The Humanity Project (25 page)

“Congratulations,” Mr. Kirn told her in one of their flurry of phone calls. “Those are exactly the kind of windy, unanswerable questions that you organize a conference around.”

“I’m not intending to simply waste everyone’s time,” Christie said stiffly.

“Of course you aren’t,” Mr. Kirn reassured her. It was that easy for him to switch tones. He probably argued both sides of his legal cases, just for practice.

“We’re planning on two months from now, right before Thanksgiving. It won’t be very large. It can’t be for a first-time conference. But it’s something you could build on in the future. There could be different topics each time. Workshops. There’s no reason you couldn’t have some practical applications. Why are you laughing?”

“I’m not.”

“It’s more like sniggering.”

“I apologize. I’m not laughing at you. I’m envious. I wish I had your energy. Your positive attitude. Your belief in possibility.”

“By which you mean, naive.”

“Promise me, if you are ever on a witness stand, do not volunteer characterizations of yourself. No. I meant it’s admirable. I’m sure you’ve seen your share of ugly situations. Human beings who make you want to resign from the species. As have I. And yet you persevere.”

“As do you,” said Christie, wondering if Mr. Kirn was being sincere and if there was any possible way of telling.

“Not at all the same thing. So much about a law practice is competitive. Who wins what. So much ego involved. I have to say, it’s what keeps me going. But you operate out of a”—he paused, either to find the right words, or for effect—“disinterested interest. You really are a remarkable young woman.”

“Thank you.” Christie’s interpersonal radar chimed a warning. A vision of the sort considered “unbidden” rose up of Mr. Kirn’s pink and gleaming face. And surely there was a Mrs. Kirn? “I’d say that Mrs. Foster is pretty remarkable also.”

“Absolutely,” said Mr. Kirn, but with decelerating enthusiasm. “Let’s talk again soon, shall we?”

She didn’t have time to worry about Mr. Kirn, or even time to worry about whether she should be worried. There was too much to do in the way of the Foundation’s ordinary operations, and now the conference on top of it. Fortunately, one of the original hard-luck hires was turning out to be an excellent worker. Her name was Imelda and she had felony convictions for check fraud and identity theft. In most places this would not be considered a desirable résumé. But Imelda was one of the prison ministries program’s success stories, with a new husband and a new baby girl, and if you didn’t believe that people could turn their lives around, why bother with the enterprise of humanity in the first place? Besides, the skills she had used in her previous criminal life—confidence, cajolery, cunning—served her well in dealing with vendors and booking agents and the media.

Christie was able to get one genuine celebrity for the conference, a best-selling author of inspirational books who would be in San Francisco as part of a national tour. The rest of the panelists would be local notables with expertise in fields such as sociology, in philosophy, in economics, and religious studies. Mrs. Foster was persuaded to add to the existing budget for their honoraria. A nearby seminary had conference facilities available. The machinery of publicity was set in motion. The Foundation’s new website bloomed with information about the conference, which was called “Investing in Our Better Selves”—not catchy, but Christie hoped it conveyed something aspirational, not just another investment seminar.

People began to send in their registration fees, a rush of them at first, then they dribbled in until they reached thirty, or half of what they’d hoped for. Time began to grow short. Christie and Imelda sat together in front of a computer, refreshing the web page every so often to see if other registrations had come in. They wanted enough of a crowd so that it wouldn’t look forlorn, and they wanted to cover some of the expenses. Imelda said, “I don’t suppose we could hire some people to go. You know, like placeholders.”

“That sounds a little bit like, I hate to say it, fraud.”

Imelda shrugged. “Not according to statute.”

“We’re supposed to be aiming for a higher standard,” Christie told her. “Although it’s not a bad idea.” She admired Imelda’s enterprising spirit and hoped it would find some appropriate and ethical outlet. It wasn’t hard to imagine how she might have bluffed and charmed her way through her different profitable scams. She was tall and black-haired and glamorous and she still wore the excellent suits and shoes she had acquired pre-prison. She kept her hair in a sleek updo and her taste in jewelry ran to discreet gold. Anyone walking into the office would take Imelda for the boss and herself for the secretary. “Hit refresh again,” Christie said.

