Lost Art of Mixing (9781101609187) (2 page)

And then finally, one night, when the unbalance of the accounts finally reached a tipping point, she would turn toward him in bed and the reproaches would begin, one after another, knocking against him, endless as waves on the side of a docked boat. All the small moments of disaffection, the slights and missed opportunities that he hadn't seen. Which he would have seen if he loved her, she knew. The time he could have given her a hand as she was getting out of the car. The way he didn't come over to the stove to help her as she was cooking. The money he could have made if only he marketed himself.

Al would listen, silently. There was no particular point in responding, the cycle so well established that he could only wait for its conclusion, which would come when finally, emptied and slightly euphoric, she would lean over and kiss him and he would accept the sex he no longer felt like having.

•   •   •

A TIME CAME,
a Monday morning in March. Al was fifty-one, which perhaps played a role in his increased contemplation of his life and that of others. He sat at his desk, surrounded by towering stacks of papers, personal lives waiting to be formulated into tax returns. Perusing his clients' financial information was like reading a book in a language few people knew. By the time Al had filled in the blanks of the first page of a 1040 tax form, he already knew the security guard who was taking side jobs for cash, the frustration of the woman whose full-time occupation would always be declared a “hobby,” the midlife crises of sports cars and boats. Even in the clients who never came to his office, who never sat across the desk with pain splashed on their faces, he saw death in a sudden surge of medical expenses, a lowering in the number of dependents.

People gave him numbers, black marks on white paper, without ever realizing the secrets they were revealing. Al knew without looking what his own numbers would say: one spouse, no dependents. No hidden mysteries, no clues to unravel—the simple form, if ever there was one.

•   •   •

“I NEED YOU TO
pick up a book for me,” Louise told him the following Saturday, leaning across the kitchen table to hand him a piece of paper. “I called ahead; they'll have it at the front desk for you.”

Al looked down at the note in his hand, the title of the book written in his wife's clear, emphatic handwriting, along with directions to the big bookstore where he had, a few months earlier, bought her Christmas present.

Park on the east side of the lot,
she had written at the end of the instructions,
in the shade under the trees.

As if rereading the note herself, Al's wife nodded suddenly and then reached behind her for the paper towels and pulled several off the roll.

“Sometimes there are birds in the trees,” she said, handing the towels to him. “Once it dries on the car it's hard to get off. Make sure you wipe before you drive.”

Al stood and pushed the wad of paper towels into his jacket pocket, then got his keys from the hook labeled “Al,” by the front door, and went to his car. He had inherited it when his grandfather died, an old 1958 steel-blue Cadillac with fins that seemed to float up into the air. Driving it, he wondered sometimes if it might lift off the ground as he crossed a particularly high bridge. It would take a while before it hit the water below; perhaps it would be streamlined enough to level out, coast on the currents of air, settle into the water and simply continue on. The paper towels would likely get wet, though, he thought as he turned on the ignition.

•   •   •

THE PARKING LOT
was remarkably busy, even for a Saturday. But the weather was sunny, unusual for March, and Al didn't mind when the only spot he could find was on the other side of the lot; he walked across the black pavement, feeling the first intimations of heat rise up toward him as he watched a young couple, their hands flying in conversation as if waiting for permission to land on the sweet glide slope of the other's body.

The book was not at the front desk after all. As Al stood at the customer service desk waiting for a young woman to track it down, a portly man with curling white hair and a black fedora walked up and introduced himself to the clerk behind the counter—the bookstore was bustling about them and Al didn't catch the name. The clerk checked the computer screen in front of him and nodded.

“Sure,” he said to the man. “We have three in stock. I'll go get them.”

And while Al stood, waiting for his wife's copy of
Quick Knits for a Saturday Night
to appear, the clerk sped off and returned with a small stack of books.

“Can I get you a pen?” he asked as he set them down in front of the man next to Al.

The man shook his head. He pulled a shiny black pen from his jacket pocket, then took the top book from the stack and opened its cover, uncapped the pen, and signed a name in a long, lazy scrawl across the title page. He paused a moment, allowing the ink to dry, then closed the cover and placed the book carefully to one side before repeating the process two more times.

It was like watching a priest bless the head of a small child, Al thought—although the author standing next to him was perhaps more pompous than ministerial. Still, there was a reverential quality to the gesture, as if the book somehow changed its chemical composition through the process, becoming heavier with its newly granted importance. It wasn't until he was back in his car that Al realized the clerk had never asked the author for any identification. The author could have been anyone, really.

“Huh . . .” Al said to himself as he started the car. He drove home, thinking.

•   •   •

THE FIRST TIME,
he was terrified at the prospect of getting caught. He chose a relatively unknown author from Idaho, not local but close enough that a drive-by visit would not attract extra attention. He practiced a signature; he even tried smoking in order to lend that authorial smell to his personality, but the only effect was that Louise looked at him sharply and studiously increased the distance between them. In the end, all his preparations were unnecessary. At a bookstore on the far side of town, he introduced “himself.” The clerk was mildly interested, retrieved the small stack of two books, and handed them over.

Al briskly picked up his pen and, with a bit of a flourish, scrawled the author's name across the title page, just as he had practiced. He looked up; the clerk was gazing off above Al's shoulder.

Al took the second book, this time more slowly, the surface of the cover hard and shiny beneath his fingertips. He opened it, feeling the binding creak slightly under his fingers, and the world narrowed to the creamy-white expanse of the title page, complete but still waiting—for him, he thought, although he knew that wasn't the case. Still. He lifted his pen and felt his hand move across the slightly rough paper, as if, perhaps, he was writing, as if, perhaps, he was anyone other than himself.

“There we are, then,” he said, sliding the books across the counter to the clerk.

“Sure,” she replied.

