Meets Girl: A Novel

by Entrekin, Will

  Angus’ smile seemed reflective and amused. “Quite.”

  Veronica nodded. “Which leaves only that last card.”

  Angus nodded. “The final outcome,” he said as he turned the card over, and I wish I could say I gasped when I saw that thrice sword-pierced heart, but I wasn’t sure it surprised me. I’d seen it once before, after all. That red-haired woman and her reading had warned me about it, and maybe by then I had already begun to accept that I would never be with Veronica. This story can’t end with romance, can it? How could it surprise me?

  I wasn’t sure, but it seemed to surprise Angus, who just stared at it a moment, then looked up at Veronica as if he were realizing something. “He’s broken your heart.”

  I wish I could say I gasped, but that’s not what happens when you’re really shocked, is it? What happens is that everything feels more distant for a moment, like the world withdraws from you, goes grey and cold to leave you with a dead stomach paradoxically empty and dense at the same time. What happens is that the desire to cry clenches your abdomen and forces a tiny exhalation like a lifeless autumn breeze trailing dirty grass in its wake.

  Of the three of us, Veronica was the only one who didn’t seem surprised. When she heard Angus’ words, she took in and let out a deep breath as if she were steeling herself, and as she did so she chose one card among her fan to set down. It pictured a cloaked man standing head-down and forlorn by the side of a river and among cups tipped over and spilt.

  “The Five of Cups?” Angus said like he wasn’t sure what she meant by it. “But that’s grief, sadness, disappointment. A broken relationship.”

  “Not if you look more closely. That man by the river is concentrating so hard on the cups he’s dropped and spilled that he is missing the fact that there are still two left, still upright, still full. That man is so focused on beating himself up over what he thinks he has done that he doesn’t consider what he can do,” Veronica said. She looked at me: “But you’ve already done it. You’ve already said you are sorry for what you did, and now I tell you, simply, that I forgive you. That what happened here had to happen, and now your work begins. You can make this right.”

  I stared at that card she had set down, that hooded man and his spilt cups. That everything happens for a reason, and that maybe I had made a mistake, maybe I had made a bad decision, but I could set it right. As long as I had some space and some words, I could set it right, and staring at that card, I thought I might know how.

  “Which I believe concludes our business,” Angus told her. “You have successfully countered my influence and broken any contract made—.”

  “So things will go back to the way they were,” Veronica said.

  Angus shook his head. “My sphere of influence is for the future, not the past. While you were able to reduce my influence over your collective future, I cannot change what was given up.”

  “Will he write again?”

  “He had the chance. He gave it up. Again, I have no power over what has come before.”

  “No. That’s not good enough,” Veronica said.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “I said that’s not good enough. I want a new deal, and a new contract. A new wager. With real stakes. Because if I won our little game and reduced your influence, I created uncertainty. And where there exists uncertainty, as you said, so there must exist risk. And where there is risk, we can gamble. I want a guarantee.”

  “Of what?”

  “Of the future. He said he didn’t give up just the writing but the fame and the popularity, too. I want a guarantee he can get it back.”

  Angus considered that. “I can guarantee only the possibility. The rest would have to remain up to him. I can’t fulfill his potential, only offer the possibility of it.”

  Veronica considered that. “A guarantee, then, of success from hard work.”

  Angus hesitated, then nodded. I’m not sure it was my imagination that his eyes sparkled, and I can’t claim certainty whether they would have done so out of mischief or hunger, anyway. “What, exactly, do you have in mind?”

  “Simple,” Veronica said as she slipped together the rest of her cards and set down her deck. She moved the top two cards from it, set them just to the side, face down. “These two cards against the next two cards in your deck.”

  Angus considered her, her two cards, then looked at me. “What do you say? With your permission, I will agree.”

  And so there it was, and I sat across from Angus and next to Veronica, deciding whether to let my fate hinge on a few Tarot cards, but I only deliberated for a moment, because what had I to lose? I considered the cards Angus and Veronica had played between them, the devil and the hanged man, the queens and the aces, swords and pentacles and cups, and I thought of letting go, of inaction, of choices.

  I chose, then, to let go. I chose to trust that Veronica knew what she was doing.

  I nodded.

  “Very well, then,” Angus said, and with a motion quicker and less dramatic than it should have been flipped over two cards: one a dark, foreboding tower spiring out into an inky sky, the other a profiled reaper man on his pale horse, carrying a black flag in place of his famous scythe. “The Tower,” Angus said, “And death,” and in a voice that I required no more elaboration to know that they weren’t happy cards to see.

  “But the Tower is the fulfillment of the Hanged Man letting go of his obsession,” Veronica said, “And death is just a spiritual transition, a signal not only that there is a next step to take but also that it is time to take it. And if you’ll just take that step, you will earn the World,” she flipped over what looked to be a happy card, a woman in a wreath surrounded by blue skies and ethereal figures. “You will find great success, both materially and spiritually.”