Nothing. “Maybe tomorrow,” Imelda said. “Don’t slump. You look terrible when you slump. Up with the chin, back with the shoulders. Like me, see? Even in the prison, I worked on my good posture. Why does the old lady want to give all her money away?”

“Don’t call her that, please. She’s not giving it away. She’s investing in human nature.”

“Human nature,” Imelda said, “is not the best investment the market has to offer.”

“It’s her money and she can do whatever she wants with it.” Christie hoped that Mrs. Foster would back off her original plan before she, Christie, had to hand out checks to a bunch of reprobates and pirates. And did she even believe that wealth allowed people to spend their money in whatever mean or foolish way they wished? Did wealth convey such entitlement? She was too tired to start thinking in this way. “Let’s pack up,” she told Imelda.

Imelda shut down the computer and helped Christie empty the wastebaskets and turn off lights and lock up. It had been raining for the last two days and Imelda took her own immaculate raincoat from the closet. “Is this yours?” she demanded of Christie, holding up a baggy olive green slicker. “Sweetie, you have to let me take you shopping sometime. You dress like a refugee and you will never get yourself a man.”

“What would I do with one of those?” Christie was used to Imelda’s bullying by now.

“Have a baby,” Imelda said promptly. “My little Gracie angel, she’s the best thing I ever did. If you don’t want a man, at least get yourself a baby. You can do that, you just go to a clinic. Tomorrow I am bringing you a trench coat I never got around to wearing. Very sharp, metallic gray. A Burberry. The tags are still on it. You try it and see.”

They said good night and Christie walked to her car through the puddling, lake-like parking lot. It was the end of October and the clocks hadn’t yet been turned back, but the drilling rain made for an early, lowering darkness. Traffic on the freeway moved at a stately pace. The wet pavement mirrored the red, smeared taillights. Her defroster wasn’t keeping up with the moisture and she had to keep clearing the windshield with her hand. Once you allowed people familiar access to you, as she seemed to have done with Imelda, they felt free to make their suggestions. What would she do with a man—or a baby, for that matter? She’d spent a long time not thinking about these things. She wasn’t even sure about the trench coat.

When she reached her apartment, Art and his girlfriend, the one with the name like the water filter, Brita or Berta or something, were camped out under the overhang of the parking structure, grilling their dinner on a hibachi. Art waved her over. “Hey Chris, we’re having a rain party. Want some wine?” He wagged a bottle at her.

Christie started to say no out of reflex, then told them she had to go in and drop some things off first. She changed into sweatpants and a heavy sweater and socks, and wrapped herself in a blanket against the chill.

Lawn chairs had been set in a circle around the hibachi. Christie eased her sore back into one of these and accepted a paper cup of white wine. Maybe Imelda was right, it was all a matter of posture. Or the bad ergonomics of her office chair. “Thanks.” The rain had eased up into a steady light fall, and there was a pleasant sense of shelter in looking out at it.

“We’re making fish tacos. Want some?” Art prodded at the foil bundles on the grill.

“Do you eat fish? I forget. I can make you one without fish.”

Christie told him not to bother, the wine was all she wanted. Now that Art had himself a woman, it was easier to spend time with him. Although he sometimes annoyed her with his solicitude, as if Christie was an ex-girlfriend and Art was trying to console her for things not working out.

Beata. That was her name. Beata said, “I wish I had your pretty hair! What is it you do to it?”

“Wash it, mostly.” A little too much effort on Beata’s part as well, as if Art had cast her as an object of pity. Beata’s dark hair was cut all one length, like a paintbrush.

Talk about dressing like a refugee. When Christie had first seen her, Beata resembled some kind of Eastern European nun. There had been a remarkable transformation, to a look that the fashion people called “flirty.” Tonight she wore unseasonable white jeans, a tight white T-shirt encrusted with sparkles and dangling ribbons, and a pair of bare pink sandals. Christie noted, unkindly, that this was a difficult look for someone with as much in the way of boobs and butt as Beata had, though Art didn’t seem to mind. There were more sparkles and ornamentation and dangling stuff around her neck and wrists. Art had not undergone any big makeovers, but Christie did notice that his shirt had been ironed. Why was she so concerned about appearances these days? Maybe because everybody else around her was.

