The Bar Harbor Retirement Home for Famous Writers_And Their Muses

by Terri-Lynne Defino

  If she remembered. “I was just taking a break,” he said. “What do you need, my dear?”

  “A look at the manuscript. I was looking over the last chapter I transcribed in such a hurry. I knew I’d mucked something up. Unless Switch wrote about marquis sapphires cutting someone’s face. Which I highly doubt. I was afraid I’d forget by the time I got the book back. Even with notes, I do. Sometimes. It’s best to address things when they’re fresh. Do you mind if I have a look?”

  Alfonse handed her the notebook. Sinking into the chair opposite him, Judi thumbed through the pages. “Ah, there it is. Paper? Pen?”

  “Right there in that drawer.”

  Judi jotted down the correct line, and tucked the note into the pocket of her jeans. “Thank you, Alfie. I’ll let you get back to work.”

  “Stay,” he said. “I was taking a break, as I said. I could use a little company. I don’t get out much more than dinner these days.”

  Judi sank back into her chair. “I noticed. We’ve been at a loss as to what we should do. Come visit? Or leave you be?”

  “It’s usually a fifty-fifty chance.” He smiled. “But always opt for visiting. I can tell you to go away.”

  “You could also buzz any one, or all of us, to come to you.”

  He looked down at his hands. Cecibel told him they were nice hands. They were, he had to admit.

  “Alfonse?”

  “I know,” he said. “I’ll try to remember that.”

  “You’re not the one with the memory problem.” She laughed. “Don’t tell me you, of all people, are becoming humble.”

  “Humble? Never.” He met her eyes. “I know what it is to avoid a death you cannot fathom. I never came to see Cornelius. I don’t blame anyone for not wanting to watch me die.”

  “Oh, Alfie.” She leaned forward, patted his knee. “You were young and full of regret where he was concerned. We’re all old and near enough to our own ends to know there is no avoiding it.”

  “If I was young then, so are you now. I was about your age when he fell ill.”

  “You cannot compare your sixty-seven to mine,” she said. “You never looked or acted your age. I’ve the mind of a ninety-year-old who’s fallen on her head a few too many times.”

  “You exaggerate.”

  Judi shrugged. “Only a little. I’ve no delusions. My descent will not be pretty or romantic. It will be sad and heartbreaking. Having no one in my life used to make me sad, but now I’m glad no one will have the pain of witnessing what I’ll become. Then again, I have no one to grieve over me either.”

  “You’re well loved,” he said. “Everyone here will mourn you.”

  “Momentarily. We all come here knowing good-bye is all too near.”

  “She says to the man nearer to death than anyone else in the Pen.”

  “As if you’ve no one to lament you.” She crossed her arms. “The whole world knows and loves Alfonse Carducci. You’ll not be forgotten.”

  It was true. Long after he was gone, people would read his novels. Colleges would offer courses on the body of his work. Judith Arsenault’s connection to any of it had long been forgotten by all but a scattered few. Everyone knew who wrote Gone with the Wind, but did anyone know who Margaret Mitchell’s editor was?

  “I will be just as dead as any nameless, homeless man brought into a New York City morgue,” he said, “and won’t know who remembers what of me.”

  She cocked her head; dark hair only slightly salted swung like a silk curtain at her chin. “Then you don’t believe in heaven?”

  “I don’t believe in hell,” he answered, “so contrariwise, no, I do not believe in heaven.”

  “I never knew you to be a cynic. You’ve always been so whimsical.”

  “Me? Whimsical?” He’d laugh if he could spare the effort. “Darling, I’m a writer. I’m the most cynical fool God ever sent rambling.”

  “I believe the quote is ‘sublime fool.’”

  “Was I quoting someone?”

  “Bradbury.”

  “That, she remembers.”

  “It’s how Alzheimer’s works,” Judi said. “I can remember things from the seventies, sixties, even earlier, like they just happened. I was at the commencement where he made that speech.”

  “Was it? A commencement?”

  “I think so. It doesn’t matter. Why don’t you believe in heaven?”

  “I think you’re lying about your short-term memory problem.”

