by Avery Corman
“So many things going on, Veronica. The drawing is fascinating. Satan looks almost sly. It’s really quite clever.”
“I don’t see anything clever about it. And I can’t remember drawing it.”
“You drew it. Nobody else did and to me it’s your comment on the very fact of Satan as an image intruding in your life.”
“Well, since you like it so much,” she said sharply, “you can have it. My gift to you.”
“Thank you. You might, as we proceed, see if you can give vent to this repressed artistic side of yourself with different subject matter.”
“I have no control over it.”
“Then there’s another goal for us.”
“I know where you’re going. If I give up the book then I won’t have this Satan overload. Let me ask you this. If I do give up the book, will I be all right?”
“You’d have a better path to being ‘all right.’”
“I give up the book and there’s still work to do. I don’t give up the book, there’s more work to do.”
“Yes.”
“I’m frightened. To be having parallel experiences with an institutionalized woman—”
“It’s been a series of frightening incidents for you, the dead cat, and going further than that, back to your childhood. And now, Veronica, you have to be a grown-up. As to the book, could you work your way through it? Possibly. Why in the world would you do that to yourself?”
“Suppose I don’t work on it for a while. Pick it up at a later date.”
“You really think the book will be better for you at a later date?”
Ronnie took the drawing from Kaufman’s desk and studied it.
“This isn’t me.”
“I’m afraid it is.”
Ronnie drew a deep breath, then said, emotionally, “I don’t want to end up in a mental institution.” Kaufman waited. After a full minute of silence Ronnie finally said, “I’m going to drop it.”
“Good! Excellent! I’ll give you a letter if you need it. Now let’s look at these parallels with this woman you’re so worried about.”
“They’re signs of satanic possession, you know?”
“Don’t you want to say ‘presumed possession’ or ‘alleged possession ?
“They’re still the standard signs. Textbook.”
“You said telepathy. You never told me about telepathy.”
“Apparently I knew things about my roommate’s boyfriend he never speaks about. I thought he told me. He may not have. How would I have known?”
“Intuition, coincidence, a lucky guess. I wouldn’t make too much of it. As to the dreams and the drawings—Satan is not a symbol you and this woman invented. He’s time-tested over centuries, and if you dream him or draw him, and she does, too, I’d hazard it isn’t the first time more than one person ever did.”
“But if it’s happening to you, it doesn’t matter if it happened to other people at other times.”
“This is true. What we need to do is demystify these things. Swimming the English Channel, the Central Park race—I’m going to say that on the surface it sounds special, two unusual feats you share. It could be, though, like the drawings, a repressed ability. It’s not like you never ran. It’s not like she wasn’t a swimmer.”
“Not on that level.”
“It’s only a question of degree. A person, stressed, who regresses when stressed, writing a book on possession, which includes textbook signs of possession, begins to see signs of it within herself. Not supernatural to me. You’re integrating the book into your life. And if a woman in an institution who thinks she was possessed shares similar experiences, parallel experiences to yours—a mathematician could probably explain it to you within the laws of probability.”
“Maybe.”
“Here’s a question on an entirely different level, are you going to feel guilty about dropping the book?”
“A little.”
“Because of Richard?”
“Perhaps.”
This was an opening to a subject Kaufman was eager to pursue, Richard.
“Why, if this book is so wrong for you, did he leave you with renewed purpose in doing it?”
“He wasn’t selling me on it. He made that clear.”
“You did decide to go on.”
“My friends don’t think much of him either.”
“I don’t know the man.”
“If he wanted me to go on with the book, and by the way, he never said I should, it could’ve been for the original reason, he liked me for the subject. Or because he liked what I wrote so far. Or he doesn’t have access to the same kind of insights about me that you have.”
“Fine. I’m only wondering why, on his watch, he would have you persist in doing something so completely wrong for you.”
Nancy and Bob were delighted with the news of Ronnie finally abandoning the project. They talked over a spaghetti dinner in the women’s apartment. Ronnie estimated she used about three thousand dollars in advance money for living expenses since the start of the book. Bob was willing to shoulder the amount as an informal loan. Ronnie thought she could handle it within her savings. They agreed it was important for her to write something else as far from Satan and demons as she could get.
Ronnie had been finding herself passing time spinning the channels on daytime television and thought instead of continuing to do it aimlessly, she might write about it, and was able to land an assignment from her editor at New York magazine for an essay on daytime programming.
Jenna Hawkins was unflappable, stop, go, go, stop. She drafted a letter to Antoine Burris saying the writer was withdrawing under medical advice and returning the advance. Hawkins told Ronnie she should prepare herself for Burris claiming ownership of her outline, since he sent a check for her research, and Ronnie said she didn’t care. The agent liked the idea of the New York article and suggested she might eventually package an anthology of Ronnie’s pieces, Hawkins coming up with a title on the spot, In a New York Minute: Essays by a Writer on the Scene.
