The Dream Merchant Read Online Free Page A

still a fugitive. Returning to Phyllis would be humiliating and bewildering, though she would take him back.
    I could never have concocted this late chapter. I know him so well. I can often anticipate his words, practically read his mind as I could my own father’s, particularly in the last years of his life when he was very sick and no longer on top in his business life. When he needed me I traveled to his shabby rooms in Cambridge, Massachusetts (rank smelling, and fashioned in nearly the same torn-and-crumbling endgame style as Jim and Mara’s). I became my father’s source of energy and hope. He no longer had vocal cords, so I became his voice. A few times I drove his Buick to the office of an electrical distributor he knew in Boston, held Dad’s arm as we walked inside. I made his audacious pitch while my father grinned and tapped on the desk with a pencil. I was going to do the same service for Jim, help him make his way as an old man. His wife, Phyllis, never minded our scheming and intimacy—in fact, she found us amusing. I looked forward to our afternoons together on his spacious, breezy terrace over the Intracoastal, replaying our greatest fishing days or listening to him tell stories of his life in the jungle.
    But this? This?
    *   *   *
    Mara is beautiful in the half-light of the small living room, a kid with smooth milky skin, without a wrinkle or a bulge. She could be his granddaughter. For an old man, what a miracle she is. She is wearing shorts and a white T-shirt, no bra. She wants me to look at her. No, she dares me to look.
    She begins to kiss Jim on the mouth, hungry kisses; her tongue is working like a puppy—perhaps for my benefit—while she moves steadily against his leg. He’s getting aroused and beginning to giggle. She won’t stop. Mara’s quite a salesman herself, plays us both smoothly. She has decided that to make this sale she needs to seduce both of us. She’s amused by his stiff cock, turns back toward me. She is entirely comfortable speaking this language. Speaking English is more of a strain. Although her English isn’t bad.
    Don’t you trust me? she asks. This is our new life together, she seems to say with her smile.
    Their new life together. She waits for my answer. I nod my head, as if to affirm, Of course I trust you, even while I am not sure.
    She is soft with me, and seductive, but underneath, a fierce woman. What does she want from Jim? Love? I don’t get it.
    Jim watches us, amused. He is so proud of her selling. She has become his everything.
    Mara wears too much rouge on her cheeks, which makes her look trashy. I wonder, with time, if she will wear less. Except, how is it possible that for these two time can move ahead in unhurried, evolving years? He is an old man.
    Jim and I could spend our life in bed. But our bed is too soft, she continues. We need a good bed.
    He could die there, I say.
    Not a bad way to die.
    I can’t shock or even jostle her. She is very sure-footed.
    We’ll buy a good one tomorrow, baby, he coos.
    What will they use for money? He has no more credit cards.
    She attaches herself to his neck, burrows into him, making a mark. She won’t let go. She is digging into his life. Jim has promised to marry her. Soon they will market the Wow Card together. They will be business partners, fifty-fifty. Phyllis is out. Jim and Mara will have a new home by the water and a yacht in the backyard. There won’t be any regrets. She wants a little white BMW convertible. Jim will be a millionaire once again. His whole life he has made it and lost it. Who is winning, making the sale? I fear she is winning. Jim is hooked very deep.
    *   *   *
    I am resolved to confront him about this precipitous course change, but the words that pop into my head are too miserable: Jim, what about all of the adventures, the promises you made? What we were going to do? I would pester him with