A Disorder Peculiar to the Country (8 page)

“Yes, from Headhunters Transnational! How are you this evening? I hope I’m not catching you in the middle of dinner.”

No, she didn’t know him—but he was a headhunter! Immediately everything that was wrong with her job became obvious: the salary, the declining prospects of advancement, the people, the fact that they had all learned that her marriage had failed. She would do anything to change her life, even if it meant relocating and giving up the co-op. Accomplishing that without benefiting Marshall, however, would be tricky.

“No, not yet,” she said. She hadn’t even figured out what to make for dinner.

“Great! I don’t want to inconvenience you.”

As Joyce waited for the man to explain himself, the compilation of her list of professional dissatisfactions was running out of control.

“Well, how can I help you?”

“Is Mr. Harriman available?”

She looked away from the phone. Jerry Boyd’s voice, she decided, had the oily confidence of a television game show host; what terrible fall in life had reduced him to making cold calls at dinnertime? Probably a divorce. Now Viola was trying to trade for the truck. Unfortunately, she was offering Victor only a pinch of carpet lint in return. He wasn’t interested. She shook it at him, repeatedly thrusting it into his face. Joyce took a breath.

“He’s not here,” she replied.

“I’m so sorry,” he said, sounding genuinely regretful. “Please have him call me. Jerry Boyd, from Headhunters Transnational. We’re very much aware at HT that his company is in post-9/11 transition. This may be the perfect moment for him to contemplate more lucrative challenges. As you know, he’s extremely well regarded in the industry. We’d like him to meet with one of our clients, a Fortune 500 company.”

Viola had just upped the ante to two pieces of rug lint. Victor wouldn’t even look at them.

“I said he’s not here.”

“That’s fine,” Jerry Boyd said. “If you would give me a number where he can be reached—”

“He’s gone. He left the country. He joined the fucking Taliban,” she said, slamming down the phone. For a moment she stared at the phone and was rewarded with a vision of Marshall in a long white robe, bearded, sitting in an unswept cave and studying the Koran. It was totally plausible.

Viola concluded her negotiations with her brother. She grabbed the truck, pushing Victor aside, and then swatted him hard in the head.

“Viola!” Joyce cried. She took the truck away. It was a cheap plastic UN relief truck, some kind of Happy Meals prize. But Victor began to bawl and then wail a lament that seemed intended to express every sorrow inherent in human existence. His screams filled the apartment like a pervasive fluid and they could probably be heard down the hall and on the floor above. Joyce tried to hug him but right now he was unhuggable, his tiny frame tense and feverish and dedicated to making sound.

“He wasn’t sharing!” Viola protested, and then she too started crying.

The door opened and Marshall entered the apartment, a carton of cigarettes under his arm. Victor bounded up from the floor past his mother and streaked across the living room.
Marshall laughed, and then Viola rushed at him too. He made a show of juggling them in his arms without dropping the cigarettes.

“Hey, kiddo-kiddos, what are these teary tears about? What-samatter U?”

Joyce glared as he brought the children into the living room. They had squalled for a moment, but now they giggled, oblivious to the reasons their faces were wet. Marshall ignored her.

“No smoking in the apartment,” she said. “We’ve gone over that. It’s in the interim agreement.”

MARSHALL WAS STILL
receiving his salary but his company, which had lost many of its key people on September 11, was hardly doing business these days. The firm had moved its surviving World Trade Center staff and other New York employees into a glass-sheathed skyscraper in midtown, deliberately choosing offices looking south with a view of Ground Zero. The CEO, his face flushed with emotion, freely allowing his tears to fall, had declared that they would never forget their colleagues’ sacrifices. This had been at a multifaith memorial service in St. Patrick’s Cathedral, with hymns sung by the Harlem Boys’ Choir. In another ceremony in the new lobby a wall of the victims’ photographs had been dedicated. The company had declared an unbreakable bond with their wives, husbands, and children. Grief counselors moved among the new offices with the suspicious alertness of fire inspectors.

