NOREEN

After a business lunch that began without much promise and quickly went nowhere, Clay Messick returned to the office and a telephone message he couldn’t understand. TO: CLAY. FROM: WIFE. MESSAGE: JUST CALLED TO REMIND YOU WHO’S THE MOST IMPORTANT PERSON IN MY LIFE. LOVE, NOREEN.

He stared without comprehension at the slip of pink paper. Someone trying to get cute with me? At 62, Clay had never been married. He’d driven back to work wondering when in hell he’d learn to avoid lunches with pests who only wasted his time, irritated by a slew of chores facing him that afternoon. The note was one last bit of monkey business to spoil his day. “Where’d this come from?” he asked Marla, his secretary.

“It was on my desk when I got back from lunch,” she said. “Isn’t it yours?”

“Someone has a weird sense of humor. Forget it.”

“Are you sure? Anything I can—”

“No. Just pitch it.” Clay crushed the little pink note sheet in his fist. Playfully, he began to toss it at Marla, who ducked with a flip of her red hair. As it left his hand, Clay snatched it back, more surprised at his change of heart than his nimbleness. He unfolded the ball of paper and put it in his coat pocket. “Before I leave, remind me to get a haircut tomorrow,” he said, heading down the hall for a meeting that couldn’t start without him.

Midwest Digital Logic, a growing maker of computer subassemblies, was the fourth business Clay had founded and run in nearly forty years of manufacturing. He loved facts and reasons, metals, plastics, and machinery. Making things you could hold in your hand. Bliss, to Clay, was using his brains and experience and sometimes, (admit it, Clay) his toughness and gall in close-range bargaining, to knock ¾ of a cent per unit out of the cost of circuit boards. His few brushes with marriage survived only as half-forgotten details: a shade of lipstick he couldn’t describe, a peal of laughter that melted his carapace of defenses, a miscommunication that left him weak with desire. Eventually these memories coalesced into a tiny pelletlike spot, dense and hard as a BB, lying dormant in his mind.

45 minutes after closing time, Clay passed Marla’s empty desk on the way to his car and felt a jab of annoyance at the sight of two more bright pink message slips waiting for him. HAIRCUT!!! said one, initialed by Marla. The other, unsigned, said, TO: CLAY. FROM: WIFE. MESSAGE: INSURANCE BILL CAME. WAY UP. LOVE, NOREEN.

Wanting nothing but to put the day behind him and relax with a Scotch, he reached into his coat pocket. Even after his fingers touched the wrinkled paper he still had to pull it out and read the words, “…REMIND YOU WHO’S THE MOST IMPORTANT…” Someone was in for suspension or worse when he found out who pulled this.

“’night, Clay.” Arthur Stroeber, his executive vice-president, passed in the hall, staring at the floor, preoccupied.

“Hah?” Clay stuffed both messages into his pocket, feeling like he’d been caught holding a piece of the filmiest, sheerest lingerie. “Yeah, goodnight, Art,” he called as Arthur disappeared through the exit.

Clay drove to the home he’d built for himself in Evanston five years earlier, wondering why he felt that flush of embarrassment in front of Art. What would happen if the guys he hung out with discovered the messages? He could hear the chorus of whistles, shouts, laughter and catcalls. “Pink slips? With lace trimmings? Is this guy the ladies’ man or what?” Their mindless fun curdled as he pictured Gary Stapp or maybe Skip Ambler reaching for his phone. “Go on, Clay. Call her up. Maybe she’s a stripper your employees hired. Maybe she looks like Sharon Stone.” At his front door he opened his mailbox and felt the ground give way as the familiar trademark of his insurance company greeted his eyes. He tore open the envelope; his alarm turned to relief. The bill was for the normal amount.

There were no more peculiar messages the next day or the day after. Thursday, as Clay waded through another of those dreadful organizational meetings, Marla buzzed. “Noreen’s on the line. She says—” The briefest hesitation. “Clay? She says she’s your wife. Did I get that right?”

