The Middleman and Other Stories by Bharati Mukherjee Page A

notthe money, it’s the rush. I’m hanging in for the balance of the quarter.
    But.
    If there’s a shot, I’ll take it.
    Meantime, the barbecue fork in Blanquita’s hand describes circles of such inner distress that I have to take my eyes off the slaughter of the Abilene Christians.
    â€œYou don’t love me, Griff.”
    It’s hard to know where she learns her lines. They’re all so tragically sincere. Maybe they go back to the instant-marriage emporiums in Manila. Or the magazines she reads. Or a series of married, misunderstood men that she must have introduced to emotional chaos. Her tastes in everything are, invariably, unspeakable. She rests a kneecap on the twisted Kraftmatic and weeps. Even her kneecaps … well, even the kneecaps get my attention. It’s not fair. Behind her, the Vanilla Gorilla is going man-to-man. Marcos is about to strangle himself with orange wool he’s pawed out of a dusty wicker yarn basket. Wendi was a knitter. Love flees, but we’re stuck with love’s debris.
    â€œI’m not saying you don’t
like
me, Griff. I’m saying you don’t love me, okay?”
    Why do I think she’s said it all before? Why do I hear “sailor” instead of my name? “Don’t spoil what we have.” I am begging.
    She believes me. Her face goes radiant. “What do we have, Griff?” Then she backs away from my hug. She believes me not.
    All I get to squeeze are hands adorned with the glamor-length Press-On Nails. She could make a fortune as a hands model if she wanted to. That skin of hers is an evolutionary leap. Holding hands on the bed, we listen for a bit to the lamb spit fat. Anyone can suffer a cold shooting spell. I’m thirty-three and a vet of Club Med vacations; I can still ballhandle, but one-on-one is a younger man’s game.
    â€œAll right, we’ll drop the subject,” Blanquita says. “I can be a good sport.”
    â€œThat’s my girl,” I say. But I can tell from the angle of herchin and the new stiffness of her posture that she’s turning prim and well-brought-up on me. Then she lobs devastation. “I won’t be seeing you this weekend.”
    â€œIt’s
ciao
because I haven’t bought you a ring?”
    â€œNo,” she says, haughtily. “The Chief’s asked me out, that’s why. We’re going up to his cabin.”
    I don’t believe her. She’s not the Chief’s type. She wants to goad me into confessing that I love her.
    â€œYou’re a fast little worker.” The Chief, a jowly fifty-five, is rumored to enjoy exotic tastes. But, Christ, there’s a difference between exotic and
foreign
, isn’t there? Exotic means you know how to use your foreignness, or you make yourself a little foreign in order to appear exotic. Real foreign is a little scary, believe me. The fact is, the Chief brought Blanquita and me together in his office. That was nearly six months ago. I was there to prep him, and she was hustled in, tools of the trade stuffed into a Lancôme tote sack, to make him look good on TV. Blanquita’s a makeup artist on the way up and up, and Atlanta is Executives City, where every Chief wants to look terrific before he throws himself to the corporate lions. I watched her operate. She pumped him up a dozen ways. And I just sat there, stunned. The Chief still had moves.
    â€œYou sound jealous, Griff.” She turns her wicked, bottomless blacks on me and I feel myself squirm.
    â€œGo up to the cabin if you want to. I don’t do jealousy, hon.”
    She starts trapping on defense herself now. “You don’t do jealousy! Well, you don’t have the right to be jealous! You don’t have any rights, period! You can’t change the ground rules!”
    Maybe Wendi wasn’t all that certifiable a disaster. Come to think of it, Wendi had her moments. She could be a warm, nurturing person. We talked, we