“No thanks,” said Chris. “I’ll just take a coffee to go.”
In the car driving back, Ben, somewhat mollified, was more like his usual self, but now Sam was nursing his grievance about the circus. When they got to Susan’s house, he barely let Chris kiss him good-bye, and then he scampered into the house without looking back again. Chris sat for a moment in the car and then he pushed the car door open, and got out and charged up the steps to the front door of the house. Screw the legal warning. Susan must have been standing right in the foyer looking out from the narrow window by the front door, because she opened the door before he had a chance to ring. Her eyebrows were very thin, as if she had been plucking them and hadn’t known when to stop.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“You fucking bitch,” he said. “Don’t you ever lie to them again.”
“Hit me,” she said, calmly. “I dare you.”
His hands filled with heat. He wanted to punch her. He wanted to flatten her. He wanted to pummel her so hard she could never rise again. He wanted to take her by the shoulders and shake her until she couldn’t breathe. But strangely, instead of provoking him, her voice called him to his senses. It was as if his arms were caught between two competing magnetic forces, and they trembled in the air and then, finally, were drawn back down to his sides. He had once described a character in one of his novels as “shaking with impotent rage,” and that hyperbolic phrase came to him now, a description of himself. He walked back to his car, got in, turned the key, and backed out of the driveway, saving himself from Susan, from himself, from all he most wanted to do.
CHRIS WASN’T ABLE TO get in touch with Nancy until eight the following night.
“I’d like to see you,” he said. “May I drop by now?”
“I just got back from New York,” she said. “I’m kind of tired.”
Chris knew Nancy was chronically polite, but even so, he didn’t give her an opportunity to protest. “We have to talk,” he said. “I’ll be over in half an hour.” He could be at her house in fifteen minutes, but a half hour would allow her time to comb her hair, tidy her living room—whatever it was that women like Nancy needed to do.
Chris had been to Nancy’s house only once before, for the wedding, and it seemed more modest and smaller than he’d remembered it. Of course, that day it had been all spruced up, the big white tent in the garden, flowers everywhere. Now it looked plain, like a girl without her makeup on.
Nancy opened the door. She did look tired, but her hair was obviously freshly brushed. She wore clothes that were more casual than Chris had ever seen her in before—corduroy slacks and an oversized sweater, and she had slippers on her feet, shearling leather with fuzzy cuffs that made Chris think of Mrs. Claus.
“What’s up?” she asked.
“Gillian.”
Nancy let out a sigh. “Come on in,” she said. She led Chris past the formal living room at the front of the house, through the large kitchen, to a sitting area beyond. Oates was sitting in an armchair, his stockinged feet up on a footstool. He got up and reached out to shake Chris’s hand. His hand made Chris’s look small.
“Would you like a cup of tea?” asked Nancy. “Or some coffee?”
“Thanks, no,” said Chris.
“How about a glass of sherry?” asked Oates.
Chris spotted a plate of cookies out on the coffee table. Oatmeal cookies were what they looked like, arranged in a circle on the plate. They were probably homemade, he thought.
“Sure, I could do with a little sherry,” he said.
Oates brought over a decanter and some glasses. “Will you have some, Nancy?” he asked.
Nancy had sat down on one side of the sofa. “Thank you, sweetheart,” she said, “but I’m afraid one glass of sherry, and I’ll fall asleep.”
Chris didn’t think she meant this as a rebuke, but he felt obliged to apologize anyway. “I’m sorry to be coming by this late,” he said, “but I’ve been trying to get in touch with you since yesterday.”
“I didn’t get back from New York till this evening,” said Nancy.
“Make yourself comfortable,” said Oates, pointing to the chair across the table rather than the other side of the sofa, where Nancy sat.
Chris sat down and took a sip of his sherry. “I can’t believe what Gillian did to you, Nancy. Actually, I can believe it. That’s the trouble. I’ve been feeling pretty steamed up on your behalf and thought it was important to tell you in person that I’m behind you, one hundred percent, whatever you do.”
