Aaron drove around for over an hour not knowing where to go or what to do. Eventually he found himself in Laurie’s driveway. He stared at her house for a long while and then finally got out of the car and knocked on the door.
Her friend Ramona answered, and she said Laurie wasn’t working today because she was visiting a film set.
“With Ross.” She was a very dour person but seemed almost gleeful giving him this upsetting news.
Aaron left and he drove around aimlessly for another half hour with his poor departed dog in a box on the passenger seat. He briefly wondered how far it was to Hoboken, and if his elderly Buick would make it, but no, Bernie had done enough for him already. He decided there was only one place else to go: Emma’s house.
When he stood on her step, telling her about Dusty, he half expected her to roll her eyes—she was not a fan of animals—but she pulled him into her house and made him a stiff gin and tonic, ordering him to drink it as if it were medicine. Then she went out to the car for Dusty’s remains and put the box in her freezer.
She listened without interrupting as Aaron talked about Dusty: how he always turned around a minimum of three times before he settled down on his bed, how he liked to steal socks, how deeply he hated the UPS man, how he would look at Aaron directly in the eyes when Aaron spoke to him as if he could understand every word.
“It’s cliché to call him my best friend, but he was,” Aaron said.
When Aaron told Emma he wanted Dusty to have a proper burial, instead of scoffing at him for his sentimentality, she searched the internet for pet cemeteries and found one called Rainbow Bridge that was only two miles from Aaron’s house. She didn’t say a word when Aaron agreed to pay one hundred dollars for an eco-friendly pet pod and a small monthly maintenance fee.
Dusty was buried with his beloved squeak toy, Squirrely, and a jumbo package of Wavy Treats. Emma was there, squeezing Aaron’s hand when Dusty’s pod was lowered into the ground and covered with dirt.
Aaron and Emma were lying side by side on her double bed underneath her squealing ceiling fan. The fan was held together by a couple of rusty bolts, and Aaron feared it would eventually fly apart and fall down on their heads.
He’d been spending every night with Emma since Dusty’s death. There were too many memories of his dog in Aaron’s rented room. Every time he was home he kept waiting to hear the scritch of toenails on the floor and see a small dark form, squirming with joy at his arrival.
“I always knew you and I would get back together,” Emma said. “We’re so much alike. When I saw you with that bottle blonde I knew the relationship wouldn’t last. If she were a novel, she’d be a guilty pleasure, but you aren’t the kind of person who goes in for guilty pleasures. You require gravitas, and I respect you for that. Certainly I see why you were attracted to her…She’s easy on the eyes.”
He reached over to pat Emma’s bare shoulder. “You’re easy on the eyes as well.” Aaron was being truthful. Emma looked especially fetching tonight. Her cheeks were pleasantly flushed from the exertions of their earlier sexual intercourse and she’d cut her hair shorter. Now, instead of looking lank and lifeless, it curved around her chin in soft waves. Was she as pretty as Laurie? No, but few women were.
She recoiled from him. “Ugh. Don’t even start.”
“Start what?”
“Start trying to be something you’re not. I know that I used to say you were inattentive to my needs. And you’re probably trying to change that, but it’s not you, Aaron, and it doesn’t suit you anyway. If I’m going to be with you, I need to accept you the way you are. Gloomy, self-involved, unemotional.”
“But I think might have changed. Maybe a little.”
“Oh, please. People don’t change. I read in Psychology Today that people’s personalities are solidified by the time they’re five. Face it. You’re going to be the same for the rest of your life.”
Aaron shifted positions on Emma’s scratchy sheets. She bought them from a deep-discount store, and when she took them out of the package their folds were so pronounced they could cut butter. “You believe that and you still want to be with me?”
“While we were split up, I went out with this lawyer for a while. All he wanted to do was talk about how I was feeling, and was he being nurturing enough.” Emma shuddered. “After we’d been dating a month he even changed his Facebook status to ‘in a relationship.’ That’s when I knew it was over. You’d have hated him. When the waitress in the coffee shop asked for his order, he said ‘expresso’ instead of ‘espresso,’ and one of his favorite phrases was ‘for all intensive purposes.’”
“That’s dreadful,” Aaron said dutifully. Although lately such gaffes didn’t seem to bother him nearly as much. He couldn’t remember the last time he corrected someone’s English.
“They say familiarity breeds contempt, but I disagree,” Emma said. “I think familiarity is comforting…Turn over.”
“Excuse me?”
“Turn over. I’m going to scratch your back. I always scratch your back before you go to sleep.”
How odd he’d forgotten that routine. Aaron dutifully turned over even though his back didn’t need scratching and usually Emma scratched too hard. Sometimes she even drew blood.
Nineteen
A film set was one of the least magical places Laurie had ever seen. Equipment was everywhere: cameras, crane-like devices, snaking cords and hot powerful lights. The coffee shop where the meet-cute happened was not a real coffee shop at all but a flimsy fake set. The actors sparkled while the cameras rolled but seemed bored and indifferent in between takes. China New, the star, was actually surly and didn’t act a bit like the winning characters she portrayed on film.
