The Bar Harbor Retirement Home for Famous Writers_And Their Muses

by Terri-Lynne Defino

  “Doesn’t the navy make your arrangements for you?”

  “Sure, but there were a few strings left hanging that I thought I had more time to deal with before shipping out.”

  “You didn’t mention any of that earlier,” Enzo said. “I kept you from getting it done.”

  “Nah, you didn’t.” Aldo rubbed at the back of his neck. “It all worked out just fine. Don’t worry.”

  “Oh, I’m not worried. Just being courteous.”

  Aldo’s gaze narrowed. Enzo smiled, feral and dangerous, and it felt so good. “Go get yourself something to eat,” he said. “You must be hungry.”

  “I am, thanks.” Aldo maneuvered around him and was gone. Making a beeline for Cecilia, no doubt. Enzo had been doing his best to behave as he always did, mingling and chatting without his wife glued to his side. He’d kept an eye on her, though, always knew where she was. Tressa and Aldo’s arrival had made him lose sight of her. His gut lurched. Heading to the ballroom, he looked everywhere at once. Dining room. Parlor. Even the kitchen. No sign of Cecilia.

  No sign of Aldo either. But there was Tressa, still with Nicky, nibbling on finger food from a china plate as white as her perfect teeth. Not even that sight was enough to dislodge his panic. Enzo ducked outside, but Cecilia wasn’t there, draped in her fur, smoking and gossiping with friends as he’d hoped. Aldo wasn’t out there either. Where were they? Where the fuck were they?

  “Breathe, Enzo.” Tressa’s voice in his ear, her hand on his shoulder. “After tonight, it’s over. Trust me.”

  “I can’t do it.”

  “You can. You must. I kept my side of the bargain. You will keep yours.”

  “She’s my wife!”

  Eyes turned their way. Eyes too interested in knowing why the golden son of the family would be in so heated a discussion with the beauty from the south. Enzo took a deep breath, forced himself to smile. It did not feel good, this time. Offering his arm, he nearly jumped away from the spark as she took it. Her lips parted. Enzo wanted them. On his mouth. On anything she would consent to putting them on. Tressa’s fingers tightened on his arm, her nails digging into his flesh through his clothes. He tried not to look anywhere but ahead and led Tressa back into the house, and, once inside, pulled her into the unused service pantry that opened into the old servants’ quarters, now Nicky and Joseph’s rooms.

  Tressa’s arms were around his neck before his lips found hers. She tasted like champagne. Hands pressed to her hips, Enzo pulled her roughly to him. Tressa ground against him, the beads of her dress making little tearing sounds against his suit pants.

  “I want this if you want this,” she whispered, “but be sure you truly do.”

  Enzo pushed the skirt of her gown up her thighs. She wore no stockings, no girdle or garter. Nothing at all underneath. Warm, soft, smooth skin. The heat of her radiated, drew him in. Somewhere, in this house, Aldo was doing the same to Cecilia. Enzo said it over and over in his head. Pants around his ankles, buried deep in Tressa, he fucked her like he’d never fucked his wife. Carnal. Animal. Feral. Like his smile had been. And it, too, felt so good.

  He finished in moments, spilling everything he had into her and hoping, hoping it resulted in something that made the situation somehow fair. Enzo hadn’t realized he’d lifted her, pressed her to the wall, but he had. Lowering her to her feet, he slid her gown back down. It swooshed to the floor in a thousand tiny clicks. Enzo tucked in, zipped up, but couldn’t look at her.

  “Don’t fret,” she said. “You weren’t my first, and I don’t expect you will be my last. This doesn’t put any claim on you. Unless, of course, you want it to.”

  “But . . . ?”

  “Stop.” She laughed softly. “We both know what this was. I’ve needed it since I met you. You needed it since you met my brother. We both got what we wanted. It was inevitable. Written in the stars. Now we should get back to the party before someone notices we’re missing.”

  Enzo followed her back the way they’d come. At the door returning them to the world of partying and betrayal, Tressa turned on him. She straightened his tie, smoothed his hair. She kissed his lips sensuously. “She was Aldo’s first,” she said. “But she will be yours the rest of your life.”

  “Promise me.”

  “I can’t promise, but I can come close. Just a little while longer, Enzo. Tomorrow, he’ll be gone.”

