Burial of the Dead

SEASONAL COLDS - Ann Dillon

“How could you?” Ann’s parents asked her, having spent all that money on college and law school. “But I didn’t,” Ann said, and it was just like the time in college when Ann came home with her friend and told her parents why she and her friend had slept together in Ann’s bed the night before Thanksgiving. “But you can’t be,” her mother had said. “But I am,” Ann had said, “and there’s nothing anybody can do about it,” because “it’s the way things are” – though these last words (“the way things are”) were not Ann’s words, but are the words of the Vice Consul on the other end of the phone, words that pull Ann back from her memory trip of faces, facts, dates, times and weather. Now, sensate and present, immediate and solid, she gathers her extended self with the ease and energy of youth. She tells the Vice Consul that one must see things as they are and not as one might wish them to be, and the Vice Consul agrees and continues the long withdrawal preparatory to a simple good-bye.

Ann fingers another flower bright in the sunlight shred through silent blinds. Her personal assistant, Lorene, enters the office carrying a wide tray set for late morning tea. Ann smiles and thinks about the night before with Lorene, a tall, pretty young woman, Irish and Thai, and she points to the Hitchcock table by the long sofa under the Matisse print.

The Vice Consul finally signs off and Ann lifts the mini-puff ball with the invisible head gear and sits in one of the Louis XV chairs facing the table. “Jesus Christ,” she says, as if talking on the phone were the same as digging a ditch, curing cancer, saving the world. But Lorene knows this part of the play and being young, ambitious, dependent on Ann’s money (which is the Trust’s money) she knows how to exaggerate Ann’s efforts and praise her accomplishments.

“What is it honey?” she asks, sounding like the actress-comedian-model-whatever in the movie who tried to soothe Madonna when Madonna was bored and irritable, all presumption offered up in a sweet sop.

“Nothing,” Ann says, as she picks up the phone messages on the tea tray – the pink leaves set in a square by the tea pot and scones. “Did Mr. Johnson call?” Ann asks, and Lorene says no.

“And who’s this?” Ann asks, pointing to a scribbled name.

“I’m sorry,” Lorene says. “My penmanship is usually better than that, but the pot had begun to scream, and I was moving between my desk and the kitchen …”

“So who is it?” Ann asks, not mad, but busy, determined, the allowable bad manners of office life.

Lorene takes the slip of paper and prays she’ll remember the name. “Emma,” she says. “No, not Emma – Emmanuella. That’s it: Emmanuella. I remember because it’s such an unusual name,” and she hands it back to Ann who puts it on the bottom of the stack.

“Did the people from Houston call?” Ann asks, but Ann doesn’t care about the people from Houston. The question’s just a transition, a way to ignore other things.

“I don’t think so,” Lorene says, playing along, pouring the tea, picking up a scone, careful not to get powdered sugar on her black sweater.

“They probably don’t think the Trust is up and running,” Ann says.

“I think word’s getting out, though,” Lorene says, “and when these people realize you’ll be the person running it now, they’ll kill themselves to get in line.”

“Place has a history, though,” Ann says. “Disappointments, broken promises, whatever,” and Ann pictures Cal Stevens, her old boss, the tall patrician with the bow ties, a good man, incompetent, fond of the very best things as long they were served up in a kind of Republican rectitude and understatement.

“I know Mr. Stevens let things go,” Lorene says, like a question, still uncertain of her place, not wanting to provoke Ann to disagreement for the sake of disagreement,