And you know, Beck, he’s not an asshole. He’s just so fucking insecure he has to drop the King he loves. I give him another shot.
“So, how’s that King?”
“Eh,” he says and he still hasn’t learned a thing.
I line up three identical red Solo cups, each full of club fucking soda, on a tray.
“You didn’t read Brief Interviews and every day there’s a test.”
“I have serious money, Joe, family money. I have a car, a mint Alfa Romeo. Do you want a car? Because I can get you a car.”
I pull the drawer open and lift the cups off the tray and into the drawer, gently, Joseph, one by one.
“All right, Benji, it’s time to get started.”
“Joe, wait. Don’t do this.” He falls to his knees. “I mean it. I have money.”
He really is an idiot and can’t read a situation and I almost feel sorry for him and I motion for him to stand and he stands. Good dog.
“Benji, I’m not drugging you.”
“Thank God.”
“This is a test. Each cup contains club soda,” I explain. “And you’re gonna take a sip from each cup and then you’re going to tell me which cup has Home Soda. We’re going to see if you recognize your own product.”
He crosses his arms. “I need something to cleanse my palate.”
I’m a step ahead and I reach into my bag and pull out a stale bagel.
“Were all three bottles opened at the same time? Club soda changes as it’s exposed to air.”
“They were, Benji.”
“I need glass cups because plastic interferes with the chemistry.”
“Drink.”
I hand him the first cup and he takes it and closes his eyes and gargles and swishes and I want to smash his head into the cup. He spits it in the piss pot and stretches and walks around.
“You know my father has access to a jet. I can get you anywhere in the world. I can get you anywhere and then we forget this ever happened. He’d never even know it was gone. He expects me to blow money, I mean that wouldn’t raise a red flag at all.”
“Bite the bagel, Benji.”
“Thailand. France. Ireland. You could go anywhere. Everywhere.”
“Bite the bagel.”
He bites the bagel and I pick up the second cup.
“Joe, please. Think about what you want here.”
“Take the cup.”
“The test still isn’t valid because the yeast from the bagel compromises my taste buds and I should gargle with salt water.”
I never raise my voice so it scares him pretty good when I do. “Take the fucking cup.”
He falls on his knees, the fucker, and he’s probably overidentified with the title character in Doctor Sleep. Ignorant Benji probably doesn’t even realize that Dr. Dan Torrance is a character that originated in The Shining, a character that struggled, and Benji’s never worked a day in his life, not really, probably made it halfway through The Shining and turned on the movie and never even held an ax. Benji is not a real man. You can’t call what he does work.
“Stand up.”
“Salt water. I’m begging you.”
“They don’t give salt water out in those Coke and Pepsi tests.”
“Do you know what distinguishes club soda from seltzer and sparkling water?”
I groan.
“It’s salt, Joe. Sometimes it’s sodium bicarbonate. Other times it’s sodium citrate or disodium phosphate.”
“Just drink it, Benji. You’re not bullshitting your way out of a test.”
“I’m not bullshitting you,” he says. “No bullshit this time. This is what I know.”
“Drink it.”
He sips from the third cup. He gargles. “This isn’t my product.”
I ignore his calls to find out if he passed or failed and walk up the stairs. Suspense is good for people. It makes us stronger. This is why America loves Stephen King so much; he keeps us on the edge of our seats until it hurts. He also knows that all people, whether groundskeepers at Fenway or privileged young fucks, are capable of going insane if placed under the right circumstances. Stephen King would appreciate my work with Benji and I smile as I lock the door.
THE deli around the corner has salt and they have Mason jars, and I stock up on both. The guy at the deli is cool and gives me a box, which makes the walk back to the shop easier. The more time I spend on this club soda project, the less surprised I am to know that a few idiots buy into Home Soda. And the more time I spend with Benji, the more I understand why a million other rich idiots don’t buy into it. Home Soda will never be as popular as Stephen King. You win over consumers by showing you understand them. And you can’t market a product if you don’t understand the potential buyer for said product.
Benji doesn’t know shit about marketing. Coke has tried every marketing strategy known to mankind. That’s why Coke is hip and classic, original and new, and dietetic and caloric. Coke is wild-eyed J. Lo’s favorite and it’s also the whitest, blandest American drink we got. It’s a contradiction. It’s fucking genius. And Coke spent a shitload of money to be everything to everyone. Your boyfriend Benji’s got it all wrong. He thinks it’s all about being special, scientific, but you don’t get anywhere in this world unless you know how to blend in.
“Gargle,” I tell Benji when I get downstairs.
He gargles like he’s at the dentist and it’s not like I’m not trying to give him a chance. I think most pricks deserve a shot at being something other than a prick. For instance, I know that Benji was, quite literally, spoiled by his family, raised by a mother who never said no and a father who never said boo and a series of nannies who quietly let the little fucker do whatever he wanted. He told me all this shit the second night in here, the night he failed the quiz on Gravity’s Rainbow and admitted to paying for every essay he ever wrote at Yale. He said he read the first five pages of the book and loved it so much that he couldn’t read any more. He said he’s too sensitive to read, too moved, that he’s built for small doses. For someone so fucking sensitive he sure does take a long time to gargle the salt water.
“Drink it, Benji,” I command.
He pinches his nostrils and sips and I don’t know what I’m gonna do with him. This kid who was never grounded or beaten or locked up for any sin he ever committed. He cheated his way through college and he’s trying to make a living by cheating pretentious fucks with his upmarket soda. Now, for the first time in his life, Benji is being held accountable. Accountability suits him. He’s got wrinkles and he doesn’t look like such a pansy. He’s not perfect, obviously. He still crosses his legs like he’s Woody Fucking Allen. He blows his hair out of his eyes, still a pansy after all these tests.
“Which cup was Home Soda?”
“It doesn’t fucking matter because I’m selling a vibe. I’m selling health and wealth.”
“It always matters. Any idiot can tell Coke from Pepsi.”
“That’s different.”
“Which cup was Home Soda?”
“How do I even know you’re telling me the truth?”
“Because I’m not a fucking liar.”
“You’d never actually kill me,” he says, trying again to have the authority. He thinks I’m the kind of sap who wants to be seen by the all-knowing wealthy pussy.
I’m not having it. I make that clear and I continue, “Which cup was Home Soda?”
“You’re too smart to kill me,” he says, belligerent. “You know someone like me, I have parents that are gonna find out what happened. You’d never really do that to yourself.”
I don’t say anything. I know the power of silence. I remember my dad saying nothing and I remember his silences more vividly than I remember the things he said.
Benji starts to shake and he picks up Cup One again. But his hand is shaking and when he brings the cup to his mouth, most of it rolls down his chin and onto his Brooks Brothers shirt. I can’t get over how many people miss this guy, how many people love him. You
should see his e-mail, Beck. He disappears for three days and everyone in the world acts like he’s Ferris Fucking Bueller. The e-mails pour in, where are you how are you are you okay, guy? I don’t respond to any of these people; they need to understand that Benji has gone off the rails. Don’t they see his tweets? In any case, it’s an indictment of our society, this outpouring of curiosity for this liar’s whereabouts. Whoever distributes love in this world is doing a bad job. The beloved Benji bites the bagel and I scroll through your phone to calm my nerves. You didn’t e-mail anyone about our night yet, which means you’re still busy with your pillow or passed out wasted, and he sips from Cup Two and he gargles and he spits.
“Definitely not Cup Two,” he says, and he’s so obviously trying to cheat, trying to get a hint out of me. I ignore him. You gotta ignore people until they get in line, especially spoiled rich kids. When I was in this cage, I was good. I didn’t fuss and shake like a little girl.
He picks up Cup Three. “Salute,” he says, and somehow that’s the most offensive thing he’s ever said. He’s not Italian. What right does he have to say salute? He takes a sip and licks his lip and strokes his chin and paces around the cage.
“Well?”
“You know these aren’t ideal circumstances for a taste test.”
“Life isn’t always ideal, not for most people.”
“The air is dank. Musty.”
“Which cup was Home Soda? One. Two. Or Three.”
He clings to the bars and shakes his head and he’s crying. Again. I check your sent mail. It’s nine in the morning after our date and you are awake. I know this because you have just written to some dude in your class about how much you liked his story. I breathe. You have to do that kind of thing. That’s just about school.
“Benji. Which fucking cup?”
He lifts his head and backs away as if he’s gonna pass out—yeah right—and he wipes his eyes and crosses his arms and spits out, “None of ’em.”
“That’s your answer?”
He grabs at his shaggy blond hair that’s darker every day—sweat.
“Wait.”
“Either that’s your answer or it’s not.”
“They all tasted like shit. Okay? They all tasted like bottom of the barrel ninety-nine cent store chemically enhanced club fucking soda. You’re setting me up to fail. This is wrong. This is injustice.”
“Is that your answer?”
“Yes.”
“Sorry, Benji,” I say and his lower lip shakes. “But you’re wrong. They’re all Home Soda.”
You get an e-mail. The asshole in your class:
Thanks, Beck. I’m reading you right now, this is your best yet, nice, very nice.
Benji flares. “No.”
And who is this pretentious asshole? I’m reading you. The fuck he is, Beck. Come on. Write to Chana. Write to Lynn. You had the best date ever and you’re gonna e-mail with some hack from class?
“Joe, there’s no way that those were mine.”
“Well, they were,” I say and now Benji isn’t just Benji, he’s everyone bad, all the educated liars. “It’s called quality control and if you knew anything about business, you’d know that if you don’t have quality control, you don’t have anything.”
He sits down and crosses his legs and I can’t help but feel bad for the kid. The world failed him and didn’t prepare him for adulthood. Now he’s jammed up with a tear-stained shirt and a bellyful of club soda and cow milk. His blond hair and his vocabulary have finally let him down. He speaks. “So, what now?”
But he doesn’t deserve an answer. He failed his test. I shut off the lights and walk up the stairs and he rants about needing light and it’s obvious he’s hooked on King and you’re firing e-mails at this dude and all I want is a Coke in a can and a text from you. I turn around and give him his fucking light. He’s gonna read a whole book for once in his life.
12
THERE is this girl I fired a couple of years ago. Her name was Sare, which was irritating. Her birth name was Sarah but she wanted to be original and all that bullshit. Sare was a nightmare. She acted like she was doing us a favor by showing up. She suggested Meg Wolitzer books to everyone, even old Asian men. When she had to give change, she reluctantly offered a light fist of coins and made the customer reach over the counter to get it. People hated Sare. She ordered lattes extra hot and left at least three times a week to go back to Starbucks and complain even though an extra-hot latte is obviously not going to be extra hot after a ten-minute walk in the cold. She had dreadlocks even though she was white. She kept a book on the counter to make sure that everyone knew that she was reading Edwidge Danticat or whatever of-the-moment minority woman everyone was supposed to be so jazzed up about. And she read the New Yorker, which meant 98.9 percent of her small talk while cleaning up started with “Did you see that piece in the New Yorker . . .” She never flushed the toilet when she peed, claiming that her parents taught her to conserve. But her pee reeked because she was a vegetarian who lived mostly on asparagus. She wore bullshit eyeglasses and had a boyfriend in med school and when she was at the counter she always curled up and wrapped her body in a shapeless wool cardigan, which made customers feel that they were imposing on her.
When I fired her, I left her a note that her last check was in the bathroom. And I left her check in the toilet full of her asparagus-scented piss. She never came around again. She works for a nonprofit and married the doctor who must be the second-most annoying person on planet Earth simply because he married her. In terms of sheer annoyance, nobody I have ever known has compared to Sare Worthington, saver of the environment, native of Portland, Maine, forever wishing that she were from Portland, Oregon. Bitch should have just moved there.
