The Man Whose Teeth Were All Exactly Alike Page 9

  Such a little thing, he thought. She wants to get a job; she has to come into the City anyhow, and we do need the money.

  But I knew this would happen, he said to himself. I anticipated this. So there must be something to my fears, some reality.

  And, with panic, he thought, I know the next step. The next step is for her to work and me to stay home. I know it; it will come about, and nothing can stop it. I am so close to that already. This is what she’s been aiming for so long, since the beginning; the loss of my driving license made me helpless, delivered me over to her.

  He said, “Would you really do that?”

  “Do what?”

  “Refuse to drive me to work? If I didn’t let you get a job?”

  After pondering, Sherry said, “It might be a way of making you realize the need of both giving and taking in this world.”

  Flailing at her with fury he shouted, “What does that mean, for god’s sake? What is that?”

  Keeping herself calm, she said, “You can’t expect me to be the only one who gives, Walt. I give and give. And I don’t keep track; I don’t have a little black book of all the good deeds I do. I’ve never complained about having to drive you in every morning and spend the whole day in San Francisco. But I think you’re mature enough, adult enough, to face the fact that you have to be capable of giving back to me, as well as receiving from me. Do you know what it is, if you can’t give back? It’s the child all over again; the child with his parents. In a marriage, there are only equals.”

  He said, “That fucking analyst really equipped you with a language.”

  “Do you want me to stop the car?” she said. And, seeing a broad dirt shoulder on the curve ahead, she shifted gears and took the Alfa from the road, slowing it to a stop on the dirt. “I can stay here,” she said, “all morning. There’s a book under the seat. I can read about color-fast dyes.” Bending down, she reached for the book. As she brought it out he saw it, a massive red-backed text book.

  The incongruity of it, this text book on dyes out here in the middle of Tamalpais State Park, with the car parked on the shoulder of the road at six forty-five in the morning, was too much for him. He began to laugh, and, after a moment, Sherry, too, smiled.

  “Why do we fight?” she said. She put the book back down. “We really love each other. Don’t we?”

  Certainly, he felt some kind of deep emotion towards her. In her blue suit, with her face fresh and smooth, her eyelashes and brows darkened with make-up, she looked attractive in the extreme. Nobody could deny that. His hands, his body, had touched her so often in the past that now merely to look at her was enough to arouse tactile sensations; the palms of his hands, his fingers and shoulders, all his surface area itched in yearning to come into contact with her. His physical system had been bred to it by enormous and persistent experience. Among the various realities, it was in some respects the most persuasive that he had ever known.

  “No love-making here,” she said, as he moved closer to her, as close as their two safety belts permitted. “Keep your belt fastened.” That was a joke between them, a risqué joke that they had invented; it was not shared with anyone else on earth.

  “Later?” he said. He bent to kiss her on the cheek.

  “Well,” she said, “if you’re interested in making love to a woman whose sole interest is supplanting you and becoming a man.”

  Hearing that, he felt his heart harden again. But he kept the tenderness in his voice; he kept the news from her.

  I’m going to do everything I can, he said to himself. To keep you where you belong; at home, as my wife. I’ll fight all the way, to the very end. Looking down at her nice legs and ankles, he thought. In all areas. I’ll fight wherever I have a chance to win.

  “Let’s get back on the road,” he said. He touched her gently behind her knee, a delicate, tender spot of her anatomy; she trembled, and her leg drew back involuntarily.

  “You sound so pleased,” she said. “You certainly perked up in a hurry.” Smiling at him, she put the car in gear; in a moment she had started out onto the road once more.

  That night, at home, he heard her in the bedroom phoning. She had shut the door before going in, but there was no mistaking the sound of her voice when she was on the telephone; it got an even firmer, more inflexible quality. It did not become louder or slower. It became more authoritative, as if the person on the other end, whoever it might be, was in the category of the plumber, the dentist; someone whom she had called, whom she wanted for something. She made the calls, he reflected. They did not call her.

  Whatever it is, he thought, it is something that by rights I should be doing. Like that call to Arbarth, the contractor, which I should have made. She is beating me to something, again.

