Truth in Advertising Page 0,46

accent?”

“You have good ears.”

“Marta, I’m going to guess Holland.”

“Germany.”

“That was my next guess.” I laugh out loud. They laugh with me. Marta points and raises her eyebrows as if to say, “Good one!” I have glasses for distance, though I rarely wear them. Closer, I see that Marta and Janie are fifty if they are a day. Indeed, they may be closer to fifty-five. And yet, in their own way, in their St. John outfits, the hem of Janie’s skirt a bit too high, Marta’s black slacks a size too small, the blouses knowingly too snug, too revealing, they are remarkably well-preserved. Though, at some point, a grown woman should stop calling herself Janie.

“What brings you to Cape Cod on Christmas Eve?” I ask.

“Divorce and rotten kids,” Janie says, smiling. Marta laughs.

“Ha,” I say.

“No, really,” Janie says. “We needed some me time. Some us time. Some time, I guess is what I mean.”

“I think that sounds great,” I say.

“We’re driving to Provincetown tomorrow and staying at an inn.”

That doesn’t sound sad at all.

“You know who he looks like,” Janie says to me, but I have to assume she is talking to Marta. “He’s the spitting image of a young Tommy Lee Jones.”

Marta has the blank look of a woman who grew up watching East German national TV and Franz Beckenbauer and lightly veiled anti-Semitic dramas (“Das Juden Frau”) featuring broad-shouldered, big-toothed, fondue-eating Germans who border on good-looking but are mostly just scary. She clearly has no idea who Tommy Lee Jones is. But she nods slowly. Janie looks at Marta.

“Marta, he’s the one from, ya know, oh, what’s that one where the prison bus falls over and Sela Ward gets her head smashed in?”

“The Fugitive?” I offer.

Janie snaps her fingers and points at me. “That’s the one.”

“Jaaaaaaa,” Marta says, realizing who Tommy Lee Jones is. “But noooo,” she says. “No, I don’t zink zo.”

“Yes, Marta. He’s the spitting image of a young Tommy Lee Jones. Look at his eyes.”

“Doesn’t he have very bad skin?” I ask.

Janie nods. “He does. But you don’t. That’s not what I mean. Facially. Bone structure.”

I take a big gulp of my beer.

“Ya know who I get a lot?” I ask.

“Who?” Janie wonders, leaning forward.

“Gandhi.”

You can almost hear the tumblers falling into place. The slight squint. Click.

“Gandhi,” Marta says, howling with laughter, turning to Janie. “Gandhi. Yeah, yeah. Only he doesn’t look like Gandhi, though.” Making the final ironic link for herself, desperately fighting her German DNA.

“You’re a pistol,” Janie says, laughing. “Marta, he’s a pistol. That’s funny. Gandhi. Very funny. Now which one was he?”

Janie catches me looking at her abundant cleavage and smiles.

“What is your line of work, Tim?” Marta asks.

“It’s Fin, Marta,” Janie says, smiling but annoyed. “Not Tim.”

They’re both drunk. Marta keeps trying to make her eyes wider, as if trying to adjust the focus.

“I’m a freelance U-boat captain,” I say.

Janie says, “That sounds interesting. Do you like it?”

Marta says, “Did he say ‘U-boat’?”

Janie says, “Wait. What do you mean? Like . . . a submarine?”

“That’s exactly right. I pilot German-made submarines on a freelance basis.”

Janie, still smiling, though the smile is changing into a bad-smell confusion.

“I don’t understand.”

A waitress comes over with a basket of buffalo wings, hot sauce, sour cream, and a pornographic knockwurst with a side of hot mustard. Both of them go at it like rabid animals, not taking their eyes from me as they eat, too drunk to know that their hands are covered in sauce.

“I think he’s funning with us, Marta.”

“I am funning with you, Janie. No, I’m a copywriter at an ad agency,” I say.

“Oh my land!” Janie says. “That sounds quite exciting. What does that mean exactly?”

“I write television commercials, Janie. I come up with the ideas for TV commercials.”

“Did you hear that, Marta? He writes television commercials. You know what one I like is that little dog for the taco place. He is so cute. I like the funny ones.”

“I wrote that commercial, Janie,” I lie.

She screams. Screams like she’s won the lottery.

“You are a famous person.”

“In many ways I am. I travel only by private jet, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

“I find television commercials confusing,” Marta says to a buffalo wing.

Janie says, scooping a wing and dunking it in sour cream, up to her second knuckle, “I once saw a commercial where they fired a gerbil out of the cannon and I laughed and laughed.”

“And why wouldn’t you?” I say.

Janie’s hand is on my knee. Her eyes are red, exploded blood vessels.