the Writing Circle (2010) (24 page)

“Do you mean because he’ll catch germs from my privates?” asked Bernard. “Or do you mean because he’ll be warped by having witnessed his father’s nakedness?”

“I don’t know,” said Aimee. “It just looks perverted, you stark naked like that, holding a baby against you.”

“I’m giving him material for when he writes a memoir,” said Bernard.

“You are ridiculous,” said Aimee, and she sank down in the bed and closed her eyes.

Bernard’s dilemma about Virginia, which had escaped his mind while he was caressing Aimee’s back, reasserted itself, and as it drew closer to two o’clock, Bernard realized there was no way he could avoid speaking to Aimee about the visit. After he got Horace settled down for his afternoon nap, he confronted Aimee, who was in bed still, but dressed in jeans and working on her laptop.

“Virginia phoned and said she wanted to meet with me to talk about something,” he said, “and since I can’t leave you with Horace, I asked her to stop by here. I hope that’s all right.” He didn’t exactly lie, but he thought that Aimee would guess that Virginia had recently phoned, most likely when Aimee had been sleeping.

Aimee hit a few keys and looked up at him. She usually wore contacts, but because of her cold she had her glasses on now, and they made her look even younger.

“When is she coming?” asked Aimee.

“Sometime soon,” said Bernard.

“Is something going on with Rachel or Teddy?” asked Aimee.

“No,” said Bernard. “It’s about the writing group. Something about Nancy.”

“Oh,” said Aimee. “It’s not the best time for company. But I suppose it’s best you stay around in case Horace wakes up.”

“I don’t expect you to come down,” said Bernard. “Virginia’s not really company.” He stood in the doorway, his hand on the doorknob. “Why don’t I close this, so we won’t disturb you,” he said. “Anything I can bring you from downstairs?”

“No thanks,” said Aimee. “I’m fine. Just keep your ear out for Horace.”

Virginia came at a quarter after two, and Bernard offered her a cup of coffee.

She waved him off. “Thank you, Bernie, but this isn’t really a social visit. We have a serious problem here, and I think you’re the only one who can help with it.”

“Me?” asked Bernard, as they walked into his study and sat down. “You want me to reconcile the warring factions of our group?”

“Reconcile?” asked Virginia. “Bernie, you must be out of your mind. There’s no way the Leopardi Circle will ever be meeting again.”

“No?” asked Bernard. He hadn’t thought of that possibility, and the prospect of the loss of his group seemed acutely painful to him. He needed the support of the Leopardis to keep his Handel project going, but it wasn’t just that; their Sunday meetings were one of his few activities on his own. And he liked seeing Virginia, he liked the relationship they had settled into together. “What if we told Gillian she could no longer come?”

“Bernie, it’s gone, over. Gillian ruined it for everyone.”

Bernard was about to ask, “But what about my work in progress?” but wisely caught himself in time. He could just imagine Virginia scowling at him and saying, “This isn’t about you, Bernie.”

“Your prediction about the Leopardis seems rather dire,” said Bernard. “And, Virginia, it’s unlike you to be so pessimistic.”

“Nancy’s certainly never going to come again, and Chris says he’s finished with it. And I wouldn’t be surprised if Adam is, too.”

“You just need to give them time,” said Bernard.

“Time?” asked Virginia.

“Writers require their groups,” Bernard said. “The Leopardis—sans Gillian, of course—will rise again.” Bernard’s voice swelled with these words, but, aware that Virginia would accuse him of pontificating, he added, less dramatically, “You’ll see.”

“Oh, Bernie!” said Virginia.

“So,” said Bernard, “what’s to be done then?”

“About the Leopardi Circle, nothing,” said Virginia. “But about Nancy, I’m hoping there’s something we can do. Chris came to see me about it—he’s as incensed as we all are, but he’s also better connected. He has a friend from Columbia Journalism School who’s on the Pulitzer Committee, and he’s ready to rush in there if we can give him something to work with.”

Bernard had made note of the word
incensed.
It didn’t describe how he felt, and he was surprised by Virginia’s assumption that it did.

“What do you mean ‘we’?” he asked. “What are you talking about?”

