A Visit From the Goon Squad - Jennifer Egan [13]
He was driving Sasha to the city, but he had to get Chris home first. His son hunched in the backseat, facing the open window. It seemed to Bennie that his lark of an idea for the afternoon had gone awry. He fended off the longing to look at Sasha’s breasts, waiting to calm down, regain his equilibrium before putting himself to the test. Finally, at a red light, he glanced slowly, casually in her direction, not even focusing at first, then peering intently. Nothing. He was clobbered by loss so severe that it took physical effort not to howl. He’d had it, he’d had it! But where had it gone?
“Dad, green light,” Chris said.
Driving again, Bennie forced himself to ask his son, “So, boss. What did you think?”
The kid didn’t answer. Maybe he was pretending not to hear, or maybe the wind was too loud in his face. Bennie glanced at Sasha. “What about you?”
“Oh,” she said, “they’re awful.”
Bennie blinked, stung. He felt a gust of anger at Sasha that passed a few seconds later, leaving odd relief. Of course. They were awful. That was the problem.
“Unlistenable,” Sasha went on. “No wonder you were having a heart attack.”
“I don’t get it,” Bennie said.
“What?”
“Two years ago they sounded…different.”
Sasha gave him a quizzical look. “It wasn’t two years,” she said. “It was five.”
“Why so sure?”
“Because last time, I came to their house after a meeting at Windows on the World.”
It took Bennie a minute to comprehend this. “Oh,” he finally said. “How close to—”
“Four days.”
“Wow. I never knew that.” He waited out a respectful pause, then continued, “Still, two years, five years—”
Sasha turned and stared at him. She looked angry. “Who am I talking to?” she asked. “You’re Bennie Salazar! This is the music business. ‘Five years is five hundred years’—your words.”
Bennie didn’t answer. They were approaching his former house, as he thought of it. He couldn’t say “old house,” but he also couldn’t say “house” anymore, although he’d certainly paid for it. His former house was withdrawn from the street on a grassy slope, a gleaming white Colonial that had filled him with awe every time he’d taken a key from his pocket to open the front door. Bennie stopped at the curb and killed the engine. He couldn’t bring himself to drive up the driveway.
Chris was leaning forward from the backseat, his head between Bennie and Sasha. Bennie wasn’t sure how long he’d been there. “I think you need some of your medicine, Dad,” he said.
“Good idea,” Bennie said. He began tapping his pockets, but the little red box was nowhere to be found.
“Here, I’ve got it,” Sasha said. “You dropped it coming out of the recording room.”
She was doing that more and more, finding things he’d misplaced—sometimes before Bennie even knew they were missing. It added to the almost trancelike dependence he felt on her. “Thanks, Sash,” he said.
He opened the box. God the flakes were shiny. Gold didn’t tarnish, that was the thing. The flakes would look the same in five years as they did right now.
“Should I put some on my tongue, like you did?” he asked his son.
“Yeah. But I get some too.”
“Sasha, you want to try a little medicine?” Bennie asked.
“Um, okay,” she said. “What’s it supposed to do?”
“Solve your problems,” Bennie said. “I mean, headaches. Not that you have any.”
“Never,” Sasha said, with that same wary smile.
They each took a pinch of gold flakes and placed them on their tongues. Bennie tried not to calculate the dollar value of what was inside their mouths. He concentrated on the taste: Was it metallic, or was that just his expectation? Coffee, or was that what was left in his mouth? He tongued the gold in a tight knot and sucked the juice from within it; sour, he thought. Bitter. Sweet? Each one seemed true for a second, but in the end Bennie had an impression of something mineral, like stone. Even earth. And then the lump melted away.
“I should go, Dad,” Chris said. Bennie let him out of the car and hugged him hard. As always, Chris went still in his embrace, but whether he was savoring