by Rachel Hauck
“Tell me about it,” Coral said.
“Finally, Mom put her arms around me. ‘You have to hold things loosely, Lex.’” She imitated Mom’s open palm. “I was so focused on not crying I shrugged away from her and ran out. I’d trusted, gotten kicked in the gut, and I had no idea why. Funny thing, we had plans all the way to Christmas break. A bunch of us were going skiing. Carnie had never been.” She broke into a soft, reminiscent smile. “He kept promising he’d stand outside my hotel room window under the lights and sing to me while it snowed. Then he’d call me down and scoop me up when I ran into his arms.” She smiled at the memory. “It was this idea we had of being our own rom-com or some scene in a Hallmark movie. Got to be honest, I really wanted that scene. It sounded so romantic.”
She sighed too loud and too long. Clearing her throat, she quickly went on.
“By the time I got back to our house, I was all sweaty, crying, gasping for air. Dad and Skipper were watching a movie and with way too much cheer, invited me to join them, said it’d be great to have a family night. Worse than Mom seeing my rejection was my dad and sister’s pity.”
Chuck held up his fist. “Makes me want to smash a head or two.”
“I’ll go with you.” Ed gave him a fist bump.
“I went down the hall and walked straight into the shower wearing my dress and shoes, and stood under the hot water for a good hour while I cried. I didn’t know it for about thirty minutes, but thirteen-year-old Skipper sat on the toilet crying with me. She said, ‘This is like that movie Never Been Kissed but you’re not Josie Grossie.’”
“That’s so sweet.” Coral dabbed under her eye with her fingers.
“Then Dad came in. ‘I think you and I should go to the dance. Show them how to really have fun.’ His trying made it all the harder. When we moved, Dad and Mom did everything they could to make it easy for us. We had dance parties and movie parties. We were our own social group. I knew that’s what he was trying to do.”
“My father would’ve done something like that,” Coral said.
“When he offered me his arm, I lost it. I’m soaked to the bone, my hair falling out of the updo, my makeup running down my face, but he never said a word. Not ‘Get cleaned up’ or ‘Change your clothes,’ just, ‘Let’s go.’ I fell into a heap on the floor. Dad dropped with me and wrapped his arm around my shoulders. Meanwhile, Mom called Carnie’s mom. She didn’t know what was going on, only that he’d gone to the dance as planned. Key word, planned. Only person who didn’t know Carnie had broken up with me was me.”
“Please tell me that wicked boy made it right,” Coral said.
Jett, along with Chuck and Ed, listened with stony expressions.
“He tried. Showed up around midnight. I was alone in the family room watching Sixteen Candles wishing I was Molly Ringwald. He tapped on the window and I threw my popcorn bowl at him. Broke the glass.” A soft wash of tears filled her eyes. “Dad made Carnie pay for it. Anyway, he texted me to come to the porch. I refused. But he wouldn’t leave. He must’ve stayed out there for two hours. I finally talked to him through the door. He apologized, said he was a jerk. Babs convinced him they should get back together. He wanted to keep his homecoming date with me, but she insisted he go with her. Some bull about it being their senior year, and how they’d always planned to go together, be homecoming king and queen together, which they were, and have the memories for a lifetime.”
“What’d you do?” Jett said.
“Nothing. Told him good night. He didn’t want me. What could I do? I certainly didn’t want him anymore. He was so weak he let his ex-girlfriend bamboozle him. Right then and there, I dried my eyes and moved on. I promised myself I’d never be in that position again. If someone didn’t want me, then I’d go. No sweat. I felt this rock of determination form in my gut. Monday morning, I went to the school office, cashed in my credits, finished the one class I needed to graduate online, and went to FSU in January.”
She’d shared more than she wanted, but somehow it cleansed her of a stain she’d not seen.
“So that’s why you walked out?” Sadness weighted Jett’s observation.
“What? Walked out? When?” Coral glanced between the two of them.
“On me.”
“Lex, you walked out?”
The Bower door opened and the small librarian with the vibrant eyes looked in. “Time’s up. See you all next Monday.”
Chapter 21
Jett
With a glance back at the bookshelf holding GPR’s unpublished work, he exited the Bower to catch Lexa. At the moment, she was more important than his research.
At the thought, a sensation popped in his middle.
“You never told me.” He caught her by the arm as she crossed the main room.
“I told you. Some.”
“Never that much.”
“I didn’t know there was a minimum.”
“Lexa, don’t.” He let go of her arm. “Can we talk later? I really want to know—is that why you walked out on us? Because you felt unwanted?”
Hearing her talk of Carnie brought answers to some of his questions. But why didn’t she just say it?
“You make me feel unwanted.”
“It’s late.” Lexa glanced toward the door. “I’m tired. My arm aches. And I’ve had my fill of confessions for one night. Besides, Coral offered me a ride and I don’t want to keep her waiting. See you at the apartment?”
“But you will tell me one day, won’t you?”
“I suppose one day I should.”
“Lex, I’m sorry.”
“For Carnie?”
“For me. I was dark and brooding after Storm died.”
“We were all hurting after he died.”
She was letting him off the hook. But for now, he’d take it. “See you at home.”