“Chris talked with Nancy,” said Virginia. “Apparently she spoke with her agent about what had happened, but her agent counseled against bringing a charge of plagiarism against Gillian. She said it would be difficult to prove and in the end would only hurt Nancy’s career.”

Bernard was relieved to hear this. He had been afraid Virginia was cooking up something where all the members of the Leopardi Circle would join as a body to testify to what they had heard of Nancy’s novel.

“That sounds wise,” he said.

“Perhaps,” said Virginia. “But you have to admit that something needs to be done.”

Those words brought up a familiar sense of unease. Virginia’s sense of social justice had always been more extreme than his, and during the years of their marriage she had often dragged him into things he would rather have let pass by.

“I think that would be Nancy’s department,” he said. “Not ours.”

“It’s ours, too,” said Virginia. “We’re responsible for what happened to Nancy—you in particular, since you brought her into the group. Gillian broke the rules, she destroyed the trust. We’re all implicated, whether we like it or not.”

There was a sound on the baby monitor, and Bernard held up his finger for a moment and leaned close. Unfortunately, it was just the noise of a passing truck, and he had no excuse to take a break from the conversation.

When he looked back at Virginia, her eyes hadn’t left him. “Well, Virginia,” he said. “I understand why you’re upset about this, but I think you are overstating the case a little.”

“Overstating it?” cried Virginia, and Bernard raised his finger to his lips fearfully. “Whose side are you on, anyway?”

“I didn’t know we were choosing sides,” said Bernard, and he leaned towards her, hoping to get her to lower her voice.

“How can we not?” asked Virginia. “After what Gillian did?”

“What did Gillian do?” ask Aimee. Neither of them had heard her come downstairs. She stood in the doorway, barefoot.

“I’m sorry we disturbed you, dear,” said Bernard. “I’ll tell you about it all later.”

Virginia was obviously surprised to see Aimee, and Bernard felt obliged to explain why she was home. “Aimee took the day off to nurse a cold,” he said.

“I’m actually feeling a lot better,” said Aimee, and she came in and sat on the arm of Bernard’s chair. “Tell me what’s going on.”

“Gillian plagiarized part of the manuscript of Nancy’s novel,” said Virginia, “and published it herself, under a pseudonym.”

Alas, the book Bernard had foolishly left out on the side table was still there, and Virginia picked it up and waved it in evidence. It would be hopeless to pretend he hadn’t known who the real author was.

“For a variety of reasons,” continued Virginia, “Nancy won’t bring a case against her for that, but I came by today to talk with Bernie about something else that’s worth looking into.”

Bernard didn’t know what Virginia could possibly be thinking of, but instinct told him whatever it was, it wasn’t something he wanted to hear, and not something he wanted Aimee to hear either.

“I can’t imagine what you have in mind,” he said.

“Remember when we were putting the group together I was somewhat concerned about inviting Gillian to join us because of something in the past you had told me about, an incident of unethical behavior she was involved in years before?”

Bernard remembered Virginia’s reticence, but he thought it had to do with feelings she’d had about Gillian—suspicions, which he hoped she had never been able to confirm, that he and Gillian had once been lovers. But there was no way he could say anything like that now. Anything he said about Gillian, anything at all, was likely to get him in trouble with Aimee.

“I’m not sure I remember,” said Bernard.

He was afraid Virginia was on a roll. Was it possible that she was seizing on Aimee’s presence to embarrass him in some way? But why?

“Well, you should,” said Virginia. “Your friend Martin Jacobson, who’d been her senior thesis advisor, told you she had stolen some lines of poetry from another student, a Russian exchange student the year before, and included them in her own work. And when she was confronted with the evidence by Martin, her defense was that it had been unconscious. She admitted she had heard the other girl read her poems aloud at a student presentation but insisted any imitation was accidental, she had never actually copied them. If I recall, you told me Gillian said that even if she had actually copied part of the poems, it would have been all right because she had improved them. Martin had been so bowled over by her chutzpah that he let her thesis get highest honors nevertheless.”

Bernard now remembered it all too clearly. Virginia had argued at the time that Martin had been so snowed by Gillian he’d let her get away with something an unattractive student would have been expelled for. “I told you that in confidence,” he said. “And besides, I can’t see that it’s relevant now.”

“It’s absolutely relevant. It’s the same writer we’re talking about, with the same questionable morality.”

