The Writing Circle

by Corinne Demas

  “Beethoven does have the capacity of eclipsing everyone. I will see to it that he doesn’t.” He smiled at Nancy.

  What she hadn’t realized until this moment was that she was on trial. She had thought she had been invited to join them, and hadn’t realized that this was just a meeting where they were going to look her over and then decide whether she would be invited back. She would never have consented to come on those terms, never have subjected herself to such humiliation if she had known. She wanted to get up and collect her coat and walk out on them. She pictured herself doing this, her tote bag close against her hip, but she didn’t move.

  Gillian’s turn was next. She passed out a poem, apologizing that she had forgotten Nancy would be coming and had made only five copies.

  “No problem,” said Bernard. “We’ll look on together.” He moved closer to Nancy; the foam in the pillow cushion contracted under his weight. He crossed his leg and rested the pages on his knee.

  The poem was in six parts. Gillian read in a whispery voice, her chin held up, like a heron holding something in its beak. The point of the poem eluded Nancy, and she didn’t get many of the allusions, but there were lines that were rich and intelligent, so it was impossible to dismiss the poem as merely pretentious. Nancy had never read a collection of Gillian’s poems, but she had read selections from them that had been included in reviews. She had read them looking forward to finding fault, but the fault she found was her own inadequacy, not the poems’. Still, Gillian could be more accessible if she chose. Instead, she had indulged herself in exclusivity. She wrote to please no one, wrote for no audience. Nancy admired this. In her own work, she wrote for herself first, but she also had a desire to please, befriend the reader, make the reader see things her way.

  When it came her turn to comment, she chose to simply praise something she found to praise, an image that she could make sense of:

  When all flesh and fat is gone

  dolphin’s sleek skin, ship’s white sails

  only bones remain:

  the secret, ineffable structure

  She could tell, in a second, that she had confused Gillian, thrown her off. Nancy guessed that Gillian had been prepared to dislike her, yet she was as vulnerable to praise as anyone. Nancy knew she had disarmed Gillian, outmaneuvered her.

  When Adam’s work was discussed next—a novel that involved a young American businessman and a Russian woman who might or might not be a prostitute—Nancy felt she was on safer ground. Adam’s novel was probably brilliant, but it was verbose, and verbosity is an easy thing to point out. Adam’s naïveté, his effusiveness, his insecurity were so palpable that Nancy felt a protective urge towards him. He was in love with everything he wrote, and Nancy could see he suffered viscerally at the mere thought of cutting or revising. She put her suggestions as delicately as she could, making sure that her praise was extreme, her criticism paltry. Even so, she could see Adam cringe under the weight of it. Clearly, he had been told to hack away at his prose many times before. He looked up at her, and his eyes were so large and brown, his lashes girlishly long, his mouth held firmly against any betrayal of emotion.

  “Sonia is fascinating,” she said in conclusion. “She’s not like any character I’ve ever met before. I want to read more about her.”

  Adam swallowed and gave a little nod.

  “Well,” said Virginia, “that’s such a nice note to end on. I suggest we stop here.”

  “I’m on for next week,” said Chris.

  “Yes, Chris,” said Gillian, “we know.”

  Everyone stood and began gathering their papers, but Nancy saw that she was the only one actually leaving. They had planned to stay and talk about her after she was gone, but Bernard had neglected to tell her that, too. To spare herself further humiliation, she pretended that she had known this all along.

  Bernard walked her to her car, but it was obvious he was going back in to join the others.

  “Virginia says I have bungled dreadfully,” he said. “I should have explained.”

  “Don’t worry, Bernard,” said Nancy. “It’s okay. I get it. No need to explain.”

  “I just find all this rather awkward, you know. And don’t worry, I’m absolutely certain there will be no question about everyone wanting you. You’re first rate, you know.”

  “I know,” said Nancy, smiling.

  “Of course you may not want to be part of us, now that you’ve seen us, seen who we are and all the foolishness we’re prey to.” He waited for a moment, expecting forgiveness? Nancy wondered, but she didn’t say anything.