Marshall had not been notably forthcoming during the individual and group counseling sessions: he was accused of repressing his grief. Even when he confessed that, yes, that was exactly what he was doing, that was exactly how terrible he felt, the counselors and his colleagues were dissatisfied. They had noticed that he had been the only one at the weekend retreat in the Berkshires to have brought his tennis racket. He
was made aware again that he had never been very popular in the company. Indeed, this past summer he had suspected that some of his superiors were maneuvering to make his position at work untenable. Although 9/11 had suspended office politics—now, the company had become a family with stronger obligations to its individuals than were observed these days in most natural families—he sensed that his standing had resumed its decline.

In the meantime he spent his workdays strategizing against Joyce. The divorce proceedings had entered their final stage with the general terms of the eventual settlement fairly obvious, but Joyce was still fighting, taking advantage of his every mistake or scruple. Marshall worked against her in the same way, looking for vulnerabilities as he gathered intelligence. He developed a system of extracting information from the kids. He worked stealthily, drawing them into conversation without asking direct questions so that the questions never got back to Joyce. He made charts and lists; he kept a file of options and scenarios.

From Viola’s passing comments—like, to Victor, “You’re too
small
to be a ring-bearer!”—Marshall had established that Joyce’s sister Flora was getting married, at last. He smiled. He had always felt warmth toward the girl, Joyce’s fine-boned, luminescent, more frail, more tentative reflection. Flora was the younger sister who would not take the chance of moving to New York, the sister who had feared the mortal consequences of marriage—these past few months, he supposed, she must have seemed the more prudent, more fortunate sister. He liked her boyfriend, Neal, a bright, occasionally farcical computer scientist who had suffered for years under the unarticulated disapproval of the sisters’ parents. Marshall recalled a protracted Thanksgiving weekend in Connecticut when Neal had made one offending mistake after another—unilaterally turning on the radio in the living room, wisecracking about
Monica Lewinsky like a stand-up comic…He had nearly knocked over a lamp too. Flora had been livid. On the Sunday morning, Marshall and Neal went for a walk together in the woods along the creek, and although they didn’t speak about the weekend’s catastrophes, Marshall’s companionship put Neal at ease and somehow rescued the weekend. News now of the imminent nuptials was a small fact, but in Marshall’s hands it carried the weight of opportunity.

He waited a week to call Neal, but still wasn’t sure which way to turn the conversation. He reached him at his lab. Marshall identified himself and there was a surprised silence, as if Joyce’s family had already pronounced him dead.

“Hi.” Neal’s voice was strained, wary.

“Hey, that’s great, man! I heard about you and Flora getting engaged. Pardon me, did I catch you at a bad time?”

“Marshall?”

“It’s wonderful news. I wish you both the best.”

“Well, thank you, Marshall. I didn’t…” Neal stopped for a moment, apparently wondering if he could say this. “I didn’t expect to hear from you. You know, the way things are.”

“Yeah, yeah, but forget that, I
had
to call. We haven’t spoken in so long, Neal, how
are
you?”

They had never really been that close. Whatever bond they could claim arose from that one weekend, a few other family occasions, and an unspoken shared knowledge of two sisters similar in character and build. Now they began a halting, unfocused conversation, but Neal warmed when he started talking about his recent work—his lab had just won a contract modeling airport security systems—and he shyly mentioned that he and Flora were buying a house together. Then, almost gasping, he recalled that Marshall had worked in the twin towers. Marshall deflected his concern and condolences and said only that on the morning of the terrorist attacks he hadn’t reached work yet. He congratulated him again on his wedding plans.

Neal said, “It must sound strange to hear someone looking forward to getting married…”

“No, no, no,” Marshall assured him. “Not at all. I think marriage is great. Sometimes it doesn’t work out, and that’s sad, but getting married and having children, giving it a try, are the best things I’ve ever done.”

As Marshall spoke these words he wondered if they were true. He had never actually considered whether he regretted marrying Joyce. Even now the marriage didn’t seem like a mistake; the era of tragic mistakes came later. And having kids? Only a monster (like the monster Joyce insisted he was) would wish away his children, but he knew that he and Joyce had been much happier before they were parents—he couldn’t even remember what they had argued about before they were parents. Of course he loved his children, but now he doubted that he would ever get his rightful enjoyment from them. Something else Joyce had ruined for him.

So, if it was not getting married and having kids,
what
was the best thing he ever did? Was it something at work? Or something altruistic? Would Lloyd’s name somehow be included in the answer to that question?