“Even so,” said Bernard, “I don’t see what’s to be done with it.”

“What’s to be done is that you tell Nancy all about it, get the information she needs to document it, and let Chris use it in any way he can.”

“I’ll do nothing of the sort,” said Bernard quickly. “That was something that happened many years ago, when Gillian was an undergraduate, a girl. It’s not right to drag it up now.”

“Not right?” said Virginia. “We’re talking about Gillian here. And if you don’t tell Nancy about it, I will.”

Aimee shifted her weight on the arm of the chair. If she weren’t there, he would plead with Virginia to let him off somehow, plead with her to keep him out of this. But Aimee was there, staring at him, waiting for him to speak.

“I’ll get you what I can,” he said. Mercifully, there was some more noise on the baby monitor. Bernard stopped to listen. Horace wasn’t crying, but he was stirring and soon would be awake. “But I’d appreciate it if you’d be the one to tell Nancy about it. Let Chris do what he wants with it, but please, keep the source anonymous.”

Virginia stood up. “I’ll do my best,” she said.

A
DAM HAD SPOKEN TO NO ONE FROM THE LEOPARDI CIRCLE
since his return from New York. He’d gotten two messages from Chris, one from Virginia, and even one from Bernard, and when he saw from the number that it was Virginia calling him again, he still didn’t pick up. She didn’t leave a message this time. He didn’t mind ignoring Chris, but he felt guilty about Virginia. He could imagine her sigh of disappointment when she hadn’t been able to get through to him. She obviously wanted to talk to him about what had happened with Nancy, and, given Virginia’s rapier quick empathy, she would be wanting to know how he was doing, since she now knew how he felt about Gillian—most likely, Adam guessed, she had known long before this. He wasn’t ready to talk to anyone yet, not even to Virginia. From the moment at the reading when he learned about Gillian’s novel, he didn’t know what he thought, didn’t know what he felt.

In the car riding back from New York with Bernard, he had been able to avoid conversation, first by pretending to doze and, not long afterwards, by actually falling asleep. He’d drunk more champagne at the party than he’d drunk at any wedding—and he’d certainly put away plenty of champagne at weddings. He had sat on an upholstered bench by the window, drinking and watching Gillian.

Ever since her Christmas party, he had been waiting for Gillian to get in touch with him. He held on to her words exactly as she had spoken them: “Sometime, when I’m in Truro, you can come have supper with me again.” He knew she had been to Truro on her own since then, but the invitation had not come. It would be too awkward for him to have to remind her of her promise—if, maybe, she had forgotten it. It was painful to think that she might have changed her mind and now regretted having raised his hopes. It was worse to think that she’d never meant the invitation seriously in the first place, that it had been mere conversation and she’d never imagined he’d expect anything to come of it.

He did not want to go up to her now, he wanted her to come up to him, but she hadn’t done so. He wanted her to say something to him about the fact that she had not told him she was writing a novel. He understood why she had not let the Leopardis know anything about it, but why hadn’t she confided in him, a novelist, too? She would know that he would keep any secret she entrusted to him absolutely safe. He wanted her to apologize to him—or at least explain to him. At the very least, he wanted her to acknowledge him. He hadn’t taken his eyes off her. He didn’t want to watch, but he couldn’t stop observing Jerry’s hand on her shoulder, the way he steered her from behind, as if they were dancers on a dance floor, couldn’t stop watching the way Gillian was embraced by everyone around her, those wealthy New Yorkers, those well-connected publishers. Chris had come by to talk with him and suggested he should be networking, that the lush party was the venue an aspiring novelist would dream of, but he did not have the stamina for it.

When Nancy had attacked Gillian, he’d sprung to her defense, but he never even got close to her. Jerry and their friends circled around her, and Adam’s protective move was ignored. It was so unlike Nancy to flip out that way, and Adam had no idea what she might be so furious about. He had been too far away to hear most of what was said. All he’d caught was Nancy saying something about her father, but he couldn’t imagine what that had to do with Gillian.

