The Best Contemporary Women's Fiction: Six Novels Read online

  "The usual."

  Our cinq à sept usually began at four, though he frequently jumped the gun, which was fine with me. The truth was that since I'd left Will, it was difficult for me to be alone. The truth was I sometimes woke up at three in the morning with my jaw clenched and the rest of me in a panic, my brain firing flares of self-doubt in the direction of Swansea. I knew Will would have me back. But even in the midst of the panic, that never felt like the direction I should be moving; it only felt familiar and safe.

  I opened the top right-hand drawer of my desk and retrieved what there was of Lili. One hundred and thirty-seven typed pages, which ended in the middle of a long sentence I had not known how to finish for the last six months—about Lili's first visit to Las Vegas, where she saw Frank Sinatra at the Sands.

  Voices began to rise, like the rumble of distant thunder, and it took five or six seconds to recognize whose they were. And then the rhythm of the whole thing intensified, as if the Luftwaffes strafing had just begun. Hearty shouting gave way to a familiar high-pitched, self-pitying shriek from the fashion model who lives on the other side of me with her on-again, off-again boyfriend. About the same time last week, she delivered a statement at a pitch so high and desperate, I suspected she was being leeched. "All I want is a relationship," she had wailed, at an operatic pace that must have taken thirty or forty seconds to deliver.

  Her boyfriend's reply was so direct and sensible—though he was shouting at the top of his lungs—that I was tempted to applaud. "I'd rather eat glass than have a relationship with you."

  It sounded as if they were heading toward some of those themes again today.

  I poured another cup of coffee and tried to imagine what someone living next door to Will and me would have heard when we were at our worst. Nothing. Plenty of nothing. Silence, though not the silence of the monastery, not the silence Thomas Merton said can make you sense that God is right there, not only with you but in you. Not the silence of what Merton called "the quiet heart." There are no quiet hearts in states of stifled rage, in angry defeat or the black dog of depression.

  I gazed at Lili in my lap and heard another species of silence: the work that no longer speaks to you. It feels like illness, like ague. I laid the manuscript aside and did something I hadn't done since before I left my husband: put on the CD of Lili's choral music and turned up the volume to drown out the lovers' quarrel next door. I skimmed the liner notes on Lili's life and tried to revive my obsession for this woman, who had died in 1918, but who, in my novel, went on to live a long, fabulous life. Not so long ago every carat of her being had moved and inspired me: her precocious talent, her lifelong illness, her valiant, premature, unkvetchy death. Though her sister Nadia is, to this day, exalted in letters, memoirs, and musical homages, Lili is barely remembered, except by a few oddballs and cultists to whom she is angelic. I had an idea to rescue her—and myself too—from obscurity. And I wanted to take a few liberties with her memory.

  In my nervy invention of a life she might have lived, had she lived, she breaks with her sister and flees to America with the real-life avant-garde composer George Antheil. When he leaves her for a chorus girl, she heads for Hollywood to write movie scores for Sam Goldwyn. To sleep with John Barrymore. To eat burgers on the Fourth of July with Thomas Mann. Christopher Isherwood. David Hockney. Steven Spielberg. Her efforts to make peace with her sister are always rebuffed.

  I wanted to ransack the archives. To dynamite our ideas of worship and devotion.

  You have to understand: my marriage was unraveling when I conceived of the book. I was desperate to rewrite a real woman's life, not knowing until six months into it that I really wanted to rewrite my own. Where did that leave Lili now? Was my imagination large enough to hold her only as long as she could stand in for my own stifled yearnings?

  Within seconds of that thought, two things occurred that startled me, the first more profoundly than the second. I heard her music with more insight and clarity than I ever had and found it truly awful—thin, screechy, derivative. Second, the doorbell rang.

  "Who is it?" I called out and crossed the room. Jesús again, making me an offer I couldn't refuse? Daniel, nearly a day early?

  "It's me, darling." That disqualified Daniel. I mean the "darling." The only term of endearment in his adult-to-adult vocabulary—uttered to me about once every six weeks—was Ducks. "It's Henderson."

  I swung open the door and saw not Hendersons face but an immense basket of flowers, in which two birds of paradise poked up higher than the roses and delphiniums.

