I’m not trying too hard to figure it out. My attention is on other things. Every car that stops, every woman I see coming down the path—I stand at attention, I smile.Is that you?This isn’t just some little tongue-ringed chambermaid or debut author, bookstore staffer or literary luncheon volunteer. A man cannot live on sportfucking alone. Unlike many men, I’ve always had a yearning for a stronger connection. I’m a hopeless romantic that way.
So with each new person on the path, I crane forward, eyebrows rising in happy anticipation, a bouquet of daisies in one hand. Every time I am disappointed. Cyndi is late. By half an hour, and the sun is starting to take on a cocktail-hour slant. I conceal my growing irritation; tardinessis not a habit I tolerate. It shows devaluation of a man’s time. I’m paying her out some rope, though; perhaps something happened to her, a car accident, or . . . Well, that really is the only justifiable excuse. Serious injury or death. I scroll my phone, refreshing the feeds every few minutes, to see if Cyndi’s sent me some sob story via Messenger (no); checking my Amazon author rank (#11 this morning); howAll the Lambent Soulsis doing (#9 in Fiction; #1 in Family Saga). And not answering Simone’s texts and calls.
It’s difficult. To my horror, I miss Simone. It’s unprecedented, it’s shocking, but I do. We haven’t communicated since she visited her ex on the mountain. I considered training her instead, the way I discourage overzealous readers from writing to me: responding with fewer and fewer sentences before I wink out altogether. Withdrawing the food supply. But Simone would recognize the technique; she’s used it on her own overly familiar fans. So I thought it kinder to sever contact in one swift slice. Simone is smart, was my rationale. She’ll know what silence means.
Or so I thought. Instead, Simone has proven herself to be as desperate as all the others: The less I respond to her, the more ardently she tries. My phone has been buzzing day and night. If I were still corresponding with her, it’d be to tell her to knock it off. It’s hard for a man to track his book’s progress and be in touch with his fans with such constant uninvited bombardment.
Today, with the unerring spoilsport instincts peculiar to her gender, she tries to torpedo my meeting with Cyndi by choosing this very moment to send me a video. When I click on it—I know I shouldn’t, but I can’t help myself—there is Simone languishing on a couch somewhere, her face red and swollen to almost unrecognizable proportions from crying, black makeup trickling down the bloated landscape of her cheeks.
“Hi, William. I kind of hate myself for sending this video but I’m trying to findsomeway to get through to you, and this is so important. After everything we discussed, our future, me being at your house . . . this is so unfair. It’s the worst thing in the world, having to choose between abook and the man you love—I hope it’s okay to say that. Because I do. Love you. Fuck. This is not the way I wanted to say that. But it’s true, and I really want to work this through with you. There has to be a solution. Because this—thisamputation”—she stops to hyperventilate with sobs, and I watch her breasts heaving—“it’sawful. So wasteful. And not to sound paranoid, but are you already connecting with other women? Like with that weird DM that I’m fairly sure wasn’t meant for me? If so, wearedone... but if not, I want to try and save what we have, because you know how hard to find it is. Okay. I’ve debased myself enough but please, let’s talk in person—”
She freezes mid-sob, and the video ends. I shove my phone in my pocket and adjust my trousers, swearing under my breath. Sabotage successful, Simone. Her beautiful wicked mouth was so puffy from crying that all I can think about now is how it would feel to shove myself inside it.
Of course, I won’t reply. I must protect myself from a woman who’d steal from me, who’d excavate tragedies from my past, who might—worst of all—derail my own creativity. Still, I’m astonished to find I miss Simone like a phantom limb. My throat aches. My eyes feel gritty. I yearn for just one glimpse of her bright little head amid the trees. That side plait of hers that spoke whimsically and deceivingly of a regressive temperament, making me think she might be tractable as a child. That braid lied. She transgressed. And yet I wish the woman approaching me now were her.
She is not. This is definitely Cyndi walking toward me, smiling tremulously. I know her instantly because I know so many women like this. They come to me at readings, sidling up to the signing table with manuscripts they hope I can pass on to my editor, my agent. They attend the Darlings meetings, sometimes once, often more. They are widows, perhaps, or empty-nest divorcées of a certain age, flesh wrinkling and sagging like that of a past-prime peach. Or they are lifelong loners. I picture them at their kitchen tables with their solo mugs of coffee, their laptops, their diaries and pens, birds pecking at the feeders outside. They wantto write their stories. They yearn to connect.I took a memoir class... I was hoping you could read this... I just finished this book about my trip to Nepal and... I know you must be so busy but... If you only could... I’ve tried so hard to get published and...On and on.
