The Garden of Dead Dreams (11 page)

Director Hardin moved to the front of the room. His gait seemed more tentative than usual. Etta registered that he was standing behind the podium, heard some random words in his baritone voice. Olivia’s name. And she had a vague sense of other things floating from his mouth: “troubled,” “imbalance,” “breakdown.” But what Etta was most aware of was the sensation of eyes probing her. Maura’s hair fluttered across the back of her chair, her gaze locking with Etta’s.

Outside the sun was hovering just above the treetops. Etta stared at it until she couldn’t stand the brightness and had to squeeze her eyes shut. She only opened her eyes again when silence descended across the room.

“Sir, I think Olivia was plagiarizing.” It was Jordan. His voice was devoid of inflection, like he was reading aloud from a text.

Etta found herself searching for air at the same time that the room seemed to collectively exhale.

“I knew that play was too good to be written by a girl.” A grin spread across Mallory Chambers’ round face. “Kidding, kidding. But really, who’d our golden girl crib off of? Marlow or Shakespeare?”

Maura’s hand shot into the air. “Does this mean that the runner-up should have won the contest, because Winston told me I was the runner-up?” Maura went on, but Etta lost track of the words. All she could concentrate on was the strange quality of Maura’s voice—shrill and whiny.

Pari stood and spoke when Maura finished, her dark eyes surveying the room. “Perhaps everyone should take a lie detector test.”

“Or maybe we should put a gallows in the basement. We can torture cheaters—lock ‘em down there without food,” Mallory interrupted.

The director looked dazed as he gazed at the back of the room, his white hair a tousle of flyaway strands.

“I’m only saying, another student could have been writing Olivia’s material. There may be another offender,” Pari said.

“Her writing was dark,” someone at the back of the room murmured. “For such a sweet person.”

“And weird,” someone else said, much louder. “Remember that missionary pig farmer? One word—creepy.”

“I don’t see what that proves.” It was Chase Quinn, and the sharpness of his voice surprised Etta. He was sitting sideways in his chair, his back to Etta. “If she had a breakdown, she is clearly disturbed. Perhaps she has some kind of multiple personality syndrome.”

“The question is, if she didn’t write those stories, who did?” It was Pari again.

“Maybe it was Galen,” someone called out

Etta’s pen bounced onto the floor with a clatter.

“Aha! Yes, the mad man as our golden girl’s ventriloquist,” Mallory called out.

“All right now, that’s enough.” Hardin’s voice sounded fatigued, and Mallory’s laughter overwhelmed it.

Hillary Chambers’ slender arm floated into the air. “According to the “Academic Integrity Code” in the handbook, accusations of plagiarism must be written, and they must be followed by a formal hearing. Until those two things happen, this sort of speculation is improper.”

The director gazed at the back of the room, his eyes motionless behind his glasses. Etta expected him to say something, at least to acknowledge Hillary’s words with a nod. But it was Walker Ryan who spoke, resting his long fingers on the director’s shoulder.

“Let’s not waste all this imagination on chin-wagging. Let’s get down to the business of storytelling. Raise your hand if you’re one of the few poor souls who will be critiqued in the next month.” Etta hoisted her arm, as did three other students.

“Good, good. Listen, here’s the thing, it might not seem like it, but you’re the lucky ones. Your classmates know how to critique now. They know how to excavate your challenges.” He brought his hand down and hit the podium with it. “Now, I’ve had my suspicions that a few of you brought old work, stuff you’ve workshopped before. Listen, that’s not the point, the point is to challenge ourselves, to get better. We want fresh stories. Not something you wrote last year. Prove it’s current. Drop references, make me a character, make the lodge your setting, whatever. Show us it’s new. Remember, this is your debut, your unveiling. Make it count.” Walker waved his hand through the air again. “Why doesn’t someone tell us a story right now?” His index finger descended on Katie Randolph.

Katie’s eyelashes fluttered.

“You have five minutes to come up with one,” Walker said. “The rest of you, write a five minute story starting with the sentence ‘Since I saw you last . . .” See where those words take you.” He put his hand on Hardin’s back and guided him down the aisle toward the door, whispering to him as they walked. Etta stared at the blank sheet of paper in front of her and tried to stop her hands from trembling.

