The Vixen

by Francine Prose

  How tactful and gentle her question was, when she could just have said, You look awful!

  “Rough night.”

  Rough night. That’s what Anya had said. I didn’t think Elaine was wondering, as I had with Anya, if rough night meant sex with someone else.

  “It happens. Would you like some tea?”

  She filled a heavy orange mug with steaming liquid. Even her choice of teacup—the sturdy honest ceramic versus Anya’s translucent china—seemed like evidence of superior virtue. So why was I longing for Anya? For the same reason that the hero chooses the seductive evil sister, for the same reason why those stories always end badly.

  The tea smelled of dead flowers and earth. I took a sip, then forced another. I’d never thought of Elaine as the type who would drink something so repellent. It was more Anya’s style. How little I knew about either of them. How little they’d let me know.

  “Thanks,” I said. “This helps. Nothing like hot tea.” Could I have said anything more banal? I was conscious, as I often was when I spoke to Anya and Warren, that I didn’t sound like myself. I heard myself mimicking Warren in his jolly mode accepting a cup of tea. I’d forgotten who “myself” was. How would he have sounded?

  “What’s the matter, Simon? Tell me. We have”—she checked her watch—“a good half hour before the daily hell breaks loose.”

  I blinked back mortifying tears. This was the woman I should be with. Sooner or later, Elaine would realize that I could give her so much more than Warren, so much that Warren lacked: loyalty, fidelity, youth . . . I stopped short of comparing my body with his. It would have felt like violating a biblical prohibition.

  I said, “Elaine, have you ever had an author stop taking your calls?”

  I’d called Anya again last night, but Anya hadn’t called back. I’d called twice more. I’d left messages with the nurses.

  “More times than I can count. Especially with the foreign ones. Oddly, it’s often the Germans. To them an appointment is something that might happen tomorrow.”

  “Have you ever had an author actually . . . disappear?”

  “Florence Durgin!” said Elaine. “Oh no! We’ve been concerned about her ever since we signed her first book. Has something happened to Florence? I told Warren it was a mistake to postpone her book—”

  “Nothing’s wrong with Florence. She’s fine.” I didn’t know that. I hadn’t heard from her since I told her that her poems were being bumped off this season’s list. The first chance I got, I would call Florence and invite her to lunch.

  “Then . . . who . . . ?”

  “It’s Anya.” How sweet it felt to say that, to let my anxiety overpower my fear that Elaine would find out what Anya and I had been doing. Maybe I no longer cared. Elaine would forgive me. She must have forgiven Warren so much. Nothing human was beyond her compassion and understanding.

  I said, “Anya Partridge won’t answer my calls.”

  Already I had a sense—a premonition—that Anya would never call back. In the sagas people know when their loved ones have died in battle. They know long before the corpses are sent home or abandoned in the field to be eaten by crows.

  Elaine said, “Anya was always a recluse. Or anyway so she said. You do know she’s an actress. She loves playing the adorable little Shakespeare-quoting oddball.”

  How did Elaine know that Anya quoted Shakespeare? She’d said she never met her. Probably Warren told her. Everything had an explanation.

  Was it possible that Anya was telling the truth and Elaine was lying? What if Anya didn’t write The Vixen and Elaine knew that? The thought crossed my mind, lightly and not long enough to do any lasting damage.

  She said, “I’d assumed Warren warned you about her being a hermit. Frankly we were all surprised when she agreed to meet with you.”

  All surprised? We were all surprised? All was more than two. Who else knew about this?

  “Warren sent your photo to her. That must have done the trick.” Elaine smiled.

  Elaine was telling me I was handsome, that my photo had changed Anya’s mind, but I was too panicky to feel flattered. I’d waited, for so long, for any sign that Elaine saw me, let alone noticed what I looked like.

  I couldn’t remember anyone taking my photograph at the office. What had they sent Anya? In my Harvard yearbook photo, I looked startled, as we all were, when the photographer said “Look at my hand” and we saw he was missing two fingers. A veteran. A war photographer, maybe. In the photo, I looked like I was thinking of my father and the Japanese corpses.

