“Okay,” Myla said. “Close the door.” She pulled the pile of pages out from under the bedspread and held it in both hands. “The Book, Emma. David’s book.”
Then Emma said the most surprising thing. She didn’t ask where it had come from, or why Myla was hiding it. She just asked, “Can I hold it? Can I touch it?” Myla handed the manuscript over, and Emma took the heavy paper in her hands. She shut her eyes, and a smile spread across her face. “I remember your dad was the one who taught me how to write my name. He told me it was like I had four mountain peaks in the middle of it.” She laughed softly. “So it wasn’t until second grade that I realized my name didn’t actually contain four mountains. Kind of an abstract thought for a little kid, I guess. But I remember explaining how confused I was, and Pru not making fun of me. Just explaining how letters mean only one thing—their sound—and how a bunch of sounds together make words. And I remember being horrified by how little possibility that left.” She looked down at the book in her hands. She handed it back to Myla tenderly, as if it were a small animal.
Myla felt guilt wave over her. “I didn’t tell your parents about David’s manuscript. I don’t know why. I’m sorry.”
“Why are you apologizing?” asked Emma, her clear eyes searching Myla’s face.
“I don’t know.” Myla took Emma’s hand. “I feel as if I’m doing everything wrong. I wanted to come back here to reclaim . . . I don’t know, to try to correct some of my wrongs. But I don’t know how to do that. I don’t know how.”
Emma nodded. “That’s familiar territory. But why are you so mad at Samuel?”
“He kept this notebook—”
“I know that. Mom told me. Why really? The real reason.”
“He’s been lying to me.”
“But Myla—no offense, you’re the one who’s been lying; you’ve been lying to everyone. You’re much more irresponsible than he is. You up and left thirteen years ago and didn’t say goodbye to any of us. Then you just show up one day and expect everything to be solved? Mom told me how you just showed up at the house. And then you storm out this morning, and Mom and Dad think you’re never coming back. They’d never admit it, but I can tell. And you’ve been keeping the manuscript a secret, and you don’t talk about where you’ve been all this time, and you’re not forthright with your feelings, and you pretend the pictures never even existed. That’s not lying, exactly, but it’s close. It’s not being honest. And maybe this is mean to say, but I don’t think Pru would know what to do with you. I don’t think she’d be very proud.”
Myla couldn’t meet Emma’s eyes. “But I don’t know how to make her proud.”
Emma’s voice was full of conviction. “Make her proud by being honest. I know you’re pissed off at Samuel. I know he did something that makes you feel uncomfortable. But you didn’t even give him a chance to explain why he kept that notebook. And yeah, I’m not inside your head, but just in the nearly twenty-four hours I’ve been here, I see a big connection between you guys. At the very least, you owe yourself a chance at a true conversation. That’s the honest thing to do.” She paused. “That and telling my poor dad, at least, about this book.”
“I’m going to,” said Myla weakly. “As for Samuel, maybe it’s, you know, just a physical thing.”
Emma raised her hand. “Hello? Will you listen to yourself? I know you don’t believe that.”
Faced with Emma’s toughness, Myla accepted she was going to have to give Samuel a chance to explain himself. “But he’s gone.”
“He’ll call.”
“What if he doesn’t?”
“I don’t know,” said Emma. “But it shouldn’t end like this.”
Eight hours later, there was still no word from Samuel. The whole family had tried to make the best of it, but Myla knew they were all worried. Even Steve seemed annoyed at Myla for having demanded Samuel’s departure. And what she’d initially felt as rage had now ebbed into frustrated curiosity. She wanted Samuel to call her so he could tell her the secrets he’d kept from her.
She called Mark instead.
“I was wondering when I was going to hear from you,” he said.
“Have you talked to Samuel?” she asked.
Mark coughed. “Yeah. I have.”
“And?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I’m in a weird position here. I don’t want to be unfair to either of you.”
“Oh, come on,” she said. “Do you know where he is?”
“I don’t know why you care,” Mark sniffed. “You’re the one who sent him away.”
