The Writing Circle

by Corinne Demas

  “You’ve been teaching too many writing workshops,” said Chris, “doing the old ‘show me don’t tell me’ routine.”

  “For the regrettable duration of my undergraduate career, I was a member of the Ivy League,” said Bernard, “yet I certainly don’t see myself as a stereotype.”

  “You did sail, though,” snapped Virginia. Adam was surprised by her uncharacteristic sharpness. She turned to the others and added, more gently, “When I first met Bernie, he referred to a ‘yawl’ and I thought it was a southern affectation rather than a boat.”

  “I’d like to see something more distinctive about him,” said Gillian. “I’m referring to the character, not Bernard.”

  “I think that’s the point,” said Nancy. “There is nothing distinctive about him. That’s why we notice the mud on his boots.”

  “An ominous detail,” said Bernard.

  “I don’t think it’s ominous,” said Adam. “I think it’s meant to show he’s an outdoors guy. Maybe he’s really a farmer.”

  “In a blue striped shirt?” asked Gillian. She looked at him now.

  “Even a farmer might own a blue striped shirt,” said Adam. “And he’s not going to wear his work clothes on jury duty.”

  “That’s a good point,” said Nancy. “But I think the mud is supposed to be ominous. Some crime . . .”

  “You’ve been reading too many detective novels, Nancy,” said Adam.

  “As long as she reads all of mine,” said Chris.

  “I think it’s time we moved along,” said Virginia. “Adam, you have something for us this week, don’t you?”

  Adam nodded. He pulled out copies of his chapter and passed them around. He watched Gillian while she set a paper-clipped packet on her lap and passed the sheaf on to Bernard. Even if he had no choice but to give up on ever having anything more with her, what he wanted, at the very least, was that she take him seriously as a writer. He looked at her for a minute longer, then he turned his attention to what he was going to read.

  It wasn’t until April, a vicious April with hailstorms that knocked out power, and rain so heavy the already-sodden ground turned to mush, that I took Sonia to hear my old friend Mickey’s band play at a club in a part of town that had missed out when there had been a halfhearted attempt at urban renewal.

  “Fallen Archangels?” Sonia asked, laying the pronunciation firmly on the wrong syllable. “What does that mean, Bill?”

  “It doesn’t mean shit,” I said. “Every band tonight has a name dumber than the next.”

  When we got there, Mickey was hanging around the bar, trying to pick up either one of two girls who looked so young they must have had fake IDs, his drumsticks sticking out of his back pocket, his jeans pulling down in the back so you couldn’t miss seeing three inches of boxers imprinted with blue penguins on skateboards, and a swath of pale, nearly hairless ass. I introduced Sonia, but the band that was finishing its last number was deafening and I could have been just moving my lips, not saying anything at all. I got two beers quickly, not even asking Sonia what she might want to order, and herded her over to a stretch of seating along the wall. She was wearing the four-inch, toeless heels—orange canvas with laces that wrapped up around her shins—she’d bought the day before, even though the sidewalks were still a minefield of puddles from the day’s rain, and even though I’d warned her that she might be spending the night on her feet, and knowing that she’d be having trouble staying upright but would be afraid to complain, I took pity on her now. She sank, gratefully, onto the bench, which was upholstered with fabric so beer-stained and worn you would never guess that it had once been red velvet, and pointed to the sign above our heads, which read “Earphones $1.”

  “Joke?” she asked.

  “No joke,” I said.

  There were four guys in Mickey’s band and a girl named Viv, who did vocals and keyboard, whom Mickey had once tried to fix me up with, but it had gone nowhere pretty fast. Viv was the size of a ten-year-old, with bleached hair pulled into a dozen little pigtails, fierce, dark eyes set too close to her nose, skinny thighs, and tiny breasts, which I’d had no desire to touch, either then or now. Sonia, who had been trying to lose weight ever since I’d met her, even though I kept telling her I liked her the way she was, beside me now seemed, in comparison, as lushly endowed as Rubens’ Angelica, a virtual continent of flesh.

