Antonia Lively Breaks the Silence (6 page)

If Names Are Destinies

_____

On Sunday, as the temperature climbed near one hundred, Catherine took shelter at the movies, going from one theater in the multiplex to the next. She didn't care what was playing on the screen, only that the theater was dark and cool, her seat comfortable. She munched on her popcorn and drank her diet soda and tried to make sense of the plot as best she could. When she at last left the theater, it was evening, the temperature still in the nineties, the air wet and livid. The car, which stalled twice on the way home, had developed an odd squeal, and by the time she rolled into the driveway, she understood where the bulk of Henry's money had to go. If Wyatt were around, she would have asked him to look at the car—he had been good with all things mechanical. She thought about asking Henry, but what could he tell her? He didn't even own a car.

Letting the thought go, she got out and gazed at the silent, unlit cottage. The lease was still exactly where she'd left it this morning, on the small mosaic table, a large citronella candle pinning it down. She had things about the lease to discuss with Henry—mainly to emphasize that no one smoked in the cottage—but all that could wait until later.

Yet later turned into Monday and the lease still lay on the table. She knocked on the cottage door a few times, yet Henry never responded. She knew Antonia had been there, though, because one of her half-smoked cigarettes was in an ashtray beside the candle. On her way to the trash can to empty the ashtray, Catherine recalled how much pleasure she used to find in her first morning cigarette, the first taste, the first burn and pull, the smoke in her lungs, as she readied herself for another day of classes. She missed that first cigarette as much as she missed the last, the postprandial smoke, the smoke after sex. It was Wyatt who had come between this pleasure and her, who had given her an ultimatum—“Either you quit or I leave. It's your choice,” he'd said. And so she had quit, allowing herself only the occasional indulgence, like the half-smoked cigarette Antonia had left behind that first afternoon.

At the trash can, as she tossed the cigarette away, only to rescue it a moment later, Catherine thought again about Wyatt, about how much he hated the habit, a reason, in part, for the title he had given his novel. She thought also about how she finally realized that smoking, which she'd picked up from her father, had always been her way of communing with him, a man she otherwise did not understand or like. Ultimately, of course, she did break the habit. For Wyatt.

Now, climbing into the car, she set the cigarette in the glove box for safekeeping, to smoke later on the deck, with her wine. All around her, the heat gained, falling through the glass and broiling the air. When she put the car in drive, it squealed, then shuddered and stalled, as if it were refusing to leave the shaded sanctuary of the carport. She tried the ignition again, but there was nothing. And by the time Catherine walked into Page Turners, she was sopping wet, her hair untidy and clothes damp. On her way to the bathroom to neaten up, she looked for Harold, who sometimes liked to surprise them on Monday mornings. To her relief, there was no sign of him.

In the bathroom, she fixed her hair, smoothed out her clothes, and touched up her face, thinking about Henry. The check in her purse lifted her spirits, even as the idea of Henry in the cottage threatened to depress them. For the moment she wasn't unhappy, though, as she grabbed her name tag and took her place at the register, counting down the minutes until the bank opened and she could dash across the park to deposit the check. Yet an atypical morning rush kept her in the store dealing with customers and deliveries. Things didn't slow down until close to noon, when, saying good-bye to Jane, she went to the bank at last.

After depositing the check, she strolled through the park, passing the occasional sunbathers and shirtless boys playing Frisbee. On cooler days, she liked to buy a sandwich from the cafe and eat her lunch in the park. Sometimes, before Wyatt moved into the cottage and threw himself into his new novel, he showed up at the store unexpectedly and surprised her with a picnic. They would drive into the mountains, to a spot they knew well, a clearing of smooth, flat stones and giant, fragrant evergreens that overlooked the town. They always ate quickly, because she had to get back to work and he back to his novel, but there was always a moment, right before they packed up to go, when she found herself beside him, brushing her hand through his thick head of brown hair, unbuttoning his shirt, his jeans, their kissing the only sound amid all that quiet. Their sex then was clean and bright, and she loved it. She adored him, the smell of grass and earth in her nose, their coupling on the blanket, his handsome face above her. She carried these sights and smells with her into the afternoon, thinking it wonderful to wander back into the store with the scent of their lovemaking all over her.

