When Maximus was home from BytesTech, he went into the Room of Dreams, and, he said, wrote down bits and pieces in a Moleskin notebook, a plain black one, that he kept in a little gray metal box, locked, under the bed. He explained from the beginning that, as much as he loved her, she was forbidden from looking in the book. He didn't want anyone in the world to read his half-written and three-quarters written 'oeuvre' (that's the word he had used and inwardly she had giggled) until it was complete. But then her eyes would be the first. Gretchen didn't really care; yes, she had swooned at the one he had read her on the first date, but it must have been the absinthe. Poems stunk, even her boyfriend's, she was sure.
When Maximus told Gretchen he always wrote longhand in a notebook, she'd been surprised. The few times she entered his Room of Dreams, he seemed glued to the computer and the internet. Maybe doing research? How could he research the language of his inner soul on the internet? Shouldn't it come from his heart? Though, from some of the strange noises she heard at times from the speakers of the computer when he had the door closed, perhaps he was researching more exciting positions, more thrilling ways to satisfy her.
Since he had moved in, there had been fewer and fewer discussions about physics and astrology and celebrity chefs, and fewer and fewer exciting dates, and then there were none of both, but she supposed that's what happened. People moved in together and some of the fun died. But there was still fun and excitement exuding from him. So that made her happy. And watching TV with him was a delight, and eating popcorn, which he always seasoned with fun toppings: smoked paprika, wasabi, cumin, lemongrass and lime zest. They had done that the night before. Wasabi.
Now on the subway between Lorimer Street and Graham Avenue, Gretchen couldn't read the job posters any more, and the fat man to her right had bought cheap headphones that ensured she felt every bass beat of his hip-hop. Almost everyone was busy with their phones, tapping away, watching movies, playing games. The only exception was the hipster couple opposite her, clutching each other as if they feared one might fly off without a moment's notice. They were sweet, in the honeymoon phase, which she and Maximus were gradually growing out of—you couldn't stay like that forever—but the guy's mountain-man beard had Gretchen thinking of Dennis. Ugh! If Maximus ever grew his goatee into that...!
Why had the guy across from her grown it like that? She knew it was the Williamsburg style but...more than that, why did his girl put up with it? From what Gretchen could tell, he was cute, and would be so much cuter without it. While their faces were still locked in the kiss, the girl's right eye rolled around and stared directly at Gretchen. Accusingly. Gretchen averted her gaze, moved her eyes down the row of people opposite. She didn't want to appear odd or pervy, asking for an invite to a threesome.
There was an old Asian woman knitting, a Hispanic man with his daughter, an African American businessman, what looked like a Russian supermodel sporting cold sores, and three Scandinavian tourists surrounding a map they were all pointing at. She looked at the far wall next to the emergency exit door into the next car.
Poetry On The Move! exclaimed the poster. Such posters were scattered throughout the cars, vying for attention next to the ads for Viagra, ConEd and YouTube (though why ConEd and YouTube might need ads, Gretchen couldn't fathom). Some liberal arts-airy-fairy-hippie-like board member of the MTA must have insisted at some meeting years ago poetry must be paraded on the subway car walls to soften the ride, make it more cultural. Gretchen's eyes reacted as they normally did when confronted with poetry: as if they had met cattle prods. But before she could avert them, and, oh, how she wanted to, words caught in her retinas and sent messages zooming to her brain. Mother. Dishes. Anthem. Clang.
She was frozen with delight, shocked and stunned. Her winning scratch card fluttered to the filthy floor. She blinked to be sure she was seeing what she was seeing. She squinted. She gasped. Yes, there it was: the poem Maximus had read to her on their first date! This...this was incredible! Maximus's very own poem! Displayed there on the subway, in that frame, on that wall, for all of New York to read! Her Maximus! The man she lived with!
Sure, poems gave her the creeps, bored her to tears but, but...This was exciting! She supposed this meant it had been published at some stage. Just one poem? But Maximus said he hadn't finished anything. She felt a tingling, even in her privates. She shifted her bottom on the uncomfortable orange seat.
