The Grievers (20 page)

Whoever that was.

“We’ve put this off long enough, Charley,” Sue said, huffing and puffing as she made her way across the lawn.

T
HE PERFORMANCE
review was not designed to penalize employees, Sue said mechanically, as if reading from a script. Rather, I should view it as an opportunity to assess my strengths and weaknesses in a way that would make me a greater asset to the company. Ideally, it would open up a dialogue between myself and management that would ultimately lead to advancement within my profession, but it might also give me an opportunity to assess whether my current career path was right for me.

“At the moment, I’m curled into a ball inside of a giant dollar sign,” I said, in case she hadn’t noticed. “I’m not sure that counts as a career path.”

“Just play along, Charley,” Sue said. “I need to do this for everyone. What would you describe as your towering strengths?”

“Towering strengths?” I said.

“Things you’re especially good at.”

“I understand the question,” I said. “I just wasn’t prepared for it. I thought the whole point of this was for you to tell me what I was doing wrong.”

“It is,” Sue said. “But it’s supposed to be a dialogue. I ask you a few questions, you give me a few answers, I tell you why you’re wrong, and we pretend we had a real conversation about your value to the company.”

“Are you this forthcoming with all your employees?”

“No,” Sue said. “Only the ones who are lying in mud. What do you see as your towering strengths?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I guess I’m good at holding onto my balloons.”

“Okay,” Sue said, and she made a note on the clipboard. “Weaknesses?”

“Pretty much everything else,” I said.

“Could you be more specific?” Sue asked.

“I’m sure I could,” I said. “How much time do you have?”

Sue looked at her watch, and I told her not to worry. The job wasn’t right for me, I said. In fact, it probably wasn’t right for anyone—anyone with any self-respect, anyway. Or job skills of any kind.

“No offense,” I added, untying my balloons and shimmying out of the dollar sign. “But this is ridiculous.”

“So, what?” Sue asked. “You’re quitting on me?”

“It looks that way,” I said. “I just hope my wife doesn’t kill me for it.”

It wasn’t the same as all the other times, I told myself as I dragged the dollar sign back to the bank and shoved it into the broom closet looking scuffed, dirty, and bald in places where time and bad luck had rubbed away its glitter.

I was quitting, yes. But quitting with a purpose.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN  

T
he recipe called for two boned chicken breasts, an assortment of vegetables, and a splash of lemon juice. How hard could it be, I wondered? Chop the veggies, lay them on the chicken, add the lemon, wrap the whole shebang in foil, and stick it in the oven. With any luck, the end result would be a romantic dinner for two that would at least begin to make up for the fact that I’d quit my job. That four days had passed since I’d done the deed was beside the point. What mattered now was the element of surprise. If I timed everything right, Karen would walk through the door just as I was lighting the candles; but even if the meal went bust, the gesture alone would be so unexpected, so overwhelmingly out of character, that my wife would be speechless—in a good way, for a change.

It was Thursday afternoon, nearly a week since I told Karen about my visit to the Henry Avenue Bridge. For Karen, it was a week lost to grading end-of-semester research papers, creative writing portfolios, and final exams. For me, it was a week of answering the phone and agreeing to whatever crass and misguided schemes my fellow Academy grads had cooked up for turning Billy’s memorial service into the social event of the season. But if a circus was what they wanted, I thought, chopping peppers into tiny squares as the telephone rang, then a circus was what they’d get.

“Hey,” Neil said when I picked up the phone. “It’s me.”

“I’m chopping peppers,” I said, cradling the receiver between my ear and my shoulder. “Red and green. Dangerous stuff, so this better be good.”

“Did you get my message?”

“Oh, right,” I said. “Greg. I meant to call you back.”

“You gave him a ride to the airport?”

“Sorry,” I said. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

Neil let out a sigh. He sounded tired, and suddenly I felt bad for all the times I called him away from his job, away from his family, away from his life to help me pretend that I’d never have to grow up if I didn’t feel like it.

“You okay?” I said.

“He was arrested,” Neil said. “Greg, I mean. Apparently he went apeshit on his mother. Nothing physical, thank God, but they were out shopping, and he started screaming at her for sabotaging his life.”

