by Harper Logan
“You don’t know that,” said Serge. “In fact, I’d say it’s just the opposite. Look at these people. You know there’s nothing they like better than gossip.”
“Then let them gossip,” said Cam. “I’m not ashamed of loving you, Serge. I’d like you not to be ashamed either.”
“I’m not ashamed.”
“Fine, you’re wary.”
“Just…can I please just do this my way?” Serge pushed past him into the room, plastering that fake patrician smile on his face and shaking hands on his way to the bar. Men clapped him on the shoulder, women beamed admiringly at his figure. And all Cam could do was watch him go.
Was this how it was always going to be? In private, that warmth and love, but in public, the stiffness, the brush-off? It was getting so frustrating. But what could Cam do? There was no way he could make a scene, not during the night of Madeleine’s triumph.
Almost unconsciously he directed a waiter towards a thirsty-looking group of people, then shook the calloused hand of the artist who had painted Madeleine’s cover, and in general pressed people towards one another and kept them circulating. During it all, he kept a watchful eye on the distance between Madeleine and Serge. Whenever they would get too close together, he would guide another group of people to interrupt them.
“Ronald, I don’t know if you’ve met Sergio Faletti.”
“Oh, the crime writer? I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure.”
“Joanna, Madeleine has been dying to speak to you!”
“Has she? I didn’t think she remembered my name.”
And for half an hour, this strategy worked. The face of the koi had melted to the point of becoming smooth and featureless. The plates of cheeses and meats had been restocked. The champagne still flowed, although a couple of people had switched to harder drinks.
He caught up to Serge. “Thought I’d check up on you. How are things going?”
“I’m fine, Cam. Time of my life, surrounded by cardboard people. Is anyone here real at all?”
“Come on. These are your peers.”
“These? You’ve been in Rosebridge too long, my friend. This is small-town stuff right here.”
Just then it hit Cam: Serge never drank. He was swaying a little, side to side, his eyes glassy.
“How many of those have you had?” Cam asked.
“Not enough to dull the pain of this monotony.”
Why did he do that? Why was it, once they were among people, he became this exaggerated replica of himself?
“Well look, slow down. Have some coffee or something,” advised Cam.
“Nah. These people know the great Sergio Faletti. Ladies’ man, raconteur.” He swallowed more champagne. “Must live up to the image of me these people have. Hard-drinking, hard-living. But don’t worry, Cam. I haven’t done anything to embarrass you or your master. Mistress. Mistress sounds so wrong, like you’re sleeping with her. And we know you’d never do that,” he said in a voice loud enough to make Cam uncomfortable. “You’d never touch the hem of Madeleine’s garment!”
“Okay, okay, look, go chill out somewhere. The balcony’s nice and quiet.”
“Getting rid of me?” Serge finished his drink. “Who are you to get rid of me?”
“What are you doing?” Cam whispered. “Stop it, before you make fools of us both.”
Just then he heard the ting-ting-ting of a fork against a champagne flute, and turned.
Richard Athison, Madeleine’s publisher, was standing in the center of the room next to Madeleine. She was beaming at the gathered admirers.
“Everyone,” said Richard, “I’d like your attention for a moment. We’re here tonight to celebrate a victory.”
“Not all of us,” whispered Serge, and Cam jabbed him in the ribs with his elbow.
“Last year,” continued Richard, “when I had the chance to poach Madeleine from her former publisher, I knew she had two huge hits already…but could she pull it off a third time? I was worried. Everyone told me, ‘Have a little faith, Madeleine will come through.’ But we were talking major money. Our biggest ad buy of the season, certainly. The kind of fat advance that makes headlines. I had to know, before I signed the check, was this a sure thing?”
“Keep your expectations low and you’ll always be pleasantly surprised,” said Serge. A couple of people around them shushed him, and he rolled his eyes at them. Cam was growing more and more nervous. Without meaning to, he’d side-stepped a few feet away from Serge. Suddenly, now that there was a physical distance between them, he felt so horribly alone.