“We have chips,” Beata said, offering a bag to Christie. “Or fruit? Arthur, shall I go upstairs and find the grapefruit salad?”

“Please don’t on my account.” Something about her made people keep thinking she needed things. She drank some of the wine. It had a friendly taste and she drank a good bit more. “How’s Linnea doing?” she asked, attempting to deflect their attention from herself.

“Pretty good. Not bad. OK.”

“Not so OK,” Beata said. Then, to Christie, “Boyfriend.”

“He’s not her boyfriend. He’s too old for her.”

“Oh, well then.” Beata raised her pencil-thin eyebrows and made a droll face.

“She says he isn’t.”

“She is lovesick for him.”

“She’s fifteen years old,” Art said doggedly. It had the air of an argument they’d had before.

Again Beata turned to Christie. “As if fifteen is too young to be in crazy hopeless love. It is exactly the right age.”

Christie wished she hadn’t asked anything about Linnea. Now she found herself appealed to, as if she were some arbiter of crazy lovesick behavior. “Teenagers, who knows.”

“He’s such a nice-looking boy,” Beata said.

“He’s entirely too full of sperm.”

“It’s just nature. Relax, Dad.” Another conspiratorial glance in Christie’s direction. Did she look like somebody who knew about these things?

“I guess I should be glad she’s interested in normal teenage experiences,” Art said, looking glum. “Even risky, promiscuous, normal experiences.”

“They are not having intercourse,” Beata said. “Of that I’m sure. You watch them together, you’ll see.”

“She should have been home by now. I need to call her, excuse me.”

“Poor Art,” Beata said, once he had gone upstairs. She bent over the hibachi and used a spatula to turn the fish over. Her white underpants rose up above the line of her jeans. “He could not protect her from the one terrible thing, so now he tries to protect her from everything else.”

It had sounded terrible. The boy with the gun, the dead girls. There were parts of it Christie could not fully imagine—blood, terror, pain—and at least one part she could. The fear that some pointless and evil act could single you out at any moment. You didn’t let yourself dwell on such things. Unless they had already happened to you. “I’m glad she’s doing better.”

“Better, who knows. At least different.” They were quiet, watching the rain blow and mist around the streetlights. Where it hit the metal edge of the roof, it ran together and dripped to the ground in threads. Beata said, “We have other food too. A rice casserole. Cheese? Bread and jam?”

“No thank you. I’m going to go in and eat my own dinner in a minute.” She was getting hungry, she ought to leave before she had to watch Art and Beata feeding each other and licking each other’s fingers. But she was tired, and not in a hurry to be in a hurry about anything. She finished the wine and Beata refilled her glass.

“I’ll get drunk,” Christie said, and laughed foolishly. She already felt a little blurry, a little drunk around the edges. She wasn’t that used to drinking. In order to try and cover up, she said the first thing that came into her head: “You look different these days.”

“Good or bad?”

“Just different. I mean, good.”

“More modern American girl.”

“Yes,” Christie agreed. Although “modern American girl” had many gradations, and Beata had staked out a certain territory for herself.

“Do you have an opinion about tattoos?”

“I suppose I have different opinions for different tattoos. Depending on where and who and what. Some of them are OK. Most of them are a waste of perfectly good skin.” Christie realized she was doing what drunks do, talking to show how undrunk she was, and digging herself a deeper hole.
Do not speak unless it improves a silence.
There were times she thought she was forgetting everything she ever knew. “Do you have any tattoos?” she asked, as she should have to begin with.

“Art wants me to get one. Somewhere personal. I have yet to decide.”

It was possible that Beata was a little drunk herself. Before Christie had to ask, or not ask, about the prospective tattoo, Art came bounding down the stairs. At the same time, Linnea stepped out of the rain and into the circle of lawn chairs. With her was the boy who lived at Mrs. Foster’s.

It took Christie a moment to sort it out, to try and to fail at understanding what he was doing here. With Linnea? She didn’t get it. But here he was. Full of sperm. Oh thank you, Art, for that thought. What was she, a child molester? He wore his usual jeans and hooded sweatshirt and his neck and throat even in this light were sun-colored.