“He told you this?” I said.

“In his own way, of course. In his version, he’s the hero, and it was all a misunderstanding.”

“So, what?” I scraped the peppers off the cutting board and onto the foil with the chicken and the other vegetables. “His mother called the cops?”

“Worse. They were in the grocery store when it happened, so it turned into a big to-do. The manager called the cops, and the cops hauled Greg away for disturbing the peace. They let him go when his mom came down to the station to make a statement, but by then? Jesus, the guy’s out of control. Sullivan’s still pushing for an intervention, but part of me thinks he just likes the drama.”

“Does Sean have experience with this kind of thing?” I asked.

“Not exactly,” Neil said. “I think he picked up a pamphlet at work.”

“The car lot or the other job?”

“To tell you the truth, I don’t even know.”

I put the chicken in the oven and told Neil it was his call. If he wanted to give Sullivan a shot and go ahead with an intervention, however loosely we used the term, then I’d back him all the way. But if he wanted to wash his hands of the entire situation, I’d understand completely. There was only so much Packer anyone could take, and Neil had already endured far more than I’d have guessed was humanly possible.

“Thanks,” Neil said. “I’ll let you know what I decide.”

I said goodbye to Neil and dimmed the lights in the dining room by standing on a chair and unscrewing two of the bulbs in the faux-brass fixture attached to the ceiling fan. Then I lit some candles and fluffed some sticky brown rice with a fork per the instructions on the package. In addition to the vegetables I’d chopped, I also steamed some spinach in compliance with Karen’s firm belief that vegetables cooked with meat products were not so much vegetables but a kind of garnish. Though I normally disagreed with this theory, I decided to acquiesce in the spirit of romance. As an added touch, I put on a jacket and tie and slicked my hair back so I’d look my best when Karen walked in the door. Since she was due back any minute, there was a slight element of haste as I selected music for the evening and filled a Rubbermaid bucket with ice to keep our wine cool while we dined. I was uncorking the bottle when I heard a knock at the door.

Odd, I thought, because I was certain that Karen had a key.

Or not so odd, I realized when I saw it wasn’t Karen at the door but Sean Sullivan.

“I told Neil we should have done this a long time ago,” he said, brushing past me as I opened the door. “But he put it off and put it off, and now look. The police are involved. Greg has a criminal record. We all saw it coming, but did we lift a finger to stop it? No. We just sat back and laughed while Greg screwed up his life. Greg’s stalking a girl in Chicago? Oh, boy! What fun! Greg’s hooked on painkillers? What a character! I’m telling you, Charley, it’s only a matter of time before we turn on the news and find out that some nut strangled his mother in the Christmas room. Then they’ll start interviewing his friends, and every one of us will be on TV saying, gee, he seemed like such a nice guy, I have no idea what happened. We’ll be
those
people, Charley. Those people who never have a clue that their neighbor has fifty prostitutes tied up in the basement. You see them on the news all the time and think, God, they must have been dumb as rocks not to realize their neighbor was a psychopath, and that’s what people are going to say about us!”

He stopped to catch his breath and asked what the candles were for.

“Romantic dinner,” I said. “For two.”

The telephone rang, and when I answered, it was Neil calling to inform me that he’d made a decision regarding the Greg Packer situation. He was going ahead with the intervention, he said. Since my house was centrally located, he told everyone to meet there.

“Everyone?” I said.

“Sean and Dwayne. Anthony can’t make it, but he said he’d stay up for the evening news to see if any of us gets killed.”

There was another knock, and Sean opened the door for Dwayne. Neil said he was calling from his car and would be at my house in less than an hour. He hoped he wasn’t imposing, he said, and I hurried into the kitchen to remove the chicken from the oven.

“No, not at all,” I said.

Karen’s key turned in the lock, and I cursed out loud as steam escaped from the foil and burned my fingers. There was some mumbling in the living room as Sean and Dwayne tried to explain what they were doing there, but the only words I could discern were
Charley
,
Greg Packer
,
kitchen
, and
romantic dinner
.

“Hi, honey,” I said as Karen peered cautiously into the kitchen. “Surprise.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN