Famous Writers I Have Known

by James Magnuson

  “I think we need to talk,” I said.

  “Okay,” she said.

  “You say where.”

  There was a Japanese garden where she went sometimes. It was in the big park not far from her house and almost no one was ever there. I said it sounded fine with me.

  First thing I did was drive by Kinko’s and make copies of everything in Dranka’s packet (you never know when these things are going to come in useful), and tossed the duplicates in the trunk of my car. I was fifteen minutes late getting to the Japanese garden and she was stationed outside the ticket office, looking like somebody in those Marine Corps recruiting posters.

  It was the first time I’d seen her without her apron on. She was wearing baggy sweatpants, black running shoes, and a T-shirt with a wolf howling at the moon and mountains in the background, the kind of thing you’d buy at a national park souvenir shop when you didn’t have a lot of money to spend. Her gray hair was combed out, almost to her shoulders, and I could see the serious muscles in her arms.

  Right off she wanted to know if I’d brought her stuff. I said I had. I got it for her and she locked it in her car before we went for a walk down in the garden.

  It was nice. There were lots of twisty paths, stone shrines, pools with giant orange fish, little trees pruned like poodles. It seemed a little hoity-toity for someone like Dranka, but women will surprise you.

  I let her vent for a while. She told me more terrible stuff about the way Rex treated her, how he’d go over the receipts every time she came back from the grocery store, how he’d fire her one day and hire her back the next.

  “You know his problem? Is like that movie Wizard of Oz. He is like Tin Man. He has no heart.” On the hillside, a portly gardener pulled weeds, staring at us as if we were a pair of adulterers. “All this giving money to people, it nothing but big act. I with him all day. I see how strange he is. People come to the house for dinner, after a while he get bored, leave the table, go into other room. When I go to check, I see him, bending over his globe, spinning it around, looking for his little islands. He is, what do you call it? A frozen fish.”

  I decided not to mention that I’d just come from burying Mingo. We ducked our heads, making our way through a short rock tunnel. A bamboo teahouse perched on the cliff above us.

  “So this friend of yours who told you about the lawyer, who is she?”

  “She Albanian woman. She work at IHOP.”

  “Uh-huh. And the lawyer? Did you call him?”

  “I have appointment with him tomorrow.”

  “So how much do you know about him?”

  “He help my friend with her landlord.”

  “Jesus, Dranka.” Traffic hummed in the distance. I’d picked up a pebble in my shoe and was starting to limp. “Now listen, I’ve been thinking a lot about this. Of course you can pay your guy five hundred dollars an hour if you want, but I’ve got another idea.”

  “What idea is that?”

  “I’m going over to Rex’s this afternoon. What I’m hoping is that he’s come to his senses, that he’s going to drop the whole business about the cops. But if he hasn’t, I’m going to tell him I’m leaving.”

  Dranka stared at me as I sat down on a bench, took off my shoe, and shook it. A white pebble no bigger than a snowflake fell into my hand. “You would do this for me?” she said.

  “I wouldn’t be doing this just for you. I’m sure it was rough on the old guy, losing his dog like that, but the way he’s behaving, it’s disgusting. I can’t be around a man like that.”

  I retied my shoe, stood, and bounced up and down a couple of times. “And what do you think he’ll do?” she said.

  “I don’t think there’s any question what he’ll do. He can’t afford to lose me. I don’t think there will be any more talk about the cops.”

  We walked down the gravel path. She was silent, mulling it all over. I took her elbow as we crossed a humpbacked bridge. Below us, huge fish drifted to the surface and sank into the darkness like orange submarines.

  “What about about my job?”

  “Forget about the job,” I said.

  “Forget about the job? I can’t forget about the job. What am I supposed to do? I am old woman. All I know is cooking. Nobody want me here. They have all these pretty Mexican girls. They work for shit.”

  “I think you need to work for me.”

  “For you?”

  High up, a jet left a stuttery trail of white as it sped across the sky. “I’m only going to be here for another month. Then I go back to Maine. You ever been there?”

  “No.”

