Rafael Yglesias - Dr. Neruda's Cure for Evil

“I don’t want a job. He’s worth, what? Six hundred million? He can keep me until I get pregnant. Then he’ll leave his wife.”

I nodded and waited.

She rotated on her behind, legs under her, elbows on her knees, and faced me. “I was glad Mikey died.” She rocked back and watched me.

I nodded.

“That’s what you want me to say,” she told me.

“If it’s the truth.”

Her eyes strayed up to the volleyball net. “I felt like shit for a while, but then I realized I was glad. That’s why I told Gene I loved him.”

I nodded. “Because you wanted to be able to love.”

“Right,” she agreed.

“So really you were just trying to be a better person when you told him you loved him?”

“It made him happy and I … I believed it, too. Even I believed it for a while.” She tilted her head and she regarded me, waiting.

“Bullshit,” I said.

“No,” she shook her head.

“All of it. Pure bullshit,” I said. “What’s bothering you is that your father is paying attention to your mother instead of you.”

Halley smiled. Head tilted, arms hugging her knees, eyes bright, she smiled as if I had just complimented her. The roller reached the border of the court and started beeping, a steady insistent noise to warn that it was moving backwards. She held my attempt at an impassive gaze while her eyes were lively and interested. When the roller stopped beeping and turned to press another section flat, she asked, “Do you love me?”

“More than ever,” I said.

She rocked forward, patted my arm, then reached for her shoes. I watched her small feet fit into them. I knew the details of every pore of her body and all its incarnations: the birthmark above her left hip, the puffed look of her belly bloated by menstruation, the quizzical stare of her wet knees breaking the water of her bath, her hair down and long to play the cool adventuress, her hair bound in a pony tail for girlish comfort. I knew, as well, every turn of her quick competitive mind, furiously constructing disguises. She stood up and nothing remained of the pain she had brought to show me. She stared at the roller squeezing moisture from the black ground. “Dr. Neruda’s playground for gifted children,” she said and laughed.

She left. I waited until the layer was finished. I checked my watch, saw that it was almost ten-thirty, and walked to the parking lot. Stick appeared. It was time for him to take Mary Catharine to her AA meeting. Afterwards they would have lunch. He flipped the keys to his Lexus back and forth while he walked my way, not surprised by my presence. “She told you,” he said, not a question.

“Was it difficult?”

“It was my fault,” he said, stating a fact. His gaunt face stared at the low gray body of his car.

“Yes,” I agreed.

“I encouraged her.”

“Yes,” I said.

“She’s done great work. The whole 800 scheme was really … She put it together.” He looked at me, smiling slightly. “They’re all copying it. Including Big Blue. With all those fucking salesmen.”

“Are you proud of her?”

He stared down at the keys and flipped them over. They struck his knuckles. “Yep,” he said and flipped them back against his palm. “She deserves to be promoted more than Jack.”

“That’s true.”

“Is she going to leave?” he mumbled.

“My guess is, she’s calling Edgar now. She claims she’s going to be his second wife.”

He nodded and opened his door. He moved between it and the car, one foot inside, ready to mount his horse. “She’s trying to piss you off.”

“Predictable,” I said. “So you told her you were promoting Jack?”

“That’s what we agreed, right?”

I nodded.

He got himself in, and looked through the windshield. He didn’t close the door. “I thought you said she told you.”

“In her way. She complained about your asking her to keep her love life to herself.”

He reached for the door. “She’s a real loss to the company.”

I helped shut it while saying, “But you’ll get a daughter back.”

I turned to leave. He started the car and lowered his window to say, “Rafe?” I faced him. He frowned and stared ahead. I leaned on the door and waited. The stone face didn’t move.

“What is it, Stick?”

His lips barely moved. “You don’t love her?” he asked and looked at me.

“No. If I did, it would be a disaster for her.”

“Poor Hal,” he said. He pressed a button and his window rolled up. I backed away and he drove off. He was hurting his daughter, hurting her more keenly than anyone else could, and, although he hadn’t hesitated to do the deed, he didn’t seem to get much pleasure from it. We had made progress.

Halley resigned a week later to work for Edgar in his recently formed media subsidiary, Levin Entertainment, which included his brother’s production company, Channel 8—the independent New York broadcast station that he was transforming into a cable superstation — and the Catalogue Channel, a slightly upscale copy of the Home Shopping Network. During our seven-thirty-in-the-morning phone calls, I heard how thrilled she was by the day-to-day progress of her new career. For her, the job was really centered around captivating Edgar, the target I (her new father) had set for her.

Edgar took Halley’s job inquiry seriously right from the start. Stick had recommended her highly and confirmed her story that she was the one who wanted to leave Minotaur. Nevertheless, Halley insisted Edgar was only interested in her sexually. “He’s got very few women working for him and I bet he’s fucked all of them.”

“Could be,” I conceded. “But he wants you for a job that you’re qualified for anyway — mass media marketing.”

“He should be hiring someone from the Home Shopping Network. That would kill two birds with one stone — hurting them while getting himself started.”

“Did you suggest that to him?” I asked.

“Yes.” She didn’t linger in her bed these days for our talks. She roved while dressing. There was a rush of water, followed by the sound of pouring. “Was that a mistake?”

“Are you making coffee?”

“Yes. Did I make a mistake?”

“It was good advice. That should prove to him you’re the right choice.”

“Good,” she said. Over the next month I was introduced each morning, by phone, to her new world. Our night sessions continued, on Monday and Thursday. They were strictly ritualized with no variation: a bath on Monday, a bedtime story on Thursday. Only during the throes of orgasm did she complain that she couldn’t touch me and she was obviously insincere. She was convinced that I was what I seemed to be: a loving mirror in which she could see a true reflection. My headaches, of course, grew worse. No matter what I tried — long walks; midnight exercise at, ironically, The Workout; or, to be blunt, masturbation — nothing relieved my frustration. I wondered about an absurdity: if I had a real relationship going that I could return to after my sessions with Halley, would that be easier? My guess was yes — except for the minor detail that no healthy woman would accept my behavior.

I had a more immediate problem. By May, Halley was settled at Levin Entertainment. My presence at Minotaur was no longer required — Stick had gone too far in relinquishing power and he showed no sign of wishing to return to his former behavior. Besides, a weekly phone call kept him satisfied and well-monitored. I had even found him a doubles partner who relished winning as much as he. It was time to terminate — allow Andy, Jack, Tim, Jonathan and Stick to function on their own. If I returned to Baltimore, however, I couldn’t maintain my sessions with Halley and that would be disastrous. In a year, all I had accomplished with her was a transference of her fixation from Stick. Where could I go in New York, be useful, and still available to Halley? There seemed to be only one choice.