The Writing Circle

by Corinne Demas

  “This is my stepson, Paul,” she said. “Paul, this is Adam and Kim. Kim is interested in the house, and I wondered if you’d show her around?”

  “Sure,” said Paul. He looked dazzled, as if he’d been asked to escort a movie star.

  “Adam, I need your help,” Gillian said. “Nancy is standing over there with her fiancé, Oates. They don’t know anyone here. Would you be kind and go talk with them for me? Chris has just arrived, and I have to find something to keep his little boys entertained.” She steered Adam across the living room to where Nancy and Oates stood, wineglasses in hand, making conversation with each other. Adam looked back towards Kim, and Gillian looked back, too. Kim, safely across the room, waved. Anyone might have mistaken her for a high school kid, a friend of Paul’s.

  CHRIS’S SONS’one was a Sam, the other, a Ben, but Gillian wasn’t sure which was which—looked meek and unadventurous. Chris had come prepared with a movie, and Gillian felt no qualms about leaving them on their own to watch it in the den.

  “Is everyone else here already?” asked Chris.

  “Virginia and Bernard haven’t come yet, but Adam and Nancy are here.”

  “Is that the famous fiancé?” asked Chris, pointing across the living room.

  “His name is Oates,” said Gillian.

  “I’ll grab myself something to drink and check him out,” said Chris. “Is that the usual gaggle of physicians by the bar?”

  “It is.”

  “You should bring Nancy over to introduce to them. She can pick up some tidbits for that novel of hers.”

  “I don’t know that Nancy is interested in picking anything up. She seems to be fairly set on what she wants to do.”

  Chris thrust his finger at Gillian. “You just don’t like it when people don’t snap up your advice,” he said.

  “Maybe so,” said Gillian, “but there’s not much point in taking our time to consider a manuscript if you don’t want to listen to what we have to say.”

  “Oh, Nancy listens, all right,” said Chris. “But you and she have different visions of what her novel is.”

  “You thought it was presumptuous of me, didn’t you, a mere poet trying to tell a novelist how to redirect her novel?”

  Chris laughed. “I don’t think I dared call you presumptuous,” he said. “And I know I’d never call any poet ‘mere.’ ”

  “But you did tell me, didn’t you, that if I thought writing a novel was as easy as instructing someone else to write a novel, I should try it myself?”

  “I said something like that,” said Chris, “but I believe I qualified it with the word condescend. You should condescend to try it yourself.”

  “Condescend used ironically, of course.”

  “Of course,” said Chris.

  Virginia and Joe joined them now, Joe with a bottle of wine, Virginia with a basket of Christmas cookies.

  “Are we the last ones to arrive?” she asked.

  “Bernard hasn’t made an appearance yet,” said Gillian.

  “Oh, Bernie,” said Virginia. Gillian thought she looked relieved.

  “Where are those little boys of yours?” Virginia asked Chris. “I’ve made enough cookies so they can bring some home with them.”

  “Ensconced with Miracle on 34th Street,” said Chris, and he pointed down the hallway towards the den. Paul was just returning with Kim. He had a ridiculous expression on his face. He was obviously smitten.

  “Does Paul have a girlfriend now?” Virginia asked Gillian.

  “That’s Adam’s little girlfriend,” said Gillian. “Paul was just showing her around.”

  Gillian introduced Kim around and introduced Paul to those who didn’t already know him; then she moved close to Adam.

  “Paul’s given Kim her house tour. Would you like me to give you one?” she asked.

  Adam nodded. He didn’t say anything to Kim; he followed Gillian. She had expected that he would. She showed him around the lower floor first: Paul’s room, the bedroom Jennifer had abandoned, the rec room with the exercise equipment no one used. On the first floor they toured the kitchen, the pantry, the laundry room, the guest room, and Jerry’s study. Gillian pointed to a glass-fronted bookcase. “Jerry is my archivist,” she said. “He keeps a copy of every edition of my books.” Adam tilted his head to read some of the titles, but he didn’t comment.

  Chris’s sons looked up when they came into the den, said “Hi,” then went back to watching their movie. Someone had given them a tray with a bowl of chips and something to drink.