  “And you?”

  “Oh, I’ll be around,” she said, “in the event you want a proper fucking in a proper bed. I know I’d rather enjoy that.”

  “What about Nicky?”

  “What about him?” She tucked the pucker of his shirt more securely into the waistband of his trousers. “He’s a boy, right now. A very handsome, wild, uncouth boy. In a few years, he will be a handsome man, and, with a little work, capable of fulfilling my needs. In the meantime, I’m not going anywhere. I have done all I’ve done for Patricia, present company excluded. That I did for me.”

  And there she left him in a cloud of her perfume, their sex, and his bafflement. He didn’t have shame in him, not yet. He would, soon enough. Neanderthal, at least, was content. Peaceful. Agreeable enough not to go searching for trouble.

  Milling among the partiers, Enzo caught sight of Tressa once again on Nicky’s arm. His brother-in-law levitated a foot or two off the ground, just having her there. What would he do if he knew? Enzo sneered. He knew exactly what Dominic Giancami Jr. would do.

  There was Cecilia, handing Patsy off to Maria. Is that where she’d been? Trying to get the child to sleep while Enzo fucked her lover’s sister in a deserted hallway? Shame tapped his shoulder. He slammed it back. Days and days standing outside Les Fontaines rejected it. If she hadn’t been with Aldo tonight, she had been this afternoon, and every afternoon since that first. What he’d done with Tressa, to Tressa, what she’d done to him, Enzo Parisi had earned.

  Payback was not sweet. It was bitter and it was heavy and it left him feeling betrayed in ways he’d never even considered before.

  Cecilia caught his gaze and smiled. He smiled back and waved, but when it looked like she’d come his way, he pretended to have caught the attention of someone just beyond her. In this way he avoided her most of the night. And Tressa. And Aldo Wronski, that stupid bastard who had no idea his own sister conspired against him. For him, if her truth were told.

  Eleven thirty. Quarter to twelve. The countdown on the radio began. There stood Tressa, pressed up against the radio, clutched close to Nicky’s side. He wasn’t letting her go and chancing some other man getting New Year’s first kiss. Enzo’s gut clenched. Guy Lombardo’s voice rose above the partygoers in Times Square. Ten. Nine. Eight.

  He pushed through the friends and family gathered around the radio, glasses already raised. Where was Cecilia? As if he didn’t know. He should never have avoided her, never once lost sight. Wronski could not get her first kiss of the new year. The new decade.

  Seven. Six.

  Outside. To the deserted patio. Cecilia and Aldo. Aldo and Cecilia. It had always been, always would be.

  Five. Four. Three.

  His wife, and the man she’d loved since she was a scared and pregnant teenager tricking another boy into believing he’d done the deed himself.

  Two. One.

  Aldo pressed a white envelope into her hands, gathered Cecilia into his arms, and kissed her hard, kissed her long. She froze a moment before thawing against him to puddle at his feet.

  Happy New Year.

  Enzo backed away, his eyes never leaving the pair locked in oblivious passion. Not even when he could no longer see them. Not until the crowd gathered around the radio pulled him into their collective embrace and covered him in kisses, well-wishes, and glad tidings for the new year.

  Maria bundled Patsy into his arms. Cami grasped him about the shoulders, jostling him and slobbering a kiss on both his cheeks. Enzo held his daughter close. His daughter, not Aldo Wronski’s no matter what her blood. It was 1960 now. A new decade. He’d leave
the strange and wonderful 1950s behind, for what they were worth. Enzo Parisi would look forward, not back, no matter how much good there had been.

  Chapter 37

  Bar Harbor, Maine

  August 12, 1999

  A merry band of hooligans, we. Writers, wordsmiths, scribblers of the inane. Here’s to all the slashers of prose, the refiners of plot. To all those who make the illusion real. And here’s to all my beautiful lunatics who bleed, vomit, and piss words every day of their lives.

  —Cornelius Traegar

  New Year’s Eve, 1949

  “He said he wouldn’t make the decision and he meant it.” Olivia bit the end of her pen, her eyes on the notebook. Alfonse took a slow, careful breath. They were harder and harder to come by. The oxygen tubes up his nose hissed a second sort of heartbeat morning, noon, and night. He was so tired. Always so tired. He didn’t want to die, but he was well and truly done living now.