* * *

“Jordan, stop!” Etta jogged to catch her friend, who was striding down the trail east of the Lodge. By the time Jordan spun around, Etta was only inches from him. Jordan swiped a long blonde lock from in front of his eye. Etta had always been mesmerized by the blue color of Jordan’s eyes—a deep turquoise, like she imagined the Caribbean would look. “Why?” The word tumbled out of Etta’s mouth, although she wasn’t sure what to follow it with.

Jordan took a step backward. “Why what? Why did my girlfriend dump me? Good fucking question, Etta. Maybe you can tell me.” He pressed his lips into a tight line.

Etta frowned and searched for words, but she couldn’t find any.

Jordan slapped his bare forearm and flicked a limp insect off of it. It left a speck of red on his tanned skin. “Tell me Etta, do you think Zelda loved Scott?”

“Who?” Etta whispered, meeting his gaze.

“Fitzgerald. Zelda Fitzgerald. Do you think she loved him?”

Etta stared at him. “I don’t know.”

“Well, that’s just great. Do you think Daisy loved Gatsby?”

“Jor, why . . .”

“Why did I tell on her? I don’t know. She didn’t write that creepy shit. I don’t know who did, but it wasn’t Olivia.”

“Well, did you have to make a public announcement?” Etta glanced behind her, realizing how loud their voices were. She lowered her voice. “Couldn’t you have told Hardin in private?”

Jordan laughed, but it was a harsh sound, almost a cough. “Jilted lovers are desperate creatures, Etta. We can’t be trusted. Just ask Tom Buchanan.” Jordan spun around. His blonde hair whipped around his head.

Before Etta could think of a reply, he was gone.

Etta reversed direction and hurried back toward the Lodge. The morning writing session started in less than five minutes. But Etta turned down a slender path that looked like it may be a shortcut to the women’s cabins. At least it led in the right direction. She broke into a jog. The air was cool on her arms beneath her sweater. She quickened her pace, her gaze glued to the narrow slit of dirt. Then she heard something behind her and whirled around. A deer stood several yards away, staring at her, as surprised by the encounter as she was.

Etta laughed. “Galen,” she whispered. She could barely catch her breath. “Are you Galen?”

* * *

Etta was in such a hurry to get inside her cabin that she didn’t see the bundle until her foot was hovering just above it. She smelled the buttery richness of Carl’s biscuits, even before she unwrapped the napkin. She unscrewed the lid of the stainless steel thermos next to it: Carl’s chicken soup.

Etta sat cross-legged on her floor, devoured the three biscuits, and drank the chicken soup straight from the thermos, hardly breathing between gulps. She picked every crumb off of the napkin then she moved toward the largest of the boxes she’d packed the day before. She emptied it, strewing its contents onto the floor then moved to the next box, and the next until the room was piled with Olivia’s things again. She filled the boxes again, but this time she pulled out every scrap of paper—every notebook, binder, letter, and book—and stacked them in a separate box.

Perhaps Etta had known all along that Olivia didn’t write the dark fairy tales, that someone as flirtatious and girly as Olivia, someone who knitted pink hats and wore purple nail polish on her toes and listened to old Sarah McLachlan songs over and over again and gushed about how sweet her boyfriend was, did not produce such a bleak story and play. They were dark, but hilarious. Etta had sat for a long time after she’d read the story, not knowing whether to laugh or cry, a sensation she liked. The precariousness of it made her almost dizzy. And she liked the stories themselves. They were well-written. Witty. Ironic. Things Etta always wanted her novels to be described as. Instead Etta’s classmates and teachers would scoff off her entire body of work as saccharine drivel for overweight housewives—if they knew about it.

But Etta had known that she and Olivia had more in common than Olivia’s work suggested, known it the way you know when someone’s watching you from across a crowded room. Etta stared at the piles of Olivia’s notebooks, the pink and purple folders, and the peach cloth-bound journal. But who did write Olivia’s story and play?

Etta pulled the box of papers toward her and flipped through some loose letters from Olivia’s aunt. She’d drawn line illustrations of wildflowers and goats and her farmhouse along the edges. They were beautiful, but revealed little.

Etta flipped through a notebook. Olivia had started a letter to someone named Sam, which wasn’t revealing in any way. The rest of the notebook was filled with blank pages.

