The Dream Merchant (11 page)

Selling irons was sweaty pedestrian work. Jim took his pleasure from the earlier part of the evening and tried to play it over in his mind. He loved ambling into his stories and becoming caught up in poignant hard times. He took his customers years away from irons and cash giveaways, nearly freezing to death in the little house outside Edmonton until he had saved his starving family when opportunity presented itself. Jim touched his customers with his heroism and fineness. In his business life he might take shortcuts and deviations as long as he knew who he was; he needed to revisit this core of himself. He described waking up before dawn while his mom and brothers slept deeply; delivering newspapers in the snow. While other boys played after school, Jim took care of the farmer's cows.

Selling without strain or apparent intention was the highest art. And Jim was laying the groundwork for a stampede, until there was a moment, he would let out a wistful breath or raise a finger or look at Ava, some small gesture, often tinged with reluctance or regret (it was so sweet), and men would bolt from their grimy folding seats waving cash, fighting to spend fifty bucks on ten-dollar irons as if they were priceless—electric irons that offered an escape from lives fated to boredom, mediocrity, and slippage—and the supply was greatly limited; buy now, buy right now, before we fade into the ether. Look at her. He gestured to Ava, who was so depleted from her long efforts, but still lovely and offering. Buy them for her. He used her like bait. Ava was struggling mightily to make her mark, wanting to be something more than a sexy prop, and she trusted him. Everyone trusted Jim; again and again in these meetings Jim released a torrent with a word or glance.… Marvin had clever ideas, sure, but he couldn't dance. It was Jim who made Marvin plausible, as if a cartoon had suddenly gained flesh and force. Jim knew that Marvin must be coddled and cherished and that he could make Jim rich, hugely rich.

When they were all together, Ava did not exist for Jim, which was necessary but devastating to her. Over time she learned to stay out of their invisible cage where Marvin might touch her leg or ask for massages like a goon. He was impervious to her disdain. And when Jim didn't seem to notice Marvin's crudeness, she felt pitiable. Jim was entirely there for Marvin, listening keenly and picking through Marvin's manic opulence, although at other moments Jim would kick back and just smile at the marvel of his partner. Jim sometimes felt bad for Ava—that she had to endure this threesome—but Marvin was necessary and Jim would make it up to her. He loved Ava, and that gave him license to proceed.

In the dank canvas office with rain coming in at his feet, Marvin Gesler was counting the evening's take while Jim and Ava shook hands with a few lingering customers in front of the stage. The rain fell steadily against the tent, making a pleasant isolating sound, as if he were alone in a lair. They had brought in nearly one hundred thousand dollars—a good night, with some customers buying as many as ten irons. Multiple sales were happening more often at meetings. This had Marvin thinking. An iron was like a coupon. This business could operate on a much larger scale. Marvin was considering the efficacy of stores and warehouses. He wanted to tell Jim about his thinking. He wanted to design huge stores that had a racy, modern feel. They would make millions. He was impatient to tell Jim.

 

11.

Ava found the three-hundred-acre farm outside of Toronto and Jim paid cash for it, a little more than two hundred thousand dollars, most of what he'd stashed away working with Marvin for two years on their pyramid deal. Who knows how much Marvin had buried, but surely a great deal more than Jim. There was often tens of thousands lying in shoe boxes and suitcases in their motel rooms, and Jim made a show of not keeping track as if to say he was something more than Marvin. Perhaps Jim acted this way because of Ava.

She had been begging Jim to take time away from Marvin. She felt dirty from his incessant money talk and grossness. At first their work had seemed funny and rebellious. Now Ava wanted something else, although when Jim pressed her for specifics she couldn't find the words. Finally he packed Marvin up and sent him off on a bus to Virginia, where he had a cousin. Marvin was baffled by Jim's vacation idea. He climbed onto the bus muttering. Jim was amused, but at the same time he felt like he was turning his back on himself. He shipped his partner off for Ava. He worried that he was losing her.

The house was situated on an acre of green lawn and gardens that flattened out from a sloping mountain like a verdant mesa. Looking from the shaded front porch, you saw an expanse of valley, much of it their property, sections of burly green forest, some acres of planted corn, and down below a vast meadow of green grazing land dotted with a few cows.