“Hang up on her.” He looked hard at a memo in front of him. Two rival departments were sniping at each other yet again. And now, on top of the unending bureaucratic crap, this crank call. Was Beth Elliott, his vice-president for sales, covering a smirk with her hand?

“I couldn’t hear you. You’re mumbling, Clay.”

“I— Never mind, I’ll take it in my office.” He shuffled from the conference room. “Who’s this?” he said to the phone, anxious to get rid of the nuisance.

“Margaret Thatcher.”

“Who?”

“It’s me, honey. Who’d you think?” Noreen’s voice was light and quick, warm beneath the teasing. Familiar, too, though he’d never heard it before. “Listen, I’m downtown,” the voice said. “At Sak’s. Be home in an hour. I’m picking up two bottles of Pooly-Fuse. Will you get the baby back ribs and sauce? I was going to make salad too. Or do you want more than ribs and salad?”

“I don’t have time for— Oh, Pouilly-Fuisse, you mean.” That miscommunication again. Clay’s pals joked about his “down-home haute-cuisine” gastronomy. Whoever set up this prank knew more about his tastes than about French wine. Had to be the fellas.

“Clay?” came the voice. “You there, sweetie?”

“You sure you’re not Margaret Thatcher?” He’d wanted to hurt her somehow but the thought of the ribs changed his mind, so temptingly real, so mouth-watering after that desiccated bore of a meeting. He could smell the honeyed pungency of the sauce. How long since he’d wanted anything this badly?

“What did you say your name was?” The thin, faraway sound of his voice startled him.

“You’re having a bad day. It’s not Margaret. But we both knew that, right?”

Clay’s vice-presidents were waiting. He was hot, hungry, out of time. “We’ll talk,” he said. “Bye.”

Fighting the sludge of traffic on Dempster Avenue that evening, Clay stopped frequently for lights, not quite believing as each one turned yellow, then red, that the smoking platter of ribs would be waiting to welcome him home, then believing it again whenever a light turned green. And the Pouilly-Fuisse. The voice belonged to someone in her forties or after. It sounded comfortable, lived-in. Whoever it was, some troubled, deranged individual, perhaps, should have been treated with courtesy in the face of her delusions. But how did she know his favorite meal? And wine?

Reaching Evanston, Clay detoured to a supermarket where he bought a pound-and-a-half of baby back ribs and a jar of the cheapest commercial barbecue sauce. When he entered the house no one was there but his Alaskan Malamute, Buck, bounding to the door, pawing and slobbering over him, wild with joy at his return.

*

Most of the following week was taken up by a trip to Texas. In Austin, Clay spent his days negotiating with flocks of 30-year-old computer executives in slacks and polo shirts with friendly, shiny faces. He joked and kidded with them. Why not? Dealing with these children was so easy he could afford to keep his menacing bluntness in reserve and focus instead on the pleasant middle-aged woman who’d escorted him to the meeting room. Her face and voice teased at him, dredging up thoughts of—whom? Excusing himself, he stepped into the long hall where being alone made it easier to purge the phantom from his mind.

Next evening Clay’s attention drifted from the shop-talking executives at his dinner table to a woman dining alone at the far end of the room. His final night in Texas, he walked the streets of downtown San Antonio, briefly entering restaurant after restaurant then walking out when each turned out to be another upbeat joint crammed with chattering packs of cute, identical-looking young men and women. There was nothing to do but trudge to his hotel and order a club sandwich from room service.

The grayish cast of the hotel room greeted Clay at 5:58 next morning. Airy, insubstantial dreams of women, crowds of them, fell away, replaced by the rattle and squeak of the ventilating fan and thoughts of his flight, due to leave in less than two hours. He sat up, fumbling for the button before the alarm went off. On the plane he checked paperwork, noticing something he’d been avoiding, perhaps unconsciously. Costs at the new Taiwan plant were much lower than at the plant in Kankakee. He’d built that plant to take advantage of Asian labor costs but these savings were more than competitive; they were dramatic. Have to look into that.

“Sir? Would you care for the omelet or the fresh fruit platter this morning?”

