renounced everything. There shouldn’t be any problem. The county will pay for his funeral. But Jenny’s insisting that we have a ceremony.”
“Oh, no.”
“Why ‘oh, no’?” He speaks with difficulty. It feels as though half his mouth is anesthetized. Patricia lies beside him on her back. The duvet rustles when she gathers it around her.
“It’s just . . . the people who’ll attend. You know. That guy Frank,” she says in disgust, “do you think he’ll come? I’m sure he will. And the fat one, what’s his name again?”
He’s almost asleep now, his leg jerking, halfway into a dream about a circus. In it he’s moving slowly through high grass, getting closer and closer. He hears music. The grass is crawling with grasshoppers.
“Thomas?” She tugs at his arm. “Thomas. We should have sex now. It’s been weeks.”
“I can’t,” he mumbles, “I’m sleeping . . .”
He hears her distant sigh, then rolls onto his side. And he’s back with the circus. A girl on a carousel screeches with joy; she resembles Jenny. He senses the grasshoppers’ presence, a tickle, a sound, at once claustrophobic and alluring, and in the dream he regards his dirty, sunburned hand and realizes that he’s a boy, not a man as he first thought.
The next morning he wakes at dawn. The sun’s shining through the slats in the blinds. Patricia’s fast asleep, her mouth open. Apparently she’s been pulling at her hair again, which she sometimes does in her sleep, because it’s completely rumpled on the left side. A strange habit. Carefully, he touches her shoulder. Her breasts look like two pink cupcakes. For a moment he feels a strong desire for her. Then it fades. He crawls out of bed, makes coffee, showers, shaves, and gets dressed. Patricia stumbles sleepy-eyed into the kitchen and sits at the little table in the corner. He pours her a glass of juice. “When will you get home tonight?” she asks. “Can you stop at the store on the way back? We don’t have anything. Buy some good bread.”
She has a late meeting, so they arrange to make dinner at eight. He slurps the last of his coffee, then kisses her neck and cheek; she pulls his mouth to hers and pushes her tongue into it. He’s brushed his teeth, she hasn’t. “Get a bottle of wine, too,” she says, smiling. He removes his coat from the hook and stuffs the folder under his arm. He leaves the umbrella. Outside the air is mild and fresh after last night’s rain, the plane trees’ dense cluster of branches providing comfortable shade all the way to the train station. He loves their mottled trunks. He smokes a cigarette, and feels wide awake. He cuts across the street. Thomas O’Mally Lindström cuts across the street whistling with the sparrows circling overhead, after which he turns the corner and disappears into the darkness, down a long, dingy stairwell on his way to the train.
Dressed in a light-blue shirt, Maloney kicks the coffee automat. His curly hair is still damp following his shower, or maybe it’s his sweat. Thomas suspects that he’s screwing Annie, their employee, and maybe they’ve just had a tryst in the back room. Maybe Maloney’s got high blood pressure. He’s grown heavier over the past few years, and he sure likes his fats and salts. These are the kinds of thoughts rumbling through Thomas’s head when Maloney shouts: “I hate this machine! Peter! Peter! Go get some coffee. Milk and sugar. You need money?”
Thomas shakes his head, smiling.
“It’s always on Fridays, have you noticed that? Always on fucking Friday when you fucking need your coffee the most. I’m calling the company to let them know they can pick up their machine and shove it up their asses. I won’t pay another penny on the installments for this piece of shit.” Maloney’s already on his way out of the office. “Are the deliveries arriving today? Did you talk to them?” he shouts. Thomas follows him. Maloney flicks the switch for the chandelier, Eva rolls up the vacuum’s hose; they exchange a greeting. She says, “Have a good weekend” in her oddly whispered, self-effacing way, bowing her head shyly—but what could she be shy about?—and dragging the vacuum cleaner into the hallway. She can’t be the one he’s fucking, Thomas thinks, inserting the key in the register. Now Maloney’s on the phone with the company that delivers their stock, and it sounds as if they aren’t coming today. He slams down the receiver and sighs. “Why does everything have to be so fucking difficult?” It’s a big store, a desirable location, and it’s been a paper and office supply shop for nearly one hundred years; they’ve maintained as much of the old, dark wood as possible. The chandelier hangs from the huge rosette on the ceiling, which is cleaned thoroughly with a toothbrush, and they’ve carefully renovated the built-in cabinetry with room for especially fine decorative paper and gold leaf. The broad wooden planks have been polished and lacquered. When they opened the store, Thomas spent weeks lying on the floor sealing the cracks with tar. That was a warm summer, he recalls, and I hadn’t met Patricia yet. Maloney was young and trim in those days, and he was dating a nougat-skinned beauty whom he consistently referred to as “the sex kitten.” In the evenings they drank beer at a café around the corner and discussed how rich they’d be if they did everything right. Right. What the hell is right? Thomas wonders. For a moment he feels the urge to kick the coffee automat—since it’ll have to be returned anyway. Instead he sits behind the counter and turns on the cash register screen. Pale sunlight cascades through the tall windows. Morning traffic rumbles in the distance. “Soon people won’t have any need for paper,” Maloney says. “Who writes a letter nowadays? Who can even write by hand? Tell me. And books? They’re on the way out, too. People sit around fiddling with their stupid digital devices on the train. Have you noticed that? Wuthering Heights and Thomas Mann. It’s a joke. He and the Brontë sisters would turn in their fucking graves.”
“Maybe they do.”
“What?”
“Turn in their graves.” Thomas looks out the window. Sees Peter balancing coffee cups and a bakery bag, a cigarette dangling from his mouth.
“Did you know that Peter smoked?”
“No. Nor do I fucking care,” Maloney says. “What a goddamn morning. I think I’ll go home.”
“That must be why he’s always chewing gum. To hide it. The smell.”
Maloney calms a little once he’s had two cups of coffee and gobbled a chocolate croissant. There’s an enormous zit on Peter’s cheek. Annie’s wearing a red dress that accentuates her wide hips; her arms are thick, and her mouth is small and narrow, with thin, tight lips. “Okay, we’re doing inventory today. You do rows one through four, Peter. Annie, you do the rest.” Thomas nods at her. “Don’t count the pasteboard. We’ve ordered more.”
“But they haven’t arrived yet,” Annie says.
“No, they haven’t,” Maloney says, sourly. “Turn in your lists to me before 1:00 P.M. We need to send our orders by 3:00.”
“It’s usually before 4:00, isn’t it?” Annie raises her chin and looks at Thomas.
“But today it’s before 3:00,” Maloney says, and Thomas asks: “Are we doing the books?”
Maloney nods, then dries his cheek with the back of his hand. “I’ll start.”
A moment of silence. Everyone’s thoughts seem to turn inward, sleepily holding their breath as if it was very warm. But it isn’t very warm.
“What time is it?” Peter asks.
Maloney points at the wall clock behind them.
“Oh, yeah,” Peter
