Charles Bock - Beautiful Children

Busboys, adults every one of them, were gathered around a pair of tables near the kitchen's double doors, busily rolling silverware inside cloth napkins. The waitstaff lounged on bar stools, taking notes while the head chef explained the night's specials. Propped in his usual booth, the old man looked small and pudgy behind a large clothed table, like a rumpled puppet. He did not get up when Lorraine greeted him with kisses on each cheek, and his smell was not fresh, but that's how it was when you got old, Lorraine figured. Placing her purse on the table, she said how much she'd missed him, she was thrilled to see him again, and what do you know, she really meant it. She reached for the water pitcher that was always on the table, and grabbed it before she saw it was empty, and she laughed casually, a bit embarrassed, but happily so.

The old man's face was not unkind. Neither was it friendly. He thought he had something for her. Lorraine answered okay. She could see the small pattern of liver spots atop his temple, a sight she had grown accustomed to during their previous meetings.

He then inquired as to what Lorraine would do in exchange for his support.

“A table cost what?” he said. “Five grand? That's a lot of dough for a gal with mileage on her tires.”

The skin beneath his eyes had weathered to a soft purple. His shirt had thin tan epaulets, loopy strips of fabric, and as Lorraine stared at him, she could not help but notice that the far right epaulet had come loose, was hanging in the air like a twig. The old man remarked about the specific carnal acts that would make this worth his while, and Lorraine rose from her chair. She wished him well. Her legs were jelly beneath her as she turned, and she'd taken three steps when there was a sound. Looking over her shoulder was a mistake, but she could not help herself, and saw that he, too, had risen from his cushioned spot, he was moving out from behind the table. And he was not wearing pants. The makings of an erection might have been visible, denting the dingy fabric of boxer shorts. Lorraine didn't stay long enough for confirmation.

This hadn't been the first time someone in an official capacity had hit on her. Certainly not. Since she'd started taking meetings—“taking meetings,” geez, even that had a filthy edge — Lorraine had learned to control herself when her dining companion lowered his gaze toward her chest. There had been leers that bordered on vulgar. Double entendres delivered with all the suavity and confidence of a junior high school student asking out a girl for the first time. A good part of the rest of Lorraine's afternoon was occupied by such recollections. And though she had tons of work to do, she did not — as she'd promised she would — head back to the offices of the Nevada Child Search. Instead she drove. Randomly, just to get her bearings, adrenaline surging through her, a meaty, almost lusty want tingeing her mouth. Any idea that came into her head was plausible: she might head to Newell's old comic book shop and purchase all his favorites and then go out to the desert and set fire to them. Just as likely she would race the sunset and outrun memories and lose herself in a seedy roadside bar with a grizzled man who had his own past to forget. All sorts of sexual energy had been channeled into her causes and her missions; all sorts of desires and needs had been sublimated, transformed into aggressiveness. She dialed Lincoln in spasms, five- or ten-minute intervals, hitting the END key before completing any of the calls. On the fourth try, Lorraine hung in there, punching all of the necessary pulse tones. Two rings later, she learned that Lincoln Ewing was in a meeting or away from his desk right now, but if she left her number and a brief message, he would call back as soon as he could. Lorraine transferred into the turn lane leading into the Kubla Khan's parking lot, and was looking at the hotel spread out before her. The thought of being inside a casino gave her vertigo. Moreover, as much as she needed a friendly ear right then, as much as she and Lincoln had been each other's bedrocks over the years, the thought of needing comfort from Lincoln now was deeply upsetting to Lorraine. About the last thing she wanted was for him to know he had been right.

It wasn't just Lincoln, though. And it wasn't being hit on, necessarily. It wasn't even that she had trusted the old guy and been betrayed. These were jags of a much deeper iceberg, Lorraine could admit that much. From proposal to meetings to fund-raising, she had taken the banquet by the force of her personality, and through every step had demanded things be done her way. When all evidence suggested the contrary, she'd held on to the belief that her connections had gotten her meetings with executives of true influence. While stuck watching half-wits fixate on dollar keno, she'd convinced herself those mongoloids actually had some juice, could indeed do something for her. Lorraine had come up with trapdoors that waylaid all the facts that she was too smart to completely ignore, she'd used a prod and a chair to hold her worst suspicions at bay, even going so far as to believe that a sad and lonely old man who sat in a restaurant all day with nowhere else to go, he was going to turn things around for her — although that wasn't completely fair, maybe the old man could have helped, if he'd wanted to help, if he'd really been worth a damn.

That she'd been so transparent. So susceptible. Trotting her need around, naked, displayed in a cage for moron after moron, letting them ogle it, letting them prod it with sticks. Lorraine's shame was pink and withering. How she must have looked! How willfully blind she had been! No way around what she had done. No excuses. This was not one of those situations where you looked back at the person you had been years ago and the stupid things you'd done and felt embarrassed, but also were able to tell yourself that the thing had happened a long time ago. This was recent enough that Lorraine felt it was possible to reach back into those lunches and jostle herself to alertness, and this feeling was not the least bit helpful. Because there wasn't any good reason she should not have known better. There had been only her need.

She drove, north and west, heading into the dying sun, long thin diagonals of yellow and white spilling across the left side of the windshield. Large empty circles of light seemed to jump out at her, and in spite of the tinted windshield, it was difficult to see. But not being able to see traffic fully, not being able to discern a road signal, these things really didn't distract Lorraine. The silence that occurs when you are alone with your thoughts was not so bad for her, either. Time was progressing as emptily as it always had, but now, oddly enough, she no longer felt its meaty anxiousness. After swimming upstream for so long, fighting against the strong tide and harsh current, Lorraine now felt as if she finally understood the error of her direction, and she proceeded to lay herself upon the water, to float.

When she arrived home, her voice mail system was jammed. The banquet planner asking if Lorraine could give her a call when she got in. Molly from Nevada Child Search wondering if Lorraine was going to be in this afternoon. The case officer thanking her for the tickets (he'd received them today). A ramble from her mom, which Lorraine forwarded through.

And then Lincoln: “Hey. It's me. Caller ID says you've been calling. Okay.”

The house was crisp and chilly that day, the cleaning lady must have forgotten to turn the air conditioner to a low setting before she took off for the bus. A thought about the guaranteed spike in the utilities bill was fleeting, unimportant. Lorraine headed upstairs, without much in her mind. Goose pimples had broken out along her upper arms and shoulders.