Whatever Lola Wants Read online

  He turned the car about and drove from the gravesite. By the cemetery gates he stopped.

  For four years the purpose of his life had been Terramac City. Terramac, conceived for Benjie, for Benjie’s generation. Terramac would be dedicated to Benjie the day of its completion. An electronic city, a city in harmony. The city of the future, a manageable and managed environment. A whole and integrated city.

  An econovum: first projected, soon to be real. If it’s crazy to dream, call me mad.

  A few had laughed. At first. Funny guy, that John. And what’s an econovum, anyway?

  Funny to think life otherwise? Conceive an environment free of pollutants, of stink and damp? Free of pests, human and insect? Yes, he would create the consummate environment.

  But the econovum question was one he enjoyed. Econovum, born out of a meeting with Sven Zimberg and Edgar Latier, Columbia and the University of Toronto respectively. Three dozen years back they had built influential careers by evolving what the world came to call ecological thinking and strategizing. Publicly funded research was their game, private-sector consulting their scheme.

  John Cochan had outlined his dream. “I’ll finance young scholars. They’ll invent ecologies managed from the bottom up and the top down.”

  Latier puffed his dead pipe. “How d’you mean, managed?”

  “An environment nothing gets into except what we bring to it. A pristine environment, built right.”

  Zimberg with his right pinky dug in his ear. “Environments aren’t built.” He showed his teeth with pleasant disdain. “They grow.”

  “That’s been the practice. But now we construct.”

  “A kind of condo Disneyland for humans to live in, you mean? Nothing is real?”

  “No. Far more real than the odious reality we live in every day. And no rot, no pests.”

  “A robot ecology, then?” A testy smile from Latier.

  “For the first time, gentlemen, a fully human ecology.”

  “How big?” Zimberg checked for the results of his mining.

  John Cochan smiled. “A small city, nineteen-twenty thousand.”

  “Can’t do it.” Latier shook his head. “You want to work with—with— I’ve got to neologize. You’re looking to create an econovum. A wholly new system.”

  “An econovum? Econovism?”

  “Ridiculous. No such thing.”

  John smiled. “Then you’re not interested?”

  Latier puffed his pipe loudly, and stood. “Not my line of work.”

  Zimberg rose, hitched up his jeans, shook his head. “Won’t hold water.”

  “Too bad, Cochan.”

  No no no. Too good. Couple of academics, boots laced so tight to the past they couldn’t walk into tomorrow. But they’d brought John a gift, a name to accommodate his project: Econovism. A whole splendid new thing. Of course environments get created, perfected managed environments; John had witnessed their creation. Among other places, in Idaho, sixty miles out of Boise. Thousands of acres. All for potatoes; potatoes pure and simple. No bugs. No weeds. Nothing in the soil except what the farmers put there. One hundred percent potatoes. Vaunted potatoes, potatoes indispensable for exemplary McDonald’s fries the world around. Enough insecticide and the farmer held full control. Perfect potatoes. Of course Terramac was a universe light-years beyond potatoes. But the principle was similar. An environment entirely created by man the planner. When magnitude beds with quality, what grandeur is conceived.

  QUALITAS ET COPIA, COPIA IN QUALITATE: motto of Intraterra, stainless letters a gleaming crown above the portals of its Lexington headquarters, embossed in silver across the brow of its stationery, announcing with pride the achievements of the young revolutionary multibillion-dollar enterprise. John Cochan, surrounded by superb talent tried and experimental, stood tall among the upstart giants of American techno-industry.

