The Bar Harbor Retirement Home for Famous Writers_And Their Muses

by Terri-Lynne Defino

  You’re not Aldo Wronksi either, but you’ll do. “We’re going to be married, Enzo. This was bound to happen.” She sidled up to him, her best impression of a movie vamp, and on tiptoes kissed his lips. “Is it wrong for a girl to find her fiancé irresistible?”

  He put his arms around her. Did he tremble? “Do you? Really?”

  Yes, he was trembling. His lip quivered. Cecilia’s heart gave a little jolt. Keep going. You can do this. Winding her arms around his neck, she kissed him long and luxuriously. If he wondered where her experience came from, he didn’t say. Sweet Enzo. I’m sorry.

  “I love you, Cecilia,” he whispered. “Not because of tonight. I have for a long time. Even before my dad told me you’d be my wife someday. You’re so pretty and popular. I never thought you could actually—”

  “Shh.” She placed a finger to his lips. “Let’s get out of here before your mother catches us. Before your father gets home. We have all the time in the world to talk.”

  “All our lives,” he had said.

  Naked, supine on top of her pink, dotted swiss bedspread, smoothing her hand over and over her soft, flat belly, telling herself over and over that her baby was safe now whether Daddy ever came home again, whether Aldo ever wrote her back, Cecilia smiled.

  Chapter 13

  Bar Harbor, Maine

  June 15, 1999

  You can rarely tell the real thoughts behind a smile.

  —Cornelius Traegar

  “If you go to him looking like that, he’s going to know.” Olivia took the notebook back from Cecibel, a crooked smile on her lips. Wicked woman. So dear. Cecibel’s giddy heart overflowed.

  “I’ll be the epitome of sedate decorum.” She kissed the old woman’s cheek. “I promise. But Olivia, how amazing it is.”

  “Hardly amazing. It’s just a story.”

  “A wonderful story.”

  “Of little literary merit, I’m afraid. Genre at best.”

  “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

  “After a career like mine, child, it is.” Olivia tucked the notebook away. “Thank you for getting it back to me so quickly. There are a few little tweaks I’d like to make before giving it back to Alfonse.”

  “Like?”

  Olivia shrugged. “I want to put a little more flesh on Enzo’s bones before my cowriter gets ahold of him. He must be solidly likable, sweet, and naive if his character is to go where I want it to. Alfonse has a habit of making all his boys dark.”

  “Will he do that to Aldo?”

  “He’s already begun.” Olivia stretched carefully. “One cannot kill a man without it changing him. Goodness, my back is stiff today. I should go for a walk.”

  Cecibel grinned. “Out to the arbor?”

  “Now that you mention it . . .” She moved carefully to the cedar trunk. Cecibel readied herself to assist, but Olivia opened the lid, shuffled about in her linens, and found her own stash tucked within. Would wonders never cease?

  “I’ll walk with you,” she said.

  Olivia waved her off. “You’ll be late getting to Alfonse. He so looks forward to your time together. You know he fancies you his muse, don’t you?”

  A blush crept up from Cecibel’s neck. “Is that why he named her Cecilia, do you think?”

  “Oh, sweetheart.” Olivia laughed. “That you believe you even have to ask is dear. You’re as smitten as he is.”

  Cecibel chewed at her lip. Aldo and Cecilia. Cecilia and Aldo. It was written in the stars. “I’m not smitten, I’m starstruck. He’s Alfonse Carducci.”

  “And I’m Olivia Peppernell.” She sniffed. “I think I’ve been insulted.”

  “Don’t be silly. I’ve known you for ages, but I was starstruck by you at first.”

  “Were you?”

  “Of course.”

  “Well, that’s better.” Olivia patted her hair, struck a pose that made Cecibel laugh. But the old woman’s hand fell along with her pretended pout. “He won’t be with us long enough for that awe to fade, I’m afraid. It breaks my heart.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  “As Alfonse says, denying the truth doesn’t make it any less real. Go to him now. Be his muse. I’m off to the arbor to visit with my dear friend Mr. Weed.”

  Cecibel waited for Olivia to turn the corner. How amazing, the change, since Alfonse arrived. Since their story began. Not just in Olivia, but in herself. Perhaps Cecibel was his muse; what did that make him to her?

