The Kissing Game (5 page)

“Want some?” he offers.

I can’t reply. I drift over to the spare chair against the wall
and sit down. Dropping my backpack on the floor, I wonder why such an ecstatic
moment feels underwritten with ugliness. I see my own reflection in Cory’s
office window, which has become a mirror. It’s as dark as night outside even
though it has to be around 8:15 a.m. The image looks warped, with blackened
rings round my eyes.

“So what do we do now?” I ask, zombie-like.

“Now, my skinnier Jessica Chastain, you take this.” He shoves a
flash drive inside a pre-addressed envelope, licks it, seals it, and hands it
to me. “And you drop it in the mailbox of your choice. I suggest the one on the
corner. No one will know it’s from you, so you hopefully won’t have to deal too
much with Robert. The Chairman should get it by end of the week. He’ll think
someone who hates Robert got his or her hands on the tape and sent it in. That
way, you won’t look like the bad guy in this scenario.” Cory bites and chews
with a half-smile.

Taking the envelope from him, I inhale, feeling about to embrace a
full-on panic attack, the kind that makes you feel as if you’re actually dying.

“I’m not sure about this,” I confess, breathless. Heavy coins seem
to be clunking around in my chest. “What if this whole thing is just, you know,
wrong
? It might be wrong, don’t you think?” I ask, wondering how I’ve
gotten myself so far into this situation. Somehow I’ve been transported to a
different dimension, a place where even old men and children wear holsters that
house the giant guns they carry on each hip, where massacres are a daily
occurrence.

Cory presses a few keys and his computer screen returns to sleep
mode, which consists of crazed robotic bunnies hopping across the screen. Then
he turns back to me, the half-eaten granola bar still in his hand.

“Look here,” he begins seriously. “I’m not gonna tell you what to
do. I wouldn’t be a true friend if I did.” He pauses, throws the granola
wrapper in the trash, and thrusts the rest of the bar into his mouth. After
chewing, he resumes his little speech. “But do you remember that time you told
me to end my relationship with Stanley?”

“Yeah.”

“Remember how he kept accusing me of cheating on him with Elena?”
Cory shivers at the thought of his ex-girlfriend, a woman he dated only briefly
during a time when he questioned his sexuality. They’re just friends now. “Remember
all those times I kept thinking I could fix it with Stanley? I kept telling
myself that if I could just say the right thing or be a better man that Stanley
would finally trust me and love me and stop all that nonsense?” Cory rubs his
hands together, discarding granola bits onto the floor.

“Yeah,” I answer. I can feel the back of my neck perspiring, so I take
off my raincoat. The room feels like a sauna.

“But Todd and Henry kept telling me to be patient. They told me
what a great catch Stanley was, so good-looking. They told me I should be happy
as hell that some hot guy was so jealous over me. But you,” Cory leans forward,
his elbows on his knees. “
You
told me enough was enough.
You
told
me Stanley had made me miserable for long enough.
You
said I deserved to
be happy, that I shouldn’t go through my life constantly fearing Stanley’s next
accusation, that I should take the risk and leave him. Do you remember that?”
Cory looks at me as if I’m five years old.

“Yeah,” I say. “Of course.”

“Well then.”

He doesn’t say anything else. He just leans back in his chair.

“So you’re saying I should go ahead and mail the flash drive to
the Chairman then?” I question.

“I’m not saying anything. You know me better than that. I’m saying
you gave me the right advice back then. I’m saying listen to yourself. Listen
to your own advice.” Crossing his arms in front of him, he smirks. “I can,
however, tell you what Todd and Henry would say.”

“What?”

“Nothing,” he chuckles. “They’d grab that envelope from you and
run like twelve-year old bandits down to the box. They’d fight to see who’d get
to put it in.”

They
would
fight over it.

“Anyway,” he continues. “It’d be an utter shame for my editing
skills to go to waste, seeing I did such a fabulous job. And besides, I think
you’re forgetting something important here. It’s not just
you
who Robert
makes miserable. Think of everyone else at the firm he tortures. All the
interns, the file clerks, the messengers. You wouldn’t just be doing something
for yourself. You’d be doing something for the good of mankind.”

He has a point. I hadn’t thought about the other people.

Rain spatters against his window. It sounds like bullets.

“You’re right.” I study Cory’s face a moment. “I’m gonna do it. Right
now.” I slip on my raincoat and backpack, feeling as though I’m about to cross
a bridge, but it’s a rickety one over swollen waters.

“Thanks,” I tell him.

“Anytime, my little peanut. See you at lunchtime.” Then he swats me
away, the king on his throne of the Technology Department.

