Jonathan Franzen - Strong Motion - A Novel

She frowned. “Shoot. Shoot .” She looked at Peter. “Do you remember what it was?”

“You couldn’t remember when you told me either.”

“It was like, ‘If you— If you—.’” She looked around the table sheepishly. “I can’t remember. I thought I did but I don’t. It was something like—”

“They get the idea,” Peter said.

It began to seem to Louis that he was the only person at the table who did not belong. By and by Renée rose from behind her fortifications to answer questions about earthquakes, as usual sounding like a seminar leader; and it was Peter, not Louis, who seemed to possess what she said; it was Peter whose face shone with the reflected radiance of her expertise.

After ritual consumption of Hāagen-Dazs, Louis selflessly left the thirty-year-olds alone in the living room in case Renée needed more time to pry facts out of Peter.

“You seem kinda down,” Eileen told him in the kitchen, as he watched her load the dishwasher. “Is it your job?”

“What job? I don’t have a job.”

“So you haven’t found anything.”

“I’m not even looking.”

“But weren’t you like real interested in radio?”

He duly noted that she’d scored a point by “showing concern” for him like this. He laughed, briefly, at the idea he was interested in radio.

“Do you have money to pay your rent and stuff?” she said.

“Nah. But I’m moving in with Renée this week, so.”

Surprise muted her voice. “You are?”

“Yes.”

“Oh. I didn’t know that.” She turned up the corners of her mouth. “That’s nice.”

“Yes.”

She made a strong second effort. “She’s really smart, isn’t she? She is so smart. And she’s like — your age?”

Louis stared at his sister. “Yeah. My age.”

“How’d you meet her?”

“I met her at the beach. She had a beach ball.”

“Uh huh. Be sure and give me your new address, OK?” She scraped Renée’s uneaten beef into the trash, where there were two Stouffer’s frozen moussaka boxes, and put the plate in the dishwasher. “And you know, if you’re really low on cash, you could probably ask Mom—”

“Hey. There’s a thought.”

“Well although she’s kind of upset right now. I don’t know if you heard, it’s this really terrible thing. She’s getting all this money, but about 90 percent of it’s in stock in Grandpa’s company, Sweeting-Aldren, you know, where Peter’s dad works?”

“Oh, yeah. Chemical company?”

“Right. Except she doesn’t get control of it until next month, and you probably haven’t been reading in the paper, but the company’s in really awful shape, because of the earthquakes and this chemical spill near their plant. Peter’s dad’s the operations vice president and he’s in charge of all this stuff. But so for a while the stock price was falling like a point a day, which is really terrible, and Mom’s sitting there with all this stock and she has to watch it fall like two million dollars in value without being able to do anything about it. Can you believe that? I mean, two million dollars? And she can’t do a thing about it. Plus most of the other stuff she has is real estate, I guess mainly Rita’s property, and there’s suddenly this depression in real estate up there, because of the earthquakes. So she’s really upset. She flies out here and then she can’t do anything, so she goes home but then she just sits around and worries, so she keeps flying back. She doesn’t even call me anymore, when she’s here, which is fine with me; she’s not herself. Does she call you?”

“I’m seldom near a phone, so I wouldn’t know.”

“I really feel sorry for her. I mean, sheesh! Two million dollars.”

“It’s a hard, cruel world,” Louis said.

Eileen activated the dishwasher and looked around to see what dishes hadn’t made the final cut. “Peter’s family was really lucky,” she said. “The last earthquake did a lot of damage to their house. We were out there and we saw. Part of the house sort of settled? They have this new addition which they’re going to have to tear it down, and put a new foundation in, and their doors don’t close anymore. They live in Lynnfield, they have this wonderful house, and it turns out they had earthquake insurance? It was just really lucky. You could get it as a rider, but nobody used to want it until this year. But I guess the Stoorhuyses just wanted to be completely insured, and so now they’re not going to have to pay anything. One of their neighbors, it’s going to cost like twenty thousand dollars to fix their house. And you can’t get the rider anymore unless you wait a year before it takes effect.”

Louis thought of Mr. Stoorhuys, his forelock, his too-short jacket sleeves. His bushy, wagging tail. “Do you see them a lot? Peter’s family?”

Eileen’s face darkened. “Peter and his dad don’t get along too well. His mom’s real nice, though, so we see them a little. He’s got four sisters and a brother. He’s the oldest.” She looked at Louis sideways; there was a clump of suds on her silk lapel. “You know, he’s really a nice person. He’s a great older brother. He’s always doing stuff for his sisters.”

Louis was at a loss. “I’ll make an effort.”

He was called upon to make that effort almost immediately. Eileen took him into the living room and asked Peter if he had any ideas for a job Louis could get. Peter scrutinized him as though his job qualifications were written on his body. Renée was also looking at him, flashing let’s leave signals. Peter asked what kind of minimum salary requirements we were looking at.

Louis spoke in his zombie voice. “I wouldn’t say no to five thousand a month plus benefits and paid sick leave. I type thirty-five words per minute.”

“Frankly,” Peter said, “with requirements like those I think you’re going to be looking for a lo-o-o-ng time. Now, what I was going to suggest is you look for the kind of arrangement I got into with Boston magazine a few years back. We’re probably the best publication you could be with at this stage. We’re a little labor-rich right now, so I would not get my hopes up, but, uh, I could put in a word for you, if you want.”

Eileen gave Louis a huge smile: here was a really good possibility for him! Peter might be able to do something for him right away!

Peter swirled the ruddy liquid in his snifter. “What they may do,” he said, “is start you off on a one hundred percent commission basis. Doesn’t sound so great, huh. But if you don’t let ’em set a ceiling, it can work in your favor. I started out that way myself, and you know what I made my first month?”

During the moment Louis was given to guess the figure, Renée listed illy on the sofa, overcome by the high voltage of misunderstanding in the room.

“Twenty-one hundred dollars,” Peter said. “And that was three years ago. Granted, I had some experience at that point, so these may not be equivalent situations. You may have to bust your butt for a couple of months. But if you can hack it, you’ll be pretty close to where I am now in two years max.”

“Thanks for the advice,” Louis said. “I’ll think it over and get back to you. Do you have a fax number? ”

“Just give me a call,” Peter said.

“Think it over, huh, Louis?” Eileen earnestly touched his arm. “He can really help you.”

Renée had teletransported herself to the door. Again the grotesque distortion of faces as she and Eileen exchanged thanks and good wishes, squeezing through the moment of departure.

“Yo, Renée,” Peter said across the room. “Take care of yourself.”

Outside, the city made its rustling noises, its sighs and murmurs, its auditory offerings to the indifferent sky above it. Somewhere a subway wheel screeched on a rail, so far away the sound was dime-sized. The avengers walked up the street without speaking, doing three-on-two rhythms with their feet, Louis’s stride long, Renée’s more rapid. She was biting her lip and blinking as if resisting tears.