Rick Moody - The Diviners

Maiser says, “You know, it’s really funny you’d say that, because I was in the hotel the other day and I got this call —”

There’s no time. He could stand and talk to Lorna for hours, but there’s no time. Somebody has to stop Wilkinson, who is hanging by one hand from the rope, about four feet up, and is calling out for help. Before Maiser knows it, he is running, and he can feel himself running, can feel the decision being made in the quads and the delts, and it’s not some corporate type of decision, it’s a reflexive decision, as if he is a character in a miniseries himself, and before you can say enhanced revenue stream, he has Wilkinson around the waist and is lowering him back to the floor of the desert, after which, with a dexterity he doesn’t think he still possesses, he has his own boozy body halfway up and a hand over the top, where he scrapes off a couple of layers of skin. The shadows are all on the other side of the wall. If only they had known that the shadows are there, and that all they have to do is drop over the other end and they will be in the shade, where a cooler full of bottled water awaits.

“Leslie,” he calls, upon lofting a leg over the summit so that he can sit. “Get your ass up here. And forget about retaining counsel. You can sue over your sprained ankle tomorrow. Today, you’re getting your ass up here. Get on it, sweetie. Now.”

And the amazing thing is that Leslie has taken off the leather pants. Admittedly, she’s wearing a long silk shirt, but she has done what needs to be done, and he has to admit, her body is a traffic-stopping kind of a thing. Never let it be said that those young women who spend all their time in the gym are not strong, because they are incredibly strong, because she’s halfway up in the time it would take to have a station break and she’s got a spiel going the whole time: “Do you want me to stay at the top and help to lift Stew up? Or do you want me to go over the other side? Just tell me the plan!”

“Go over,” he says, and by the time he says it, she’s already there, flipping the rope as if it were some trick she learned as a cheerleader in high school, when she wasn’t snorting coke and copying other people’s essays. He gets a quick look at her backside, notes that that is definitely not a thong, and then she’s over the edge. Leslie swings hard against the other side, halfway down, and lets go, landing like a Romanian gymnast, except that she shouts, “Motherfucker!” About the ankle.

“Stew!” Jeff calls.

Ledbetter is standing at the bottom of the rope as it pendulums in front of him. “Jeff, I don’t know. Maybe I was being a little ambitious before!”

“Stew,” he says, “we just don’t have time, pal; we just don’t have time. Want your division to get spun off?”

And that’s the thing that does it, and Stew Ledbetter is up, huffing and puffing until he’s near the top.

“Jeff, I’m worried I’m going to vomit. I’m just really not that good with heights.”

But in fact Stew is coming up, with much grimacing, and soon he has one flabby hand grabbing at the top.

“Leslie, get ready down there, he’s coming down!”

Maiser hoists up the rope. And Stew tips over the top as though he’s falling into his grave. There’s an ominous thud. But Jeff doesn’t look because he can see that Len Wilkinson is at the bottom of the wall now, awaiting his turn. He hears Leslie call that she has Stew and that Stew is indeed throwing up, but there’s no time, no time.

“Len, get the hell out of the way; we’re doing Lorna next.”

“But Jeff, I can help pull Lorna up.”

“You could, Len, but you’re not going to. Get out of the way.”

Wilkinson seems to have no intention of doing that, however, until Lorna kicks him hard in the shin. With her bare foot. It’s a gutsy move. Wilkinson crumples, bent over his hematoma. And now comes the difficult part, which is where Jeffrey leans down to pull, because Lorna is just not going to have lifted herself up any ropes lately. To his amazement, though, she seems to have choreographed rope stylings, as if there was some past of rope training or something, or maybe water ballet, one of those grace-filled girlhood activities.

“Lorna, are you going to need —”

“I was a gymnast as a kid. Until I had a fall.”

“A fall? Was it a back injury of some kind?”

“If you could just give me a hand at the top, please.”

She has the rope fed between her bare feet, which feature painted toenails, and she contorts herself, like an inchworm on a blade of grass, with each fresh upward convulsion, until her hand reaches for his, and their hands are connected, and he pulls her up. He can see her bra strap. And her bra strap is good. And her hair has come unfastened. And her hair is good. The fact of her past upon the balance beam is good. Flushed cheeks. Heaving bosom. The gleam, in her green eyes, of exertion. And the two of them are on the top of the wall, and on the one side, they are watching Leslie and Stew drinking bottled water in the shade. And on the other, in the glare of the desert sun, Len Wilkinson.

“I guess the Americans with Disabilities Act doesn’t cover this one, Len,” Jeff says. Lorna makes no move to go down the far side yet, and her dress billows under her from the other side of the wall.

“Are you going to make fun of my disability, Jeffrey? That doesn’t seem like team building.”

“I don’t give a shit about your disability. I have better things to worry about than your little baby penis. Len, listen, I can’t help but notice the view from up here. It’s a sensational view. Clear day, bright sunshine. The view is just great.”

“What do you mean?” Tugging on the end of the rope as if he’s going to attempt to go it alone again.

“What I mean, Len, is that it seems to me that we have the opportunity to make a deal. That’s the view I’m seeing from up here, Len. I’m seeing a view of corporate structure before me. Or maybe that’s not really the thing, Len; maybe it’s not corporate structure that I mean. Maybe what I’m seeing is an idea of corporate ethics, of the way things might work, and maybe that’s what team building is all about, all pulling in the same direction in terms of ethics, Len, right? The scales have fallen from my eyes up here, Len, and suddenly I’m feeling really good about things —”

“Gentlemen,” the management consultant guy suddenly intrudes in the action, “I remind you that you’re being timed, and lengthy conversations are really going to eat up a lot of time.”

“Fuck off, pal. Now, Len, here’s the deal. I like my job and I like having the kind of responsibility that I have, because I think I’m good at it, and I like the other people in my division, the people I’ve worked with for the last twenty or twenty-five years in some cases, and I don’t want to see anything happen to my division. I mean, I’m willing to make a few changes to swing with the fashions of the moment, but I’m not willing to see a fifty-year tradition of news broadcasting taken over by a few punks with too much gel in their hair, and what I’m looking for, in general, are some assurances that my division is going to survive the next shake-up, and this is where I think you can be of some use to me.”

“Jesus, Jeff, we’re —”

“We’re going to be announcing some bold new programming in the next couple of weeks, Len, and these new programs are going to be anything but the enhanced-reality model. What I’m wanting from you is that you are going to come up with the ideas we need to launch these new programs. You’re going to use your skills, you’re going to promote the hell out of this sonofabitch, and you’re going to stake your reputation on it.”