by Susan Conley
“I meant to bring you something stronger,” he told me, “but couldn’t. After twenty years in the States, I still forget they don’t always serve alcohol in the cafés here.”
“Twenty years? Two more than me.”
“I know.”
His answer reminded me he had checked me online and thus knew more about me than I would have liked. Not to mention the fact that I had probably given him my card at the conference and so he had my address. Not a reassuring thought.
He motioned for me to drink the coffee. But I could not.
“What do you want of me?”
“Only the honor of editing your work and representing it.”
I scowled. “If you were who you claim to be, you’d write your own stories, not waste your time editing mine.”
“I’m that Bécquer,” he insisted, his eyes dark and serious. “Or I was when I was human.” There was anger in his voice and something else, frustration perhaps — or was it pain? “My mind was full of stories then, stories I could easily dress in words to show the world. But since I became an immortal, I have no stories or, if I do, words fail me when I try to capture them. Since I became immortal, I can’t write anymore, and I miss it. I miss it terribly. I miss the raw, unrestrained outburst of the artistic creation.”
“‘When I cannot see words curling like rings of smoke ‘round me, I am in darkness — I am nothing,’” I said.
“Virginia Woolf,” Bécquer attributed my quote. “My thoughts exactly. That is why I need you. You and others like you who have the gift, so I can bear witness to the birth of their stories and, through them, through their words, feel the flame that now eludes me.”
“And that is all you want from me?”
“That is all, I promise.”
“Why did you stop time then? Because you did it, right? You can change it back?”
He laughed, amused, it seemed, at the panic I couldn’t conceal from my voice as the thought struck me that this was to be forever, that we were to be the only ones alive in a frozen world.
“Yes, I did this, and we will join them in normal time after you give me your answer.”
“But I don’t understand. Why did you do it?”
“Because of her.” He pointed again at the woman by the door. “I was afraid of your reaction were you to learn from Beatriz that I am — immortal.”
“Why would she want to tell me?”
“To break your trust in me.” He shrugged when I frowned at him. “She’s jealous of you because she thinks I want you to take her place.”
“As your secretary? Why would I want to?”
“Precisely.”
“Didn’t you tell her?”
“Of course I did. Yet, she is here. But enough about her. Would you sign with me?”
My thoughts running wild at the idea of Bécquer still being alive, I hesitated.
“If you do,” he insisted, “you will never have to worry about the business part of writing. You will be free to write full-time while I deal with the editors and publishers. I used to be terrible at convincing people to buy my stories when I was human, but I’m surprisingly good at it now.”
I suppressed a smile. Was he really that clueless or was he just playing me?
Considering his striking features and the fact that most people in the industry were women, I didn’t find his success surprising at all. And his offer was most tempting. Like his human self, I also lacked the social skills needed to sell my work. Four months had already passed since I’d started my sabbatical. Four months I had spent mostly querying. If I signed with him, I could maybe finish my sequel before returning to my teaching. Yet …
“You’re scared of me.”
“I — ”
Bécquer smiled. “It’s only normal. No need to apologize. To fear the unknown is a survival skill we all possess. Would you sign if I promise you I won’t hurt anyone?”
I opened my mouth to say no, but didn’t. Instead, I nodded.
Bécquer beamed. “Then it’s done, for you have my word.”
He moved aside the espresso I hadn’t touched and once more set the contract in front of me.
“Should I sign with blood?”
A glint of red flashed through his eyes.
“That would be lovely.”
I winced.
“But not necessary.” He smiled a crooked smile, and passed me a pen, an antique black pen, I swear wasn’t there when I asked.
Our fingers brushed as I took it. His were not cold as I imagined, but pleasantly warm, as human’s would be.
“I told you I’m not a monster.”
With a flourish of his wrist, he signed his name beside mine.
“I will ask Beatriz to send you a copy,” he said, whisking the contract into his briefcase.
I looked up at the woman standing by the door and, as I did, she came to life and stepped inside.
With the feline grace that characterized all his movements, Bécquer stood — the noise of his chair skidding on the floor lost in the clamor of conversations that once again filled the room — and motioned his secretary to join us.
“Beatriz,” he called, as she came closer, “what a pleasant surprise. We were just talking about you.”
He flashed her a smile that would have charmed a miser out of his gold. But the pinched expression on the woman’s face remained unchanged. “Indeed,” she said and stared at me.
I rose to face her.
“Federico called,” Beatriz said after Bécquer had introduced us and told her I had signed with him. “He’ll be landing in Philadelphia in an hour and wants you to pick him up.”
Bécquer swore with an old-fashioned Spanish word I had never heard spoken. “Why didn’t you send Matt?”
“Because Federico insisted he wanted you to go.”
Like a boy told he must do his homework before playing, Bécquer sulked. “Is that why you came? To tell me this?”
Beatriz nodded. “I called your cell first. But, as usual, you left it at home.”
“I don’t need a cell phone.”
“You better go,” Beatriz insisted. “It took me a while to find you. Federico’s plane will be landing soon. And he hates waiting.”
“Yes, he does, doesn’t he? Even more than he hates me.”