He paused, momentarily distracted. Then he said, “And Flora’s a wonderful girl. Beautiful, smart, accomplished, funny…”

“Yes, she is,” Neal agreed.

Marshall gauged Neal’s enthusiasm. He had thrown “accomplished” into the list as bait. Flora had enjoyed a brilliant university career, but since then she had drifted from one mediocre, unhappy job to another. He detected no hint of demurral. Maybe Neal liked having her work as a receptionist. Marshall pressed on.

“In fact, the entire family is great, really good people. I guess we all know that Joyce and I aren’t going to make it, but I hope to always feel welcome in Canaan. You know, for visits
and holidays.” This was crazy, laughably crazy. His ability to say something this crazy made him feel immensely powerful and free. “I’ve always admired Joyce’s parents. Deke’s so well read and tough, Amanda’s so elegant…”

Neal said, “Right.”

Bingo. That was a false note. He had something there, and it was Amanda. Yes, of course, Amanda. She had always been uneasy about Neal’s courtship of her daughter and everyone knew it. Joyce had hinted once that Neal was in Amanda’s disfavor without ever specifying why, but Marshall guessed the root cause was a clash of tempers: Neal was an urban type; he could be overly familiar, too loose in the wrong situations, too quick with a joke. He made even Marshall cringe at times, and he could see how those traits would alienate Joyce’s mother.

“I mean, Amanda is a beautiful woman—totally fastidious, everything has to be perfect right down to the very last strand of hair,” Marshall said. “It’s true, though, she can be reserved at times, there’s ice beneath that glamour. She’s also a bit high-strung, don’t you think? But that’s just the way she is.”

“Yeah. I guess.”

“You know, the girls have that glamour too. Do you remember how they looked at the wedding in Boston? Those matching high-cinched black velvet gowns, those bare necks, their hair in tresses down to their shoulders…I couldn’t take my eyes off them.” This was true: the two sisters had been lovely that day. “And, it’s funny, they have that high-strungedness too, just like Amanda. I mean, Joyce certainly, it’s a factor that’s complicated her life, not only at home. It puts people off…Even sweet little Flora…”

“Um.”

No, that wasn’t it, Neal didn’t concur at all. Marshall hadn’t found the coordinates for the source of that dissatisfied
right;
he wished he could zero in on it, disrupting Neal and Flora’s
stately march to the altar. But Flora
was
high-strung, in several aspects at least, damn it. Why couldn’t Neal see it? Why couldn’t he see that the whole family was vicious, the very air they breathed soaked in malignancy, the whole damn house in Connecticut a den of vipers?

Marshall said, “Anyway, she
is
sweet. You’ll be great together. I have so much to do, I should get back to work, but Neal, I just wanted to give you and Flora my very best wishes. Kiss her for me. And I’m not sure how it works, exactly, but I think I’ll still be your kids’ uncle.”

“I think so…” Neal murmured, evidently contemplating the rules of avuncularity. “I’m so touched, Marshall. Really touched. Wow, thanks. Good luck yourself, I know you’re in a difficult situation…”

“Well, take care…”

“Marshall, listen,” Neal said, speaking quickly. “I’m having a little party in two weeks, going out with the guys. Not a bachelor party, really, just dinner at a restaurant in the city. My brother’s flying in from California. I would have invited you…but why don’t you come anyway? It’ll be fun, low-key.”

Anyone looking across the office at Marshall at his desk would have been startled, and even offended, by the huge grin that exploded across his face.

“I wouldn’t miss it for all the oil in the world. Is Flora going to be okay with me being there?”

“Nah, she’ll moider me,” Neal joked, but Marshall heard a touch of nervousness in the reply. The invitation had been issued rashly. He was already reconsidering.

“You know,” Marshall said, “we don’t have to advertise this…”

“Right…” Neal was still wavering.

“Hey, it’s not like I’m an enemy. Flora doesn’t consider me
one, I hope. Even Joyce and I aren’t
enemies
. We’re still close in many ways, this is just one of those things that happen…”

Again, Marshall’s declaration was laughably crazy—he knew the harsh words being said about him within the family—but Neal was allowing it to make sense. He was an emotional fellow: not only did he have romantic notions about marriage, he probably entertained a few in regard to divorce. He gave Marshall the time and place of the dinner, at an Italian restaurant in the West Village. Coordinates.