“It’s fine,” I say. “Cozy. A perfect aerie for writing.” But Cyndi dashes around ferrying detritus from one side of the room to the other. I watch her curiously. There’s a motor running in her that wasn’t turned on when we last met, nor during any of our FaceTime calls this week. She’s as disheveled as her house, hair mussed as though she’s been yanking it all morning, long mirrored skirt crooked, feet bare.
“There,” she says finally, putting her hands on her narrow hips andfoofing out air, although the room looks just like it did before. She goes to a portholed swinging door that I suspect leads to the kitchen, fording a river of cats with her feet. “Can I get you anything? Coffee or tea? I have a special brew I make for when I’m writing...”
What I really want is a hazmat suit and a flamethrower. “Is the tea hallucinogenic?” I ask.
Cyndi giggles. “No. It’s mint.”
“C’est la guerre. Well, I’ll have that.”
“Be right back,” she says. “Make yourself comfortable.”
This is obviously impossible, but I blow her a kiss and, the moment the door swings shut behind her, start my investigation. The only thing I can’t find in this room is the most important, which is the legal pad Cyndi says she writes on. I shoo a fat orange creature from a knitting nest on the coffee table. A pill bottle rolls from beneath it:Lorazepam, its label says. Ah. Antianxiety. There’s another, Lithobid, which I believe is lithium, and a third, Risperidone. I don’t know that one, but I quicklylook it up on my phone. It’s an antipsychotic. This explains much, including why Cyndi would have left a legal career to take dictation from an apparition. Poor girl. Poor sweet fragile girl—deceitful, too; she mentioned none of this during our chats this week. I feel a stab of anger and the usual disappointment. Isnowoman trustworthy? But I’ll give Cyndi the benefit of the doubt; she did open up to me about her time in what she calledthe system, which I thought meant libraries and then learned meant foster care, to which she was relinquished after her gram died. At least I now know what Cyndi’s vulnerabilities are. I tuck the bottles beneath the yarn as Cyndi backs through the door, carrying a tray.
“Allow me,” I say, and take it off her hands. I persuade a pair of cats off the couch with my foot and set down the tray, upon which is a pretty Japanese tea set and a fan of orange cake slices.
“Did you make this, kitten?” I ask. “Is there nothing you can’t do?”
Cyndi flushes. “It’s nothing. Just a family recipe. Do you like pumpkin spice?”
“Who doesn’t? I wish it could be Halloween all year.”
“So do I,” she breathes as we sit.
I fill the small earthenware cups and hand her one, putting mine to my lips and pretending to sip as if I’m at a child’s tea party. “Do you know what a group of cats is called?”
“A coven?” Cyndi guesses hopefully.
“A clutter,” I say, which certainly seems appropriate. “Or more historically, a clowder.”
“Ooooo, aclowder,” she breathes. “Ilovethat! It’s so Salem-y.”
“I thought you might,” I say.
I lean over to kiss her, deeply this time. Dry lips, eager pointy little tongue. I try not to think of Simone’s luscious slippery mouth and playful sensibilities. I come up for air first and pull Cyndi’s feet into my lap. They’re dusty-bottomed, with fat piggies and blue nails.
“Oh,” she groans, as I begin kneading her soles. “That feels amazing.”
“I put myself through grad school as a reflexologist,” I say. I have no idea where this came from, but it could be true. I am good at foot rubs.I work the knots in Cyndi’s arches. “Relax,” I order. I contemplate Cyndi as her head lolls back, eyes closing, throat so trustingly exposed. She looks so peaceful. My whole life I’ve pictured exactly this, coming up from my basement study to find a woman like Cyndi on the couch, reading, lights on and soup on the stove. Taking the book from her hand and askingHow was your day?; telling her about mine, massaging her feet as snow falls outside, or autumn leaves or dogwood blossoms. Then perchance the hot tub, then bed. This is all I’ve ever wanted—this, and to keep writing bestselling books. How has this commonplace goal, a partnership, eluded me? Dolts, madmen, the stupid rich, the street-sharp poor, the drug-addled, pious, wicked, confused—even homely women: Most everyone has someone. I’d hoped it would be Simone, I think with a lance of pain. But maybe it’s Cyndi. Cyndi could be the one.
“Do you always write in this room, kitten?” I ask, cracking her toes one by one.
“Mmmhmm. That feelssogood,” she moans, as I massage her paper-thin Achilles tendons.
“I always have a fear while I’m mid-book that something will happen to me, and it’ll be irrevocably lost. Do you have that?”
She tips her head, squints. “Not really.”
“Do you back up your work? Photocopy it”—I laugh—“or scan it? Send it to anyone?”
Cyndi screws up her face. “I don’t. I know Ishould. But every time I think about bringing it to, like, Staples or something, I feel like that’d let all the magic out. Is that stupid?”
“On the contrary,” I say. “Margaret would approve.” I ease her skirt up to rub her calves, then inch it higher. Her legs are white and spindly, with silver lines on the thighs that I think at first are stretch marks. This would be a turn-off. Then I realize what they really are: a skein of scars like a spider’s web. Poor girl. I skate my fingers over them, barely a whisper of a touch.
“Whereisyour magnum opus, kitten?” I murmur.
Cyndi looks around, frowning. “That’s funny. It has to be in here somewhere.”
“We’ll find it,” I say. I lower myself carefully on top of her. “What if,” I whisper in her ear, tonguing it, “what if you come to my house in Maine? See whereIwrite?”
