the Writing Circle (2010) (20 page)

The fish came with a mound of couscous and some scrawny green beans. Rachel scraped the almond breading off to the side and squeezed the lemon so it pooled in the groove down the center of the fillet.

“This is just between us,” said, Rachel, “but do you know who’s writing a novel?”

“Who?” asked Virginia.

“Gillian Coit,” said Rachel.

Virginia frowned. “Where did you get that from?”

“Her stepson, Paul, told me. I know I’m breaking his confidence, but it’s different telling you.”

“Oh, he must have that wrong,” said Virginia. “Gillian’s a poet. She doesn’t write fiction.”

“I guess she does now.”

“I’d be surprised,” said Virginia. “She’s never brought a page of it to our group.”

“Paul says she’s writing it in secret.”

“Well,” said Virginia, “every poet fancies they can turn out prose with no trouble. Of course, they’re extremely territorial if one of us prose writers dares to write poetry.”

“Did you ever write poetry, Mom?” asked Rachel.

“That’s
my
secret,” said Virginia. “But I do intend to write poetry for my grandchild. I’ll write Mother Gooseish, Dr. Seussish rhymes to cover all events and occasions.”

“Dad wrote a poem for me once,” said Rachel.

“He did?” asked Virginia.

“That summer I went to that dreadful Quaker camp in upstate New York and was so homesick.”

“Oh,” said Virginia, “I’ve always felt guilty about sending you there. But Teddy liked it, and you’d wanted to go.”

“Dad wrote me a rhyming poem that was very silly, but pompous, too, if you know what I mean. He was trying to cheer me up.”

“I didn’t know,” said Virginia. “Well, that was very sweet of him.”

“It was,” said Rachel.

The waitress clearing the table next to them knocked a platter off. It crashed to the floor but did not break. Rachel jumped, and without warning, her eyes blurred with tears. She remembered the camp dining hall with the plates stacked at the end of the long table, the cabin with the metal bed frame with the springs that trembled under her weight. She remembered the girl with pimples who handed out the mail, and the unexpected envelope from her father, his squat, black-ink handwriting. But was she crying for that, for herself then, small and homesick, or for something else? How rare it was that her father really thought about her, cared about how she was feeling, how rare it was that he actually went out of his way for her. There was so much she wanted from him, but he was always disappointing her. He had been disappointing her for most of her life.

Virginia was out of her seat and had come to put her arms around her. Rachel pressed her face against her mother’s belly.

G
ILLIAN HAD THANKED THEM ALL IN THE ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
of her new poetry collection,
Transcendence,
and Virginia felt this obligated them to go to New York for the launching of the book. The Leopardis had a tradition of attending events when any of their books were published, but they had slackened off a little when it came to Chris, as he pointed out to the others when Gillian’s book event was discussed.

“You’re so wonderfully prolific, Chris,” said Virginia. “We can’t possibly make all of your events, but we have gone to more of yours than anyone else’s.”

“Since I publish only once a decade,” said Bernard, “you are all required to turn out for me.”

“This is an important book for Gillian,” said Virginia, “and the poems in the collection are ones she worked on in our group. I think it would be”—she paused a moment, searching for the right word—“
ungenerous
if we weren’t there to support her.”

“We could always skip the reading and turn up for the party afterwards,” said Chris, but Bernard leveled him with such a look of admonition that he quickly added, “Just kidding. Okay, go ahead, count me in.”

They drove into the city together in Bernard’s old Mercedes—Virginia in the back with Nancy, Adam next to Bernard in the front. Chris was coming on his own because he was going directly to visit his sons the next day. It was unlikely that he would have been willing to drive in Bernard’s car in any case—he drove a new, sporty-looking thing that was either much more expensive than it looked or much cheaper, Virginia wasn’t sure which—and it was just as well. Not only would five of them have been a little tight, but which of the males would have been content to squeeze in with the ladies in the back?

The Mercedes was a dark blue Virginia associated with yachts, and had blue leather seats. It was an old, thoroughly impractical car, but Bernard had never been a man who was attracted to the practical. Aimee and their baby, Horace (who but Bernard, thought Virginia, would name a baby Horace?), had moved back into the house, and Bernard had become a ridiculously doting father. He changed diapers and prepared formula (Aimee had not wanted to breast-feed), things he had never done when Rachel and Teddy were babies. Virginia guessed that the few months Aimee had spent on her own had made her realize a good thing when she had it, and she had come back to Bernard (extracting from him innumerable concessions) not so much out of love as out of practicality. Once young Horace was in school, Virginia predicted that Aimee would move off on her own again. How unkind I am, thought Virginia.