At other times, it was she who surprised Wyatt, sneaking home during her lunch break to drop a sandwich outside the study door. She always included a note:
I love you. You're brilliant. Can't wait to see you tonight.

Today she had an hour to kill, and the heat was just too much and there was no Wyatt, no picnic in the mountains. She thought about having lunch at the cafe, but the idea of eating alone in a crowded room depressed her, so she wandered home. It had been ages since she'd been home on a weekday afternoon and the house felt different, museum-like. She felt different as well, oddly afraid, knowing that everything was changing again and that soon she would finally have to take a long, careful look inside those boxes in the study. But not this afternoon, she thought as she made a sandwich. After cleaning up from her meal, she headed for the back door and the cottage, to see if Henry had signed the lease. She had just stepped onto the deck when, to her surprise, she found Antonia in a string bikini, napping on one of the chaise lounges, an
Interview
magazine in her lap. Even in sleep, Catherine thought, when to all appearances she was at rest, the girl still pulsed with an awkward, uncontainable energy. She didn't want to disturb her, but then she didn't have to: Antonia opened her eyes and yawned, showing off her small mouth with its cramped teeth.

After sitting up, she shook off sleep and said urgently, “I was going to call you, but here you are.”

“You were going to call?” Catherine asked.

“It's the cottage,” she said, agitated now, and shivering, as if she were suddenly cold. Over her bikini, she quickly slid on a wrinkled, button-down shirt—obviously one of Henry's—and a pair of running shorts, which showed off her lissome legs, oily and dark. “It's awful, Catherine,” she said, and shot down the steps, the bell on the gate clanging.

Oh, Lord, Catherine thought, following her, wondering what had gone wrong, because clearly something had. Was the cottage flooded? Had it been egged again as it had a few months before? Was the toilet stopped up? Had the louver doors jumped their tracks? Renting to Henry will prove to be an ordeal, she thought, again regretting the impulsive decision.

Hip canted, Antonia stood on the small patio, lighting one of her long, thin cigarettes. She inhaled deeply, tapped away the ash, and blew out a straight line of smoke, averting her eyes from the cottage, which Catherine now looked at. It was awful, just as Antonia had said, and Catherine stood trembling as she took in the crude lettering. How had she missed seeing this earlier? “What in the world?” she said. The words scrawled on the wall were meaningless:
Wren Was Here.
Antonia stepped beside her, the sun punctuating the severity of her face.

The red paint looked so much like blood that Catherine turned away in horror. It ran down the face of the cottage, still wet, and splattered on the patio, the windows, the mosaic table, the sun baking it all into place. “It's terrible, just terrible,” Antonia said.

A lawn mower grumbled, a car honked, a telephone rang. A dog barked. A bird sang. A boy rode past on his bike and paused, then tore away, ringing his little bell. Then there was Catherine's voice through the afternoon quiet, saying, “I just can't believe this. You don't know who did this, do you?” Enraged, the whole of her shook, as if she and not the cottage had been vandalized.

“I have no idea,” Antonia said, and tears were in her eyes.

“Where is Henry?” she demanded, already heading back through the gate to phone the police while Antonia said, “I don't know,” following her, only to pause on the deck to light another cigarette.

Before going into the house, Catherine paused as well, glancing at the cottage and the words:
Wren Was Here.

Ten minutes later, a police officer arrived, to take down Catherine's statement. Then he handed her his card and said, with a nonchalance that rankled her, that it was probably just one of the college students. “You do live in west campus, Mrs. Strayed,” he said, as if the blame were hers, that she should have been used to such behavior. “This isn't all that unusual,” he added.