  He’d made the right choice, Merrimac County in northern Vermont, near to the Intraterra offices in Montreal, close as well to Lexington, each less than a helicopter hour away. A few miles from Richmond, the county seat, a town of fifty-five hundred souls just south of Ethan Allen’s bump. Johnnie had gutted the Fortier farmhouse, and remade it: newly wired, plumbed, insulated, walled, and glazed. And because it would have been out of place to put up some eye-scathing cement and glass headquarters in rural Vermont, he bought the one-time Methodist church, a white-clapboard Revolutionary War building two minutes from Richmond Common, and transformed it into Intraterra North, the Vermont branch of his international operations. He became part of the community. High-quality talent here, good local labor. The smoothest stonemasons, the most inventive carpenters. Mohawk steelworkers, their balance fine-tuned. Ever-creative financing on both sides of the border. And bi-national insight into legal problems; though Intraterra’s staff of lawyers was unsurpassed, Terramac would be further valuably served by local Richmond attorneys. And protected too by an independent Montreal law firm. Thirty months ago John had met with Leonora Magnussen, daughter of John’s neighbors Milton and Theresa, licensed locally in Vermont, long practicing under Napoleonic code in Quebec, a partner there at Shaughnessy, Vitelli, Goldman, and St.-Just, specialists in cross-border law.

  “And why me, Mr. Cochan?”

  Behind her teak desk lady-lawyer Magnussen had sat, trim and ironic. Standing to shake hands she’d towered over Cochan by three inches. Skinny, skinny, and such a narrow face. But well-lashed clever gray eyes. He’d answered her with partial truth: “Your family’s commitment to Merrimac County is longstanding. Your knowledge of property and community is complex and deeply respected— Yes, yes,” he said as she raised her hand, perhaps to protest. “I’ve done my homework. It’s in your nature to respect the positions of all parties.”

  She smiled lightly. “With some small preference for my clients.”

  “Intraterra’s interests are substantial. And they’re not, I believe, antagonistic to those of your family.”

  “Tell me about your project, Mr. Cochan.”

  For an hour he did. Richmond and the county would do well by Terramac City, with clear economic spillover in all directions—southwest to Burlington, into the ski country around Mount Mansfield to the east, across the border to New Hampshire, up into Quebec as well. For decades to come, hundreds of jobs created, a powerful new tax base for education funding, healthy futures for the county’s kids. And a lot of fun living, too.

  In her office on the thirty-second floor at One Place Ville Marie, Leonora listened. She had privately researched the Terramac City project, and John Cochan too: the prospects and plans floated before the Vermont Commissioners, the contractors and tradesmen consulted, the preliminary community responses. She had read of his earlier achievements, recorded and celebrated on the multi-tentacled Internet. Three points became obvious. First, John Cochan was committed to twin goals, grand-scale variable-service projects with the highest of environmental standards that however did not sacrifice prodigious profit. Second, Terramac’s early critics were conservative and confrontational, the kind who’d condemn replacing a log bridge across a stream with rough-hewn planks. Third, for better or worse, Terramac would increase the value of the Magnussen land five- to eight-fold. “Your project sounds intriguing, Mr. Cochan.”

  “Glad you think so. Good to have you aboard.”

  “So I’m sorry. I can’t represent you.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I agree with your intentions. But I won’t take you as a client.”

  In her voice, something more. “And yet?” John smiled, tight but open.

  She echoed his tone. “As a concerned citizen, I could advise.”

  “I look forward to that advice, Ms. Magnussen.” For possible Montreal lawyers he had three other options: no problem. He stood. Again they shook hands. If all worked out, one day he might make her a small present, a unit in Terramac City. A two-bedroom place, say.

  As well as lawyers, John Cochan needed the law. He had called on the Sheriff of Merrimac Coun
ty, Henry Nottingham; a well-balanced man, John had heard. On first hearing the Sheriff’s surname, John found it amusing. “Call me John,” he told the Sheriff. “They call you Hank?”

  Cochan recommended the Sheriff start an investigation company, his own business, on the side. Not in any conflict with his public role, that would always come first. But through a private company John Cochan could keep the Sheriff on retainer, just in case problems arose, the kind best solved by someone with Hank’s knowledge of the county, his sense of equity. So Merrimac Investigative Services was born, Rebecca Nottingham as President, Jed Larsen for assignments outside the Richmond area.

  Where snow touched the hood of the Silver Cloud, it melted. On the windscreen the flakes, big, slow, softened to a blurring curtain. White down covered the rear window.