The entire experience reminded Laurie of hot dogs, which she adored, but once when someone tried to tell her what went into making them, she plugged her ears and started singing, “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.” Certain things were better left unknown. Now that Laurie had gotten a glimpse behind the scenes, she knew she’d never want to see the film in the theaters.
She was polite and didn’t tell Ross how she felt. After visiting the studio several times, she finally begged off. If it was up to Ross he’d probably have her come with him every day.
He seemed to constantly crave her company even though she insisted on no funny business whatsoever, not even a peck on the cheek. Ross was always making evening and weekend plans for them. He claimed he didn’t want to simply take a bite of the Big Peach, he wanted to gobble it up. Therefore he was always inviting her out to all the latest restaurants, clubs and shows. They frequently caused a stir while they were out—Ross was something of a celebrity—and people often took their pictures. Coming from Swainboro, it was thrilling for Laurie to experience all the pleasures of a big city, and it took her mind off Aaron. But it was also exhausting. Sometimes she didn’t get home until well after midnight.
One night they were having dinner at a crowded restaurant. Laurie couldn’t remember the name of it but it specialized in seafood and craft cocktails. (A new concept for Laurie. When she heard the term she imagined bartenders with scissors, glue guns and glitter.) Ross was trying to convince Laurie to come to the set again.
“I have to stay home and write.” This was true. She was spending so much time with Ross she’d been neglecting her work.
“You could bring your laptop to the set.”
Laurie cut into her sea bass. “Too many distractions. Don’t you have a book due soon? When are you going to write it?”
For a man who made his living as a writer, he seemed to do very little of it.
“I’ll lock myself in my apartment for a couple of weeks before it’s due and bang it out,” he said.
“You’re obviously a writing savant. But I’m not. My butt needs to be super-glued to a chair for hours and hours.”
�
�Come on. It won’t be fun on the set without you.”
“I owe Bridget some pages.” Every time she finished a chapter, she sent it off to her editor. Originally her main character Lucy was going to end up with Art, the snobby dog owner, but she was rethinking that outcome. She’d added another character, based on her late husband, Jake. It looked like he was going to be the hero, which made a lot more sense. She and Jake never fought and he thought Laurie hung the moon.
“I have clout with Bridget. I’ll tell her to give you a homework pass.”
“I don’t need a pass. I like writing. It’s fun.”
Ross took a sip of his cocktail, something called a Whisky Smash, and frowned. “More fun than hanging out with me on the set of a rom-com?”
Definitely. Watching a movie being made was quite boring.
“How about if I talk them into giving you a small part? Wouldn’t that make it more tempting?”
“That’s sweet, but I need to pass.”
Before she’d visited the set, she would been tickled pink to be in the movie, but now, after seeing what actors went through—standing around for hours, hitting marks on the floor, doing takes over and over—she’d much rather be home creating her own world instead of acting in someone else’s.
Aaron and Emma were sitting in a coffee shop called Rise and Grind. She ordered her usual complicated coffee drink (a nonfat latte with caramel drizzle) and black coffee for Aaron without even asking him. He was craving cream and sugar in his morning brew but decided not to mention it. Emma made it clear she wanted him to be the same as always and chastised him if he evidenced any behavior that deviated from his pre-Laurie persona.
They’d been back together for two months, and living together for a week. Emma had never expressed a desire to live with him before, but because he cohabitated with Laurie she felt she had to keep up with “the bottle blonde.”
Likely she already regretted her decision, because for the last few minutes, she’d been complaining about his sleeping habits, saying he was far too restless. Aaron tried to listen but his mind wandered.
“In the middle of the night, I’m shivering because you’ve stolen all the—”
Her lips pulsate with the fluidity of a sea anemone.
“And something must be wrong with your sinuses. All the honks and clicks you make—”
She spangles his cheeks with the sputum of her ire.
“And last night you elbowed me twice in the—”
He feels his soul contracting.
She kicked him under the table. “Dammit, Aaron. Are you writing in your head again?”
“No. Of course not.”
“You better not be,” she whispered. “Not if you want to get lucky later.”
He nodded at the familiar threat. It’d been a long time since he “got lucky” with Emma. At least two weeks.
Emma retired to the ladies’ room. Aaron automatically reached into his jacket pocket to retrieve his notebook and jot down his thoughts, but halfway through the motion he remembered he wasn’t writing a novel. That’s because he wasn’t a novelist anymore; he was a PhD candidate.
In fact, last night his father had taken him out to dinner to celebrate Aaron’s new role in life. They went to Embers, a dark-paneled restaurant in Midtown Atlanta that specialized in prime rib. Horace Flowers was in a rare jovial mood and talked about all the rewards of academic life. And he reminded Aaron that he’d still be writing. Just not fiction.
His father was in such good spirits Aaron got up the nerve to ask a question that had been nagging him for months.
“Tell me,” he said. “What was wrong with Chiaroscuro?”
His father sighed. “Is this discourse necessary?”
“Indulge me.”