“That’s very sweet of you,” said Nancy. “But I don’t really think that there’s anything I can do.”
Chris set his glass down on the coffee table. “Of course there’s something you can do,” he said. “Gillian can’t get away with this. She stole your book. It’s blatant plagiarism. I can’t imagine how she thinks she’ll get away with it.”
“Unfortunately, it isn’t exactly plagiarism,” said Nancy.
“What do you mean?” asked Chris. “I didn’t read the whole thing yet, but she copied your book, didn’t she?”
“Only the first chapter,” said Nancy. “Then she changed things quite a bit in the rest of it.”
“So, the first chapter,” said Chris. “She lifted it straight from yours. Word for word.”
“Not exactly,” said Nancy. “And that’s the real issue, I’m afraid.”
“What are you talking about?” asked Chris. “I heard you read your first chapter. I remember it very well.” He hadn’t meant for his voice to get so loud. Nancy seemed to be sinking down into the sofa cushions.
“Here’s the situation,” said Oates. “Nancy stayed in the city till today so she could talk with her agent in person. They met this morning. Her agent compared the two texts side by side. Gillian paraphrased Nancy’s chapter, but she didn’t copy it exactly.”
“For God’s sake,” said Chris. “It’s close enough.”
“Unfortunately not,” said Nancy. She sat up and looked intently at Chris. “It’s very clever. It’s like an echo, but it’s just a beat off. It’s much easier to prove plagiarism if the phrases are identical.”
“Gimme a break!” said Chris. “You can’t let Gillian get away with something like this!”
“I may not have a choice,” said Nancy.
“Of course you have a choice,” said Chris. “You’ve got to go after her.”
“My agent said it would be a mistake,” said Nancy. “Even if I could prove plagiarism—and my agent thought that wouldn’t be as easy as I thought—I’d be hurting myself. Gillian is so well-connected, so influential, people will just look at me as some pathetic wannabe who’s trying to bring her down.”
“Darling, you’re not a pathetic wannabe!” said Oates.
“Are you telling me that, because Gillian’s hot stuff right now, she can do what she pleases, rip off a fellow writer’s text, and blatantly publish it as her own?” asked Chris.
“That seems to be it,” said Nancy.
“This makes me sick,” said Chris. “Did you know she’s in line for a goddamn Pulitzer Prize?”
“That was my agent’s point,” said Nancy. “Don’t tangle with someone who’s a shoo-in for a Pulitzer, you’ll come off badly no matter what you do. Better to just let this one go. So I guess I’ll just have to take her advice.”
“I can’t let this go,” said Chris. “There’s got to be some justice out there somewhere.”
“That would be nice,” said Oates. “But justice isn’t that easy to come by these days.”
Chris slid his glass back across the surface of the table and pounded his fist on the wood. “I’m going to make justice happen,” he said.
Nancy reached out and touched his arm. “It’s okay, Chris. I appreciate your wanting to go to bat for me, but your coming over here and being so supportive is enough. You don’t have to do anything more for me.”
“I’d be doing it for myself, too,” said Chris. “This stuff really gets to me. The arroganc
e of that woman! The dishonesty!” Chris got to his feet. “Bedtime, folks.” He looked at Nancy. “Don’t get up,” he said. “I can see myself out.” He reached down and snagged a cookie. “One for the road,” he said.
“Chris, thank you,” said Nancy. He would have kissed her good-bye, but Oates had gotten up, too, and walked with him to the door.
“Nancy, I’m not giving up on this,” said Chris.
“I appreciate you coming,” said Oates and again shook his hand.
Chris got into his car and opened the windows and sunroof before he started up. No cars drove past this time of night, and it was quiet enough so Chris could listen to the sound of the river. He sat there for a moment, looking at Nancy’s house. Oates must have turned off the lights in the front of the house as he walked back to where they had been sitting. Light from that room spilled out onto the side yard, but beyond its range everything was dark, the river a presence only because Chris had witnessed it by daylight, knew that it was there. Chris imagined that Oates and Nancy were talking about him now, talking about his visit. He started up the engine and turned on his headlights, opening up a whole new swath of the world with the light. He pulled out onto the road. He did not want to be watching the house when the light went off in the sitting room and a light appeared in a bedroom upstairs. He did not begrudge Nancy and Oates their having each other—he felt kindly towards them both—but he didn’t want to feel sorry for himself, going home alone to his own dark house.