“Yes, I did. Exactly. I sent him away because he was taking notes on me, Mark. Notes. Like in a little notebook. It’s creepy and an invasion of my privacy, and we all know that’s the worst possible way to impress me, of all people. So I got mad and asked him to leave.”
“I understand,” said Mark. “But then why don’t you just let him leave? He’s doing what you asked.”
“Because I think we should at least have a conversation before he takes off.”
“Okay, how’s this?” asked Mark. “You give me a compelling, totally honest reason for wanting to see him again, and I tell you where he is. And I’m serious. No bullshit. Tell me why you want to see him.”
Myla sighed. She knew there was no reasoning with Mark when he dug in his heels like this. “I want to give him a chance to explain.”
“Not good enough. What about you? What are you going to do?”
“I don’t understand, Mark. It’s a perfectly reasonable desire: I want to hear why he did this. He broke my trust. I deserve an explanation.”
Mark sighed. “I’m only going to say this once. But my God. Listen to yourself. Listen to how typical you sound. If I’ve learned anything about you in the last week, it’s that you’re truly an original. I mean, you’re someone who’s actually changed your identity. Twice. And yet you’re whining like every other thirty-something woman who’s pissed at her boyfriend. I’m not saying you don’t have a right to be pissed, but don’t you see what’s at stake here? He’s leaving on an airplane tomorrow. This is a man who flew across the country to find you. And he’s prepared to leave because you asked him to. He actually thinks he doesn’t want to talk to you again.”
“Well, if he doesn’t want to talk to me again—”
“Oh, come on,” groaned Mark. “Act like Myla Rose Wolfe. Act like Kate Scott. Be yourself. Rise above this pettiness. You’re not someone who’s going to let this man go just because of some stupid misunderstanding about a notebook. The only reason you’d let him leave is that you’re afraid. Afraid you might truly care about him. But at least clue him in to that, Myla. He thinks you hate him. You’ve got to cut through the bullshit and tell him, honestly, what’s on your mind. Enough already with the dumbass fight about the notebook.”
Myla sat down on the bed. She listened to the dead air for a while, as Mark’s conviction swirled inside her. He’d said she should be herself. And his words were making her think. “I don’t know,” she said. “He fed me all this bullshit about wanting to make me glow.”
“Maybe it wasn’t bullshit,” said Mark. “You don’t have to take advice from me; I’m Mr. Can’t Keep a Man More Than Two Months. But I think I’m right about this one.”
“And I just go to him—and what?”
“This from the woman who knew how to disappear off the face of the earth? Yes. You go to him. And you tell him—”
“But what if I can’t tell him?” she asked, her heart starting to beat fast. She had an idea, but it wasn’t in words. She didn’t even know how to explain it to Mark.
“I don’t think I know what that means,” said Mark.
“What if I need to show him?”
“Then show him,” said Mark. “Whatever that means, you go and show him.”
“Okay,” she said, filling with resolve.
“Okay.”
“So you’ve got to tell me where he is.”
“Oh, right.” And then he to
ld her.
I MAKE A PLAN. IT’S BEEN something I’ve been thinking about for a while, something that’s finally ready to say out loud. I want all of them to be there. I’m not going to ask either. I’m going to be as bossy as Myla.
So I invite them—Jane, Steve, Emma, and Ruth—over for dinner. I don’t invite Helaine, because she’s too scary to boss around. When I tell Myla I want to make them a big feast, I can tell she thinks it’s a little weird, but then she says okay. She even helps me make invitations.
The day of the dinner party, David drives us to the grocery store and helps us get ingredients. He wants to pay for the food, but I tell him I’m using my birthday money. Myla says to me, “Do you have any idea what this is going to cost?” And the thing is, I do. I’ve planned for it. I’ve paid attention to how much ground turkey costs and which kind of pasta is the cheapest. But I can’t let them know, so I act surprised when I see the total, and let David pay for half so he feels like he’s helping.