  “My study is upstairs,” said Gillian. Her bare feet made soft pattering sounds on the wood steps. Adam followed more noisily behind her. Gillian walked into the bedroom. The bed in the center was low and white. Her black skirt dragged along the edge of the duvet as she crossed the room. She pushed the half-open door of the bathroom fully open, so he could look in. The marble countertop was so highly polished it looked wet. Her study was through the bedroom. The desk was placed under a window that looked out over the meadow.

  “Sit here,” said Gillian, and she pulled out the chair at the desk. Adam sat.

  “This desk was made for me by a young man who was a student of mine when I taught at Harvard one summer. He gave up poetry and turned to carpentry instead.”

  Gillian stroked the surface. “Smell the wood,” she said. “It’s cherry, and it has a special beeswax polish.”

  Adam bent towards the desk, and closed his eyes, and smelled.

  “You’ve seen my writing place in Truro,” said Gillian. “And this is where I write when I am here. Now you’ve seen everything important about me.”

  Adam laid the side of his face on the surface of the desk. Gillian ran her finger along the side of his ear and down around the curve of his cheekbone. It was so quiet in the room she could hear her fingertip moving along the fine hairs on the edge of his ear and the stubble on his face.

  “Sometime, when I’m in Truro, you can come have supper with me again,” she said.

  Bernard

  GILLIAN’S CHRISTMAS TREE CAST A SWATH OF LIGHT ON the gravel driveway through the tall window of the front hall. Bernard stopped the car in the driveway just short of the light and turned to Aimee.

  “We won’t stay long,” he said, and he smoothed her sleek, dark hair back behind her ear. “I promise you.”

  “That’s exactly what you said last year,” said Aimee. “Then you drank too much brandy, got mired in a debate with your writing buddies, and I had to extricate you and drive you home.”

  “Was I really that bad?” asked Bernard.

  “Yes,” said Aimee.

  “Well, that was last year,” said Bernard. “Now I’m going to be a father. I’ll be on my best behavior.”

  “If I recall,” said Aimee without a touch of humor, “you’ve been a father for several decades.”

  Bernard sighed, drove up closer to the house, and parked near the front door. For some reason none of the other guests had claimed that space; they had all parked at a respectful distance. Aimee had already gotten out of the car when he came around to help her.

  “I’m fine,” she said, “no need to be solicitous.”

  “The gravel’s so deep here I thought you might need a hand.”

  “I’m wearing flats,” said Aimee. “And I’m not yet so heavy I sink in.” Aimee, in fact, didn’t look any heavier than before she was pregnant. Virginia, Bernard recalled, had been enormous when she was pregnant with Teddy, and even when she’d been pregnant with Peachie, who had been a runt.

  When Peachie had called him to tell him she was pregnant, he’d had a moment’s pause. He had not yet fully accustomed himself to the idea that his little daughter was an adult, that she was married. “That’s just grand!” he had told Peachie. But all he could think was, How had this happened? How had all those years gone by so fast? And if Peachie was a mother, that would make him a grandfather. Him, a grandfather! He’d have to make the best of it. Actually, he’d have to do better than that; he
’d have to embrace the idea.

  “Virginia will be so happy,” he’d told Peachie.

  “She is,” said Peachie. There was a moment’s silence. If she had just said “yes,” then he wouldn’t have known she had told Virginia ahead of him. But Peachie had simply spoken the truth, the way Peachie always did. It wasn’t so strange, was it, that a girl should tell her mother first about these things? Still, Bernard had been hurt.

  He hadn’t had an opportunity to speak alone with Virginia since he’d heard Peachie’ s news, hadn’t in fact talked with her (aside from the meeting of the Leopardi Circle) since that disastrous Thanksgiving dinner, when Teddy had been so unimaginably rude to him. At the Leopardi meeting, Virginia hadn’t been as pleasant as usual—there had been something changed in her manner towards him. He wondered what might have caused her to feel less than her customary warmth. Could it be she was hurt that he hadn’t told her about Aimee’s pregnancy ahead of telling everyone else? Perhaps at Gillian’s party he could get her aside and talk with her. He would just have to figure out a delicate way of detaching himself from Aimee. Aimee wouldn’t detach easily; she was always wary at gatherings with members of the Leopardi Circle, and now, pregnant, she had gotten unpredictable and easily irritated.