But I envied her, I did. She was so cool, so unflappable. She was never impressed by anything. We’d get a signed James Joyce and she’d shrug. She made me too aware of myself. I hated that I wanted to impress her and I hated that I was so easily impressed, sniffing the dead ink on the James Joyce. I’m impressed right now, in this cab with you. I couldn’t believe it when you wanted to take me to a party at your friend’s house. It feels early for friends, but you insisted. And I’d be nervous no matter what because I’m not a party person, but I’m doubly anxious because we’re not just going to some random house. We’re riding uptown to your friend Peach Salinger’s house. The cab jostles us and we’re not used to cabbing together and I’m trying to relax but you’re not the girl from the Corner Bistro. I’m also damn proud of my work with Benji (Mr. Mooney and Curtis have no idea!) and I don’t want to accidentally start bragging about what a good manager I am. So I gush, like some starry-eyed loser. “Salinger. That’s something.”
“Yeah,” you say, too cool. “She’s related to him. It’s like that.”
Sare wouldn’t be nervous about going to a Salinger party, but I’m rattled with nerves. I can’t believe I’m about to meet one of J. D. Salinger’s relatives, on our second date, no less. When I called you to set up a second date, I planned on whisking you uptown to the planetarium where we’d make out in the back row. But you cut me off. “I have a party,” you said. “Want to come?”
I said yes. I’d go anywhere with you. But the closer we get, the more nervous I am. I’m scared everyone will hate me and you are scared everyone will hate me. I can tell, Beck. You’re fidgeting. A lot. And when I’m nervous, I get nasty. It’s a problem.
“So is J. D. her uncle?”
“Nobody calls him that,” you say. When you are nervous you get nasty too.
“So how are they related?”
“It’s just a known thing.” You sigh. “We don’t ask. He was so private.”
I breathe and I have to remember how you described me in an e-mail to this Peach today:
Different. Hot.
You invited me to a party because I’m
Different. Hot.
But what if I fuck it all up? I feel more insecure with every passing block. We are going to Woody Allen l
and, where I’ve always wanted to live. I sell Salinger and your friend is Salinger and you are still putting on makeup even though I have already seen you. You’ve been smearing black shit under your eyes since Fourteenth Street and I’m the one who should be gearing up for a battle. I have a tough time with college people, let alone “Brown people.” You scowl at the driver. “I said Upper West Side not Upper East Side.”
You have a Prada bag and a glare and I feel like I picked up the wrong Beck. You must be psychic because you blush, defensive. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to sound bitchy. I’m just nervous.”
Phew. I tease you. “Me too. I’m worried your friends won’t like you.”
You get a kick out of me and you give up on whatever it was you were searching for in your purse and start talking to me. You don’t just tell a story, you live it. When you tell me about your favorite birthday party ever, which was when your dad let you and two friends take the ferry to the mainland to see Love Actually and you met a guy, I learn that I am capable of envying a thirteen-year-old boy. Talking to you is like traveling through time and you sigh. “He meant a lot to me.”
“You still know him?”
You smile at me. “I was referring to Hugh Grant.”
I’ll fucking kill Hugh Grant. “Ah.”
“You know, Joe. Hugh Grant works in a bookstore in one of his movies.”
“No shit?” I say and I won’t kill Hugh Grant. We’re about to kiss, I can feel it, but your phone buzzes with a text.
“It’s Peach,” you say. “If I don’t respond right away, she freaks out.”
“Is she as crazy as Uncle J. D.?”
You don’t laugh at my joke and Peach better know how lucky she is to have you. Now she’s calling, as if you had time to respond to her text. “We’re almost there,” you tell her and then I hear her scream into the phone, “You are not a we, Beck.”
You get off the phone and our vibe is off. You don’t laugh when I say that J. D.’s niece seems like a piece of work. No, Joe. She’s not his niece. I don’t like the way you say my name and I should shut up but I don’t; my instinctive hatred of Peach is winning. “I just don’t get it. You’re such good friends and she doesn’t tell you how she’s related to one of the most famous writers in the world?”