Antonia Lively Breaks the Silence (10 page)

“I would if I could,” Antonia said. “She passed away.”

“I'm so sorry,” she said, then stood suddenly. “It's late. I must go.”

Henry, who'd been silent and brooding since she'd arrived, rose as well. “I'm going to walk Catherine home, darling,” he said.

Catherine was halfway out the door when Antonia grabbed her by the wrist and said, her tone abruptly sober and agitated, “Do you—don't you—think it's odd that he won't move in here with me?” She glared at Henry, but her eyes were mirthful. “I mean, don't you think he should?” Catherine didn't know what to say, though she wanted to say that, yes, she did find it strange, and that Antonia had every right to find it strange as well. What kind of man was Henry to turn down a chance to live with a girl who so obviously was infatuated with him? What kind of man was he to refuse such a welcoming offer, especially since he needed a home? She wanted to push the subject further, to bring all of her concerns out into the open, but Antonia cut her off before she could, saying, “Tell him he's being unreasonable. Tell him he's just being an unyielding old poop.”

“Not now, Antonia,” Henry said sharply, ushering Catherine out of the house. Though the night was still warm and humid, a slight wind gusted, picking up loose dirt and swirling it around. Catherine thought about that summer night when she'd mistaken Henry for the wind batting at the door. Again, she wished she'd pressed Wyatt into telling her why Henry had come and what he'd had to say, but she hadn't. Now, so many miles and years from that night, it seemed pointless to dredge it up. When they were beyond the hum of the music, Henry said, “I'm sorry about that. She's been after me all day.”

“She's frightened, Henry,” Catherine said, unable to control herself. “I'd be frightened, too. I came to see you this morning and learned about the scene in your office. Have you told her what her father did? Have you?”

Her candor apparently took him aback, and he shrank away from her, saying, “You have no idea what you're talking about, but I appreciate the concern.”

“The spot of blood I found? Do you still believe I don't know what I'm talking about?”

“I get bloody noses,” he said flatly. “The heat brings them on.”

“You expect me to believe that? You expect me to believe Linwood Lively didn't—”

“At this point, I don't care what you believe. The man who barged into my office was not Linwood Lively,” he said. “Not to hurt your feelings, but none of this has a thing to do with you. Besides, do you honestly expect me to believe your concern? I don't blame you for your contempt—I was expecting it—but please don't insult my intelligence with this show. You've never been able to lie well, Catherine. It hasn't changed.”

You are the most incorrigible, infantile man I've ever met, she thought, even as she said, “You accuse me of an awful lot, Henry. You're living on my property as my tenant, and contrary to what you believe, I am concerned. I'm concerned for both you and Antonia.”

“If this is about the cottage, then just give me fair warning, and I'll go,” he said, their hands accidentally brushing.

Catherine looked at his fingers, which, at one time, had raced over her body, the same fingers that had written the pernicious review that had destroyed Wyatt's future, her future. She tried to fill herself with contempt, to loathe him as she had for years, yet at this moment she felt nothing but compassion, which shocked and appalled her.

“Please, Henry. Go back to Antonia,” she said. “I'll be fine.”

He stared at her. “Very well,” he said finally, and turned back down the block.

Though the street was deserted as Catherine approached the house, the air still throbbed with laughter and music emanating from the neighbors' homes. It was eleven o'clock and the parties, she knew, were just gathering speed, would climax around two, and eventually peter out—but probably not without the help of the police. They'd arrive, as always, to break up the parties, haul in the underage drinkers, fine those who'd bought the kegs. Catherine never minded the rowdiness, but Wyatt had, and more than once he'd made the calls to the police himself. Sometimes she awakened to find him throwing on his clothes, shaking with fury. “Thoughtless little troglodytes,” he'd say, and twenty minutes later he'd return, happier. “It'll take them hours to figure it out.” When Catherine asked him what he meant, he made scissors out of his fingers and sliced the air. “Snip, snip, snip. No more speakers, no more stereo,” he'd say with glee. “Wyatt, you just can't do that,” she'd say, laughing, horrified. “Sleep is ours,” he'd say, and pull her into him, snoring before she could scold him any further.