  “Good-bye, now, Nancy,” he said.

  “Good-bye, Bernard.” She had her hand out, ready to give it to him, but he took her face in his hands and kissed her on both cheeks. That European double kiss, the artfulness of it, made it seem even more formal than a handshake.

  It was a cool afternoon, cooler, too, now that the sun was going down. She turned on the heater of her car and sat with the engine running, and looked across the street. She could see the heads in the lighted window of Adam’s living room. Virginia had her back to the window. Her hair was dyed black, and although it wasn’t visible at this distance, Nancy knew there was a small balding patch on the top of Virginia’s head.

  They were there, inside the warm living room, discussing her. Her spot on the sofa was empty, but they would each be picturing her among them still, as they talked about whether they wanted her to continue with them or not. Bernard, yes; Virginia, yes; Adam, probably yes. Chris, she had no idea. And Gillian? Nancy guessed that Gillian did not want her but would have difficulty coming up with a legitimate reason to vote against her. Did it have to be unanimous? Nancy had no idea. With votes like this, there were always surprises. Someone whom she had been counting on for support would turn out to be harboring resentment towards her. And someone whom she had felt was an enemy would prove to be a supporter.

  She was angry that she had given them the right to judge her. In a second of empowerment, she decided that if they offered her membership, she would turn them down. But just as quickly she knew that she would not. If they asked her to join, she would be flattered and honored.

  Hating herself for being this way, she shifted the car into drive and pulled out into the street. All the way home she switched from one radio station to another, unable to find anything interesting enough to distract her from her thoughts. Back at the house, she called Oates, knowing she would get his voice mail but wanting to hear the sound of his voice. She left a message. Then she called Aliki, at college.

  “Hey, you’ve reached my cell. You know what to do,” said the message. Nancy hung up quickly.

  She took the folder with the pages of her novel out of her tote bag and laid it on her desk. She read over the pages she had brought with her, read them to herself as she would have read them aloud. They were hers still, unshared, private. No one there knew what she was writing about. No one knew about the young doctor leaving the hospital late at night, looking up at the window of the room where there was a dead baby.

  Out behind her house, on the darkening riverbank, Nancy closed her eyes and listened to the water move past. Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, she thought.

  NANCY EXPECTED BERNARD TO CALL HER, but he didn’t. He drove by and came rushing up to the front door, the door that almost no one ever used.

  “I have been asked to invite you to be part of the Leopardi Circle,” he said.

  “Leopardi Circle?”

  “It’s what we call ourselves, strictly among ourselves, of course,” said Bernard. “Helene bestowed the name on us. She was an Italophile and loved Leopardi.” In response to Nancy’s blank stare he added, gently, “Leopardi, the poet.”

  Nancy smiled as if she might have known.

  “Will you give us the honor of joining us?” asked Bernard.

  “I think I will,” Nancy said. But as his face began to register relief, she asked, because she felt she had to, “Tell me, though, was it unanimous?”

 
“Everyone is onboard, Nancy,” he said firmly.

  “Only someone—or perhaps more than one—needed a little persuasion?”

  “There are some people who always require persuasion,” said Bernard. “That’s the way they operate. But everyone is terribly enthusiastic about having you be part of us.”

  “Thank you, Bernard,” she said. “You’re a good soul.” And she kissed him European style, on both of his cheeks, high enough on his face so her lips touched pink, hairless skin, and not the grey beard below.

  Paul

  PAUL TRAUB, GILLIAN’S STEPSON, WAS WAITING FOR HER TO pick him up outside the ice hockey rink. Ordinarily his dad picked him up after Sunday practice, but his dad was on call at the hospital this weekend and Gillian had said she’d do it. He should have known she’d be late. He just hoped she hadn’t forgotten. When his friend Mike—the only friend he’d made this miserable year at The Academy—had been picked up, Mike’s mother had offered him a ride, but he’d assured her he didn’t need one. It was a toss-up: risk being stuck here if Gillian had forgotten or taking the ride from Mike’s mom and having Gillian show up after he left. He chose the former. If Gillian turned up and couldn’t find him, his dad would give him hell.