“Not unusual?” Catherine said angrily. “Someone came onto my property and defaced my home. I want to know who and why.” She took a breath, but it did nothing to calm her.

“We'll definitely look into the matter, Mrs. Strayed,” the policeman said, and then he was gone. She knew even then that they wouldn't look into the matter at all, that they'd let it drop.

In the house, Catherine called the bookstore to tell Jane there'd been an emergency. Then she phoned Breedlove Hardware to speak to Louise's husband, who owned it. Within minutes, Louise was at the house with a team of men carrying ladders and brushes.

“I wasn't going to say a word, but now I have to,” Louise said, whispering. “You never should have rented the cottage to that man. Why didn't you talk to me first? We could have figured out something. Just look at what has already happened.” She paused. “Her,” she said of Antonia whom they could see lounging on the deck. “I don't like her. There's something not right about her. What was she doing here in the middle of the day anyway? I mean, really, it's the height of audacity.”

“It doesn't matter,” Catherine replied.

“If you invited her, that's one thing, but if you didn't, that's something else,” she said.

“Louise,” she said. “Please.”

“This is his fault. It has to be. He can't stay, not after—”

“He just moved in,” she said.

“Let me help you find someone else,” she said as the men scrubbed the cottage, washing away the words, the red running in pink tendrils down the walls.

“Will they be able to get rid of it all?” she asked.

“If they don't, we'll have it repainted,” Louise said. “We'll do whatever you want.”

Then Catherine was crying, silent tears that slipped down her face. She cried, thinking about these words that had no meaning, hoping the men really could wash them away.

Y
ET THE WORDS
remained. They remained with Catherine while she slept on the sofa, where she'd collapsed after Antonia finally left and Louise finally left and the men finally left. In her dreams, though, Wyatt hadn't left. He was back in his study, and there was the rustle of paper and the click of his typewriter. The light was burning under the door, which meant the last year and a half hadn't happened. Wyatt was back. Then she sat up, blinking, and the typing stopped, the light under the door went out, and she was again in the dark house, alone. She went out to the car to grab the half-smoked cigarette. More than anything, she wanted to smoke the rest of this cigarette and forget about the day, the horror of those words. As she turned to go back into the house, she ran into Henry on his way to the cottage. He was walking so swiftly that he nearly knocked her down.

“Henry, we have to talk,” she said. “Now.”

He wore a suit and tie, neither of which she expected to see on him, given his usual casual, shabby style. As he swatted a flurry of gnats away from his face, he said, out of breath, “Do me a favor and take a look behind me.” Confused, Catherine looked behind him. “Is he gone?” he asked.

“Is who gone?” she asked. “Nobody's there.”

After dropping his shoulders, he let out a heavy sigh, saying, “Have you seen Antonia?”

“Yes, this afternoon,” she said. “She was here when—”

Then all at once Antonia appeared in the blue twilit air and the couple fell into each other's arms and walked through the cottage door without a word. Alone again, Catherine wandered back to the house, where she poured the wine and lit the cigarette. The more she thought about the name, Wren, the more familiar the name became, until she couldn't help wondering where she'd heard it before. Whereas Catherine forgot names almost instantly after she heard them, Wyatt had always been wonderful about remembering them, sometimes long after he'd met someone, however briefly. Names are destinies, like character, he used to tell her. If this was the case, if names were destinies, Catherine thought sadly, then what did this say about his character, and what did this say about her own?

Drift and Listen

_____

Wyatt used to say the writer's job is to drift and listen, to live inside his characters and record their innermost thoughts and desires. If he listens well enough, hard enough, his readers will live with these characters, will breathe their air, will see the world as they see it. They don't have to appreciate all their traits, share all their weaknesses, like all their dreams, but they do have to understand them, and then they can truly, fully participate in the gruesome crimes or the heroic acts, can take part in the events that shape the characters' lives. Breathing life, real life, into the characters is only one part of being a successful writer, for without a narrative that moves, that confounds, that compels, that excites, then the life will go out of these characters and they will die.

