The Garden of Dead Dreams (2 page)

Now, under the glow of the track lights, Etta couldn’t recall exactly what had seemed so troubling last night. That’s what she hated most about her bouts of insomnia: the way the darkness worked like a magnifying glass, amplifying trifles into dilemmas.

“As I said, you’ll keep hearing the banal phrase, write what you know. But what does it mean?”

Etta turned back to the front of the room.

A few hands floated up, but the poet’s blue gaze drifted to the iron-cased windows. “I’ll tell you what it doesn’t mean: Don’t make your characters slightly veiled versions of yourself. Christ almighty, don’t bore your readers with lackluster details from your life.”

His gaze swept the classroom. “No, what you must do is infuse your literature with your emotions. Heartbreak and anguish. Remorse and frustration. Tedium and jealousy. All of the sweet wretchedness of being human.”

Etta nodded in agreement as the poet shoved his notes into his briefcase. He strutted down the center aisle toward the exit, avoiding eye contact with the students he passed.

As Etta’s classmates rose and streamed out of the room, she meandered to Olivia’s desk for their daily trek to the dining hall.

Olivia flung her black bag toward Etta. “Hold this.” Olivia flipped through her notebook, pulling out papers, examining them, and stacking them on her desk. “I’m sure I have it.” She leafed through the stack and then shoved it back into the notebook. “Did I leave it at Jor’s?”

Olivia took her bag back, yanked it open, and pulled out one book and then another, piling them on her desk.

Etta plucked the small paper sack out of her own bag and shook the cinnamon roll onto her palm, trying to stop herself from cramming the whole thing in her mouth. “Can’t you find whatever it is after lunch?”

Olivia flipped through one of the books on her desk. “I’m going to ask him to read my story.”

Etta raised an eyebrow as she peeled off the outside layer of the roll. “Jordan?” She put it in her mouth and savored the sensation of the sugar dissolving into her tongue.

Olivia laughed. “Robert North.”

Etta nearly choked on her bite. “Seriously?” According to the rules, visiting writers did not do critiques. The lodge was intended to be a retreat for visitors, a restful stop on a whirlwind book tour. And Robert North wasn’t any visiting author. He’d mentioned twice during his lecture that
Portages
was on the short list for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and he’d recently been featured in an
Atlantic Monthly
article entitled, “Turbulent Troubadours.”

Olivia hurled some papers into the air. “Thank God. I thought I was going to have to go through the pile on my desk. Hey, where did you get that? I want some.”

Etta extended the roll toward Olivia. “We’re not supposed to ask visiting authors to read our work.”

“We’re not supposed to take more than one cinnamon roll.” Olivia giggled and pulled a chunk off the roll. “Master Chef Carl certainly does shower you with gifts,” Olivia said, mimicking the chef’s drawl.

Etta laughed. “It’s just a cinnamon roll. Not an engagement ring.”

Olivia lifted her hand, examining the ring Jordan had given her in the light. “I told you, it’s a promise ring.” Olivia dropped her hand. “Besides Carl’s sweets taste a lot better. I’m just saying . . .”

“Don’t . . . and don’t look at me like that.” Etta frowned. “I told you, Carl and I are friends. He’s the only one out here with a radio. The only one who goes to town every week. I know, ‘Creativity is the offspring of solitude,’” Etta repeated the motto of the Buchanan Academy. “But sometimes don’t you want to hear the news, or just get a weather forecast?”

“Whoa, methinks the lady doth protest too much.” Olivia giggled. “Has it occurred to you that I’m jealous because I’m not getting the cinnamon roll treatment?” Olivia stuffed another bite of the roll into her mouth and stacked her books back in her bag. She leapt to her feet. “Ready?”

Etta shook the remnants of the cinnamon roll into the wastebasket next to the door and followed Olivia down the stairs. As Olivia disappeared down the hallway, Etta lingered in the great room gazing at the oversized leather sofas across from the crackling fire. She stifled a yawn and imagined stretching out on the couch and reading
Portages
. Of course, she couldn’t do that. With the shortened lunch hour, she’d have to shovel down her food and race to the library to dash off a critique of Chase Quinn’s short story for the afternoon workshop.