  Hurrying along the corridors, she didn’t see Dr. Kintz until it was too late to avoid his quiet summons. She stumbled slightly, but didn’t have the nerve to pretend she hadn’t heard. “Can I help you, Dr. Kintz?”

  “A private word,” he said. “It won’t take long. I know you’re off duty and by your lovely dress I can guess you’re on your way out.”

  “Just visiting with a friend.”

  Dr. Kintz gestured to the wingback chairs set face-to-face before a massive window fronting the courtyard. He waited for Cecibel to sit before doing the same. “I’ve been going over all the employee records and I came across something in yours that gave me pause.”

  Cold dread knotted her belly. “Oh? What’s that?”

  He pulled a little notebook from his pocket. “I want to get this right.” He read, “Cecibel Bringer . . . la-dah-dah . . . Oh, here it is. ‘Patient released against recommendation of primary physician.’”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “What’s the question?”

  “I’m trying to put this delicately.”

  “No need.”

  “Considering this is a private care facility, I’m within my rights to ask, but you don’t have to answer.”

  That cold and dreadful knot spread to her chest. “All right.”

  “What year was your accident, Cecibel?”

  “Nineteen eighty-seven. Why?”

  “Because Dr. Marks, the physician who wrote that note, did so in 1990.”

  Shoulders, thighs. Her fingers tingled. “My injuries were extensive, as you can imagine.”

  “Dr. Marks is not a surgeon, Cecibel, she is a psychiatrist. The hospital was a mental health facility, and you were there against your will. Must we play this game?”

  She was a block of ice, barely able to move her lips enough to speak. “If you have a question, Dr. Kintz, ask it.”

  He waited. Quietly. Patiently. Cecibel was all too aware of the technique. Dr. Marks never asked her a thing outside of how she was feeling, and if the medication she prescribed was plaguing her with side effects. She always waited, that same quiet patience now applied by Dr. Kintz. It hadn’t worked back then. It wouldn’t now.

  “All right, then,” he said. “Thank you for your time, Cecibel. My door is always open.”

  She rose, and he did, too. Dr. Kintz smiled kindly, a little sadly. “Have a nice afternoon.”

  “Thank you.” What had frozen now flamed. Slow, deliberate steps quickened. She was running full pelt. Where, she didn’t know or care. Away was all she wanted.

  What records did he have, and where did he get them? She’d been very careful not to provide more than the absolute minimum on her employment questionnaire. So minimal she’d been surprised to have been hired at all. No experience. A nursing degree never finished. She’d been no one, from nowhere, hired as an orderly in one of the poshest nursing homes in the country, and only now did she wonder how that had happened at all.

  Unhirable. Like Salvatore. Like Finlay. Both hired when Dr. Traegar was still alive to collect misfits no one else would have. But who had collected her?

  Stuttering to a halt, Cecibel nearly lost her footing. She leaned against the wall, hand to chest, and gained her bearings. The service corridor. Between living spaces and kitchen. Safe enough. Familiar. She tilted her head back, not caring, momentarily, if her hair fell off her face. Outrunning the past was as impossible as hiding her disfigurement, but she kept at both anyway.

  “Cecibel, what are you doing here?” Salvatore stood in the doorway
, his hand propping back the swinging door. He looked at his watch. “Aren’t you supposed to be with your boyfriend?”

  She looked at hers. Four thirty. Alfonse would be wondering where she was. Letting her arm drop, she stepped closer to Sal. “Dr. Kintz stopped me on my way. He asked me some unsettling questions.”

  “You too?” Sal pished. “He’s been going through everyone’s rap sheets—”

  “I’ve never been arrested.”

  “I’m being dramatic, darling.” He pulled her nearer. “No sooner did he uncover my alter ego than I got put on probation.”

  “What?”

  Sal let her go, waving a hand as if shooing a bug. “Oh, he said it was because I left the supply closet unlocked and demented old Mr. Gardern got caught stealing toilet paper again, but I know the real deal. He fires me, I’m going to sue him for discrimination.”

  “Sal.” Cecibel shook her head. “You know that’s not true.” Dr. Kintz was a snoop, not a bigot. “You’re a fixture here”—like me and Fin—“not in any real danger. So he really is going through everyone’s files?”

  “Yes, he is.”

