She remembered the giddy excitement of entering the classroom of the man who projected such energy and vitality, of wondering what he would wear that day, whose paper he’d read aloud as an example of stellar or atrocious writing. There was no “good” or “bad” in Dirk Jaworski’s classroom. Only superlatives. Grammatically correct sentences were “stupendous.” Misplaced commas were “horrific.”
She was volunteering in the theater that semester, making costumes for Romeo and Juliet as she daydreamed incessantly of the man who would soon take her to his bed. He had pulled her from her own uneventful existence into the drama of his life, where she would be by his side at the center of a whirlwind.
In the fervid imagination of inexperience, her opinion of him grew to be as grand as his opinion of himself. Watching the rehearsals, she found that Juliet’s words described the intensity of her infatuation.
Give me my Romeo; and, when he shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night
And pay no worship to the garish sun.
She copied the words into her journal and decided then she wanted to be a writer.
Now she wondered if this was what the new girl felt. That she had been chosen. That a new world was about to be opened up for her by this man.
Wanda knew the pattern. The new girl would hold Dirk’s interest for a week or a month, and then he’d be onto the next conquest, in search of some new admirer to reinflate the ego that required constant affirmation.
As she watched them round the corner with a lightness in their step that made them appear to glide, the heaviness in her heart overwhelmed the bitter hatred that would have been the dominant emotion in a person less depressed.
She went upstairs and glanced at the neatly folded laundry on the bed, just to confirm what she already knew. The pearl white G-string was missing. That’s what he had gone upstairs to retrieve when she heard him stop at the foot of the bed.
Who’s to blame for this, Wanda asked herself. You know who he is. You knew after the first year, when you stopped lying to yourself. Louise Pennypacker has been after you forever to leave him. Stupid Louise, who doesn’t know a thing about passion, who doesn’t understand that the only cure for my misery is the person who causes it. Stupid Louise and her stupid fucking baby. God, I hate myself. I fucking hate myself.
She rolled a fat, sticky joint and smoked herself unconscious.
Hannah, alone in her faded Victorian farmhouse, saw the world go dark in the thickening fog. For years, Hannah had thought that what she felt in these hours of darkness was fear, but today, somehow she understood that it was grief and despair.
Please let him learn something, Hannah whispered. Please let that fool Trevor Dunwoody gain some depth of character, some modicum of human understanding. Because my heart is breaking, and I need to tell someone.
5
Hannah awoke on the couch in her blue satin sweep-me-away dress. Someone was opening drawers in the kitchen. Trevor? Or some other wayward character who had fallen through the cracks of Wanda’s imagination? Hannah listened quietly, careful not to make a sound. Silverware clanged as a drawer slid open and then banged shut.
That better not be one of those awful alpha males from the Taken series, Hannah thought. I’ll stab him if he comes near me.
How long had she been asleep? She looked at the pearl and gold face of the stately grandfather clock, the clock that ticked eternally without ever being wound. Like all the clocks in the house, it had no hands. She looked to the window, but there was only the timeless pale fog that could indicate morning, midday, or afternoon.
Her heart sank. “I’ll never get out of here,” she muttered.
Trevor’s voice came from the kitchen. “You awake?”
Hannah’s dress rustled as she sat up. “I am now. Where were you?”
Trevor appeared in the doorway with a half-eaten peanut butter sandwich in hand. His jaw was working on the piece he’d just bitten off, which as far as Hannah could tell was about three proper mouthfuls. After forcing some of it down his throat, he said, “Where’s the fridge in this house?”
“There isn’t one.”
“What the hell?”
“The house is a castoff, like me. It was the setting for a pre–World War I romance that Wanda abandoned. Where did you go? Back to your story?”
“Yeah.”
Trevor stuffed the remaining half of the sandwich in his mouth and licked his fingers as he chewed with both cheeks bulging. Hannah noted how utterly unsuitable he was as a romantic lead, though she granted that his crude physicality was in some ways more realistic than the swaggering grace of Wanda’s more idealized heroes. He was, after all, created by a man. The President Has Been Stolen was to be the sixth in Ed Parsippany’s bestselling Trevor Dunwoody series. The other authors had done a good enough job of bringing the first five outlines to life. Wanda was the first woman to have a crack at the franchise.
“Where’d you leave off?” Hannah asked.
Trevor said something incomprehensible through a wad of sandwich that would have choked a dog.
“Finish chewing before you talk,” Hannah said.
Impatient to get his words out, Trevor swallowed the whole mouthful at once. His eyes went wide as the giant bulge stuck in his throat, and Hannah’s eyes went wide watching him. Quick as a flash, her mind ran through two alternate scenarios:
He chokes, and I leap up and save him. Heimlich maneuver, followed of course by mouth-to-mouth. But no… If Wanda’s had any hand in forming him, he’ll fall in love with me for saving him, and then I’ll be stuck here forever trying to fend him off. Ew! She winced at the thought of it.
