The Bar Harbor Retirement Home for Famous Writers_And Their Muses

by Terri-Lynne Defino

  “Tell us more about your memoir.” Judi wriggled closer. “I understand you’re working with someone?”

  “I’m not working at all,” Alfonse said. “It’s a memoir in name only.”

  “A ghostwriter.” Olivia shook her head. “I knew it. I would rather never see it written.”

  “It was contracted ages ago, before my health deteriorated.” A long, shallow breath did little to alleviate the woozy feeling. “I anticipated spending my golden years writing it. A swan song, no? But I don’t have it in me, Livy. Be kind.”

  “You don’t write anymore either, Olivia.” There was his raptor. Judi’s narrow, exotic eyes gleamed. “Don’t fault Alfonse for—”

  “Ladies.” Switch nodded toward the door, and the stern and unhappy-looking nurse stalking their way. Judi shifted in her chair, hid her dangerous bite behind a smile. Olivia did nothing of the kind.

  “Is there something wrong, Yana?” Cecibel intercepted the nurse.

  “You know very well that Mr. Carducci needs to have a nurse with him outside of his room. It’s very dangerous to—”

  “Hush your nonsense, child.” Olivia darted to Cecibel’s side faster than she should have been able to. “Alfonse is not a prisoner. I can take him anywhere he asks me to take him. Any of us can.”

  Cecibel bowed her head, cheeks blushing red. Did her shoulders shake with laughter? Or rage?

  “You are responsible for this?” Yana pointed to Olivia, who smacked her hand away.

  “It’s rude to point. And yes, I am. Cecibel was good enough to accompany us, and keep her trusted eye on Alfonse even though her shift ended long ago.”

  Yana’s prim lips set. She’d already lost, and would pretend she hadn’t. Alfonse kept a straight face. Oh, Olivia. Had she obliged and divorced the husband she abandoned, she could have made an honest man of Alfonse Carducci, writer, rake, miscreant. Perhaps.

  “You should have contacted me, Cecibel,” Yana murmured. “I’d have come.”

  “I know how busy things get just before dinner,” Cecibel answered. “It was no bother at all.”

  “Well, then.” Yana stood taller, checked her white wristwatch. “Dinner begins in twenty minutes. If Mr. Carducci wishes to eat in the dining room tonight, I’ll take him. Understood?”

  “Sure, Yana.”

  “Nurse Yana.”

  “You got it.”

  Yana made a show of checking his pulse, her eyes on her watch and a thin smile on her lips. Alfonse obliged obediently. Without his chart there to consult, she had no idea what was normal for him, and what was not. She let go his wrist and patted his hand, as if he were a small child, not a man diminished to the size of one.

  “Insolent cow,” Olivia grumbled at the nurse’s back, resuming her perch at Alfonse’s side. “What do you think, Alfie? Dinner with your old cohorts?”

  “That would be lovely. And Cecibel, too?”

  She glanced up, eyes wide. “I’m not allowed to eat in the residents’ dining room. But thank you, Mr. Cardu . . . thank you, Alfonse.”

  “Oh, I have a much better idea, then.” Judi Arsenault bolted to her feet and flittered from the room.

  “What is she up to now?” Switch stared after her, a look of longing softening the lines of his face. How old was Raymond Switcher? Younger than he; healthier, that much was certain. There is still time. Don’t waste it, my friend. But Alfonse said no such thing.

  Chapter 4

  Bar Harbor, Maine

  Memorial Day

  May 31, 1999

  Holidays are nothing more than excuses

  for gluttony, drunkery, and debauchery.

  Here’s to Left Sock Day!

  —Cornelius Traegar

  Even sitting in the sunshine was too much for him. The breeze, warm and steady, coming off the ocean, snatched his breath. He would persevere through the lobster-bake luncheon—of which he could not partake of a single claw, mollusk, or cob—and ask to be returned to his room. Quietly. He didn’t want to ruin the festivities for Raymond or Olivia or Judi. He didn’t want them to know how truly feeble he was.

