Works and Days

Happy Returns

2

By the time Bill Dwyer looked out of his office door to see Lynn Messing struggling at her computer, he’d been touching his nose again and again for about three hours, looking at himself in the mirror and touching his biceps thinking, “You’ve still got it, guy. You’ve still got it.”

Bill straightened his tie, hit save on his computer, and then went to Lynn’s cubicle.

She looked up, startled.

“Mr. Dwyer.”

“That’s not necessary. Bill will do.”

Lynn nodded, sounding the word out in her mind, and then said, “Bill.”

“You look like you need help.”

“I thought I knew how to bring down the files for Jillings Incorporated, but...”

“Here,” Bill leaned in closer to her. “Watch this. Okay. There’s a trick for Jillings, Rowell and Hammond Iron. They’re not in the regular files. To get to them you move here… Watch, and then, click, click, click. See?”

He smiled right at her.

“Yes,” she said a little breathlessly. “Thank you, Mr... Bill,”

“Oh no, Mr. Bill!” he made a squeaky noise impersonating the clay man from Saturday Night Live, and then was instantly horrified that he’d done so.

“I’m such a dork.”

Lynn laughed.

He was cool again.

“Any time you need help just ask,”

“Really?”

“Yes,” Bill smiled bravely. “Really. That’s what I’m here for.”

“Well, I do want to go over the Jillings account and the one from Westside, but I can talk to Dana about—”

“Don’t be afraid to show it to me.”

“Tomorrow?” Lynn suggested. “At lunch.”

“Yes,” Bill said. “We can do that.”

“YOU CAN’T DO THAT !!!” roared David, who was sitting shotgun on the ride back.

“Why not?” Bill blew the matter off.

“Because you’re married!”

Then David added. “To my sister.”

Bill scowled at David.

“I remember through sickness and health, richer for poorer, but I don’t remember never having lunch with your secretary.”

“Under adultery!” David cried.

“I’m having a salad with the woman, not throwing her on a table and fucking her to death. Ease up, David.

“Whaddo you say, Thom?” Bill turned to the backseat.

“Since when did we have morality by consensus,” David demanded.

“Since we got in my car,” said Bill. “Now, what’s your take, Thom?”

Thom felt on the spot. He was quiet a moment, briefcase mounted on his lap.

“Well,” said Thom at last. “How does she make you feel?”

“Whaddo you mean?”

“Bill, please look at the road.”

“Shut up, Dave. Whaddo you mean, Lewis?”

“If she... if you feel like a man around her, I’d watch out.”

The look on Bill’s face in the rearview mirror said that Thom needed to explain.

“If you haven’t felt like a man in a while, or you feel unappreciated and suddenly this woman makes you feel... like a stud... and young and everything.. I’d watch out. That’s all.”       

“The Army?” Chayne said.

“I’m already in the National Reserve,” Ted said, “and now I’ve been called up for the next two years.”

“I had no idea you were in the Army,” Chayne said.

“I wonder if there’s a lot you have no idea about concerning me,” Ted said seriously.

Chayne frowned and said, “It’s not my job to know every damn thing about you, especially if you aren’t revealing things. How was I to know you were…. You could have said something.”

“You’re right,” Ted said. “I could have. I should have. I am.”

“A bit late though.”

“Yes,” Ted agreed. “It is.”

“Sharon, someone’s at the door!”

“Had you considered answering it?”

Sharon, on her end of the couch, looked at her husband who was turning the pages of The Saint Gregory Herald, and realized he had not. She sighed and stood up.

“Thank you, dear.”

“Um hum,” she muttered.

Sharon opened the door and stared at the young man smiling at her.

“It really is you!”

Sharon cocked her head and tried to make sense of the boy. He was tall and well made, not too thin, in blue jeans and a white shirt. He was handsome enough with buzzed white blond hair, and he had blue eyes she was sure that she had seen.

“Don’t you know me, Sharon?” he demanded with a laugh.

She looked harder and knew him before he said the name.

“It’s me, Robert!”     

 “I shouldn’t have just popped up here unannounced and everything,” Robert said shaking his head as he took the glass of Kool-Aid Sharon offered him.

“Yeah,” agreed Graham. “I mean most people would—”

“Shut up, Graham. Robert, the surprise is nice. I didn’t even know you. I didn’t know what a handsome man you really were.”

Now Robert blushed.

“You’re a baby,” Sharon said. “Really.”