Etta tried to breathe despite the tightness in her chest. She should be the one asking for help. Olivia had already won a contest. The students wrote a play during their first month at the academy, and the resident authors chose the best one to be produced for the Autumnal Equinox celebration. Olivia’s play would be performed for the entire academy in a couple of nights. Etta, on the other hand, could barely thread two sentences together lately. She’d always dreamed of writing something that didn’t help people escape reality, but held it up to the light and exposed the rawness and wonder of it in a way no one ever had.

But her bag contained the drivel she’d completed since she’d arrived at the academy—one awful play, two unfinished short stories, and the start of a very bad novel. None of it was all that interesting or marketable. The more she tried to write about important things, the more drab and insular her work became. Etta imagined all of it in the flames, the pages curling and blackening—the embers rising into the heavens.

* * *

Clamor resounded in the dining hall—conversation, laughter, glasses clinking, silverware scraping against porcelain. Etta made a beeline for her table. Vincent Buchanan had encouraged students to mix and mingle in the dining hall. As the brochure for the academy reported, meals allowed the novice writers to chat with literary luminaries and fellow apprentices. However, within a week, the students had formed cliques and started eating with the same people. Most of the resident and visiting authors rotated, sitting with different students at each meal.

Etta slid into her seat next to Poppy Everson and tried to mask her disappointment that Petra Atwell, everyone’s least favorite resident author and literary luminary, sat across the table next to Jordan complaining about her tomato bisque.

Petra held up a piece of her sourdough bread. “Where’s the damn mayo? What is this, Weight Watchers?”

Etta managed a smile and turned to Jordan. “Where’s Liv?”

Etta’s question evaporated into a burst of commotion at a nearby table. She bit into her turkey sandwich, and the sourdough melted into the roof of her mouth.

“Ms. Atwell, can I ask you a question?” Poppy asked.

“As long as it’s not my age.” Petra tapped her fingernails against her chin. “Or anything about marriage, divorce, money, or sex.”

Poppy giggled.

Etta set down her sandwich and pulled her soup toward her. A heart. The chef had drizzled the white cream on her tomato bisque in the distinct form of a heart. Etta smiled and glanced at the stainless steel door that led to the kitchen. She plucked her spoon off the table.

“Does your dad still speak to you?” Poppy asked.

Etta dropped her spoon with a clank.

Petra Atwell’s 1990 memoir
Wintersong
had shot to the top of the bestseller list, not exactly for its literary qualities. Petra had revealed the details of an incestuous relationship she’d had with her father during her teenage years. Gordon Atwell was a newly elected congressman in the United States House of Representatives when his daughter’s tell-all hit the bookstores. The six-foot-five, two-hundred-and-fifty-pound representative stepped down from Congress, but only after falling to his knees in a press conference and bellowing that his daughter was a temptress. Neither of Petra’s two subsequent memoirs had garnered the same attention as
Wintersong
.

Etta glanced at Jordan, sure he’d be shocked by Poppy’s brazenness. But Jordan was gazing into the distance. Had he even heard Poppy’s question?

Petra jabbed a burgundy-painted fingernail in Poppy’s direction. “I’ll tell you something about men. Whether it’s your father, your lover, or your damned minister: they all think they’re smarter than you until you prove them wrong. You can either write, or you can keep everyone happy. You can’t do both.” Petra fixed her dark eyes on Etta. “Isn’t that right, Loretta?”

“It’s Etta.”

Petra didn’t break her gaze.

“My name. It’s Etta.”

“Oh. Well, Etta, you can either write or you can please people. You can’t do both. Isn’t that so?”

Poppy raised one of her pencil-thin eyebrows and bit her bottom lip.

“I guess so,” Etta murmured, shifting in her chair. She ladled a spoonful of soup into her mouth. When she looked up, Petra was thankfully distracted, picking the lettuce from her sandwich. For the first time, Etta wondered if the resident author might be attractive beneath her caked-on foundation and hair-sprayed, black-dyed bouffant, but she shifted her gaze away at the risk that the resident author might want to continue their conversation.

That’s when she saw what Jordan was so fixated on.

Everyone called the long rectangular table across the west wall “Poet’s Row,” because the ten aspiring poets at the academy sat there gabbling about climbing rhyme scheme, iambic pentameter, quatrains, sestinas, polysyndeton, and other topics that made Etta want to take a nap.

There sat Olivia.

