Sintown Chronicles I: Behind Closed Doors (16 page)

During the period in which she wrote her major works, Eliot was always encouraged and protected by Lewes. He prevented her even from seeing unfavorable reviews of her books. After his death in 1878 she became a recluse and stopped writing. In May 1880 she married John Cross (1840-1924), an American banker, who had long been a friend of both Lewes and herself, but she died in London on December 22.

Sandra found her yellow legal pad and pen and returned to the library table. She reread the encyclopedia article and carefully made notes.

+ Mary Ann Evans

+ Nov. 22—
my birthday

+ Daughter of estate agent—real estate salesman? Anything like a used car salesman?

+ She was self-taught—
I can do that

+ Rationalist works—Look up

+ Rebelled against dogmatic religion—I'm not religious. Do I qualify?

+ Traveled two years in Europe—
I traveled longer than that in three or four states

+ Wrote book reviews—
Can I do that?

+ Harriet Martineau, John Stuart Mill, James Froude, Herbert Spencer, George Lewes—Look up

+ Mary Ann and Lewes lived together but were not married—
Tim and I live together and are not married

+ Eliot looked upon her long and happy relationship with Lewes as a marriage—
Why not?

+ With encouragement from Lewes she began to write fiction—
Would Tim encourage me?

+ Scenes from Clerical Life, Adam Bede, Mill on the Floss, Romola, Felix Holt the Radical, Middlemarch, Daniel Deronda—Read!!!!!

+ Lewes always encouraged and protected Eliot—Tim?

Sandra, emotionally drained and at the same time charged, knew she could not sleep when bedtime arrived. After getting the copy of
Middlemarch
from the library, she propped up her pillow and settled in to read. Tim moved closer. Without thought, she began to scratch his head, a service he quickly discovered he liked and which immediately became routine bedtime procedure.

Tim didn't snore, but he breathed loudly. Sandra always knew he was asleep when that manly sound became smooth and even. He was gone within minutes; a smile firmly fixed on his face. Damn, she thought. I don't even have to screw him to make him happy.

She opened the book and frowned. It was a lengthy work and the print was tiny. I'll never wade through this, she thought; but she thumbed through a few pages and found that the chapters were short. She began to read. All right, she thought happily—a romance novel.

She read for an hour. Her eyelids grew heavier. One more chapter, she allowed herself. As she approached the end of the chapter, drawing closer and closer to sleep, she sensed she had just read something important. She backed up, forcing herself to concentrate.

“That's it,” she shouted.

“Huh,” said Tim, lifting his head and trying to accustom his eyes to the light of her reading lamp.

“Oh, I'm sorry I woke you, but listen to this Dude. ‘...starting a long way off the true point, and proceeding by loops and zigzags, we now and then arrive just where we ought to be.’”

“That's nice, Dudette,” Tim said without comprehension, running his left hand up her stomach, under the book, cupping her left breast and tweaking the flaccid nipple.

“Don't you see, Tim. All my life I've been looping and zigzagging, but now maybe, just maybe, I've arrived."

“That's nice, Dudette.” He slid lower in the bed, moved over her, parted her legs and began sucking and licking her navel, then lower, then lower still. Both hands were roughly enjoying her breasts.

She closed the book. Good night, Mary Ann. My Lewes is lapping at my door. She chuckled and made a mental note to use that line if she ever wrote a novel.

“What's funny?” he mumbled.

“You tickled me, Dude.” She moved his head tenderly to the desired spot.

“Tim, do you remember the passage from
Middlemarch
I read to you last night?"

He swallowed the oversize bite of fried egg he was chewing and washed it down with a slug of orange juice. “I remember waking up hungry and you feeding me,” he replied with a wicked grin.

“No, before that."

“I'm afraid not."

She quoted the passage, pleased that she could remember it word for word without having made any conscious effort to memorize it. “Don't you see. She's talking about me. I have been wandering through life aimlessly—no purpose—but all those loops and zigzags have put me here with you. Isn't it possible I have arrived, without trying, just where I ought to be?"

“Yeah. Well, maybe.” The tone of his voice indicated he was humoring her.

