The Fantasy Years

JENNY GRABBED HER LUNCH from the fridge—salad with tomatoes, carrot sticks, and one small bag of Fritos. Not Doritos like real fatsos eat. She started her car. She had to be at work at nine these mornings because with the boys in school, she was freed up to work eight hours a day. She and Rick needed the money.
The voice on the radio at this hour wasn’t Rush. It was someone else. He wasn’t as funny as Rush. But he talked a lot about Clinton and liberals, too.

Bill Clinton— She couldn’t shake that nasty thought of him.
Of giving him what he wanted. She couldn’t help but see him sidling up to her, reaching over to touch her, taking her arm. Maybe brush “something” from her face and using that as an excuse to kiss her.

Or maybe he’d have his secret service agents block her from leaving wherever it was that Clinton encountered her. She saw herself fleeing him, as if in a nightmare, and in every hallway stood a muscular man with an electronic ear piece. Without a single word.

Down the hallway, another secret service agent. In front of the elevator, another secret agent. Out in the parking lot, more secret service agents. Secret service agents everywhere, blocking every exit except one: the hotel room where Clinton waited. There the door hung open. Jenny could feel herself sliding toward that room, toward that man, towards his crotch, against her own will. As if on the deck of a tilting ship, she leaned against the direction she was being pulled but was pulled anyway. It was as if she was leaning against gravity. She could fight it, but Clinton was just waiting for her with the smile on his face. That kind of boyish smile that let him charm the American people. There he sat in the room, his coat thrown over the back of a chair.

“C’mon on Jenny. You know I won’t bite.”
She woke up, shuddering.
“What?” Rick whispered.
“Nothing,” she replied. “Nothing. Just a bad dream.”

Ben hurried through the halls of Tower Investments wondering what birch forest had been hacked down to make it and how many more trees would have to fall before Mr. Towers’ pile of money was big enough? And then, as if coming to answer the question, Ben saw Mr. Towers. He swallowed dry air. Mr. Towers came toward Ben from down the hall.

Ben feigned ignorance of Mr. Towers as Mr. Towers did him. Ben pretended he didn’t notice him until they were abreast of each other. Ben knew how this worked. Like the eye game the snobs played in high school. They would only respect you if you snubbed them back. Mr. Tower’s footfalls thudded triumphantly forward, his attention absorbed in the Wall Street Journal held before him.

And then, just then, Mr. Tower’s gray eyes darted above the page. Ben moved to raise his head in a tense nod but before he could bring his head down Mr. Towers had already ducked back to the paper, then he swept past Ben to enter the suite of offices behind him.