  Maybe someone had taken my photo at the office Christmas party I barely remembered.

  “Listen.” I was whispering. “Elaine. The last time I saw Anya, she claimed she didn’t write The Vixen.”

  Elaine did a goofy double take that would have seemed less charming had her lovely face been possible to disfigure. “Of course Anya wrote it!” She laughed. “Who else would churn out that crap? The poor captive princess in the tower. The diva literary genius—in her own mind. Trust me, Simon. She wrote it.”

  Elaine’s blue eyes were wide and innocent. The mask of sincerity. Where had that thought come from? Forced to decide who was telling the truth, I made the obvious choice. The more I doubted Anya, the more I needed to believe Elaine. I couldn’t begin to think that both of them might be lying. I trusted Elaine. I did.

  “Anya thinks she’s written a masterpiece. She’s probably annoyed at you for asking her to change a word. She really wants her photo on that jacket. I won’t be able to get rid of her once we start doing publicity.”

  Why was Elaine so critical of Anya, who, if she wrote or even pretended to have written The Vixen, was doing our firm a favor? Maybe it was about Warren. Maybe Elaine was jealous. Or maybe she suspected that I had . . . a crush on Anya. I wanted that to make her jealous.

  “I’m already going to publicist hell for saying any of this. I’m supposed to be discreet. Upbeat. That’s my job. Just sometimes it gets wearing.”

  Elaine was confiding in me about the stresses of her job, and all I could think was that she was competing with Anya. I thought of Anya straddling me in the dark ride, Anya moaning and purring like a cat in the restaurant cellar. I was a terrible person. I couldn’t look at Elaine. I turned toward the door to see what the noise was: the babble of supplicants in the hall, all wanting something from Elaine.

  “Don’t worry,” Elaine said. “It’s your first real experience with writers—not counting Florence, who on the scale of things is low-maintenance. Be prepared. You’re the scout leader, the pet trainer, the spouse, the shrink, the servant, the boss. You’re the dad. Anya needs you. She’ll be back on board, boasting about the book, asking Warren for an advance on the next one. This is a business transaction. Her awful book will rescue the firm”—Elaine knocked on her wooden bookshelf—“and we’ll make money. Just keep doing whatever you’re doing. Be patient and try not to worry.”

  It didn’t matter how much Elaine knew. She had my best interests at heart. I loved Elaine. I loved her. My little fling with Anya would end, and then Elaine and I . . .

  “Thank you, thank you, thank you, Elaine.” She was my dream human being. So beautiful, so thoughtful, so capable of comforting me with just a few kind words. Thank God she existed.

  I went back to my office and dialed Anya’s number.

  One of the nurses answered. “Let me try and reach her,” she said.

  Silence. Silence.

  “She’s not answering. Would you like to leave a message?”

  “Could you tell her Simon called. I’m just checking to see if she’s okay. You know what? Don’t bother. Thank you. I’ll call back.”

  Moments later, the spirit on the staircase said, loud and clear, Can you please tell Miss Partridge that her editor called?

  Why hadn’t I said that?

  * * *

  After three days with no word from Anya and three more sleepless nights, a letter arrived in my office. It had accidentally (I assumed) s
lipped between two manuscripts. Normally I might have chucked the envelopes onto the growing pile, but something guided me to look between the submissions, where I found the letter.

  Anya lived in the world, or partly in the world. She was a functioning human being. She wasn’t stupid. I knew this, and yet I was amazed that she’d put an actual postage stamp on an actual envelope and sent it to my actual address at the firm. I’d underestimated her again. That was why I’d lost her.

  My name was spelled wrong. Simon Putnum.

  Inside was one page, a few lines typed on the vintage machine I’d seen in her room. I recognized the heavy punch of the keys, the blurred defective letters.