That Henry did not connect with Wyatt's novel from the start was one thing, but that he found no merit at all in the parts that made the whole—the exquisite writing, the intelligence of the plot, the originality of the structure—was something else. “An author must be very careful,” Henry wrote, “not to sensationalize murder or beatify the murderer, especially when the murderer is one's own flesh and blood. (What a coincidence, then, that the father of Mr. Strayed's protagonist was also serving out a life sentence for rape and murder in a U.S. penitentiary in Lompoc, California.) Mr. Strayed's ‘novel' epitomizes the root problem of contemporary fiction, which all too often asks the reader to contend with long-winded passages of gratuitous violence, merely for the sake of racking up pages. (The more the pages, the higher the price!) Dostoevsky needed his pages in
Crime and Punishment
. . . I'm afraid that Mr. Strayed did not, and his efforts will not go on unpunished.”

“It's just a review,” Wyatt said after he'd read it, his reaction surprising Catherine.

She knew differently. It wasn't just a review, it was revenge, and it hurt her as severely as if Henry had written a letter directly to her. He might as well have begun the review, Dear Catherine. . . . During the weeks that followed, she would sometimes awaken, startled out of a dream in which Henry whispered in her ear, “I told you he was a hack, and the proof is in my review.” In the morning, after Wyatt disappeared into his study, she'd read the review again, not to indulge this phantom Henry but to get rid of his whispering, sinister voice in her head. Yet the more times she read it, the more she sensed the rage that lay beneath it. The rage was misdirected, she knew, and personal, made so by her own past involvement with him: a brief affair they'd had when she was his student. Oh, Wyatt, she thought, you didn't deserve this. There had been plenty of time to tell Wyatt about Henry, about their relationship. Then why didn't I? Catherine asked herself during that dark period, when Wyatt's editor stopped returning his calls and she watched as their golden future grew tarnished.

Outwardly, Wyatt seemed to take the criticism quite well and went on as if nothing had changed. Everything, though, had changed, and Catherine knew his disappointment would eventually catch up to him. Still, he pushed on, remaining steadfast and optimistic, which both surprised and dismayed her, mainly because it was just so out of character. She expected rants and rages. What she got were smiles and bromides.

“One day at a time,” he said. “This, too, shall pass,” he said. “Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to class I go,” and he whistled, really whistled, as he grabbed his briefcase and headed off.

Yet whenever she passed his study, it was not the sound of his typewriter she heard but just the creak of his chair and the occasional heavy sigh. What was he doing if he wasn't writing? She didn't ask, for fear of pressuring him, of sounding too earnest. If he needed this time to regroup, then she did not intend on intruding. So she went about her days as if he were busy at work, although it was more than evident he wasn't.

The semester finally ended and the days lengthened, the nights shortened, and summer finally found them again. A week after commencement, Wyatt left to go to a writers' retreat a couple of hours drive south of Winslow. He'd gone to the retreat once before, and back then, the days and nights without him were long and brutal for her. In June of 1985, however, she couldn't wait for him to depart. A pall had slowly settled over the house, over their marriage, too. They bickered about everything and nothing. She blamed him for never replenishing the groceries. He blamed her for stomping around the house. She accused him of ignoring her. He accused her of being needy. Then the weeks of fighting faded, replaced with an even more uncomfortable entente cordiale. They had sex again, inevitably, but it was quick and passionless, their kisses flat and cool whereas they'd once been warm and tumid. She felt a part of Wyatt had been burned away, the most important part, the thing that got him up at five every morning to write. The part that made him a writer. Though she still sensed a drive in him, she caught only the faintest glimmers of it. A month away, she hoped, from Winslow, from the college, even from her, might return Wyatt to himself, might bring him back to her.

Less than a week later, however, Catherine came home from work and found him on the sofa, as if he'd never left.

“They asked me to leave,” he said. Though the room was in shadow, she could still make out the hurt and disappointment in his eyes. “If I'd known he was going to be there, I never would have gone.”

