“It’ll dry up,” Henry says. “It won’t be too bad.”
“No one wants to buy smelly clothes,” Mr. Beardsley says. “I’m going to go out and get some air freshener. I’ll be right back.”
Henry sits behind the counter and thinks about Cathy Nicholas.
He curses himself for not noticing her body. He’d taken in her face at the time and now, trying too hard, he cannot even conjure that up. She has brown hair. The kind of brown that he is willing to bet was, in childhood, white-blond. It’s straight, he thinks, though he’s not quite sure.
He has to get back into the dating game, he knows this much. His last date had a lazy eye. He had not known which eye to look at and frankly it felt creepy. He’d nicknamed her Cross-Eyed Mary for the Jethro Tull song of the same name and he’d joked about her with his friend Tom and felt bad about it.
Since Cross-Eyed Mary there had been no one. He worried that dating was a muscle that needed to be exercised, so one night, for practice, he pulled two plates out of the cabinet above his tiny kitchen counter—only big enough to accommodate his coffeemaker and a toaster oven on one side of the sink, a drying rack on the other. Two forks. Two knives. Even two place mats—the ones he had taken from his parents’ house when he had found this apartment. They had long since stopped using place mats at the Powell house so he figured they would not miss them. At the time he had figured it would be a good thing to have two place mats for dating purposes.
He set up the pair of places on the rickety thrift-store dinette table and stood back to admire it. Not bad, he thought. But after a few minutes he decided the place mats cheapened the look of the whole thing, being plastic foam and somewhat picked at the edges. He carefully put it all back—cabinet door opening and closing, drawers doing the same—it felt sad to him. Like the plates had gotten their hopes up. And the forks. Knives can fend for themselves.
The drying rack has the single plate he uses for dinner, the bowl he uses for cereal, a single spoon, fork and knife and at times a pot that is drying, depending on what he has cooked. Every so often he replaces each one to give them all equal rotation.
He tells himself he will ask this Cathy out for dinner. He feels certain she does not have a lazy eye.
The problem will be her falling in love with him. They all do, he shakes his head. It gets tricky extricating himself from these relationships. Cross-Eyed Mary had called and called. He didn’t know for certain it was her—she never left a message—but he could just tell. He didn’t answer—Jesus, no way, she’d hear my voice, tears would follow so better to just let the phone ring.
The ghost writer leans forward to make sure his tape recorder is getting all this and appears relieved to see he still has time on the miniscule tape cassette. All the women love Henry Powell, he scribbles in his notepad. Yes, Henry nods silently and then says, it’s always been the way. I guess it’s like fat people hearing thin ones complain about having to put on weight so I maybe shouldn’t say this out loud, Henry says, but really it is difficult to be me in these sorts of situations. Oh, yes, I’m sure, the man gives a sympathetic nod. I cannot imagine how difficult, he adds.
“Henry? I could use your help with this,” Mr. Beardsley says, pushing his way past the wind tunnel the fans have created, handing Henry one can of Lysol. He takes the other and starts spraying.
“Won’t this be worse for the clothes?” Henry calls out over the fans.
“What?”
“I said, won’t this be worse for the clothes? This spray sticking to them? This smells worse than the water did,” he shouts.
Mr. Beardsley stops spraying and sniffs the air.
“Shit, you’re right,” he says. It is the first time Henry has heard his boss swear. “Jesus, what’re we going to do?” He drops the can of Lysol to the floor and it rolls under a rack of pants.
“Let’s just let the fans go for a little while,” Henry says. “I think the fans are all we need.” He lowers to one knee to reach the Lysol.
“What?”
“Let the fans do it,” Henry shouts. “It’ll be fine.”
He rolls his sleeves back down and buttons them. Mr. Beardsley is staring at the carpet as if willing it to dry.
“How much longer do you want me to stay?” Henry asks.
Mr. Beardsley motions to the area just past the counter and points to his ear, indicating he cannot hear, though Henry is sure he has.
“What’d you say?” he asks Henry once they are farther away from the fans.
“Um, how much longer did you need me, do you think? I can come back … I’ve just … I’ve got to run a quick appointment, you know.”
Mr. Beardsley nods. “Yes, yes, five-fifteen. I know. Go ahead. You don’t need to come back.”
“If you need me I can come back. I mean, if you need me.”
There is a pause.
“It’s okay,” Mr. Beardsley finally says. He is so tentative Henry decides against offering again, as he was going to do a moment before the pause. To be polite.
“Okay, thanks,” he says. “Um, I’ll come in early tomorrow to clean up what doesn’t get done tonight. Don’t worry. I think the fans will really do it.”
Mr. Beardsley looks back out toward the doors. “You think?”
“Yeah, totally.”
“I don’t know. I hope you’re right. Okay, well, go on then. Have a good night.”
“Thanks. See you tomorrow,” Henry calls out over the sound.
Cup-a-Joe is already closed he notes, getting into his Jeep. Most of the stores along the street are closed. Henry starts up the Jeep and puts it right into Reverse instead of waiting the thirty seconds he normally does to let the engine warm up. He hurries along Main Street and soon pulls up in front of his parents’ house.
“Hel-lo? Mom?” he calls out, shutting the door behind. “Mom?”
He hears the refrigerator door closing so he goes into the kitchen.
She is mixing the orange juice into the vodka, ice cubes jingling.
“Hey, Mom,” he says.
“Hey is for horses,” she says. She is alert, her smile full of recognition, but Henry has been fooled before. He steels himself and sure enough the impulse to rush to her, hug her, bury his head in her chest, dissipates as she teeters past him to the living room. Imperious. Regal. And very, very drunk.
“You doing all right? You seem better today. Did you take your pills?”
“Did you take your pills, listen to this. My son doddering over me like I’m an old lady.”
“You okay on groceries?” Henry ignores her comment and goes back to see how they are holding up, food-wise.
“Liquid lunch,” she says, toasting the air in front of her and spilling a little in the process.
“Mom, you really shouldn’t be.”
“Don’t even finish that sentence, Henry Powell. Where’s my Brad? He came by yesterday but only stayed a few minutes.”
“That was me, Mom,” Henry says. “Brad’s in Portland, remember?”
“That was most certainly not you,” she says.
“It was me. You want to watch something? What’s on now?”
“I want to watch something with my Brad,” she says. “He was always so sweet. Did I ever tell you about the time