“Have you heard anything from Erin?” I poured spaghetti sauce into a pan and set it on the stove. “Mitch doesn’t know how to operate a telephone.”
“She called last night. Everything’s fine. They’re both fine.”
“And she’s getting college credit for the trip to boot.”
“Right. I’ve never seen two people so magnetically attracted to each other.”
“Have they said anything more about marriage?”
“It’s just a guess, but I think they’ll wait until after she graduates. She’s taken classes every summer, so fall is Erin’s last semester.”
Jenny waltzed into the kitchen and stuffed a thin piece of the sweet cake into my mouth. After we kissed, a brief unceremonious peck, she rested her head against my chest, and we rocked gently to and fro, a private dance in our candlelit kitchen dance hall. I realized then just how romantic and out of time everything felt. A silent snowfall had painted Providence quiet and empty, but inside the apartment I felt full, complete, everything I loved safely closed in my arms.
“Do you know you’re a much-loved man, Jack Clayton?” Jenny’s body was a perfect fit against mine. “There will never be anyone who will love you as much as I do.”
“How do you know?” I asked.
She looked up at me, holding my hands loosely in her own. “Jack, when I was sixteen, my dad took me camping one weekend at a cabin on a lake, just the two of us. He told me the story of how he and my mom met and fell in love. I wasn’t allowed to date then, not until eighteen, but my dad gave me a journal to write in, to record my thoughts and dreams about the man I would someday love with all my heart. That journal … It turns out I’ve been writing about you, Jack.”
“Jenny, there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you. Sometimes I can’t believe you feel this way.” I thought back to the day we’d met in front of Lillian Hall.
Jenny laughed. “I’m not perfect.”
“I can still be in awe of you, can’t I?”
Jenny let go of my hands and walked backward to the other side of the kitchen. “Promise me something, Jack? Promise you’ll never leave me, okay,” she asked. “Will you do that?”
Her face had become suddenly serious. Her tender, unguarded heart exposed and made vulnerable by love. This was no trifling question. Inexperience with the opposite sex didn’t hinder my recognition of the importance of these emotions, some of which came leaping out like a jack-in-the-box.
Her question sounded like a contract—maybe it was. A promise to be written in eternity. I closed the distance between us, my words pouring out in the serious tone one uses when taking an oath.
“Jenny, I will never leave you. I will always, always love you.”
She closed her eyes, speeding two tears down her face, and we embraced again.
After dinner we sat on the carpet next to the kitchen. The living room was dark except for the glow from a candle and a small lamp by the door. I leaned against the wall, holding her. I would never leave her. How could I? She fell asleep in my embrace, confident we were one. I drifted off soon after.
It was after midnight when I awoke, Jenny still sound asleep.
“Jenny,” I whispered.
She opened her eyes in an instant, incoherent and childlike.
“Come on,” I instructed.
I helped her to her feet, led her through the dark apartment to my room. She sat on the edge of the bed, and I knelt down to slip off her shoes. Jenny, barely conscious, sat quietly, drifting back to sleep. She didn’t question the situation or my intent. She trusted me as I rolled down her socks. I tried to guide her toward the pillow, but she stopped me with hand gestures, got up, and disappeared into the bathroom.
A moment later she stepped out of the bathroom. I was blinded by the bright flash of light piercing through the doorway. She shut out the light, but then I was night blind. The only thing visible, a photographic negative–like imprint of Jenny developing on the inside of my eyelids. Before I opened my eyes, I felt Jenny’s lips on mine, then heard her gentle voice. “As much as I’d enjoy spending the rest of the night with you, I’ve got to go home.”
“I know,” I said. “I can walk you back or call a cab.”
Her desire to stay was powerful. Jenny sat next to me on the bed, and I could read her thoughts as she laid her head on my shoulder.
“I wish I could just stay here,” she said, dreaming.
“Maybe someday.”