  “But I didn’t have a file. At least, I didn’t know I had one. He seemed to have . . . information about me from before I was ever hired.”

  “Who knows how they gather what they do or why?” He raised a fine, thin brow. “You got a skeleton or two I don’t know about?”

  Or three or four. “I guess he knows all about Finlay by now, too.”

  “I’m sure he knew before he ever got here. It’s not like it wasn’t scandalous and tragic and in all the papers for years and years.”

  “I get why Dr. Traegar would hire him,” she said. “From all accounts, Dr. Traegar was a good man, kind. He probably knew Fin as a kid or something and felt bad about what happened. But . . .”

  “But Finlay bludgeoned a man to death,” Sal supplied. “So why didn’t anyone since Traegar let him go? Your guess is as good as mine.”

  “I have no guesses,” she said.

  “Speaking of Finlay.” Sal batted his eyelashes. “I noticed you two are getting chummy.”

  “Stop.”

  “Oh, come on, honey. It’s nice.”

  “We’re two of the only three on-site staffers,” Cecibel said. “It’s time we got to be friends.”

  “You’re getting no fight from me. I been saying it for years. Now that it’s happening, I think I’m feeling a little jealous.”

  Cecibel blew a breath through her lips. “Don’t be an idiot. I’m really late now. See you later, Sal.”

  Sedately, as she’d promised Olivia, Cecibel walked to Alfonse’s suite on the other side of the mansion. Her conversation with Dr. Kintz had drained the exuberance from her anyway. Whatever information he had didn’t matter anyway. Old news. Way in the past. Done. But not forgotten. Never ever. Apparently.

  Hand resting on the lever of Alfonse’s door, Cecibel took deep breaths. She was good at her job. Most of the residents loved her, and those who didn’t had no cause to dislike her. The nurses snubbed her, but they left her alone for the most part. It’d been a while since one tried to get her fired, anyway. She was safe. Nearly a decade safe. If Dr. Kintz kept Fin on without qualm, he’d keep her for sure. He couldn’t know anything about her outside of, somehow, getting files from Dr. Marks, and Dr. Marks hadn’t known anything. Because Cecibel never told her, never admitted she didn’t know if the accident had been on purpose, never confessed that whether or not it was, she’d been more than willing to die. More than willing to take Jennifer with her.

  * * *

  Cecibel was never late. Nearly twenty minutes to five and Alfonse feared he’d begin hyperventilating if she didn’t appear—think the thought, crook the finger, smile the smile—now! She didn’t. If ever he believed he had magical powers concerning his desires and the fairer sex, his current attempts disabused him utterly. Or perhaps his memory faded with his heart, lungs, liver.

  The door swung open and in she rushed, her hair hanging in a thick braid over her shoulder. Alfonse’s stuttering heart changed tack but not rhythm. Magic, indeed. Before he could gather himself to rise as a gentleman did for a lady, Cecibel threw herself to the floor at his feet, her golden head upon his lap.

  “Cecibel?”

  “Please. Don’t talk. Don’t ask. Just . . . please.”

  No shaking shoulders. No sobbing. Cecibel took slow, deep breaths he felt in his knees, against his shins. Even in distress, she’d been careful to turn the fair of her face to him. His heart stirred, maybe even locations south. He couldn’t be sure. It had been so long. Strange spasms racked him all the time. Petting her tenderly—hair, shoulder, back; hair, shoulder, back—he crooned soothing sounds out of the past. It’s all right, my darling. Hush. I’m here. I’m here.

  “I don’t know what’s going on with me.” Her whispered words scattered his thoughts, like a hand through smoke.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m thinking things.”

  “Things?”

  She nodded against his knee. “Things I haven’t thought in a long time. Things I haven’t been able to. Things I shouldn’t. And it’s because of you.”

  Another change in tack. Could Olivia have been right? Alfonse quelled the need to clutch his chest. “Because of me, how, my dear?”

  “I’m not sure.” Cecibel picked up her head, and for a split moment, he saw her whole. A trick of the light, of failing eyesight. Whatever the reason, it was fleeting. The scars were there, behind the stranded curtain obscuring but not quite hiding them from the world. Never hiding them from herself. That Alfonse knew with a certainty settling painfully in his beleaguered heart.