Robert took a sip from the Kool-Aid and said, “This baby’s got a plan, though. Well, he thought he did.”

“Which is?” Sharon prompted after watching him for some time.

“I want to write. And I want to know a writer. I want to work for a writer. Be an apprentice and just learn. That’s what I want to do.”

“You got all this money,” Graham began, “and can travel wherever and do whatever, and you want to be a secretary? Boy, that’s really stupid—”

“Graham!”

“That’s what I said,” Robert agreed. “I kept on telling myself that, so finally I just said, Self—I’m not listening to you anymore!  And I moved without thinking to come here, because I know you, Sharon, and because I wondered if... if your son.. if I could get Mr. Kandzierski to get me a job.”

Robert looked hopeful and afraid all at once.

Graham commented, “Mr. Kandzierski! Mr. Kandzierski! Now Chayne’s Mr. Kandzierski!”

“Robert, that’s a great idea.”

“Do you think Mr. Kandzierski would... consider me?”

“Chayne would hire a billy goat just to throw money at,” Graham said, and Sharon, much of the same opinion about her son, said, “Of course he will.”

“Are you the receptionist, Jewell?” Sharon asked, coming into the house.

“I guess I am today, Sharon. Who’s this?”

“This is Robert.”

“Hello, ma’am.” Robert ducked his head.

“I’m not ninety. I’m Jewell Emery. Chayne’s upstairs. I’ll get him.”

“Jewell, where’s the baby?”

“With Tim,” she said, shortly. “You need Chayne?”

“I’d love Chayne,” Sharon said.

Jewell got up, walked to the staircase, put one foot on the first step, and then she bellowed up:

“CHAYNE, YOUR MAMA’S DOWN HERE!”

As Chayne came down the stairs, Robert Keyes, having just finished knuckling his ears, turned to Sharon and said, “Remember when you met me, what I looked like? That Rob was braver than I am right now. It was easier to be him. I wish I was him right now.”

“It’s only Chayne,” Sharon dismissed her son, “and if you were who you were then, you wouldn’t be here right now.”

“Mom?” Chayne said, then turning to Robert Keyes, “Welcome. Can I get you anything? A drink? Cookies?”

True to his rules of hospitality, Chayne didn’t even ask who Robert was.

“You can get him a job,” Sharon said.

“Um?”

Robert stepped forward, thrust his hand out and pressed on a smile. “Mr. Kandzierksi, I’m Robert Keyes—”

“I’ve heard of you—” Chayne smiled.

“And I’m a really big fan of yours. And I would do anything. I would sweep your floors and clean your kitchen with a toothbrush and be the best secretary in the world if I could just learn from you. If you would be my teacher. See, I want to write like you do. Well, not like you do. You’re good and I want to be good too. That’s what I mean!”

“Chayne!” Jewell swatted him, her jaw wide open.

Chayne looked at Jewell and nodded, then said, “That’s just what I was thinking too.”

“What?” interrupted Sharon.

“What What?” Chayne said.

“When you all do that telepathic thing no one else can follow.”

“I was just saying how I wished I had a... ” Chayne smiled looking for the right word. “A Robert, really.”

“Really!” Robert exalted.

“All these coincidences,” Sharon shook her head.

“I ah—” Robert started to say, then stopped.

“Where are you staying tonight?” Chayne asked Robert.

“Well, uh, I...”

“Okay, stay in Russell’s room. No, the spare room. I just made it up. You’ll like it. Welcome to Curtain Street.”

Robert stood in the middle of the living room, looking around at nothing, smiling.

“I can’t. I can’t believe this. I’m happy.”

“If you can’t be happy,” said Chayne, “then what the fuck’s the point?”

“Chayne!” Sharon.

Chayne ignored his mother and asked, “Did you bring your stuff with you?”

“A bag,” the young man replied. “I’ve been traveling light.”

“Well, bring your bag in here. The door’s always open. We’re all going out tonight, though I don’t know when. If you want you can come.”

“Going out where?” Sharon asked.

“One of Chayne’s cousins—one of your cousins,” Jewell corrected herself, “has a band in Saint Gregory’s, and we’re all going to hear them tonight.”

“And not at the Blue Jewel?”

“Well, if they’re good, maybe I’ll ask them,” said Jewell. “But I don’t want the Diggs and his band to get jealous.”

“If you get Nehru’s group in, we might draw a crowd under thirty,” Chayne suggested, while Jewell looked reflective and said, “I’m not sure I want a crowd under thirty.”