  Which made me hopeful, of course. Material and spiritual success? Yes, please. Where might I sign up? Surely there must be a line.

  But then she turned over that final card, and while my heart didn’t fall, well, that hope caught on me as though I’d snagged a sweater-shoulder on a stray nail: a giant angel holding a trumpet and looking down upon a post-apocalyptic wasteland, a man and a woman cowering as though afraid to meet its gaze, in the distance mountains and river. All caps at the bottom: JUDGMENT.

  Before I could worry too much about it, however, Veronica turned to me: “Because Angus is right about the Tower and Death, but only because of the great power of transformation. You will have your world, and you will find your success, because that transformation will be creative rather than destructive. With this card, I cleanse you, wipe clean your slate, and most of all, give you the new beginning you need to earn your world,”

  and what, dear Reader, might I do with a new beginning besides take it, because—

  Once upon a time I fell in love with a girl who didn’t love me in return.

  And while that may not be, as openings go, altogether novel (for who among us has not felt the sharp-barbed long-constant prick-pull of unrequited love?), still I’ve always known it’s how I need to begin this story.—

  even if I have only just recently realized I would return again to them. I always knew I was going to need the big guns if I intended to make my way through, and now that I’m very nearly there, I am relieved to have established those guns from the start so that I might draw them now.

  I always knew it wasn’t going to be an easy story to finish. I’ve always found endings more difficult than beginnings, though many would disagree. Endings must satisfy, and I want the ones I read to transcend, to take everything that led up to them to an entirely new level, and how often does that occur?

  Some achieve it more successfully than others—

  It is a far, far better thing I do than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.—

  or—

  Lastly, she pictured to herself how this same little sister of hers would, in the after-time, be herself a grown woman; and how she would keep, through all her riper ye
ars, the simple and loving heart of her childhood; and how she would gather about her other little children, and make their eyes bright and eager with many a strange tale, perhaps even with the dream of Wonderland of long ago; and how she would feel with all their simple sorrows, and find a pleasure in all their simple joys, remembering her own child-life, and the happy summer days.—

  or—

  And then he began chirping his peculiar melancholy song, from which we have taken this history; and which may, very possibly, be all untrue, although it does stand here printed in black and white.—

  Because how can you go wrong with any of those?

  I only hope I can reach the same here. I believe I started wisely—

  Once upon a time—

  mainly because beginning with that phrase makes this a sort-of fairy tale, and fairy tales come with rules that might guide us through to a proper, satisfying ending. Those rules may vary from tale to tale, but most are consistent through stories: stray not from the path. Eat no food, and accept no gifts, and if someone asks where you are going, say, simply, in front of you; if they ask where you are from, say, simply, behind you.

  Tell no one your name.

  Names have power in fairy tales. Revealing one’s name gives up one’s power to others.

  The astute among you, here, will notice I have not. I have tried to be neither clever nor conspicuous about it—writing this account in the first person helped—but I never used my name because I have known, all along, I would use it here. Maybe you noticed I had not used it, and probably you sensed, at least subconsciously, why. Maybe you guessed I wanted to prevent Angus from having that sort of power or control, and maybe you never really trusted him, either. Maybe you have understood, in addition, all along, even just subconsciously, that my reason for keeping my name for myself, for preserving that special sort of power, has been simple all along:

  I have meant all along to give it up to you.

  But you’ve known it all along, haven’t you? Somehow, depending on how you’ve read this. It’s the website you’ve visited every week for the past twenty, or it was noted when you downloaded it on your Kindle, or it’s there at the tops of the pages of the book you’re reading, on its spine, on its cover.

  I would say that revealing my name to you, in addition to giving you full power over the story, also fundamentally changes the nature of the story, but if we are to be honest here (and we always have been), that is probably not true. You have likely wondered all along what, in this story, was fact and how much besides was fiction, how much was semi-autobiographical what was actually autobiographical. Maybe you’ve wondered all along which characters existed and which did not, and maybe you think that Tom and Veronica had to be based on people in my life while Angus and that red-haired woman were simply devices by which to tell a story.

  But then, that may be something I would neither confirm nor deny. If I told you I thought Angus was Hermes—you did catch that I called him “Quick” when I first met him, did you not? Or that he wore an Hermés suit?—I dispute that makes him no less real. The god of the crossroads, with dominion over commerce and art, companion to poets and conmen alike. He has always existed, because we have always wanted the choice he offers.

  I would wager the character you’re wondering most about, however, is Veronica Sawyer. You are wondering whether Veronica Sawyer exists, and who she is, and maybe whether we ever were together or if I ever told her how I felt about her.

  Ah, Veronica Sawyer.

  I’m sure there is a Veronica Sawyer somewhere in the world. It’s a common enough last name (you caught that, too, right? Her brother’s name? You might as well call me Huckleberry. One of my old teachers did. Totally true).

  And so you say, fine, Veronica Sawyer exists. But you say, did you really fall for her?