We make spaghetti and meatballs and garlic bread, and Emma helps us with the salad when she comes over. We set the table with a tablecloth and my mother’s silver, which no one has touched in years. And we’ve even washed cloth napkins, which we nestle under the forks. The table is shining with glass and candles, so when Ruth comes over, she and Jane can both compliment us and don’t have to talk to each other.
Everyone is acting like this is a big party, and that’s good because I want them to feel that way. Steve is wearing a T-shirt, but he put a bow tie around his neck, and when he comes in the kitchen and sees me, he says, “It’s the hostess with the mostest!”
Then we sit and everyone compliments me on the food, and Myla tries to embarrass me by saying, “Pru knew exactly what she wanted and exactly how she wanted Emma and me to help. When we cut the carrots the wrong way, she freaked out.”
Then Steve says, “It sounds like we’ve got another cook in the family,” and he smiles at Jane.
They all toast me with cranberry juice and David tells them, “It’s the greatest thing, Pru wanting to have this dinner. She felt so strongly about having you all here together.”
Then Ruth looks at me, and it’s like she can see right through me. “Any special reason, Pru?”
I wasn’t expecting to have to answer this question already, but then I realize I might as well tell them. “Actually, yes,” I say. All of their eyes look in my direction, even Emma’s. I clear my throat. I say, “I’ve decided I want to give an interview.”
David says, “What, sweetheart?”
“I’ve been thinking about it a lot,” I say. “Since you and I had that talk a long time ago about the pictures. I know that people are writing articles and stuff, criticizing the pictures. Talking about pornography—” I look at Emma when I say that word. “Sorry.” I wish she didn’t have to hear this, but I want her to be here too.
I look at David, and I can see he’s trying hard to act like this doesn’t matter. I can see it worries him. The part of me that wants to protect him, and everyone else, almost makes me quiet. But I want this so badly I have to say it.
“You guys talk about art all the time. And you talk about how you want me to be an artist, if that’s what I want. And I do. I want to be a painter when I grow up. But the thing is, I already am an artist. I’m an artist in Ruth’s photographs. And everyone is saying bad things about me, about the art I make, and it’s my responsibility to talk about my participation.” Then I wait a second. I look at David and I say, “My mother would want me to do this. I know she would.” He doesn’t say anything.
But Jane does. She says, “Honey, you aren’t responsible for anything. You don’t have to say anything about the pictures.” She’s looking at Ruth then, and I can hear blame in her voice.
Steve asks me, “What would you like to say?”
Steve knows it matters to me. He sees that I wouldn’t invite them all together like this if it wasn’t important. I say, “I’d tell them how much I love the pictures. How much I love being in them, and how important they are for other people to see, because they’re about respect and beauty.” I turn to Ruth, who hasn’t said anything yet. “My whole life, you guys have let me decide about being in the pictures. But now I’m eleven. Now I want to do more than just be in them. I want to tell people how good the pictures are. Why do you think I’m not old enough to do that?”
David clears his throat. “Jane’s point is that being in the pictures is all you may need to say. We don’t want to burden you—”
“But this is a burden,” I say. “Sitting here in our family and pretending nobody has any opinions about us.”
“Frankly, I don’t care what people think,” says David.
And I say, “Well, I do. I care. Myla cares.” I look at her then, for the first time, because I know she’s angry at me for saying this, for planning this and not including her. Sure enough, she’s playing with her food and won’t look at me.
Steve looks at her too. Then he says, “Myla, what do you think?”
Myla keeps scraping her fork back and forth across her plate. When she looks up, she won’t even look at me. Then she says, “Pru can do whatever she wants.”
Ruth says, “Don’t be rude, Myla. Tell us what you think.”
So Myla looks at me, and it freezes me to see how much I’ve hurt her, leaving her out of this. She says, “Pru should say whatever she wants to say. It’s her right. She’s the star model.”
“No one’s saying anything,” says Jane. “Nothing has been decided.” She says that looking at David.
David sighs and rests his elbows on the table. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Why is everyone so sad?” I ask. “This is a good thing. Think about it. I’ll answer people’s questions, and they’ll see that I’m really healthy, that I’m smart, that the pictures have made my life better. That will be good. That will help us.”