  Sonia, as Adam had originally described her, had been plump and voluptuous, an incarnation of the sort of woman he had once desired, or thought he desired. But later, with the image of Gillian’s slender body in his mind, he felt he was betraying that beauty by having Bill, his narrator, salivate over Sonia’s well-endowed body. He’d rewritten that whole section, switching body types between Viv and Sonia, though keeping their heads intact, and planned to go through the entire novel and alter Sonia’s body so it was more his current ideal. But Sonia, the character whom he had created, didn’t work with a double A cup size. And Viv, whom he had first imagined as having an undernourished, little girl look, was no longer Viv when he deposited another fifty pounds on her. The problem with fiction was that, once you created the characters, they had a way of taking off on their own, and they resisted—just as adamantly as real live people—any attempts to assign them a new head or body.

  Adam finished reading his chapter, then looked up slowly from his manuscript. Virginia was beaming at him. Thank God for Virginia.

  “Fine scene, fine scene,” said Bernard. “What is this group the Fallen Archangels?”

  “It’s not a real band,” said Adam, “I just made it up.”

  “Good name,” said Chris.

  It did not surprise Adam that, while they praised his dialogue, once again he found himself under attack for his verbosity. Virginia zeroed in on Sonia’s shoes.

  “You don’t need to tell us they were ‘four-inch, toeless heels—orange canvas with laces that wrapped up around her shins,’ ” she said. “Four-inch heels would suffice.”

  “But the reader might picture the wrong thing entirely—black patent leather,” said Adam.

  “It’s too many details,” said Virginia.

  “I think orange matters,” said Nancy. “It tells us something about Sonia.”

  “Then keep orange,” said Virginia, “but we don’t need to know they’re canvas and open-toed.”

  “Adam designs shoes for a living,” said Chris. “You’re never going to get him to relinquish anything in that department. I think what needs some trimming is Mickey.”

  “I rather like Mickey,” said Bernard.

  “I think the paragraph about the April weather and the ‘part of town that had missed out when there had been a halfhearted attempt at urban renewal’ could be tighter,” said Nancy. She’d read his lines in a way that made them sound verbose, thought Adam. “Could you just say seedy?” Nancy asked.

  “Seedy is so seedy,” said Chris.

  “You’re all talking about details,” said Gillian. At last, she was entering the discussion. “There’s one major problem with Adam’s novel, and it’s time we focused on that.”

  “So, are you planning to reveal what it is,” asked Chris, “or keep us guessing?”

  “It’s the first-person point of view,” said Gillian. “Bill may be the main character in this novel, but he’s not a good choice for a narrator.”

  “His voice is credible,” said Virginia.

  “His credibility is not the issue,” said Gillian. “It’s the texture of his voice. He’s verbose because he’s self-absorbed. He can’t relinquish any of his observations because he cares too much about them. He’s mired in his point of view.”

  “But so much of this novel depends on his special perspective on things—it’s essential that we see Sonia through his eyes,” said Virginia.

  “A third-person, limited-omniscient narrator can handle it all,” said Gillian. “And spare us Bill’s claustrophobic voice.”

  “Well, well, well,” said Bernard. “That’s quite a tall order. Ad
am’s already written several hundred pages.”

  “Switching point of view isn’t that difficult,” said Gillian. She picked up Adam’s chapter. “Here, for starters:

  There were four guys in Mickey’s band and a girl named Viv, who did vocals and keyboard, whom Mickey had once tried to fix up with Bill, but it had gone nowhere pretty fast. Viv was the size of a ten-year-old, with bleached hair pulled into a dozen little pigtails, fierce, dark eyes set too close to her nose, skinny thighs, and tiny breasts, which Bill had had no desire to touch, either then or now.

  Isn’t that better?”

  Adam could not lift his head to look at her. “Self-absorbed,” “mired,” “claustrophobic”—the words she’d used were describing his character, Bill, but she was really telling everyone what she thought of him.