Bernard’s enthusiasm for babies was now global, but the actual attention he paid to his grandson, Peter, Rachel’s baby, born a few weeks before Horace, was scant compared with what he lavished on his new son. Virginia was sure Rachel felt the slight, though Rachel did not say so, and, as with other things, Virginia lamented his obtuseness and was aggrieved on Rachel’s behalf. While she admitted she was prejudiced, there was no question that Peter was infinitely more attractive a baby than Horace, a squinty little Buddha, but Bernard bragged about his son (the miracle of his own prowess) shamelessly and mentioned Peter only in passing.

Bernard had been willing to go on this trip to New York only because Aimee had taken Horace to visit her parents in Seattle. Though Bernard liked to be within cooing distance of his son, the thought of his in-laws was sobering enough that when Aimee had suggested making the trip on her own, he had heartily agreed.

“It will be a Leopardi Circle field trip,” Bernard had proposed gaily. “And I will play chauffeur.” Virginia would have felt more comfortable with Adam driving, but Adam’s car was small for four. And it did make sense for them to drive down all together.

Virginia had pulled down the armrest between her and Nancy and settled back in her seat. She could smell Nancy’s perfume, or was it her shampoo? Nancy always smelled—Virginia thought about the word and settled on
pretty,
a word she rarely used.

The group had taken a break over the summer, since so many of them were out of town for long stretches—Nancy on her honeymoon in Greece, Gillian on the Cape, Virginia in Maine. They’d met only once since the fall had begun.

“You were such a lovely bride,” said Virginia. “Did I tell you that?”

Nancy laughed. “I think you did,” she said. “But I don’t mind hearing it again.”

“It’s good to see you looking so happy,” said Virginia.

“Didn’t I look happy before?” asked Nancy.

“You always looked a bit—how shall I describe it?—anxious about something. But perhaps you were anxious about us?”

“Who’s anxious about us?” asked Bernard from the front seat.

“No one, Bernie,” said Virginia in a louder voice. “We’re just talking back here. Girl talk. Concentrate on your driving.”

Nancy smiled faintly. “I think I was anxious about reading any of my novel to you. I’d been alone with it for so long, it was hard to go public.”

“Have you heard anything?” asked Virginia softly.

Nancy shook her head. “My agent is sending it out, but no one seems to be snapping it up yet.”

Virginia patted her hand. “Someone will. It’s a remarkable, deeply felt novel.”

“Thank you,” said Nancy.

“You’re not starting a new one yet?”

Nancy shook her head.

“I know,” said Virginia. “You’re still with this one. But you’ll keep coming to our meetings, I hope. I count on your feedback. ”

“Of course she’ll be coming,” said Bernard. Virginia hadn’t thought he could hear above the sound of the traffic, but apparently he could. “When you’re part of the Leopardi Circle, you have to come to discuss other people’s work, even if you’re not presenting anything yourself.”

“I didn’t know there were any rules,” said Adam. He’d been so quiet for the whole ride, Virginia had almost forgotten he was there.

“Not rules,” said Bernard, “moral obligations.”

“You didn’t say anything about moral obligations when I signed up,” said Nancy.

“The moral obligations of the Leopardi Circle are subtle,” said Bernard. “They sneak up on you. Like this, for example, our field trip to the Big City to support the launching of Gillian’s book.”

“Gillian’s book hardly needs our support,” said Nancy.

“Then why are you going?” asked Bernard.

“Because it’s the right thing to do,” said Nancy.

“Only you, dear Nancy, would say something like that,” said Bernard.

“She’s going for the same reason the rest of us are going,” said Adam. “Because Gillian expects us to, and she’ll see it as a betrayal if we don’t.”

“Ah, the truth at last,” said Bernard. “No one wants to risk having Gillian as an enemy. Still, I think your motives may be rather different from the rest of ours.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” asked Adam quickly. He turned now so he was facing Bernard.

Virginia feared which way this was going, but it was too late to head Bernard off.

“It’s all right to be in love with Gillian,” said Bernard. “We all were at one time or another.”

“For God’s sake, Bernie,” said Virginia. “Speak for yourself, if you must, but have the decency not to assume anyone else shares your particular obsessions.”

“That’s uncharacteristically harsh of you!” said Bernard.

“Well, you deserve it,” said Virginia, and she couldn’t help her voice rising. “You say things that are hurtful and you seem totally unaware of it.”

“It’s okay,” said Adam. “Bernard’s right. I am in love with Gillian.”

“Oh dear,” said Virginia. “You have that perfectly lovely girlfriend.”

“Tell me about it,” said Adam.

Even Bernard was silenced. Good, thought Virginia, it’s about time. The old affection she felt for Bernard, which had been eroding ever since his cruelty at Rachel’s Thanksgiving dinner, was nearly entirely gone. He was insufferable. She wished she weren’t in his car, wished she wasn’t in this physical proximity to him, wished she didn’t have to drive all the way back with him after the event.

