The Soul Thief_ A Novel - Charles Baxter [59]
And yet in that lobby, I had a dream in which the two parts of my life were brought together at last. I walked down Sunset Boulevard and entered the People’s Kitchen. The place had been restored and spruced up. It was efficient and clean. The dispossessed and hungry who were fed there greeted me happily when I came in. Laura sat near the window and was conversing with Jamie, across from her. They gestured as they spoke. They were both beautiful. The two women leaned toward each other as women friends will, in the great intimacy of shared affections and interests. Jamie had been made whole again. The damage to her had been undone. Here, she was undestroyed. Theresa came by with a water pitcher and poured refills into their glasses. Nearby, my boys conversed with the street people, among whom I saw Ben the Burglar, smiling and laughing, and the old African American man on Sunset to whom I had just refused a handout. Once again I found myself caring for the victims of industrial decline, the poor and ill-fated. My history had been scrolled back and rewritten. I could love anyone and not be punished for it.
40
SOMEONE IN MY DREAM SAID, “Nathaniel, wake up.”
When I opened my eyes, I took him in. Standing before me in the hotel lobby was Coolberg, tapping my shoe to rouse me. On his face was the kindest expression I have ever seen on the face of a fellow human. It was angelic, if you could imagine a middle-aged man—balding, slightly overweight, dressed in baggy trousers, rumpled shirt, and unpressed tie stained with spilled food—as angelic. He had the undefended appearance of a middle-aged cherub with a five o’clock shadow and bad posture.
Time had humanized him. I could tell that nothing that he and I were about to do would develop as I had anticipated. The scenario I had foreseen—recriminations, blame, righteous anger—gave way to my sudden intense bewilderment.
“Jerome,” I said. I stood and shook his hand.
“Let’s get out of this place,” he said, glancing around the hotel’s lobby with disapproval. “This hotel terrifies me. I thought you might like it. I don’t know why I believed that. Out-of-towners are sometimes impressed by it. But of course you wouldn’t be.” He sighed. “You were never an out-of-towner anywhere,” he said cryptically. “I’ve got a car here and a few errands to run. I drive now. I finally learned how. I learned directions. Then maybe we could go out to Santa Monica for dinner. What do you think?”
I nodded halfheartedly. “Seems fine.”
His car, a nondescript Toyota, was cluttered with books, DVDs, and plastic pint bottles of chocolate milk, a remedy, he told me, for the chronic sour stomach from which he suffered. He cleared off the passenger-side bucket seat, and within a few minutes we were on Hollywood Boulevard, passing the Walk of Fame. I noticed that Snow White and Darth Vader were circulating there, handling out discount coupons for local businesses. The sunburnt tourists seemed happy to have been given something, anything, by these mythic creatures; they clutched the orange coupons to their hearts. Snow White had been located in that same spot when I had brought my family here on vacation a few years ago. She had had a dotty expression on her face then, and she still had it. The job had deranged her, or perhaps she had suffered from heatstroke and the loss of her worldwide renown.
“Snow White should be institutionalized,” I said.
“Oh, she has been,” Coolberg knowingly informed me. We drove for another few minutes, and he stopped in front of a supermarket. “I just have to get one thing here,” he said. “A seasoning. Want to come in?”
“Oh, I think I’ll stay