Jordan’s girlfriend was huddled at the end of the table next to Robert North. Less than an inch of space separated their cheeks.

Later that afternoon, Etta slid into her seat gripping her critique of Chase Quinn’s story, still warm from the laser printer. She admired her first sentence: “Ancient Soldier is a tale about torture. Unfortunately after a riveting opening, it rambles, becoming torturous to read.” Not bad for a critique she’d dashed off over lunch.

Their first week at the academy, the students had gotten a week-long intensive in criticism. A famous
New Yorker
critic visited and made a plea for tough love in the literary community. He called on the students to “resurrect the disappearing art of professional criticism.” At first Etta had struggled to say anything unfavorable—she’d been on the other side too many times—but she’d noticed a heightened ability to help others improve their work lately. Critiques came easily, snappy sentences zipping onto the page.

The classroom still buzzed with students talking. Walker Ryan was nowhere to be seen. The author’s Monday critique sessions dissecting plot and story structure were her favorites. He liked to stop talking mid-sentence, point to a student, and say, “Tell me a story.” If the student managed to spin a coherent tale, Walker boomed, “See, that’s all it takes. A beginning, a middle, and an end.” When Walker was in the room, Etta almost believed it was that easy, and once it had been. Lately, however . . .

Etta glanced toward the door just as Olivia raced through. Her angular cheekbones were flushed a deep red. She slid into her seat at the back of the room, leaned over, and shuffled through her bag.

“Forgive me for my tardiness.” Robert North appeared in the doorway a second later. “I’ll be filling Mr. Ryan’s shoes this afternoon.”

The visiting author strolled to the front of the room and dropped his soft leather briefcase on the oversized oak desk. He frowned. “Trying to in any case. The man has monster feet.” He spread his hands wide in front of him, exaggerating the size of Walker’s feet. A murmur of laughter rippled across the room. Robert North dropped his hands. “Seriously, he’s a giant. A literary giant.” The poet spun around and grabbed some papers from his bag.

“Ah, now, critiques. Isn’t this the paradox of the writing academy?” He strolled halfway down the center aisle then swirled around, striding back to the desk. “We force you—the writer, the creator, the inventor—to become your own foe, the smiling mortician of your own well being: a critic. We can only guess at the world’s oldest profession, but critiquing was invariably the second. The moment someone did anything, a detractor appeared to rip him to shreds.

“Back in 400 B.C., the Greek painter Zeuxis said, ‘Criticism comes easier than craftsmanship.’ I wish someone would explain that to Truman Scott of
Pen & Poet
, who called
Portages
. . .” Robert North plucked a scrap of glossy paper from his bag, and held it up to the light. “‘North’s most self-absorbed and listless verse yet.’” He crumbled the paper and threw it down. “Only a worthless critic can discount a lifetime of work with a blasé string of adjectives. Never forget, we are the noble ones. Reviewers cling like vultures to the peripheries of the literary world waiting for us to stumble so that they can tear at our flesh and lap up our blood. They are literary backwash.”

Robert North rifled through his briefcase again, this time producing a silver thermos. He unscrewed the cap and took a drink. His forehead glistened. He set the thermos on the edge of the desk. “So how are we to become what we hate the most? How are hopeful new writers to tear apart their classmates’ livelihood like that heartless bastard Truman Scott, who wields his pen like a machete? I’m afraid I don’t have any answers. But let’s get to it now, shall we? I suppose the residents have you form a circle or some New Age garbage like that. We’ll skip the pretence today and get right to the assault.” He picked up the papers from his desk and ran a hand through his waves. “‘Ancient Soldier’ by Chase Quinn. Who will read a critique before we divide into groups to mutilate this one?”

Etta slumped into her chair and stared at the papers on her desk, skimming the first sentence. Under the track lights, it looked considerably less constructive and more . . . savage. Why on earth had she been so cruel? It only got worse. She’d written that the story got “as tedious as spending a fortnight in a hanging cage,” and that the “climax was as predictable as death resulting from an executioner’s axe,” phrases that had sounded decidedly more clever when she’d written them.

Etta snuck a glance at Chase Quinn sitting a few desks away. A tuft of coppery hair fell across his forehead. He wiped his palms against his slacks and leaned forward in his seat, his brown eyes shifting behind his thick square-framed glasses.