Adam had bought a copy of
Restitution
at the reading, but he postponed looking at it for two days. His curiosity was intense, but he had a gut feeling that there was something in the book that he would prefer not knowing. And when he did read the novel, breathlessly, first with shock, then, in spite of it, with admiration and jealousy, he knew what everyone in the Leopardi Circle was calling him about. He had been absorbed by his hurt that Gillian had not confided in him, but now, without her telling him, he understood why she hadn’t. He forgave her for the hurt he’d felt, and all he wanted to do now was protect her. They’d come down hard on her, everyone in the group. They’d side with Nancy.

And the worst thing was that he sided with Nancy, too. Not just because he was also a novelist, and could so easily imagine how she felt, but because what Gillian had done wasn’t quite right. If it was anyone else but Gillian, he would have rallied to Nancy’s side. But it was Gillian. And he couldn’t reject her because of it. Strangely, it only intensified his feelings for her. Her flaw made her more vulnerable, and stoked Adam’s devotion. She’d need him now, especially as the forces of the Leopardi Circle were marshaled against her.

KIM WORKED ON SATURDAYS
at a pet store in the strip mall. They didn’t sell puppies there—the owner was against puppy mills that supplied them—just smaller animals, but the sidewalk in front had a row of doghouses, wooden, with shingle roofs, in four, graduated sizes. The store was deep and narrow, and although Adam put his face to the glass window to look in, he couldn’t see Kim. She wasn’t at the register when he entered, just a young man with a face so pimpled Adam wanted to look away. Inside it was hot and smelled of rodents and amphibians. In the high ceiling area above the fluorescent light fixtures, sparrows flew; below them, flocks of colorful parakeets chattered, imprisoned in cages.

Adam made his way down an aisle towards the back of the store. The dog toys looked like children’s toys, stuffed animals and rubber creatures with silly faces. Along the wall were tanks with gerbils and snakes and lizards, on the other wall, tanks overfilled with fish. A fat girl in a red apron looked up from a handful of studded dog collars she was pricing on a rack.

“Something I can help you with?” she asked.

“No thanks,” said Adam. He walked deeper into the store.

Kim was in the far corner helping two customers, a boy and his mother. The boy’s hair stuck up stiff as a hedgehog’s. Kim had on the red store apron, and she looked as if she could be helping out in Santa’s workshop. She did not notice Adam, and he stepped back into the aisle, watching her, unseen. She was leaning down over a tank to scoop crickets up and put them in a plastic bag she had filled with air. Her glowing hair, silver blond under the fluorescent light, fell forward, and because her hands were both full, she had to shake it back over her shoulders.

“Here you are,” she said to the boy.

The boy held up his balloon of crickets. “Are these the small ones?” he asked. “They look pretty big to me.”

“Yes, they’re the small ones,” said Kim. “The big ones are over here. Take a look.” She squatted down by another tank and tapped on the glass. The boy squatted behind her.

“Those are really big,” he said. “My snake’s kind of little. I think he’d be scared by them.”

“We certainly don’t want to scare the snake,” said the boy’s mother. She smiled at Kim. “I’m actually afraid of snakes, and now I have one living in my house. The things we do for our children! You’ll see, someday, when you’re a mother.”

“How much are these?” the boy asked, holding up his bag of crickets.

“They’re a dollar twenty-five for a dozen. I think there are a few more in there than twelve, but tell them up front you’ve got a dozen.”

“Thank you,” said the mother, and she followed her son towards the registers in the front of the store.

“Adam!” cried Kim happily, noticing him now. Her face was so round—a moon face—so suffused with smile, that he took a step back from her. She ran towards him but stopped just short of embracing him when she realized his arms were at his sides.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

“I just needed to talk to you about something.”

“Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, sure,” he said.

She scowled a little. “Aren’t we going to be doing something tonight? It couldn’t wait till then?”

“Well, that’s it, I mean, tonight’s not really going to work for me.”

Kim tilted her head, a question. Her perfect white teeth were small, like his mother’s cultured pearls.

“You think you could take a break and come outside so we could talk?”

“Sure,” said Kim.

The woman who had been hanging up dog collars was at the front of the store now, at the second register.

“I need to take a few minutes, Shirley,” said Kim. “Could you cover for me?”

“Sure,” said Shirley. She was clearly bursting to ask who Adam was, eager to be introduced. She watched them shamelessly as they left the store.

Outside the mall it was cold, and Kim rubbed her shoulders. She had on only a short-sleeved blouse under her apron. Another time Adam would have taken his denim jacket off and put it around her.

