In Vermont, people with money lived in places like Woodstock, Manchester, Charlotte, Dorset, and Middlebury, not in Rutland, and while Rutland was much larger than most other Vermont towns it felt like a semi-depressed drive-through today with many of its great old houses repurposed for bail bondsmen, abortion “counselors,” and welfare agencies, and interspersed with strip malls and bowling alleys and the bus station. Jake’s inn was less than half a mile from the Birdseye Diner, but he drove the three minutes. As soon as he got inside the door, a man stood up in a booth halfway down the length of the room and waved. Jake waved back.
“Wasn’t sure you’d remember what I looked like,” said Martin Purcell.
“Oh, I recognize you,” Jake lied, sliding into the booth. “Though, you know, as I was driving here I thought, I should have tried to find a photo online, just to be sure I didn’t sit down with somebody else.”
“Most pictures of me online I’m standing behind a bunch of robotics nerds. I coach the club at my school. State champs, six out of the last ten years.”
Jake tried to rustle up some enthusiasm to go along with his congratulations.
“Really nice of you to drive down,” he said.
“Hey, really nice of you to look over my stuff!” Purcell said. He was greatly excited. “I’m still in shock. I’ve been talking to my wife about it. I don’t think she believed me when I said you’d agreed to do that for me.”
“Oh, it’s no trouble. I miss teaching.” This, too, was a lie.
The Birdseye was a classic specimen of a diner, with aqua-and-black-checkered tiles and a shining stainless bar and stools. Jake ordered a burger and a chocolate shake. Purcell wanted the chicken soup.
“You know, I was surprised you wanted to meet in Rutland, though. Nobody comes to Rutland. Everybody comes through Rutland.”
“Except the people who live here, I guess.”
“Yeah. Whoever the genius town planner was, who decided one of the state’s busiest routes ought to run down the main street, he should’ve been tarred and feathered.” Purcell shrugged. “Maybe it seemed like a good idea at the time, I don’t know.”
“Well, you’re a history teacher, aren’t you? You probably see things from more of a backward-looking perspective.”
The guy frowned. “Did I tell you I was a history teacher? Most people, because they know I write stories, assume I teach English. But I’ll tell you a dark secret. I don’t love reading fiction. Other people’s fiction.”
That’s no secret to me, thought Jake.
“No? You prefer to read history?”
“I prefer to read history and write fiction.”
“You must have found that challenging at Ripley. Reading your classmates’ work.”
Their waitress brought Jake’s milkshake in a full glass and a half-full steel tumbler. It tasted amazing and sank straight to the pit of his stomach.
“Oh, not really. I think when you go into a situation like that you adapt. If I’m going to be asking people in my workshop to give my work a generous and close reading, I need to do the same for them.”
Jake decided this moment was as good as any. “Sadly, my own student didn’t feel that way. My late student.”
Purcell, to Jake’s dismay, sighed at this. “I wondered how long it would take us to get around to Evan Parker.”
Jake retreated instantly, but not very persuasively.
“Well, I remember you mentioned he was from this area. Rutland, right?”
“That’s right,” said Purcell.
“I guess he’s been on my mind today. He had some kind of a business here, I think? A bar of some kind?”
“Tavern,” said Purcell.
The waitress returned and set down their plates with a flourish. His burger looked mammoth, with fries piled up so high they spilled onto the table when the plate landed. Purcell’s soup, despite the fact that it was billed as an appetizer, was also in a meal-sized bowl.
“They certainly know how to eat up here,” Jake observed when she’d gone.
“Have to survive the winters,” said Purcell, taking up his spoon.
For a moment, conversation took a back seat.
“It’s nice that you two kept up with each other. After Ripley, I mean. It’s pretty isolated.”
“Well, Vermont isn’t exactly the Yukon,” Purcell said, with a definite edge to his tone.
“No, I mean … for us as writers. We’re so alone in what we do. When you get a taste of that fellowship, it’s something you want to hold on to.”
Purcell nodded eagerly. “That was just what I was hoping to find at Ripley. Maybe even more than the teachers, just that connection to other people doing what I wanted to do. So yeah, I absolutely kept up with a few of the others, Evan included. Him and I sent each other stuff for a couple of months, until his passing.”
Inwardly, Jake winced at this, though whether it was due to the thought of that “stuff” passing back and forth between the two writers or to the “him and I” wasn’t immediately clear.
“We all need a reader. Every writer does.”
“Oh, I know. It’s why I’m so appreciative—”
But Jake didn’t want to go there. At least, not before he absolutely had to.
“So you sent him the same stories you sent me? And he sent you his work, too? I always wondered what happened to that novel he was working on.”
It was a risk, of course. He’d been pretty sure that if Purcell had actually read Evan Parker’s work in progress he’d have mentioned its commonality with Crib by now. But after all, this was what he’d come so far to find out.
“Well, I sent him mine, for sure. He had a couple of my stories when he passed, that he was going to send back edits on, but he kept his own stuff pretty close to the chest. I only ever saw a couple of pages. A woman who lived in an old house with her daughter and worked on a psychic hotline? That’s what I remember. You probably saw way more of that novel than I did.”