He had done it, he realized. He was going to get away with this.

“Well, you know, I was in town,” he said casually. He left the store, forcing his facial muscles into any expression but a grin.

•   •   •

AFTER THAT,
it became a game. Every few weeks, Al would select a different bookstore. The small stores were the hardest, the inventory handpicked, the clerks lingering in the aisles like bespectacled drug pushers. He learned quickly which books would be easiest—if a store stocked two or three copies of a title, he was in luck, the author well liked enough that the store wouldn't worry about not selling the books but not so well known as to excite much interest in his appearance.

Meanwhile, at his office, Al watched his clients, noting their expressions. Mr. Walters was particularly educational. Al knew from the numbers that Mr. Walters was most likely contemplating leaving his wife—Al had seen a rise in travel expenses, as well as a significant drop in dividends without a correlating claim of capital gains from a sale, suggesting a new and sunny offshore account for a hefty portion of Mr. Walters's stock portfolio. And yet, Mr. Walters sat next to his wife in Al's office, his face a mixture of mild interest and perfectly ordinary confidence. Al would go home at night and practice the expression in front of the mirror, holding out his hand, speaking his name of the week.

Choosing the book developed its own protocol. He would look over covers and titles, finding one that intrigued him, and then open to the back jacket flap, anticipation mounting, hoping that he might pass for the author in the photo in case anybody checked. If the book felt right in his hands, he would purchase it and carry it about for the next few weeks. When he was ready, he would make his appearance—always at a different store—and then he would start the process over again.

Over the months, as he found that his identity was never challenged, his choice of authors began to slip into new and tantalizing territories. How young or old could he be? What nationality might be too foreign for his face? Once, he even signed a murder mystery by a woman author who wrote under a male pseudonym.

He couldn't have said why he was doing what he was doing, whether it was a feeling of being someone else or more himself—Al with a secret. He knew Louise would never understand, even though she carefully applied makeup and styled her hair each time before she left their home, an act of assumed identity that made no more sense to him than his forgery would to her. But Al knew, too, which of their behavior would be seen as less rational in the court of social opinion—a fact Louise would be sure to point out. And so, he said nothing.

•   •   •

ONE DAY,
Al realized he had only one bookstore left in the city—the one where he had first seen the fedora author signing his work. Maybe it was the feeling of a task too soon finished, a bet never called in. Maybe it was the rare sunshine on a late-autumn day, making him feel as if any risk came with an automatic safety net. In any case, Al walked through the big brass-handled doors and up to the customer service desk, surveying the face of the preternaturally young clerk behind it.

“Hello,” he said casually, “I'm Mark Twain; I'm here to sign stock if you have it.”

The clerk's face lit up in recognition.

“Oh my God,” she said, her voice rising. “I've heard of you. Let me get your books.”

As Al waited, triumph humming its way through his bloodstream, he wandered over to a group of leather chairs nearby and looked nonchalantly at the books spread across a coffee table. Behind him, he sensed movement, a surge in energy. He glanced over his shoulder and saw the young clerk coming back, accompanied by a manager with an outraged expression.

Al turned back to the coffee table, looking for a hiding place. He grabbed the biggest book he could find and dove deep into a vacant chair, placing the book firmly in front of his face. Behind him he could hear the clerk's voice, bewilderment, the manager's continuing harangue. Apparently, however, Mr. Twain had disappeared.

Al continued to sit, his face set between the pages of the book, his heart slamming in his chest. He hoped the clerk would not be fired; he hoped, almost equally, that he would not be caught. He tried to imagine the consequences; he doubted author impersonation would hold much cachet in prison. But in the end, he thought, whom had he really hurt? The authors had sold more books. The clerks he encountered had experienced a (more or less) unusual moment in their day. What could be wrong with that? All the same, he resolved to sit quietly until the young woman was gone for lunch. It was doubtful anyone else would notice him. It was an upside of being physically unremarkable for which he was suddenly grateful.

After a few minutes, he sensed the activity in the bookstore returning to normal, and his breathing slowed. His eyes wandered over the words in front of him; a passage caught and held him, something about the nature of time. Al snuck a peak at the title:
The Book of Rituals and Traditions.

Two hours later, Mark Twain forgotten, Al left the store, the book creating a rather awkward beer belly under his coat.

•   •   •

RITUALS,
Al decided, were a lot like numbers; they offered a comforting solidity in the otherwise chaotic floodtide of life. But it was more than that. A ritual was a way to hold time—not freezing it, rather the opposite, warming it through the touch of your imagination. Six p.m. might always be an hour on the clock, fixed and named, but Friday dinner with Mrs. Cohen—the lighting of the candles, her face relaxing over the course of the meal as the sun set outside—that had been something altogether different.

Any moment could become a ritual, Al thought as he brushed his teeth—in its simplest iteration, a ritual was just a matter of paying attention to a moment in time, giving it a name, a reason. Traditions like Christmas or Thanksgiving gained strength as they were passed down through generations, meanings growing with memories. Rituals, however, could happen every day or be needed only once, never to be repeated—a confluence of human need and creativity, a container for a feeling that could otherwise slip away or eat you alive.

At night in bed, with Louise turned away from him, Al would think about the rituals in the book. They kept him company in their own way, could turn the slope of Louise's body back into a shape and not an accusation. The perfect combination of ritual and person had the beauty of an equation, he realized, the answer changing with the variables, no two alike. It was math, only more so.

At the office, Al found himself looking at his clients, wondering about what ritual might shift the balance of their accounts. He felt full to bursting with the secret knowledge of their lives. He wanted to lift life out of the numbers, reach across his desk toward the people on the other side, help them find rituals that would acknowledge their successes and head off the impending disasters, but he couldn't quite figure out what to say.