“So I hopped in the jet and flew up here to Rosebridge,” said Richard. “I knocked on her door, and asked what she was working on. She brought out six hundred pages, and everyone, my heart was racing. Not only was I going to sign her, but I was going to have a book ready immediately! So I asked her about it…and then she told me she was only halfway done. I looked at that thick stack of paper, then back at her, and I asked: Are you sure?”
Light laughter from the crowd.
“But I read the first chapter, then the second, and I knew we had to do this. I wanted Dona Quintana on our imprint. And now, with her second week as the number-one bestseller, we all know that my keen insight and shrewd judgment have scored another victory! Oh—Madeleine’s gorgeous prose helped, too!”
More raucous laughter.
“Why don’t you say a few words, Madeleine?”
Madeleine kissed Richard’s cheek. “A model of modesty, this one,” she said. “Friends, what is there to say? The world was ready for the story of Dona Quintana. I labored day and night to bring her into the world. I fretted over every detail.”
“Maybe she should have fretted a little more,” said Serge to the people around him. But as they stepped away, Cam looked, and there was an empty circle around Serge, as everyone kept their distance. Then, horrified, he realized Serge’s comment had carried across the room. Everyone could hear.
Madeleine had definitely heard. “That little bit of color commentary from our own Sergio Faletti, the up-and-coming mystery writer.” She raised her glass to him and turned to the crowd. “But back to the matter at hand. I asked myself continually, through the draft: Was this young woman real enough? Was she compelling enough to beguile a reader for the amount of pages I needed to tell her tale?”
“Guess we all know the answer to that!” said Serge.
“Hush!” whispered Cam.
“I think Mr. Faletti has had one too many,” said Madeleine, and the crowd laughed.
“One too many drinks, or one too many of your chapters?” retorted Serge. “Because last I checked, there were way, way too many of those.” He looked around for support, but no one was laughing.
Cam stepped back. This hurt too much to watch.
The crowd had parted between them, as though opening the lanes for two knights to joust. Madeleine looked delighted, taking a new glass of champagne. “Darling, it’s wonderful that you feel you can speak so freely of too many chapters. Were our positions reversed, I’d find the irony almost smothering.”
Confused, subdued laughter from the crowd. They sensed she’d scored a point, but didn’t know why. Cam certainly did.
Serge shot Cam a look, his eyebrow raised. Cam shrugged. “What’re you talking about now, Madeleine?” Serge said, a little too loudly.
“Oh, I thought it was quite clear.” She took a long drag from her cigarette, then let the smoke stream from her lips. She looked like a dragon ready to attack. “I was so hurt by your review when it came out; little did I know it was motivated by something as simple, as petty, as jealousy.”
Serge shook his head and took a step forward. “I’m not jealous of you. What should I envy, your talent for picking exactly the wrong metaphor, or your ability to stretch that metaphor over sixty pages?”
“Now see here,” began Richard, but Madeleine placed a calming hand on his arm. “Madeleine, I think you should call your security,” he said.
“Whatever f
or, Richard? Sergio here is drunk. And it’s understandable, isn’t it, Mr. Faletti? If I were writing the story—well, if I were writing it, Mr. Faletti would say it goes on far too long, so allow me to go against my narrative instincts tonight and tell you all a very short story. Which is appropriate, since it concerns Sergio’s career.”
Cam raised a hand. “Madeleine—”
But there was no stopping her. “Once upon a time, there was a writer named Sergio, who, like most intelligent people, had one, and exactly one, book in him. He wrote that book to some acclaim. I applaud that. I do. I enjoyed Pistols in Pisa, for what it was, a light entertainment. But of course it was taken very seriously by people in the know. It heralded a new talent, they said.” She rolled her cigarette in her fingers, looking down at the ember.
Cam had moved closer to Serge. “Come on,” he whispered. “Let’s just go.”
But Serge shook him off, glaring at Madeleine.
