Willing

by Scott Spencer

  We walked into the hotel, and Lincoln Castle was standing at the desk, wearing a pair of reading glasses, frowning, and running the index finger of his right hand over a long printout, while holding in his left a credit card. He heard us come in. I could see from his expression that he was sorry to see me, but he quickly covered his initial reaction with an all-purpose smile. Avery, he said, I was wondering if I’d see you again.

  It seemed a strange thing to say, until I put it together with that printout, and I realized he was in the process of checking out of the hotel. Where are you going, Lincoln? I asked.

  We’ve had a bit of a mix-up here, he said. He was about to say more, but then he fell silent. He breathed a long sigh; his eyes went from me, to my mother, and back to me. Look here, Avery, let me be up-front about this. This is the end of the line for you. What is that supposed to mean? I asked. It means we’ve had a major change of plans. We’re leaving.

  We’re leaving?

  No, Avery, that’s the thing. Not you, not your mother. He made a polite, though possibly ironic, bow in my mother’s direction. The rest of us.

  Why? I asked. What happened?

  What happened is that the Riga police picked up some lunatic with a full can of gasoline who was going to set fire to this hotel. That’s what happened. Oh my God, I said. I was also going to say I think I saw him, heading in this direction on his Vespa. But I knew that would only make matters worse for me. What’s that got to do with me? I asked.

  I don’t know, buddy. Maybe nothing. But we’ve got a consensus here, and the consensus says you just don’t fit on this trip. I’m running a business here, okay? I’ve got to take care of my people. If it makes you feel any better, both my wife and Stephanie were on your side. And Steph’s hard to please, so you’ve got something to be proud of there. But the rest of the guys? Castle shook his head sadly. Then he handed his credit card over to the desk clerk.

  Kicked off a sex tour? Was I really going to be the first man in the history of sex tourism to be bounced off the trip? I made a couple of wild narrative calculations, trying to imagine how this would not only go into my book but might actually improve it. After all, being kicked off a sex tour was even more extraordinary than going on one. But the narrative thrusts were circular, essentially frantic.

  May I ask why I’m being kicked off the tour? I asked Castle. Well, first of all, he said, you never even paid for your spot, so let’s get real, okay? You can’t lose what you never had. That’s just bullshit, Lincoln. Just tell me.

  The clerk slid the credit card receipt across the desk for Castle. He was one of those men who sign with a flourish. Then he turned back toward me, folded his short arms over his barrel chest. Okay, first of all, you completely freaked out Diana. Who’s Diana? I asked. I don’t know anyone named Diana. In Iceland? he prompted. I was with Sigrid in Iceland. Castle made a sour look, as if I were being pedantic. Sigrid is Diana, Diana is Sigrid, he said, with exaggerated patience. Then the whole thing at the Blue Lagoon. How does that become my fault? I cried. It’s just circumstances, Avery. Let’s not play the blame game. Plus I got a complaint from the hotel in Reykjavik, that you were pulling the plugs out of the computers. You want to hear more? I nodded yes. Romulus says you’ve been busting his chops. Tony says you’ve been making fun of his religion. Tony’s wearing my father’s cross! I shouted. Castle put up his hands. I’m not here to argue, he said. I’m just telling you. You’re sitting with Sean, you seem like you’ve made a nice connection, and then the next thing we know he’s on his way home. I don’t know anything about that, I said. But go on, I added, this is good, I should hear all this. And even with Webb. You’re blaming me for Doleack? I asked. How do you get that? Avery, please, there is no blame. No one believes less in blame than me. But then I learn that right before Webb goes nuts you completely humiliate him in front of his girl, right there in the elevator. And then, there’s the other thing, the thing you’d probably me rather not talk about. Not in the presence of your lovely mother.

  I put my arm around my mother and said Naomi and I don’t have secrets from each other.

  All right, Castle said, have it your way. The little orgy in Oslo? Does that ring a bell?

  I sensed my mother had turned her head and was looking at me, but I kept my eyes on Castle. Yes? I said, doing my best to sound unconcerned.

  Well, apparently you were a little scary. Shall we say a little above and beyond the call of duty? I have no idea what you’re talking about, I said. Well, confidentiality requires that I say no more, so we’ll just leave it at that. I did nothing at that so-called orgy that everyone else wasn’t doing, I said. That’s not what I heard, said Castle. And then we have the little matter of today. Today? What are the charges about today? No charges, Avery. You have to stop thinking that way. There’s no bad and good or up and down or right and wrong; we’re just here talking. But it did seem a little odd that once we got here everyone else hooked up with a beautiful woman and you were nowhere to be found. I was with my mother! I cried. She was hungry and she wanted to go to a museum. Well, said Castle, be that as it may, just at the time when you have so mysteriously disappeared, some lunatic decides to protect the virtue of all these innocent Latvian virgins by setting fire to our hotel.

  Lincoln folded his copy of the credit card receipt and placed it in his breast pocket. Take care of yourself, Avery. I’m sorry things didn’t work out a little better, but at least you got a taste of what we’re about. And I truly do hope you enjoyed yourself, at least as much as you are able to. And Naomi, it’s been a real pleasure meeting you. Have a safe and pleasant journey.

