Out of nowhere, I had a flashback.
“Purple,” I said.
“What?”
I pointed my index finger at her, waved it about in a general way. “Your underwear. It was purple.”
Julie smiled. “I was hurt there for a bit, thinking I failed to make an impression.”
TWELVE
The next day, at breakfast, I said to Thomas, “I liked Dr. Grigorin.”
“She’s okay,” he said, grabbing a banana from the bowl. “What kind of pills did she give you?”
I shrugged. “Who knows what the hell all these drugs are called.”
He peeled the banana down to the halfway point. “Did she tell you?”
“Tell me what?”
“What I’m doing. I told her you could know about it.”
“She told me.”
“I thought it was time for you to know what I’m working on.”
“Why didn’t you just tell me yourself?”
He bit into the banana. “I figured, coming from her, you’d believe it. Because she’s a doctor.”
“You think Dr. Grigorin believes it?” I asked him. “What it is you’re doing? Memorizing maps and street plans so you can help secret agents on the run? And that one day, there won’t be any maps at all and you’ll have all the information stored up here?” I tapped my index finger just above my temple.
He put the banana down and rested his palms on the kitchen table. “If she didn’t believe it, why would she ask so many questions about it? If she didn’t believe it, she’d dismiss it out of hand.” Disappointment washed over his face. “I guess you don’t believe in what I’m doing. I was wrong, thinking Dr. Grigorin could convince you.”
“Think about it, Thomas. You’re just some guy, living in a house outside Promise Falls in upstate New York. You’ve never worked in law enforcement or for any kind of government agency. You don’t have a degree in whatever one gets a degree in if they’re an expert in maps and-”
“Cartographer.”
“What?”
“A person who’s an expert at making and studying maps is a cartographer. But you can’t really get a degree in cartography. You’d probably get a degree in geography and apply what you’d learned while acquiring that degree when you began working as a cartographer.”
He’d thrown me off my game for a moment there, but it didn’t take me long to get back on track. “Okay, so, you don’t have a geography degree, and you’ve never worked as a cartographer.”
“That is correct,” Thomas said, nodding.
“So what you believe is, you, with no actual qualifications and no connections to the powers that be, have attracted the attention of the Central Intelligence Agency, this multi-billion-dollar organization with operatives all over the world, and they want you to be their map guy.”
Thomas nodded. “I know. It’s amazing, isn’t it?”
“That it is,” I said.
“But I have a good memory. So I’ve been chosen.”
I leaned back in my chair and said, “ You are the chosen one.”
“Now you’re mocking me again,” he said.
“I’m not-okay, I suppose it sounds like I am. What I’m trying to do, Thomas, is point out to you how totally absurd this is. Dr. Grigorin even told me that you’ve been in touch with former president Clinton.”
The night before, standing at Thomas’s partially open door, I’d watched him carry on a conversation with someone who wasn’t there. The phone was on the hook, and he wasn’t on the keyboard or looking at the monitor. I’d heard him say, “I almost called you Bill.”
“That’s right,” Thomas said. “But you can still call him Mr. President. Former presidents are still called that.”
“I know.”
“I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” Thomas said. “Those pills the doctor gave you aren’t working. I thought they’d make you more tolerant and understanding. But you’re just like Dad.”
He left his unfinished banana on the table, got up, went back up to his room, and slammed the door.
WE needed food in the house. I couldn’t keep going out for subs and pizza. I was loading up on frozen foods at Price Chopper when I ran into Len Prentice and his wife, Marie. Len and my father had maintained a friendship after Dad left the printing company. Normally of pasty white complexion, he looked as though he’d gotten some sun lately, although he’d lightened up slightly since the funeral. Marie, however, was pale and washed out. She’d had health problems as long as I’d known her. I couldn’t remember what, exactly, but thought it had something to do with chronic fatigue syndrome. Always tired. I’d known the two of them-admittedly, not well-for the better part of three decades. They had a son, Matthew, who was about my age, and whom I’d hung out with some when I was in my teens. He was an accountant now in Syracuse, married, with three kids.
“Hey, Ray,” said Len, who was pushing the cart. Marie had been trailing along behind him. “How’re you and Thomas doing?”
Before I could answer, Marie said, “Ray. Good to see you.”
“Hi,” I said to both of them. “We’re good. Managing. Just getting in some provisions.”
“It was a lovely service,” Marie said earnestly. Dad had always referred to her as “Mary Sunshine,” although not to her face. Despite her health problems, she was perpetually cheery. The minister could have dropped his pants and waved his dick around and she’d still have commented on how nice the flowers were before anything else.
“Yes,” I said. “Thanks again for coming.” I looked at Len and smiled. “I meant to ask you the other day whether you fell asleep under a sunlamp.”
Marie patted my arm playfully. “Oh, you. Len got back from a vacation a couple of weeks ago.”
“Where’d you go?” I asked. “Florida?”
Len shook his head, like it didn’t really matter, but said, “Thailand.”
Marie said, “Tell him how beautiful it was.”
“Oh, it was that. Absolutely stunning. The water, it’s this coral blue color unlike anything you’ve ever seen. Have you been there, Ray?”
“Never,” I said. “But I’ve heard people say it’s wonderful. You didn’t go, Marie?”
She sighed. “I just don’t have the energy for travel. Not to go that far. I don’t mind packing up and spending a week at a lodge you can drive to in a couple of hours, but all that walking through airports, lining up at customs, having to take your shoes off and put them back on again. It’s too much for me. But just because I’m not up to gallivanting around the globe doesn’t mean Len shouldn’t head off with others who feel more up to traveling than I do.”
“Ray,” Len said, “I’ve been meaning to come out and see you before you go back to Burlington.”
“Not sure when that will be,” I said. “I need to get Thomas sorted out first. I have to decide what to do about the house. Thomas can’t live there on his own.”
“Oh mercy, no,” Marie said. “The boy needs looking after.”
I felt my back go up, but didn’t show it. She was right, that Thomas needed some looking after. But he was a man. Not a boy. He didn’t deserve to be treated as though he were a child. And then I felt a pang of guilt, wondering if I’d been too hard on him, the way I’d been challenging him about his mission.
“Yeah, he does,” I said. “But I’m going to see if I can make him a little more self-sufficient.”
It was something I’d been thinking about. Just because Thomas believed in things that were not real didn’t mean he couldn’t make a contribution in the real world. I wanted to get him making his own meals, and helping out around the house. Maybe, if I started giving him responsibilities, it would keep him out of his room for longer intervals. Involve him, if not in the outside world, in the operations of the household.
“Well, we should let you go,” Len said. “Good to see you.”