  Dear Simon,

  I didn’t want to have to do this. I wanted to avoid it, I thought everyone was having fun, it was like theater or a play or a joke, a great acting roll for me, or a giant adventure, and then it got so serious, and then I found out some other things, and then I had a talk with Warren, and then you had to go tell Elaine. I’m going someplace, maybe Korfu. See you when I get back. Take care of the Vickson for me. I came to love her, sort of like you’d love a cute adopted baby.

  Please don’t try to come look for me. Promise. It’s not safe.

  Love, and I mean that,

  Anya

  Vickson. Korfu. What kind of person was I? The woman I loved had disappeared, and I was critiquing her spelling.

  Love, and I mean that. She meant that. Maybe Anya loved me. Maybe she had loved me. Maybe that was why she’d written me a note. Maybe I’d meant something to her. Maybe she’d started to fall in love with me, though she hadn’t planned it. Maybe she’d taken a risk. Maybe her health—her mental health—wasn’t strong enough. Maybe I would never know what happened. Maybe she didn’t write the book. Maybe she’d been forced to pretend she had. Maybe Warren or someone had something on her. Maybe he was blackmailing her. Maybe he knew her parents. Maybe they were all in this together. What had she meant by It’s not safe?

  I needed to see her and tell her that we could figure it out. We could help each other. We’d started off on the wrong foot. What would have been the right foot? Something less reckless, more professional, anything besides sex on a dark ride. I would tell her that her novel was great. The best I’d ever read. Her letter was just a gesture. A dramatic gesture—theatrical, like everything about her. People made gestures all the time. But what if Anya was in trouble, and I didn’t help? What if I’d been too preoccupied by my own selfish concerns to recognize a soul in pain, a woman in danger? I would never forgive myself.

  I decided to go find her.

  Chapter 9

  I found the letter in the afternoon, too late for me to leave. The next morning I called in sick. It was true, or almost true. I was exhausted. I’d hardly slept.

  I asked the clerk at the Port Authority bus terminal how to get to River Road in Shad Point. He unfolded a map and turned it around, then turned it around again. A bigger bus, a smaller bus, then a taxi. If there were no taxis, a very long walk. I bought a round-trip ticket.

  The driver took a different route from either of the ones Ned had taken. I was relieved when I realized we weren’t going to pass Sing Sing.

  As the suburbs thinned and the pretty countryside streamed by, I felt a rush of independence. I hadn’t asked Warren’s permission. I wasn’t using his driver. I was on my own. Just as Maxwell Perkins tracked down Hemingway, just as legendary editors had always succeeded in flushing great writers out of their burrows, I would find Anya. So what if Anya wasn’t a great writer? Some compromise could still be brokered between trash and treasure. Everything would be clear again. Her book would be back on track, and if that’s what it took to make her happy, she and I would continue having sex in basements and funhouse rides.

  The fruit trees were in feathery bloom, the white apples and pink cherries. Every blossom was a message: I was a week past Warren’s May Day deadline.

  I took the big bus, then waited for the smaller bus. I was sure it would never arrive. I would be stranded here forever. Behind the bus stop was a forest from which came unnerving rustles and cries. Alien territory. I was a city person, and the forest knew it. Somewhere an owl hooted. Weren’t owls nocturnal? Professor Crowley told us a story about a man who heard an owl call his name and knew he was going to die. Whatever this owl was saying, at least it wasn’t Simon.

  I almost wept when the bus arrived. I thanked the driver so profusely that he turned and watched me until he must have decided I wasn’t a threat to him or the (two) other passengers.

  I got off where the agent in Port Authority had told me. Being the only person to get off a bus in the middle of nowhere is unnerving. There were no taxis, no pay phones. The country road was deserted. I started walking. Only rarely did I have to move over for a car. I might have tried to hitchhike, but that scared me more than walking.

  Dandelions speckled the emerald grass. An improbably red cardinal perched on a branch to watch me pass. Somehow I had forgotten the beauty of the world. I remembered spring mornings, walking to Crowley’s lectures. How sharp and green the air had smelled, how much it felt like the country but with neatly mown lawns and well-kept paths lit by the auras of golden students.

  I’d been blind to everything but The Vixen and its author.