  The faint scent of marijuana rolled over him like the surf, tickled out the past. Damp sheets. Silken copper splayed across his shoulder, his chest. An ivory leg tossed across his dark and hairy one, trapping him in a room, in a bed. They’d been fifty-two—she—and forty-nine—he. Indomitable. Not by time. Not by critics. Not by one another. They hadn’t known, then, what the years would bring. His continued rise. Her fall from grace. Distance even immortals such as they could not surmount.

  Alfonse spotted her in the arbor overlooking the sea, the telltale smoke wafting over her head, sparking those olfactory memories that let him forget, for a moment, how difficult every breath had become. Olivia’s fondness for weed wasn’t a new one, of course. Simply, now it was also necessary. The fall (or push) down the stairs all those years ago made it so.

  “I really ought to do something about that.” Dr. Kintz pulled a folding chair up to Alfonse’s wheeled one, turned it around, and sat with his arms draped over the back. “We could find ourselves in trouble.”

  “She is an old woman,” Alfonse told him. “This is Maine. No one cares what she does.”

  “It’s not good for her.”

  Alfonse chuffed. “And the butter with lobster you provided for her is? And the ice cream? Rolls? And the—”

  “Point taken.” He laughed. “Did you know it’ll probably be legal in a few months? Medicinally, anyway.”

  “I did not. Is that truly possible?”

  “It’s on the ballot. You can’t vote on it, because you’re not a resident yet, but Olivia, I mean, Mrs. Peppernell can.”

  “The question is, will she?” Alfonse sacrificed a few more breaths to laughter. “She likes being a rebel.”

  “Gee, I hadn’t noticed.”

  No more laughter. He couldn’t spare it. Richard Kintz could and did, the sound fading from his lips but remaining in the corners of his eyes. Nice eyes. Brown and warm and inquisitive. Alfonse enjoyed his company. He appreciated Richard’s genuine wish to make the lives of his patients better, more comfortable, or at least tolerable. Kindness went further than acumen when dealing with those so close to the inexorable. In any other place, such kindness would be appreciated. Here, where dwelt resentful artists still and never to be understood, Richard’s kindness would trip him up. Unless that glint now and then spied behind the smile, in the corner of his eye, was something meaner than amused patience.

  “I understand Cecibel has been watching over you.” Ah, there it was. The glint.

  Alfonse nodded sagely as he could. “She is my guardian angel.”

  “An orderly, not a nurse. You are aware.”

  “Of course. Richard, my boy, a nurse’s care is appreciated, but it will not buy me another moment longer than my allotment here on this earth. Cecibel, on the other hand, allows me to pretend there is a way to cheat.”

  Richard rested his chin to his forearms on the chair back. “Why?”

  “Why?”

  “Yes, sir. Why?” He straightened. “She puzzles me. Your interest in her puzzles me more.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Let’s be frank. There’s the obvious that shouldn’t matter, but whether we like it or not, it does. She’s a good worker, a hard worker. A worker, period. And that’s kind of my point. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate her. But why would a man of your fame and reputation, surrounded by his peers, break every unofficial rule here concerning the necessary line drawn between residents and staff to spend so much time with her?”

  Ah, so he did know of the dinners taken in his room, the four of them and Cecibel (who never ate a thing). Of course. Nothing happened in the Pen that the nurses didn’t report to their head doctor—a single man, pleasant to look at, with a respectable job, and still young enough to entice. Even Salvatore seemed smitten, the dear boy. Girl? Despite his own appetites, Alfonse was ever unsure as to how Sal viewed himself. Herself
. Salself.

  Dr. Kintz obviously did not know Cecibel. The nurses didn’t either. Alfonse would take that out and dissect why it was so, later when Richard was not sitting beside him waiting for curiosity to be appeased. Waiting for a reason to let him continue ignoring the breach in etiquette.

  “Her scars tell a story,” Alfonse said. “Every action, every reaction speaks to me as an artist. In short, she inspires me to create. And creation is the only purpose of life, after all. I have very little left of this one, my boy. Leave me that, and don’t put too much stock in rules that don’t really matter.”

  Richard scrubbed a hand across the back of his sunburned neck. “I don’t mean to give you a hard time. And I don’t mean to belittle Cecibel in any way. She intrigues me in the same way she inspires you, I suppose. She makes me want to know.”

  “Then you understand more than you think you do.”

  “This position . . .” Richard blew a breath through his lips. “It’s very different from what I was expecting.”