  Gillian

  GILLIAN’S CHRISTMAS TREE, SET UP BY THE WINDOW IN the front hall, was so lush and symmetrical it looked artificial. All of her childhood, Gillian had longed for the kind of tree she’d seen in the homes of her friends, trees laden with colored lights, glittering balls, and a profusion of ornaments, but now that she could have any kind of tree she wanted, she let her old fantasy rest in the past, unfulfilled. Her tree was chaste, with tiny, clear lights, blown glass balls that looked like soap bubbles, and a sprinkling of silver ornaments. No angels—Gillian hated angels—no Santas, no reindeer.

  Gillian’s parents always said they didn’t have the money to waste on a Christmas tree and settled for a wreath, with a droopy bow and little artificial apples with their glaze chipping off. Her aunt, the one who had underwritten her college education, who could have mounted an impressive tree, never bothered. The Christmas that Gillian was eleven she’d persuaded her brother, Ned—he was in the merchant marine now and she hadn’t seen him in years—to venture out to the woods with her and cut down a tree. She held back the branches so Ned could crawl underneath and get to the trunk with his saw. The pine needles pricked her bare wrists and her toes froze, but she felt dreamy embedded in the scent of the pine needles. She didn’t move until Ned cried, “Watch out, Gilly!” and the tree swooshed to the ground. They carried the tree back home and set it up on a makeshift stand. In the forest, in the company of other white pines, it had seemed full and green, but alone in the living room, it proved to be a scraggly thing, and its puny branches sagged under the weight of the bread-dough ornaments Gillian had made. Her father actually laughed at it.

  “Now why’d you want to drag something like that into the house?” he asked.

  Although Gillian would have been content to ignore Christmas entirely, every year since they had been married, she and Jerry had installed a tree and given a holiday party, a way to reciprocate for a year of party invitations. The guest list was a disharmonious combination of Jerry’s colleagues from the hospital and Gillian’s literary acquaintances. Fortunately, the house was spacious enough so they didn’t have to mix. Gillian’s agent, prestigious and somewhat doddering, and her editor, prestigious and rather youthful (though not as young as he looked), came up from New York, an obligation they suffered manfully. Gillian did her best to insulate them from the more sycophantic of the guests—which included not only writers but doctors who, within sniffing distance of a New York editor, remembered their brilliant idea for a book.

  Paul had been excused from helping Jerry and Gillian decorate the tree, but Jerry had made it clear that his attendance at the party was required. Since the plagiarism incident at The Academy, Jerry had been trying to be firm about his expectations for Paul. Gillian didn’t really care if Paul was at the party or not, but she understood why Jerry wanted him there, this pretense of them being a family. As for next year, she knew if she suggested Paul return to live with his mother, Jerry would agree. What she didn’t want was Paul, on his own, choosing Linda over them.

  “Could I do the bartending?” Paul asked.

  “Since when do you know anything about bartending?” Jerry asked.

  “I don’t, yet,” said Paul. “But I could learn. I’ve got a book. It’s just formulas for mixing things, like chem lab.”

  “The caterers have a professional bartender,” said Jerry. “What I’d like you to do is be sociable with the guests.”

  “Actually, there is something particular I could use your help with,” said Gillian. “Chris, one of the writers who’s coming, is bringing his two sons with him, and I was hoping you might entertain them.”

  “How old are they?” asked Paul.

  “I’m not sure,” said Gillian. “Six or eight?”

  “You want me to babysit!” Paul sat up straight in his chair.

  “It’s not exactly babysitting,” said Gillian. “Their father will be here.”

  “So can’t they just watch a video or something?”

  Gillian tilted her head and smiled at Paul. “You’ve always had an affinity for children,” she said. “I thought it would lovely if you could do something more engaging with them.”

  Paul sighed and slumped in his chair.

  Gillian smiled at him again. “Thank you, Paul,” she said. “I really appreciate your helping out.”

  In exchange for this favor, Gillian sided with Paul that he be allowed to wear jeans to the party, but Jerry insisted he put on a tie and blazer. Although Jerry and Paul were dressed similarly, when they stood near each other in the kitchen before the party, they didn’t look much like father and son. Gillian guessed they never would. Even if Paul filled out so he had Jerry’s bulk, he had his mother’s long neck and narrow nose. It was Jennifer who resembled her father.