“Who was there?” she asked. “You mean Henry?”

“Yes,” he said. “Not until the fifth day. They stuck him in the room right next to mine. We shared a bathroom. I couldn't believe it.” Neither could she. The idea of the two of them under the same roof hadn't occurred to her. Yet it should have. When she'd known Henry, he was often running off to some writing colony to spend much of his summer. “Yesterday, at dinner,” Wyatt said, “I walked right up to him and I . . . I shouldn't have done it, but I spit in his face.”

The night of his return, Catherine suggested they have dinner at the cafe. On the way, they didn't discuss the incident with Henry, or even talk about his colleagues in the English department and their woeful, negligible support of him. At the table, over gin-and-tonics, they didn't talk about the scant turnout at his readings in Manhattan, Albany, Buffalo. It wasn't until they were on their way home that Wyatt finally exploded.

“Why did he expect to identify with my narrator?” he asked, referring to the review. “ ‘Beatify the murderer?' What in God's name is he talking about? I mean, I know how he feels about writers basing characters on real people, but I'll be damned if he can point to a single one of my characters and say, ‘So here's where you've been hiding, Mr. Strayed.' I mean, does he really believe that characters invent themselves? I would have had some respect for him, if he'd just come right out and said he hated my book. He didn't hate it, but he certainly didn't like it, either, which makes it worse. A tepid review is like telling the world, ‘Hey, this book I just reviewed, it really wasn't even worth my forming an opinion about it, which means it's really not worth your time to form an opinion of your own about it, either.' ”

Catherine wanted to stop him from going on, but she knew it was easier, better, simply to let him vent, which he did. He blustered on, blaming his novel's poor reception on the reading public's poor taste, on the death of the intellect, on the critics themselves. “Henry Swallow,” he hissed, “is what's wrong with publishing today, not me. What does he even know about writing a novel? Has he ever published one?” He paused. “Every critic is a failed writer, Catherine. Don't ever forget it.” Mainly, though, Wyatt blamed himself for writing the kind of novel he had, a novel full of big ideas. “I know we all write for our own reasons,” he said. “Really, though, if it's not to illuminate the human spirit, why do it? If it's not to shine some light through the dark, why bother?”

Catherine had no other answer for him than this: “I think people write to clear their consciences.”

Wyatt scoffed, then fell into a silent rumination. They walked the rest of the way without saying a word and, once home, went their separate ways, she to the bedroom to read and Wyatt to his study, where he remained until sunrise.

T
HIS EVENING, AS
Cat
herine made her way to the cafe, she couldn't help thinking about Henry. You cannot trust him, she thought, pushing through the restaurant's door. She was winding her way toward her friends, when she heard her name and paused to find Antonia at the end of the bar, a burning cigarette in the ashtray, blue serpents of smoke around her head. As usual, the whole place was smoky and packed and loud—recently, it had been named the best place to dine in Mohawk County—and Catherine could barely hear Antonia above the vivid chatter.

“We keep running into each other,” she said.

“Small towns,” Catherine said.

“Have a drink with me,” she said, patting the stool beside her. Catherine found her suggestion more demanding than friendly. “I'm meeting Henry,” she said, and his name hung in the air between them. “You should join us.” Catherine detected a tremor in her voice. Then she saw Henry through the big windows as he made his way into the cafe.

Before he could find them, Catherine said, “My friends, another time,” and offered a good-bye, feeling, as she had the afternoon Antonia first showed up at the house, a strange, unaccountable pressure in her chest. Just as then, she'd felt as if she were being studied, maybe even judged.

As the three women ordered, they talked about the concert they were all attending this evening, the endless heat, Louise's son, Chase. When Louise mentioned the cottage and asked how Catherine was holding up, she told her that she was fine, even though they all knew she wasn't. She buttered a roll, she drank her wine, trying her best not to stare at Henry and Antonia, not to watch as he fed her olives and she moved her chair closer and closer to his. As she sipped her wine, she tasted the tannins and hints of cherry and beyond this, the sour crush of her own jealousy. Yes, jealousy, she thought, hating herself for it. That was the truth of it.