  Paul called the house, but no one was home. He guessed Gillian was coming straight from something else—those writers she hung out with on Sundays. Anyone else—anyone else who was normal, that is—would have a cell phone. But Gillian refused to own one, refused to even use one. How the hell was he supposed to get in touch with her if there was no place to call her?

  It was getting cold, and Paul pulled the hood of his sweatshirt up over his head. When he’d dropped him off in the morning, his dad had asked, “No jacket?” and he’d said, “Naw, don’t need one,” and it had ended there. If it had been his mother, there would have been an argument and she would have pushed his jacket at him as he got out of the car. As for Gillian, she didn’t notice what he wore, and if she did she didn’t have any opinions about it. Or maybe she did have opinions, but she didn’t express them. It was hard to tell. She didn’t comment about much of anything he did. He liked that, mostly, but sometimes it seemed weird, too. Sometimes he missed his mother’s constant intrusion, constant worrying—obsessing, yes, that’s what it was, obsessing—over every detail of his life. He stepped back into the doorway to get out of the wind. He was afraid to go inside in case Gillian drove up, didn’t see him, and drove away. He couldn’t imagine she’d actually get out of the car to look for him.

  Mr. O’Connor, who ran the ice arena, came out with a bunch of keys in his hand. “You still here?” he asked.

  “Just waiting for my ride,” said Paul.

  “I’m turning out the lights now, locking up,” said Mr. O’Connor. “You going to be okay?”

  “Sure,” said Paul. “They’ll be here any minute.” The word they was a nice, neutral word.

  Mr. O’Connor was a red-faced man who, Paul had heard, had once been a professional hockey player but who looked as if he hadn’t done anything athletic in a few decades. He seemed to like Paul, but Paul didn’t know why. He didn’t know why anyone would ever like him.

  “I’ll be heading over to Morse Hall after I’m done closing up here. So if you get stuck, come by and find me.”

  “Thanks, Mr. O’Connor,” said Paul. Maybe Mr. O’Connor felt sorry for him. Maybe everyone did.

  Paul watched the lights go out in the high windows of the arena. Mr. O’Connor came out and locked the doors behind him.

  “See you later,” he said, and he waved at Paul.

  “See you later,” said Paul. He watched Mr. O’Connor walk across the street. There were few cars coming at this time on a Sunday, so he didn’t go down to the crosswalk, just darted across the road as students were never supposed to do. Paul thought he might turn back and wave again, but he didn’t. He just raised his collar to the wind and kept walking.

  The hockey rink was at the far end of the campus, and the campus now looked like a small, tidy village in the distance, with the chapel bell tower at the center of the green. It looked idyllic, as it did in the photographs in the brochure they sent out to prospective students. The buildings farther around on the campus were in a variety of styles, some modern, some just plain ugly, but the four original buildings around the quadrangle were Federal style, brick, lined up like officers in a military formation.

  The Academy was a school that was half boarders, half day students, and Paul envied the boarders, not so much their being at The Academy 24/7 but their freedom from their families, and all that entailed. He’d never have been admitted as a boarder, though—those places were competitive and limited—and it was only because Gillian had connections—she’d been a guest writer there once—that he’d gotten in at all. If he stuck around for eleventh and twelfth grades, he’d want to be a boarder, for sure.

  But it didn’t look as if he’d be there next year anyway, so it didn’t matter. He was pretty sure his mom would take him back, once she got over being so hurt that he’d chosen to spend this year with his dad and Gillian. But, hey, he might not have any choice anyway; his dad might decide he wouldn’t keep him for another year even if he wanted to stay. It all depended on Gillian, what she wanted, Paul knew that much. And he couldn’t tell about Gillian. Sometimes she was really nice to him, and sometimes she was kind of mean. Mostly she didn’t seem to notice him that much. They lived in the same house, but sometimes she seemed surprised by his presence.