She nodded, then hesitated as if she wanted to say something but changed her mind and walked toward the door.
Back in the Bower, Jet gathered himself, shoving aside the churning in his gut about Lexa, and focused on investigating the manuscript. He hoped Gilda wouldn’t kick him out again. It was after nine.
Looking back it seemed unimaginable that two people would walk away from a marriage without talking about why. Without fighting for their love.
They’d divorced without a word of protest? Who does that? Verbalizing the truth made it sound all the more ridiculous.
Picking up his backpack, Jett moved down the bookshelves toward Gordon’s book. He pulled an overstuffed upholstered chair from the back corner and retrieved the unbound manuscript.
A familiar peace hit him. Happened every time he was with books. And the conversation with Lexa didn’t seem so dark. He felt hope.
He was with his heroes. Stories never slammed doors in his face. Or moved to California to “find themselves.”
Cradling Gordon’s manuscript on his lap, Jett flashed back to the summer Dad took him and Storm on an archeological dig where they’d unearthed old bones.
This manuscript was old bones.
Retrieving a notepad from his backpack, Jett began a thorough investigation of the GPR story the world never saw.
Why didn’t Barclay, Gordon’s publisher, publish this one? The number of pages fell short of classic Gordon novels, but that shouldn’t have been a concern.
Jett snapped a few pictures with his phone and texted them to his friend at Stanford who specialized in manuscript verification. Then to Dr. Paulson.
Unpublished GPR manuscript. Thoughts?
The title, The Glitter of Gold, rang GPR true. The man had a knack for great titles. Jett relaxed into the chair and read the first line.
Callie hailed a hansom cab on the corner of Fifth and Fifty-Sixth.
Hmm . . . He read it again. A bit bland. No emotion. Couldn’t really get a sense of anything. No intrigue or foreshadowing. GPR was known for his well-crafted first lines that reflected some hidden layer of the protagonist’s inner self or theme of the book.
Take note, however, this was a rough cut. Probably never polished. Most openings were boring until the author finished the book and returned to the first line.
He taught students in his writing seminars and courses, “The last line you write is the first line.”
In his finished work, Gordon’s sentences were lyrical, intelligent, yet crisp and plainly stated. Beginning with Girl, he moved away from some of the ornate, wordy prose of his earlier works, but that was typical of authors in his era.
His male protagonists were strong, masculine if not willful, yet kind, loving, compassionate.
His female characters were equally strong and vocal. Not a shrinking violet among them. Atypical for the time in which Gordon lived. Yet each one possessed a feminine allure that made Jett fall a little bit in love.
Especially Elizabeth from Girl in the Carriage. In fact, when he met Lexa, Elizabeth breathed to life for him in a new way.
Reading on, Jett found the first three pages were almost academic, as if Gordon was describing a scene for the New York Tribune. Where was Gordon’s trademark heart and soul?
Jett was beginning to see why it’d never been published. The story was bumpy and awkward with a lot of scratched-out sentences and paragraphs. In some places, entire pages were struck.
The story felt stilted, the characters two-dimensional.
But his 1903 classic The Girl in the Carriage was written entirely in the voice of the protagonist, and it changed his career. The emotion was palatable, real, even raw in places.
On page ten of Glitter, Jett encountered margin notes. Turning the manuscript ninety degrees, he studied the faded, elongated script. The comments were notated with DB.
So, Daniel Barclay did see this work.
I don’t feel you have command of George’s journey here. Even in the beginning the reader needs a sense of his purpose.
This exchange with Lady Able meanders with no point.
From then on, every page was marked with Daniel’s handwritten notes.
This reference is baseless.
Redundant writing.
Does she really wish him dead? She’s heartless.
Flat.
Pointless.
Clearly the publisher did not like this story, and Jett had to agree. Gordon’s voice was almost monotone, dragging, unsure, and not one bit engaging.
What happened, Gordon?
Had he written this during the season he lost his fiancée? Or was it just a bad book? Every author deserved grace for a not-on-par tome. Jett certainly appreciated the grace he’d received for Rites of Mars.
Skimming to the end, he found a letter tucked between the pages. The envelope was imprinted with the Barclay Publishing logo. The single page was handwritten and signed by the owner, publisher, and editor himself, Daniel.
December 1, 1902
Dear Gordon,
We must put this one to rest. While you’ve given your best to the multiple revisions, it seems you have not managed to advance the story whatsoever. Clearly my direction and guidance has not engaged your imagination either.
I’m disappointed, as the advertisers and bookstores were looking forward to this spring publication. Perhaps we can meet to discuss further ideas more like your previous works.
I’m sorry to bring you this bad news but The Glitter of Gold is just not publishable.
Sincerely,
Daniel
A rejected manuscript. No wonder it was hidden away in this library. Did Joseph Winthrop provide some sort of refuge for Gordon?
What was going on with Gordon in ’02? It was well known he suffered writer’s block after a devastating split from his fiancée in 1899. He called the years from ’99 to ’02 “desert years.” Then he wrote Girl in a two-month burst of creative energy. It released quickly, in the spring, apparently to keep the advertisers and booksellers happy.