Ten minutes later I closed the door of a Providence city taxi and handed the driver a five-dollar bill. Jenny was merely a shape in the backseat of the dark car, but I knew her eyes were wide and staring at me, into me. Her thoughts projected through the glass like a flare.
“Someday.”
~ TWENTY-TWO ~
You look at me once, you look at me twice
Look at me again and there’s gonna be a fight.
—Stray Cats
“Rock This Town”
Bud Abbott telephoned at nine o’clock the next morning, exhibiting more of the unsavory traits I’d already seen in him: distrust, suspicion. He’d been up half the night mulling over my offer. They say you’re supposed to start your day with the most difficult phone call. Kick the day off with it. His call came while I was sitting at the desk in another plush hotel room, lifting a coffee cup to drink the last tepid sip from a pot I’d brewed an hour earlier. The morning paper lay across the desk, thankfully absent of stories about me.
“G’morning, Bud.”
“Good morning,” he said. “I wanted to call and ask a few questions about … this writing thing.” Bud was all business.
“Ask away.” I heard what sounded like the shuffle of papers. Perhaps he was reading from notes.
“I need to know if you’re serious about this. If it’s a game, just tell me.”
“It’s not a game.”
Bud was silent. I let him do some thinking. “All right, so if I decided to do this—which I’m not sure is a great idea—where would you expect me to show up to work?”
“Two choices. I can set up shop somewhere near my hotel …”—I carefully considered how to say the next part—“or I could bunk in your guest room, and we could work out of your home. Oh, and in case this helps with your decision, I like poached eggs for breakfast. You do know how to make poached eggs, don’t you?”
“I hate poached eggs. But there’s no way you’re going to live in my house, Clayton,” he said. “If I decide to do this, I don’t see it lasting for weeks, or going on until all hours of the night. And I’m going to need a bigger advance. Fifty thousand dollars before I write a word.”
Writing a newspaper story to annihilate me was one thing, working in the same room was something else—something that made Bud uncomfortable at best, disgusted at worst. But there was a price for everything, and I could sense in Bud’s demeanor that he’d been carefully calculating just what that price ought to be. This plumb assignment was a career maker most writers would take on spec, but Bud wanted some kind of insurance policy, or maybe just compensation to make working with a rich religious hypocrite like me less distasteful. Bud didn’t appreciate that day what surely must have gone through his mind the day before—I didn’t need him to write this book. I could write books without his secretarial assistance. Yet he was acting as if his talents were necessary, using his unique position as its own sort of bargaining chip.
“I’ll set up an office here in Chicago. The work will go on until I’m satisfied with it. I’ll ask my publisher to send you twenty-five thousand dollars now and another twenty-five when the project’s completed.”
Bud’s end of the line was silent once more. It was like a bizarre game show. Which door would he pick? What was the real prize waiting behind it?
“All right,” he said. “When do we get started?”
Bud Abbott, the only man in the country I could begin to think of as my enemy, had just signed up to assist me with the most personal and private writing I’d ever attempt. It’s no
t exactly what you’d call normal, and yes, it flipped Arthur out.
“You hired that *#$@ to work for you?” he shouted.
“Yes, that’s the plan I was telling you about. Bud Abbott will sit down in a chair across a coffee table from me for the next six weeks and write down every memory I can dig up.”
Arthur gave up without a fight. “As long as this doesn’t keep you from turning in the book on time, I couldn’t care less.”
“I’m glad to hear you say that because I need you to send him twenty-five thousand dollars.”
“Twenty-five thousand dollars! You’ve got to be kidding! I didn’t pay you twenty-five thousand dollars!”
“Just write the check and send it to him. I’ll e-mail Shirley his address.”
“You’ve lost your mind, Jack. This is going to blow up in your face. I don’t know what you think is going to happen, but Abbott isn’t about to warm up to you like a character in some syrupy TV drama. He’s going to listen and type and listen and type, and quietly plot against you.”
