fishbowl.
“What’s that?” Emma asks.
Charles pulls out a water-filled plastic bag in which two goldfish are swimming and dumps them into the bowl. “Goldfish.” He holds up the bowl like a proud little kid. “Are you all right, Emma?”
“Why goldfish?”
“Impulse. I had them when I was a boy.” Charles sets the bowl on the counter and studies the fish. “Beautiful, aren’t they?”
Emma nods.
“It’s amazing they don’t go mad, swimming around and around in such a small space all their lives,” he says.
“How would we know if they did?”
“Go mad?”
“Yes.”
He lights a cigarette.
“Did you ever have fish?” he asks.
Emma shakes her head.
“Are you sure?”
“Positive.”
“For some reason, I imagined you as the kind of girl who would have kept fish. A turtle maybe?”
“No.”
“I thought it might be interesting if Zack had them.”
“In the book?”
“Yes, silly. In the book. Don’t you think a child in his position would try to create a world, even a world as small as a fishbowl, where he could be in control? Where there was no chaos and pain, just gentle swimming hour after hour?”
Emma doesn’t answer.
“Am I working you too hard, Emma?”
“No.”
“I know this is all terribly complicated, with Anne and the book and us. I’m sorry to put you through it.”
He comes toward her and she prays he’ll touch her, stroke her. But when he gets close he turns and walks into the bathroom.
“I look a wreck, don’t I?” he asks.
“A little tired,” Emma says.
“It is a strain.” He goes and lies on her bed. “Only one thing to do, get to work. Cures all ills. Read me what you’ve got.”
Emma looks at the goldfish, swimming in restless circles around the small glass bowl. Why are they looking at her like that?
41
Anne watches Charles as he sits at the kitchen table and reads Portia’s obituary. He looks so shocked, so solemn.
According to the New York Times Portia fell from an outdoor staircase and down a rock ledge. Her decomposing body was discovered by two hikers. Animals had been at it. Anne is fascinated by these morbid details-the ignominious ending of an illustrious life. And then there’s something about accidental death-the reminder of how short the distance is from here to there, how it can be crossed in an instant, the ultimate one-way street. The way the kitchen looks in the morning light, the taste of her coffee, seem altered somehow.
Anne reminds herself that Charles has lost the person he trusted most. “I’m sorry,” she says.
“She would have wanted to die like that, quickly, by her lake.”
“She had a long and wonderful life,” Anne says, feeling slightly idiotic, as she always does when she has to summon up dishonest emotion.
“At least now I can dedicate the new book to her. After Life and Liberty, she never let me do that again.”
Charles carries Anne’s bags down to the car. The day is tangy and bright. Charles is blinking against the sunlight, shading his eyes. Hung over. Probably thinking about Emma, his so-called inspiration. He made his bed; now he and his creepy little muse can sleep in it.
“I hope your work goes well,” Anne says.
“And yours,” Charles answers, distracted, looking around, almost as if he’s paranoid.
They cross the sidewalk, the driver takes Anne’s bags, and she and Charles look at each other.
“I am sorry about Portia,” Anne says.
“So am I.”
Anne reaches up and touches Charles’s cheek lightly and then turns and gets in the car.
Los Angeles is just a little too close to home for Anne-she can’t face her mother, not this week-but Kayla’s Spanish-style spread in Santa Monica is warm and comfortable. She takes a long swim and a short nap, and when Kayla comes home Anne makes them a salad and an omelette.
At nine on the dot the young woman arrives. She’s not what Anne expected-she wears glasses, a black turtleneck, loose jeans, and espadrilles; her hair is tucked up in a barrette. But there’s no disguising her beauty and cool cunning. The three of them sit around the oak table in the kitchen for two hours and twenty minutes, deep in discussion.
“I think I’m going to enjoy Cambridge,” the woman says finally, gathering up her notes.
Anne opens her purse and takes out an envelope filled with twenty thousand dollars in crisp hundreds. She hands it to the young woman, who shakes her hand and leaves.
42
When Emma looks up from her desk, Charles is standing there, a leather suitcase in one hand. He has on a brown hunting jacket and dark gloves. He tosses the suitcase onto her bed.
“I’m staying down here this week,” he says.
He’s staying at her apartment. She’ll fall asleep with him beside her, and when she wakes up in the middle of the night he’ll be there. There’ll be lots of work, of course, but also times when they’ll lie around reading or cook pasta or laugh at something silly.
“We have to stay focused on the work, Emma. This is the crucial week. We’ll be at it twenty-four hours a day if we have to.”
There’ll be no laughs. He’ll be bearing down on her relentlessly. The apartment will become a cage.
The motherfucker.
“You understand, don’t you, Emma?”
Emma looks down at her writing. He’ll only be here for a week and then she’ll have the one thing she wants as much as she wants Charles-her book. She does still want it, doesn’t she?
“I understand,” she says.
Charles opens his suitcase and Emma sees that his clothes are jammed in, unpressed, a jumble. He empties out one of her dresser drawers. “Portia Damron died,” he says as he begins to shove his clothes into the drawer.
Portia. That remarkable old woman who came to his office that day, his mentor and idol. Emma remembers her face, ancient and deeply lined, her eyes dancing with wisdom and mischief. She showed such interest in Emma, warned her not to let Charles take advantage of her. Dead.