Etta blew a strand of hair off her forehead and set the notebook on the floor next to the box. She pulled some books from the box and scanned the covers.
To Kill a Mockingbird
,
The Bean Trees
,
The Poisonwood Bible
. She stacked them back in the box and pulled out another notebook. It was filled with doodles. Etta put it back and pulled out a manila envelope with a round brown stain on the lower corner. She unfastened it, and a pile of thin papers slid out.

It was a story, typed on a typewriter. Jordan’s typewriter?

“Cherry Blossom” by M.K. Lowther.

Etta read until a rumbling interrupted her thoughts. Was it Carl’s truck? She glanced at the story, surprised that she’d already read four pages. It was riveting. She flipped back to the first page again, and read the first line:
I was only a child when I knew that America would become a sore that would ooze and fester until it bled.

In the story, Peter Morrison, a twenty-year old from Seattle, discouraged by what he sees happening in the United States after the Stock Market Crash of 1929, travels to Japan. He visits Kyoto, the Katsura River, Mount Arashiyama, Nijo Castle, and the Golden Pavilion, and wanders around in a frenzy of bicycles, cars, trucks, streetcars, and rickshaws that weave through the wide streets. He starts watching “a merchant’s daughter with a porcelain face and a head of ebony silk” in a marketplace each afternoon, and finally works up the courage to ask her name. She whispers, “Yumi,” and then disappears into the crowd.

The truck was louder. Etta lifted her gaze from the paper. Was it pulling into the clearing in front of her cabin? Etta dropped the papers onto the floor and pushed herself to her feet as the truck’s engine died outside. She bent down, gripped the sides of the tattered box she’d filled with Olivia’s papers and pushed all of her weight into it, sliding it across the floor into her closet. She slammed the door shut.

Etta threw the front door open just as Carl raised his fist to knock. He took a step backward.

“What are you doing here?” Etta asked then realized how rude she sounded. “I mean, thanks,” she tried to say, but her voice betrayed her. She cleared her throat. “Thanks for the soup.”

“Haven’t seen you in the dining hall. Didn’t want you to starve.”

Etta looked over her shoulder at the boxes of Olivia’s things and tried to swallow. Most of them were overflowing; a red sweater sleeve hung over the side of one.

“Did Hardin tell you I was coming?”

She turned back to Carl.
Taste of Austin
, the white letters on his black T-shirt read. “Oh right.” Etta stepped backward to let him inside. He strode past her to the center of the room. She followed him. “I tried to pack Liv’s stuff, but I . . .” She let the words die.

“You all right?” Carl’s voice was almost a whisper. He rested his hand on her back, and a prickle of heat raced up Etta’s spine.

Carl wrapped his other arm around her and pressed her cheek to his chest. She breathed in the clean scent of his T-shirt, like towels dried on a clothesline. His heartbeat pulsed against her cheek. His breath tangled in her hair. They stood like that for a long time then Carl pulled away. Etta reached for his hand. He leaned over and his lips feathered across hers, his tongue flicking against her teeth. Etta’s pulse quickened, swelling into her chest and wrists. Their lips didn’t fit together at first then they shifted.

Carl tugged on her shoulders, and Etta pressed herself closer, letting her body sink against his.

Then Carl stepped backward, and an ocean of space swelled between them.

“Hi,” he said.

Etta hung suspended in air, floating. She searched for Carl’s eyes. But he was looking at something behind her. She whirled around.

Robert North leaned on the door frame, his arms folded across his chest. He smiled then pushed his weight off the doorway and sauntered into the room.

“Ah, love, the wisdom of the fool and the folly of the wise.” Robert North crouched and lifted a crumpled button-down shirt from the top of a box, stared at it then dropped it back on the pile. He rose to his feet. “Of course, I’m just a washed up old poet. What would I know about love?”

Etta’s cheeks filled with heat.

“Thought I might be able to lend a hand.” He moved to another box, crouched, and ruffled through it. He pulled out Olivia’s digital clock and set it back in the box. “Is this all of her things?”

Etta nodded, stealing a glance at her closet.

Robert North laughed. “You have your own cabin now.” He held up a cord, which Etta guessed went to Olivia’s laptop. “Just like me,” he mumbled.

“Don’t you have a room in the lodge?” Etta felt dizzy. She’d stared at Robert North’s photo so many times, and now he was just inches from her. But all she really wanted was for him to leave her and Carl alone again.