She jumped up, startling the group of gangbangers who had just gotten on at the last stop. She pushed past elbows and shoulders, Maximus's stock and the number of children she wanted from him rising with each step she took towards the poster. First three, then four... Breathless, she shoved her face towards the words, the letters, her breasts hovering over the weave of the alarmed woman underneath. Gretchen ran her fingers up and down the dusty, grimy frame, her eyes drinking in the words that had come from Maximus's innermost depths.
“Guys! Guys!” Gretchen yelled down the length of the car. Heads turned, eyes wary and alert, as if she might be an escaped mental patient. “This is my boyfriend's poem! Can you believe it?! He never told me! Guys! My boyfriend wrote this!”
As the masses stared, she whipped out her phone, put her camera in selfie mode, and snapped photos of herself pointing at the poster. One with her mouth gaping in delighted shock, one with a beaming smile, two with her leg up in the air behind her, her chest forward, and her hand under her chin, pinkie out, and one Vanna White-Wheel of Fortune, her palm underneath the frame.
As she snapped away, her mind thought feverishly. Like a flash of lightning to her skull, the mysterious charm of Poetry was unveiled to her. She finally understood it. Understood now how sexy it was. In this hi-tech, virtual world, her brain computed, where people interacted more with machines than with flesh, where churches were empty, where there was no spirituality, no soul, poetry was a good thing, reminding people of the need to feel. And now she didn't mean feel ill. Maybe there was even something good about clowns and mimes. Making children laugh? Hmm, beyond that, she couldn't imagine, but that was something good anyway. The laughter of innocent children, before they discovered the internet and were corrupted for life, their innocence stripped away by screens bulging with violence and porn. This modern age needed poetry precisely because it wasn't modern. And her Maximus was a master of the poetry pen.
Everyone in the train was giving her odd looks, especially two of the gangbangers. They were all probably jealous, she thought as she snapped away. Then she wondered if she was being mean, shoving her good fortune down their throats. She should have celebrated silently. Why would these strangers care? There were a million stories in the naked city; this was only one, and it wasn't theirs. Well, it wasn't really hers either, but it was close.
One of the gangbangers snickered. “If that's your boyfriend, he's some cradle snatcher!”
“A manther,” said his friend. Gretchen supposed that was a variation on 'cougar,' but it didn't make sense.
“Oh, no!” Gretchen said, with a shake of the head. “He's only—”
“He want some fresh meat, hunh?”
The hipster guy called out, “You need someone your own age. Like me.”
His girlfriend pushed him away.
“Look, dear,” said the woman underneath her. “Plain as day!”
The woman's talon-like, aqua fingernail pointed at the bottom of the poster where, in small numbers, the date of birth was under the poet's name. 1927. “Gold-dig much?”
The woman inched away from her, envy vying with repulsion on her features. Gretchen looked around at them all, confused. How had the entire car noticed the date and she hadn't? Her excitement, she supposed. But how had she not seen the name?
Thaddeus Floughty?!
“I—”
She stumbled back to the crowd towards her wheelie bag and sat down, her face burning with embarrassment.
As Gretchen raced down the street, her brain cells trundled in desperation. Could it be a pseudonym? If so, she could well un
derstand. Maximus Voo was a bizarre name. Maybe his agent had suggested he change it. Sometimes agents liked to invent a public persona, like all those actors in Hollywood who were gay but got married and had children. Why would the agent, in this youth-obsessed America, make a new poet almost a hundred years old? To give Maximus more cachet? Experience equaled...well, she didn't know what it might equal in the world of poetry. But Maximus had never mentioned an agent in any event. He had never even mentioned other poems. Only this one.
And she remembered now, after he had read the poem out to her, she had tried to take the paper it was written on, to see the words and reread them, but he had whipped it away and secreted it in his pocket. So that she couldn't commit the words more deeply to memory? Wouldn't recognize it if she heard it again? There had to be an explanation, a silly misunderstanding that, when she confronted Maximus, he would roar that wonderful laughter of his and explain with his grand gestures and different voices (which, incidentally, were beginning to grate). But something deep in her heart was whispering to her. Deep down, she already knew.
