“Would you what?”
“Publish it.”
“Why not?”
She turned her head from the ceiling to me. “Did the story at any point crush you? Did it half shake your heart to pieces?”
“No. But it moved me. It greatly entertained me and moved me close to tears more than once. That’s something any writer would be pleased to have achieved with a reader.”
“But if I start publishing before I can knock the reader on his or her ass, just flatten them emotionally, won’t I be labeled as a particular kind of writer before I’ve become the kind of writer I most want to be?”
“Look, sweetie, I know you’re really into violently assaulting readers, breaking their hearts so hard they need a cardiologist and they ruin the book they’re reading by sobbing into it so much that the pages are a soggy mess. But maybe you should just back off that psychotic impulse a little and settle for leaving them traumatized for life.”
“You are a terribly sarcastic person, Adiel Fairchild.”
“And you love it. I’m just saying everyone starts somewhere.”
She sat up from the pillows and crossed her legs yoga style. “Have you forgotten I’m a rich little snot?”
“As I recall, for the purpose of your trust fund and being a beneficiary of your parents’ will, you preferred to be called a ‘rich little booger.’”
“You really do remember everything, don’t you?”
“It’s not entirely a blessing.”
She plucked a piece of candy from the box, popped it into her mouth, and sat chewing. After she swallowed, she said, “My point is, if I really do have talent and you’re not just lying to me for some sinister reason, why should I be in a hurry? With the confidence you’ve given me, with the unconscionable privilege of being a rich little booger, why shouldn’t I take my time to write the kind of thing I most want to write? And at novel length.”
“That’s your choice, of course. It’s not a bad plan. But I still want to read everything you’ve finished so far.”
“I want you to. And be honest. I’ll put together the whole pile of crap right now and help you carry it to your room.” She scrambled out of bed. “Are you sure, for the purpose of the trust fund and will, I didn’t want to be called a ‘rich little phlegm wad’?”
“You’re recalling Izzy’s request. And it was a ‘rich little hocked up glob of phlegm.’”
“Wow. Colorful. Maybe she’s the real writer in the family.”
Her body of finished work to date consisted of six novelettes and nine novellas, each in a manila envelope, totaling 364,000 words. I carried the vanity drawer and the box with what remained of the bonbons and Gertie carried the stack of manuscripts to my suite. We hugged and kissed each other. She said I shouldn’t read all fifteen stories in what remained of the night, not in my badly ensugared condition, speed-reading in a diabetic frenzy. I promised to go straight to bed and sober up.
However, when she was gone, I read one of the novellas. It knocked me on my ass and flattened me emotionally. Really. Gertie possessed a gift that the world sorely needed. In my own small way, against all odds, although I was just a freak wholly dependent on the kindness of others, I had become the smallest part of something important. I was the supportive sister of someone with the potential to bring joy andhope to great numbers of readers. And then there were Izzy and Harry, whose lives I might have impacted as they had mine, all of us together perhaps making good luck for people we knew and others who would always be strangers to us. In those early hours of that Saturday, I had never been happier. And in that moment, I had forgotten the most important advice Harmony had given me. I had stopped being alert.
Thirty-Eight
The remainder of that weekend and through Monday, I was lost, lost to the world in which I’d been born, having become a citizen of the world of Gertie’s novelettes and novellas. The world of her fiction was our world in every respect, but it was made better and more interesting by her perspective on it. There was much honest sentiment in her work but no sentimentality, compassion without the indignity of pity, forgiveness that required penitence, righteous indignation but not acidic anger regarding those who were foolish or ignorant. Three of her stories were brilliant. Seven were very good. The remaining five suffered not in the quality of the writing but in their conception, although even they were readable, engaging, and most likely publishable.
I promised Gertie a full day of feedback, just the two of us, sandwiches in her room, not even Rafael allowed to interrupt. She was excited about what she called the “Bramley Hall Conference of Pretentious Little Rich Snot Writers.” Although I had none of her talent, I’d read thousands of novels and thought deeply about them. I was excited to imagine I might be able to share some thoughts with her that might in some small way give her a little confidence boost and maybe even help her refine her style from 99 percent perfect to 99.5percent. I wanted to read every story again and again before talking about them, so we set Wednesday as the day we would claw each other in the literary catfight of the century.
At ten o’clock Tuesday morning, having settled on my sofa with the manuscripts six hours earlier, I was unaware that Captain Farnam had come calling with a purpose that he declined to reveal until I was included in the discussion. Loretta came to me to say they could have Captain thrown out or even call the police to deal with him if he refused to leave. However, considering that he had made no effort to intrude in our lives for nearly eight years, we would be wise to consider he might be desperate. Desperate men do reckless and stupid things if granted no consideration. She promised that he would not get what he wanted if what he wanted would compromise my future or diminish my happiness. She assured me there was no reason to be afraid of him, that she and Franklin would not let him near me.
“I’m not afraid Captain will hit me,” I said. “I never was. He’s a coward. I sometimes worried he would drive me to some remote place and abandon me in the bitter cold and dark, where I’d have little chance of surviving. And I feared one day he would stop stealing library books for me. But fearhim? He himself? Never.”
“He insists on talking outdoors where no one can overhear us. He thinks we can record any conversation occurring in the house, for God’s sake. Considering the life he’s led, maybe he has good reason to be paranoid. Lynette and Mr. Reinhardt are setting up folding chairs on the great lawn. He didn’t even trust the pavilion, as if Pinkerton agents might be hiding in the airspace under the floor.”
She held my hand as we walked from the house, through the rose garden, and out to the center of the one-acre lawn. Three folding chairs were arranged in a line, facing one chair that stood twelve feet away from them. Captain waited in the lone chair. In eight years, he’d lost some hair and gained weight, but he was as pale as ever. When othermen pack on the pounds, they look soft. He appeared as bone-hard solid as the mineralized skeleton of a dinosaur fossil. As ever, he wore a three-piece tweed suit, which he felt conferred on him some respectability. Although this was a warm July morning, not one bead of perspiration lent a human aspect to his face.
As we sat facing him, he said, “Nice dress. Does the job. Some might say it’s odd, but they’d never guess what’s hiding under it.”
“Enough of that,” Franklin said, “or you can leave right now.”
“I’m not insulted,” I said. “You can’t be insulted by a skunk when it sprays you. It’s just a scared little animal that has no weapon but its stink.”
