But her father’s story of the dead baby was there, growing in secret, waiting for her. Waiting for her to get years away from it. Waiting for her to have become a mother and held her own live baby in her arms, imagined what it would be like to lose it. Waiting for her father to die and for her to have gotten past the sharp grief of losing him.
It wasn’t until Nancy had deposited Aliki at college freshman year and come home to confront what her life had become that her new novel began to emerge.
In Aliki’s bedroom, she turned right-side-out a sweatshirt abandoned on the back of a chair, folded it, and put it in a drawer. She straightened a mobile of paper birds that had been knocked off-balance, and collected a shoe that had been left half under the bed and reunited it with its mate in the closet. But the room, tidied, seemed robbed of its last bit of life, and Nancy was immediately sorry she’d touched anything. She retreated down the hall to her study. She sat at her desk and looked out towards the river.
When Nancy had gone away to college, her mother had made quite a fuss about how much she would be missing her, but it was only recently that Nancy learned how her father had felt then.
“He was simply undone,” Nancy’s mother told her. “I thought he was with your brother out in the garage. When I went to call them to dinner, your father wasn’t there. I found him upstairs in your bedroom. He was sitting there, at the foot of your bed. He’d been sitting, just looking at your empty room, ever since we’d gotten back to the house. ‘I’m trying to get used to this new phase of my life’ is what he told me.”
“This new phase of my life.” The words hovered in Nancy’s mind. One grief tugged at another. Her new loss compounded her old one. Aliki had defected—as Nancy certainly wanted her to—by growing up. Her father had defected by dying. He was not here for her now, to listen to her, to help her come to terms with what her life had become.
She thought about that car ride they’d taken together years before, the way he’d listened to her as she told him she’d decided to change her life. She began thinking about the story he’d told her, about the decision he had made and the way his own life had changed. She’d never quite thought of it as a story before, but now it began to take the shape of one. She’d never separated her father from a character that might be drawn from him, but slowly this character began to emerge for her. His story pulled her in. She started to picture the character as a young doctor, leaving the hospital that night. She began to imagine the jacket he might be wearing, the feel of the glass door he leaned against, the overgrown pine trees in the hospital parking lot. She started to write.
VIRGINIA’S HOUSE, where the meeting took place, was the only house in the neighborhood of large, gracious homes that was in need of a paint job, that had a shutter askew. English ivy had claimed part of the brick façade and gotten a stronghold on the gutters. Junipers, which had been intended as foundation plantings, had been allowed to grow in whatever direction they pleased. Nancy had to stick to the far side of the path to escape their itchy branches as she walked up to the front door.
The man who answered the door introduced himself as Virginia’s husband, Joe.
“Don’t worry,” he said, “I’m not joining you folks today. I’m just on doorman duty. You can leave your things in the library.” The room he showed her to had bookcases on each wall, but they were inadequate for the job. Books were wedged in sideways and were piled up on the floor. The edges of the drapes and the arms of the sofas looked as if they had been clawed, and the room smelled of cat.
She was the first one to arrive, but Gillian and Bernard came soon after. Nancy took a chair with a high back and wooden armrests. She thought she would feel more confident reading if she was propped upright rather than low on a sofa. She was sorry now she had chosen the skirt. Virginia was wearing slacks (short enough so her brightly colored socks were revealed when she sat down), and Gillian was wearing jeans and scuffed, though obviously expensive, boots.
“Chris may be delayed,” said Virginia. “He spent last night in jail.”
Gillian let out a hoot. “Jail! This is too good,” she said. “What did he do? Wait, let me guess—”
“It’s nothing Chris did,” said Virginia. “His lawyer missed a deadline for filing some papers about child support. And there was a backup at the prison getting bail.”
“Chris in jail,” said Gillian, and she gave a broad smile. One of her front teeth was a little crooked. She must not have had braces as a kid, thought Nancy. Although she had always assumed Gillian came from a background of wealth, she wondered now if that was true.
“Be kind,” said Bernard, and he wagged his finger at Gillian.
“You know I’m never kind,” said Gillian.
When Chris arrived, he didn’t look as pink as he had when Nancy had met him for lunch.
“I spent the night in a prison gymnasium,” Chris told them. “Cots in three rows running from one basketball hoop to the other. Fluorescent lights glaring. Must have been a few hundred guys in there.”
“It sounds as if you have acquired some tidbits for your new book,” said Gillian.
“More than enough,” said Chris. “And if you don’t mind, I’d rather not talk any more about it now.”
“Of course,” said Virginia. “Chris, I believe you have a chapter for us. And Nancy will be reading from her new book. And I have a chapter, myself.”
“I don’t think we should wait any longer for Adam,” said Bernard. But they didn’t have to, because Adam turned up, as if on cue. He sat down on the other side of Virginia. He, more than Chris, looked as if he had spent the night in a gymnasium in a jail.
“Everything all right?” Virginia asked.
“Sure,” said Adam, but he didn’t say he was sorry for being late. He looked around the circle, and Nancy noticed him pause at Gillian, then pull his glance away. Oh no, she thought, poor guy’s in love with Gillian. It didn’t surprise her.