  “Don’t be an ass. As if someone would lie about something so dreadful.”

  He offered a smile and hoped it still worked its magic. “I was trying to avoid answering your question, dear. Forgive me.”

  “You’re forgiven.” Judi grimaced. “What was my question?”

  Alfonse hesitated.

  “I’m kidding.” She shook her head. “Got to have a sense of humor about it, no? So, you going to tell me why?”

  Alfonse inhaled very slowly, feeling every molecule of air struggling to find his lungs. “I don’t know,” he said at last. “I did, a long time ago. All the fire and brimstone good Catholic boys fear. Somewhere along the way, I stopped believing in . . . everything.”

  “That’s not true. If it were, you couldn’t write as you do. Cecilia and Aldo would not exist.”

  “They don’t. Not really.”

  She leaned her palms to his knees. “But they do. You’re the god who breathed life into them.”

  “I like the sound of that.”

  Judi slumped backward. “You’re impossible.”

  “As I’ve been told many, many times.” He shouldered more comfortably into his chair. “Then you believe in heaven? The angels and all that?”

  She flipped a hand. “Not in the traditional sense, no. But I do believe there is more to life than we understand on this human level of ours. So arrogant, we are, thinking we can define whatever it is.”

  “It’s human nature. A need to understand. To put shape to things we can’t explain.”

  “Is that why you write?”

  The notion bloomed, presented petals for him to pluck. Astute woman. Always had been, even if she wouldn’t always be. “Maybe,” he said. “I’ve never really thought about it.”

  “I think about such things,” Judi murmured. “All the time. But I’m not an artist. I’ve never been able to create on my own, only mold what others give me. I wish I had words, or paint or music. Something to shape into the divine.”

  “Judi.” He held out his hand for hers. “That molding is divinity in and of itself. Without goddesses like you, gods like me could not exist.”

  “Such flattery.” She squeezed his hand. “You were always so good at that.”

  “Because it’s sincere. My mother always told me truth did not require a good memory. I say nothing I don’t mean, and mean everything I say.”

  “I know you do. It’s why everyone loves you, and few are angry when you’re through with them.”

  “You make me sound so callous.”

  “Cavalier,” she said. “Never callous. It’s just who you are, Alfonse. Make no excuses for it.”

  He let go her hands and settled back into his chair. “I suppose I was. Or at least that’s how it seemed. I skimmed the surface of my life. I see that now in my failing decrepitude. I loved until I loved too much, and then I moved on rather than risk the downside. Always the high, never the low.” A prickling sensation worked up his spine, across his shoulders. What would fail him this time? But nothing happened and Alfonse nearly burst out laughing for the truth chasing fear away. “And that was not a lie until just now, speaking it aloud.”

  “How so?”

  “I felt the lows. Not always, but at least twice. And they stayed with me. Stay with me still.”

  “Cornelius?”

  “And Olivia,” he confessed. What would life have been had I been braver? “At least Olivia and I came out the other side. I love her fiercely, if not passionately.”

  “Then who is it you feel thi
s passion for? I wonder,” she asked, “that lets you write of Cecilia and Aldo with such raw emotion?”

  “Remembered passion,” Alfonse lied. “I’m too old and broken for—”

  “You spoke of honesty and I believed you. Silly me. But it’s not my right to pry, even if I’m fairly certain it’s no secret at all. There is something about her that pulls us all, I think. Even Dr. Kintz.”

  “Her?”

  But Judith was having none of it; she laughed her sweet and merry song. “I’ll leave your delusion in peace, dear Alfie, and instead ask you this question I just remembered asking myself, when transcribing. Funny how that happens, isn’t it? Just pops in for no reason whatsoever, but if I tried to remember it with strings on every finger attached to notes in every pocket, I couldn’t do it.”

  “What’s your question, Judi?”

  She scooted to the edge of her chair. “Do we know if Princeton even had a journalism department back in 1959? The University of Alabama, for that matter? Did it even allow female students at all? These are facts that must be correct. You know that.”

  “Only if this were for publication,” he told her. “Which it is not. Transcribe, Judi. No fact-checking.”

  “I know, but—”

  “You agreed.”