He looked up to see a flight attendant with a solicitous smile on her settled, creased face, holding out a heavy glass tumbler of orange juice.

“The omelet. No, I’d better— Make it the fruit.”

“Sounds like your palate’s at war with your waist. I’ve been there.” Smiling again, she turned to the cart and in the moment when she twisted to remove a tray her blouse pulled from her skirt, revealing an inch of freckled midriff. How many flight attendants had served him breakfast over the years on early morning flights like this? Stews, they used to be called. Clay tugged at his tray, forcing himself not to look.

With a bump the plane touched down at O’Hare only a few minutes late, braked with a roar, and swung around toward the terminal under the dull glare of a cloudy Chicago sky. Clay peered past the woman in the next seat as they taxied past acres of parked cars. She’d been studiously avoiding him the whole flight, nose in a book. Maybe he should close the Kankakee plant and give all the work to Taiwan; save a few million right there. Staring absently at faces in the tunnel between terminals, he watched a gaggle of teenage girls in T-shirts and jeans with perky figures and neat little chiclet teeth tittering and snapping pictures as they sailed past on the opposite walkway under the ceiling’s flashing neon.

At the office in Rosemont he asked Marla for more data about the Kankakee plant then, waiting for her return, wondered if episodes like the one with Noreen happened to other people. He scanned the printouts. The problem wasn’t lower costs in Taiwan, it was the way costs in Kankakee were creeping upward. Creeping, hell. They were out of control. The strange phone calls wouldn’t budge. Of course there were all kinds of professionals who helped people with otherwise unclassifiable problems: psychiatrists, clergy, crisis counselors, social workers. Not that he knew any, or knew anyone who did. If he wanted that kind of help he’d simply have to pull out the phone book, call some names. And then? Trying to blurt or stammer out some desperate plea, followed by the receptionist’s “Excuse me?” He saw himself dropping the phone back on the hook. Unacceptable, the act of a man who couldn’t deal with life’s ordinary demands.

And yet if he couldn’t make the call, wasn’t that a sign he shouldn’t bother? Maybe he should relax, take in a movie with Skip and Gary. A romantic comedy, natch, one of those flicks that surprised you just enough to keep you alert and amused as it careened toward its inevitably happy ending. He turned to the printouts. Plenty of blame to go around for those rising costs. Though when the time came to do something, he knew he’d have to shoulder it alone. He should talk about this with Arthur.

Marla buzzed. “Noreen’s on the line.”

Jolted out of his reverie, Clay grabbed the phone so fast it fell from his hand then had second thoughts while reaching for the receiver. Stay in control. “Clay Messick,” he said in his offhand Chicago twang.

“You’re funny when you’re brusque.” A touch of hoarseness came through in her giggle.

How could brusqueness be funny? Before he could figure it out she continued. “It’s like you’re trying to cover up your soft side. Do you do this for Marla?”

“You know Marla? How—”

“Clay, you introduced us.” Another giggle. “You know we talk on the phone, don’t you? She told me you occasionally stick your gum under the desktop. And she knows when you’ve had too much coffee at lunch because you keep getting up to go to the—”

“Enough!” No woman had ever talked to him with such flippancy. “What else do you know?”

“Listen, I just got off the phone with the Reiningers.” The voice sounded impatient. “They’re taking their boat out a week from Sunday—last time this season. Can we come? I really want to but we’ll have to get up early. Say yes, alright, Clay?”

Dee and Howard Reininger lived across the street. He knew them by sight but couldn’t quite penetrate the slight wall of coolness between them and himself. A boat? He hadn’t known that about them. He thought about how much he liked to sleep late Sundays.

“Sweetie?” He heard the faint voice and pressed the phone closer. “Let’s do it. Let’s. It’d be fun. I could fry some chicken the night before. We’ll have cold chicken and potato salad and you can get some Dos Equis. Just the four of us.”

Boats weren’t really Clay’s thing. Expensive cars were. He’d had fun tinkering with his old Porsche weekends when he was younger. No time for that now but he still bought a new one every three years. There was his Ford Explorer too and the restored 1940s Jeep. He heard her clear her throat and wondered if she was coming down with a cold.