  “Talk about quiet. I’ve got this place on an island. In the winter, there’s snow up to your waist. Deer and moose coming out of the woods. It’s so still sometimes all you can hear is the chickadees flitting around the bird feeder. There’s just nobody up there. And in the summer, it’s so beautiful. The crashing waves, the gulls screaming, the lobster boats putting around in the bay.” For a guy who’d never been to Maine, I was making it sound pretty good. “You ever wake up in the morning and see the sun rising over the ocean?”

  “No.”

  “Something like that, it can change your life. And there are blueberries everywhere. Big suckers. Have you ever made blueberry cobbler?”

  “Of course.” She sounded offended.

  “Of course! What am I thinking? Listen. I’m not the neatest guy in the world. Not to mention, a lousy cook. And there’s no way you’re going to find anybody any good up there. God knows, I’ve tried. The way I see it, I’ve got a problem. So how much was Rex paying you?”

  “Five hundred dollars a week.”

  “How about if I paid you a thousand? Plus a nice little cabin in the back where you can stay for free.”

  She shot me one of her raptor looks. “Is this some kind of trick?”

  “Why would I want to trick you?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe you just try to save him. Maybe you grateful he bring you down here, treat you like a big shot.”

  “Hey, people have treated me like a big shot before, and I ran like hell. It’s simple. You need a job. I need help. You can say yes, you can say no. But if you say yes, I don’t want to hear any more of this Rex stuff. None of that cheese-ball lawyer stuff either. I just want to go back up to Maine and lead a quiet life. How does that sound to you?”

  A boy in a red cap teetered on stepping-stones, making his way across one of the pools while his father watched. “I think about it.”

  “Good.”

  We schlepped up the long hill to the cars, neither of us saying another word. I could see her turning it all over in her mind. She was not a woman to be trifled with, but I had her going, I could feel it. I hate to take advantage of immigrants, but I confess it gave me some pleasure, imagining her showing up at Mohle’s front door in the middle of winter, the astonished looks on both their faces when they saw one another.

  Was it cruel of me, getting her hopes up like that? Everybody needs a dream, right? And how many of them last? I say, let people enjoy them while they can.

  I saw her to her car. Juvenile offenders careened around the parking lot, hefting fifty-pound bags of mulch. She seemed a little shy around me all of a sudden and I didn’t quite get it. It wasn’t as if I’d asked her to marry me.

  When she opened her door, I saw the mailing envelope jammed between the two front seats. It was all I could do to keep from reaching out and snatching it.

  “So we’ll talk?” I said.

  “We don’t need to talk,” she said.

  “No?”

  “I do this. I cook for you.”

  I would have hugged her, but she didn’t seem like the sort of woman you hugged without written permission. “Oh, my God, Dranka, that’s so great.”

  She hitched up her sweatpants. “I will need a month vacation.”

  “You got it.”

  “And no pets.”

  “No pets. Do you ski?”

  “When I was a child. In mountains o
f Yugoslavia. Every day in winter.” For one terrible moment, I had a vision of what her relatives from the village might do if they ever caught up with me.

  “When we get up to Maine, we’re definitely going to have to get you some skis. January, February, it’s the only way to get around.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Late the next afternoon, I was wheeling my trash basket out to the street when a beat-up Toyota pulled to the curb. Hands waved wildly through the windshield.

  Bryn and Dominique were out of the car in a flash and leapt across the lawn like gazelles. What a pair of knockouts! Dominique was in a shimmery satin blouse, black jacket, and slacks, Bryn in a pink knitted deal that made her look like Joni Mitchell doing “Both Sides Now.” This was definitely not the way they dressed for class.

  “Oh, Mr. Mohle,” Bryn said, “we’re so glad we caught you. We were afraid you might have already left.”

  I pulled the trash container hard against the curb. “So what’s happening?” I said.

  They exchanged sly looks. “What’s happening?” Dominique said. “Oh, we can’t tell you that. Not yet.”

  “It’s a big surprise,” Bryn said. “But you’ll be happy. We promise.”