“Federico doesn’t hate you.” Beatriz’s voice was firm as if talking to a stubborn child. “He — ”
“Then why does he do this to me? Now, I won’t have time to arrange things for the party.”
Beatriz took a step back as if urging him to follow. “You don’t have to worry about that. I told Matt to set the lights and decorations after you left this morning, and I double-checked with the catering service. I thought you were too busy this year to care for such trivial matters.”
Bécquer stared her down. “I appreciate your concern,” he told her, the stiffness of his body saying otherwise. “But you know I like to attend to the preparations in person.”
“You can always change the decorations if they are not to your liking.”
“Of course.” He looked at his watch, a flash of gold on his wrist. When he continued, the anger was gone from his voice, “But you were right in asking Matt to do it. If I am to get Federico, I will just make it in time before the first guests arrive. Which reminds me.” He turned toward me. “I have not invited you yet. Have I?”
“No, I don’t think you have.”
“How rude of me! I host a party for my authors and publishers every year for Halloween. I would be thrilled if you came.”
“Thank you for the invitation, but — ”
“The party starts at six,” he interrupted me. “Don’t worry about the directions. I’ll send Matt to pick you up. Expect him around five-thirty.” Then again, he
addressed Beatriz. “Please remind him if I forget.”
“One more thing,” he said to me. “Please, don’t mention my — condition. My other authors do not know.”
He smiled when I agreed and, after grabbing his briefcase, wrapped one arm around Beatriz’s waist and whisked her away.
I watched them go — he, dark and tall, she swaying slightly on her high heels — their closeness bothering me in a way that it shouldn’t have.
When they reached the door, he opened it for her with his free hand, his other never leaving her waist, and as she stepped outside, their bodies touched.
Beatriz looked back over her shoulder and glared at me, her pale blue eyes slits of cold hate, her lips closed in a tight line. Then she was gone.
I sat back.
I was breathing hard, I noticed, and my heart was beating fast. What had just happened? Was Beatriz jealous of me, as Bécquer had suggested, jealous that I’d take her place? Or was she warning me that Bécquer was hers? But he wasn’t, was he?
“She’s my personal secretary,” Bécquer had told me. How personal? I wondered now. Had he meant that they were lovers? And what if they were? Why should that bother me? But they were not, could not be for she was close to my age and he was … almost 200 years old.
I closed my eyes for a moment to calm myself. What was I thinking, worrying about Bécquer’s private life instead of worrying that he had a life at all, as he, by all logic, should have been long dead? Unless none of this had happened. Unless I had imagined he’d stopped time for us. Unless his claim that he was Bécquer had been a lie.
Outside the window, coming down Main, a blue BMW convertible waited at the light. While I watched, the roof rolled back and the sun poured inside the car, on the black hair and pale skin of the man who claimed to be Bécquer. I held my breath, afraid that he would burst into flames. Across the distance, Bécquer smiled and, in my head, I heard his laughter, a clear laughter of childish joy. Before I could react, the light turned green. With a slight movement of his hand, he shifted gears and disappeared in a blur of blue.
His acknowledgment of my reaction did nothing to assuage my fear because, as far as I was from the window, no human eye could have seen me. And so I knew that Bécquer was Bécquer as he claimed, an immortal that could step out of time, and I, by signing the contract, had just bound myself to him.
I took a deep breath. The smell of coffee now overpowered the other scent, lemon with a hint of cinnamon, that Bécquer had left.
Steam still rose from the second espresso he had brought me. I picked it up and swallowed the coffee in one gulp, burning my tongue. But caffeine did not change how I felt. The fear remained.
Unfortunately, as Bécquer had mentioned, in the States, you can’t get brandy in a café. And that was what I needed now, a shot of brandy in my coffee. Or, even better, a shot of brandy straight. I needed a drink.
Chapter Two: Madison
“Good for you!” was all Madison said when I told her I had an agent.
Her headphones back in her ears, she resumed her typing, while talking simultaneously to the heads of her girlfriends trapped on the screen.
“He invited me to his party,” I said.
Not surprisingly, I got no answer.
“MA-DI-SON!”
“What?”
“Close your laptop and look at me. We have to talk.”
“About what?”
I just stared.
“I have to go,” Madison spoke to her laptop, and then snapped it closed. “I was busy,” she said, pulling off her headphones.
I ignored the challenge in her voice. For all her attitude, and unlike her brother at her age, she at least obeyed me. For the moment that was enough.
“Have you decided whether you’re going to your party tonight?”
“Yes.”
“Yes, you have decided, or yes you’re going?”
“Yes, as in ‘I need a ride to the mall to buy a costume.’”
“Today?”
“It’s your fault, or have you forgotten you won’t let me wear the one I have?”
“I can’t take you to the mall. My party is at six.”
“You’re going to a party?”
Her surprised disbelief irked me, for it implied this was as rare an event as finding her in a good mood. Which was, in fact, the case.
“Yes, I am. I just told you. My agent invited me.”
“Then, you’re the one who needs to go to shopping. You have no costume.”
