on that January night, playing pinball, passionate, engaged, alive.”
The low gray sky, the lake gently lapping-go look, go look at her body. Her eyes are open. But she’s dead, isn’t she? One step closer-then he hears it, that wet harsh rattling somewhere in her throat, in her body. Then her eyes move. They look at him. And then he turns, runs up the steps, runs from those eyes-that look-falls twice on the slippery splintered wood. Into the car and he’s gone. Gone. It’s over. But why does he still hear that sound? Why does he still see her eyes, looking at him?
And now Charles is surrounded by people, people telling him how touched they were by his words and offering condolences and sharing their memories of Portia and boasting how they’ve followed his career all these years and asking about his next book. He tells them all it’s going to be dedicated to Portia. At one point his classmate Dan Leber, the prominent psychiatrist, pulls him aside.
“That was very moving, Charles.”
“Thank you.”
“She was an amazing teacher. I still have my annotated copy of Crime and Punishment. Reread it every five years. Listen, Charles, how’s the situation with that young woman you called me about, your secretary?”
From the way he says the words, Charles realizes Leber knows they’re having an affair. That’s all right; men have affairs all the time.
“It’s not improving.”
“Well, if you want me to see her, just call.”
“I will, Dan. Thank you.”
Charles has several glasses of wine and at some point begins to relax. He did it, he got through, no one knows, no one will ever know. All around him, people are trading stories and jokes about Portia and their younger selves, their days in the hills of New Hampshire. Many of them have gone on to successful careers, but none as successful as his. Finally people begin to leave, back to their jobs and their lives. Charles lingers, is one of the last to go. Someone comes up to him, a woman he barely recognizes. A secretary in the English Department?
“You meant more to her than anyone,” she says. “She talked about you all the time. Keep writing for her. Keep her spirit alive.”
He steps out into the afternoon sun. It doesn’t feel as oppressive anymore. He thinks of Portia one last time and knows that he can’t let her death be in vain. Then he steps off the curb and hails a cab downtown.
44
Emma wakes with a start. A plane is flying low and the windows are rattling. The sound is getting louder, closer, and she panics-the plane’s going to crash into her building, rip the roof off, incinerate her. She calls out for Charles but he doesn’t answer. Is he gone? What time is it? She buries her head under the pillow and prays for the sound to stop. It starts to ebb after the plane passes over. She’s never been on an airplane.
She has her clothes on. She hates to sleep in her clothes; you feel so weird when you wake up, like you did something wrong, like you were a crazy person sleeping on a park bench. She looks around for Charles, but he isn’t there. He’s gone. What if he never comes back? Did he call earlier? From a pay phone? How long was she asleep? Out the window it looks like late afternoon. Has she slept the whole day away? She shouldn’t have taken another pill-they make her head so thick-but she likes the way they numb her, make things that frighten her fall away. Like flesh falling off a bone.
She pushes off the bed and unsteadily makes her way over to the kitchen. There’s some stale coffee sitting in a saucepan and she turns on the heat. She holds her hands up to the stove and warms them. The heat feels so good. She wonders what it would be like to live in the tropics, to always be warm, to lie in the sun and not think and be warm. She holds her wrist to the flame and a beautiful blister appears.
When she hears his key in the lock, she turns off the gas, licks her wrist, runs her hands through her hair. He can’t know she slept like that, lazy girl, sleeping all day, stupid lazy girl, her hair a mess, her clothes rumpled.
He has on a dark suit and he’s carrying a white shopping bag. She wonders what’s in the shopping bag, but is afraid to ask. His hair is slicked back and he smells of fresh air. He stares at her for a minute and then takes off his coat. “You look terrible,” he says.
Yes, she does look terrible. She knows it, but what can she do about it? Her face, her sharp, pointy face. You could cut cheese with that razor face, dirty monkey girl, face just like your ugly father. She turns her back to Charles and lets her hair fall in front of her eyes.
“I’m getting some coffee,” she says.
“I suppose you’ve been asleep all afternoon?”
It’s that tone of voice again. She hates it, has always hated it. Maybe she should just kill him.
“I took a nap, a few minutes…”
“Go sit down. I’ll bring you the coffee.”
Her desk has been cleaned off. There’s nothing there but a stack of clean paper. No notes, no scraps. No book. Her book. None of the pages she’s been working on. She has been working on them, hasn’t she? Why can’t she clear her head?
“The pages,” she says. “From yesterday. Where are they, Charles?”
He hands her a mug of steaming coffee. “Drink this. It’ll make you feel better.”
“They were here when I went to sleep. Now they’re gone.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t sleep so much, Emma. Maybe that’s the problem.”
“I want to see them, read them over.”
“The pages are in a safe place.”
The pages are in a safe place. But not here. This isn’t a safe place. What place is safe? What place is ever safe? “Where are they?” she asks.
Charles grips her shoulders. His hands are strong; she’d forgotten how strong they are. He isn’t going to hit her, is he? No, he’s just calming her, calming her down. He’s being gentle. He cradles her face in his hands. Then he kisses her forehead. “Don’t you trust me, little girl?”
Why did he have to ask her that question? His eyes look so caring and she remembers all the wonderful things he’s done for her and how his kisses feel and how much she loves him, she loves him so much. She leans her head on his chest and he encircles her with his arms and she feels protected, she wishes they would never move, would just stay this way forever and ever. He strokes her hair over and over again.
He has dinner in the shopping bag. That’s all, just dinner. He’s humming as he cooks. There’s music on, a piano concerto, and the table looks so pretty with candles and napkins. It looks like a home. Zack’s mother never set the table. From her desk, Emma can smell garlic and bread, the clean, yeasty smell of fresh bread. It all looks and smells so warm, so safe. The pages are in a safe place. But she’s at the end of the book now, and it isn’t safe there, there in that art classroom in the late afternoon light, Zack and his mother, hateful, horrible mother, hateful horrible dirty mother. But he’s going to kill her. He doesn’t want to, but he has to, he has no choice, she’ll kill him if he doesn’t do it first. Any reader will be able to see that. Justifiable homicide. Just kill her, stop her, shut her up, that constant screeching screeching voice. You funny monkey, worthless piece-of-shit monkey.
“Soup’s on.”
She looks up. Charles is sitting at the table, pouring wine. Smiling. He’s smiling. She’s in a safe place. It’s Mozart, that concerto. The most perfect music ever written, wasn’t that what he told her?
“I don’t think I should stop,” she says. “I’m so close to the end.”
“You need food.” He pours wine into the glasses, red, rich. “You have to keep your strength up.”
She stands up. Her body still feels heavy, heavy and thick, but her head feels light-it’s as if she is living in two different worlds at once. There’s a vase of flowers on the table. Lilacs, feathery violet lilacs, billowing out of her blue thrift-shop vase. Lilacs in late November. One day, maybe, she’ll buy lilacs in late November and raspberries in January… And the seasons they go ’round and ’round — that song she used to play, used to sing.
She sits and looks at the plate of pasta. It smells like garlic and some herb-what is its name? Charles raises his glass. “To the end,” he toasts.
She looks at him sadly. “The end?”
“Your book, you nut. Just kill her off and you’re finished, done, free. Chop, chop, a few stabs with the