When she flung herself into the apartment, Gretchen didn't take off her jacket. She marched to the desk, tugged out the chair and threw herself on it. She revved up the computer. It wouldn't start. She pounded on it.
“Piece of crap machine!”
The screen twitched and shuddered and finally lit up. She was online. With trembling fingers, she Googled poem, dish, mother, national anthem. She was surprised to see the keyboard was wet. With her sweat and tears.
She gasped at what appeared online. Room of Dreams, her ass! More like Room of Theft!
There it was on the screen before her. The Sink of Love. By Thaddeus Floughty. This real poet had his own website, a Wikipedia entry, and was apparently lauded the world over. By those few poetry fans. It wasn't like not knowing a heavy metal act that had gotten to number one on the album charts. It was like not knowing someone famous that very few people knew. And that's what Maximus had banked on.
She was gripping the keyboard as if it were the safety bar of a roller coaster. She had to force herself to breathe. Her mind raced.
What else had he lied to her about? Her brain strained to remember that first night at Betty's Speakeasy. So much information had spewed from his lips. Her stupid ears had eagerly soaked everything up. If only she could remember now...!
One thing was easy enough. Gordon Ramsay and Beef Stroganoff. She had been begging Maxim to make the dish since he had pushed his suitcases through the door. As he had promised. But he never had, with one excuse or another. In fact, he had never cooked anything. Except Chef Boyardee.
Gretchen Googled Gordon Ramsay signature dish.
Her heart sank. Beef Wellington.
But...Beef Stroganoff? Whose signature dish was that? Maximus had been so specific! What had he said about it...think! THINK! With rice and...something, a splash of brandy. Pickle, she remembered, because it seemed strange.
She typed in signature dish, Beef Stroganoff rice brandy pickle.
Jamie Oliver.
Who?
But the internet said he was a bigger chef than even Gordon Ramsay. Really? Gretchen had never heard of him, but she supposed he was British and didn't have a US TV show and she wasn't interested in international chefs in any event. Or in cooking, even!
Her fingers flew across the keyboard. Higgs Boson. Discovery. She stared at the screen. The announcement was made on the Fourth of July. Not Christmas Day.
Mixing up celebrity chefs' signature dishes and getting dates of scientific discoveries wrong weren't sins. They were silly things that nobody in their right mind would lie about, so she had to think they were mistakes. But now she was scared. Maximus had said these things with the conviction of someone who knew what they were talking about, as an authority on the subject. Maybe he just plucked things out of the air at whim and stated them as fact. She thought she knew, after six months, who he was and how his mind worked. But now, how could she trust anything she said? A shiver ran up her spine. Was he a perpetual, pathological liar? Had a stranger moved into her home? Pleasured her in bed?
She ran into the bathroom, threw open the medicine cabinet, scrabbled around for the paracetamol, shook out four with shaky hands, gulped them down with her mouth at the faucet, gasped and gagged, then spun around and threw up down the toilet. He had left the seat up.
TWO HOURS LATER, SHE was washing the dishes, no, his dishes, his glasses that stank of old beer, his plates congealed with Spaghetti-O sauce, when she stiffened at the sound of a key rattling in the lock of the front door.
“Gretchen!” he called out cheerily. “Honey, I'm home!” He said it like a hubby from the 50s, with the quotes in his booming voice, all ironic and hipster-mode referencing. Recycling. Recontextualizing. Stealing. Yes, she knew he could do that.
She turned to face him, yellow rubber gloves with scrubbers in the fingertips dripping suds. He was wearing a smile and what looked like a morning coat and jodhpurs. In the two days she had been traveling, he had grown out his mustache and twirled the ends up, Dastardly Dan style. He looked like an idiot. He was holding a bottle of Veuve Clicquot, pink.
“What do you think of my new look?” he asked, hands out and with a twirl on their scratched parquet floor. “Sweet, right?”
He paused at the foot of the coffee table. He placed the bottle down. He knew something was up. Her face must've said it all. She savored the change in him, the wariness in his eyes, his drooping smile. She felt bad, but she loved wiping the silly smirk off his face.
“What's the matter?” She hated the concern in his voice.