“Isn't this just what your preacher was talking about? Maybe this is my open door,” she said testily.

“I don't think this is exactly what the preacher had in mind,” Tim replied; but later he realized it was exactly what the preacher was talking about.

She refused to cry. She needed Lewes’ support and he wasn't giving it. “Tim, do you think I could ever become a writer?"

Tim laughed. “You?"

“Yes, me, damn it."

It finally dawned on him that she was pissed. “Hey, I'm sorry. I think of writers as dried up recluses who spend years learning to spell and punctuate, years researching a bee's knee, and then years writing a book nobody will ever read."

“I'm talking about writing novels, or maybe short stories, or maybe just book reports."

“Dudette, I know you love books. I thought your idea of working in a bookstore was a good one."

She did not reply. She knew that if she tried to say more she would start crying, and she was determined not to let him know how deeply he had disappointed her.

“Dudette, Bobby and I are going into town this morning to get building permits and stuff his brother says we need. I'll probably be gone all day."

“Have a great day,” she replied sarcastically. She carried the dishes to the kitchen to wash. “Bastard,” she said when she knew he had gone to his study, and then she allowed the tears to flow.

Bobby and Tim returned from Charlotte about three o'clock. As they began to unload Tim's purchases, he noticed Sandra at the lake, fishing. He waved.

Sandra spent the morning reading
Middlemarch
and then took the book with her to the pond. Fishing was fun and her spirits lightened as the hours passed. She heard Bobby's truck and watched the two men emerge from the cab. She returned Tim's wave, pointed to the bucket and gave him a thumb's up signal. He returned the gesture.

She rebaited her hooks, carefully wiped her hands on a washcloth she had brought with her, having learned of its need during yesterday's first fishing experience, settled in the lawn chair and began reading chapter twenty.

Bobby and Tim stayed in the house a couple of hours. Out of her peripheral vision, she saw Bobby leave. The fish weren't biting very well. She decided it was time to throw the fish back, put everything away, shower and prepare supper. She knew she needed to go grocery shopping soon, but there was enough hamburger left to make meatloaf.

Before going upstairs to shower and change, she went to the library to put up the precious book. As she entered the door, she was overwhelmed. There, between the two rocking chairs, was a brand new computer desk, complete with a computer and printer just like Tim's and a stack of magazines she had never seen before.

The soft voice came from behind her. “A writer's got to have the tools of the trade,” he said. She crushed him in her arms, unashamed of her tears of joy. He thought he must have misunderstood what she said through the tears, but did not question it. It sounded like she said, “Thank you, Lewes."

Matt Dilson hurried to his office as fast as his full bladder would allow. He had been in a very boring meeting all afternoon about the insurance problem. He threw open the door to his private bathroom and stood transfixed. Cathy was at the sink, naked to the waist, washing her right breast.

Her breasts are gorgeous, large as softballs and great uplift, he thought. God, how I would love to taste those beauties.

She turned to him. “Matt, I'm sorry. I spilled coffee.” Only then did she think to cover her magnificent mammary glands with her arms.

He grinned sheepishly and backed out of the door.

“Sorry,” she said again when she came out of the little room.

After urinating, he removed his pants and boxer shorts, cleaned himself with a wet paper towel, put the pants back on, and rolled the shorts in paper towels. He had never before ejaculated without even touching the woman.

The remainder of the week proved to be an exciting blur of activity for Sandra. She was accustomed to having her mind filled with uninvited thoughts and daydreams during idle moments, but idle moments were now rare.

On Sunday after lunch, Tim and Bobby went to Charlotte on their third trip to inspect rental houses. This time they took Carl with them. Sandra sat on the front porch, feeling, but not recognizing, the need for reflection, and uncomfortable with the moment of leisure.

She glanced at the large pond. She did not want to spend the afternoon fishing, but the warm October sunlight reflecting on the clear water beckoned to her. She slowly walked to the waters’ edge, enjoying every step without realizing it fully, then to the other side of the pond, and finally she followed a rabbit path that led to a distant grove of pine trees.

At first, the random thoughts with which she was familiar ricocheted around her conscious mind, but then she resolved to reflect on the numerous changes that were a part of her recent history.