“Seriously,” said Cam. “You need to come with me. Let’s get some air.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
Cam stood there with his mouth open, frozen in shock. Serge wasn’t even looking at him. He was still staring right at Madeleine, who had begun to speak again.
“There’s a funny thing about talent,” she said, raising the cigarette to her lips again. “If all a writer has is one book, it’s impossible to tell talent from luck. The real test is that second book. I ask you…where is Sergio’s second book?”
“It’s coming,” Serge said. He stepped forward again, closer to her, further from Cam. The crowd separated further.
Cam almost could not bear to watch. What was wrong with Serge? Oh, but he knew that, didn’t he? This was that vein of pure arrogance inside Serge.
And deep down, Cam knew that he himself was too empty to pull Serge back. He wanted to be full, to be a soul, to be the deep kind of person who could enrapture Serge. Because if he was, he could protect Serge from what was coming next.
“I see,” said Madeleine. She exhaled another plume of smoke. “You have some pages, then?”
“Of course I’ve got pages.”
The smile that crept across her face seemed reptilian; something ancient and evil, something hungry that fed off pain. “You are a liar, Sergio Faletti.”
His face went pale, and he dropped his glass. It shattered at his feet. “What…what are you talking about?”
She laughed. “I know all about your writer’s block, dear. You haven’t been able to put together one page of that second book, have you?”
Now Serge turned to Cam. His voice cracked when he said, “You told her?”
Cam saw the pain in his eyes. The heartbreak. The sense of betrayal. But also the anger. He wanted to answer Serge so badly, but before he could, Serge had swung back to Madeleine. Clearly he was about to deny being blocked, but everyone had heard his anguished question to Cam.
“It’s sad, really,” she said. “I realized when I read your review of Dona Quintana that it was the voice of jealousy at work. I worried that it would destroy her chances in the world, that intelligent readers risked being swayed by your poisonous slander against my book. But here we are! It seems I was right, and the world loves sweet Dona Quintana. Who loves you, Sergio? Your readers are growing bored waiting for a book that will never happen. Who loves you? You won’t be teaching much longer, I’m sure. All those admiring students, gone, no longer there to feed your ego. Who is left? My dear assistant, Cam? Oh, Cam loves you now—look at him! Look how stricken he looks! But when he realizes what a sick person you are inside, the way I realize it, he’ll leave you too.”
That pushed Serge too far. “What the hell are you even talking about? Yeah, I’m blocked, fine. That happens to writers. But I’m not…I’m not dating your assistant!” He flung his hand out at Cam. His body swayed from the drink, and he looked desperately around at the gathered party. “I don’t date men! I’m straight! I don’t—I’m not—oh, fuck this!”
Cam wondered if this was what an icicle felt like; still, cold, unable to move, but liable at any moment to crack and fall, or to melt into nothingness. He watched as Serge pushed his way to the door and left.
He managed one agonized look back at the delighted Madeleine, before rushing out to find him.
23
Cam
Cam grabbed Serge’s arm. The big man’s tricep flexed as he pulled away. “Fuck off, Cam.”
“What the hell was that in there? What are you doing?” His breath came out as clouds of fog, and he realized it was much colder out here than it had been inside Madeleine’s.
“What am I doing? I’m getting away from you people. Psychopaths.”
“Would you stay a second? We need to talk.”
But Serge was walking quickly, his big legs carrying him in those long, loping strides that had seemed so attractive early on, but now made Cam work to keep up.
“Hold up!” yelled Cam.
Serge stopped in his tracks and wheeled around. “I don’t want to talk to you, Cam. You…you’re a thief. A liar. I can’t believe you.”
“You? Can’t believe me? What the fuck were you doing, denying our relationship like that?”
“What?”
“In front of every single person there! Saying we weren’t together? Do you know how that feels?”
Serge scowled. He looked so much bigger when he was angry. It made Cam take a step back. “How it feels? How it feels? How the fuck could you tell Madeleine Stevens that I haven’t written my book?”