  I gave her a dubious look. When people say things like that to me, it’s been my experience that it never works out well. They weren’t kidnapping me exactly, but Dominique snuggled up to one arm while Bryn slid around behind me, cutting off any chance of escape.

  “Great,” I said, “sounds great. Well, I should probably let you girls go.”

  “No,” Dominique said. “You have to go with us.”

  “Go with you? Now, wait a minute.”

  “You have to, Mr. Mohle,” Bryn said. “You have to.”

  They didn’t seem to be drunk. I had every right to be pissed at them. Supposedly the first thing everyone had drilled into them when they arrived was respect for my privacy.

  “Listen, I hate to disappoint you,” I said.

  “You’ll regret it if you say no,” Dominique said.

  “And where is this you’re thinking of taking me?”

  “We can’t tell,” Bryn said. “That would ruin everything.”

  “I’m sorry,” Dominique said. “Maybe we were interrupting your work.”

  I gave her a hard look. Was she being snide with me? If I hadn’t written for nearly thirty years, why would I be writing tonight?

  “We’ll never ask anything of you again,” Bryn said. “Truly.”

  Across the street, a couple of kids sailed down a driveway on their scooters. I sighed. Beautiful young women in high spirits. Who adored me. It’s a hard combination to resist. And what was I putting up such a fuss for? My other option was another long night watching John Wayne reruns.

  “So how long will this take?” I asked.

  “No longer than you want it to,” Dominique said.

  “Okay, fine,” I said. “Just let me get my jacket.”

  I sat scrunched in the back of the car with a set of jumper cables, a copy of The Man Without Qualities, and a couple of bottles of wine wrapped in fancy paper. I was not totally at ease about what we were doing, but the two of them in the front seat were so full of chatter and good cheer, it seemed rude to ask more questions.

  We drove over to the East Side and wound through a neighborhood of big trees and tiny vegetable gardens before finally easing up in front of a small yellow house with a tire swing in the side yard.

  I leaned forward to peer out the window. “This is it?” I asked. Several cars lined the street and a motorcycle that looked an awful lot like Mel’s was chained to a telephone pole.

  “This is it,” Bryn said.

  “You want me to bring the wine?” I said.

  “Definitely.”

  As we made our way up the broken walk, each of them took a firm grip of one of my arms to keep me from bolting. The voices inside the house were loud and beery. When we got to the porch, Bryn bounded up the steps and threw open the door. “We got him!” she shouted.

  A cheer went up. Beaming like Vanna White, Dominique led me into the house. All my students rose to their feet, applauding.

  I rubbed my forehead with a trembling hand. Whatever the occasion, I didn’t see how it could be a good thing. Had I just won another award? Please, God, I prayed, don’t let it be the Nobel Prize. Rex was pissed off enough the way it was.

  “Well, what the hell is this?” I said.

  All eyes went to LaTasha, who stood at the drink table, struggling to open a bottle of wine. “Come on, Tash, tell him!” Chester said.

  Mercedes took the bottle of wine out of her hands. “Go on, Tash,” Mercedes said. “You need to tell him.”

  Chester grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her into the center of the circle. She pushed his hand away and raised her eyes to meet mine. I was struck by how tiny she was, not much bigger than those kid gymnasts. She was dressed up too, in a wispy green Tinker Bell outfit and black ballet slippers.

  Her voice was so soft I could barely hear her. “I sold my book,” she said.

  “Sold your book?” I said. “That’s fantastic.”

  Nick leaned against the fireplace, heavy-lidded, a blissful smile on his face. He looked stoned out of his mind. “Tell him the rest,” he said.

  LaTasha put both hands up, shaking her head. “No, no, the rest of it doesn’t matter.”

  “She sold it for seven hundred thousand dollars!” Brett shouted from the kitchen.

  “Holy shit!” I said. I glanced from one face to the next to be sure this wasn’t some kind of joke. It didn’t look as if it was. Chester gave Nick a high five. Mercedes put a hand to her mouth, tearing up.

  “And how did this happen?” I asked.

  “I owe it all to you.”

  “To me?”

