A Dangerous Fiction (17 page)

I told him what I'd told the police. “My life's an open book.”

“Highly abridged,” he said, “and one senses that the story's in the gaps. Tell me about your childhood.”

I stared into my mug and within the dark liquid a room took shape, a room with a cast-iron, wood-burning stove, a cottage sink with a drainer beside it, a padlocked refrigerator, a chipped linoleum table, pegs on the wall for a flyswatter and a switch. A mutinous spirit rose up in me. What business is it of his, this pompous little mole? But Chris's eulogy came back to me, and I thought of all the doors I'd shut and locked behind me. I wanted to be one person again, like Rowena was.

I was born in Memphis, I told Teddy. When I was three, my parents died together in a car crash. Their names were Jesse and Rose LeBlanc. I believe my father was Cajun, although I don't know for sure. At the time, he was working as a studio musician, backing up bluegrass and Cajun singers, but when he first met my mother, he was traveling with an itinerant revival meeting. A couple of preachers, father and son, had set up a big tent near the crossroads of three little towns in the hills of southwest Virginia, and all day long for a week, they took it in turns to preach fire and brimstone. It was a good show. There was snake handling and speaking in tongues and much laying-on of hands, not all of it in the tent. At night there was gospel music under the stars.

Jesse LeBlanc was one of the musicians. He preferred the fiddle, but he could play guitar or banjo or just about anything with strings. He was there for the music and the money; the preaching just rolled right off his hide, and that was something he and my mother, whose name was Rose Cunningham, had in common. Rose, who to her mother's despair was not saved and cared more about this world than the next one, attended the revival that first night only because her mother made her.

Bertha Cunningham would have cause to regret her insistence. At the end of the week, Jesse quit the revival, and my mother ran away with him. He was twenty-three, and she was seventeen. They married in Memphis. Rose never went back to Hoyer's Creek, and from the day she left she had no contact with my grandmother. Bertha had no idea she was a grandmother until the day the sheriff came knocking at her door.

My grandmother did her Christian duty; she took me in. But no power in heaven or on earth could force her to love me or regard me as anything other than a burden and a trial. I never had a kind look or word from her, never a word of praise. She told me there was bad blood in me, swamp-nigger blood. She said my mother was a whore.

My grandmother did not hold with sparing the rod. For ordinary infractions she used a paddle, but for special occasions there was that switch kept handy in the kitchen. The worst offenses were sassing her, taking the Lord's name in vain, and telling stories.

“Which is ironic,” I said to Teddy, “when you think of who I married.”

Teddy straightened the recorder and when it couldn't get any straighter, he picked a tiny bit of lint off his jacket. Finally he said, “I've been to Hoyer's Creek; through it, more accurately. Real Dorothea Lange country. What I can't fathom is how you got from there to here.” His wave took in the large, high-ceilinged living room, the park views outside my windows, the city beyond.

“I ran away, like my mother before me.”

“But you didn't elope, and you didn't join the army, which is how most folks who want out get out. You went to
Vassar
. How would it even occur to you? It's a whole other world, isn't it?”

“That's what I wanted, another world. I'd been planning my escape since I was twelve years old. I meant to live in New York, and Vassar seemed a good step toward that goal. And the school was very generous.”

“Had you been to the city?”

“Never.”

“Why New York, then?”

“Because it was the furthest place on earth from where I grew up.”

“It is that,” Teddy said, and it struck me that he must have had a New York dream of his own.

“It started with books,” I said. “Everything I could get my hands on.
Eloise; Breakfast at Tiffany's; The Thin Man; Rosemary's Baby; Marjorie Morningstar; Bright Lights, Big City;
Paul Auster's
New York Trilogy
.”

“Your grandmother didn't object?”

“She didn't know. I used to cover my library books with brown wrapping paper, the same as my schoolbooks. The librarian had been a friend of my mother's, and she was kind to me. She let me watch films on the library's VCR, which is how I discovered Woody Allen's New York.”

“Oh, isn't Woody wonderful? I saw him just the other day; had lunch with him and Soon-Yi. Let me guess: your favorite film was
Manhattan
.”