  John Cochan sat inside the tent of snow, invisible to the world. Please, Daddy, can we go camping, you and me? He didn’t go camping with Benjie. Please, Daddy, take me down to Terramac! He didn’t take Benjie to Terramac. Under the snow he saw the boy’s face, waiting for an answer. Tears drained, thick and warm, along Johnnie’s cheeks and into his mustache.

  •

  Lola’s stare seemed searching far away, as if she herself actually saw John Cochan at the cemetery. I leaned toward her. “Are you okay?”

  She nodded, still gazing somewhere beyond.

  “Shall I go on?”

  “Please,” she whispered.

  •

  3.

  All equinox afternoon Sarah Bonneherbe Magnussen Yaeger looked forward to the evening. Staying over in Durham was a good thing, she’d spent the night any number of times after late parties or if the weather was bad. Nothing for her to go home to anyway.

  No, not quite right. Back in Boston there’d be their apartment. With Driscoll down in Washington tonight the apartment made few demands.

  But she’d rather be here, delightfully illicit, at Nate’s place in the woods. She too had a place in the woods, other woods, and a pond. Far away, up north, on her parents’ land, where she went once a season.

  •

  “Milton and Theresa’s other daughter?” A large smile, at once protective and wanton, came across Lola’s face.

  “The eldest,” I said.

  “Ah.”

  Lola intrigues me. When we first met I’d talk with her just casually, a quick clean phrase or two, and then be gone. It’s how in the main I deal up here, with Gods and Immortals both.

  Of course I’d noticed Lola long before we spoke. She’s stunning—a narrow face and oval eyes, green splintered with purple. Even while she lived they called that face divine. Her flowing chestnut hair when bobbed for her film Northern Heat sold for a thousand dollars a hundred-hair strand. When she died it was long again, falling like a polished brown shawl across her shoulders. In her early days here, each dress she wore fitted like a second skin and her form was our open secret. These days she wears flowing garb; more comfortable, she insists. When a breeze drapes her bodylines, she’s a glimpse of ancient perfection.

  The Gods stick mainly to their own kind, small cliques like those at the Near Nimbus. I’ve been over there a few times—my need to explore, though I despise God-sighting. Over several trips I’ve seen the God Maynard, the God Wang, the God Greta, the God Wilhelm, the Gods Jack and Bobby, the God Joan, the God Pierre, the God Edsel, the God Mfebe; not all together, of course. Once early on, the old God Solomon passed by, and twice the God William. But it’s not my kind of place, the lighting turns the guests all pink and white, even the God Mahatma. Mostly I go to Patrick’s Power Place; it’s where some Immortals meet. In the down below you’d call it a café but up here we don’t have food or drink. I tell stories to my Immortal friends. Here too they want stories to laugh at, to be surprised by.

  A few earth months back Lola took to dropping by and listening. At the start we’d scramble to make space for her—she is after all a God. But soon she blended in. She had a smile for everybody. And for me a sunny extra thank you.

  Last week she’d come by as usual, to listen. I was telling them about John Cochan’s son, Benjie, the five ways he teased his sister Deirdre. I finished. My Immortal friends drifted away. She sat beside me. “That was a good story, Ted. Though kind of mean.”

  “What?” I gave her a friendly scowl. “Mean? Me?”

  “You told it well.”

  I hitched my robe higher on my shoulder. “Thanks.” In the down below they’d call the material linen. Close. It’s magenta-colored.

  “I think when I was alive”—her voice had sounded so hoarse—“it would’ve made me sad.”

  “Yes.” A strange thing for her to have mentioned, since the passions die with our arrival here. How Lola, a God, could make reference to earthly moods, I didn’t understand.

  She’d turned to me then as on impulse. “Ted?”

  “Yes?”

  Against a white high-cloud sky her thick hair glowed, burnished bright. She raised her head. Her eyes, lilac in that light, held mine. “Would you tell a story? Just for me?”

  I embraced her request the moment it left her lips. “What kind of story?”

  “One you feel is right. One you’ve never told before.”

  I remember nodding. “Let me think on it.” But even then I’d already known. “Let’s meet a week from today.”

  “How long’s a week?”

  “Long enough for me to see what I can tell you.”

  “Oh.” Impish. “Got an idea?”