“Nancy, would you like to begin,” Virginia asked, “or would you prefer someone else to?”
“Oh, someone else,” said Nancy. She wanted to go first to get it over with, but she didn’t feel ready to read yet.
“Then why don’t we begin with Chris,” said Virginia.
“Fine by me,” said Chris. He was obviously eager to read, had already removed the paper clip from his sheaf of pages.
“Sorry, folks, I didn’t make copies for you,” he said. “This is first draft, hot off the press. Just wrote it.” He summarized the plot of his novel so far for Nancy’s benefit, then launched his new chapter. It was fast-paced, but Nancy was worried about her own reading and had to force herself to pay close attention. Chris’s main character, a retired journalist on a small-town newspaper, was the same in all Chris’s novels, and Nancy could see why they were a success. He would have just the right appeal for a certain kind of female reader—a tough guy on the surface but with the requisite introspective quality and some necessary flaws. Someone had once pointed out that the only narrator you can’t create is one who is more intelligent than yourself, but what surprised Nancy was that Chris’s narrator showed a sensitivity she would never have guessed Chris capable of.
“There’s certainly plenty of action,” said Gillian when Chris seemed to be done reading, “but, once again, I have to question if the violence is gratuitous or if it serves to enhance the novel.”
“It does serve to further the plot,” said Bernard.
“Perhaps, then, we should talk about the plot,” said Gillian.
“Hold on,” said Chris, “I’m not done yet.” He turned back to his manuscript.
He found Jurack’s dog first. Even if you didn’t like dogs, you’d feel bad for this one. The poor bastard had been so thirsty he’d tried to drink from a vase of flowers. Gotten nothing more than a muzzle full of glass for his efforts.
“Hey, buddy,” Dreever said, “how’d you get yourself stuck in a place like this?” He saw a bowl on the table and filled it with water. Set it on the floor. It
looked like a bowl that cost a hundred grand at least. Nothing in the place looked cheap. The table was solid cherry, not veneer. His years with Claire had taught him that you can get away with cheap at three feet away, but not any closer. Jurack managed to find girlfriends who had taste and money. In the time he’d been on his own, Dreever hadn’t managed to find one with either.
Dreever didn’t know for sure that it was Alfie Jurack’s dog, but that was a good guess. Not many people crazy enough to own beagles.
“One question I have, Chris,” said Bernard, when Chris was done reading, “what do you have against beagles?”
“Nothing,” said Chris.
“Than why make a deprecatory statement about them?”
“What are you, some kind of defender of beagles?” asked Chris.
Bernard did one of his exaggerated inhales, as if he were a baritone about to favor them with a cadenza from the Messiah. “A beagle was a part of my family when I was a boy,” he said. “It was a reliable and handsomely patterned dog. Not a breed to be ridiculed.”
“I didn’t know you had a beagle!” exclaimed Virginia. “All those years! The only dog you ever spoke of from your childhood was that dog Maisie.”
“Maisie was a beagle,” said Bernard.
Virginia smiled, but not so Bernard could see. “I would never have guessed,” she said.
“What kind of dog do we all picture with the young Bernard?” asked Gillian.
Chris waved his arms as if he were an umpire calling a foul. “I believe we were discussing my novel,” he said.
“Oh, Chris,” said Gillian. “You can cede the limelight for a minute.”
“I imagined a dog with”—Virginia chose her words carefully—“stature. A komondor, perhaps, or a Great Pyrenees or a Russian wolfhound.”
“But it was called Maisie,” said Adam. People seemed surprised to hear him speak. “That’s kind of a commonplace name.”
“If I recall, it was named for the Henry James character, so it did have literary pretensions,” said Virginia. When Adam looked as if he wasn’t sure what she was referring to, she added, kindly, “the novel What Maisie Knew.”
“I always liked that novel,” said Nancy. “It’s a manageable size for Henry James.”
“Of his shorter works, The Spoils of Poynton is by far his best,” said Gillian. “And Bernard could have named his dog Fleda Vetch.”
“No canine should be named Fleda Vetch,” said Bernard, and turning to Virginia he said, “A beagle may be a dog of modest size, but it does have stature.”
“I’d like to remind you all that it is currently my turn,” said Chris. “Does anyone have a comment about what I recently read?”
“I have a comment about your notions of taste and wealth,” Gillian said. “They seem—well—somewhat predictable.”
“What are you talking about?” asked Chris.
“Solid cherry table, not veneer.”
“Veneer can convey taste and wealth,” said Bernard. “Think of the detailing in those magnificent Federal highboys.”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” said Chris. He looked around at the group, as if for help, and fastened his gaze on Nancy.
“I thought the description of the thirsty dog was quite effective,” she said. “About the table—I wonder whether your character Dreever would notice that sort of detail.”
“I think he would,” said Adam. “He’s a detective, he’s trained himself to observe detail.”
“What I’m asking is not so much does he notice detail,” said Nancy, “but is he the kind of man who would know the distinction between veneer and solid wood?”
“I think he is,” said Virginia. “Part of the appeal of Chris’s character is that he has an artistic, more feminine side.”