“How did you know?”

He smiled. “A beautiful young woman falls for an older, accomplished man. Clearly a case of life imitating art.”

“It's not like I set out to do that,” I said stiffly. “Hugo just happened.”

“I see. And yet you were such a determined young person, weren't you? Did Hugo know your story?”

“Of course. We had no secrets from each other.”

“Did he ever meet your grandmother?”

“No. I never saw her again once I left for Vassar.”

He blinked. Teddy was a Southerner, and Southerners are a tribal breed, whippings be damned. “Is she still alive?”

“She died five years ago. We were in Paris.”

“So you couldn't go to the funeral.”

“I wouldn't have gone anyway.” I sipped my coffee, cold now. “We paid for the stone.”

“What did it say?”

I gave him an approving nod; it was the pertinent question. “Her name and dates.” Nothing more, no “Beloved Mother” or “Adored Grandmother.” For country folk it was the closest thing to spitting on the grave.

Teddy was quiet. I looked out the window. Not five yet, and already getting dark. Rain was coming.

Mingus whined. It was his dinnertime. I went into the kitchen and Teddy followed with his recorder. He leaned against the doorpost while I measured out the kibble.

“People say you're tough,” he said. “I can see why. You've had a hard life.”

“The first part, maybe. But then I married Hugo.”

“And now I understand the fairy-tale depiction of that marriage. And yet it couldn't have been easy, being the great man's wife.”

“Nothing could have been easier,” I said. “I was with Hugo, he was working, and I was helping him. Nothing else mattered.”

“He was kind to you?”

“Very kind. And generous. I came into the marriage with nothing but the clothes on my back. He loved buying me things, dressing me up.”

“Like a doll,” Teddy said, and even though I'd had the same thought myself, I didn't like hearing it from him. “Was he respectful, would you say?”

“Of course. Why would you even ask that?”

“Several people told me about an incident at a party you gave here, a few months after your marriage. Do you remember that incident?”

I opened the refrigerator and bent down to look. There was half a chicken left over. I tore off a piece of breast meat and shredded it into Mingus's bowl. Gordon had said that kibble is all dogs need, but I'd noticed that Mingus preferred human food, daintily picking out the pieces and devouring them first. Dogs aren't big on delayed gratification.

“Chow time,” I said, and Mingus fell to.

Teddy, too, had a hungry look about him, but I had nothing for him. “There were so many parties,” I said vaguely.

“In this one, Hugo was huddling with some of his writer friends, the old-timers who'd seen him through his first three marriages and divorces. They were ragging on him for doing it again. ‘Fuck you,' he told them. ‘You don't know her. This girl cooks like Julia Child, fucks like the Happy Hooker, and edits like Maxwell Perkins. I'd be a fuckin' moron not to marry her.'”

Teddy paused. I said nothing. Mingus licked his bowl and looked up hopefully.

“They said you grabbed him by the ear and marched him out to the terrace. You shut the door, and everyone pretended not to watch while you yelled, and Hugo laughed and tried to kiss you.”

“That was nothing,” I said scornfully. “I told him he was an idiot. He said it was high praise and I should be flattered. But he knew he'd crossed the line, and he never did it again.” Until that note to David Axelhorn, I thought, and I walked past Teddy into the living room and poured myself a drink. Then I had to offer him one. We sat down and I said, “You have to understand that Hugo liked to present a certain macho, Hemingway-esque image. He would have hated to seem what he really was.”

“Which was?”

“A loving, faithful husband.”

Teddy's mouth opened, then closed.

I glared at him. “What?”

He looked down and chose his words as carefully as a man picking his way through a swamp. “When you met Hugo, you must have known his reputation. Was sexual fidelity a big issue for you?”

His delicacy was an affront, in that it suggested delicacy was needed. “Fortunately,” I said, “I never had to find out. You talked about the deepening of his work in those last books. Where do you think it came from? Monogamy suited him at that stage of his life. Less energy spent chasing women meant more for his work.”