  “I did, but—”

  Alfonse laughed. Carefully. “You can’t help yourself. I had that thought about myself just before you got here. But the chances of this book seeing publication are close to zero. The legalities of three authors with a claim on it would be a nightmare. And thus such details can stand as they are. All of them.”

  “At least . . .” She paused. He waited. Judi bit her lip. “You must understand, Alfie. This is what I do. It’s how I feed my brain, and my brain is starving most of the time these days. When I’m working on this, I feel like me again. I don’t forget. I remember. I remember all the rules of grammar and story and character. I notice little details most readers never would, like whether or not there was a journalism discipline at Princeton in 1959. I swore to you I’d make no suggestions, I’d change nothing, but at least let me keep the notes that, should this ever be seen by even a single reader long after we’re all gone from this world, I won’t have to do that terrible thing of rolling over in my grave because of a half-assed job.”

  Alfonse steepled his fingers under his chin, as much to think as it was to support his head. How did he get so tired, simply sitting in a chair and chatting with a friend? “All right,” he said at last. “Take notes in a separate folder, or in a notebook, however you wish. I couldn’t stop you from doing that one way or another. Thank you for doing me the honor of asking.”

  “It’s your project.” She flipped her hand again in that way she had. “I’ve been an editor for a million years, and even I won’t trample through an author’s flower beds.”

  “And she says she has no art.”

  “I stole it from somewhere, I’m certain. There isn’t a creative bone in my body.”

  It wasn’t true, but Judith Arsenault had always been more stubborn than she believed. She chatted on about colleges and curriculums. Naval bases and chains of command. The logistics of Paterson, New Jersey. That, at least, Alfonse knew firsthand. He’d lived there, experienced the falls and hot dogs all the way, the row of mansions on Derrom Avenue and the coffee counter at Woolworth’s. He’d made love to the posh ladies who shopped in Meyer Brothers, and the poor ladies who worked there, wishing. The curve of a cheek. The clouds of blond waves, brunette silk, red curls. The scent of roses, violets, and sex. The rush of desire. The crash laying him to waste. No tears. Never tears. They’d all known just what he was, just like Judi said.

  Chapter 28

  Bar Harbor, Maine

  July 23, 1999

  There’s no hiding from the truth, no matter how good a liar you think you are.

  —Cornelius Traegar

  Almost a week since Fin, since creeping in on Alfonse, since her witching-hour drink with Dr. Kintz, Cecibel still drifted through the days. She concentrated on work without concentrating at all. She couldn’t talk to Fin about it. Late-afternoon walks had been suspended. He said he understood, he’d wait, he’d be there when she was ready. And that he loved her. This last done with a sweet, careful smile as endearing as it was frightening.

  She couldn’t talk to Sal, though she nearly did. He was too intimately involved, and Cecibel wasn’t sure he wanted to know what she did. Olivia was out of the question. She was liable to say anything when stoned, to anyone. Certainly not Alfonse, the only person she didn’t abandon in her enforced solitude. Every day at four twenty, she knocked on his door, made him tea, chatted with him in the sunshine, of things that didn’t matter. Her copy of Night Wings taunted her, tucked as it was into the cushion of Alfonse’s chair. The passage marked. The words echoing out of slumber every day for over a year after the accident, after Jen. His words that changed meaning with every step she took toward letting them go.

  “Is Dr. Marks still practicing? Is she even still alive? She was pretty old, when I knew her.”

  Dr. Kintz—Richard, in the deep of night, disheveled and kind—had handed her a second Scotch and soda and resettled onto the couch beside her. “Last I heard, yes. But I can find out for sure, if that’s what you want.”

  “I’m not sure. Yeah. Yes. Maybe. I think I’d like to see her.”

  “I can only tell you what was passed on to me.” Richard sipped at his Scotch. Straight up. Neat. “She can tell you exactly what she and Dr. Traegar discussed.”

  “I’ll let you know. Thank you.”

  And now a week had nearly passed and she’d not let him know a thing. Bits of information, mangled memories, assumptions, and outright lies wouldn’t let her say the words that would sweep the detritus out of her mind. Living in the Pen, Cecibel understood better than most that “any day” had more of a chance at being “today” with people Dr. Marks’s age. If she didn’t speak soon, it could well become too late.