“It is not a costume party.” I frowned. “At least I don’t think it is.”
“You don’t know? Really Mom, you need help.”
“Okay. I’ll take you to the mall. You’re right. I need a dress.”
“Cool!”
Madison jumped from her bed and, in one of those sudden changes of mood I could never predict, sauntered over the piles of clothes scattered on the floor and hugged me. “I love you, you know?” she said.
“Yes, I know.”
“Now, about tonight,” I said as she started digging into her closet. “I will ask your brother to give you a ride at eight.”
Holding a pair of jeans small enough to fit a Barbie doll, she turned to me. “Are you kidding? He’ll be too stoned by then to drive.”
“Madison! Ryan has been clean for a year.”
“If you say so. But if you don’t mind, I’d rather ask Abby if her mom can drive us.”
I left her texting on her cell, and headed for my room. But her words about Ryan haunted me. Was she badmouthing her brother out of jealousy for all the attention he had gotten over the years by misbehaving, or had she seen something I’d missed?
But what? His urine tests, taken randomly since moving back in with us in late August, had been negative. And, as far as I knew, he had been attending his classes at the community college. A friend of mine taught there and I’d asked her to keep an eye on him. She would have called me had he missed too many classes.
As for his behavior, Ryan was polite to me, as polite as a teenager could be, and whenever he didn’t come home to sleep, he always let me know in advance. What else could I do? He was eighteen. I couldn’t tie him to a chair. That would be illegal, as the humorless psychologist had told me when I suggested it the previous year. The psychologist my ex had hired to evaluate us and advise the court on who should have custody of Ryan. I had meant it as a joke. He hadn’t.
I heard doors opening and closing and the water running in the shower. Drawn by fear and by the memory of a time when this was routine for me — the time last year, when I was trying to find proof that Ryan was using to force my reluctant ex to believe me — I stole into his room.
An unmade bed, a guitar against the wall, open books by the computer, and dirty clothes on the floor. Nothing obvious at first sight suggested drugs. No empty pens, no folded pieces of aluminum foil, and no dryer sheets. None of the paraphernalia I had found then, for at his worst, Ryan had not even tried to hide the evidence, as if he was too wasted to care, or maybe, on a subconscious level, crying for help.
No, nothing obvious, and I had become an expert at detecting everyday objects that could have another, lethal use, or unusual ones, like the glass container I was told was a bong by my friends at Because I Love You, the support group for parents like me. The glass container that, otherwise, I would have put on my mantelpiece. For it had that artsy look.
I bent down and picked up his rumpled jeans. With expert fingers, I checked his pockets: his cell phone as was expected, a box of matches from a club I memorized and, at the very bottom, a small piece of paper, rolled in itself.
I unrolled it distracted, my mind a thousand miles away, already considering what this meant, and the few possibilities I had to make it right, now that Ryan was eighteen. I held the paper in my hand
. A business card, I noticed. Then I saw the name, Bécquer’s name, beautifully rendered in the old-fashioned calligraphy I had seen earlier today. Bécquer’s name yelling at me.
“Ma, what are you doing?”
Lost in my thoughts, I hadn’t noticed the water in the shower had stopped running. But it had, and now Ryan stood at the door, a towel wrapped around his waist. The boy who once had fit so snugly in my arms, a boy no more, loomed over me, his dark brows raised in a question.
He wasn’t angry. Not yet. Only curious. He wasn’t angry, until I raised my hand and showed him the card. “Who gave you this?”
Fast and furious, Ryan reached forward and tore the card from my fingers. “What does it matter?” he asked as he squeezed it in his fist. “Are you spying on me?
“You don’t trust me, do you?” he continued, his voice getting louder with each word. “I did what you asked me, I took your dumb tests, and still you don’t trust me?”
“Have you met Bécquer?”
“Why should I tell you anything? You won’t believe me, anyway.”
Before I could answer, he grabbed some clothes from the floor and left the room.
I sat on the bed.
My two worlds that until then I had kept apart, my writing and Ryan’s addiction, had unexpectedly collided and lay broken at my feet.
Was Ryan using again? Why had Bécquer not mentioned he knew him?
Could it be he had met him, but didn’t know he was my son? Besides, even if Bécquer knew who Ryan was and had given him his card, that didn’t mean they had been together when Ryan … It was only a rolled card. It didn’t have to mean he had been using. But if he hadn’t, why had he refused to answer me?
“Mom?” I looked up. Madison, dressed to kill in a short dress over tight pants, and wearing more make-up than I use in a month, stared at me. “Are you ready?”
“Ready?”
Madison pouted. “Don’t tell me you’re bailing on me? Whatever Ryan has done this time, we need to go to the mall.”
Lucky for me, I had somebody to set my priorities straight.
I knew better than to say that aloud, as Madison didn’t take well to sarcasm. Besides, she was right, we did need to go to the mall. As things stood between Ryan and me and, despite the fact that Bécquer was not quite human and I barely knew him, my guess was I had a better chance to get an explanation from Bécquer than from my son. And that meant I had to go to the party to talk to him, and thus needed a dress.
