the Writing Circle (2010) (27 page)

N
ANCY COULD NOT FALL ASLEEP. BESIDE HER IN BED, OATES
slept purposefully, inhaling slowly, as if his breath had a difficult journey along the corrugated roof of his mouth. She tried to think of images to occupy her mind, something benign, soporific, but she kept coming back to Gillian. She did not feel sorry for Gillian. Pity had always come so easily to her, and she was unnerved by its absence now.

She cuddled close to Oates and put her arm around him to hug him closer. She would not wake him, but she wished he would wake, and when he finally stirred, she kissed his upper arm. He rolled towards her, onto his back, and woke up.

“You still awake?” he asked her.

“I’ve been trying for hours,” she said, “but I can’t sleep.”

“What’s the matter?”

“I don’t feel like myself,” she said. “I think I’ve lost my moral center.”

He blinked and rubbed his forehead. “What time is it?” he asked.

“Nearly two.” The lace on the neckline of Nancy’s flannel nightgown felt scratchy. She undid the tie and opened the buttons.

“Can’t this wait until morning?”

“I wish it could,” said Nancy.

Oates took in a generous mouthful of air and held it for a moment before letting it out. “I thought you’d be feeling great,” he said. “You finally accomplished what you hoped to do. You aren’t sorry you did it, are you?”

“No,” said Nancy. “And that’s just the point. I don’t like me this way.”

“For God’s sake, Nancy,” said Oates. He freed the pillow from under his head, gave it a shake, and rolled it in half before he let his head sink into it again. “Gillian plagiarized your book. She stole your father’s story and turned it upside down. If she loses the Pulitzer Prize, if her reputation is damaged, it’s exactly what she deserves. Isn’t it?”

“But she’s not being done in because of my novel, she’s being done in because of something else.”

“So it’s indirect justice,” said Oates. “Sometimes that’s the best we can do.”

Nancy heard the tone of exasperation in his voice. She didn’t want to aggravate him, but if she couldn’t explain to Oates, then there would be nobody she could explain to. Everything about them, their future, depended on this.

“Here’s what I realized,” said Nancy. “Gillian has an incredible memory. She absorbed my first chapter just hearing it that once and was able to reproduce it, months later, almost exactly. Maybe she didn’t deliberately copy Anya Kuznetsov’s poems but read them once and then unintentionally absorbed them.”

“So?” asked Oates.

“So, then she isn’t really guilty. And yet I don’t care, because I got what I wanted.”

“I don’t see the problem then,” said Oates.

“The problem is I don’t like the person I’ve become. I’m not good.”

Oates held Nancy by the shoulders now. “You are the craziest woman in the world,” he said. “You get yourself into these moral tangles. Stop worrying about being good all the time.”

She felt off balance, as if she were a boat in the sea and her cargo were words, shifting from side to side. She pressed her head against Oates’s chest to steady herself.

She worried about being good because that was what had mattered to her father. She had inherited a moral compass from him, and she had always worked to keep the jiggling needle pointed right. Without that, she was someone he wouldn’t respect.

“Gillian has turned me into this,” she said. “So she’s the one who has the final revenge.”

“Let her have her revenge then,” said Oates.

“Do you still love me?” asked Nancy. “Do you love me the way I am?”

Oates settled back down in bed and pulled her close to him. She wanted to hear the words, but she knew that he was done with talking, and had to accept, as an answer, the pressure of his arm across her hip. She closed her eyes and tried to fall asleep.

Oates listened to her, he loved her, but he didn’t truly understand her. No one had ever really understood her, except her father. And she was the only one who had really understood her father—her mother hadn’t, his parents hadn’t. She’d explained her father in her novel, she’d set things right. But her novel would never be published.

But that wasn’t the worst thing. The worst thing was the incontrovertible fact that her father was dead, and she’d never be able to talk to him again.

P
AUL WAS DOWNLOADING MUSIC WHEN HIS FATHER KNOCKED
on his door. Instinctively he slid the biology textbook he was supposed to be studying to the center of his desk as he called out, “Yeah?”

Jerry closed the door behind him when he came into the room, and this gesture made Paul sit up straight. Even with the door open, you could barely hear anything upstairs from here. A closed door guaranteed that.

“Can you manage here on your own for a few days?” Jerry asked.

“Sure. I guess,” said Paul. He knew that his father was worried about something because Jerry didn’t comment, as he usually did, on the disorder in the room, didn’t even seem to notice.

“Gillian wants to go out to Truro, and I don’t want her to be driving down there alone. I’m on duty at the hospital tonight,” Jerry said. “But I’ve persuaded her to wait until I can go with her tomorrow morning.”

