Clancy Martin - How to Sell

“You guys are working hard, I see,” Wendy said.

“Hi, Wendy,” Jim said.

“Daddy, I want something to drink,” Claire said. I took her into my lap.

“I wasn’t trying to interrupt your workday,” Wendy said. “But I need some money. They are putting in that underground water filter today and I can’t pay for it. You said we were going to pay for it in cash.”

Jim gave me a look. Sometimes I would need a little more cash than he was ready to divide up. This water filter business had been one of those times. I’d agreed to it when I had the Polack at my desk and was in a hurry to get Wendy off the phone. I would have told Wendy yes to many things with the Polack sitting across from me listening to our conversation with the malevolence on her face that she wore only when I was talking to my wife.

“I’m sorry. I don’t have that cash right now, Wendy.”

“How much cash is it?” Jim was reaching in his pocket.

“No, don’t worry about it, Jim,” I said. I didn’t want him to hear the number.

“It’s thirty-five hundred,” Wendy said.

“Thirty-five hundred dollars? For a water filter?”

“It’s like an underground water filter,” Wendy told Jim. “You never have to buy filtered water again. You even bathe in filtered water. I don’t want to wash Claire in that water with all of that stuff they pump into it. Chemicals and detergents. That’s not healthy. You should have seen our water when he tested it. It was really disgusting. It was frightening.”

“Daddy. Thirsty.” Claire squirmed in my lap. I started dancing her lamb on the table to distract her. With luck the lamb might bump the backgammon board.

“Bobby, why did Emily have your sunglasses on?”

“What? Who?”

Emily was the Polack’s real name, but no one ever said it.

“That Polish saleswoman. Emily, Bobby. Who works in your store. I think you have met her.”

“I better get back to the store, Bobby.” Jim stood and folded up the backgammon board. “I’ll see you back there. Don’t you have an appointment at three? Isn’t Morgan supposed to be in today?”

“Margaret,” I said. “Margaret is coming in at three.”

“Thirsty, Daddy! Thirsty, thirsty.” She started to sing it.

“You do know who the Polack is, right? Are you willing to grant that much? She was wearing your sunglasses. Why would she be wearing your sunglasses?”

Why is she wearing sunglasses at all? I wondered. She is supposed to be picking sapphires for the Stein job.

“I don’t know. I don’t even know what you’re talking about. How should I know what sunglasses she’s wearing? They’re not my sunglasses. They must be her sunglasses. They must be different sunglasses. You must be mistaken, Wendy. My sunglasses are in my car.”

“That’s true. She was driving your car, Bobby. She was driving away with the top down and your sunglasses on when I pulled in. Did you think she was wearing them in the store? Does she wear your sunglasses in the store while she works? She must be pretty attached to those sunglasses. Is there something you want to tell me, Bobby? I guess she is telling me. I think the Polack is trying to tell me already.”

“Wendy, I don’t know what you are trying to say, but I am going to get Claire something to drink. I don’t want to fight right now. Seriously. I don’t have time for this.”

“Good, that’s helpful. Walk away. Go on, now, and think of some lie to tell me.”

“Come on, honey.” I lifted Claire into my arms and carried her into the coffee shop. “What do you want? Milk? They have milk. Do you want apple juice?”

“Cookie, Daddy! That cookie! Pink cookie!”

After closing, the Polack told me the story herself.

“She pulls up in the car. So, she sees me. She is your wife, not mine! I did not know she was there. What am I hiding?”

Uh-huh, I thought. It was all just ordinary bad luck.

When I was with Lisa, later that evening, the suspicion occurred to me that the Polack and Wendy were collaborating in a plot to make me kill myself. Why they might want this I could not have said for certain. There was no life insurance money. It was all signed away to our investors in the buyout agreements. So just to get back at me, I supposed.

I watched Lisa across the table. She was sipping a blue margarita. This woman is a whole woman, I thought. She is who she appears to be. But those two. It was like they were the same woman, divided into two evil halves. You are getting drunk, Bobby, I thought. But there really was something to it. They understood and considered things I could not even speak if I knew them. They could see years into the future.

“Excuse me, Lisa,” I said. She smiled at me. What a nice woman she is, I thought. She thinks about my pleasure, my state of being. She wants me to be happy.

I went to the bathroom and inspected myself, with kindness, in the mirror. I placed my palms on the red marble counter and sucked in my cheeks. That helped. I look a bit like Jesus, I thought, in a hound’s-tooth pale yellow Armani suit. Or like John Lennon, but with slicked-back hair.

T here was a room at the Mansion on Turtle Creek that would become our regular room. But I think this was the first time we went to the Mansion together. It was a Friday night.

“Why did you call Sylvia? That’s what I want to know. I don’t really see you as one of these prostitute guys. I mean, I know you’re married and all. But why not just go to a bar and get a regular girl?”

“You are my regular girl.” We had been together for a month now and she let me say things like that to her. Probably she was only being patient with me. But she said it first. About a regular girl, I mean.

The summer was turning around, I felt. It could be a good summer yet.

“You know what I mean.”

“That’s how it seems to women. Because they can have sex whenever they want to. But for men it’s not that way.”

I could not see Lisa’s expression because the light was behind her and her hair made a tent around her face. She bent over to kiss me and I could smell my bad breath in her hair. She whispered something to me. She straightened back up.

“It is because you are married. If you weren’t married you would never have called me at all. That’s kind of funny, isn’t it? That we meet again because you are married?”

I couldn’t tell if she was playing or if she was searching for something.

“That’s not true. It’s not just being married. I have a girlfriend.”

“I know about your girlfriend. That Polack girl. What a waste.”

“You have a boyfriend, too.”

The blond with the bangs and the cigarettes was not a pimp. He was her boyfriend. Sometimes he still brought her to my apartment in his truck. But then I would drop her off at home. She did not like to drive herself.

“I have a real boyfriend who loves me. You just have me and a wife you cheat on and a weird eastern European girlfriend who has turned into some kind of mystery criminal. Not to mention that she was always a slut, even back in the Fort Worth Deluxe days. And I don’t use that word. But I know.”

“I’m not cheating on my wife. I moved out.”

“It’s still cheating, Bobby. Plus, whatever you say, you’re cheating on that so-called girlfriend. With me.”

“She’s not exactly my girlfriend. She’s a salesperson.”

“That’s nice. I bet she would love to hear you say that. That’s a nice way to talk about her. Do you love her?”

That was a funny question to ask me. I couldn’t tell how she meant it. But it seemed like a promising sign.

“She can be pretty nice. You might be surprised. She sure is a lot happier than Wendy is.”