Fiona Maazel - Woke Up Lonely

“Which part?”

“The armed-and-dangerous part. You hear rumors, but I don’t believe them.”

“Oh, that,” she said. “Probably right, only I have a couple friends who joined a Bond and now no one knows what’s up with them because they won’t talk to anyone but each other.”

“A Bond?”

“Like a commune. People living together in some house or building. They’re all over the country. But I gotta say, I actually think it sounds nice.”

“I bet the Branch Davidians thought their gig was nice, too.”

“No, but they were bonkers. And anyway, how do you know? Maybe they knew they were in a cult and just liked it that way.” She cast her arm like it was the line and she was fishing.

Ned tilted his head, gave her a look. “Wait a minute,” he said. “Do I know you from someplace else?”

Her face said it all. “I work four doors down from you, Ned. I see you every day.”

“Oh, jeez. How embarrassing.”

“That’s okay. I’m not all that stand-out.”

Ding.

Ned thumbed through his date cards. Five dates, one match. AnneJanet 358. He returned to the lounge for a last drink and a closing look at her because he was determined to remember her face. He found her with Bruce. Bruce and Olgo.

Ned said, “Happy birthday, Olgo Panjabi.”

Bruce said, “So what is that, anyway? Italian-Indian?”

Olgo wanted another drink. He was feeling vibrant. Sixty years old. Sixty today! Sixty at a time when sixty was the new forty, or so his wife liked to say after orgasm, which she still had, with decent frequency and élan, so that even as he thought about it now, he felt a gathering of love for her ramp up his chest and blossom across his face.

“Okay, one more,” said Bruce, as he assessed the détente in his gut — would it keep until home? He had a bad stomach.

When asked, Bruce said he once did consulting. And Olgo? “Arbitration. I used to envoy proposals between people who hate each other. I wrest accord from the teeth of hostility.”

“Wow.”

“My wife put that on a business card for me once. Just for fun. Olgo Panjabi: Wresting accord from the teeth of hostility since 1945. Year I was born.”

Bruce said, “I used to work in TV. Trial by Liar —my baby.”

Anne-Janet laughed. “And now we all work for Interior, and none of us knows why.”

A man tapped Ned on the shoulder. He was the organizer of the night. He was saying: Nine minutes, nine women. When you do eight, or four, you leave a woman in the lurch. There is a woman in the lurch, and she is demanding satisfaction.

Good grief. Ned was directed to a private room, which was empty barring a single woman at a table and, weirdly, a security detail in the nooks. These guys were so conspicuous. So maybe this woman was a higher-up. Maybe she had powers. Not that powers were such an asset if they meant having to take your security team on a speed date. This woman had a stoop — he could tell even though she was sitting. And though there was supposed to be an age limit here, the woman’s neck said fifty. Drapes of neck. Cascade of neck.

“Ned Four Four Four,” she said. “Sit.”

There are men, it’s true, who like to be bossed around. Men who want to be called bitch and slave and whore. Typically these are men in power who just want to give it a rest. Ned knew such men. His father — his faux father — was such a man, though no one had known. At least not until two months ago, when he had confessed, in his sleep, to having affinities at odds with his wife’s temperament in bed, so much so that he was pleading for things of which she had never heard. What, for instance, was a hog tie?

His mother might well have let it go — a dream is but a dream — but she didn’t. Instead, she flew into such a rage that she intimated gratitude for Ned’s lineage unknown — thank God he could not inherit this sickness, this depravity! — at which point, she realized, the game was up. The truth will out: he was adopted. Ned left home with a folder of documents and letters, and a sense that the wasteland he’d come to regard as his inner life owed its provenance to strangers.

He sat. The woman produced a clipboard. “Drugs?” she said.

“No.”

“Illnesses?”

“None. My dad has hypertension, but then I guess that means nothing for me anymore since he’s not really my dad.”

She checked things off as she spoke.

“This is efficient,” he said. “Do you multitask at home? I’ve got it so I can piss, shave, and brush my teeth at the same time. Assuming you’re man enough to sit on the toilet, it’s no problem.”

“You’re very talented,” she said, and she seemed to lean forward, though perhaps it was just the illusion produced by her nose and jaw, as though these features wanted off her face and were just waiting for the chance.

He checked his watch. Seven minutes to go. He said, “What’s your name?” and looked at his date card. Because, in a way, this bossy little woman was hot. Twenty years older than him, but hot. Go figure.

“My name is Lynne.”

He leaned forward, wanting to whisper something about the security detail, only as he moved in, so did they. One got his forearm between Ned and Lynne so fast it came down like a tollgate. The arm appeared to say: Sit back. Good thing Ned had powers of deduction, since the man also appeared incapable of speech. He was so much brick, there were probably bricks all up and down his throat.

The woman waved him off—“Martin, enough”—and the Brick went back to his corner.

Ned retracted. Pulled out his chair. “This is getting uncomfortable,” he said. “I don’t think I’m the guy for you.”

But Lynne kept to the script. Fears? Phobias? Allergies?

“I don’t handle eggplant all that well.”

“Anything you can tell me that your basic spy wouldn’t catch within a week of surveillance?”

He had to think. He scratched his back with kitchen utensils, wore Star Wars costumes to relax, and sometimes talked to Kurt Vonnegut in the bathroom because the man’s photo — from a magazine — was taped to the mirror.

“No,” he said. “Probably not. Though if you had someone spying on me, it’d be for a reason, which would make me way more interesting than I am. So it’s sort of an unfair question.”

“Okay, let me ask you this: Do you ever feel like you want to do something great? Something that will make you king of the world?”

He sat back. Studied her face. Did he know this woman, too? He didn’t want to risk asking.

“I guess,” he said. “That’s why I study weather modification. I mean, if you can turn water to ice, you are powerful. You are all powerful. So who knows? Defy Nature in a small way and maybe you can do it in a big way.”

“And that appeals to you?”

“I’d like to be in charge of my own life, yes.”

She seemed to approve. “So you just found out you’re adopted, is that right?”

“How could you know that?” he said. “Okay, please tell me you are just really into me and did some research.”

“Is that what you’d prefer?”

“Don’t write that down! Am I safe in assuming we’ve long since ended our date? I’m going to try to be smart about this and venture you are from Interior and are, uh, interviewing me for one reason or another.”

“Don’t be silly. I just overheard what you said earlier. And anyway, here comes the bell.”

“You are weird,” he said. “That was weird.”

“Nine-minute dating is weird. Get over it.”

He watched her leave the room, security on either flank.

In the lounge were the bartender and backs. A few guys watching golf highlights. A woman saying it might be nice to watch the minority response to the State of the Union, and another saying: Bohhhring.