Climbing the steps and almost tripping in the darkness, Catherine cursed herself for not turning on the porch light before she left the house. Yet she felt uneasy, for somewhere in the back of her mind she remembered turning it on. It was not something she would have easily forgotten, something Wyatt would always remind her about. It was a habit she continued even after his death. I am not crazy, she thought, nearing the front door. She looked up at the bulb; it wasn't there. And then Catherine noticed tiny shards of glass scattered over the porch.

Suddenly, out of the corner of her eye, Catherine caught sight of a figure hovering behind the lilac bush. Unable to see much beyond the immediate periphery of the porch, she could just make out the buttons on his jacket, which glittered faintly. As the man shifted and took a step toward her, she screamed, the sound absorbed by the surrounding music and laughter. She took quick swallows of air as the figure took another step toward her, and she fumbled at the door, sliding the key into the lock and turning the knob, but it didn't budge. The door had been chained from the inside. Then she was overcome by the inky blackness, which in her mind was as bright and hot as the sun.

When she awoke a minute or an hour later—she couldn't tell the difference—she was looking up into a blurry, familiar face, and she gasped as this face came into focus, becoming Wyatt's. “Are you all right?” he asked, helping her up. His unblemished face was just as handsome as the day she'd met him. She reached up to kiss him, but before she could he pulled back and away. As he did, his face became Henry's face, and when she realized her mistake, she turned away. Memories of her first kiss with Henry soured the previous seconds of joy, when she had thought without a doubt that Wyatt had come home. She winced against the sight of Henry, remembering vividly that wintry afternoon at NYU when he'd stopped to kiss her under the library's portico, and how the affair had begun after that, the secreted rendezvous, the expensive dinners in out-of-the-way cafes, the lying. She shut her eyes as Henry fiddled with the door, managing to undo the chain. Then he was leading her into the house and settling her on the sofa. He went around turning on lights, and then everything rushed back at her and she said, “Henry?”

“Yes, Catherine, I'm here,” he replied, returning with a glass of water, which he handed to her.

“Why are you here?” she asked, taking a sip of water.

She knew the answer, though, even as she asked the question. Of course, he'd been on his way to the cottage, where he was living. And then she thought about how stupid she was to have let all this happen, because Henry always brought trouble with him. Now this trouble was as much a part of the fabric of the summer as Henry was a part of her life again.

“Are you all right?” he asked. “Maybe you should see a doctor.”

“I'm as fine as I can be for someone who was attacked on her own porch,” she said, her pulse still pounding in her head. “Did you see him? Did you see Linwood Lively?”

“I didn't see anyone,” he said, and she shuddered at what she thought was the condescension in his voice. “Do you want me to call the police?”

“You don't believe me?” she asked. “He was here. He smashed the porch light, Henry, and he was waiting for me—or for you and Antonia,” she added.

“I never should have brought her here,” he said, sighing. “This is not working out the way I planned.”

“You didn't force her to come here,” Catherine said, relenting. Though she liked blaming Henry for Linwood Lively's recklessness, she understood that Henry was not responsible for any of the things the other man had done, or would do. “She came on her own.” Like me, she thought. For love, she thought.

“Circumstances,” he said. “Hers and mine.” And he left it at that. “Now, do you want me to stay with you for a while?”

“No, but thank you,” she said. What I want, really want, she thought, is the last year and a half of my life back. She rose and headed for her bedroom, pausing briefly at the credenza, her back to him. She gazed at Henry's book and said, “Antonia told me what you said about Wyatt's novel. Is it true?”