“By the time we’re done with the book, there won’t be anything left to expose, Art.”
This changed Arthur’s tune. “You’re going to tell … everything?”
“Yes.”
“Ooh, I like, I like,” he said, salivating with greed. “Just don’t let this interfere with the deadline. I don’t want to have to step in—”
“Art, I love you for the trust you showed in my writing years ago and the role you played with Laborers, but you won’t interfere with this. What I write and how I get it written is not your concern.”
“You don’t have to bark so loudly, Jack. My job is to keep the train running on time, that’s all. If I see wolves on the tracks, I sound the warning whistle, but I don’t pull the brake. The train must keep moving. We’ve got a schedule to keep, and the train must make the station, Jack. Even if an unwanted predator foolishly wanders in front of it.”
“Who’s the predator—Bud Abbott or me?”
“Neither. It’s this whole situation. You moving to Chicago, putting your faith in an enemy, placing your most important work in his hands. My company is riding on this.”
“Just write the check, Art. My faith isn’t in Bud Abbott, or in your deftness as a train conductor. God will bring the train in on time, according to His schedule. And only He knows the station.”
“Jack, you know I don’t follow when you bring God into the conversation.”
“Do you not see God’s blueprints? He’s building something wonderful, so wonderful that just watching it come together satisfies. You can have your plans, Art, but they’re nowhere near as spectacular as what God’s doing.”
“We’ll have to sit down and talk about this sometime. For now, just write.”
My next call was to Maureen Mallei, a commercial real-estate agent I picked at random from the yellow pages. I asked about short-term office space available for lease on Michigan Avenue within walking distance of Melvin’s. An hour later she showed me a nine-hundred-square-foot space two blocks from the diner. It was furnished with everything I needed: an inspiring view from the twenty-second floor, living space with a desk, a kitchen, and one bedroom for me to crash in at the end of each long day.
“You’ll love being in this building, Mr. Clayton,” Maureen said. “You’ll be among screenwriters, advertising executives, commercial artists. I think you’ll fit right in.”
I paid the deposit and two months rent in full. The next day Office Depot delivered and stocked supplies, including a new iMac and printer for me. With twenty-five thousand dollars coming his way, Bud Abbott could supply his own computer.
I printed what I’d written so far and sent the pages by courier to Bud’s home. I knew inviting Bud into the writing process would be a challenge, but I had done what I’d made a career out of: followed the intangible Spirit.
I looked out at the Chicago night skyline, at checkered windows lit up in buildings all over the city, finished the leftovers from Melvin’s, and went to bed early. Tomorrow would be the start of a new chapter, both in my life and in the book. I wanted to be well rested.
Five percussive knocks rattled the door the next morning at 9:15. I opened it for a tardy, shadow-faced Bud Abbott bearing gifts—two venti cups of coffee from Starbucks and a box of Dunkin’ Donuts. Over his shoulder he carried a soft-leather pouch, and folded under his arm, the morning edition of the Tribune. There was a donut in his mouth.
“Sorry I’m late,” he said, pulling out the pastry and walking past me into the kitchen.
I watched him move in, my new part-time roommate, dropping the donuts on the counter and making himself comfortable at the end of the leather sofa.
“Hope traffic wasn’t too bad.”
“I’m used to it.” He peeled off his jacket and set up his PowerBook, not yet making eye contact with me.
Behind his silhouette, skyscrapers pierced a clouded, heavy sky. I felt profoundly uncomfortable and suspected he felt the same, like college dorm mates meeting for the first time.
“Thanks for the coffee,” I said. I thought of adding, “At least there’s one thing we agree on,” but didn’t.
“No problem.”
“I want to get started right away. I’ll explain how I think this situation can best work. Did you get the manuscript?”
“Yeah, I got it, but I haven’t had a chance to look at it.”
He sounded like a school kid giving an excuse for missing homework. I ignored the feeling that Bud might prove to be no help whatsoever.