Other option, he chokes, and I just sit here and watch him die. But then what happens to the body? There’s no place to bury him. I can’t throw him in the well, because I have to drink from there. Does he just rot in the living room? It’s bad enough I have to languish in this place, but I can’t stand strong odors. That would push me over the edge. Jesus, Trevor, swallow that fucking sandwich and don’t die on me!
Trevor saw her let out a breath of relief as he got the food down. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, then wiped both hands on his pants. “Had you in suspense there, huh?” He smiled. “That’s my specialty.”
“What happened in the book?”
“Oh. Well, I talked to the president’s mistress, Anna.”
“And you screwed her.”
Trevor cocked his head and gave her a funny look. “How’d you know that?”
“Because you screw every woman in your thrillers.”
“No,” said Trevor proudly. “Just the attractive ones. Wait, did you see? You weren’t watching me do her in the bathroom, were you?”
“No, Trevor. I only know the outline of the story. And even if I could have watched, I wouldn’t want to.”
“Afraid you’d get turned on?”
“Not in the least. What happened after Anna?”
“I flew to Paris, following a lead, got shot at, then went to Moscow undercover.”
Hannah thought through the outline to figure out how far into the story he was. “Is that where you left off?”
“No. I went back to DC. Had a meeting in the White House with the top brass. No sign of the president and no promising leads. We’re at a loss. Right now, we have a stand-in, a look-alike going through the president’s motions so the cameras can catch a glimpse of him now and then. We’re keeping his disappearance under wraps so the public doesn’t panic.”
Hannah nodded. “So you’re walking out of the White House. It’s eleven thirty on a cool fall evening, and a mist is falling, leaving orange halos around the domes of the sodium lamps on Pennsylvania Avenue.”
Trever looked surprised. “How the hell did you know that?”
“That part of the outline was v
ery specific. Do you know what happens next?”
“What?”
“Chapter sixteen.”
Hannah watched the anxiety rise in his eyes. His left hand slid to his crotch and clamped tightly around the package he was desperate to protect.
He began to ask a question, but broke off because his throat was dry. He swallowed hard and tried again. “What… Um… What happens to my wee-wee? Can you at least tell me? So I have a chance to protect myself?”
“I can tell you,” Hannah said, “but you won’t be able to protect yourself. If it’s written, it’s your destiny. It will happen and there’s nothing you can do.”
Trevor’s face took on the look of dauntless determination that had kept his avid readers coming back for five straight books. “I’m Trevor Dunwoody, goddamnit, and when I want something to happen, I make it happen. Now tell me who’s going to try to unman me and how, and I’ll kill the bastard.”
The moistness in his eyes belied the bravado of his words.
“Are you crying, Trevor?”
He nodded. “A little bit, yes.”
“But you’ve always been so brave. You’ve saved senators, generals, the daughter of a foreign president. You saved the entire city of New York.”
“But this is my winkie,” Trevor pleaded. “Me and Willy have been together our whole lives.”
Hannah smiled as she watched him squirm. “I do just fine without a willy.”
“That’s because you’ve never experienced the joy of having one. If you ask a blind man whether he misses the light, he’ll say no, because he doesn’t know what it’s like.”
Hannah got up from the couch and walked to where he stood in the doorway.
“Tell me, Trevor, how many women have you stuck that thing in?”
“I don’t know. Fifty? Sixty?”
“Do you ever wonder what they see in you?”
“I’m Trevor fucking Dunwoody,” he said proudly. “Every woman wants a piece of me.”
Hannah circled to his left, watching him as an investigator watches a suspect under questioning. “Have you ever noticed there’s not an ounce of courtship in your novels?”
“Who has time for courtship when you’re saving the world?”
“Have you ever noticed there’s not even a getting-to-know-you phase in any of your relationships? Or that every secretary, every concierge, every female cop and spy you have to deal with is young and beautiful? Have you ever noticed that after you bang them, and you bang every last one of them, you don’t have to interact with them again?”
Trevor shrugged. “I didn’t make the world I live in.”
“No,” said Hannah. “A man did. A man made your world, and in that world, every woman is just a hole waiting to be filled.”
“I’m not complaining,” Trevor said.
“Well I would never want to live in your world.”
“Maybe that’s why you’re stuck here.”
“Does it strike you as odd, Trevor, that your creator would take away your most prized possession? Little Willy there?” She clapped her hand on top of the hand that guarded his crotch.
“It’s Willy,” Trevor said. “Not little Willy. And yes, it makes no sense. What kind of hero has no pecker?”
“Wonder Woman,” Hannah said. “Clarice Starling. Princess Leia. Sigourney Weaver.”
“Yeah, but those are chicks. I’m Trevor fucking Dunwoody!”
“You want to know what happens, Trevor? I’ll tell you what happens. You’re going to find the president in the next chapter. You’ll stumble on him unexpectedly, and when you try to take him back, he’s not going to want to go. The president stole himself, remember? That’s the twist. You try to take him back and he shoots your penis off.”
Those words sent a jolt of terror down Trevor’s spine. He tried hard not to show his anguish. “The president,” he said through clenched teeth, “is an old military friend. He was my CO in the Marines. He would never shoot my pecker off.”