Jake nodded. “Very reticent in the workshop itself, when it came to his project. Those same pages you mentioned, that was all he ever turned in. It’s certainly all I ever saw,” he said pointedly.
Purcell was digging into the bottom of his bowl for the chicken.
“D’you think he had other friends in the program he might have been talking to?”
The teacher looked up. He held Jake’s gaze for a bit too long. “Do you mean, was he showing his work to anyone else?”
“Oh no, not specifically. I just thought, you know, it’s a shame he got so little out of the program. Because he’d have been helped by a good reader, and if he didn’t want my help, maybe he managed to connect with one of the other teachers. Bruce O’Reilly?”
“Ha! Every blade of grass has its own story!”
“Or the other fiction teacher. Frank Ricardo. He was new that year.”
“Oh, Ricardo. Evan thought that guy was pathetic. No way he went to either of those two.”
“Well, maybe one of the other students, then.”
“Look, no offense to you, because obviously I’m not arguing with your success, so if bonding with fellow writers helped you out, that’s great, and I’m all for it myself or I wouldn’t have wanted to go to Ripley and I wouldn’t have asked you to read my stuff. But Evan was never into the community of writers aspect. He was a great guy to go to a concert with, or out for a meal. But the touchy-feely things about, you know, writing? That stuff in the catalog about our unique voices and our stories only we could tell? That was so not him.”
“Okay.” Jake nodded. He was realizing, with a certain extreme discomfort, that he and Evan Parker had shared something else, above and beyond the plot of Crib.
“And all the stuff about the craft of writing, and the process of writing, and all that? Never talked about it. I’m telling you, Evan didn’t share, not pages and not feelings. Like the song says: He was a rock. He was an island.”
It was a massive relief to hear, but of course Jake couldn’t say tha
t. What he said, instead, was: “Kind of sad.”
The teacher shrugged. “He didn’t strike me as sad. It’s just how he was.”
“But … didn’t you say his whole family was gone? His parents and his sister? And he was such a young guy. That’s awful.”
“Sure. The parents died a long time ago, and then the sister, I’m not sure when that happened. It’s tragic.”
“Yes,” Jake agreed.
“And that niece, the one mentioned in the obituary, I don’t think she even showed up at the memorial service. I didn’t meet anyone there who said they were related. The only ones who got up and spoke were his employees and his customers. And me.”
“That’s a shame,” said Jake, pushing the uneaten half of his burger away.
“Well, they couldn’t have been close. He never even mentioned her to me. And the dead sister, man, that one he hated.”
Jake looked at him. “Hate’s a pretty strong word.”
“He said she’d do anything. I don’t think he meant it in a good way.”
“Oh? What way did he mean it?”
But now the guy was looking at him with frank suspicion. It was one thing to spend a bit of time on a mutual acquaintance, maybe especially a mutual acquaintance who had died fairly recently and fairly close by. But this? Could it possibly be that Jake Bonner, The New York Times bestselling novelist, had not come to Rutland for the sole purpose of discussing a complete stranger’s short stories? Because what other reason could there be?
“I have no idea,” Purcell said finally.
“Oh. Sure. Hey, sorry about all the questions. He’s just been on my mind today, like I said.”
“Right.”
And Jake thought he’d better leave it there.
“So anyway, I want to talk about your stories. They’re very strong, and I have a couple of ideas about how to move them forward. I mean, if it’s all right for me to share them with you.”
Purcell, naturally, seemed delighted with this change of direction. Jake spent the next seventy-five minutes paying the piper. He also made a point of picking up the check.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Boo-hoo, So Sad
After they said good-bye in the parking lot he watched Martin Purcell get in his car and head north, back toward Burlington, then he waited in his own car for a few minutes, just to be on the safe side.
The Parker Tavern was just off Route 4, midway between Rutland and West Rutland, its neon PARKER TAVERN FOOD AND LIQUOR visible from far down the street. As Jake pulled into the lot, he saw the other sign he remembered from the Rutland Herald story, that hand-painted Happy Hour 3–6. The lot was very full and it took him a few minutes to find a spot.
Jake wasn’t much of a tavern guy, but he had a basic idea of how to behave under the circumstances. He went inside and took a seat at the bar and asked for a Coors, then he took out his phone and scrolled a bit, so as not to seem overly eager. He’d chosen a stool without anyone on either side, but it didn’t take long for a guy to move in beside him. He nodded at Jake.
“Hey.”
“Hey.”
“You want anything to eat?” the bartender asked the next time he came by.
“No, thanks. Maybe another Coors, though.”
“You got it.”
A group of four women entered, all in their thirties, he guessed. The guy on Jake’s left had swiveled away from him, and was definitely keeping an eye on the women at their table. A different woman took the seat to his right. He heard her order. A moment later, he heard her curse.
“Sorry.”
Jake turned. She was around his own age, and big.
“Beg your pardon?”
“I said sorry. ’Cause I cursed.”
“Oh. That’s okay.” It was more than okay. It relieved him of having to start the conversation. “Why’d you curse?”