Later, an expensive bottle of wine appeared at the table. “Compliments of Mr. Swallow,” the waiter said.

“Appalling,” Louise said curtly, glaring at Henry, covering her empty glass with a hand.

“Take it away,” Jane said, and did the same.

“Please,” Catherine said, holding out her glass as the waiter uncorked the bottle. The wine was Chilean, with the tenor of leather and black cherries, tangy and nutty at once. After she tasted it, she nodded, the waiter pouring, the other women no longer demurring. At one point, Catherine raised her glass and said, drunkenly and loudly, “To Wren,” and flashed her eyes on Henry. She'd been thinking a lot about this person, this Wren, a woman no doubt, and had ultimately decided that she must be one of Henry's spurned writers or, even more likely, one of his spurned lovers. Like so many, she thought morosely. Then she smiled and raised her glass again. “You are the most amazing friends a girl could have,” she said, and took another gulp.

“I think it's time we found another place to have dinner,” Louise said, her eyes on the couple.

“There's nowhere else to go,” Jane said.

“Then we'll just have to explore new options,” Louise said. “What about that little French bistro in Mohawk? We haven't been to it in ages.”

“It went under,” Catherine said. “Wyatt and I tried going there last week,” and the moment she said it, she set her glass down, wilting. “I mean a couple of years ago,” but she'd already freed the words, and the pain lingered.

When their meals arrived, they ate them in relative silence. Catherine picked at her braised quail and chive mashed potatoes, glancing out the windows at the crowd on the street spilling over from the park. Among the crowd, she spotted a modestly tall, scruffy man with thick, dark hair who had pushed his way to the restaurant window, pressing against it with a sense of urgency. Even from where she was, she had a decent view of him—the high, creased forehead, the linear jaw, the long nose. He wore an earring in his left ear. He wasn't exactly handsome, but she found his face arresting, even extraordinary. It wasn't every day that she noticed a man, and now that she had, she couldn't turn away. He peered into the room, cupping his big hands over his brow. His lashes were long and his eyes green, with the hint of the familiar in them, which made her sad, for they reminded her of Wyatt's.

As she reached for her glass of wine, Catherine glanced down at the table for just a second, then back up at the window, but the man had disappeared. Yet the next thing she knew, he was inside the cramped restaurant. Suddenly, her attention was drawn to Antonia who dropped her fork. Her face, when she saw the strange man, lost its smile, and her eyes clouded up with fear. From across the room, Catherine heard Henry say, “Is something the matter, darling?” Then turning his head to follow Antonia's gaze, he added, with a start, “Is that—”

“Yes,” Antonia said, rising and grabbing her purse. No one else seemed to notice the stranger or what was happening. Jane went on about the high price of gas while no less than ten feet away, Antonia stood trembling. She was almost at the door when the stranger stepped in front of her. Henry was behind her, his hands on her shoulders, steeling her against this menacing force, this stranger with the cold, hard eyes. Still, no one else seemed to notice. The host kept seating diners and the waiters kept serving and everyone kept eating. Catherine might have been oblivious as well had it not been for the profound fright in Antonia's eyes, the corrosive smile on the stranger's face, and the way Henry finally slid between them.

There were words exchanged, though it was impossible for Catherine to hear them over the rumble of conversation, the clatter of knives and forks. Then she did hear something, and it was Antonia's name, and it flew out of the stranger's mouth with arrowlike precision. When Antonia heard her name, she froze, the last blush of color in her face fading. Clearly, she wanted to leave, but the strange man would not allow it. “Get out of my way, please,” she heard him say to Henry. When Henry refused to move, the man laughed joylessly, and said, “Do you have any idea what you've done?” Then he spit at Henry as Catherine clutched the table and flinched.