  “It’s Cecilia’s decision,” he said. “You should make it.”

  Olivia looked up from the notebook, eyes wide. “I couldn’t make it for myself, what makes you think I can make it for her?”

  “You’re a writer, Livy. It’s what you do. Live the lives of others.”

  “Orchestrate, not live.”

  “Is it not the same?” His body. Hurt. Bone-wearied and chilled. “It must be you.”

  “It’s your story, Alfie,” she said gently. “You should decide on the most pivotal moments like this one. It’s probably the most important of all, this transition. How did you envision it, before I shanghaied the thing?”

  “We said no planning.”

  “I know, but this is different. Tell me.”

  Inside his heart, a tiny, electrical ping. It didn’t hurt. In fact, it felt rather nice. “I never did,” he said. “In truth, my darling, had you not taken it upon yourself to forward my story, I don’t know that it would ever have gone as far as it has. I’m tired, and I’m losing focus. I might have given up.”

  “You?” Olivia chuffed. “Not likely. All right, then tell me now. If you were to write the next part, would Cecilia meet Aldo in Barcelona, or would she go back to Princeton with Enzo?”

  Passion or contentment. First love or true love. Creased covers or pristine pages. There was no right answer and there had never been. One path taken left a multitude of paths untrodden. Alfonse had ever been one to let the path dictate itself to him. Choosing had always been too hard, too heartbreaking.

  The electrical ping deep in the atriums and ventricles of his heart became a zing buzzing his fingertips. His head lightened. Alfonse blinked. He forgot how to breathe. His lungs wouldn’t fill. Olivia was already on her feet. Talking, talking, as ever talking. Are you all right? Alfonse, speak to me. I’m fetching the doctor. Over her shoulder, a shadow leaned low, became a once-beloved face.

  The zing resumed its ping. He remembered how to form those bone-wearying breaths. Grasping Olivia’s hand before she could hurry away, Alfonse managed to whisper, “Fetch Cecibel.”

  * * *

  It was quiet for a Thursday, though most days in the Pen were just so. Mr. Gardern hadn’t gotten into the supply closet all week, at any rate. Cecibel undertook her daily duties as she’d always done—diligently and competently. And yet, these last couple of weeks, day after lovely day, flew by when before they’d seemed eternal. Afternoons with Alfonse. Evening walks with Finlay. Hours pleasantly passed with Olivia. She couldn’t remember it raining; of course, it had.

  And the notebook. The story. Cecilia and Aldo and Enzo. And Tressa, whom she always envisioned with half a face. It had somehow bled into her days in ways she didn’t notice until she turned to better hear what one of them was saying and found herself alone. She’d hated giving it back to Olivia, who was to give it to Judith for transcribing. But there had been nothing left to read, not until one of them decided Cecilia’s fate. Cecibel honestly didn’t know which way she wanted it to go. Anticipation was almost sweet.

  Sitting outside the deli, on a picnic table carved up with initials of patrons long gone, Cecibel leaned back on the heels of her palms, face to the glorious August sunshine. There was no month more agreeable than August in Bar Harbor. Cool yet warm. Blue and sunny skies adorned with just enough cloud cover to soften the burning rays, it was her favorite month.

  “I got you chicken Parm.” Finlay tapped her shoulder, handed her a still-warm sandwich wrapped in white paper. Cecibel lifted her face (the fair side; there was only so far she could go) to his kiss. Finlay sat on the table beside her and unwrapped his sausage and peppers.

  “You have oil on your chin.” She laughed, wiping it away with a paper napkin. “That good, huh?”

  “Want a bite?”

  “No, thanks. I don’t do sausage. All that mystery meat.”

  “Not when it’s good stuff. They make this in-house. Come on.” He held the sandwich out to her.

  Cecibel took a bite. “Oh, wow. That is good.”

  “Told you.”

  They ate their sandwiches in the summer sunshine. Cecibel only talked from behind her hand, the habit too ingrained to simply abandon. Food didn’t fall out of her mouth as much anymore. Or else, she’d stopped noticing. And when Fin wiped away a spill for her as she’d just done for him, Cecibel didn’t cringe and want to vomit. Not so much, anyway.