  He wanted to say more. It was there in the tension of his body, on the edge of his voice. All the good doctor needed was the opening he craved, the opening Alfonse did not have the energy to provide. “May I beg further indulgence, Dr. Kintz?”

  “Of course. What can I do for you?”

  “The sea air is a bit too much for my poor lungs. I need to rest, if someone could escort me back to my—”

  Dr. Richard Kintz scrambled out of his chair, summoning a nurse with an urgent flick of his fingers. How amusing, this, after all these years. Alfonse had no kin to sue should someone mistreat him, accidentally or not. Fame still lingered, overshadowed its failing subject. Alfonse would use that, as he always had, to mold things to his liking. In this tiny corner of so grand a life, the world still rested gently on his palm.

  Sunlight beams reached in, casting long shadows like bars across his room. Once, slumber had been ponderous and soothing. No longer. Slumber was a cat twitching ears at the smallest noise. The soft tread of rubber-soled shoes in the corridor, the click of a gently opened door, breath held and shallowly released.

  “Don’t go, Aldo. Please.”

  “I have to.”

  “I can’t do it. I’ll kill myself. I swear.”

  “Say that again and we’re through.”

  “You’re a liar. You’ll never be through with me.”

  “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

  Cecibel’s voice superimposed over those skirting between awake and asleep. The ones so clear they spoke directly into his brain. Joy prickled in bursts along his skin. He remembered the feeling, and yet it was new. Bigger. Brighter. More magnificent than it had ever been in his ungrateful youth.

  “I was only dozing.” Alfonse checked the clock. “Are the festivities over?”

  “Until dark.” Cecibel sat on the arm of his chair. “Most everyone is resting so they can enjoy the fireworks.”

  “Ah, the fireworks.”

  “It’s kind of amazing,” she said. “I understand Dr. Traegar always did it up big for Memorial Day, the Fourth, Labor Day, and New Year’s.”

  “And Valentine’s Day,” Alfonse added. “It was his favorite holiday. Always red and white fireworks.”

  “I have a feeling he was pretty fond of any reason to celebrate.” Cecibel picked at a thread on the hem of her shirt. “We only do the three summer ones now, but it’s still nice. When I was a kid, I loved watching the fireworks over the falls. Nothing like over the ocean, though.”

  Alfonse’s breath hitched. This tiny insight. This show of faith. “Falls? Niagara?”

  Cecibel chuckled. “Nothing that grand. The Paterson Falls. In New Jersey. That’s where I was born. St. Joe’s Hospital. We moved to Portland when I was a baby, but we always went back to my grandparents in Paterson for their big Fourth of July picnic.”

  “Silk City.”

  “You know of it?”

  “Of course, of course. It is where I lived when I first came to this country. It’s where many Italians had family already established. I was a bricklayer, back then.”

  “Really? I never read anything about that. Is this a story?”

  Alfonse put up his hands in surrender. “Yes, and no. I did live in Paterson for three months working as a bricklayer before I left it for New York City. It is not glamorous, and hardly worth mentioning. I don’t know that I ever have.”

  The clock ticked. A chime sounded. Cecibel looked at the clock and started to rise.

  “Something wrong, my dear?”

  She shrugged.

  “Tell me.”

  “It’s nearly time for dinner.”

  “And?”

  Cecibel bowed her head. “I’m an ungrateful idiot, but I’m not going to have dinner with you and the others anymore.”

  “Why not?” If Dr. Kintz said anything to you . . .

  Her shroud of hair blocked both the freakish and the fair. “It’s horribly uncomfortable.” Her voice, barely a whisper. “I eat alone in my room for a reason, Alfonse. Please let it go at that.”

  And she was gone, flying from his room like wind through his window. Like air from his lungs. Alfonse drew in slowly, exhaled long. Dr. Kintz had been right, in the completely wrong way. There was a necessary line between residents and staff, but not for the residents’ sake alone. Not for propriety or even to keep authority where it belonged. Cecibel sat with the king and his court, but never a morsel ate. She sipped water with a lemon squeeze. Safe enough. Alfonse had been certain she’d become more comfortable, trusted them not to be repulsed by her. Such a fool he was. A self-centered, insensitive fool. She’d known Olivia for years and still hid her face. Switch. Judi, even Salvatore. Known them. Loved them. And still hid from them. Not for them, for herself.