“What kind of potato salad?” Clay said.

“Your favorite kind. With poppy seeds.”

“Let’s get a big bag of chips too,” Clay said, not bothering to wonder how she knew. “And a couple of bottles of—”

“Pooly-Fuse.” And because at that moment they laughed together, he could feel the knife-edge balance of conflicting desires about the outing tilt toward affirmation. It was almost as if he was being cheated out of his right to an objective decision. But then why had it all come together so easily and naturally, the food, the fun, the anticipation?

Walking Buck that evening he stared into the thick canopy of foliage over the street ahead of him, hoping for some explanation of the absurdity he’d fallen into. He could always understand businessmen. He’d played their game, outsmarted them, been outsmarted by them, come out on top, on bottom, in the middle. Women— No, don’t go down that road. They always wanted something. Or they mucked things up with their “feelings,” their crying jags.

But he had to meet her anyway, had to be within range of her body heat, touch her shoulder, if only to know what style of clothes she wore, her hair and eye-color, the lines in her face when she giggled. Returning to the house with Buck, Clay saw the Reiningers get out of their car under the glare of a streetlight. He began to cross the street, ready to start a conversation, then caution overtook him. He stayed where he was.

One thing about the sailing trip: it convinced him he’d be hearing a lot more from Noreen: more calls, certainly, perhaps a tentative meeting before the big weekend. But instead of the searchlight-steady warmth of the voice there was only silence. Because he couldn’t call her himself, wondering when he’d hear from her again was like waiting for a predator to strike. He wanted to complain about it to someone, but who?

He began to focus on housekeeping tasks to keep his mind off the garish unnaturalness of the situation. Five minutes sponging muddy pawprints off the kitchen floor almost did the trick. Later, in the den, he reached over to adjust a hunting print leaning a 16^th of an inch to the right then stopped as his hand touched the frame. Straightening pictures? What kind of fussy activity was that? Ever since Noreen called, the presence of women loomed up freaky and outsized in his consciousness. Defiantly he pushed the picture farther askew, then sprawled in his leather club chair.

It occurred to him, as it hadn’t till now, that some might see his long bachelorhood as not quite normal. As soon as he thought that, he got a picture of his parents, who’d stayed married 46 years though, God knows, they’d fought often enough. The more he thought about it the more clearly he saw how much must have gone on between them of which he’d never been aware. Yet the completeness when they were together, the way they seemed to supply the missing piece to each others’ lives, couldn’t be denied. Then his father died. Within months, Clay had been forced to watch as his mother, once vibrant and talkative, shriveled into loneliness and old age.

He undressed for bed that night feeling reluctant to examine himself in the mirror. He couldn’t even muster the courage to look down at his own torso and thighs. Who knew what he might find? Some new bulge or wrinkle to prove how quickly he was closing in on his own death? Switching off the light he began to pull on his pajamas in the dark wondering how much Noreen’s intrusion into his life had caused these morbid, almost shameful thoughts. Yet you couldn’t blame a series of nut calls for the way he’d reacted, could you? Somehow, he’d brought this damnable circumstance on himself. Turning back the covers, climbing into bed, he decided it was a hell of a lot more insight than he wanted.

*

Monday morning at 9:30, Clay stepped into the office of his executive vice-president. “Gimme a minute, Art.”

“Don’t tell me. The Kankakee plant. Labor costs, right?”

“Is it that obvious?”

“C’mon, Clay. That place is kaput. History. Never pay its way again. I was wondering when you’d bring it up.”

“You think we should close it?”

“I don’t think,” said Art. “I know.”

“The community’s going to be awfully upset, Art.”

“The community? You mean those do-gooders who can’t even spell the word ‘computer?’”

“Just asking.”

“It’s a hard step to take, isn’t it?” said Art, voice full of sympathy. “I know that. I understand. Remember, though, it’s only making up your mind that’s hard.”

“Arthur,” said Clay. “Let me ask you a question. Just hypothetically. Suppose you got a series of phone calls you couldn’t understand.”