His father put his fork down beside his barely touched prime rib. Usually he ate with great gusto, like a caveman celebrating a fresh kill, but tonight his progress with his meal verged on the ladylike. “It was solipsistic.”
Aaron didn’t necessarily see that as a negative thing.
“Airless and dreary.”
Agreed. He’d been aiming for that effect.
“But its worst flaw is that it’s emotionally inauthentic. The author’s clearly trying to mimic what he himself has not experienced.”
Inauthentic. It was the worst thing his father could say. Fiction was worthless if it wasn’t authentic. The rest of the night Aaron had been silent, mulling over his father’s comment.
Now, his phone buzzed. He was surprised he could hear it over the coffee shop noises. It was Bernie. “Finally you answer. I’ve been calling you for the last couple of days.”
“Sorry. Sometimes I forget to charge my phone.”
“Glad I caught you. Guess what? An editor is interested in buying your novel.”
Aaron’s novel had already been shopped everywhere except for the smallest of presses. He imagined Bernie had connected with one of them. If Aaron signed with a tiny publisher his print run would likely be less than five hundred copies.
“Who is it?”
“Brace yourself: It’s Featherstone.”
It took a few seconds for Bernie’s reply to permeate the neurons in Aaron’s gray matter. Once it did they started firing madly. He knew he’d heard correctly, yet how could it be possible?
“Are you there?”
“Yes.”
“Now don’t run off and buy the Taj Mahal. They’re not offering a lot of dough. Only 10K but—”
“How did you—?”
“Six degrees of Bernie. Actually it was more like sixty degrees of Bernie, but I got an editor to read it and he loved it.”
Aaron felt weightless, as if he could float up to the coffee shop’s pressed metal ceiling. A troubling thought occurred. “Did you exploit the connection with my father? Because if you did—”
“I swear on my Fantasy Football scorecard I didn’t. You got this contract on the merit of your writing. They want you to come to New York, and they’re footing the bill. Like I said, they don’t pay much of an advance, but they treat their authors like—”
“Kings,” Aaron said, smiling.
Aaron talked with Bernie for a few more minutes, thanking him profusely. After he hung up the phone, he whispered the word, “Featherstone.”
He was afraid to say it any louder as he didn’t want to disturb the Fates who always seemed to be snatching away his happiness.
“Featherstone,” he whispered again. His head was swimmy with the news.
Emma returned to the table and gave Aaron a queer look. “What’s wrong? You seem…I don’t know…dazed, like that time I accidentally hit you on the head with my field hockey stick.”
He wished he were alone; he needed more time to let the news suffuse every molecule of his being. But he couldn’t ignore Emma. If he refused to reply, she’d crack him like a pistachio.
“Featherstone.”
“What? Why are you whispering?”
“My agent just called. I have a contract,” he said, a little louder. “With Featherstone.”
“Featherstone?” The word swept her off her feet. She plunked her narrow backside into the plastic chair across from him. Emma always ordered several copies of all the books Featherstone published to sell at The Spine. In the past she’d said, “They’re the only publishing company I completely trust.”
She recovered from the Featherstone spell more quickly than him. “What’s your advance?”
Aaron repeated the number Bernie gave him. An advance was immaterial to him. He would write for Featherstone for free.
“Pretty modest. Guess you’ll have to continue with your PhD plans.”
“I don’t want a PhD.”
“You can’t live on that kind of money. How are you going to support yourself?�
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Her comments were why he wished he’d been alone when he got the call. The only thought he wanted in his mind was his newly minted status as a Featherstone author. She was sullying his rarified state with mundane matters. It was like asking him to give her the TV remote control in the midst of sexual relations.
Which Emma had done.
More than once.
“I’ll go back to adjuncting,” he said to appease her. “And once the novel is published, I’ll be more likely to get a position teaching creative writing. Featherstone authors are always in demand in the academic world.”
Emma glanced at her phone. “I wish we could sit and talk about this ad infinitum, but one of my staff called in sick, and I have to go into the store. Someone in our household needs to make a living wage.”
They left the coffee shop, and Aaron trailed behind Emma in a state of utter bliss.
“Featherstone,” he whispered again. He couldn’t imagine he’d ever tire of saying the word.
Two days later Aaron received a call from his disgruntled father.
“I just got off the phone with Dr. Mullins. He tells me you’ve decided against the PhD program. Do you know how this makes me look? I spent valuable time getting your paperwork expedited. Care to explain?”
Aaron gave him the news about his contract with Featherstone. His announcement was met with silence. His father had always reviewed every Featherstone novel, and in general, the reviews were positive. Nicholas Windust was with Featherstone for his first two novels until he switched to a publisher called One. Windust’s former editor founded One, and it was called One because it only published one novelist: Windust.
“This has to do with our relationship,” his father said. “You know that it must.”
“My agent assures me it doesn’t, and I trust him completely.”
“You’re a fool if you believe that. Don’t forget I read your novel. The critics won’t be kind. You think I’m being cruel, but I’m merely trying to protect you.”
Love Literary Style Page 18