  Gillian thought that Adam would probably not come to the party, but there was always the chance that he might. He had been avoiding her for weeks—not so dramatically anyone else would notice, but Gillian noticed. She thought it was probably a good thing that he was keeping his distance. And yet she hoped he would come to the party. She wanted him to see this house. The Leopardis met at the homes of members who lived closer to town, and he’d been away and missed her party last year. She wanted him to see her with Jerry.

  She selected an ankle-length black velvet dress with a slit that revealed a stretch of long, slender leg. Gillian had small breasts, but the dress was sleeveless and cut low, and it was tight enough so you could see the jut of her hip bones. She didn’t like jewelry, but to please Jerry, she wore a hammered silver bracelet he’d had made for her. Her thin, white arm looked like the appendage of a banded bird.

  Jerry’s friends came to the party on the early side and quickly congregated close to the bar. The writers always drifted in later. Nancy was the first to arrive, with the man she was now apparently engaged to, whom she introduced as Oates. He had a wide expanse of forehead and pale eyebrows, and his features seemed crowded in the lower half of his face. Gillian could imagine him rolling up his sleeves and washing pots in the kitchen after dinner, but he was not the kind of man she could imagine in bed. Nancy was wearing a frilly white blouse, a red skirt, and earrings that dangled little golden bells. Gillian had an urge to strike one with her fingernail, set it dinging close to Nancy’s ear.

  Gillian could tell that Nancy was studying Jerry, trying to make out something about him, trying to figure out what had drawn him and Gillian together. Nancy was holding Oates’s hand, and Gillian wondered if she was going to remain attached to him that way all night. She had something she wanted to ask Nancy. She’d have to get her aside later, when Nancy might have disentangled herself from Oates.

  Gillian kept an eye on the front door, watching the arriving guests. She didn’t want to be watching for Adam, but she couldn’t help herself. Just when she had succeeded in convincing herself that he wouldn’t come and had turned her attention away from the front door, he must have arrived. The next time she looked that way she saw him standing near the door, a girl leaning on his arm so she could unzip her boots. Adam gazed at her, and even when she smiled at him, his mouth remained a fixed line.

  The girl had slipped a pair of dress shoes on her feet,
high heels with pointy toes. She stood up now and looked at Gillian. She was astonishingly young. Even in her high heels, she was inches shorter than Gillian. She looked like a little girl playing dress-up.

  “This is Kim,” said Adam.

  Kim. So, thought Gillian, they had stayed together.

  “Hi!” said Kim. “Thanks so much for inviting Adam and me.” She had a round face and long, silky blond hair. And she was so young! It had taken Gillian by surprise, and yet why was she surprised? At Button, Adam had told her that Kim was a college student. “Comp sci,” he had said, so though she looked sweet, she must be reasonably intelligent.

  “I’m pleased you could come,” said Gillian. She looked at Adam, but now he was looking at Kim.

  “I love your tree!” said Kim. “Is it real?”

  “Oh yes, it’s real,” said Gillian.

  Kim stepped closer to the tree and reached out to touch a branch. Given a harp and a halo, she’d make a credible angel.

  “Why don’t you come inside and get yourselves something to drink?” said Gillian. She rested her fingers on Adam’s shoulder as they walked to the living room. She knew Adam was looking everything over hard, taking everything in.

  “I love your house!” said Kim. “Adam, don’t you just love their house?”

  Adam nodded and gave a grunt of assent. Kim had slipped her arm through his. Gillian saw her give it a squeeze.

  “Thank you,” said Gillian. “Please, make yourselves at home.”

  A waiter came up with a tray of hors d’oeuvres. Gillian heard the doorbell ring again and watched Jerry go to greet the next guests, Chris and his sons. She looked around and spotted Paul, who was hanging out beside the bar.

  “Paul!” she called softly, and when he looked up, she beckoned to him. He came ambling over.