“I should ask you to write a blurb for me,” said Chris.
“I’d certainly be happy to,” said Virginia, “but my name wouldn’t carry much weight on your book jacket—and besides, you hardly need blurbs. Dreever seems to have a fan club of his own.”
Chris looked pleased but was trying not to show that he was.
“Stop preening, Chris,” said Gillian. “The success of your series proves only that people will read anything these days.”
Virginia gave Gillian a look of reproach, but Chris grinned. “I love it when Gillian’s envy flares,” he said.
“Nancy, you’re new to the group,” said Bernard, “and I would be distressed if you took this childish competitiveness as a sign that we aren’t all deeply supportive of each other’s literary”—and at this word he gave Gillian a severe look—“efforts.”
“Hear, hear!” said Chris.
“Perhaps it’s time we moved ahead,” said Virginia. “Nancy?”
Nancy gave a barely perceptible shake of her head. “Would you prefer it if I went next?” Virginia asked gently. Nancy nodded. Gratitude rose inside her. She hadn’t realized how it could be an actual physical sensation, but now it spread through her like warmth; she could feel it in her thighs, in her hands, in her fingers. It wasn’t just the question of having them listen to and comment on her prose, it was the question of opening her book up to them, this secret part of her life, which no one except Oates had been privy to. It was laying bare all the labor of her making things up—for writing fiction was that, an exhausting amount of fabrication, as if you were a criminal on the stand, spinning lies, each one linked to another.
Virginia’s previous and successful book had been about the Middle Ages, and Nancy was amazed to realize that Virginia, whom she had assumed would spend the rest of her writing career embedded in the period in which she’d invested so many years of research, had moved on to Ancient Greece, an entirely different culture, place, and century. But there was a clarity and sureness—is that what it was?—to Virginia’s prose that made it seem as if she had devoted her entire life to the world of Agamemnon.
The heat would come later in the day, embrace the plains of Argos, the fortified city of Mycenae, the fields and olive groves around it, but now the air was rich with the cool intricacies of morning. Thirty-two centuries later it would progress this same way, claiming, as the morning eased towards noon, first the rocks at the top of the archway, then the flanks of the carved lions at the gate to the citadel. It would move from stone, to wood, to earth, to every living thing. The leaves of each olive tree would struggle to preserve the small territory of shade below it.
In the evening, the heat would recede in the same way. Only hours after the sun had descended into the cleft of the mountains would the stone begin to cool. The stone archway at the gate to the palace would be last of all, as if the two lions who rose in mirror image on their hind legs, reaching for the gods, were flesh themselves.
It was clear to Nancy from the discussion afterwards that everyone admired Virginia’s work. Everyone, except Adam, had something to say. Nancy couldn’t help wondering if they really knew about Ancient Greece or had boned up in anticipation of Virginia reading her chapter so they could show off at the meeting.
“You know, Ginny, I don’t remember our doing Mycenae. Was it on that trip to Crete?” asked Bernard.
“I never went to Mycenae with you,” said Virginia. “I went with my mother when I was eighteen. And I went with Joe, two years ago.”
“Oh,” said Bernard, his face still puzzled. “But we did Delphi, didn’t we?”
“Yes,” said Virginia. “Though it’s not like lunch, Bernie. One doesn’t do Delphi.”
Bernard ignored Virginia’s comment and looked at Adam. “We haven’t heard anything from you,” he said.
“It all sounded great,” said Adam. “Nothing to suggest changing.”
Nancy turned towards a sound coming from Gillian. It was her boot rubbing against the leg of her chair. Nancy looked up and caught a small, calm smile on Gillian’s face, then looked quickly back at Adam. She’d been wrong earlier, she realized. It wasn’t that Adam was hopelessly in love with Gillian; there was definitely something between them.
“Let’s go on to Nancy, then, why don’t we?” said Virginia.
When Nancy was in sixth grade she gave an oral report to her class on the solar system. Behind her, leaning against the blackboard, was the poster board she had made, which featured all the planets in cutout silver paper stapled (the glue hadn’t held) on the black background. When she’d practiced reading it at home, the pages flapped in her unsteady hands, and her father had suggested she hold her notebook underneath them. In front of the classroom, the taste of her poorly digested breakfast in her mouth, she’d dutifully lectured her classmates on Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto, her finger pinched between the metal spirals of the notebook, the secret way she’d discovered to keep herself from panic.
She thought of that now. She held her manuscript on top of the folder she’d brought and pressed her fingertip against the sharp end of the paper clip. As she read, she saw it all, as if she were in a movie theater and had plunged through the two dimensions of the screen into the world beyond it. She was in the hospital lobby, lurking in the dark against the wall, watching the young doctor walk past. He did not see her. He had her father’s stature, but his face, which may have originally been based on a photograph of her father when he’d been young, was a face that she had shaped in her mind so it became the face of a different man, a man she had never seen except in her imagination. She watched him as he passed through the door at the side of the hospital’s revolving doors, and, invisible still, she followed him and watched as he walked out to his car in the parking lot, got in, and drove away.
The Writing Circle Page 11