  Walking to the deli and back to the Pen took longer than riding in Fin’s car—they both had only an hour for lunch—but the deli wasn’t far and the day was so lovely, biking seemed the best of all worlds. Pedaling the quiet roads, they raced and laughed like kids rather than a man and woman with seventy-five years between them. Cecibel felt like a kid, with Finlay. They’d both been robbed of younger years. Reclaiming them together seemed natural. They did so and more, reclaiming, too, the bits of themselves left too long abandoned to fates forced on them rather than chosen. The freedom of it all couldn’t have happened in a better month, as far as Cecibel was concerned.

  They coasted their bicycles into the maintenance shed, leaned them against the wall. Old bikes, years unearthed from the innards of Fin’s greasy, rust-encrusted domain, had been brought back to life without too much effort. A little elbow grease, oil, and a dab of paint worked miracles when done by Finlay’s hand.

  “I guess it’s time to get back to work.”

  He grabbed her around the waist before she could leave him, pulled her in, and kissed her.

  “What was that for?”

  “I just wanted to. Can’t a man kiss his woman?”

  She laughed. “So I’m your woman now?”

  “Aren’t you?”

  Was she? She tried to detach herself, gently.

  “Move in with me,” he blurted.

  “Fin, please. It’s kind of soon for that. We’re getting to know one another.”

  “We know one another.” So serious, his eyes, his expression. “We know one another better than most anyone else ever will. I want to wake up with you next to me. Every day, and not just sometimes. I want to be able to touch you at night, just to know you’re there. Aw, fuck it. Forget moving in. Just marry me.”

  Cecibel’s skin caught fire then froze, goose bumps spreading up and down her arms. “Huh?”

  Finlay let her go to take her hand. “I don’t have a ring,” he said, “and I blew out my knees in prison, so I can’t go down on one of them. I don’t have much but all I have is yours. My heart, my soul, every day of the rest of my life whether you say yes or no. I love you, Cecibel.” He cupped her cheek. “My Tatterhood. What do you say?”

  “I . . . I . . . Finlay.” Cecibel pressed palms to cheeks. One smooth and soft. One hard and lined. He loved both. He really did. But she wasn’t a princess in a fairy tale. Not even the tattered kind. Happily-ever-after was not in her stars. Not this kind. Not this way.

  “Cecibel! There you are!” Sal was running, actually running, down the dirt path leading to the maintenance barn. Cecibel and Fin bolted, met him on the path. Hand on his heart, panting, sweating, S
al doubled over. “Cec, go quick. It’s Mr. Carducci. He’s asking for you.”

  * * *

  Calm. Contented. Almost, at any rate. He’d be content once Cecibel arrived. She would. He had no doubt. Alfonse couldn’t go until she did.

  Doctors hung back. Nurses. They wouldn’t disturb his last minutes with attempts to undo what a lifetime of abuse had foretold. Olivia sat in a chair beside his bed. Judith was there, and Raymond, too. Dear Switch. Tears in his eyes but otherwise silent. Alfonse had always liked that about him, wished he’d told him. Maybe he had. Words, he’d used them all up. So few left, he saved them for Cecibel. If only she would get there so he could go.

  “You can’t go,” Olivia whispered in his ear. “We’re not finished. Not me and you. Not Aldo and Cecilia. What will I do without you? What will they do? Don’t go, my love. Please don’t go.”

  I have to, darling Livy. There’s no choice in the matter. Cecilia and Aldo, Enzo and Tressa, you—you’ll all have to do without me. It’s time. Past time.

  Cornelius sat in the easy chair where Alfonse had spent much of his time in the Pen, just watching the goings-on. Grinning. Knowing. Waiting. You thought you could escape me forever, but you can’t. I promised it. And here it is. Our forever. At last. Always joking, never serious, his Cornelius. Even in death, both of their deaths, he teased. Alfonse couldn’t wait to be with him again, tell him all the things he never had the courage to go back and say. But not until Cecibel came to him. They’d both wait a little longer.

  And then there she was. His angel. His monster. How he loved them both. Equally. Passionately. Perfectly. What he had done to deserve this last, previously unexperienced love at the end of his sinful life, Alfonse didn’t know. But he was grateful.

  He followed her approach with his eyes, glad she took his hand rather than waiting for him to do the impossible and reach for hers. The tiniest tug, all he could manage, was enough to bring her close.

  “Alfonse. I’m so sorry. I came the moment—”