“You mean cold calls? From salesmen?”

“Suppose, one day, a woman claiming to be your wife—”

“Ex-wife, you mean,” said Arthur. “Okay, I get it now. Offhand, I’d say it’s a bid for more alimony.”

“Arthur, have you ever wanted something but didn’t know you wanted it till it actually showed up? And now it’s so close that all you have to do is reach out for it. Only you can’t. Something in you keeps asking why me?”

“Speaking with frankness, Clay,” said Arthur. “and I hope I can talk to you as a friend and not just your V-P, the best course is to turn the whole shebang over to your lawyer. Don’t you see she’s flirting as a trick? She wants you to sign things you’ll regret. Use your lawyer, it’s what he’s there for. Oh, but wait—” He touched his forehead. “That was so long ago you probably don’t have a divorce lawyer any more, right? Want the name of mine?”

Back in his office Clay scratched his thick fingernails on the desk, pondering the plant closing. He untwisted a paperclip, pricked his finger on the end, dropped it, licking the bead of blood off. He picked up the clip again and stabbed the end into a legal pad, tearing the surface to pulp.

He brushed his hands across his face as if to make sure it was still there then ran his fingers through the crewcut he’d worn since the Marines. All the women he’d noticed lately, the giggling teenagers, the pretty, interchangeable singles in the restaurants, the airline stews, came to mind, then they vanished as if to make room for Noreen. He saw for the first time how things could be for the two of them. Sleeping late Sunday, maybe some Saturdays too. Rising about ten to a leisurely breakfast, cup after cup of coffee, then driving to Zack’s Wines & Spirits in Wilmette to pick out a few for the weekend, she going right for the good stuff, the “Pooly-Fuse” (he’d insist she keep saying it that way), he sidling up to the owner to ask what was new that week or different. A brief spat which ended in compromise, two bottles of her choice, two of his. An afternoon with nothing much going on, he hanging around the house or giving Buck a bath while she worked in the kitchen. At some point he’d come in and try to lecture her about the fine points of wine selection but she’d give him a kiss, then shoo him out because he was underfoot. A satisfaction so natural, so ordinary and complete, you couldn’t explain it, only live it.

Dropping his hand from his hair, Clay gave the desktop a sharp slap. Bullshit, bullshit. Art was right. Some things you just have to do, so you do them as quickly as possible and don’t waste time on handwringing which only postpones the inevitable. By the time he’d made up his mind to close the plant he also knew, curiously, that when she called again, he’d put an end to it. But gently, of course. It was like firing an underperforming secretary. “This is probably more my fault than it is yours,” or some such phrase to deflect the blow. An old personnel-management trick: keep it humane. But no negotiation, no appeal. And when the call did come, on Wednesday, he felt neither fear nor curiosity nor annoyance nor desire. It was just another business chore.

“Yes?” he said mildly.

“Well my goodness, hon, that doesn’t sound like you at all. Where’s my big-wheel businessman? How can I deflate you if you won’t act a little pompous? I called to tell you—”

“Forget the sailing trip.” The understanding tone he’d planned had drained clear out of his head. He never felt more in charge. “There’s no sailing trip, okay?”

“Oh. Well, that’s a nuisance. I already bought the chicken.” She seemed to be thinking things over, then continued. “Were you called out of town? I could talk to the Reiningers. Or—wait. Here’s a better idea—”

“You don’t understand.” Clay had expected tears, not puzzlement and resignation.

“Want to go someplace in the Jeep instead?”

“Will you listen a moment?” He couldn’t lose control now. “This isn’t about sailing. It’s about you. You. Got it?”

“Aw now don’t start in with me like that, Clay. Shifting the blame. Just once I’d like to have some fun without its turning into a fight.”

A nag. A common, ordinary nag and a whiner to boot. That settled it. “Do I really have to tell you we don’t know each other? I wouldn’t know you if I passed you in the street. And you think we’re married?”

Hot waves of humiliation seemed to radiate from the phone. “Clay, what are you doing, honey?”

