Sex and Death in the American Novel (25 page)

I moved over to sit on the floor. Jasper's eyes moved over Tristan's scrawl and the room was silent. He leaned forward, covering his eyes with one hand, still clutching the paper in the other. He choked and there was this long, low groan.

When he was finished he looked at me with red-rimmed eyes. “I am so sorry.” His voice was thick.

I didn't go to him like the girls do in the movies.

He wiped his nose on the inside of his wrist and handed me the note.

I should have stuck to music.

His voice came from far away. “I never got any letters, Vivi. I checked.”

“You told me that.” I held his gaze.

He came to sit next to me and I rested my head on his shoulder, letting it all come so I might finally move beyond the emptiness, the fear, the nothing, back to hope.

P
ART
III.

Fiction that isn't an author's personal adventure into the frightening or the unknown isn't worth writing about for anything but money.

—Jonathan Franzen,
Ten Rules for Writing Fiction

There is a vibration which takes place in the erotic realm, which translating it into something else, demeans it and destroys it. You need real poetry to talk about that sort of thing.

—Marco Vassi,
A Driving Passion

Chapter 11

Jasper was upstairs when I heard my mother on the phone. “Just a few of us. Got to show off my daughter's latest conquest.”

Later in the afternoon they began to arrive, to chat and help Mom set up. The romance writer Susan Winthorpe, one of mother's oldest friends, arrived first. She encouraged my mother to make the move to the island a few years ago. There were two other people: Marion Hartley, a professor from the English Department at the University of Washington whom Mom had known for years. Her husband, a slim old guy with a gray beard who used to teach mathematics, shuffled in after her. Now he never spoke, only inhaled a loud breath or gave a soft chuckle to indicate he had registered something someone said. Every so often he would rest his eyes on me and smile a dopey grin that reminded me of the way my father watched me when I was small.

Marion had also announced to Mom on the phone that afternoon that she had gone ahead and invited her teaching assistant, Cindy, and that she was bringing a date. Mom kept her voice cool. “No problem. None at all.”

Even though she was on the phone, she kept a smile on her face. Her eyes shot to the perfectly portioned out catering boxes she'd already picked up.

When Jasper and I returned from a walk around the property, she and the ladies were setting out the appetizers, wine and beer.

“I hear you drink Guinness,” my mother said, beaming. Back in please-the-man mode. Dad would take the beer and retreat with Marion's husband, or sit in front of the TV watching a game until dinner started.

He held up a hand. “I'll drink anything as long as it has alcohol in it.” Laughter all around at this. “Can I help with anything?”

“No, no, no. You make yourself comfortable. We'll be fine.” I led Jasper into the living room and sipped off his beer. I was beginning to develop a taste for the dark malty beverage. A cold gritty version of dark coffee or espresso.

“Why don't you get one?” he asked.

I waited and held up a finger. Mom called from the kitchen, “Vivianna, would you mind coming and helping us in here?”

I grabbed the remote and placed it in his hand. He glared at it first then gave me a slow smile. When I came back to check on him he was watching a technology show on the History Channel with his arm slung across the back of the couch. Marion's husband joined him not long after.

I set the table and helped put the food into serving bowls and plates. I avoided the intimate questions with a coy smile and a glance toward the living room. After that their talk degenerated to English Department gossip interspersed with dry book talk. The very light changed in the room when they began using words like
hermeneutics
and
discourse
, and phrases like
rhetorical use
. Once their backs were turned, I cut out for a smoke.

While I sucked in the calming fumes, I rocked in one of the wicker chairs watching the sky change color and the tops of the pines scratch against it, as if they could halt the coming darkness. Faint pricks of light behind them suggested the brilliance of the stars to come. The pines swaying in the wind made a gentle duet with the swish of cars passing far away on the road below. I played over the look on Marion's face when she'd mentioned a character from one of Jasper's books, her voice low and conspiratory. In the seventies she had published one novel that was ‘drier than burnt wood’ my father had once said, and since then had published regularly in drier literary journals. The thought of her judging Jasper made me shake. “God. I fucking hate academics,” I said in a voice so filled with emotion I surprised myself.