  To which I respond: well, no. I’ve never met her.

  But the Veronica Sawyer in this story? Her I knew. But then, you knew her, too, or him, didn’t you? Because I hate to call her a character or an archetype or whatever term someone with an advanced degree in literature might use, but really, Veronica Sawyer is the person you fell in love with who didn’t love you in return, and as was noted in the very second line of this story, who among us doesn’t know that tale? Who among us hasn’t been there, done that, and written the bad poetry about it?

  I did fall in love with a girl who didn’t love me in return. I’ve done it a couple of times, and at least twice with girls I knew growing up, and while the details themselves may be slightly different (and even in this story. I’m fairly certain the descriptions of Veronica’s eyes change over the story, and I could probably change it in a revision, but then again, nitpicking her eye color kind of spectacularly misses the point), the story itself remains the same. Because like I said, it’s never something so clearcut as chests or asses; it’s the calloused fingertips, the slender hands.

  That said, this story was inspired by one girl in particular. With whom I did, in fact, grow up, and whose brother was, in fact, my best friend for many years. For many years, I pined away after her, quietly loving her from afar as she dated a succession of guys whose hands I shook even though I never thought they were good enough for her. Instead of meeting Angus, however, I wrote an early draft of this very story, which was substantially shorter and substantially worse, and I gave it to her, and after she read it, I said, it’s true, you know. How I feel about you.

  And she said I know.

  And I said and you don’t feel the same way.

  And she said no. Sorry.

  And I said hey, that’s how it goes, right, because it so often is.

  That was several years ago, and eventually we grew apart, as people do. I left for USC and Hollywood, and she left for philosophy and Georgia. We have seen each other a few times, and spoken sporadically, and now she’s married to a guy she seems very happy with, and maybe some year I’ll open the mail around the holidays to find a card depicting a girl I only vaguely recognize standing with her hubby and her children and wishing me greetings for the season.

  And maybe, some day, she’ll open her mail to find a copy of this book. And she’ll trace her fingers along the cover just like she traced her fingers down the title page of that old manuscript (because, yes, that Christmas actually occurred), and she’ll think of me, and she’ll smile.

  One can hope.

  It’s all that matters, after all.

  I don’t know if you wonder about other elements of this story, and I’m not sure they matter. Does it matter I went to Saint Peter’s College in Jersey City, not Montclair State? Does it matter I never worked as a production assistant at the Weinstein Company but did spend more than a year in the broadcast department of Young & Rubicam NY, one of the largest advertising agencies in the world? I can’t imagine it does, and even if it did, well, so many of the details are the same. You can find Cassiopeia, the tattoo place, if you look. Hell, if Candela hadn’t closed, you could have followed these pages right to its door (and you would have loved it, let me tell you. I was devastated to find it was gone. It’s now called Irving Mill, and its burgers are terrific, just slightly smoky, but there aren’t enough gnocchis on its pasta plate, and worse, there’s just nothing exactly special about it anymore). Grape Street Pub closed a few years ago, not long after I placed Foolish’s launch party, back when my best friend Tim’s band was called Hero for Nothing; it’s now called Sum of You, and if their CD isn’t on iTunes, Hero for Nothing’s A Carter Avenue Project is, and you can download it knowing I danced countless times in countless bars to those songs (Foolish’s CD, incidentally, takes its name from one of my favorite book review blogs, Books I Done Read, which I find hysterical for its thumbing its nose at grammar; its proprietor, Raych, is spectacular).

  We could tick through the rest of the story, point by meticulous point, scene by pain-staking scene, and I could enumerate which details were true and which ones besides had occurred, but I fear that would miss a point as well. I would wager that th
ere is as much truth in these pages as in Dave Eggers’ A Heart-Breaking Work of Staggering Genius or James Frey’s A Million Little Pieces, and as many aspects made up as in either, as well. One could probably go so far as to debate whether this was a fictionalized memoir or an autobiographical novel—

  or, on the other hand, one could just acknowledge it as a story and leave well enough alone. I’m content enough with that choice, to be candid.

  Because I think—I hope—this time I have pulled it off. Have you enjoyed it?

  Because you’re what counts. You, and the story. So far as the story goes, I have told all I can, and it’s about time for me to shut up—

  It would concern the reader little, perhaps, to know, how sorrowfully the pen is laid down at the close of a two-years' imaginative task; or how an Author feels as if he were dismissing some portion of himself into the shadowy world, when a crowd of the creatures of his brain are going from him for ever. Yet, I have nothing else to tell; unless, indeed, I were to confess (which might be of less moment still) that no one can ever believe this Narrative, in the reading, more than I have believed it in the writing.—

  and trust it. And you.

  Because what I said to Angus was the truth: I don’t trust critics or academicians, but I trust you. And the best way I know to demonstrate how much I trust you is to tell you my name is William Entrekin, and I hope you have enjoyed my story. I hope it has meant something to you. I hope you have laughed, and I hope you have felt it, in however small or great a way.