“I see,” Teddy said in that superior way, and I wanted to slap him, because every time he said “I see,” I heard “Bullshit.”

“Spit it out,” I said. “It's obvious you think you know something.”

“It's not my place to say anything.”

“The hell with that, Teddy. This is a two-way street. I've answered your questions. Now you're going to tell me what you've heard.”

“Honestly, I don't think that's a good idea. Suppose someone asked me what you and I talked about, you wouldn't want me giving chapter and verse, would you?”

“I'm not
someone
. Apart from being Hugo's widow, I'm his executor.” I gave him a moment to think about that. “And let's not pretend there are confidentiality issues. You're putting it all in a book, for Chrissake. Did you really think I'd just wait and buy a copy?”

Teddy looked distressed, but whether this was real or feigned I could not tell. I waited for his answer, which came at last with a little shrug of resignation. “I'm sure he was a loving husband. I heard he wasn't all that faithful.”

“Someone told you he had an affair? Did they name the lucky lady?”

“Isabel Delgado and Valerie Lepetit. Sorry, Jo.”

I hooted. “And you believed that? Who told you?”

“They did.”

I stared, my face stinging as if he'd slapped me.

“In fact,” Teddy said, watching me closely, “both of them said they thought you knew.”

Someone's lying: if not Teddy, then Isabel and Val. But why would they tell such hurtful lies?
That's what I thought in words, but below that, memories were stirring, struggling toward the surface. I caught glimpses—Val on the pavement outside the ER, Isabel and Hugo emerging from her house, laughing, his arm around her shoulders—but I forced those images down. Now was not the time, not with Teddy Pendragon strip-mining my face for every nugget of emotion.

“Bullshit,” I said firmly.

“You didn't know?”

“It never happened.”

“Have you read Michael Holroyd?” Teddy asked. “Brilliant biographer and essayist. Not as well-read as he deserves to be. He wrote, ‘The lies we tell are part of the truth we live.'”

“You think I'm lying to you?”

“Not to me.”

“To
myself
? You have some fucking nerve.”

“Jo, please. You asked. You insisted—”

I cut him off, my voice shaking with anger. “And just when did these alleged affairs take place?”

He closed his eyes, opened them again. “With Isabel it began before your marriage and continued during their collaboration on the opera.”

“Ridiculous. Hugo and I were newlyweds, crazy happy. That makes no sense.”

“I see.” Teddy got up, brought over the bottle of Johnnie Walker, and replenished both our drinks.

“If you say ‘I see' one more time, I swear to God I will brain you with that bottle.”

He drained half his glass in one nip. “She said you almost caught them once. You don't remember?”

“No,” I said, but I was lying. I hadn't so much forgotten as dismissed the incident. Every day, while Hugo and Isabel worked, I'd occupied myself exploring Santa Fe. I visited every museum, every gallery on Canyon Road, the shops around the plaza, and the Indian vendors outside the Inn of the Governors. On the last day of our stay, I came back early. Isabel's car was in the drive, but the studio was empty. I sat down in the shady courtyard to wait. Lilacs perfumed the air, and I dozed off to the murmur of the fountain and a chorus of birdcalls. I woke suddenly to familiar laughter and the sound of a door opening. Hugo and Isabel emerged, not from the freestanding studio but from her house. His arm was slung around her shoulder. His shirt was half-unbuttoned. Her hair was loose. The moment they saw me, they stepped apart.

“Isabel has the most exquisite collection of Indian pottery,” Hugo said. “You must see it.”

They took me inside and showed it to me. When I admired one Hopi bowl in particular, Isabel gave it to me. I didn't want to accept, but she insisted. “A belated wedding gift,” she'd said.

I'm not an idiot. I wondered; of course I did. But I couldn't imagine them in bed together. Isabel was old, Hugo's age or even older. Beautiful, but old. And Hugo loved me. I'd chalked up my doubts to insecurity and pushed it out of mind, till now.

“I'm sorry, Jo,” Teddy said.

I glared at him. “And Val?”

“Let's give it a rest, shall we? I don't want to upset you any more than I already have.”