‘Well, no,’ Billie says over her shoulder, as she hands her letters to the mail boy. She turns back to see her sister’s face change. Now she looks young, half formed. It never fails to stun Billie, the way her sister can change in a second from cocky to weedy. It makes her think of Louise’s insides as something nebulous and volatile; nothing solid inside that girl, just a bowl of mush.
‘Do you think San Francisco will ever feel like home, Billie?’ She keeps inserting memos to copy and a hot inky smell envelops the girls.
‘Well, of course it will.’
‘Tell the truth, even when I’m having fun with Chuck, I don’t really feel like myself here. Not as much as I do back home. Know what I mean?’
Billie absent-mindedly strokes Louise’s hair.
‘I know. But seriously, Lou, I wasn’t that crazy about the self I was back home.’
She’s not had a moment’s homesickness, not even a second’s worth. But then she wonders – is she really so very brave? Here she is, in her new life, different routines and rituals, already fearing change. And her sister is a huge hunk of home. Maybe she has merely transplanted Redding to San Francisco.
‘Please promise me, Loulala.’
‘Hell, no. I like Redding. You’re the one who was miserable there. You going give me my sweater back by Monday? Go great with my black taffeta.’
‘Promise me! Don’t move back!’
‘Oh, silly Billie, how can I promise? Are you going to cry?’
She hadn’t planned on it, but suddenly now she is.
‘Golly, hon. I have no idea where I’m going to end up. Let’s go powder our noses. I’m done here.’
So they link arms, fetch their bags and off they go.
Jacko leaves the building for lunch. He’s peeked at the cafeteria and decided it’s lousy. Old people, fat and ugly people, and it stinks like stale grease. In fact, now he thinks of it, the whole set up is a little stuffy. The furniture, the hair styles, the job itself – call it anything you like, the bottom line is writing stupid lies about stupid products for the benefit of stupid buyers. Nothing and nobody with any taste at all. Not a soul he’d like to drink beer with. Oh, sure, it’s good money, but for crying out loud, what’s a man like himself to do? Bury himself in a place like this for years? He’s walking swiftly, feeling lighter with every step he takes away from Perkins Petroleum Products. Maybe he won’t go back.
He arrives in Chinatown, and decides to wander up Grant. He goes into the first restaurant he finds, and orders chop suey. He has a sudden need to use chopsticks, a newly acquired skill. A pretty Asian waitress silently serves him, with a shy smile, and he starts to feel all right again. He orders the strangest food he can find on the menu, just to counter his conventional workplace. In fact, to cancel out his whole rural upbringing too, with the little glass bowls of Jell-O and marshmallows, the polyester shirts, the dearth of bookstores and jazz. He looks around, noticing he is the only Caucasian. No wonder the food is so good. He suddenly decides to take a girl here. He orders another beer, then looks at his watch. Goddammit, he’s going to be late from lunch on his first day.
Billie is back at her desk, having eaten the baloney sandwich she’d made the night before. In her head, she’s singing ‘I’ve Got a Crush on You’. She’s stopped thinking about the possible disaster of Louise leaving, and the dresses, shoes and lipstick she wants to buy. She’s back to thinking about boys. No, not boys. It’s a man she wants, not a boy. She has a clear picture of what she wants to happen in the near future. Her imagination has honed this idea so often, it appears the instant it’s summoned. Like a memory, not a wish. She has a baby in her arms, a pretty, pink, sleeping baby, and she’s in a home that she owns, with walk-in closets and a full-length mirror in the master bedroom and everything is new. There’s a backyard so their golden retriever can come and go. And somewhere near is her husband, faceless for now. This man is mad for her. And she makes him happy. She wants to be a wife with the same fervour other women dream of being famous movie stars, or missionaries in Africa. Making some man happy will be her vocation. She relaxes into her work, filing documents in the big metal cabinet. Humming very quietly, the tune to ‘You Belong to Me’. It’s so calming to know what you really want from life.
Jacko re-enters his new office, a little sweaty and a little drunk. He glances around the room, notes the young blonde woman with her back to him, filing manila folders in the old grey cabinet. Doesn’t think much, except I hope she won’t report me being late. He sets to his task, which on this first day, is the job of reviewing last season’s catalogue, looking up the sales figures for each product, and making notes on possible ways to improve the copy on the slow sellers. Now he comes to think of it, this job isn’t that different from being a psychologist. If he’s good enough, he’ll be able to intuit what makes people buy, and tap into those secret fears and desires. Milk them without them feeling a thing. He is a genius, after all, and this job is way below his capabilities. He’ll knock their socks off, all those red-nosed oily-haired bosses.
Mr Tidmarsh comes round after lunch. Introduces himself to Jacko. Slaps him on the back, asks him how he’s coping.
‘Great to have you on board, soldier!’
Jacko bets he always gives the ex-service men the backslap, never the other men.
Then he says: ‘You’ve met Billie, yeah? No?’
‘No.’
‘Billie, come shake hands with Jack MacAlister,’ he shouts across the room to her. ‘Fresh out of college. First day copywriting. The new boy, eh, Jack?’
Another backslap, followed by an arm punch. Jacko flinches a little. His dad was Jack; he is not, and never will be, his dad. He is way more than Jack, goddammit. At least another syllable. But the correction can wait till Monday.
‘Find a nice place to eat lunch, Jack?’
‘Yeah.’
And finally, over comes Billie from her desk, and she says:
‘Hey.’
‘Hi,’ says Jacko.
They don’t shake hands. Hardly look at each other.
Both look, instead, at Mr Tidmarsh.
‘Billie, make Jack a coffee, will you honey?’
‘Oh, I don’t want a coffee. Thanks anyway,’ says Jacko.
‘I don’t mind,’ says Billie coldly.
‘Okay then,’ he says. If she’s not going to even smile, then she can damn well make him a cup of coffee. ‘Black, with sugar.’
There’s a line at the coffee maker and Mr Tidmarsh is gone when she gets back with Jacko’s coffee.
‘Thanks.’
‘Okay.’
She returns to her desk slowly, with a wiggle in her walk he decides is for his benefit. He looks at her the way he looks at almost every girl. Checks her out. Just the right height. Small hands and feet, medium tits, darling legs with sweet knees peeking out when she sits. Interesting eyebrows. He didn’t know eyebrows could be sexy. And hair, swear to God, just like Marilyn Monroe. That same butter yellow, that same way of falling over half her face. Her voice too, little-girl whispery. Then he goes about his business again. Arranges the pencils neatly, the pad with the lists of products. His ashtray, his Zippo lighter. He lights up a Viceroy and goes back to the minuscule photographs of the products in the catalogue. It’s a huge volume with thin pages, like a phone book – as he flicks through he sees artificial legs, toilet seats, shower curtains, hula hoops. He tries to visualise them individually, be interested in them. Think of ways they could sound more enticing. It’s hard because forcing himself to care is exhausting. Caring eventually trickles in, but then, ironically, for the sweet-kneed Billie he pretends it’s old hat. He yawns loudly and stretches between bouts of concentration, and of course, this results in genuine boredom again.