  A cold fury sent dangerous prickles of electricity to his extremities. Her proximity, even when he was sleeping, lit words inside him. Candles along a darkened path once so bright and eager. Cecibel was not her accident, and not what resulted from it. Dr. Kintz’s grazing assessment of her was right only on the surface. Beneath it, she was all things beautiful and bright. Bringer of words. Muse of creation. Alfonse didn’t know why or how, only that she was. So late in life, at the end of all things, Cecibel gave him back the thing that mattered most.

  Rising, creakily and carefully, Alfonse held enthusiasm on a short leash. When he could move without bones and flesh shaking apart, he got the nearly blank notebook from the drawer where teaspoons and napkins should have been. He took it to his desk set against the huge windows looking out onto the sea, and picked up a pen.

  Chapter 5

  Paterson, New Jersey

  Winter 1953

  She was, now, warm and lovely in his arms. An unfamiliar gift. A grief to come. Always and always, his. That was the deal. The pact. The promise written in kisses and on long walks. In screeched battles and makeup sex. Cecilia and Aldo. Aldo and Cecilia. The stars had proclaimed it; either they or the summer storm obscuring the Paterson Falls when first they met.

  Pressing her up against the cinderblock wall, Aldo fumbled with panties he’d yet to see. There was never any time for lingering, peeking, caressing. Stolen moments at the falls, behind the hot dog joint where he worked, in parked cars that didn’t belong to either of them. Quick and desperate and explosive. And done. She, pulling down her skirt. He, zipping up. Hands smoothed over hair. A smile, a laugh, a kiss. Until the next time they collided.

  Silk against his fingers. The elastic snap. Lace trim. He was in. Gloriously inside the heat of her, moving and groaning. The greasy-good stench of hot dogs and french fries spiked Aldo’s libido. Cecilia had no more modesty than a cat in an alley. It’s what he liked about her. Loved. Wild. Uninhibited. His, every scorching bit of her.

  Cecilia’s leg hitched over his hip. The other. Aldo clung to her flesh and pushed deeper. She groaned against his shoulder. “My God, Aldo. My God.” He was her God with all the power she imbued. In her, he could change the course of the Passaic River,
turn the falls upside down. With her, he wasn’t a closet case still flipping burgers and dogs two years after outgrowing his high school job. Without her, he was nothing. Less than nothing. Aldo didn’t exist at all.

  His brain emptied, washed out of him in orgasmic spasms shuddering every muscle in his body. Cecilia crushed herself to him. “Not yet. Don’t stop.” And it was enough to let him finish her. Then she was sliding off of him, her legs unhitched, her skirt pulled down.

  “I’m going to end up pregnant at this rate.”

  “Then you’ll have no choice but to make an honest man of me.”

  “I’m not marrying you, Aldo, one way or another. My dad’ll see you dead first.”

  “Even if I put a bun in your oven?”

  “Especially then. He’ll marry me off quick. When the baby comes a month or two early, we’ll all say what a miracle it was he came out so big and healthy.” She touched his cheek, tucked a strand of hair behind his ear. Those fingers, what they did to him. “You know I love you.”

  “Then let’s go. Right now. We can get married in Maryland, head down to Florida. No one has to ever see us again.”

  She glared. Five foot nothing, all dark hair and darker eyes. Aldo cringed inside. Yearned.

  “Easy for you,” she said. “You have no one but me. It’d kill my mother if I disappeared. She’s counting on me to care for her when she’s old. And what about my brothers? Who’s going to teach them how to treat a lady without me?”

  Not her father. He treated his wife like shit. Not her mother, who pretended otherwise and drank away the lies. Aldo reached for her. She molded her body to his.

  “What’s going to happen to us?” He kissed her hair like magic against his lips.

  “In a few years, I’ll marry a nice Italian boy from a good Italian family. He’ll adore me. Worship the ground I walk on. Or he’ll be just like my dad and forget I exist. Either way”—she grinned up at him—“you and I’ll have a torrid, lifelong affair. The children I have will be yours, but we’ll keep it a secret until my father and husband are dead. Then you and I will marry and make everything right.”