In the front seat, Adam put on earphones. Beside her, Nancy closed her eyes and feigned (Virginia assumed) sleep. Virginia turned so she wouldn’t have to stare at the back of Bernard’s head. Above the armrest on the car door was a panel of burled walnut veneer. Virginia traced the whorls of dark grain with her forefinger. It seemed strange that this piece of what was once a living tree should be traveling with them now, should be party to their conversations.

They were driving through the South Bronx now. Virginia would have preferred for Bernard to enter the city through Riverdale and the West Side Highway, but he’d taken the Major Deegan Expressway. This section of the elevated highway went through the part of the Bronx that made Virginia the saddest. She turned away and tried to keep her eyes on Nancy sitting beside her—Nancy with her opal earrings and her blond hair newly cut so it was perfectly chin length—yet she couldn’t stop herself from looking out the window. Someone in the city had come up with the idea of painting curtains in walled-up windows on abandoned buildings so it would look as if people were still living in them. They looked as if they were a stage set for a play. A dog on a chain in a scrap metal lot, guarding nothing worth stealing, barked at the sky.

BOOKCASES HAD BEEN PUSHED ASIDE
on the second floor of Borders for the reading, but the space was inadequate for the crowd. There were several stacks of
Transcendence
sharing a table with a novel called
Restitution,
by M. G. Findlay. The name Findlay sounded familiar to Virginia for some reason, but she didn’t think she had ever heard of the author. Chris, who had arrived ahead of them, had nabbed extra seats in the front section, marked “Reserved.” It was a good turnout for any new book; for poetry it was remarkable. People obviously were sniffing out a Pulitzer here. Gillian’s success was even greater than Virginia had realized. Bernard raised his eyebrows and made a face at Virginia to show that he was impressed.

Gillian, flanked by her agent and editor, was off on the side. She was wearing a long, sleeveless dress, and her shoulders looked white and vulnerable. When she looked over and saw them, she gave them a nod and a smile, the smile of a goofy kid whose two front teeth had grown in crooked. Virginia saw Gillian’s husband, Jerry, in the front row, that poor boy, Paul, stuck next to him. Virginia, Nancy, and Adam sat in the row with Chris. Bernard chose a stool along the bookcases on the side rather than one of the chairs that Chris had saved. He sat there now, the Buddha’s father, with his moleskin pants tight around his portly thighs. His fleshy hands—the hands of someone who had never done much physical labor—were pale and freckled. Those hands had touched Gillian’s shoulders, thought Virginia. There had been a time when she had assumed that Bernard’s affair with Gillian had occurred after she and Bernard were no longer together, but now she was not so sure. Because of Joe, because of her being so happy, it hadn’t mattered. But maybe it did matter, after all.

The bookstore manager fiddled with the microphone at the podium, sending, inadvertently, two shrill whistles that made the crowd jerk to attention. She was a squat, short-haired woman with a few too many piercings in her ear. She gave a summary of Gillian’s poetic career, mispronouncing Coit, as well as one of the titles.

“Before we begin the reading,” she said, “Gillian’s editor at Knopf, Rob McInnerny, has a few introductory remarks he’d like to add.”

Virginia had spoken with Rob at the Christmas party. He was no older than Rachel, yet he had risen to the top ranks and camouflaged his extreme ambitiousness under an air of casual boyishness. He was good-looking, though his chin was small and feminine. Adam must hate him, thought Virginia.

Rob was tall, and he twisted the mike up towards his mouth. “I have a little surprise announcement for you,” he began. “Some of you may have been wondering why there’s a novel sharing the table with Gillian’s new collection,
Transcendence.
The name M. G. Findlay is new to you, I’m sure, but the author is here with us today.” He was smiling so excessively that Virginia knew, immediately, what was up.

“I’ve had the extraordinary great fortune to be the editor of Gillian’s three most recent poetry collections. You can imagine the elation I felt—and I don’t use that word lightly—when she confided in me that she had written a novel, on the side, for the fun of it.”

Findlay, thought Virginia. Gillian’s aunt had come from Findlay, Ohio, and Gillian had spoken of visiting her there. This must be the novel Gillian had been writing in secret that Paul had told Rachel about.

“Wheels turn slowly in publishing,” continued Rob, “but there are exceptions, and this is one of the remarkable ones. We were able to bring this novel out just in time for Gillian’s new collection—it’s a miracle—in fact, I didn’t know till this morning that we’d have early copies available at this event today. It’s a breathtaking novel, a style so different from Gillian’s poetry that you will be dazzled by her variety.
PW
called it ‘a virtuoso performance by a new novelist,’ since Gillian chose to publish it under a pseudonym, but now the secret is out.”

A PR scheme to create buzz, Virginia thought, not just for the poetry but for the novel as well. A brilliant move: the poetry followers would buy a novel Gillian had written, and people drawn to the novel might end up buying the poetry as well.