Her mental inventory began at the point when she discovered the computer Tim bought for her, and the magazines on writing he had gone to the trouble to find. With only a little help from Tim, she had learned the basics of using Microsoft Office. After you learn to use Word, she thought, the other programs are fairly easy since they use the same commands. She smiled as she remembered how often she still had to click the “help” icon. Learning to use the keyboard was another matter. Tim offered to teach her correct typing procedure, but he said it would take several months to become proficient. She wanted to write, not learn to type, so she opted to use the “hunt and peck” method. It was slow going, especially at first, but her speed was picking up. As soon as possible she had begun to write her first novel. It was to be a romance, with pretty lady and handsome gentleman, married, but not to each other, thrown together by some disaster—a hurricane or bank robbery perhaps. They would fall madly in love, maybe have torrid sex a time or two, and then go back to their respective mates. Years would pass. They would meet again and rediscover their love. One's spouse would have died and the other's marriage would have ended in divorce. They would marry and live happily ever after. She reread the first two pages she had written and exited the word processor program, intentionally not saving the file to hard disk. She recalled that at the time she thought that even she would not want to read that drivel.

Undaunted, the next day she tried again. This time she would have a tractor trailer driver involved in a major wreck. The heroine, an attorney, would be on the road at the same time and witness the wreck, fall in love with the badly injured driver, stick with him through his hospitalization and recovery from severe injury, and through a long trial in which he is charged with negligent homicide. Just as it looked like he would be convicted and sent to prison, she would discover evidence proving that the accident and resulting death was not his fault, and they would live happily ever after. She trashed that effort after writing two pages also.

Discouraged, she had begun to read the magazines Tim provided. Quickly she began to accumulate tips she could use. She followed Tim's advice and filed these tips on the computer, using the Microsoft Access program. She thought she would not be capable of writing a database program, but discovered Microsoft provided an inventory database sample that would suffice with just a few simple modifications.

In one respect, the magazines were discouraging. One article informed her that no publisher was likely to buy her work unless submitted by an agent. The same article said most agents were reluctant to accept as clients unpublished writers.

There were encouraging articles too. Stories of manuscripts, turned down by dozens of publishers, that were finally published and immediately hit the bestseller charts. There were articles on form and style. There was an important article, she thought, on how to write a query letter. One article urged readers to write from their own experience, while another said that the only way to write a successful novel was to carefully define the characters and then let the characters tell their own stories. Yeah sure, she thought at the time; but because the article provided a character profile template, she tried following its advice. As her heroine, she used herself. The hero was Tim. There ought to he a bad guy in there someplace, she thought, so I'll use Hank.

Sandra kicked a rock on the rabbit trail, watched it bounce a few feet in front of her, and kicked it again, harder this time. It flew up like a football kickoff, and sliced to the right into the field beside the path. A covey of quail startled her when they suddenly erupted from the tall grass when the rock landed.

There had been a change in Tim the last few days. One day he asked her to sit with him at the big conference table in his study. He presented her with reports he had prepared specifically for her, listing his full assets and the goals he had thus far established. Together, they decided the responsibilities for Sandra to look after. It was determined that what was left of the $50,000, which was most of it, Sandra should deposit in a checking account of her own, to use for household necessities as well as for her personal needs. Tim would replenish funds as needed. Two things deeply impressed her. Tim had decided to trust her completely, and
he
now seemed to be the one desperately searching for purpose.

There was no sex during these days. She stroked him often and he stroked her. Perhaps they had been too busy. Perhaps
she
didn't need sexual activity as often, now that she had purpose and structure in her life. No, she thought and smiled. That's not it. She thought of Tim and suddenly wanted him badly. How would I describe him in my novel? she wondered. He has no outstanding physical characteristics. He's not ugly, but he's not handsome either. I'd say he's about six feet tall, maybe weights 175 or 180, has brown hair that was cut short when I met him, but is badly in need of trimming now. She laughed when the only color she could think of to describe his skin was orange. His eyes are brown I think, and he has almost no body hair. He shaves every morning, but I sometimes wonder why? Physically he's nothing special, but I love him anyway.