  She knocked on Dr. Kintz’s—working hours, he could not be “Richard”—office door, and entered when he called his welcome.

  “Miss Bringer.” He barely looked up from his desk. “Give me one moment.”

  “Of course.”

  Moving to the big windows, Cecibel tucked her hands behind her back to keep them from tugging her ponytail in place. Some of the nurses had been appalled and cruel when she stopped hiding the monster behind her hair. They gaped and they gasped. They turned residents around in their chairs so they wouldn’t have to see what they saw. But some were kind. Encouraging. And Cecibel reminded herself not to let Olivia’s prejudices rub off on her anymore.

  “Sorry about that.” Dr. Kintz rose from his chair, came to stand with her at the window. “Lovely day, isn’t it? Glad the humidity finally broke.”

  “August is coming,” she said. “Have you been in Maine for August yet?”

  “I’ve never been in Maine at all until coming here to live. I understand I’m in for some surprises come winter.”

  “It’s as beautiful as it is harsh. Too harsh for most, but it suits me fine.”

  Richard smiled. “Of course it does. So, have you decided?”

  “I have. Would you arrange it?”

  “Sure. When?”

  “Whatever works for Dr. Marks. I’m . . . here.”

  “Excellent. I’ll let you know as soon as I get word back.”

  “Thank you, Dr. Kintz.” She turned to go, but didn’t. Instead, she gathered her courage and met his gaze—not a hint of revulsion there. “Thanks for your honesty. I know you didn’t have to tell me anything.”

  “It would have been unethical not to, once you’d asked. For the record, I was working up to speaking with you openly. I simply didn’t know how much you knew, or if it was in your best interests to say anything at all.”

  “Good thing it worked out as it did, then, huh?”

  He laughed softly. “Yes, it is. I will be speaking with Finlay soon. I was waiting to see
what you wished to do about Dr. Marks first. The arrangement made on his behalf is only that, not mandated by the courts.”

  “It wouldn’t surprise me to know he’s been aware all along,” Cecibel said. “He knew Dr. Traegar, way back when he was a kid. They have a history, and probably had a friendship.”

  “Good to know. Thank you.”

  Outside, where it was no longer humid but so much hotter than indoors, Cecibel lifted her face to the light. Sunshine seeped into the crags and valleys of her melted-candle face, a sensation still so alien, but good. Like the ache she’d noticed in bed at night, starting in her neck and fingering up to her scalp. The ache of muscles so long unused, brought back to life with smiling. Speaking. Laughing. Also alien, but good, and only a dozen years in coming. She felt for the note in her pocket, found it there and took it out.

  Fin, I’ll see you soon. Thanks for being patient.

  Yours, Tatterhood

  They weren’t words of love, but they were close enough. He’d see the things she couldn’t say. Finlay Pottinger was a simple man, but he wasn’t the kind of simple Cecibel had long believed. Proper grammar and a sophisticated vocabulary didn’t make one smart, only well spoken.

  Leaving the note on Finlay’s door, Cecibel rested her head to it and listened, just in case. She knew he wasn’t home. He’d left early that morning to visit his mother for her birthday and wouldn’t be back until tomorrow.

  “Come with me,” he’d said. “Meet my mom.”

  But she couldn’t. It was just one too many things, and Cecibel feared something toppling before she was equipped to catch it back.

  Chapter 29

  Paterson, New Jersey

  December 21, 1959

  (Early Morning Hours)

  Aldo

  He shouldn’t stare, but he did. He especially shouldn’t follow her from room to room. Aldo wasn’t even discreet about it. No one would notice anyway. They were all too drunk. He’d nursed a single drink all evening, unwilling to take the chance he’d do or say something that would scare her. He kept the distance she seemed to need. The kiss behind the garage, the fumbled explanations, Cecilia’s tears and sudden flight. He couldn’t let it end there. The crossroads five years past had presented itself again, in the very same place, with the very same people. Few men got a do-over; Aldo Wronski wasn’t going to blow his.