Ronnie had yet to inform Richard and thought she had better do so before the agent’s letter reached Burris. She called his cell phone number and, as usual, he didn’t answer, so she left a message saying she would send him an e-mail.
Have decided not to continue with the book. Was making me crazy. All being handled on the up-and-up by the agent. You said you had no vested interest. Hope so. Sorry.
Her friends and the therapist harbored a circumstantial case against Richard, anchored by the fact that he didn’t stop her from continuing with the book. She granted him the presumption of innocence. She was curious about how he would react, though. Whatever his reaction, she was not going ahead with it.
Two days and not a word, electronic or telephonic, from Our Man in Satanic Ritual Abuse, she noted. She went out for a hamburger with Nancy and Bob and told them about the e-mail dialogue with Claire Reilly and the New York Times item.
“‘It was like I was in a trance the whole way,’ the woman said. Sound familiar, road race fans?”
“She thinks she was possessed by Satan?” Bob said. “What does thinking you’re possessed by Satan have to do with swimming the English Channel?”
“Yes, I’m sure it’s not one of his events. But in possession, unusual physical strength is one of the so-called signs.”
“But you don’t believe in possession,” Nancy said.
“I don’t. Here’s what’s fascinating, though. On some level believing you’re possessed becomes the same thing as being possessed, and I guess that’s the case with this person.”
“Ronnie, believing you’re possessed is not the same thing as being possessed,” Bob said. “One is possessed and the other isn’t. And there isn’t any such thing.”
“God, am I glad you’re out of this book,” Nancy said.
“You two were right about it. Although, for a while there, I felt very ganged up on.”
“We are your gang,” Nancy said.
As she wat
ched television and took notes she wrote something light-hearted for the new piece and it occurred to her that she would have been eighteen months on the book without ever going near lighthearted. “Although you have to admire,” she wrote, “the athleticism of beach volleyball teams who show up on ESPN, if this is now an Olympic sport, shouldn’t there also be an adjacent one for building sand castles?”
Richard called, startling her in the middle of the day.
“It’s me, Ronnie.”
“Hello!”
“Just emerged from some really interesting interviews. Years ago, this cult might very well have kidnapped some children. Doesn’t appear to be any sexual abuse, at least nobody claims any. They did, it appears, force the children to participate in some animal sacrifices.”
“Jesus, Richard, why ennoble these people by writing about them?”
“It’s part of the story. So I’ve been around the clock unearthing this stuff. I just got back to checking messages. On the book, Ronnie, what’s best for you is what’s best for you. I feel that way completely. If it isn’t the project for you, for whatever the reasons, walk away. Antoine will live, I assure you. It was a thought originally. That’s all it was.”
“You’re totally cool with it?”
“Totally.”
“Good. I’m moving on, doing something for New York on daytime TV. It’s fun to do.”
“Great.”
“The book might have been important. But not fun. And not for me, ultimately.”
“I’m with you. And I’ll be with you. Coming back a week from Thursday. I saw they’re having a night of swing dancing at the plaza in Lincoln Center with a live band. Ever do that kind of dancing?”
“A little. In college.”
“I’ll be back that day. Let’s go.”
“Somehow I don’t think of you for that. Are you good at it?”
She was thinking of Bob and the bowling, wondering if Richard would say no, and then turn out to be a terrific dancer and thus curiously deceitful. This was a day for his surprising her.
“I am very, very good,” he said with directness. “Follow my lead and we’ll be stars.”
“Richard, thank you for this call.”
“Just direct your feet to the sunny side of the street,” and serious Richard left her chuckling, also a surprise.
Jenna Hawkins called Ronnie to say Antoine Burris sent a letter back, confirming the author was withdrawing from the project, that the advance of the moneys received thus far, fifteen thousand dollars, would be returned by the author, and he would agree to a release from the contract. Ronnie estimated she had spent the three thousand she mentioned to Bob and Nancy in time given over to the project, she wouldn’t be getting any of that back, and would have to take it as a loss. However, Hawkins was talking about making it all back on the New York Minute anthology of her articles. As Hawkins anticipated, Burris claimed ownership of the outline, a point Hawkins was prepared to negotiate. Burris asked if he could talk to Ronnie and Hawkins encouraged her to do so. A few days earlier Ronnie had been one of his authors and it was a courtesy she considered appropriate to the situation.
“It’s Antoine. Richard talked to me. And I heard from your agent. But let me hear it from you. This material turned out not to be the right fit?”
“It was psychologically more demanding than I anticipated.”
“It is an intense subject. Intellectually, did you find it interesting?”
“I did. If that were the only concern—”
“Fascinating, possession. Richard said your first pages were wonderful. More’s the pity. Ronnie, I’m not going to reassign this as yet. On the grounds that interest in the subject seems to be ongoing, I’m going to set everything aside for three months. If after three months, you’ve possibly had a change of heart, we’ll draw up the papers again and the project is yours.”
“That’s very nice of you, Antoine, but frankly—”
“Don’t commit yourself. You don’t have to do anything or say anything. This is all on my end. Legally, we’ll close this out for you. Informally, it remains your project if you happen to feel more inclined to do it.”
