Scott receded, turning away from her fast. In seconds, he was at the front door. When his back was to her, he held up a dismissive hand over his head. ‘Later.’
The door banged shut. Joanna listened to his footsteps walking down the flagstone path. A car door slammed, the tires screeched. The heat kicked on, and an unsavory mix of dust, clove cigarettes, and varnish wafted through the vents. She remained in the hallway a moment, raking her fingernails up and down her bare arms. There was a wet prickle of sweat on the back of her neck. Her heart clunked in her chest.
Boo.
When Joanna returned toward the kitchen, she expected Charles and Sylvie to look up, instantly aware that something about her was askew. But their heads were pressed together close. They were whispering.
‘But, Mom,’ Charles was saying. ‘The call. Don’t you think—’
‘There’s nothing to talk about,’ Sylvie interrupted.
Joanna took a step back and dipped behind the wall. They hadn’t seen her.
‘Still. You should call a lawyer,’ Charles hissed.
Joanna widened her eyes. So he did think the lawyer idea was a good one.
There was the sound of rustling papers. ‘What’s the point of that?’ Sylvie asked.
‘Protection, obviously. It could mitigate things.’
She murmured something Joanna couldn’t hear. Then Charles sighed. ‘But what about how Scott jumped me at the graduation party?’ he whispered. ‘In front of Bronwyn? Remember? Do you think there could be a link to this thing with Scott and the boys?’
‘No,’ his mother interrupted fast. ‘There’s no link between this and that.’
‘How can you be so sure?’ he cried. Sylvie didn’t answer.
Joanna couldn’t stand it anymore. She tiptoed back to the bathroom, flushed the toilet, opened the sink taps the whole way so that Charles and Sylvie would hear them gushing. She stared at herself in the mirror. Her mouth was a small, crinkled O. Her skin was pallid, almost yellowish.
Scott had attacked Charles? He’d never told her that.
She shut off the taps. And then she clomped across the living room, shaking the tension out of her hands. She even feigned a cough, as if all those other sounds weren’t enough. Sylvie and Charles were already snapped back to their usual selves by the time she walked through the doorway. They were waiting for her, smiling at her welcomingly.
‘Everything all right?’ Sylvie asked.
‘Of course.’ Joanna sat down, pulled an L.L. Bean catalogue to her, and whipped through the pages. Travel alarm clocks! Mattress pads! Monogrammed tote bags! Pictures of vacationing families, all of them guileless and trouble-free!
It was and wasn’t a surprise. So Charles and his mother were worried about Scott, but they were leaving Joanna out of it. Maybe because she wasn’t family, maybe because she wouldn’t understand, maybe because she wasn’t important enough to know. There were so many possible reasons why. But Joanna tried to conceal the mix of hurt and disappointment she felt as best she could, leaning over the pages, chuckling when they got to the travel section for pets. Imagine that.
Fischer Custom Editorial had been planned out carefully by designers and architects and perhaps even sociologists and psychiatrists. Everyone’s workspace was private and quiet, whereas the meeting rooms were bright, vivid and provocative, overlooking Philadelphia’s City Hall. The bathrooms were all equidistant from where everyone sat. Even the items in the vending machines had probably been carefully chosen after months of research – enough low-calorie treats for dieters, enough Snickers and Milky Ways for bingers. Things with nuts and things without nuts. An assortment of teas and gourmet coffees. There was always wine and beer in the full-sized fridge. They had parties at 4 p.m. every Friday to boost morale.
Charles Bates-McAllister sat in his boss’s office with a few others, staring at a pamphlet which lay on the glass table. The photo on the front was of a couple standing in a field, the man with a long beard and wild hair, a make-up-free woman in a long dress and an apron. It reminded Charles of the famous American Gothic painting, except that the man had an earring and a tattoo on his neck, peeking out from under his plaid shirt, and the woman looked way too refreshed and delighted to have spent all her life working the fields. Back to the Land, said the caption, in large yellow block letters.
‘So this is the idea,’ his boss, Jake, said. ‘For one year, people give up their lives. They quit their jobs, they leave their homes, maybe they sell their homes. They come to central Pennsylvania and build a house from scratch, out of logs and moss and whatever else. While they’re building their house, they have to live in a tent. Even if it’s winter. They build their own furniture. They grow their own food. If they eat meat, they shoot their own food. They’re given some livestock, sheep and things, and make their own clothes. They can choose to be in a community and have a specialized job, or they can really live in the wilderness. Of course, the wilderness isn’t really that far from civilization. A hospital is only twenty minutes away. If they need a telephone, they can find one.’
The whole table stared at him. ‘And people do this?’ Jessica finally said.
‘A lot of people,’ Jake answered. ‘You wouldn’t believe how many people.’
‘It sounds like a cult,’ Steven murmured.
Jake shrugged. ‘Some people see it as a vacation, I guess. I know. I don’t get it, either.’
‘And you have to pay for this?’ Steven asked.
Jake nodded. ‘You pay for the land you live on. I think it’s thirty thousand dollars a year. And they provide training so that you won’t die out there.’
‘Thirty thousand dollars?’ Jessica whispered.
‘And some people stay for more than a year,’ Jake said. ‘They see it as an escape. Freedom.’
Everyone was silent. ‘Maybe in this day and age, with the economy tanking and terrorists blowing up hotels and the housing market crashing, this is what people want,’ Becky suggested.
Charles looked at the photo again. The couple did look happy. But he figured it was a kooky kind of happiness reserved for the same kinds of people who meditated and spoke to plants.
‘They want us to do a magazine about their community,’ Jake explained, ‘to drum up business. I know it’s a little unusual. Not the normal kind of account we typically accept. But we’re hurting for money. And maybe this will be an opportunity for all of you to stretch your skills a little.’
Charles shifted. Stretching their skills was a euphemism for putting aside all judgments about this kind of endeavor and making the best possible product he could. Then again, it wasn’t that different from the slightly contradictory messages he was encouraged to ignore about Fischer’s other clients. Like the car manufacturer that asked him to write an article about their brand-new SUV and just ‘tone down’ the fact that the car got terrible highway and city gas mileage. Or the credit card company that suggested they write a story encouraging shoestring-budget families to charge more on their VISA, thousands of dollars more, so that they would accrue enough rewards points to buy a handheld shoulder massager or an iPod docking system.
Perhaps Jake had selected Charles and the rest of his colleagues for this particular project because they were all the least likely to say no. Steven was unabashedly Christian – spiritual songs floated out from his office, and at last year’s Christmas party, he’d earnestly asked one of the junior designers to check out his church. He never refused anything that was given to him, as if it wouldn’t be Jesus-like to do