Bernard
WHEN RACHEL AND TEDDY HAD BEEN BABIES, THE HOUSE had smelled of diaper pail. Not that Bernard had noticed—he had a fine ear but a poorly developed sense of smell—but he remembered guests remarking on it. “It’s like cats, I guess,” Virginia had said. “Those who own them never smell them.”
Aimee had a refined nose. She had no tolerance for body odors of any sort and forced Bernard to engage in a continuing cycle of ablutions, ministering to his body orifices as if they were sources of pollution. Under her tutelage he flossed, he cleaned his ears with Q-Tips, in the shower he spread the cheeks of his buttocks and washed with soap, he filed his fingernails, clipped his toenails, spread petroleum jelly between his littlest toes, where the skin had a tendency to flake, and removed lint from his belly button. After meals that involved sauce or butter, he washed his mustache and the beard hair under his lip; otherwise he wouldn’t dare kiss Aimee. Not that she often felt inclined to kiss him since she had moved back in.
Instead of the cloth diapers Virginia had favored, Aimee used disposables. They had special odor-absorbing chemicals, and every night Bernard tied them up in a plastic bag, sealing them off from the air, and deposited them in the garbage can in the garage. When Aimee came home from work, she expected Horace to be clean and bathed and scentless.
Bernard had always found bodily smells sexy. He preferred Virginia’s sweaty armpits to Aimee’s odorless ones. He preferred a mouth that reeked of garlic to one that smacked of mouthwash. He was fond of the smell of his own shit, and he was particularly partial to the sweet smell of Horace’s loose bowel movements. He was partial to anything that Horace produced, and could even tolerate the smell of the white barf Horace sometimes coughed up, which made Aimee feel like retching.
During the week Aimee had been away with Horace visiting her parents, Bernard had lapsed somewhat in his meticulous habits, but he was industrious the day before her return, getting the house and his own aging body up to her standards again. He had missed Horace excessively, though not as much as he had expected to. In fact, he realized, during his trip to New York, he had actually enjoyed his temporary freedom. At Gillian’s book party he had reconnected with power brokers in the publishing world whom he hadn’t socialized with for a long time. He felt like a man of letters again, and though he had initially brandished a photograph of Horace, he discovered that few were interested. People passed right over the subject so dear to his heart and inquired about his book in progress. And as he began to talk about George Frideric Handel, Horace was nearly forgotten.
Back home again, Bernard felt guilty about this, as if he had betrayed his son by being consolable in his absence. He felt guilty, too, for not having accompanied Aimee, leaving her to manage the plane trip with Horace on her own. This guilt was exacerbated when Aimee and Horace returned the next evening and Bernard discovered that Horace had developed a diaper rash while he had been away.
“I’ll take him in to the pediatrician tomorrow morning,” he said.
“Don’t overreact, Bernard” was what Aimee said, and she passed along to Bernard a tube of Desitin ointment, which her mother had given her.
The smell of the ointment—fish oil!—rekindled memories of Bernard’s two grown children as babies. And the tube even looked the same. Was it possible that this ointment hadn’t been altered in all those years? The sight of Horace’s red thighs and genitalia filled Bernard with remorse. He would have liked to blame Aimee and his mother-in-law for this—for surely it was a result of neglect—but he didn’t dare. Aimee could certainly point out—and no doubt would point out—that it was he who had been the neglectful parent, absorbed by his monologues on Handel while his darling baby son’s most vulnerable flesh had been placed in jeopardy.
Aimee took off for work the morning after she was back. She had gone to bed early the night before, and they had not yet had an opportunity to talk. She had known Bernard had driven to New York with his writing group for a book event, but Bernard had not actually told her whose book was being celebrated. He always did his best not to mention Gillian’s name. He was hoping he could get away with not having to mention it now.