“What’s going on?” asked Paul.

“She didn’t get the Pulitzer,” said Jerry. “She just heard.”

“So,” said Paul. “Lots of people don’t get the Pulitzer. What’s the big deal?”

“Paul!”

“Yeah, okay. I get it,” said Paul. “So it’s a big deal for her.” It was hard for him to sound suitably sorry. It wasn’t that he didn’t want Gillian to get that silly prize—she was always nicer to live with when she got what she wanted—but he liked the idea that expectations didn’t always pan out. Everyone had described her winning the prize as a sure thing. He was glad that things weren’t that predictable.

“I’ll need you to hold down the fort until I’m back late tonight,” said Jerry.

“Sure,” said Paul. “What do you want me to do?”

“Don’t let anything disturb Gillian. Keep your earphones off so you can hear the phone. And if you find out that she’s decided to head out to the Cape on her own, page me.”

“You want me to go up there and check up on her?” Paul asked.

“No,” said Jerry. “I don’t want you to bother her at all. Just get in touch with me if she tells you she’s leaving.”

“Okay,” said Paul. His father looked tired and old. He looked like a man who needed a good night’s sleep, not a doctor who was heading off to be on call for emergency appendectomies.

“Are you afraid she’s going to off herself?” asked Paul.

“God no!” said Jerry. “Whatever gave you an idea like that?”

Paul shrugged. “People kill themselves over major disappointments,” he said. “It happens all the time.”

“You don’t have to worry about Gillian,” said Jerry. Not that Paul was worried, it was Jerry who was obviously worried. But as Paul thought about it, Jerry was right. Gillian didn’t fit the profile of someone suicidal. He knew all about that from some website on depression.

Paul looked at his biology for a while, until he saw Jerry’s car head down the driveway, then he went upstairs to scrounge something for dinner. He heated a frozen pizza in the microwave and brought it downstairs to his room. He put his earphones on, but he kept the music low enough so he figured he could hear anything important. It was dark out now, and the windows, instead of offering a view of the sloping lawn down to the driveway, offered only a mirror image of his own room, and his own face. He went upstairs to get some ice cream for dessert. The freezer had been set too high, and the ice cream was so hard he couldn’t get it out with the scoop. Chubby Hubby was the flavor. He took the container of ice cream over to the glass table by the kitchen and used a spoon to shave off pieces, eating directly from the container.

It was hard work digging out the ice cream, and when he jammed in his spoon to extract a piece, the ice cream flew out and landed on the floor. He got down to pick it up. The floor was so clean that he called out “five-second rule!” and popped the chunk into his mouth. He was still on his hands and knees when he heard the doorbell ring. He hadn’t heard a car drive up the driveway, and was surprised. He raced for the door, grabbing it open so whoever was ringing wouldn’t hit the doorbell again. The outside light wasn’t on. He could barely make out the woman standing there. He opened the door wider, illuminating the front entrance.

“Kim!” he exclaimed. She was wearing a dark sweatshirt, the hood circling her face. She had come out of nowhere, a fantasy suddenly turned actual. He had not seen her for months, not since the Christmas party Adam had brought her to, but he thought about her all the time—barely daring to fantasize doing more with her than just hang out, talk. He kept trying to capture her in his drawings, but he’d never been able to get her quite right.

“I want to talk to Adam,” she said.

“What?” asked Paul.

Kim pulled the hood back off her head, and her long white-blond hair burst out, like an exploding dandelion.

“Adam. He’s here, isn’t he?”

“No,” said Paul, trying to keep his voice low. His father would give him hell if Gillian were disturbed. “Why would he be here?”

“I thought he might be,” said Kim. She looked as if she were going to cry.

“Well, he isn’t,” said Paul.

“You’re not just lying to me?” asked Kim.

“No. I wouldn’t lie to you,” said Paul. “Where’s your car?” he asked. He didn’t see anything there in the driveway.

“I parked out on the road,” said Kim. “I walked up the driveway.”

“Are you okay?” asked Paul.

Kim pulled in her bottom lip and shut her eyes. She’d obviously been crying for a while. Either that or she had a cold.

“Come on in,” said Paul. “But we’ve got to go downstairs. We can’t talk here.”

He closed the door behind Kim and led the way down to his room. For a second he saw it through her eyes: the bed strewn with papers and clothes, the dirty plates and cutlery stacked precariously on the desk. She was definitely crying now. Little, burpy sobs. He closed the door behind them and pushed some clothes off a chair so she’d have a place to sit down. He sat on the bed across from her.

“What happened?” he asked.