“I’ve been tolerant of you because I thought maybe you had a mental problem,” he said. “I don’t know what kind. Now I expect these calls to stop. Want to know what else? I can cause you a lot of trouble if they don’t.”

“Clay, you’re hurting me, you know that?”

Blubbering, was it? First nagging, then whining, now this. “Besides,” he said, smiling. “nobody’s going sailing this weekend. There’s snow predicted.”

“The chicken! What are we going to do with it? I’ll just throw it away—” Clay placed the phone on the hook as casually as if he were unwrapping a stick of gum. A moment later he picked it up again and asked Marla for a fresh legal pad. His hands were shaking when he hung up.

*

Just after lunchtime Friday the snow began falling, as forecast, under a leaden sky. An hour later, with drifts piling up, employees of Midwest Digital Logic began straggling out in ones and twos. Clay sat at his desk working on another stack of things that should have been done yesterday, reaching out every now and then to stroke Buck, who dozed nearby. Snow or no snow, he’d decided to get away to his cabin in the woods and wanted Buck along, telling Marla with a chuckle, it was “take our dogs to work day.” At 4:15 he dropped a thick sheaf of papers on the desk in Marla’s deserted office. Exhausted but content, he stuffed enough papers into his briefcase to keep busy through the weekend and if necessary, longer. Might even be fun to be snowbound a day or two with only Buck for company.

As he turned his dark green Explorer onto the Tollway he could see the trip would be a challenge. Clay switched on the radio, driving cautiously, the road ahead barely visible through swirls of snow. They were reporting a heavy storm, possibly the worst ever for this time of year. All airports closed till further notice. He passed abandoned cars along the roadside and once, a tractor-trailer, orange running lights blinking in the dusk.

The news continued as Clay turned off the Tollway near the Wisconsin line, inching his way west. Another terrorist attack in the Mideast. Here in Chicago, the Mayor claimed promising initial results from his school reforms. A middle-aged woman had been found unconscious in a snowdrift. She had been taken to a local hospital where doctors were trying to determine whether she was mentally disturbed. Thick waves of snow were blowing and whipping in every direction but Clay drove on, snug and warm. The Explorer could handle it.

He opened the wooden door of the two-room cabin where it felt colder inside than out, letting Buck in ahead of him. Unbuttoning his coat, he began shoveling ashes from the wood stove into an old pail, enjoying the burst of hearty work after sitting so long. Buck shook off his fur, dropping a tiny snowstorm onto the hooked rug.

After a supper of spaghetti and some Pepperidge Farm cookies and coffee brewed on the stove, Clay sat in his easy chair with drafts of contracts that needed going over. Buck’s regular breathing as he slept made a gentle counterpoint to the hissing, popping embers.

Noreen. The name bubbled up again without notice. Noreen and Clay Messick. Clay and Noreen. He could see their names together, on a Christmas card perhaps, or on one of those color photos people send out in place of cards, the two of them in front of the tree, arms around each other. SEASON’S GREETINGS AND BEST WISHES FOR THE COMING YEAR. THE MESSICKS.

As if triggered by these thoughts, the phone began to ring. If that was Noreen trying to reach him again he’d be damned if he’d give her the chance. He sat to wait till the ringing stopped.

It didn’t stop. Clay continued sitting as it rang and rang, determined to outlast the imploring sound. After nearly five minutes he jumped up and grabbed the receiver. “Noreen?” Nothing, just some faint clicking noises echoing across a vast distance. He jiggled the hook. “Hello?” Silence, followed eventually by the flat, featureless BEEEEP of a dial tone. Returning to his chair, Clay sat motionless, staring at the silent phone a long time. An oddly formal feeling gradually came over him. He wondered if anything in his life had ever been real or if all these years he’d been nothing but a character in a play.

The two message slips were still in his coat pocket. Presently he rose and fished them out. Opening the door of the stove, he tossed them into the flames, but no matter how long he watched them, they refused to burn.

You can learn more about Tony by clicking on his link:  https://thievingmagpie.org/tony-van-witsen-bio-2/