To be fair, Cyndi has never asked me for anything, only attended a Darlings meeting. I do not remember her. But she fits that fingernail-slim Venn diagram of traits I look for in a potential partner: early forties, single, no children. Small and blond—she could be Simone’s cousin. She’s got the body type that pre-Simone, damn her, I gravitated to, gymnast-slim, bendable and flippable as a puppet. Cyndi’s a writer, or trying to be, and unpublished. She’s working in the genre I’m interested in: historical fiction. Finally, in person she’s button-cute—thank God—with honey-colored hair and big blue eyes, jeans and sandals and a T-shirt that saysWicked. A little more careworn than her profile photo made her look, but who among us does not airbrush?Vive la Cyndi!Cyndi Pietorowski may be just the woman I need in this next chapter of my life.
I bow slightly toward her. “You must be Cyndi,” I say. “I’m William Corwyn.”
“Iknow,” she breathes. “I can’t believe I actually get to meet you one-on-one like this! Eeeeee!” She flushes strawberry. It’s a pretty trait. “I mean...”
“As I said in my embarrassingly long-winded messages, the pleasure is mine.” I hold out the daises I had the presence of mind to pick up at a Price Chopper. “For you, my dear. A small token of my appreciation for your time.”
She wrings her hands. “It’ssonice of you. But I can’t take them. They’re dangerous for cats.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t know that. How so?”
“If they eat them, they die.”
What stupid cat would eat daisies? I think. “What idiot would bring daisies to a cat mom?” I say, and toss the flowers over my shoulder, hoping to make her laugh. Instead, she looks alarmed.
“Oh no, don’t waste them!” she says, and scoots past me to retrievethem. As she bends over I assess the rearview: as I thought, not a scrap of meat on those little bones. It’ll be like fucking a chair. Oh well. It’s nothing I haven’t done before.
“We can bring them to the witches,” Cyndi says.
“Why didn’t I think of that,” I say.
She peers hopefully up at me. Her eyes are the largest, bluest, and saddest I’ve ever seen, like an orphaned forest creature in a Disney movie.Bambi, I think—one of my memory promontories looming suddenly from the mist. The one movie I saw as a child: I don’t know why we were off the peak, but we were, and I remember the scratchy plush theater seats and the smell of popcorn. And the fire, which killed the mother deer. While the other children shrieked and sobbed, I was riveted. Finally, I thought, somebody understands my life.
“Have you been to the memorial before?” Cyndi asks.
“I haven’t,” I admit. “I’m hoping you’ll be my guide.”
She clasps her hands. “I wouldloveto.”
I check my watch. “I’m afraid I have only an hour before my event. I hope that gives us enough time.” I scan her face for remorse about having kept me waiting. She goggles winsomely back. I suppress a sigh. “Take me to your leaders.”
We leave the Blue Trees side by side, Cyndi clutching the bouquet of daisies like a bride going to the altar. People smile at her as we walk through Salem, past brown and blood-colored houses with historic register plaques and tiny mullioned windows, squatting directly on the street.
The memorial is not far, and it surprises me: Given the commercial circus Salem has made of its gory past, I expect something subtle like a giant gibbet, or a bronze sculpture of screaming women chained to a pyre. Instead, we enter a small park ringed with old stone walls, from which protrude what look like benches—except they are gravestones. There are nineteen of them, each inscribed with a name, birth and death dates, and the manner of execution.
Cyndi separates from me as soon as we enter, heading toward onestone with the air of somebody on a sacred mission, so I leave her to it and wander. Almost all of the condemned went by rope; only one, an unfortunate fellow named Giles Corey, was “pressed”—crushed to death between millstones. I grimace. Hard way to die, friend, I think, pausing to extend my condolences. Around me, tourists lick ice cream and vape and take photos of the inscriptions, sometimes uttering soft noises of horror or pity. I’m surprisingly moved by this little park, its palpable sadness so at odds with the peace of its sun and shadow, its old trees.
I return to Cyndi, whose eyes are closed and lips moving.
“This must be your ancestress,” I say, when she’s done.