  “I don’t know what to do,” she whispered. “I don’t know how to turn it off, or if I should. I’m . . . scared.”

  “Fear can be a good thing, Cecibel,” he said. “It means you’re facing down a demon.”

  “But what if I don’t want to? What if I want to let it win?” Cecibel lowered her gaze, waited for absolution. Benediction. Condemnation.

  Alfonse lifted her chin. “If that were so, you wouldn’t be asking.”

  Cecibel flinched but she didn’t pull away. The fingers of a man much younger than his body felt trembled. He lifted her braid, tested its weight. A fortune in gold, in silk, this beauty. He pulled the elastic from the end and, tenderly, undid its glorious length. Cecibel closed her eyes. Alfonse traced the contours of her fair half, a lover coming to know his beloved. In a novel, perhaps. Real life was never like a novel written to pull at heartstrings, to frighten or to thrill. Real life was so much more complicated. The emotions skimmed or embellished for a reader’s pleasure could never be truly expressed. In a novel, Alfonse would be a younger man. Cecibel’s scars would be somehow and strangely beautiful. In a novel, he would touch her and she would lean into his hand and an understanding would be reached without either of them uttering a word. In a novel, all obstacles could be overcome.

  He pushed the hair from her face, all of her face. Now Cecibel flinched. A tear slipped out from between closed lids and rolled down her soft, lovely cheek. The other eye could not weep. The lid was a slit of borrowed skin. No lashes. She was a melted candle of cobbled flesh from eye socket to jawline. Her plump, kissable mouth did not end in a delicate corner, but in a thick, shiny scar that drew a line up to her ear. An ear that had no lobe, no flap. The insides of a seashell broken on the rocks.

  Leaning low compressed lungs too weak to compensate, but Alfonse held his breath and did so. He kissed her brow. He kissed the fair princess’s cheek, and the monster’s. He dropped back in his chair, gasping. Cecibel opened her eyes, blue marbles, even, impossibly, the ruined one. The moment froze. One heartbeat. Two. Three. Four. She was rising, towering over him. A wounded Valkyrie fresh from battle. Alfonse felt so small in that gaze. A withered old man who’d trespassed into places he didn’t belong, and couldn’t survive.

  Cecibel’s hand came to rest on his shoulder. A swoop of hair dr
opped into his lap as she kissed his brow, his cheeks, his lips. She lingered there though he didn’t respond, couldn’t respond without breaking the spell. A thousand sweaty nights, languid afternoons, fresh mornings careened through his body, his brain. To pluck even one of them from the parade would undo him. Instead, his fingers curled into that hair pooled in his lap. He fingered it, concentrated on the thick softness Cecibel took with her when she pulled away.

  He didn’t call her back. She didn’t glance over her shoulder. The metallic click of his door was the only indication that she was gone; he hoped, not for good.

  Head back, eyes on the ceiling so high above his head, Alfonse counted breaths until he could do so calmly. He couldn’t have written the magic of these moments, not if given another century to try. Life could never be contained by words. It could only be expressed to the best of one’s ability, in the hopes of capturing a tiny spark and giving it away.

  Chapter 14

  Off the Aleutian Islands, Alaska

  Summer 1955

  Aldo

  No matter how cold it was on deck, the kitchens broiled. Aldo didn’t complain. Low man on the totem pole in the kitchen was far better than holding that position above. He worked hard, but he was warm, fed, and he was learning.

  The monotony of prep work in the galley gave him good knife skills and too much time for his mind to wander. To Cecilia. What she was doing. Where she was. Who she was with. Life had to have changed drastically after her father’s death; for the better, he hoped. Criminal that he was, Dominic Giancami was small stuff and not newsworthy. At least, Aldo hadn’t read anything about it in Chicago newspapers. The only news they got onboard was radio broadcasts concerning movie stars, and the ship newsletter.

  A year, already, since seeing her last. Touching her. Tasting her. Even so he could still close his eyes and conjure her entirety. Nearly six months since completing all his training and being assigned to the galley crew on the USS Greenwater. A whole continent away from Cecilia, in a world where even summers were cold. It was an important ship playing a vital role in keeping the citizenry of the United States safe. The communist threat across the Bering Strait was as real as the Japanese threat of a little more than a decade ago. Diligence, his commanding officers claimed, was the key to freedom.