Anne is calmer. She and Kayla sit there in silence. What is there to say?
And then Anne’s body starts to tremble. Her face contorts and the tears come, thick and salty. Now she’s rocking back and forth and shaking and moaning and Kayla is afraid she’s having a convulsion of some kind. She tries to put her arms around her but Anne pushes her away and runs out of the office and Kayla races after her and Anne falls in the hallway and Kayla can hear her knee crack against the floor. She clambers up and runs past the receptionist and out onto the street. Kayla follows. It’s starting to rain, a gusty rain that sends leaves and bits of trash swirling through the air. Passersby turn and stare as Anne runs past them. Kayla struggles not to lose sight of her.
And then she does.
Kayla stands on the street corner, frantic, scanning, searching, afraid at any second she’s going to hear the screech of tires, a thud, a scream.
There’s a church behind her, a beautiful stone church. She sprints up the steps and opens the heavy wooden doors. The vaulted sanctuary is hushed, her footfalls echo, she smells incense and candles. It takes her eyes a moment to adjust to the dim light pouring through stained glass. Half a dozen worshipers are scattered among the front pews, praying silently. No Anne. Then she hears a noise. She walks silently down the center aisle. Anne is lying in the second to last pew, curled in on herself like a cat, her body heaving with choked sobs.
36
It’s gusting rain and Charles is huddled at a pay phone, listening to the ring on the other end of the line and keeping his eyes on the windows of Emma’s apartment a block away. He can see the faint glow of her bedside lamp, the one shaped like three puppies. He forgot his umbrella and water drips down the back of his neck. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out his monogrammed silver flask-a long-ago gift from Nina-and takes a deep swallow of Scotch. He knows she’s in there, listening to the phone ring, letting it go unanswered. He can feel her at the other end of the line, looking at the phone, thinking of him, playing her game. Let her play it, he thinks as he hangs up yet again, let her have her little satisfaction. He’ll play the supplicant if that’s what it takes.
From outside, her apartment looks dry and cozy. He imagines going there, her handing him a rough towel, watching as he dries his hair. Get out of those soggy clothes, she’d say, and her words would excite them both. He would slowly undress in the warmth of her apartment, while she made a pot of tea. They would get in bed together and hold each other and talk. He might even explain to her about the book, why it is his, how this is best for them both. And then slowly, inevitably, they would make love and everything would be all right.
The wind gusts, and he huddles tight under the meager shelter. He has to keep watching, of course, in case she decides to do something rash. Hurt herself. It’s reassuring that her line is never busy, that she isn’t making calls. But who would she call? She has no friends. She’ll come back.
Charles takes another pull from the flask. Some asshole, a downtown degenerate with a pierced lip, what else, appears and indicates he wants to use the phone. Charles has to think fast. It’s too soon to call Emma back. But he can’t give up this spot.
“I’ll be a little while,” Charles says. Guy looks like a cadaver. Probably a junkie. Charles drops in another quarter and dials his answering machine. When he hears Portia’s voice, his pulse starts to race.
“Charles, call me immediately.”
He hangs up and turns to the sleazy addict, who’s lighting a cigarette in the rain. A fancy European cigarette. Probably stole them.
“I have to make another call.”
“Whatever.”
Some people just can’t take a hint. Charles uses his credit card to call Portia. She answers halfway through the first ring.
“Charles?”
“Yes, it’s me.”
“I need to talk to you. I want you to come up here.”
“Did you get my manuscript?”
“Yes.”
“Well?”
“I’ll expect you here tomorrow for a late lunch.”
And then she hangs up.
What a strange response. Suddenly Charles is afraid, afraid that Portia hates the book. The wind gusts, and he’s lashed by rain. He’s soaked, standing there holding the dead receiver. The junkie takes a step forward.
“All right, it’s yours,” Charles says, moving away from the phone. He isn’t sure where to go. He hears Portia’s voice. Can he leave Emma alone for the day? He moves down the street toward her apartment, staying close to the buildings, pressing against them. What if she looks out the window and sees him? He ducks into a shallow doorway and finishes his whiskey. It’s a good vantage point. He’ll just stay here, keep watching her window, make sure she doesn’t go out, doesn’t disappear-that’s a good plan.
37
Charles wakes up on the couch in his office, fully clothed. Anne spent the weekend at her friend Kayla’s hotel suite-passive aggression disguised as female bonding. Fine-she’s out of his hair. Charles calls for his car. He makes it up the Thruway in record time, fighting a headachy hangover all the way. The day is gray and humid, the landscape bare and uninspiring; with the leaves gone, all the dreary malls and self-storage barns leap out at him. He gets off the Thruway and heads deep into the forest. There’s no sign of human life for many miles, as if the world has ended and he’s the last man left. Just endless woods, woods that could swallow you up without anyone knowing it.
Charles finally reaches Portia’s cabin. Smoke is coming from its chimney; a lamp glows inside; hardy mums bloom in haphazard clumps around the yard. He finds Portia slumped in her favorite chair-a cigarette in her mouth, a mug of coffee beside her, half-glasses perched on the end of her nose-reading his manuscript.
“You’re early,” she says, without looking up.
“I suppose that means lunch isn’t ready yet.”
“Lunch is somewhere out there in the lake.” She puts down the manuscript and picks up her cane. “Let’s go.”
In California they call it earthquake weather, these gray, still, unseasonably humid days. Good weather for going insane. Carrying the fishing rods, Charles follows Portia down the wooden steps that wind down the cliff to the lake. They walk out onto the old dock-it wobbles and creaks beneath them-and climb into Portia’s battered rowboat. A sad little puddle sits in the bottom of the boat and Charles can feel the water seep into his socks. Portia takes the oars and slowly begins to row them out onto the deserted lake. The suffocating silence is broken only by the rhythmic squeak of the oarlocks. From somewhere deep in the forest comes the plaintive cry of a distant bird-or is it a coyote? The moist air and low clouds make it hard to breathe, as if the sky were a damp blanket slowly descending over the earth.
When they reach the middle of the lake, Portia ships the oars and expertly casts her fishing line.
“Ten years ago the lake would have been frozen over by this time. Winter feels like summer and summer feels like hell. The day is coming when the living will envy the dead, mark my words. In the meantime, I wish I could stop caring so much.”
She reels in her line and casts off again.
“I’ve reread it three times. I didn’t know I could still be so moved by the written word. That boy, that poor lost child… and his mother-what a harrowing creation. Haunting, simply haunting. I haven’t felt this way since I first read your work.”
“What do you mean?”