Gordon wrote nothing of a rejected manuscript in his diaries or memoir. Nor had Barclay made mention of it in his journals. Was it even important to mention a rejected manuscript? It happened. An author tried something new and failed, moved on.
Yet this book wasn’t out of the ordinary for Gordon. It was much in line with his earlier works, which, to be honest, were not highly regarded these days. At least among the academic circles.
His enduring acclaim began with The Girl in the Carriage.
“Gordon, what did you do?”
Did he revamp and write a book in the winter? Did Daniel help? Gordon wasn’t known for working quickly. He took well over a year to write a novel.
In fact . . . Jett set the manuscript in the chair and paced, thinking. In Gordon’s memoir he said Girl had brewed for two years. He said he’d muscled through his writer’s block and taken the story to Barclay, who loved it and helped him refine it.
Gordon dedicated the book to his publisher and friend.
To our friendship and partnership. I’d not be here without you.
A drop of panicked revelation drained through Jett. Did they cheat in some way? Forge The Girl in the Carriage?
Jett was to turn in his manuscript tomorrow to the university press, and he had a brand new, brewing slew of questions.
“But all the principle players are dead.” Or not talking. Like Elijah and Tenley.
Did Gordon really rebound in January of ’03 and write Girl overnight? After such a devastating rejection?
Gordon always claimed his wife, Sweeney, saved him from writer’s block by becoming his inspiration, but he didn’t meet her until late 1903 or early 1904.
Jett never realized the discrepancies in the dates before.
He continued reading, taking notes in his phone, and sending pictures to his Stanford friend. He pulled out his laptop and logged onto online libraries and resources, searching for any information.
Rejected manuscript. Daniel Barclay. Revisions. Sweeney Roth. Birdie Ainsworth. Birdie Shehorn + Gordon Phipps Roth.
Nothing. There simply wasn’t any new information. Other than this manuscript hidden away in a private library.
“Jett?” Gilda came around the door. “It’s time to go.”
“Gilda, the manuscript was rejected. What do you know?”
“What do you know?”
“What do I—Gilda, you know the truth, don’t you? Did Gordon actually write The Girl in the Carriage? Or did someone else? The rejection letter I found is dated in December. Girl released four months later. When did he write it? How?” The manuscript slipped as he lifted it toward Gilda, and a second envelope fell to the floor.
Another letter to Gordon from Barclay Publishing.
“I’m turning out the lights.” Gilda beckoned him toward the door.
“Wait. One second, please.” Jett unfolded the handwritten note, careful of the aged edges. The writer seemed to start in the middle of a conversation.
The manuscript belongs to the girl you met in my office. I’m glad you found it perfect for your needs. We’ll change A View from the Carriage to The Girl in the Carriage. It seems to fit with your previous titles but brings a spark of life. We can pull it off. She’s an heiress about to be engaged to a Van Cliff. I doubt she’ll give us concern.
The advertisers will be most happy, as will the booksellers. I believe Barclay is saved.
What do you say? We will edit it together to make it your own. You might want to dispose of this when you’re done.
DB.
Jett dropped down to the chair with a thud. What more proof did he need? Gordon Phipps Roth, his last hero, was a big fat fraud.
He stole someone’s work. A woman’s. An heiress. Birdie Shehorn Ainsworth. The Marchioness of Hapsworth. But instead of providing answers, this discovery opened a new world of questions.
Did Birdie write all of GPR’s books post ’03? Or did he rebound and take over from there?
Did the Roth Foundation know? Were they part of the deception? Jett was convinced Tenley knew the truth. Thus her silence.
What was his next move? Forget? Stop t
he dissertation’s publication? Or would he write what he absolutely knew to be true? What was corroborated and confirmed?
“Hard decision?” Gilda remained patiently by the door.
“He was a fraud.” Jett peered at the petite woman with the giant stature. “At least I think so. With one book anyway.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know.”
Suddenly Jett stood on the edge of the Eiger mountain cliff with Storm, arguing, so angry he literally saw red. He challenged his brother. Accused him. But he didn’t believe he’d jump. The wind was too wild.
In this moment he faced a different kind of cliff. Did he jump? Get caught in the crosswinds and commit career suicide?
Defaming one of America’s great and beloved authors would make him enemy number one in his small, academic world.
“Jett?”
“A moment, Gilda, please.”
Okay. Say someone, Birdie, wrote Girl. There was no proof or any indication she wrote subsequent books. None. What did this one little secret matter?
Jett ran his hand through his thick mop of hair. It did matter. To him and all who esteemed art and talent. To all who followed a literary path because they admired Gordon Phipps Roth, the man as well as the writer.
“Jett?”
“Yeah, Gilda, sorry.” He handed the letter to Gilda, who put it, along with the book, back on the shelf.
Then he collected his things and walked past the patient librarian.
“You’ll figure it out, Jett.”
“Will I?”
With conflict churning, he rode home through the night chill. Tomorrow was his deadline. Would he tell the truth? He needed a hero’s courage to do so.
And he was no hero.
Chapter 22
Coral
After Monday evening’s story society, her days moved on fast-forward. The auditor arranged to begin work next week.