“Would you like to bet on that?”
“And besides, my author… What’s his name?”
“Ed Parsippany.”
“He would never do that to me.”
“But he’s not writing this one.”
“But he wrote the outline. And your, what’s her name, Wanda, has to write to the outline.”
Hannah turned her back to him as she walked toward the couch. “That’s just it,” she said, then turned again to face him. “She won’t stick to the outline. She’s distraught and stoned and no longer in control of what she writes.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I know her, Trevor. I live in the subconscious that she keeps ignoring. She hates domineering men. She used to be attracted to their confidence and certainty, to their vigor, but now she detests them. And the next time you step into your story, she’s going to blow your cock right off.”
Trevor said nothing, but she could see he was trembling. For a moment, she pitied him.
“If it’s any consolation,” she offered, “I like being a woman.”
Trevor began to sob.
6
Wanda awoke to the sound of the doorbell, rising slowly from her sprawl atop the folded laundry on the bed. The remains of the joint had burned a hole through one of Dirk’s shirts.
“Jesus,” she muttered. “Lucky I didn’t burn the house down.”
She looked at the clock as the bell rang again. 9:03 p.m. That would be Austin ringing, coming to talk to Dirk.
Wanda stood and wavered for a moment. The pot had lowered her blood sugar and she craved sweets. She pushed her hair from her face and didn’t bother looking in the mirror. She knew she looked like shit in her baggy sweats and oversized t-shirt, with her ratty hair and bloodshot eyes.
Should she put on a bra? The bell rang again.
No. It’s just Austin. I’ll tell him Dirk’s not here. Tell him to go away.
She wasted no time when she opened the door.
“Dirk’s not here.”
“I know.”
“Then… Wait, why are you here?”
“You want to walk over to the store with me?”
“No. How did you know Dirk’s not here?”
“Because I just saw him drinking wine at a café with one of his students.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“OK.” Austin shrugged. “I didn’t. You want to walk with me to the store?”
“What’s her name?”
“Shana. When’s the last time you were out?”
“Why?” She touched her face. “Do I look pasty?” She glanced at him to gauge his response and considered shutting the door in his face. “I was out a few hours ago,” she said defensively. “What do you care?”
“Where’d you go?”
“Here. The porch. I watched Dirk go to his meeting.”
“With Shana?”
“Is that her name?”
Austin leaned in to get a closer look at her eyes in the semi-dark. “You’re stoned.”
“A little.”
“Walk with me to the store.”
Wanda hesitated.
“I know you have a sweet tooth,” Austin said. “I’ll buy you a lemonade.”
In the three blocks between the house and the neighborhood store, they hardly talked. The sounds of the crickets and the insects in the trees struck Wanda as unusually vivid, and she remembered that she used to hear those sounds every night in the spring, back in the years when she used to get out in the evenings.
She glanced at Austin and wondered how often he heard these noises, how often he was out at night, and whether his life had some dimension hers lacked.
He’s plain, she noted, as she looked at the stubble on his face. Plain and average in every way except for intellect. Average height, average build, average looks, with an undistinguished voice you couldn’t pick out of a crowd. Dresses like the J. Crew catalog from four years ago.
Dwells in his work, like me.
He didn’t mind her looking at him any more than she minded him looking at her.
“I heard you lost your job.”
“No,” said Austin, opening the door to the mini-mart. The glaring fluorescent lights made her wince. “I gained a job.”
“Oh?”
“You want a soda?”
She shook her head. “Lemonade. You put the idea in my head and I can’t stop thinking about it.”
They walked to the drink cooler. “I’m glad you found something,” she said. “I was worried you were dropping by for sympathy. I don’t have any to give these days.”
“I know.” He pulled two bottles of lemonade from the cooler and handed her one. She opened it immediately and took a sip. She wanted to follow up on that I know. You know what, she wondered as they made their way to the register. That I’m the girlfriend of a narcissistic prick?
“Dirk is a narcissistic prick,” Austin said.
“God, I hate when you do that!”
“Do what?”
“Read my mind. Stay out of there.”
“It’s public knowledge,” Austin said as he laid a five on the counter.
“So?” Wanda shrugged.
Outside the store, she felt the tension leave her body, the tension of being stoned beneath the too-bright lights that exaggerated the popping colors of the junk food packages. The dark air was warm and moist. The song of the crickets wove itself into the fabric of the night.
I’ve been shut up in that office too long, she thought. Shut up in the stale air of that stale room. In the stale thoughts of my stale mind. Please don’t ask me how my writing is going. I know you’re going to ask, Austin, because there’s nothing else to talk about with me, but please don’t ask.
“How’s your writing going?”
“Like shit. Can we turn left here?”
“Take the long way home?”
“It’s a nice night.”
They walked in silence for half a block, and to her surprise she blurted, “It’s incoherent.” She stopped and thought about backing up, thought about giving him some context, since his own thoughts had probably been wandering and he might not know that she was still talking about her writing, that her writing was incoherent.
Wake Up, Wanda Wiley Page 4