“So what’s the matter?” asked Kim.

“I’m just not up for this anymore,” he said.

“What do you mean?” asked Kim.

“I mean I’m just not in a position to be going out with you right now.”

“Are you talking about tonight?” asked Kim. “Or are you talking about . . . about always?”

“I guess I’m talking about— Well, not just tonight,” said Adam.

“What are you saying, Adam? I don’t understand what you’re saying,” said Kim.

“I’ve gotta take a break from things,” said Adam. “I’ve got to stop seeing you.”

“But why?” asked Kim.

“I don’t know,” said Adam.

“There’s got to be a reason,” said Kim. “You can’t just do this and not have there be a reason. There’s got to be a reason.” As if by insisting, she could make it not true.

Adam looked around him. The store next to the pet food store was called Mattress King, and in the window was a deeply quilted box spring and mattress in ivory-colored satin, designed for a sultan. It looked bare, stripped of its sheets, like someone in underwear.

“I’m in love with someone else.”

Kim’s smooth face was broken up by lines now, like a globe that had been smashed.

“Who?” she asked after a while, her voice a child’s.

“It doesn’t matter,” said Adam.

“Who?” Kim asked, louder this time.

“I can’t say,” said Adam. “I’m really sorry, Kim,” he continued. The word
sorry
seemed so inane, but he didn’t know what else to say. “I didn’t want this to happen.”

Kim didn’t say anything, she just kept looking at him.

“Are you going to be all right?” asked Adam.

But Kim didn’t answer. She just stood there, hugging herself more tightly, her shoulders hunched around her pale neck.

“You better be going back in,” said Adam. “It’s too cold for you to be standing out here.” He didn’t want to leave Kim standing there on the concrete in front of the lineup of doghouses, but he felt desperate to get away. “Please,” he said, “go on inside, you’re going to freeze out here.”

There were two doors to the pet store—one marked “in,” one “out.” He pushed the “in” door open and held it for Kim. She stepped into the store, and he followed behind her, but he was careful not to touch her.

She turned to him. “Adam?” she asked, but he shook his head and backed out of the other door.

ON THE WAY TO GILLIAN’S HOUSE,
the gas tank warning light flashed orange on Adam’s dashboard. There was no way he would stop for gas, though, now. He couldn’t even imagine “afterwards, on the way home, I’ll stop to get gas,” because he could not imagine “afterwards,” could not imagine “on the way home.” His mind was filled with the image of Gillian’s house. He saw it exactly as he had seen it that one time, months before, when he had taken Kim to the Christmas party. He wasn’t picturing Gillian, just her house, his destination. He knew the way there exactly, because he had driven to her house many times before—driven past the entrance to her long driveway, the number, not the name, on the mailbox, the house not visible from the road.

It had been winter when he had last driven up Gillian’s driveway. Now, three seasons later, the maples had begun dropping leaves, the oak leaves were brown but firm. The gravel on the driveway was thin in places—almost just a dirt road—but deep closer to the house. Adam was aware of the noise his tires made in the deeper gravel. There were no other cars in the driveway, and the garage doors were closed so he could not tell who might be at home. For a moment, he felt hesitant, but once he turned off the engine and stepped out of the car, he was swathed once again in his purpose, in the immovable clarity of it.

He was not surprised when Gillian finally answered the door. But she was clearly surprised to see him.

“Adam?” she asked.

“I came as soon as I could,” he said.

She looked puzzled. “Because of what?”

“I had to talk to Kim first. I had to end things with her.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Gillian.

“Don’t you think we should be inside?” asked Adam.

“I don’t like to be disturbed at home when I’m working,” said Gillian, “but since you’ve obviously driven all the way out here to tell me something, I suppose you should come in and sit down for a moment.” She led the way through the kitchen to the dining area that looked out across the lawn, and sat on a Breuer chair at the glass table, nodding at another chair for Adam. “It’s something important, I hope.”

The kitchen looked austere, as if no one had ever cooked a meal there. The glass table was perfectly clear, as if it had never borne even a crumb of food.

Adam sloughed his jacket off so it fell over the chair back. The glass table was so cold to his touch that he pulled his hand back to his knee.