With the envelope in hand, I take the elevator back down to the
lobby and then march toward the mailbox on the street corner. The light envelope
feels strangely heavy. As I trod, my coat is pelted with the torrent, which beats
the cars that swish by, pummels the blue awning of a bakery, and chokes the gutters
with swirling grey. A pigeon swoops down and lands on the dried patch of
concrete nearby.

Reaching the box, I attempt to open the metal door, but it jams,
the hinge squeaking. When I finally get it open, I place my envelope inside but
hesitate. Looking into the little black hole, I listen as it drops inside with
a small thud.

As I slog back toward the office in the downpour, I spot a familiar
tall figure loping out the lobby of the firm. Abruptly, I halt to watch him. Without
seeing me, he crosses the street. He’s wearing a dark grey raincoat over a
darker grey suit. The umbrella he’s carrying crowns his head in bright red.
Watching to see where he’s going, I shy under the awning of the bakery like a
stupid five-year-old. Several people walk past me giving me looks. But I don’t
care. I’m too busy watching him and feeling a scalping sensation in my stomach.

He stops in the middle of the street, opens the passenger door of
a black town car, and just before he gets inside, he spots me standing there nearly
a block away from him. Pausing with one hand on the open door, he glares at me
as if I have a beam of light shining on my face. A cab pulls up behind him,
impatiently waiting for the town car to move. For a second, I think Robert
might whip out a massive silvery gun from his holster and shoot me. Of course,
he wouldn’t miss. His bullet would impale my stomach, and I’d fall to the
ground, a puddle of pure red around me. I’d lie there wounded while passersby
conferred about what to do with me. Robert would blow on the end of his smoking
pistol and slide it back inside its soft leathery case. Meanwhile, I’d feel
like a hero in a cowboy movie who saves the whole town from the villain but
dies before he gets a chance to enjoy the spoils.

However, Robert doesn’t shoot me. Instead, I watch his naked face
as he slips inside the black town car. And then it spits through a river of
water toward the courthouse.

All I can think is that I’m so glad he’s going instead of coming. Going
instead of coming. Still, I know I’ll have to face him today. I know I’ll be
the executioner meeting her executionee, or perhaps the other way around. And I
wonder if he’s going to kill me or just want to kill me so very badly that his
fingers will ache to clasp my neck.

But all happiness must come at a price, right? Nothing is for
free. Nothing worthwhile anyway.

“Cada cual hace con su vida un papalote y lo echa a volar.”

We each make a kite of life and fly it as we will.

When I arrive at my desk
that morning, I’m swimming in unadulterated joy that Robert is nowhere in
sight. I’m feeling like the cream without the bland Oreo cookie, the cherry on
top of the banana split, the German Chocolate frosting without the doughy
chocolate cake—until I see a clutch of documents sitting on my chair.

On top is an envelope affixed with a yellow post-it note that reads:

Caroline,

Make four copies of these documents and messenger them to Judge
Schwarzer. Then hand-deliver the envelope to the address on the label. Afterwards,
you’ll have to accompany me to the client meeting at noon. Bring the Rowland
file and extra lined paper to take notes. I’ll pick you up in the town car at
11:30.

-Robert

Two things are very wrong with this note. First, Robert
never
leaves documents on my chair, always on my desk, right in front of my computer.
So why change his usual procedure now, after two years? Second, Robert has
never—not even once—signed his name on the instructions he gives me. I work only
for him, so who else would leave me post-it instructions? I’m quite familiar
with his handwriting, so it’s not as if signing is name is necessary. And why
the little dash before his name? What is that about?

I hold the post-it in my hand and examine it as if I’m reading
hieroglyphics and expect the note to provide the translation.

Next, I strike out toward the copy room, where I stand in front of
the copier, a solitary madwoman. Thinking about the note, I gaze at the white
wall in front of me while the copy machine zigzags and flashes light like a
dying star. After shoving the documents in an envelope, I phone a bicycle
messenger. He soon arrives dripping at my desk, and I hand him the package. While
he sprints off toward the elevator, Todd glides in wearing a smart-looking trench
coat. His wet hair appears purposefully slicked back and drippy, like Elvis’s hair
on a rainy day. He glances both ways and then crosses over to my desk.

Leaning over my cubicle wall, he says, “What the hell happened to
you last night? One minute you’re sitting at the table looking bored as a shed
in a field and the next you and Robert are gone. Did you seduce him with those
little man boobs of yours?” he teases.

“Shut up!” I quietly thunder. “Someone will hear you.” I notice
that the darkened offices are now firing to life. “You’re going to have to wait
for the long version. I’ve got to deliver something for Robert and then he’s
picking me up for a client meeting at 11:30. I won’t even be able to go to
lunch with you guys today. But Cory can fill you in. He’s got the basic details.
Just make sure nobody hears you all chatting at the food court. You’re like a
bunch of middle school girls sometimes, I swear.”

