THE CONES

1 1 3 R T H E C O N E S J E A N M c G A R R Y The Cones were sitting in their o≈ce, Mr. and Mrs., waiting for the mail, the highlight of the day. They had six employees and one o≈ce boy, Terry. There were two businesses, and Terry ran one of them. The rest of the employees were girls and women: Dorothee, Angela, Maricruz, Tristana, Irene, and Sidney, and they were all beauties, each from an immigrant family. The Cones carved out of their loft six stations. The o≈ce boy had his own airy space, where he cut up newspaper with a straight edge, and stu√ed the fragments into envelopes for firms, outfits, and clubs that wanted to test the waters for the spread of their word. Terry received papers from everywhere, and he loved the job of reading and sorting. The Cones sat facing each other at antique desks that kissed on their front end. Pencils went one way, and pencils went another, her co√ee cup, his. Scissors and glue passed down the middle. Their son was on the payroll, as was Mrs. Cone’s ancient mother, bankrupt now, but whose husband’s legacy had launched and fueled both businesses. The old lady was tucked away with an immigrant minder, Astrud, who was on the payroll. In the post that day was a letter blackmailing Mr. Cone, and it was in the hands of Mrs. Cone, who had a gold slicer and was 1 1 4 M c G A R R Y Y working it along the fold, bit by bit. She knew who it was from. It was the third letter in three months, but nothing had been said, no word spoken. She had answered the first two, the first unsigned, the second signed, and this third from a law firm. Mr. Cone was the object of a suit for alienation of a√ection, a crime in their state, run by immigrant Catholics with a stake in the sanctity of marriage , and not just for themselves. Mrs. Cone read the letter, and set it aside. She looked up to see her husband’s meek eyes gleaming and glowing. ‘‘Dream on,’’ she said, under her breath. ‘‘Come again?’’ he said, hearing something. ‘‘Just a bill,’’ she said. ‘‘It doesn’t look like a bill,’’ he o√ered, spreading out his hands, shrugging his shoulders, and making his eyes tender and moist. ‘‘No, it doesn’t,’’ she said. The six employees tuned in. Their lives rang and thrummed with the conjugating energy of their bosses, and today’s weather was ‘‘extreme clear,’’ the worst kind. There was a snap in the air, and only one place to hide, the single-stalled bathroom, dressed with Mrs. Cone’s thick towels and fruit soaps, but even to rise, to adjust a gored skirt under a smooth thigh, to light a cigarette, or pound the typewriter, to sip water or suck a lifesaver could trip the wire of contentment, Mrs. Cone’s element, the tent she created for them to crawl under each morning, leaving at 5. So, they sat there, tingling. Taking a sheet of letterhead, rolling it into her typewriter, feeling the weight of all eyes, Mrs. Cone scanned the perimeter like a searchlight, watching each head drop down, except one. Maricruz was the oldest of the immigrant daughters, married to the contractor who had transformed the old printshop into an o≈ce, and still sending out bills for materials and labor. With the first one he got back only a copy of a page from the contract, and a sheet of cancelled checks. After that, nothing. Both Cones had taken Maricruz aside – Mrs., to deliver a warning, Mr., to make a date. The date was not the first. The first had been an accident. Mr. was running into the city to pick up a turkey dinner and fixings for the extended family. It was late on a Wednesday night, and Mrs. was in bed with a migraine; the maid-cook had a day o√, or was fired, as the previous dozen had been in...