Jim was immediately drawn in by this place that evoked early memories. He told Ava how great their lives would be here, and she listened earnestly, believed everything he said. She'd learn to cook gourmet meals for him. They'd make babies. They jumped in one of the Cadillacs and drove to a little drive-through hamburger joint, sat in the car eating and kissing. He loved to kiss her mouth full of munching food and she laughed at his ardor and mussed his hair.

Ava's first meal for Jim was an ambitious Sunday morning breakfast. The table was perfectly adorned with new place settings, polished silver, breakfast pastry in a basket, and flowers from the garden. Ava looked fresh and lovely with hardly any makeup. Jim smiled at his great fortune and went back to the paper. He sat at the table reading the sports section and glancing out the window, where he could see the old barn. He was ready to jump into the day's projects.

Ava couldn't quite get the flame of the gas stove where she wanted it and she fussed with the knob. The eggs were cooking too fast, but instead of taking the heavy skillet off the fire she kept adjusting the flame. She wanted this meal to be perfect. Ava took a deep breath to quiet her nerves.

For the past two years living with Jim and Marvin in motels and occasionally a rented room, there was never a kitchen. Meals were mainly sandwiches or something fast in a diner. She had cooked for her first husband, the football player, trying to please him, although he would often ridicule her meals and haphazard cleaning. Then he would put on a false smile and show her off to his football buddies or to his dad, who couldn't take his eyes off her breasts. Ava had sustained herself with a belief that she was drawn to mystical or artistic endeavors, acting or painting, even though in reality she didn't know anything about these things.

Now the heavy pan was smoking with hot grease, and even with the flame turned down, the eggs were burning at the edges and when she flipped them one of the yolks ran. Terrible.

Her husband had wanted the whole package, Hollywood starlet looks to go along with a homemaker's perfect touch, like Ava's mother, Beth, who kept an impeccable house. While Ava was growing up and competing in beauty pageants, her mom had won prizes for her pies and cakes in country fairs all over Tennessee, although mother and daughter rarely competed at the same fairs, because Ava's dad liked to prime and primp his little champion without the distraction of Beth's hobby. And Ava loved going off alone with her daddy. Beth went along with the arrangement.

Ava was a natural and she quickly developed a reputation throughout the state for her willowy good looks and perky manner. She knew just how to intrigue and charm the judges, particularly the men, with a broad grin or a shy giggle. She and Daddy came home all heady with victory, and the rooms were filled with the smells of roasts and glazes and baking bread and cakes. For nearly eight years they traveled on weekends to beauty pageants. The pageants were the central event in their family life. When Ava took the prize, the goodness of life seemed rolled into Mom's popovers, hams, and puddings and Daddy loved her so much. It was pure bliss when he brandished the check for a couple of hundred dollars, called it their fun money.

Of course, it occasionally happened that the first-place trophy and check went to another little beauty. At the judge's announcement Daddy turned red in the face. He became sullen and remote; he couldn't look at Ava during the interminable car ride home. He would say, acidly, her hair had been mussed or her shoes were scuffed or she needed to lose weight, and she nodded. Yes, yes, you're right, Daddy, yes. She had ruined their good times. It was worse if he didn't say a word and she imagined how hugely he hated her. He couldn't eat dinner, and Mom never said a word during those awful nights. Ava had let them all down.

Ava felt an urge to throw the eggs in the trash. She'd forgotten how her mind became trapped in a loop. The urge was unbearable, but she hesitated, worried Jim would notice. He didn't know about this side of her. The eggs were more than cooked, but she hadn't put the toast on. The bacon was getting cold on a plate. She couldn't serve Jim these burnt eggs. She needed to start again and get it right.

Ava tossed the four cooked eggs into the trash and nodded to herself. It was the only thing that helped. There was real pleasure in throwing them away and beginning again. It was a chance. She gathered the bacon strips into a paper towel and threw it away. She took a deep breath and began cracking open eggs. She wasn't very handy and bits of shell fell into the pan. She tried to take the shells out with her fingernail and then impatiently shook the eggs into the trash. That felt good. Jim didn't notice. And she didn't have to muster any stupid excuse.