  Just when I’d started looking for a rock or tree stump to rest on, I spotted the Elmwood sign. I walked up the manicured driveway, past the magisterial oaks. The distance from the road to the house was much longer on foot. No attendants, no wheelchairs. Maybe it was lunchtime or rest time or therapy time. I leaned into the heavy, faux-medieval door and nearly stumbled into the hall.

  Anya would be there. Everything would be solved. We would get past this rough patch. We would have a future in which to improve her book or not—and decide what we meant to each other. I was excited to be there. I would overlook what happened the last time I saw her. We would start over, from where we were, before she made that pointless joke about not having written The Vixen.

  Had the nurse at the reception desk looked so anxious before? A second nurse joined the first, and when I asked to see Miss Partridge, they exchanged glances. Perhaps that was why there were two of them, so they could cooperate without speaking.

  The older one said, “Miss Partridge has been discharged.”

  Discharged? I felt dizzy. I needed water. I thought about Mom and her dizzy spells. Why hadn’t I been a better son? But I was a good son. It was no one’s fault that I’d had to grow up and leave home. I was so far from Coney Island. I had risen and fallen and risen and fallen.

  “Do you think you could let me into Anya’s room?”

  Again the nurses looked at each other.

  I said, “She asked me to look for something she needed. Something . . . with sentimental value . . . she left behind.”

  That made no sense. If she didn’t tell me she’d been discharged, how could she have asked me to retrieve something she’d forgotten? Nurses were trained to think logically, but something about me—or Anya or both of us—scrambled their scientific training.

  One of them pointed down the hall. “The door’s unlocked. No one’s there.”

  Even so, I knocked softly and eased open the door as if I might disturb Anya napping—or writing.

  The flocked bordello wallpaper had been ripped down and hung in strips. There were dents in the walls. A pitted wooden floor, dust balls in the corners. A bare bulb hung on a cord. No canopied bed, no glowing red lights, no rumpled sheets, no Persian rugs.

  I jumped when I sensed that someone—a nurse—had come up behind me.

  “Our guests often strip their rooms when they leave. For some reason they need to obliterate every home comfort we encourage them to create. As if they’re erasing their time here. I’ve seen them paint over walls they’ve smeared with . . . well, never mind! And those are the patients we help. The ones who get out. Often we find their possessions in the dumpster down the road. I’ve furnished my house with their discards, and it
’s a lovely house indeed. They toss away magnificent things. Unhappy memories, I guess. Who can blame them? I’m not supposed to be telling you this.”

  “I won’t tell. I promise. Do you think you could please leave me alone for a moment?”

  “Of course. I don’t think we have anyone else checking in today.”

  She closed the door behind her. I sank down onto the dusty floor. I wanted to curl up and weep. I’d lost the love of my life. I would never see Anya again.

  Had I not been sitting on the floor, I would never have spotted something under a radiator across the room. At first I mistook it for a mouse. I yelled and jumped up. I was glad no one saw me.

  It was Anya’s fur stole, the pelt with its head and claws. Anya would never have abandoned her totem. I wanted to think that she’d known I would try to find her, that she’d left it to send me a message. We were connected. She knew me. When she asked me, in her note, to please not come look for her, she’d known that I would.

  But she couldn’t have been sure. And she’d loved that fur stole. Maybe she’d lost it in a struggle. Maybe a kidnapper kicked it under the radiator. Most likely she wasn’t thinking of me when they took her away. Who were they? Were they violent? Was Anya in some kind of danger?

  I extracted the fox from its hiding place, avoiding the eyes that had looked into mine at so many intimate moments. I put the stole under my jacket. The claws scratched me through my shirt. I welcomed the pain. Anya didn’t want me to forget.

  Back in the front hall, I asked the nurses if Anya had left a forwarding address. The one in charge said, “You understand we can’t give out that information. Many of our clients are public figures.”

  What difference should it make whether a mental patient was famous? I knew what difference it made. I said, “Of course. I understand. Thank you.”

  I’d almost reached the door when I turned. “Do you think it would be possible for me to visit Preston Bartlett?”