  “At least you approve of Gillian’s house,” said Bernard as they paused on the front porch.

  “I approve of Duncan as an architect,” said Aimee. “I think he let the client have too much say in this particular case.”

  “You are a hard lady to please,” said Bernard.

  Dinner had already been served by the time Bernard and Aimee entered the living room, and everyone had found a spot to eat—chairs, sofas, the arms of sofas, pillows on the floor.

  “I’m so glad you were able to come,” said Gillian, her eye on Aimee as she greeted them, but she did not congratulate Aimee on her pregnancy as Bernard had hoped she might. When he had announced the news to the Leopardis at the end of their meeting, Gillian had simply said, “Well, well, Bernard. That should keep you busy.”

  “Would you like to sit down and have me make up a plate for you?” Bernard asked Aimee.

  “I can serve myself,” she said. “And I’d appreciate it if you didn’t treat me like an invalid.”

  “I was just trying to be gallant,” said Bernard.

  “Well, don’t,” said Aimee. Bernard watched her spoon up a large helping of artichoke hearts, think better of it, and return half to the serving dish.

  Once they’d gotten their dinner, Bernard looked around the room to find the best place for them to settle. Not with Virginia, for sure, and not with Gillian. For some reason Aimee always seemed on guard around Gillian. Then Bernard spotted Nancy. She could be counted on not to say anything provoking. And she was there with that man named Oates, whom, presumably, she was going to marry, so Aimee wouldn’t feel threatened by her, as she might if Nancy were single. Aimee found all single women predatory.

  Nancy seemed pleased to see him. “I don’t think the two of you have met before,” said Nancy, and she introduced Oates and Aimee. Then she added, addressing Oates, “Aimee is Bernard’s wife.” Oates had a wide, unguarded face, and Bernard could chart his thought progression as he tried to figure out the relationship between him and Aimee, then learned that Bernard was her husband. Bernard was used to this response in people, and it amused more than annoyed him.

  It wasn’t until well after dessert had been served that Bernard was able to move away from Aimee. He’d seen Virginia heading on her own towards the front hall, and he maneuvered his way across the room so it wouldn’t be obvious he was following her. He found her in the guest room, where the coats were piled on the bed. She was rummaging through them, looking for something. The fabric of her blouse, a peacock blue, was taut over her back, so Bernard could see the indentation of her bra. Virginia was capacious and large-bosomed, her flesh soft, and Bernard had a little pang of sadness that it wasn’t his anymore, that flesh, to touch. When Virginia looked up, she was startled to find him standing in the doorway, watching her.

  “Bernie!” she said.

  “I was hoping to catch a moment with you,” he began.

  “I just came to get my reading glasses,” said Virginia, and she held them up for him. “I couldn’t find them in my purse, and then I remembered I’d left them in my coat pocket.”

  Bernard leaned against the wall. He set his coffee cup on the dresser.

  “I’ve been feeling as if you haven’t been wanting to talk with me,” said Bernard. “Are you angry at me about something?”

  Virginia tilted her head and shook it slightly at him.

  “What is it, Virginia?”

  “Oh, Bernie,” she said, and she sighed. Bernard waited for her to go on, but she didn’t.

  “That was quite a display that Teddy treated us to at Thanksgiving,” he said.

  “Teddy was upset,” said Virginia. “You can’t entirely blame him.”

  Bernard stood up straight. “Of course I blame him,” he said. “He was rude. He was hostile.”

  “He was hurt,” said Virginia.

  Bernard’s eyes widened. “He was hurt! How do you think I was left feeling? I’d been trying so hard to reach out to him.”

  Virginia sighed again. “Listen to yourself, Bernie,” she said. “All you can consider is your own feelings.”

  “I certainly took Aimee’s feelings into account,” said Bernard.

  “I felt sorry for Aimee, of course,” said Virginia. “But I wish you’d think a little more about the impact of your announcement on your two children, on Teddy and Peachie.”

  “Peachie?” said Bernard. “Why are you bringing up Peachie? Peachie said she was happy for me.”

