effort at presentation. When Lucien tasted his food, he found her cooking had improved considerably. There was some jug red wine and water glasses.

“How was your day?”

“Amazingly complicated,” said Lucien.

“We rather thought you’d come by,” said Suzanne.

“One of my guests died,” Lucien boomed over the liver. “I had to arrange shipment.”

There was quiet as James stared with youthful ghoulishness. He cut his eyes to his mother in hopes of a deeper inquiry about the man who died. Then the three went on eating. Lucien couldn’t believe James would eat this meal. He’d probably learned to eat what he was given. In Honduras they used to take a table right onto the beach and sink the legs in the sand. They’d throw leftovers profligately to the seagulls and put the juice of wild limes on the mangoes they loved for dessert. They had the shade of the beach plum, and Suzanne would take the trouble of using real linens. Therefore this utilitarian presentation was something of a shock to Lucien. Maybe it was high-tech.

Suzanne got up and left the room. Lucien looked over at James while James ate. It seemed to Lucien that James took extraordinary care in cutting his food into uniform pieces. For a moment Lucien couldn’t understand why he did this; then he saw that it was fear that made James so careful.

“We’ve got to think of something,” said Lucien more ingenuously than he usually was with children. “Something we could do for fun.”

“What do you want to do?” James asked. He looked ready for flight.

“Do you still like to fish?”

“I haven’t done it in a long time.”

“What do you do for fun?”

“I fly radio-controlled airplanes.”

“Radio-controlled airplanes! What fun is that?”

James was frozen silent. He pushed his jet-black hair sideways as if trying to remember where it was parted. “Anyway, that’s what I do,” he said in a small voice.

“I just don’t know what that is,” said Lucien. Then, to makes things better, he asked, “Do you think it’s something I’d like?”