  As if she saw inside me. “Sure.” Then over the last week I pulled together all the bits and pieces I’d recently discovered, a story that’s converging just now. How could I guess that it might become a story? Simply, I could feel it. The people down there, slipping closer together, a bit more day by day, near-ready to touch. The battle for and against Terramac City. I sensed shifts and clashes that bring on passion and anger, care, violence, hate, kindness. My listeners always enjoy that sort of thing. Milton and Theresa, Johnnie Cochan. Onward with Sarah.

  •

  Sarah and Nate had been a kind of outlaw couple since late summer, not proclaiming themselves although a few people knew. They went well together, improved each other.

  They’d met a couple of years ago. While working for the Ag School at the university, she interviewed for a lab tech position at the Center. Associate Director Dr. Nathan Vicacz asked, “What do you like best about your present job?”

  “Oh, the tests. With the animals.”

  “Tests?”

  “You know, blood and piss and shit.”

  He laughed. “Routinely getting your hands dirty.”

  “But it’s never routine. Each one’s different.”

  “Know the cow by its patty? Fascinating.”

  “In its way.”

  “So why quit, why apply for this job?”

  She felt and knew her answer. “I want to figure out things people don’t understand yet.”

  He hired her. They were a team of three. The Director was often away. Sarah and Nate had lunch together most days, brown-bag style. In the winter they’d eaten beside the heater, soon as it warmed out they sat on the grass. They talked about their lives. They talked about the lab, her brain teeming with notions. They speculated. They wrote two papers together. The second one was accepted by Formicidae. Nate without telling her put her name first.

  “Why’d you do that?”

  “It was your idea.”

  “Our idea.”

  He shook his head. “My context. Your discovery.”

  She was pleased. “Thank you.”

  The Director resigned, moving on to bigger things. Nate was promoted to Director, Sarah to Associate. A month later they hired a new technician, Helen. Rank, though, was a function only of experience and seniority; the project belonged to the team. Each had specific tasks but sooner or later everyone did everything for the babes. To be part of a team, for the first time in her life, was Sarah’s greatest pleasure.

  Nate and Sarah h
ad celebrated their promotions by taking each other to a fine lunch, two good friends committed to their work. They toasted each other with cold Sauvignon Blanc. They told stories both of them knew, they laughed, they ordered more wine. That afternoon the babes, their ant colonies, would take care of themselves.

  Nate leaned across the table. He faked glancing about to make sure no one could hear. “Your promotion has made you even more exquisitely beautiful than usual.”

  “You’re drunk.” She laughed. “Me too. But I love you for saying that.”

  “And now you can’t take it back.” He smiled, mocking light. “And I’ll make it worse. I love you, Sarah.”

  She swirled the wine in her glass and stared into it. “I—was wondering.”

  He nodded. “Now you know.”

  “I’m glad to know.”

  He touched her fingers. “Hello, Sarah.”

  She gazed at his face and found she was wonderfully happy. “Hello.”

  It began with that ease, stirrings from gentle to mighty, secret pleasures large and tiny. It changed their outer lives only a little. Did they really love each other? Passion there surely was. The tickle from a glance. A warmth draping over them as he touched her cheek, as she covered his fingers. The surge of loss as she drove back to Boston. Friendship too, the generosity to understand quickly, the full trust to dare explain herself as herself. Each would say, Yes, love it is. And to the other, I love you. The difference was, Nate Vicacz believed it all the time. Sarah Yaeger wasn’t sure. She was escaping a husband.

  This equinox evening, this wintry night, carried weight, fueled coincidences. Driscoll Yaeger would leave at the end of the afternoon for a long-fizzling crisis meeting tomorrow morning in Washington. Helen the lab tech and Sarah’s confidante was having a small party, just a b.y.o.b. get-together, people were told. Sarah knew otherwise. Plus, unexpected, a blizzard sweeping eastward would hit New Hampshire by late afternoon. Lots of reasons for Sarah to stay over.

  Around three, large snowflakes began floating down. An hour later, winds whisping the snow, small drifts had formed. Sarah turned from the window. “Go home, Helen. I’m leaving soon too.”