“Oh, goodie. Details!” He quietly claps his hands. “And remind me
to tell
you
later about that intern on the 27
^th
floor. You
know the blond one who wears the nice hair gel?” Todd whispers wide-eyed to me.

“Yeah?”

“Well, I found out very specifically which brand of hair gel he
wears,” Todd says, giving me a knowing look.

“You didn’t!”

“Oh, but I did. I so very did. It was a good hair gel too.”

I smile at Todd for scoring yet another cute intern. I wouldn’t be
surprised if Todd somehow wrangled a straight intern into crossing over to the light
side. He has that androgynous supermodel way about him that both gay and
straight men find attractive.

“See you later then,” I say, giving him a congratulatory nod. “You
look good in that trench coat by the way.”

He tosses a bluffing smile while I don my raincoat and trundle
toward the elevator to make my delivery.

The address is located only five blocks away, but it’s still five
blocks in torrential rain. All I can think is that I hope what’s in this
envelope is important. Secret government documents explaining how to end world
hunger. Plans to stop global warming. An immunization to protect people from
the zombie lawyer apocalypse. Unfortunately, the contents feel fat and soft,
unlike any of those things.

Outside the wind is howling and the rain so dense that twenty feet
away the buildings look adrift. In front of me a woman holds a yellow umbrella
that collapses from the wind and becomes an octopus turned inside out. She
tries to right it while I burn past her. Since I know my general direction, I
clop onward, steering around the puddles forming in indentations in the
sidewalk and using the tall buildings to shield me from the rain.

By the time I arrive, my flat shoes are squeaking and the lower
half of my pants dripping. My destination is a red brick building that sits
across from the bay. It looks like an old factory that’s been converted into
lofts. The four stories have ignited-eyes for windows, their brightness sitting
back inside their sockets. I take the elevator to the top floor and step off. It
smells strongly of antiseptic and mildly of public toilets inside. At the front
reception, I approach an elderly woman who sits like a solitary pilgrim at her desk.

“I have a delivery,” I say, looking down at the envelope in my
hand and adding, “For John Spencer from Robert Carver.”

“This way,” the woman replies, as if her only job is guiding
people away from her desk. She stands and deserts her post to escort me around
the faux plant and down the white-tiled hallway. On the walls hang oil
paintings of different flower bouquets. One is a fake of Van Gogh’s Sunflowers.
We pass a glass-walled room where several senior citizens sit around a
television watching a game show, the kind where people gamble on letters that spell
out words. I can’t remember what it’s called. Before turning the corner, we
walk past a hunched elderly man in a wheelchair. He smells of poo and looks at
me as if he’s hiding a madman inside his jacket.

At the door numbered 42, the woman knocks. “Mr. Spencer?” she
says. “There’s a visitor for you.”

I’m hardly a visitor, but I don’t protest. It takes too long for
the door to open. When it finally does, a white-haired man appears wearing a
wrinkly yellow dress shirt and blue slacks. His bare feet look icy on the tiled
floor, a vast contrast to his rosy-cheeked face with pronounced jowls. His room
is no bigger than a parking space.  A red-quilted bed sits up against the left
wall, a wooden nightstand nearby, and a solitary chair by the window.  The television
holds vigil in the corner on top of a tiny table.

“I hope you have my package,” the man faintly breathes.

“Yes,” I reply, handing it over.

“Come in, come in. I don’t want the smell of Mr. Poop-pants in
here, so close the door, sit down,” he commands me.

“Oh, I just came to drop off—“

“Sit, sit.” He points to the chair.

I close the door and hear the receptionist’s footsteps tinkling
down the hallway. Doing as I’m told, I sit on the lone chair by the window.
Outside are the bay and several tall brick buildings. The rain has settled down
to a steamy mist. Next to me, the clock on the man’s nightstand says 9:40 a.m.,
so I know I have plenty of time to get back to the office. Still I feel the
need to keep moving.

Setting himself down on his bed, the man hisses and rips open the
package. Inside is a pair of fuzzy blue slippers. He holds the slippers up,
inspecting them in the light from the window. Then he turns them over to
inspect the soles. I sit there realizing that delivering slippers to an old man
is worth walking five blocks through torrential rain.

“These are exactly what I wanted. Tell Robert ‘Thank you’ for me,
will you?” With flared nostrils and heavy breathing, the man puts the slippers
on his feet. I consider helping, but he slides his feet in fairly well.

“You must be Caroline?” he says, observing his new footwear.