When he didn't respond, she turned around, but he wasn't there. A moment later, she heard the sound of the back door shutting and then the bell on the gate jangled, and she was alone again. She didn't want to be alone, and the fear crept through her as she shut all the blinds, closing the house around her. A depressing Mendelssohn fugue played softly on the radio, and she switched to a different, livelier station, raising the volume on the last few seconds of “She Drives Me Crazy.” It was midnight and she should have been tired, but she wasn't. Even over the music, she imagined she heard footsteps on the porch, fingers tapping at the windows, and the terror coalesced into a sharp, hard knot in her gut. As the adrenaline spilled through her, Catherine's thoughts formed and broke apart: Was the figure she'd seen Linwood Lively, and if so what had he wanted? Had Henry scared him away? She went to the kitchen window, wondering if Henry were still up, but the cottage was dark. She wondered about Antonia as well, if she'd gotten into her car and gone dancing. The will and determination of a young woman, she thought, remembering when she would have gotten into her own car and driven into the city, looking for excitement. She had none of that will and determination left, not tonight. As she wandered the rooms of her house, Henry's book called out to her, yet Catherine, however curious, had no desire to read whatever it was he'd written. She picked up the book and flipped through it, passing cursorily from page to page. Stop, she thought. Just stop. She dropped the book on the credenza, feeling nauseated, and retreated into the bathroom.

As she washed her face, Catherine thought about Antonia's story and the girl, Hazel Meeks. She thought about the army base in Georgia; the soldiers; the sergeant; the bar; the mattress; and the cabin in the woods. She thought about the engagement ring the girl had found, about the soldier who used this ring to pay for his safe passage to Vermont. Then she remembered something else: the silver lunette earring the man had in his ear. It was this particular detail that sent Catherine back to Antonia's story in
Modern Scrivener,
the copy sitting on the night table where she'd left it. She flipped hurriedly through the pages, until she found what she was looking for—the description of the girl, a mere couple of sentences. The earring, she thought, closing the magazine, picturing the evening at Maddox Cafe again: she and her friends, Antonia and Henry, and the man, Linwood Lively, at the window. She again saw the strain in his handsome face, the penetrating green eyes, and the silver lunette earring glinting in his ear. Had Antonia written about her father? Was this why he'd come to the town? If so, why was he bothering Henry, and why had he defaced the cottage?

Unless the story isn't a story, thought Catherine, climbing into bed. Unless it isn't fiction at all. She recalled an interview in the
Times
she'd read about the recently debunked Holocaust memoir,
The Hunger Maiden.
According to the article, a man named Vernon Fried had actually written the book, although Fried claimed he had merely had it published at the request of the supposed author, Marlene Keyser, who, it was later discovered, had died years before. Fried was being sued by a man claiming to be the real Marlene Keyser's grandson. When the interviewer asked Fried why he hadn't just written a novel, he had said, “Because fiction fails whereas autobiography prevails. Look, I know what I did was wrong, but was I wrong to tell Marlene's story? I did know her, and I did appropriate her story. But this book has reached thousands of people who might never have heard about the heroics of one single woman. Is that such a crime?”

From Wyatt, Catherine had learned that writers stole all the time, that this was merely part of the profession. She'd also learned that a fiction writer's greatest asset was his ability to take the facts of any true story and bend them into fiction, obscuring if not erasing the original truth. “Good fiction lies to get at the truth,” Wyatt used to say. “Good journalism tells the truth to get at the lies. It's only great literature that does both. It presents a world in which the two aren't just intertwined, they're inseparable.” What differentiates a good writer from a great writer, then, Catherine thought, is the victory of his lies—the scope and determination of his imagination.

In bed, Catherine shut off the light, caring little if Antonia had stolen the story or not, because it was nothing less than a literary marvel. It wasn't just the sentences, which were polished to a high gloss, or the characters, which she felt as drawn and close to as any of her friends, but that the narrative itself dropped her into places she never quite imagined, upsetting her expectations. It seemed to Catherine, a voracious reader, that she always came across one or the other—the great stylist with a derivative story to tell, or the great storyteller with derivative style. Like Wyatt before her, Antonia possessed both strengths, a wicked sense of storytelling and style, which only deepened Catherine's respect for her. Still, she was apprehensive when she considered the girl's motivation for revealing her father's secret in this way, if that were the case. Moreover, she had to wonder if the real story weren't that Antonia had used her father's pain and suffering for her own benefit but that she'd turned him into a hapless monster, forever caught in print, having to carry out the same crime forever.