  We were too stunned to prevent him from leaving. The door swung open, capturing in its glass the budding boughs of a nearby cherry tree, and then it closed again and Castle was gone. Well, my mother said, did you? Did you enjoy yourself, at least as much as you were able to? I nodded. She made a small, mirthless laugh. Well at least you can be honest about it, she said. Now what am I supposed to do? I said. I have a contract to write a book about a tour I’ve just been kicked off of. That moment of confidence, in which I’d thought I could use this reversal of fortune as a narrative twist, had passed, and in its wake I felt doomed. I think you’d better get back to New York, while you still can, Naomi said. I think you have this much time. She described a half inch with her thumb and forefinger.

  We went up to our room. I dozed in a chair while my mother closed up our suitcases—we hadn’t really unpacked. Come on, she said, shaking my shoulder. We have to hurry. I’m a dead man, I said, shaking my head.

  Taxi! I rocked back and forth, with my hands on my knees. My mother, hoping only to calm me down, began talking about Deirdre. You know, those few hours I was in New York? When I was trying to find out where you were, I went to your apartment and I found Deirdre there, right in the lobby, picking up her mail. She was so happy to see me. Such a beautiful girl, and so gracious. But I don’t kid myself, Avery. She was nice to me because I’m your mother and she misses you and loves you and wishes more than anything that you were with her. It was perfectly obvious. She was sleeping with a Columbia student, I muttered. Well, the very nice thing about being a pot is you don’t have to call the kettle black. Where are we going? I asked. Up to the sky, she said cheerfully. She tapped her purse; I guessed there were tickets inside of it. Do we have reservations? I asked. Just leave that to me, she said. The grass on either side of the road was a bright milky green. There were billboards advertising beer, corn chips, soap. They all showed young women, blond and cheerful, almost manic; they were like a natural resource offered to the rest of the world. The country was having a close-out sale on blondes.

  Did Deirdre really say she wanted me back? My mother shrugged. Not in so many words, but I got that sense from her. And that stuff about the Jankowsky Cross? Is it really selling that well? I don’t have exact numbers, but, yes, I think we can expect a real increase. But you don’t know for sure, right? There’s nothing wrong with being optimistic, she said.r />
  There was blood on my passport, but the control officer didn’t seem to care. Off came my shoes. My socks were black, thin, worn. I emptied my pockets. Coins. A pen. A set of keys to the apartment on Fifty-fourth Street.

  The sun had broken through the clouds. The runway threshold markings glistened like crushed diamonds in the light, and the control tower cast its long shadow across the field, like the numeral 1 painted onto the tarmac.

  Welcome aboard.

  Up we go, my mother said, when we were finally aloft. Shredded clouds raced by. My hands were shaking. Turbulence? Nerves? Then, suddenly, the clouds were beneath us, stately and white, rolling one after the other, out toward a distant point, like gravestones. Okay, here we go, my mother said, tilting me back, covering me with a dark blue blanket, patting my shoulder. And then she brushed her open hand over my eyes so the wrinkled pink of her palm touched my eyelashes, and my eyes were closed, and I went into the sweetest softest most soothing darkness I had ever known, and she said Okay, baby, that’s it, just relax, and before you know it you’ll be home.

  Acknowledgments

  THANK YOU to the Bogliasco Foundation and to the John S. Guggenheim Foundation for their generous support during the research and writing of this novel. Jo Ann Beard, Lynn Nesbit, Dan Halpern, and Millicent Bennett all gave me valuable advice about the manuscript. Thank you as well to Lorrie Moore, who used the title “Willing” for a wonderful short story years ago and who graciously gave me permission to use it for this novel. While I was in the process of writing this book, four people died, all of whom have been integral to my life’s joy and without whom my life has become less comprehensible. Their names, in the order of passing: Butch Conn, Charles Spencer, George Budabin, Carolyn Hougan.

  Quoth the raven, “Nevermore.”

  About the Author

  SCOTT SPENCER’S nine novels include Endless Love and A Ship Made of Paper. He has written for Rolling Stone, the New York Times, The New Yorker, GQ, and Harper’s. He lives in Rhinebeck, New York.

  Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.

  PRAISEFOR

  Scott Spencer’s Willing

  “Spencer imbues Avery with a sharp wit and self-awareness, and somehow his account manages to deride sex tourism while at the same time cultivating our sympathy toward characters who have paid amply to participate, pointing up the pathetic nature of the whole enterprise.”

  —Elle

  “It’s a brave thing to write a funny book about a subject as dark as sex tourism. But in this recent novel, National Book Award finalist and Rolling Stone scribe Scott Spencer shows a mastery of the perverse that’s as twisted as it is true.”

  ——Rolling Stone

  “Best known for his novel Endless Love, a disturbing tale of obsessive young love, Spencer takes a cooler, more comic view of human coupling in Willing. Semi-anonymous jet-sex is shown to be a farcical tango between the chronically lonesome and the congenitally greedy…. Willing is Spencer’s rueful requiem for the Playboy-inspired American dream that every man can be a sultan and all the world his harem.”