  Dried oak leaves blew across the parking lot, their pointed ends clawing across the pavement. Paul pulled his sleeves down over his hands. He imagined his dad getting home this evening and asking Gillian, “Where’s Paul?” and Gillian looking vague and confused and saying something like “Paul? I have no idea,” and his dad realizing it had been stupid of him to count on her to pick him up. By the time his dad got here, he’d be frozen, dead. Or maybe Mr. O’Connor would have come back to the building because he’d forgotten something and found his body just in time. Or maybe not. His mom would scream at his dad that it was all his fault. And although it was really Gillian’s fault, his dad would never yell at her. He never yelled at her about anything, just sometimes shook his head as if he should have known better.

  Just then Paul recognized Gillian’s black pickup truck coming into the parking lot. It slowed by the entrance to the arena, and Paul leaped towards it and got in.

  “You’d expect they’d leave some lights on,” said Gillian. “I almost drove past here.”

  “They turned them off when everyone left, after practice,” said Paul.

  Still Gillian didn’t get it. She obviously didn’t have any idea what time she was supposed to pick him up. No idea how long he had been waiting. No idea how cold it was.

  “Your father certainly pays enough to this elite establishment,” said Gillian. “They could spend some of it on electricity.”

  In the dark of the car, Paul looked at Gillian’s profile. Almost as if she sensed his eyes on her, she turned to him, and gave him a small smile. He couldn’t help himself; he smiled back.

  “Were you waiting for me very long?” she asked.

  “It’s okay,” said Paul. And, strangely, he meant it. It was okay. Because she did come. Because she hadn’t forgotten him. Because—because she smiled.

  “You were, weren’t you?” asked Gillian.

  “It wasn’t that long,” said Paul.

  “I’m so sorry,” said Gillian. She leaned forward and touched the side of his cheek with three fingertips. Then she pulled out into the road.

  “Once, when I was a child, I was waiting for my father to pick me up after a school play,” she said. “I waited until it got dark, but he never came, and I walked home. I was used to it. My father often didn’t turn up for things. It was a considerable walk, and as I walked my anger grew. When I got home, I discovered he had been taken to the hospital with a kidney stone attack, and I felt guilty, as if my anger had in some way contributed to his suffering. Gui
lt, the most complex of emotions.” Gillian was quiet for moment. Then she added, softly, “Do you know I’ve never told anyone else about this before.”

  Paul wasn’t sure what to say, so he didn’t say anything. He didn’t know what to make of the story itself, how it connected to Gillian’s being late this time—she hadn’t offered him an excuse, and certainly she wasn’t in the hospital. He also didn’t know what to make of her confidence. It wasn’t the first time she’d told him something she said she’d never told anyone else. Her confidences were like gifts, and whatever irritation he had felt towards Gillian disappeared.

  Gillian didn’t seem to expect an answer. She turned on the CD player. “Vivaldi’s Gloria,” she said.

  They drove home listening to Laudamus te—he knew it was Latin, but he wasn’t sure what it meant. The music pumped inside him, shook his bones. He felt, as he had on the previous occasions, privileged by her confession, and also unworthy of it. No one else in his life talked to him the way Gillian did. No one else talked like her at all.

  THE NEXT MORNING, Monday, when Paul and his dad, Jerry, were eating breakfast together, his dad set aside the newspaper and asked him about hockey practice.

  “I’m still the worst one on the team,” said Paul.

  “I wasn’t even good enough to make it on a team,” said Jerry.

  “It’s not like they pick people for the team,” said Paul. “Everyone is put on some team. It’s like gym.”

  “Even so,” said Jerry. “You know what you’re doing out there. I’ve seen you play.”

  “Even a moron can know what they’re doing in hockey,” said Paul.

  Jerry looked at Paul over the top of his reading glasses. “Maybe so, but let me tell you, not everyone can stay upright on those tricky skates.”

  Paul didn’t tell his father that Gillian had been late picking him up. There was no point in it. Early that morning, even before he’d left for school, Gillian had driven off to her house on Cape Cod. She did this a lot—went off to write, either on the Cape or at various writers’ colonies. Jerry was always depressed when she left. He didn’t usually eat breakfast with Paul, but this morning he seemed eager for Paul’s company.