Kim shook her head.

“Can I get you something?” asked Paul. “Something to drink or eat? I could run upstairs to the kitchen and be back in a minute.”

Kim was still looking down at her lap.

“Hey, you can talk to me,” said Paul. “I mean, I’d like to help you, if I could.”

“Adam broke up with me,” said Kim. She looked up at him now.

The idea that anyone who had achieved the acquisition of someone as unattainable as Kim as a girlfriend would ditch her seemed so preposterous to Paul that it took him a moment to say anything. He had never had a girl sitting in his room before. Never had a girl in his room, with the door shut, just the two of them. And this was Kim! At the Christmas party, when he’d shown her around the house and brought her down here, they’d stood briefly at the door and she’d looked in. “Cool,” she’d said, but he had guessed she just said that to be nice. Standing close beside her then, he’d seen the edge of her white bra strap, the metal clasp that adjusted its length. The skin over her collarbone was pulled tight, and he would have given anything then to be able to touch her there, touch her with just a single finger.

“Why would he do that?” asked Paul.

“He’s been seeing someone else,” said Kim. “He told me he was in love with her.”

“He’s nuts,” said Paul. “But why did you come here?”

“I just found out who it was. I thought Adam might be over here. I wanted to tell him how sick I thought it all was.” She was animated now. The blood under her skin had inundated her face unevenly, continents of red on the white skin. Still, she was beautiful. God, she was beautiful!

“But why would he be here?” asked Paul again. He felt there was some essential thing that he must have missed.

“Because,” Kim said, “it’s Gillian.”

“Jesus,” said Paul. It was quite wonderful, this news, something he would never have imagined. If his father found out, that would finish things between him and Gillian, or would it? Or did his father already know? It seemed suddenly unbearably sad that his father might love Gillian so much he was willing to put up with anything she did, even something like this.

“He told you that?”

“No,” said Kim. “He wouldn’t tell me who it was. I would never have guessed her—I mean, she’s old.”

“Then how did you find out?”

“I couldn’t stand it any longer. Not knowing. I still had the key to his apartment. I went over there when he was at work. He leaves his laptop at home. I went through his files. He writes about everything.”

Paul remembered now that Kim was a computer person. She’d be able to access Adam’s stuff without much trouble.

“But why would you think he’d be over here now?”

“I was going to catch him after work in the parking lot, when he came out. But he didn’t come out. This guy I know who works in his office told me he’d said he was leaving early to meet with someone in his writing group.”

“It must have been someone else,” said Paul. “Gillian’s here, upstairs. Do you want to say something to
her
?”

“Oh no!” Kim looked frightened. “I just want to find Adam,” she said. “I want to tell him what I think of him.”

“I could get you something to eat first,” said Paul. “There’s some more pizza.”

“No, thanks,” she said. She stood up. “Look, I’ve got to go.” She pulled her sweatshirt down on her hips and pulled the hood up over her head. Her hair was pushed forward and stuck out on both sides. Paul wanted to tuck it back in, smooth it against her head. “This whole thing was pretty stupid,” she said. “Pretty pointless.”

There was no way he could get her to stay longer. He could see that.

“You can leave from down here,” said Paul. He pointed to the sliding glass doors that went straight outside.

“Okay,” she said. He opened the slider and stepped outside with her.

“Want me to walk to your car with you? It’s a long way out to the road,” he said. He was wearing only a T-shirt and the night was cold, but he didn’t consider going back into his room to grab something warmer.

“No, that’s okay,” she said. She turned towards him now. “Thanks, though,” she said. “And thanks for listening to me.”

“Sure,” he said. He reached to touch her. The tips of three fingers brushed the sleeve of her sweatshirt. He could have held them there forever.

“Bye,” she said, and she set off, cutting down the hillside to the curving driveway. He could barely make her out in the darkness, with her black hood up. The black absorbed the black, absorbed her. Made it as if she had never come.

THE GARAGE WAS ON THE FAR SIDE
of the house, so Paul had not heard the garage door open. And he did not hear the engine until Gillian’s pickup truck came around the side of the house. Gillian had not turned the headlights on. It took Paul a second to note this. He figured Gillian must have guessed that Jerry had asked Paul to call him if she left, so she was trying to drive off without being detected.

Paul had a split-second vision of Kim, invisible in the dark driveway. He took it all in, in an instant; factored in speed and time and consequence. His body acted instinctively. He flew down the hillside, crying out Kim’s name. He plunged out into the driveway, just below the curve, where no driver would have been able to see him, even if they had had their headlights on, and even if they had been able to see him, would not have been able to stop in time.