  “Peachie would say that,” said Virginia.

  “Why shouldn’t she be happy for me?” asked Bernard.

  “Here’s what puzzles me, Bernie,” said Virginia. “As a writer you have an unerring ability to get into the minds of your subjects, but in your dealings with the people around you, you seem unable—or is it reluctant?—to imagine things from their perspective.”

  “And what is this perspective that you claim I can’t imagine?”

  “Bernie,” said Virginia, and she started towards the door. “I don’t want to be having this conversation with you.”

  Bernard caught her arm. “Please, Virginia,” he said. “Don’t walk out on me!”

  Virginia turned and looked at him. “I’m sorry, Bernie,” she said. “I don’t want to argue with you. I’m not married to you anymore. It’s not my job to elucidate things for you. Nor is it my job to try to convince you about anything or influence what you do. Let’s just be friends.”

  “What was I to do, Virginia?” asked Bernard. “Shouldn’t I have told everyone about Aimee being pregnant?”

  “You rather sprung it on us,” said Virginia.

  “It was sprung on me!” said Bernard.

  Virginia raised her eyebrows.

  “I wasn’t going to say anything,” said Bernard, “but that’s the truth. You may have been thinking that I had planned to enter the world of fatherhood for a third time, but it wasn’t the case at all. It just happened.”

  Virginia shook her head at him. “You’re a grown man, Bernie. Babies don’t just happen. You know that.”

  “Apparently Aimee had wanted a baby and didn’t believe that I did. I wasn’t actually consulted.”

  “Bernie, I don’t want to know this. If your wife gets pregnant when you had made it clear you didn’t want to be a father, then it seems as if there’s a major problem in your marriage.”

  “I didn’t make it exactly clear,” said Bernard. “I had just assumed that Aimee had no interest in being a mother.”

  “Bernie, I’m sorry for you—if that’s what you want me to be—but I’m really not the one to be talking to about this. I can talk to you, if necessary, about your relationship with Teddy and Peachie, but I can’t talk to you about your relationship with Aimee.”


  She was starting out the door again, beyond his reach.

  “Tell me, Virginia, one thing—is it that you’re jealous of Aimee?”

  Virginia turned around. “Why would I be jealous of Aimee?” she asked. “I don’t want to be your wife, Bernie. I am truly happy married to Joe.”

  “Because she’s pregnant,” said Bernard. “Because she’s going to be a mother.”

  Virginia came up close to Bernard and put her hands on his two arms, as if she were holding him in place so she could lecture him.

  “Bernie,” she said. “I am a mother. I am the mother of two grown children. I have absolutely no desire to be pregnant again. I am about to become a grandmother. That’s where I am in my life now. That’s what’s appropriate for me, at my age. And just so you know, I find it, unequivocally, the most wonderful thing in the world.” She dropped her hold on him and turned and walked from the room.

  Bernard pushed some of the coats aside and sat down at the foot of the bed. He reached for his cup of coffee, but there wasn’t much coffee left, and it was cold. Slowly he got up from the bed and started to make his way back towards the party. Gillian and Nancy were talking near the doorway to the kitchen. Bernard had left Aimee with Nancy, and he didn’t spot her anywhere in the room.

  “Have you seen Aimee around?” he asked Nancy.

  “I think she’s over by the window, talking to Chris and Adam,” said Nancy.

  “Bernard’s so sweet and old-fashioned,” said Gillian, “he needs to keep his wife in sight at all times.”

  “What are you two plotting?” asked Bernard, to change the subject.

  “Gillian wanted a sneak preview of the final chapters of my novel,” said Nancy. “But I’m afraid it’s not that easy to summarize what I’m trying to do.”

  “I’d take that as a compliment, Nancy,” said Bernard. “If Gillian cares enough about your characters to want to know their fate, that means you’ve accomplished a great deal.”

  “It’s always been a problem with people reading parts of novels,” said Gillian. “With a poem you see the entire entity, so you can judge it for what it is. But with a novel it’s difficult to place the piece you hear each week into the whole. I found it hard to see what the chapter Nancy last read was actually contributing to the novel without knowing what Nancy’s design is for the entire story.”