“Yes.” I want to ask who he is, but I already know his name. I
wonder if he’s Robert’s dad. The man clearly looks old enough to be Robert’s
father, but wouldn’t he have the same surname as Robert? Wouldn’t his last name
also be Carver? Still, I wouldn’t be surprised if Robert disowned his own father,
changed his name, and threw the poor old man into this retirement home. Seems
like something Robert would do.

“I should probably get going back to the office before the rain
picks up again,” I say. “It was nice to meet you, though, and I’ll pass along
the message to Robert.”

“I don’t get that many visitors,” the man offers, twisting his new
slippers in tiny circles. “It’s always nice to have company.”

I sit back down.

“Robert comes when he can, but he’s quite busy.”

“Are you his dad?” I blurt. It’s none of my business, but I can’t
help myself. Instantly, I hear yapping in the hallway, the trampling of feet,
and then an old man yelling, “No!”

Mr. Spencer swats his hand at the door. “Old Mr. Poop-pants hates
having his diaper changed. He goes through the same commotion every morning,
gets the nurses all riled up. They should just turn his wheelchair into a
toilet, save us all a lot of trouble and stink.”

Mr. Spencer opens his drawer and pulls out a bag of throat
lozenges, unwraps a red one, and pops it in his mouth. While he sucks, he
shakes his head.

“No, I’m not Robert’s father. Not in the traditional sense. But
for all intents and purposes, you could say that I’m his dad.”

So Robert
does
throw his father into an old age home.
Relief swings into my gut. Although, as far as old-age homes go, I’ve imagined
worse. This one isn’t too bad.

“How long have you lived here?” I ask, hoping to keep the
conversation from growing cold.

“Four years, ever since Robert took the job at the firm and moved
to the city. He wanted me to be close by, where he could keep an eye on me. He
didn’t want me starting anymore fires in the kitchen while he was away.” He
sucks on the lozenge and crosses his arms in front of him.

“Fires?”

“You know how you’re reading a newspaper, and then you want to
make some tea, but you put the newspaper on the stove. Then you turn the stove
on and walk away to wait for your tea to boil?”

“Yes,” I say, but I’m thinking No.

“That happened one too many times. Nearly burnt the apartment
down. Robert yelled at me. I know I’m not supposed to put the newspaper on the
stove while I’m making tea. I just did it. Can’t explain why now. Doesn’t make
sense, does it? Something’s not working right upstairs.” He taps on his temple.
“Comes and goes though. Most days I’m quite fine.”

Of course Robert yelled at him. Makes my teeth clench. Poor Mr.
Spencer. I notice instantly that my squishy shoes have left a trail of small
puddles on the tile floor.

“Oh no, I’ve made a wet mess of your floor. I’m so sorry.” I
contemplate seeking a towel from the receptionist.

“Nothing to worry about. It’ll dry.” He smiles at me, a mouth full
of perfectly white, straight dentures. “Must be hard working for Robert.” I
notice he’s looking at my wet pants now.

You have no idea, I want to say, but I just grin back at him as if
we’re talking about the weather rather than the bane of my existence, the knife
in my side, the chokehold around my neck.

Mr. Spencer smiles as if his thoughts are pleasing to him alone. “He’s
a bit of a hellfire, that one. I took in four foster kids after my wife died.
Robert was the first, the youngest. He was only ten at the time. Surly little
bastard, that one. Took me a good five years to even become friends with him,
let alone develop any kind of father-son bond.” Mr. Spencer plucks a piece of
lint off his pant leg and tosses it. “Bet you didn’t know he was in the foster
care system, did you?”

I shake my head and look at him. He’s just transformed from a
clueless old man into the Oracle from the Matrix. I listen with growing ears.

“Robert’s mother was a meth-addict. What is it nowadays with the
meth? Everyone is on meth it seems. You read about it all the time, like they
sell meth at the grocery store and gas stations. Nowadays you can just buy it
along with your melons and toilet paper. Where do these people get meth? It
makes no sense. When I was a kid, you couldn’t find drugs if you tried. You
were lucky to find someone with an aspirin in their pockets when you had a
headache. And your parents wouldn’t even let you drink coffee for fear you’d
become addicted to caffeine. The world has changed too much. Don’t even get me
started.” He swats at nothing.

I don’t say a word.

He continues. “Anyway, his mother couldn’t take care of him,
seeing that she was far too busy scratching invisible bugs on her skin, selling
herself in alleys, and going to jail. She couldn’t be bothered to take care of
her kid. So Robert ended up with me and then three of my other foster kids. We
did the best we could, I suppose, but we were more of a bruised, weather-beaten
version of a family—all pretty messed up, myself included. Had more dark spells
than good ones, but Robert turned out okay, didn’t he?” he asks me, his shoulders
slumped, his eyes weakened.