  —Walter Kirn, O, The Oprah Magazine

  “Spencer has fashioned a novel that is not only whip-smart and thoughtful but funny enough to make you snort your coffee out your nose…. Spencer [is] a graceful and original stylist who may remind the reader of Richard Ford or Nick Hornby or even the humorous reprieves in Philip Roth.”

  —Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

  “A ribald and amusing comedy of (bad) manners, Willing…is more satire than romantic drama, fast-paced and funny, with a distinctly sharper edge than his previous novels. It’s also unnervingly insightful as it mocks the narcissistic and opportunistic shadings of human nature…a wry exploration into the mind and libido of a modern man, and it’s great, mad fun. And you don’t even have to take your clothes off to enjoy it.”

  —Miami Herald

  “Scott Spencer has hit the literary lottery. Just as former Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s stunning fall from grace fills the front pages and the late-night monologues with talk of ritzy prostitution rings and seven-diamond call girls, the author of Endless Love hits shelves with a novel about upper-crust international sex tourism. That’s timing even Jerry Seinfeld would kill for.”

  —USA Today

  “In Spencer’s illuminatingly wise and witty novel, Avery is fortunate enough to learn the kind of valuable lessons that even money can’t buy.”

  —Philadelphia Inquirer

  “With Scott Spencer—a National Book Award [finalist]—one certainly does not suffer at the hands of an incapable writer. Far from it. He’s one lyrically smart dude, with evidence to be found on just about every page of Willing. Very often his sentences are surprising, rhythmic, psychologically astute, and on occasion richly comic…often his sentences can turn positively Updikean. In those places Spencer pushes the prose playfully—even strangely—a reader can be stopped in his tracks, halted by a crazily perfect turn of phrase.”

  —Boston Globe

  “Packing a one-two punch of ruthless self-examination and tragicomic farce.”

  —Library Journal

  “Spencer’s latest novel should cement his reputation as the contemporary American master of the love story…. This book, in which matters of sex and race are treated with unusual frankness, could well be both the critical and commercial surprise of this spring season.”

  —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

  “A riotous black comedy…. Spencer’s sumptuous prose adds much to the pleasure of this novel’s provocative, and often disturbing story. His elaborate and hilarious verbal riffs recall some of Philip Roth’s writing at its best. Willing doesn’t flinch in exposing one seamy corner of a world where everything can be bought and sold—for the right price.”

  —BookPage

  “Scott Spencer’s endearingly lighthearted new novel Willing…impressively brings to life an anxious, obsessive lead character, a creation that in lesser hands might easily come off as a cliché…. Willing is a breezy and engaging read…. Spencer shows a real flair for screwball comedy; you can’t help but appreciate his effort in reviving the sex farce—a literary genre that rarely gets the respect it deserves.”

  —Fort Worth Star-Telegram

  “Spencer writes of passion with precision and candor…. [He] turns satiric in this buoyantly funny yet caustic moral comedy starring a floundering New York writer…. Spencer is masterful in his fresh metaphors and arresting insights into the endless conflict between body and soul. His frank view of a trashed and corrupt world in which men and women struggle to do right is immensely moving, and his subtle alignment of our abuse of women with the pillaging of the earth deepens the resonance of this very human tale of the many faces of love.”

  —Booklist

  “Spencer has long specialized in inspired novelistic setups, but rarely has he seemed to have more fun than he does here…. Avery Jankowsky has traces of Bellow’s Augie March and Roth’s Portnoy in his voice.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “Spencer’s portrayal of Avery is hilarious…. Willing leaves the reader with an understanding that, in this world of psychoanalysis and obsession, there is still hope to laugh at our mistakes.”

  —Blogcritics.org

  “Avery’s background—he’s had multiple father figures but no real father—is compellingly told. And his detached relationship with his girlfriend, Deirdre, is abject, paranoid, and utterly believable.”

  —Time Out (New York)

  “Slyly engaging new novel…. Avery’s dilemma mirrors readers’ unsettling experience of being thrust into a seductive world where it’s all too easy to be bad, difficult to be good, and nearly impossible to know the difference. We are drawn into the story…the language itself is an addictive pleasure.”

  —Chronogram

  “Dark and funny…. A fast-moving and joyful traipse…. In the end, [Willing is] a story of redemption…. It’s a story of p
ain and longing, and of how—waiting there behind the sadness and the hurt, and the lust and the opportunism—is the most beautiful, most treasured love of all.”

  —Buffalo News

  ALSO BY SCOTT SPENCER

  Fiction

  A Ship Made of Paper

  The Rich Man’s Table

  Men in Black

  Secret Anniversaries

  Waking the Dead

  Endless Love

  Preservation Hall

  Last Night at the Brain Thieves’ Hall

  Credits

  Cover design by Allison Saltzman

  Cover photograph: Limbo 5 © 2004 by Bianca Brunner

  Copyright

  WILLING. Copyright © 2008 by Scott Spencer. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  EPub © Edition JANUARY 2009 ISBN: 9780061974946

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