Just then I heard gravel crunching on the driveway. “Do history professors count?”

“Shit,” I said, cringing at the fact that I'd been overheard, especially by someone from the Necropolis.

In the light from the porch, a man stood like a vision from Neighbours, like a dark version of Vlad, but so much more. He wore a beige-colored knit sweater and dark slacks. His skin was dark, deep sepia and he wore a goatee—baked clay under molasses. His eyes were lively dark gems. His hair was closely cropped to his head, short and hardly there, but you could see if it was longer it would probably be coarse and tightly curled. He held a twelve-pack of Guinness in both hands.

“Is this where Francine Post lives?” he asked, amused but didn't seem to want to move further until he had gotten that down.

“Sorry,” I said. I stood and moved from the porch to the driveway. “You're in the right place.”

“We missed the first ferry and had to take the later one,” he said moving to stand beside me. “By two cars.” His breath smelled like cloves and nutmeg. He was solidly built and had a kind, intelligent face.

“Where did you park?” I asked.

“Down the hill,” he said. “One of the drawbacks of showing up late.”

“Sorry,” I said.

He stood beside me, facing the dark driveway.

“What are you waiting for?”

“My date,” he said, and as we watched, a skinny brunette wearing a cinched coat floated from the night holding a paper bag with a bottle top poking out. “We'll need that,” he said, low so only I could hear. When she approached I opened the door. They both passed me and stood in the entryway.

“I'm Vivi,” I said. “Francine is my mom.”

“Cindy,” the woman said, while I took her coat. I waited to see if the guy would say who he was, but he only stood staring. Cindy elbowed him with an irritated look on her face. “This is Alejandro Cruz.”

He rolled his eyes, put his hand over his chest and said, “Shit. Sorry, that's me.”

I took the beer from Alejandro.

“Cindy, is that you?” Marion came into the foyer and led both Cindy and Alejandro into the dining room.

I moved to the refrigerator with the beer. There was an entire case already in there, so I set the new one on the counter with a heavy clink. Alejandro darted in and handed me the bag with the bottle in it.

“Introductions are going to be fun,” he said with a wink. He stared another minute and headed back out.

Jasper didn't look up when I came in, only leaned farther into the TV screen. I took the remote and gave him an apologetic frown when I switched the channel to light classical music per my mother's request. His face fell before he gave me a wide-eyed look, fighting to return to reality, as if he were Sleeping Beauty and I'd just planted a big wet one. I took his hand and led him to his seat at the head of the long oak table in the dining room. My father's place.

“Please sit,” my mother said to Alejandro and Cindy, gesturing to the last two empty chairs.

I brought wine in from the kitchen. When I got back, Alejandro sat with his elbows up on the table, staring at Jasper, his hands clasped beneath his chin. Alejandro wore the most endearing expression of amusement. Cindy with her pinched mouth and little brown eyes, furrowed her brow in confusion; her date seemed to be openly fawning in the most embarrassing way. I didn't care. This new guest added intoxicating electricity to the air, and I knew things were going to get good.

Jasper didn't say anything for several long seconds, just let his face work for him—eyebrows arching, lips curling down in a frown like a smile that
denoted genuine surprise and delight. The other guests were silent while they watched the interaction. Jasper finally opened his mouth to speak then looked to me and stared, like he just remembered I was there, or like he'd been caught. Then that look disappeared and he swept his gaze around the table.

“Alex, what?” Cindy finally said in a high voice.

“Sorry,” Alejandro said. “Jasper and I used to run around Hanover together, in college, what like a million years ago?” He faced Jasper who snorted a laugh and sat back swigging on the last of his beer.

I fought the impulse to give Alejandro a big hug and thank him or somehow acknowledge that I knew he was the one who first had his way with Jasper's beautiful ass. Instead I said, “We were just there.”

Jasper kept his face neutral.

“You both attended Dartmouth?” Cindy said.

“At least fifteen,” Jasper said.