Bud pulled the pages, rolled up like a tube, from his backpack.
“I want to give you a chance to get up to speed,” I said.
I reiterated what I’d already told him—that he’d been caught telling a fib and now had to spend the next six weeks in detention with the guy he’d fibbed on.
“I’ll tell you my story, and you’ll write it down. I’m used to finishing six or seven pages a day. I’ll still write some parts I either don’t want to share with you or I prefer to write alone. We’ll e-mail our work at the end of each day to my editor.”
“Whatever you say.”
This was going nowhere fast. Bud wasn’t remotely engaged in this project. I prayed silently.
“Bud, you called me once for an interview. Do you still want to do that?”
“Do you mean something I can use in the paper?”
“No, I mean for here, for right now. You have doubts about my character, my integrity, my faith, my finances. Why don’t you conduct that interview with me right now?”
“You’d let me ask any questions, and you’ll answer them?”
“That’s what I’m saying, Bud.”
“How do I know you’ll tell me the truth?”
“I guess you’ll just have to trust me.”
“I don’t do trust without verification. And just for the record, I particularly don’t trust wealthy religious hypocrites professing solidarity with the poor. I believe you’re hiding a checkered past and probably a lot more than that. And if you think you’re going to buy me off to get your reputation back, you’re really a whack job. So, no, I don’t believe I’m gonna just trust you.”
“Clearly you’ve got it all worked out, but can you stand hearing my side of your story? Or have you gotten too comfortable with the lie? Some people would rather believe lies because hearing the truth requires actual thinking. That doesn’t seem like how a journalist would think. Is that you?”
“I can hear the truth. I just don’t think you have any to tell.”
“If we’re going to get anything done today, we have to get past this.” I sat at one of the tall swivel stools in the kitchen. “So, go ahead … ask away.”
“Just to let you know … When I’m not here, I’ll be researching your answers, and if they don’t add up, I’ll tell the whole world.” Bud stood, grabbed his book bag, and strode to the door. He clutched my manuscript in his left hand.
“I’ll read this and get my questions t
ogether. Be back later.” The door shut behind him.
Bud returned an hour later. He’d eaten breakfast at one of the restaurants downstairs while reading through my pages. Thunder and lightning appeared to have left him, and he seemed grounded now by either the story or the pancakes.
He sat on a bar stool at the counter and flipped open his yellow legal pad. It was filled with questions, written in large letters and in a barely legible combination of script and printing. He’d obviously prepped during breakfast.
“Let’s talk finance. You own one home in Providence. What can you tell me about your other properties, condos, or castles?”
“There aren’t any, Bud.”
“None?” His eyes flashed over the top of his notepad, reminding me of a lawyer cross-examining his witness.
“That’s what I said.”
“Zero?”
“Right.”
“I don’t know if I buy that, but let’s move on. You drive a 2001 Jeep Wrangler. List all the other vehicles you own.”
I ignored his irritating deposition-style interrogation and answered, “Just the Jeep, Bud. And it’s a 2000.”
“Why just a Jeep?”
“I like the Jeep.”
He tried helping me jog my memory. “C’mon … any sports cars, SUVs, Hummers, maybe …”
“Nope, nope, and no.”
“What’s your net worth? How much money do you actually have?”
I let out a sigh. “Oh, I don’t know, Bud. My accountant, Richard Hines, would know better than I do”
“You wouldn’t mind if I set up an interview with him, would you?”
I’d dreaded this sort of encounter ever since my flag of notoriety shot up the flagpole. “I’ve got a couple thousand dollars in my checking account, about six thousand in a savings account, a few hundred in my wallet, a few dollars in change on my dresser at home.”
“What else?” He sounded like a butcher who’s learned the secret of suggestive selling.
“That’s about it.”
He looked up again. “You’ve earned over twenty million dollars. Where’d it all go?”
Providence: Once Upon a Second Chance Page 16