  Their eyes followed my every move. It was as if they were the White House staff greeting the president after his return from a diplomatic mission.

  LaTasha scratched her elbow, shy as a schoolgirl. “Remember in class, the day you told me I needed to change the tractor driver from a man to a woman?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I thought you were crazy. I thought it was the worst idea I’d ever heard.” Someone snickered. “Who had ever heard of a woman tractor driver in Mississippi? And even worse, I knew that if I followed your advice, I’d have to change everything.”

  She fingered a vase of roses on the hall table. It looked as if everyone had brought her flowers. She gave me a sidelong look.

  “If it had been anybody besides V. S. Mohle, I would have just blown the whole thing off. But after a week of just being mad, I sat down and started to fiddle. The next day, I fiddled some more. Things caught fire. It wasn’t long before I was working eight, ten hours a day.”

  Bryn draped an arm over Mercedes’s shoulders. Chester sucked soulfully on a beer bottle. They were all hanging on her every word. If they’d heard the story before, they were hungry to hear it again.

  “I finally showed it to Rex and he loved it.” Her voice became even softer and I had to lean in. “He sent it to his agent, who sold it in three days.”

  “Wow,” I said.

  “And what else?” Mercedes said.

  For the first time LaTasha broke into a sly smile. “The agent says they’re about to get a movie deal too. Halle Berry is interested in playing the lead.”

  In the kitchen Mel was doing serious damage to the chips and hot sauce. “Rex knows about this?” I asked.

  “He does. He said he couldn’t be happier.”

  I surveyed the circle of students. They were all happy for her too, but some of them seemed a little rattled, as if they weren’t sure what to make of this.

  “Come here,” I said.

  “Me?” LaTasha said.

  “Yeah, you,” I said.

  I gave her a big hug, half strangling her in the crook of my arm. “I think we all need a drink,” I said.

  Before you knew it someone had shoved a plastic cup in my hand and
someone else was pouring cheap champagne into it. We toasted LaTasha and we toasted me. We toasted Rex and the writing life and God knows what else.

  I must have stayed three or four hours. After dead dogs and blackmailing cooks, I needed something to raise my spirits. People had brought food. There were cookies, a chocolate cake, a big salad, a bucket of Popeyes, a couple of pans of lasagna heating in the oven.

  It was like we were all back in the Summer of Love. Once they got enough cheap champagne in them, all traces of jealousy disappeared. Some were tender, others so wound up with the news they couldn’t stop talking. Nick’s dreamy smile never left him and every so often Mel would rear back and howl like a wolf. It was all for one and one for all. If it could happen to LaTasha, it could happen to them.

  Even more crucial, I was now an official genius. I sat in a big chair in the kitchen, eating spinach lasagna, twirling long strings of hot cheese on my fork. One by one all the students came by to congratulate me. I could see a new shine of respect in their eyes. I was smart enough to know that some of them had been beginning to have their doubts, but that was all behind us now.

  Everyone slapped me on the back and someone even kissed me on the cheek. They were waiting on me, bringing me cake, refilling my champagne glass. Can you blame them? Who’s going to pass up a chance to touch the mantle of the king?

  Later on in the evening I found myself out in the backyard, sitting at a picnic table, taking a breather. It’s funny how, with all that happiness around me, I could find myself starting to feel old and sad. Part of it was the alcohol, part of it was that I couldn’t hear that well with all the noise around me. But more than anything, I knew I couldn’t match their energy. For them, the night was young. For me, all I was thinking about was a nice soft pillow.

  I’d been busting my brain for three days, trying to figure out how to use Rex’s secret. It wasn’t as easy as it looked. If I’d been out to blackmail the guy, it would have been a cinch, but I couldn’t do that. If I hadn’t already been passing myself off as V. S. Mohle, I might have taken a shot at announcing myself as the long-lost son, but that was obviously out of the question. I loved the idea of doing something with the carved wooden buffalo with the broken horn, but what? The trick of it was, I had to use Rex’s secret without letting him know I knew it. I needed to just brush his cheek with it, not clobber him over the head.