“Well, you two still need to eat,” my mother said to the new guests, standing and pushing the bowls and plates toward them. As she poured them wine, let them spoon and cut portions for their plates, and generally fell over herself for a minute as she does with new guests, Alejandro and Jasper watched each other from across the table with an intensity I had never seen on two men's faces. I had this insane urge to bounce up and down in my chair and clap my hands with delight.

Once they were settled, Jasper said, “So how did you make it out here?”

Alejandro swallowed, turned to my mother and said, “This is wonderful. Wonderful!”

My mother nodded. Cindy made a noise in assent and took a sip of her wine.

“I got a job teaching at the University. Latino Studies and Mexican American History. I started this fall quarter.”

“And that's how you met Cindy?” I asked.

Cindy addressed my mother, “I work with Marion. We thought this would be a good way to help him meet more people, and to meet an important author,” she gave the most simpering smile, “only I didn't know you already knew
Jasper Caldwell
.”

Alejandro beamed. Jasper laughed again. I poured another glass of wine and sat back to listen. Jasper asked and Alejandro explained what he'd been doing since they last saw each other. Travel. Two masters degrees. A PhD. More travel. Apparently if you wrote the right sort of letters you could go almost anywhere on someone else's dime. His last trip took him to Colombia.

“Research,” he said and took a gulp of his wine. “You've been busy,” Alejandro said to Jasper, who shrugged like he didn't want to talk about it.

As we listened to Jasper and Alejandro catch up, the rest of us all helped ourselves to juicy pot roast, roasted baby potatoes and carrots glazed with
maple and brown sugar. My mother sat next to Jasper, I sat on the other side, and she turned her eyes to me every few minutes to gauge my reaction to the conversation. We both loved surprises and this was a delightful one—she had no idea how delightful. Inevitably talk turned literary. Jasper answered questions and offered opinions when they asked what he thought of the current year's Pulitzer and National Book Award finalists.

Marion wiped her pink mouth with a cloth napkin and said, “Jasper, I really liked this latest book.”

One eyebrow twitched on her husband's face.

“Thank you,” Jasper said. As I watched him, the color began to drain from his face, and a stone sank to my gut. His smile was perfect though, and his eyes were attentive. It was the body snatcher pose again. There were two of him. The performing Jasper, and my Jasper. I vowed I would get him back after this—better yet, not let him completely slip away.

Marion worked her napkin between her fingers and I could positively smell the glee on her. There was an evil glint in her eye when she said, “All your characters were so well done, so vivid, so real. Can you explain why Vanessa, the heroine's daughter is, well, to say it the way that critic put it in the
New York Times
—” Here she nodded to Susan who held up her hands as if she wanted it clear she had no part in what was coming. She had been in Jasper's seat enough times. Marion continued, “She's a bit flat.”

I stabbed a carrot, watching his face.

His jaw tightened and he said, “I don't read those.”

I let the orange sweetness bite the tip of my tongue and began licking around the edge of my mouth. His eyes slid toward me but only for a second. He pushed his lips inward to stifle a smile. The color came back for a moment.

“You don't read your reviews?” both ladies said from the other end of the table.

Susan gave me a wink before turning her attention to Jasper.

Jasper pushed his plate away and took a sip of his beer. Marion and Cindy looked at each other and shrugged before Marion said to her husband, “What would you say about that?”

He made a vague hand gesture in the air and went back to pushing carrots around his plate.

Something stirred inside me watching Jasper's face, the hardness that covered the flash of disappointment. He had to be used to this, though it still affected him. I thought of the anxiety I had when I sent a new manuscript or story to a new editor. That was nothing. Jasper had a serious reputation to uphold, readers and people who were paid to read him and comment for all the other vultures. The crap he put up with was after the fact when there was
nothing he could do about it. I felt an insane urge to make him small and hold him inside of me and keep him safe. I checked that, shook it off wondering if it was again that time of the month. Something about the depth of the feeling and the heaviness in my heart while I watched this told me my feelings were more complicated than hormones.

I slid the top of my foot along his calf, and got a minor thrill that went all the way to my groin when his eyes opened wider. I worked my foot inside the leg of his pants. There was only a slim bit of nylon between his warm skin and the end of my toe. The muscle in his jaw flashed for a second, he pulled his lips in again. Goal achieved.