“You’re being very nice about it.”
“Self-interest. You may yet come around and then we’ll all have a wonderful book. All the best, Ronnie.”
“Thank you, Antoine.”
She couldn’t determine if he behaved responsibly because of Richard or was trying to find a way to hold on to a project he thought promising. Whatever the reason she was pleased to have received the call, which was better than a lawsuit.
Richard sent Ronnie an e-mail saying he would be dressed in period for their dance event, an unusually playful choice for this straight-arrow man. To match his style she went to a vintage dress shop and bought a 1940s blue and white polka-dot dress with an imitation gardenia for her hair. He arrived in a taxicab wearing a full-fitting blue pinstriped suit with wide lapels, wide slacks with big cuffs, a white shirt, and a period painted tie.
She laughed when she saw him, and was beaming over her own outfit.
“You’re going to die in that,” she said in the ride to Lincoln Center.
“I’ll take the jacket off,” and he opened it to reveal that underneath the suit jacket he was wearing broad suspenders.
A portion of the plaza was cordoned off for the people attending the event. The Lincoln Center Big Band was set up with a bandstand and sound system. At the sides were a couple of bars for drinks, and for those paying a surcharge on the night, Richard one of them, seating was available at tables ringing the dance area.
The band played “Take the A Train” and the evening was off to a fast start for the two hundred or so people participating. Ronnie’s swing dance experience was limited to a couple of college parties, but she had a sense of the lindy. Richard, though, was extremely deft and guided her through the moves. She blended with him and on a couple of the faster numbers a few of the senior citizens on the dance floor stopped dancing to watch them. On the slow dance portion, to “Star Dust,” Ronnie said, “Now I know why this kind of thing was popular,” as he drew her to him, their bodies pressing together.
They sat and sipped their Tom Collins drinks, a theme drink of the evening. Richard excused himself to go to the men’s room. Ronnie watched the dancers and then turned to look at the people seated. At a nearby table, holding a wineglass aloft, tipping it toward her as if to toast her, smiling a taunting smile, was Satan.
Horrified, she turned away and struggled for breath, then staggered from the table. The Satan of her dreams, of the drawings, had broken out of the confines of sleep and her unconscious and appeared in her conscious, waking life.
14
AS THE BAND PLAYED “Polka Dots and Moonbeams,” wildly irrelevant to her state of mind, she held on to a stanchion for the sound system to keep herself upright. She was trembling and soaking with perspiration. Richard found her there, outside the outer ring of tables.
“Take me home. I’m sick.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Take me home.”
They rushed toward the taxicab area, Richard supporting her stooped body with his arm.
“We should go to a hospital.”
“Take me home, take me home.”
After traveling a few blocks she asked the cabdriver to stop, went outside the taxicab, and vomited the sweet alcoholic drink and bile.
“You must have food poisoning.”
“It was the drink. Let me just get home.”
Nancy was in the living room reading a newspaper when they entered the apartment.
“Ronnie?”
“I got sick. The heat, the drink—” and she rushed to the bedroom and lay on her back.
“Maybe you should sit up,” Richard said, standing over her, Nancy next to him.
“I just want to rest. I need to rest.”
“Get you a cold towel?” Nancy asked.
“Good.”
Nancy brought in a moist
washcloth and placed it on Ronnie’s forehead.
“I’m going to sleep now.”
“You sure you’re okay?” Richard asked.
“She’s obviously not okay,” Nancy said sharply.
“I’ll be fine, let me just close my eyes. Sorry I ruined the night.”
“You don’t have to apologize to him,” Nancy said.
“I’ll call you in the morning.”
He took a last look and headed out of the apartment, Nancy not acknowledging him.
Nancy stroked Ronnie’s hand and Ronnie slipped into sleep, like a child exhausted by a most terrible day.
In the dream she was on a ballroom floor, the dance area enclosed by mirrors. She wore a white gown. Satan came forward, ludicrously wearing a tuxedo. He extended his hand to her to dance and she shook her head, no, and ran away from him in anxiety, the movements outsized, theatrical, as if it were a dance performance. She looked in the mirrors, which reflected her anxiety back to her as Satan hovered in the background, smiling, and in the repeated motif, the mirrors suddenly shattered. She awoke, soaking in her polka-dot dress.
She sat on the floor of the kitchen with the lights out, sipping a bottle of water. She saw Satan in her life, in her very life? “What?” she said aloud. She changed into pajamas and went back to sleep. Nancy looked in on her in the morning, saw her sleeping, and waited for her to awake. Nancy left for work only after assurances that Ronnie was feeling better.
Moving slowly, Ronnie showered and emerged to answer a ringing phone.
“How are you today?” Richard asked.
“Better than last night. Not terrific.”
“What was wrong?”
She was not inclined to admit, Oh, I merely saw Satan at an adjoining table, just sitting there among the dance patrons.