By the time she was sixteen the family had moved from Tennessee to a small town in western Canada where her grandparents lived. Ava was in a new school. She was smart, a good student. But it was her looks that people responded to, a perfect angelic face, a cute ponytail that played against a ripening body that sent signals she didn't understand. By then, Ava and her dad were no longer going to competitions. For a time she brought purpose and prestige into his life. The trophies, cash prizes, and articles in the local paper had been his clever work, as though the little girl were a part of himself—the winning was his art.

Eventually she had grown sick of being adorable and that spelled the end of her winning. In their Canada life her father was unshaven and badly dressed, shrunken to a middle-aged car mechanic who went drinking with his buddies on weekends. He barely noticed her, or his wife for that matter. When Ava had been winning, their home had been cheerful and optimistic. Now she blamed herself for the family's decline. There was no one to share this with and Ava felt hemmed in and moody. Still, her mom cooked savory roasts and biscuits and cleaned with a dumbfounding smile. Ava was bursting at the seams.

*   *   *

On a fall afternoon she traveled to an away football game. After most of the kids she knew had left for home she talked to a shy boy she'd never seen before. She never asked his name. The boy was confused and she said it was okay and held his hand. She led him beneath the bleachers and began kissing his face and mouth and then she unzipped his pants and began to touch him. He quickly came in her hand.

Ava did other things. She began stealing from department stores. She put things under her coat and walked out. It was like filling up. She was never caught. These adventures appeased some craving she didn't understand. She could go on being the prom queen for a time, chaste and waving from the float.

One evening Ava drove the family car to a small, uneventful town about twenty miles away. She looked older than seventeen, particularly when she let her hair down, wore red lipstick, and dressed in heels and a tight-fitting blouse and skirt. She had been practicing her slow walk. She parked the car and walked into a bar. There were about eight or nine guys drinking and they all looked her over. She ordered a beer and soon a man wearing a felt hat came over and they began to talk. He was a grain salesman, a smooth talker. He described the business and Ava smiled at him and said she was a secretary. They finished their beer and she followed him to the back of the bar where there was a dim hallway. She'd thought this through, more or less, but hadn't anticipated the leaping of her heart. She didn't even know the guy's name. They began to kiss in the amber light. He was real hungry and she followed his lead. He pushed up against her and she touched him with her raised thigh. It thrilled her to feel his hardness. He reached inside her blouse and then he crudely pulled up her bra and began to suck on her breasts and squeeze them. His loving was desperate, as if a good deal would get away. Ava moaned the way she thought she should, although she imagined herself being milked and had to force down a giggle. She helped him slip his overcoat onto the back of a chair and that's when she felt a bulge in his pocket. Her mind was racing. She groaned and licked his ear. Ava rubbed her thigh against him and then pulled the guy's zipper open. She discovered his balls, handled them. The salesman pulled up her skirt and reached for her crotch. Not yet, she whispered hoarsely. Ava rubbed his wet cock with her palm, rubbed harder. She realized now that it was her show. She covered his face with urgent kisses, and while he was feverish and groping her breasts she slipped the wallet out of his coat pocket and tucked it into her purse. She hadn't thought about this part. She just did it.

While the salesman considered his lucky day and cleaned himself with his handkerchief she was back inside the bar and out the front door. The episode thrilled her, and she thought about it a lot. It kept her anger down. She was able to sit at the dinner table with her father without feeling riled and jilted. She had this reservoir to draw from.

*   *   *

Throwing the eggs in the trash was the good part. Ava felt free of the tension. Maybe she'd get it right this time. But soon she was muttering about the new batch of eggs that she'd flipped over without incident. They looked fine, but she still felt the urge to throw them away and begin again. She craved it. She wished Jim were sitting in another room so she could toss them. Each time would seem like a chance to get it right. Maybe it would be the last time. But that didn't matter so much. The urge mattered. Eggs were piling up in the trash. Her first husband had come into the kitchen and laughed at her. You're a crazy woman; look at you throwing away food. He'd smacked her. This made her feel like throwing away the food. It was all she could think about. She was trapped. She would have thrown the eggs away a third time except that Jim might decide she was crazy. But she could not serve him eggs that were less than perfect. She blurted out finally, I'm going to start again—which felt like throwing them away. She smiled a little.