The woman held up her phone. The photo on the screen showed two cherubic girls, cheeks together, both grinning, but the acid green bar of a text message cut off the tops of their heads. Fuck you, it said.
“Adorable,” he said, pretending not to have seen.
“Well, they were, back when the picture was taken. Now they’re in high school. I guess I ought to be grateful about that, anyway. Their older brother wouldn’t go back after tenth grade. He’s over in Troy doing god knows what.”
Jake had no idea how to respond to that, but he wasn’t about to decline the clear overture of such an unrestrained neighbor.
Her drink arrived, though Jake hadn’t heard her actually order. It was something overtly tropical, with a slice of pineapple and a little paper umbrella.
“Thanks, doll,” the woman said to the bartender. Then she put away half of it in a single long swallow. Jake didn’t imagine it was doing her any good. Thus fortified, she turned back to Jake and introduced herself. “I’m Sally.”
“Jake. What kind of drink is that?”
“Oh, something they put together for me, special. It’s my brother-in-law’s place.”
Score, thought Jake. He’d done nothing to deserve it, but he’d take it.
“Your brother-in-law named Parker?”
The woman looked at him as if he had just insulted her. She had long and suspiciously bright yellow hair, so thin her scalp showed through in patches.
“Parker was the name of the guy who had it before. He died, though.”
“Oh, that’s too bad.”
She shrugged. “Not my favorite person. Grew up here. We both did.”
Jake detoured to ask Sally a few of the questions she plainly wanted him to ask. He learned that Sally had moved to Rutland as a kid, from New Hampshire. Two sisters, one dead. She was raising her late sister’s kids, she told Jake.
“That must be hard.”
“Nah. Good kids. But fucked up. Thanks to their mother.” She lifted her empty glass, half in salute, half as a signal to the bartender.
“So you grew up with the guy who owned this place before?”
“Evan Parker. Couple years ahead of me in school. Dated my sister.”
Jake was careful not to react. “Really? Small world.”
“Small town. Also, he dated pretty much everyone. If ‘date’ is really the word. I’m not sure he isn’t the father of my nephew if you want to know the truth. Not that it matters.”
“Well, that’s …”
“That was his spot, behind the bar.” She held up her already half-drained glass and tipped it toward the far end of the room. “Knew everybody who came in.”
“Well, the owner of a bar has to be social. Part of the job, listening to people’s problems.”
She grinned at him, but it was far from a happy grin. “Evan Parker? Listen to anyone’s problems? Evan Parker didn’t give a shit about anyone else’s problems.”
“Is that right?”
“Is that right,” Sally mocked him. She was slurring, ever so slightly, he noticed. It occurred to him that the tropical beverage wasn’t her first drink of the evening. “Yeah, that’s right. Why do you care, anyway?”
“Oh. Well, I just had dinner with an old friend. We’re both writers. And my friend said the guy who used to own this bar was a writer, too. He was writing a novel.”
Sally threw back her head and laughed. She was so loud that a couple of conversations around them stopped, and people turned to look.
“Like that asshole could ever write a novel,” she finally said, shaking her head, declining further amusement.
“You seem surprised.”
“Come on, the guy probably never even read a novel. Didn’t go to college. Wait, maybe community college.” She leaned forward on the bar and looked down to the end. “Hey Jerry,” she yelled. “Did Parker go to college?”
A burly man with a dark beard looked up from his own conversation. “Evan Parker? Rutland Community, I think,” he shouted.
“That your brother-in-law?”
Sally nodded.
“Well, maybe he took a writing class or som
ething and decided to give it a try. Anybody can be a writer, you know.”
“Sure. I’m writing Moby-Dick, myself. What about you?”
He laughed. “I’m definitely not writing Moby-Dick.”
Now she was slurring even more, he noted. “Dick” had been rendered as “deek,” and “myself” as “my shelf.” After a moment, he said: “If he was writing a novel, I wonder what it was about.”
“Sneaking into girls’ bedrooms at night, probably.” Her eyes were half closed.
He decided to try something else before he lost her entirely.
“You must have known his whole family if you grew up together.”
She nodded glumly. “Yep. The parents died. We were in high school.”
“Both died?” Jake asked, as if he didn’t already know.
“Together. In the house. Wait.” She leaned forward on the bar again. “Hey Jerry?” she yelled.
Down at the end, the brother-in-law looked up.
“Evan Parker’s parents. They died, right?”
Jake, who could have done without all this shouting of Parker’s name, was relieved to see the brother-in-law lift up his hand. A moment later he’d ended his conversation and made his way to where his inebriated sister-in-law was seated.
“Jerry Hastings.” He extended his hand to Jake.
“I’m Jake,” said Jake.
“You asking about Evan?”
“No, not really. Just about where the Parker came from. In the name.”
“Oh. Old family around here. They used to own the quarry in West Rutland. Hundred and fifty years to get from a mansion to a needle in the arm. That’s Vermont, I guess.”
“What do you mean?” said Jake, who knew exactly what he meant.
The Plot Page 17