“Why, hello, honey.” She spat out the term of endearment. “Sweet Maximus. Or should I call you Thaddeus? Thaddeus Floughty?”
A deer, a rabbit, a small woodland animal, trapped in the headlights.
“But—what—?”
“Here I stand,” she growled, “doing your filthy dishes...in the Sink of Love! Sink of LIES, more like!”
He shirked as she sprang towards him, fists poised in the gloves, suds running down her arms, ready to strike him out of rage and frustration. But she surprised herself, and by the time she reached him tears were streaming down her face.
She collapsed onto the sofa before him and sobbed into the scrubber fingers.
“You made me look like a fool in the subway today!” she bawled, suds mingling with bubbles of mucus. “I just don't know, d-don't know,” her lungs heaved and she struggled to get the words out, “want to make s-sure I didn't make a fool of myself a-almost a year ago. W-when I met you and f-fell for you. And a f-few months ago, when I let you m-move in.” She raised her head and implored, “Ohhhh, M-Maximus! Who are you?”
He was down on one knee before her in those ridiculous jodhpurs, and now she could see the apprehension in his eyes, the fear on his brow, the comfort slipping away.
“But, Gretchen, my little honeypot...”
He raised a comforting hand towards her shoulder,
“Honeypot, my ass!”
She smacked it away, rubber hitting flesh.
“These stupid gloves!” She tried to tear them off in one go, but they clung to her heated flesh and she scrabbled and tugged at them for what seemed like minutes, until finally they slid off and she flung them in his startled face. Suds rolled down his forehead and cheek. Fizzled on the pointy ends of his silly mustache.
“I know!” Gretchen wailed. “I know you didn't write that poem! I know you stole it! From Thaddeus Floughty! I saw it on the subway today! On a poster in the subway! I made a fool of myself! I told everyone my b-b-boyfriend wrote it! I-I-I lied to them! A-and you lied to me! About Gordon Ramsay! I think you can't even make toast, let alone Beef whatever the hell it is! And the Higgs Boson! And what else? What else have you lied to me about? Why would you do it? Why, Maximus? Why?”
She felt her body sink and heard the springs in the sofa creak as he sat next to her. She hated feeling the heat that emanated from his body, his deceitful body
, so close to hers. She saw his lips were trembling and dry, his eyes were now welling with tears, he was on the verge of bawling himself. And it made her feel good.
“You don't know,” Maximus said softly, his voice hoarse, “you don't know how horrible it is for a guy to be laughed at by a woman. Or by other guys, I suppose. But it's worse to be laughed at by a woman...you love.”
“Well, I wouldn't know that, would I?” Gretchen snapped, her tears dissolving into rage. “I've never loved a woman. What the hell are you talking about anyway? What is this crap? What does this love nonsense have to do with a poem you stole and passed off as your own? I warn you, Maximus, I'm not a pushover! I won't be collymoddled, molly-molly whatever the hell it is I mean, patronized, into believing a load of emotional blackmail shit!”
“I never show anybody my work. You know that. It took me months, years, but when I finally got up the courage and the strength, when I finally showed Peggy my poems, my real poems, as scared as I was to show them to her, she, she...laughed at them. Called them stupid. Worthless. Piles of shit. Poems that I had poured my heart into, spent hours, days, thinking of the right word, the right place to put the comma, poems that came from somewhere so deep in my soul, the rawest, most primal depths of my entire being... She just threw back her head and roared with laughter. I-I wanted to hit her. But you know I don't like violence. So I just left. And never saw her again. She was a horrible, horrid, repugnant woman. And she shoplifted for fun.”
“P-Peggy? Who's this mystery-woman Peggy? You never mentioned her before. This all important woman of your life.” There was accusation in Gretchen's voice.
“You said you didn't want to talk about past relationships. So I never told you. But she was my girlfriend before you. We went out for three years. It took me those three years to build up the nerve to show her my poems. She was a literary agent. It was worse than if she had pointed at my dick and roared with laughter at that. Much worse. Can you understand that? No, maybe you can't, because you don't have a...well, maybe you just can't.”
Emergency Exit (The Irish Lottery Series Book 6) Page 8