The Portable Veblen

17 OFFENSE IS MANDATORY

The clock said 1:30 A.M., and light streamed in from the hall. All at once Veblen realized Paul was there, kneeling over her, rolling her in bed like a log.

“Who did you go with!” He gasped, pungent with grape tannins. “Who were you with!”

“Paul?”

“Why didn’t you call when you got home?”

“Stop it, I’m awake.”

She sat up and rubbed her eyes and ran her hands through her hair, pushing it out of her face. Sipped water from the glass by the bed.

“I called you a bunch,” she said. “You never answered.”

His voice sank with him to the floor, as if he were going down with a heavy weight around his neck. “You’re my best friend, Veb, my moral compass.”

“I’m not that great.”

“I love you, and everything about you, and if I can make you happy, I’ll be the happiest person in the world.”

“What’s wrong?” She’d never seen him like this.

He rubbed his face roughly. Dried leaves drifted from the tangled mane of his hair, as if he’d been hiding in a tree. Brown redwood needles were sticking into the back of his shirt. There was a small gash over his left eye. “You were talking to someone — about our wedding,” he said thickly. “You—” He could barely bring out the words. “Fuck! How could this happen! You told him — you said he was handsome.”

“When?”

“Last night when I called you!”

It took her a few moments to place it, and placing it caused her to turn pink. “Oh! Paul, no. It’s not what you think at all.” She climbed out of bed and put her hands on his shoulders. “You mean, I answered, but didn’t talk to you? You heard me talking?”

“How can you laugh?”

“I wasn’t talking to a person. It was the squirrel.”

Paul looked up, wrinkling his nose like a snout. “Please. God.”

“No, it’s true.”

“Stop it.”

“The one we caught in the trap, Paul. I took it along to let it go.”

He drew back resentfully, and began to hack.

“Handsome?”

“He is.”

He looked savage. “That’s sick!”

“It’s no big deal, I was amusing myself.”

“In a motel with a squirrel?”

She told him about trying to find the right place to release the squirrel, finally bringing him back here instead. He thought her daft and desperate, it was clear. And there was much mortification in being caught unawares. Yet so much better than being caught with another man.

“Laugh, Paul, laugh.”

“I’m trying.” He looked rumpled and slack, an old coat on a hook. “Imagine it from my side. I really thought — you were talking to some guy in a motel. I thought it all last night. All today.”

“Paul.” Offense was mandatory. “Why didn’t you call me back?”

“I mean, you asked if he was married, what’s that supposed to mean?”

Veblen said, “Well, he’s not. He’s divorced.”

She rose, put on her robe, passed the place where Thorstein Veblen was supposed to be to absorb his empathy. His own relationships had brimmed with difficulty and misunderstanding. Where had he gone? She found him wedged behind the bookcase, the glass cracked over his face. “Oh, no! How did this happen?”

“So you prefer animals to human beings!” Paul called out.

“Maybe some,” she said sadly, laying the portrait down.

“Then talk to squirrels all you want, if that’s your thing. Become the next Beatrix Potter.”

“I don’t actually want to be the next Beatrix Potter.” (She had read the artist’s biography and found the woman a bit too repressed to be her hero.)

“Talk to the little fucker all you want, see if I care. Maybe I’ll find some cute little gopher wench to spend time with.”

“You do that!”

“So where’s the other man now?” he asked, clearly bluffing about gopher wenches.

“I told you, I let him go, somewhere he’d be happy.”

“He’s out of our lives?”

“Does he have to be?”

She warmed milk in a heavy pan, spooned in cocoa, poured it into her favorite blue mugs, trying to remember what else he might have overheard.

“Here,” she offered.

“I’ve suffered a trauma,” Paul said, slumped at the table.

“I’m sorry, Paul.”

He raised his head slightly.

“Veb, I went out of my mind while you were gone. I went on a bender.”

“Sorry.”

“I’m recalibrating,” he said, gasping. “You were hanging out with a squirrel. Great.”

“That’s right.”

Paul made a sound like a growl. “Can I say something, without you taking it the wrong way?”

“I guess.”

“Is it possible you’re a little stressed out?” One of his legs began to bob with nervous spasticity.

Was she? She counted on herself to withstand everything. And yet, who said she had to? What would happen if she broke down now and then? And why had she just spent a whole day and night feeling utterly carefree, and now here was Paul, hassling her?

“I felt fine until you got here.”

“Maybe there’s something you want to tell me,” Paul said impatiently.

“Like?”

“Like about mood-enhancing medications?”

“Well.” This was a surprising change in tack. “Okay, what about it?”

“I don’t care, but why didn’t you tell me? Don’t you trust me?”

“What, have you been going through my stuff?”

“Of course not,” Paul said. “I saw you take some once, but I didn’t say anything.”

She looked around, wondering what else he’d seen. “Did you come over and punch Thorstein Veblen?”

Paul squinted at her. “Are you insane?”

She hated that he said that, hated it.

“You’re supposed to be happy right now, that I wasn’t talking to a guy in a motel. Not interrogating me or implying I’m insane.”

“I’m happy,” Paul said sullenly.

“Really happy, maybe ecstatic, like jumping up and down.” His whole bearing looked distorted, as if he’d spent the day folded up in a box.

He drank the rest of the cocoa, setting the empty mug on the table with a clap. “There’s something else,” he said.

And that was when he told her about DeviceCON, and about the premature release of his device, and the unorthodox use of the Animal Rule.

“Oh, Paul!” Veblen said. “Oh, I’m sorry, that’s horrible.”

“I know it’s horrible. Would you stop shrieking?”

“I’m not shrieking!” she shrieked. “Maybe you should call 60 Minutes!”

“What are you… Stab Cloris in the back after everything she’s done for me? Don’t you understand how hard I’ve worked for this?”

“So you’re just going to go along with it?” How he felt about this was everything — it was dire.

“Why do you make everything so black-and-white?”

“You know, Cloris might be nice to you, but you know what she’s like? I’m just going to say it. She’s like an ichneumon fly. Thorstein Veblen said captains of industry are like ichneumon flies. They jump on fuzzy, friendly caterpillars and lay eggs in them, and then the eggs hatch and the larvae eat the caterpillars from the inside out.”

ICHNEUMON FLY.

“I’m really glad I’m getting to see this side of you,” Paul said.

“Well, I hope you’ve been able to see the ruthless side of Cloris Hutmacher.”

“Oh, so ruthless she’s letting us have our wedding at her house, that’s really ruthless!”

“Who needs her big fat stupid house?” Veblen yelled.

“Oh, really? You have someplace better?”

“Anywhere would be better!”

Paul shook his head. “You are so limited. I had no idea.”

“Limited,” Veblen said, fighting back tears. “Well, if I’m so limited, then what are you doing here?” In a gesture her mother had spent years training her to make, she said, “Leave, then! Don’t be here with the limited person. Go!”

For a moment it looked like he might say something. But he didn’t. He turned the knob and went out into the night.

• • •

SHE RAN OUTSIDE, saw his car turn the corner at the creek.

End the attachment.

“No!”

She heard it in the trees. End the attachment.

She stood still as the moon poured silver over the rooftops, and had the sensation of tasting air. The air was supposed to matter. There was so much you could gorge on in a nanosecond.

She feared him, she feared everyone, she feared herself the most.

“I can’t get married,” she said out loud. The world accommodated her voice. “What was I thinking?”