Bernard had just succeeded in getting Horace down for an afternoon nap when Virginia called. He had been planning to snatch some time to work on his book, but he hadn’t made it to his desk yet. Exhausted from carrying around a fretful Horace, he had sunk into his old leather armchair—the one piece of furniture he had not let Aimee get rid of when she did the house—the baby monitor still gripped in his hand.
“Virginia!” he said. “I’m glad to hear from you. How come you decided to spend the night in the city rather than drive back with me after the book party? I was devastated.”
“The events of the evening had tired me out,” said Virginia.
Bernard sensed, from Virginia’s tone, that there was something more going on here, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to know what it was.
“Nancy didn’t ride back with me either,” said Bernard. “Which meant I was left with just Adam, who is hardly scintillating company when awake and, in this case, even less so because he fell asleep.”
“I’m sure you can understand why Nancy wasn’t up to a car trip back with the Leopardis.”
“What was that fuss all about?” asked Bernard.
“Did you read Gillian’s novel?” asked Virginia.
“I glanced at it.”
“You need to do more than glance at it,” said Virginia. “And then we need to discuss what’s happened. That’s why I called. Are you free to meet me for lunch tomorrow?”
“I’m afraid not,” said Bernard.
“Thursday? Friday?”
“I’m not free for lunch at all,” said Bernard. Reluctantly he added, “I take care of Horace then.”
“Then let’s meet for a cup of coffee, in the morning or late afternoon,” said Virginia.
“I would dearly love to do that,” said Bernard. “But I’m on duty here while Aimee’s at the office.”
“Are you telling me that you’re never able to leave your house during the day?” asked Virginia.
“It’s just somewhat difficult at the moment,” said Bernard. He stretched out the top of his turtleneck and rubbed his collarbone with his knuckles. He knew what Virginia was thinking. “But why don’t you come over here? Tomorrow?”
If Aimee found out that Virginia had been over while she was away, that might arouse suspicions, yet it would be more awkward to leave Aimee home in the evening to go meet with Virginia. Especi
ally if they were talking about something that had to do with Gillian.
Virginia hesitated. “I’d really prefer to meet somewhere else,” she said finally, “but if that’s the only way, I suppose I’ll come. What time?”
“Horace takes his afternoon nap around two.”
“I’ll see you then,” said Virginia.
It had been a long time, Bernard realized, since Virginia had been to the house. “We’ve disconnected the doorbell,” he said. “But don’t knock. Horace is a light sleeper. I’ll leave the door open.”
After he hung up, Bernard went upstairs to check on Horace. He didn’t fully trust the baby monitor, and the house had solid walls. He wasn’t sure if Horace woke up crying he’d be able to hear it from his study. He stood at the doorway of Horace’s bedroom and watched, for a moment, the small lump in the crib. The room was a pale green, the color, Aimee had said, of willow leaves in early spring. Bernard would have preferred the robust green of the great green room of Goodnight Moon, but he hadn’t dared say so. It looked as if Horace was sleeping soundly, and with luck Bernard would have two hours. He was itching to get back into the world of George Frideric Handel, but with Virginia descending upon him tomorrow, he knew he had no choice but to take a look at Gillian’s novel. When he’d brought it back with him from New York, he’d slipped it right into the bookcase in his study. He found it now and settled in his armchair to read.
It didn’t take him long to realize why Nancy had been upset. He remembered when she had first read her manuscript to the Leopardi Circle. She’d dealt with her nervousness by reading fast and keeping her face down, and he’d had to interrupt her and tell her they couldn’t hear and she needed to start again. She’d looked up, her face stripped of color, and had gone back to the beginning, reading louder this time but still too fast.
He was halfway into the book and must not have heard the kitchen door open, because suddenly Aimee appeared. He sprang from his seat.
“I left early,” she said. “I’m coming down with a cold. I think I picked it up on the plane.”
The Writing Circle Page 23