  When she came out he said, “Who was that?”

  Sherry said, “My stepfather.” In her hand she had a pencil and pad of paper; seating herself on the arm of the couch she crossed her legs, smoothed down her skirt, and considered what she had written on the pad.

  “Are they well?” he said finally. “I presume your mother’s over the detached retina.”

  “Almost over,” Sherry said. “It takes a long time to recover.”

  “How’s your brother?” he said.

  “They’re fine. The children are fine. They wondered why we hadn’t written.”

  “Good,” he said.

  “Willis asked after you. I told him you were down the street; I knew you wouldn’t want to talk to him.”

  “That’s true,” he said. “Although I could hardly have…since you didn’t tell me you were going to phone. Do you know, by any chance, what the call cost?”

  “No,” she said steadily.

  “Why did you call him?”

  Sherry said, “I wanted to find out who he knows in the Bay Area. That might have a job I’d be interested in.”

  “And what did Willis say?”

  “He said he knew three or four firms. He’s going to look them up and then call me back, probably tomorrow or the next day.”

  “It never occurred to you to simply go to an employment agency on your own. And not work through your stepfather.”

  “No,” she said. “It was your idea, anyhow.”

  “Mine?”

  She said, “You pointed out that I ought to get it right away, or it wouldn’t be worth it. So I called him.” Rising, she passed from the living room, back to the bedroom. The door shut after her, and soon he heard the sound of her voice; she was phoning again.

  This time he got up and went to the door to listen. For a long time the intermittent phrases made no sense; he strained to hear, and at last he realized, with chagrin, that she was talking to some local person. He heard her dial, and on their phones they could only dial Carquinez and Stinson Beach. She was finding out about the next meeting of the Carquinez Garden Association, through which she and several other women purchased shrubs and flowers.

  Feeling baffled and depressed, he returned to the living room and the TV set, with its noise and motion, its distraction.

  Watching the TV he could forget his problems for a time. It did not enlighten him or improve him, teach him or even entertain him. But, like a warm bath, it relaxed him. And that was good enough. That was all, at the end of the day, that he wanted. It was a means of preparing him for full sleep; a halfway point between life and bed.

  Towards the end of the week, his boss Norm Lausch asked him to come into his office.

  Dombrosio stood by his desk, removing his overalls, delaying as long as was feasible. In his several years with Lausch Company he had had few dealings with Norm himself; the man owned other businesses and he divided his time among them. His favorite seemed to be his house trailer outlet. He had, years ago, designed a terrific new interior for house trailers, and one of the largest manufacturers had taken him up on it. His own firm built the interiors, the special tables and shelves and cupboards; in fact, everything but the shell, the trailer itself. Most of his early money had been made
in that business.

  The man had a mild voice, difficult to hear, not high-pitched but in a sort of neutral middle range. He smoked a particular type of black rope-like cigarette, as long as a cigar, that he had brought in from the Philippines. Every time Dombrosio saw him Lausch had on a suit the color of Indian pottery, a reddish brown clay color, and heavy, like felt. He had attractive, pale hands; his nails were manicured, and he wore a big gold wedding band. His face was tanned—he used an infrared lamp at home—and his eyes had a pleasant light quality.

  It had always been hard for Dombrosio, the few times he had got into a discussion with Lausch, to pin the man down. He had an affable, deceptive manner; he seemed to agree, to suggest, but always to elude. And yet he did run the company. He ran it through other men, with whom Dombrosio and the other designers and workmen dealt; Lausch himself was in and out. It was always hard to catch him; he apparently wanted it that way.

  So why does he want me? Dombrosio wondered as he walked along the corridor with its ceiling and walls of cellotex, its rows of closed doors marked DO NOT ENTER. A natural reluctance had come over him; he did not need a specific reason, a well-defined anxiety. The situation itself generated the anxiety. Any employee, he realized, whose sole means of support is derived through the goodwill of another person, his boss, has to feel ill-at-ease when that boss asks for him.