“I never told her anything!”
“Bullshit! You tell her everything.”
“I promise you, Serge—”
“No, look, forget it. Don’t bother denying it. That just demeans us both. For whatever reason—sickening loyalty to her, or maybe because deep down all you really care about is getting ahead in the world—but for whatever reason you did it, you did something unforgivable.”
“But I didn’t.” It was crazy. He’d thought Madeleine was guessing. He never would have told her anything like that about Serge.
But then…if she weren’t guessing, where would she have gotten it? He thought he knew. Angela.
“If we could just talk about it, we could work this out,” he said to Serge.
“There’s nothing to work out. You go back to your queen bee, I’m sure she’s got some pointless commands for you to fulfill.”
“Don’t be like that.”
“Don’t be like that,” Serge said in a high, mocking tone.
“I’m sorry, did you just imitate me?” Now Cam was furious. “First you deny me to people I work with every day, then you accuse me of some crazy bullshit I never did, and now you act like a freaking five-year-old and mock me? Fuck you, Serge! You know, I thought I was really seeing through your arrogant act, but it wasn’t an act at all, was it? You really do think you’re God’s gift to the world. Yet you’re so freaked out about not being able to write, you’ll treat me like shit? No. Never again.”
“Oh, that’s a high and mighty tone from a traitor. Never speak to me again, Cam. We’re finished.”
The finality in his tone kept Cam frozen in his tracks as Serge stalked off.
24
Serge
So this was it, the end of the world. No storms, no falling buildings, just this: The sense that everything had ground to a halt, that millennia had passed in an instant, leaving all the gears of the great machinery of the world stuck and rusted.
Sergio couldn’t go home. That at least was impossible. To face the evidence of his failure might force him to think about what had happened, and the last thing he wanted was to think.
Instead, he took a walk. Not even a run. Running was for people with a goal in mind. He had no goals, he had nothing but the truth. He had always said the truth was the most important thing to him. He’d gotten what he wanted, hadn’t he? Now no one would think he was at all attached to Cam. Perfect. Good work, Sergio.
Most of the businesses around him were
closed and dark, the town having tucked itself in for the night. He was the only person out on the street. His jacket was too thin for this midnight wind cutting through. That was okay. Pain was fine. Pain was honest, wasn’t it?
His phone continued to buzz. He put it on silent mode, after seeing it was his agent calling. Word of his humiliation must have gotten around immediately. They would stop harassing him eventually. Everyone was just in an uproar, now that it was finally out in the open that he had failed in his book. That the sequel to Pistols in Pisa would never arrive. They’d calm down. They’d grow to accept his failure. The same way he had.
A few blocks down he found a bar and stopped in. The conversation with Cam, combined with the cold night air, had sobered him too much. Sober. What a strange thing. Always complaining to people about empty calories, about taking care of their bodies. What a hypocrite he was. He ordered a beer, and ate some pretzels out of the little bowl in front of him.
Empty was a life where you couldn’t be honest about yourself. Who cared what people filled their bodies with? He wouldn’t, anymore. What was the point? There was no use in him being the hot, sexy author if he had no pages to offer. He may as well be a potato. He crunched the pretzels, feeling their hard salt scraping against his mouth.
It reminded him of this one time at Cam’s apartment, when Cam had just licked the salt off a margarita glass then kissed him, the rough crystals against his tongue, the way he felt he could kiss that boy forever…
He couldn’t do that. He couldn’t think about Cam right now. Cam was a distraction, and always had been, hadn’t he? Hadn’t he? Just a way for Sergio to feel better about himself, about this writer’s block, about knowing the future was dark. Cam was like a little light entertainment, the band playing on the Titanic as the ship went down.
You know he was more than that to you.
He shook his head and drank his beer. The suds tingled against his lip. He was free of all lies and entanglements. Any little thoughts about Cam that happened through his mind were nothing more than mental weather, a brief squall that would blow away.