Jane is looking at David like I’m not even here. “You can’t give them her voice too. You can’t let them into her life like that.”
Steve puts his hand on Jane’s arm. David sighs. He looks at me. “It’s a good idea, Pru.”
“It’s more than a good idea,” I say. I look at Ruth. “Don’t you see? It’s so much better than you giving interviews. When you give interviews, people think you’re just justifying something bad. But if they see that I trust the world, that my family and I are not afraid of the pictures or people’s opinions of them, that will make a difference.”
Ruth looks up at me and nods. She looks at David, then Jane. “I want to say right now that I knew nothing about this.”
“Of course you didn’t,” says David.
“Of course not,” says Myla, and I can hear that she’s sarcastic. “It’s never your idea, Ruth. It’s never your plan. It’s just what we want.”
“Myla!” says David.
“Let her say it,” says Ruth.
“It’s like you just walk in and out of people’s lives, deciding what you will and won’t give them. You give people something one day and take it away the next. Well, I don’t care.” Myla stands up. “You want my honest opinion? I think you’d be fools not to take up Pru on her offer. She wants to. She asked for it. Do you listen to what people are saying about us? I read the fucking newspaper. I show the articles to Pru, because I think she deserves to know. Someone has to defend our family.” I can see that she’s angry, but she’s also agreeing with me. She stands back from the table and picks up her plate. “Excuse me,” she says, and she leaves the room. We can hear the plate clattering into the sink and then the front door slamming shut.
Everyone’s quiet then. No one knows who’s going to speak next, and it surprises us all that it’s Emma. “I really like the pictures,” says Emma, “but even you guys fight about them. If I didn’t know Pru, I’d want to understand her point of view.” She looks up at Jane. “Sorry, Mom.”
Jane looks down at her plate. “Steve?”
Steve shrugs. “I don’t think it has to be
a big deal. She’s already in the public eye. An explanation might help things. Might help people let go.”
Jane says, “We need to talk about this. We need to figure this out before anything is decided.”
“Yes,” says David, and I’m satisfied. At least he’ll think about what I’ve asked.
Then Steve asks, “Pru, is there any dessert?”
“Yes,” I tell him, “ice cream.”
“Excellent,” he says. “How about I help you clear?”
So we clear the dishes and leave the conversation behind. We scoop vanilla ice cream into bowls and stab a spoon into each. When we come back to the dining room, we talk about different things. They know what I want. I have to wait for them to tell me yes.
THE TIRES OF THE CAR crunched over broken glass as Myla edged into the parking lot of the Hillcrest Hotel. She was undeterred. Even four flat tires couldn’t stop her now that she was burning with action. Talking to Mark only an hour before, it had seemed impossible to even imagine telling Samuel the wide expanse of her mind. But in the interim, somehow, she’d realized that she needed to let Samuel in on every truth she had. She’d walk barefoot over broken glass if that was what it took. He needed to know, and she needed to show him.
She hadn’t actually stopped at the Hillcrest Hotel’s front office to ask for his room number; she knew how she’d be treated. Rather, she’d simply picked up the phone at Jane and Steve’s before driving over, and demanded the desk clerk give her her husband’s room number, as she was sure dozens of wives had done before. It worked. One too many domestic battles fought on Hillcrest Hotel turf, probably, convincing the establishment it wasn’t their job to lie to women.
As she pulled into the parking space in front of Unit 18, she chuckled at Samuel’s choice. How could he have known what everyone who lived in the neighborhood did: that the Hillcrest Hotel had begun a steady decline twenty-five years ago toward drugs and illicit sex, and had never recovered? She remembered David recounting the tale of a job candidate up from California for the weekend. This man had been put up by the college in the Hillcrest, and on his first night in town was awakened by sirens and flashing lights, only to find that just outside his door, a mere twenty minutes earlier, someone had been stabbed to death. Perhaps it said something about the perilousness of academic life that when this man was ultimately offered the position at the college, he gladly took it.
The Effects of Light Page 20