  At the door he paused to prepare himself; he got himself into as poised a frame of mind as possible. And then he opened the office door, passed the secretary’s desk, and rapped on the translucent-glass inner door.

  “Come in,” Norm Lausch’s voice sounded.

  He opened the door and entered.

  At his desk Lausch sat with one leg up, his black oxford resting on the surface of the desk. He had been combing the hairs of his ankle with a pocket comb, but now, seeing Dombrosio, he put the comb away in its leather case and returned it to this pocket. “Hi, Walt,” he said. “Sit down, keed.”

  Dombrosio sat down in the chair facing the desk. He did not feel like joking, and he did not answer.

  “How’s Juan Fangio?” Lausch said, with a friendly chuckle.

  “Not doing much racing these days,” Dombrosio said.

  “You could come in by boat. Sail out of that bay by your town, whatever the name is—Carquinez? Sail down the coast and through the Golden Gate and dock right here at the wharf. At the San Francisco waterfront, one of the world’s finest ports. Make it the rest of the way by taxi. How long would it take?”

  “All day,” he said.

  “Yes, but no fuel. You could sail.”

  At that, Dombrosio had to laugh. They both laughed, the two men sitting facing each other in Lausch’s office. It was a funny idea, a good gag; Dombrosio appreciated it, and the intention behind it. His boss sympathized with his situation. By gently kidding, he made Dombrosio aware that he knew about the suspension, that he did not censure him, that he wished him well. And all done without embarrassing him; in fact, he had at the same time put him at his ease.

  “On stormy days,” Dombrosio said, “I might get blown the other direction. Towards Japan.”

  “Well, we’ve got one of their designers. Lend-lease.” Norm Lausch did not seem in a hurry to get down to business; time did not seem to be an issue.

  Dombrosio said, “Say, I wonder if you saw that package Quinn and I put together for that outfit that makes cat-crap boxes.”

  “Oh yes. Katty Kloset. But you want to be careful you don’t get over into what the Ex-M-Co has.”

  For a moment he could not identify them. Then he remembered; they put out Jonny Cat, an absorbent compound used in cat-crap boxes. Its carton had been an inspired job; both in the design and inscription it avoided any unpleasant connotations, and yet it made clear what it contained. As Bob Fox had said, when they first began studying the carton, “That cat they’ve got drawn there couldn’t have an asshole.” Another outfit, not theirs, had designed the carton, and Lausch Company had yet to come up with one as good for their client, Katty Kloset.

  “Of course,” Dombrosio said, “Katty Kloset makes the actual box, not the compound. So it’s not in competition. In fact, the consumer would use Jonny Cat to fill his Katty Kloset.”

  “Or Kitty Litter,” Lausch said. “My wife buys that.”

  “Why? Do you know?”

  “She thinks the name ‘Jonny Cat’ is vulgar. She knows it’s a play on the slang for toilet, ‘john.’”

  “Why does that seem vulgar to her?” It had been noticed that Ex-M-Co had even left the letter ‘h’ out of the name, spelling it instead with two n’s.

  “She has a brother named John. She’s always been sensitive to the use of the name slangwise.”

  Dombrosio said, “So her taste preference doesn’t tell us anything.”

  “One thing about the absorbent compound,” Lausch said. “It can be used for other things besides filling cat-crap boxes. Jonny Cat plays that up big on the carton. You can use it to soak up grease in the garage—what else? For mulching plants. For garbage pails. What else can the box be used for? Our carton should play that up.”

  Trying to recall the company’s literature, Dombrosio said, “As I remember, since it’s made out of rubber it could be used as a photographer’s pan. For film and prints being developed.”

  “That’s not much,” Lausch said.

  “Well, there must be a lot more that a big flat rubber pan could be used for. It’s not flexible, so it won’t spill if carried; it won’t buckle or fold.”

  “You mean it would make a good photographer’s pan if the photographer happened to want to pick up the pan and walk around the room with it.” Lausch folded his hands in front of him and squeezed them together with enormous force. “Listen, old pal. Guess who came in here today, looking for a job.”

  “My wife,” Dombrosio said. And his heart, for an instant, ceased to beat.

  “Yes, your one and only wife.” Reaching into his desk. Lausch brought out a file card which he dropped in front of Dombrosio. In the attractive, legible handwriting that he knew so well the card had been carefully filled out. At the top it read:

  DOMBROSIO, MRS. SHERRY R.

  Sex f age 31 married yes

  race w religion P

  Taking hold of the card, Dombrosio examined it without finding himself able to read beyond the first lines. The rest blurred, but he continued to hold it, pretending to read it through thoroughly, to the very end. Then he laid it down on the desk again.

  “When was she first in?” he asked.

  “Last week.” With his thumb, Lausch showed him the date on which the card had been filled out.

  “Was I here?”

  “No,” Lausch said. “She came in looking for you, towards the end of the day. I happened to run into her in the front office and we got to talking.”

  “Whose idea was it?” he said. “For her to apply for a job?”

  “Both of ours,” Lausch said. “She waited around for you—I don’t know where you were. Maybe you were out getting something. That was Thursday.”

  “I don’t remember now,” he said.

  “She started looking at the displays in the consumers’ store. I talked to her a couple of times before, a few months ago. She has a degree in commercial art, doesn’t she? And she’s done work with metal and leather—she showed me some belts that she made. And earrings.”

  “She works with various materials,” Dombrosio said.

  “Does quite good.”

  “Very good.”

  Lausch said, “Would you like to know the kind of job I’m considering for her?”

  Taking a deep breath he said as levelly as possible, “Sure.”

  “Again, it was partly her idea, partly mine. First of all, she hasn’t got any real experience. Certainly nothing that would qualify her to do the kind of work you’re doing. She’s done nothing original even in her own line, which is a sort of handicraft thing. You don’t mind if I talk this way, do you? Completely frankly.”

>   “Go on.”

  “And she knows nothing about our business. Obviously, a lot of what she knows she’s picked up from you. I told her that she probably had no real talent, at least not along the lines we can use. She was quite calm about it; she seemed to have no illusions. This isn’t a case where some starry-eyed kid just out of commercial art school walks in and tries to get hired as an industrial designer. To be frank with you, old buddy, what we’d be hiring wouldn’t be her talent in the artistic sense so much as her personality.”

  Dombrosio regarded him.

  “Let me explain,” Lausch said genially. “She’s extremely personable.” He put his arms out and clasped his hands behind his head; leaning back, he continued, “She’s got a lot of class. Her clothes, the way she talks. She’s Willis Sherman’s stepdaughter, isn’t she?”

  “You know Willis Sherman?” he said.

  “No,” Lausch said. “I never heard of him, frankly, until she mentioned him. She showed me an article about him from some magazine. Apparently he’s got quite a well-known house in that town where he lives—what is it?”

  “Tenafly,” Dombrosio said. “New Jersey. He’s wealthy. The family has had money for several generations.”

  “This magazine had a three-page spread. Pictures of the inside of their house. The furniture.”

  Dombrosio said, “It isn’t a magazine; it’s the rotogravure section of a newspaper. I’ve seen it. It was published in 1953.”

  “Don’t you think that’s something? For a newspaper to give a guy’s house a three-page spread?”

  “That section had a regular Sunday feature showing the interiors of houses in the New York area.”

  “But not any houses.”

  “No,” he said. “Only very special ones.”

  Lausch scratched thoughtfully at the calendar on his desk. “See, your wife can talk art; she can communicate with the designers, with us. She also comes from a well-to-do society family; hell, you know it. Anybody can see it. It isn’t a question of her being especially attractive. We’ve got a receptionist with—you should excuse the expression—a nice pair of cans. Now, take our consumers’ store. We produce the packages and stick them in the store. We get clients in here to judge consumer reaction. But we have to talk to the clients; we have to talk them into buying the package. We have to do a sales job. And we’ve been trying to do that ourselves. But we’re not qualified to do that. On the other hand, we can’t get salesmen in, because that’s not what we want either.”