  "The doorman didn't announce you. Did you bribe him?"

  I was so used to his drop-in calls before memorial services that I was relieved to see he was wearing khaki shorts and a shiny red tank top that said Goldman Sachs Softball Team, which I knew to be a hand-me-down from the boyfriend of a boyfriend. Sweat cascaded down his neck despite the air-conditioning. "My sunglasses are melting," he announced, "and I saw a piece on the AP wire yesterday that said sunscreen doesn't work when the ozone layer looks like your mother's fishnet stockings. Have you been watching the Weather Channel?" He deposited the flower basket on my kitchen counter and tore off a long sheet of paper towel to wick the moisture that coated his exposed skin. He was a bit sunburned, a bit overweight, almost completely bald, an aging gay man with an acquired demeanor of unflappability that comes from having lost forty or fifty of his best friends and several layers of acquaintances. He and I had also met during my first week in New York, at the gay-lesbian-all-welcome AA meeting, and I could tell right away that Henderson had what they call in that circle "a lot of serenity." He, too, was much in the market for new friends.

  "I haven't bought my TV yet," I said. "What's the forecast?"

  "Misery everywhere but Swansea Island, where it's only seventy-eight degrees. You obviously didn't factor global warming into your decision to get divorced. Happy birthday, dear. I'm sorry I'm so late."

  "Just a week. I thought you were still in Provincetown. These are beautiful, H., but you know you didn't have to."

  "We all need flowers at forty-four, Sophy. It's the only thing we actually require this late in life. I've got to run home and pack for the Swiss fat farm, but I brought you a disk of my memoir, in case my building goes up in flames. I've got two chapters left, and if I weren't meeting Bianca at the fat farm, I'd bail. Not that I need to pack much to spend ten days drinking water on the side of a mountain. Where will you put the disk for safekeeping?"

  The diskette was in a clear plastic bag, sandwich size, and I could see he'd written on the label MY FAVORITE THINGS, the title of his memoir and of his down-at-the-heels cable TV talk show. He aspired to be a gay Charlie Rose and hoped the memoir, to be published next year, would give him the boost he needed to get a better TV station, a better time slot.

  "My favorite place," I said. "Inside a plastic container in the fridge, in case my building goes up in flames." Henderson always began his show with a witty monologue about his favorite things, which led to his introduction of his guest for that day. "Favorite Bach cantata? One hundred and five. Favorite wife of Pablo Picasso? Françoise Gilot. Favorite sexually explicit classic poem? Do you have to ask? Favorite Bible story for atheists? Abraham and Isaac. Favorite castrato? Farinelli. Favorite suicide note? Virginia Woolf's, natch. Favorite celebrity homemaker? Please. Welcome to the show, Martha. It's great to see you again."

  "Do you have time for a cup of coffee?"

  "A short one," Henderson said, "but don't make a fresh pot; give me what's left over with a splash of skim milk. How's Lili?"

  "I think she's having a midlife crisis. Or maybe it's menopause."

  "And how are you?"

  "Somewhat the same." I stuck a mug of coffee in the microwave and told Henderson I'd Fed Exed my separation agreement to my lawyer the day before yesterday.

  "How do you feel about it?"

  "Sad. And Will's pissed off at me. He owes me a thousand dollars for medical reimbursements and wont send the money.
Won't even answer my phone calls. I've left three or four messages."

  "Still seeing the Bionic Man? Has he topped forty-three minutes yet?"

  "I don't clock it every time. I've got two percent."

  "Of his attention? That seems awfully low, even for a straight man in New York."

  "Milk for the coffee. I've probably got ten percent of his attention. Guess what? I received a marriage proposal today."

  "Not from him, I take it."

  "A gay illegal alien."

  "It could be worse. Though I'm not sure how."

  There was the sudden blast of a bell—the doorman's intercom buzzer, which rings like an old-fashioned telephone but three times as loud.

  "Yes, what is it?" I shouted into the spray of holes in the wall by the intercom.

  "Mr. Jacobs on the way up."

  "Oh, Jesus," I muttered and turned to Henderson, who took what I could see was a final sip of coffee, set the mug down, and began moving sideways, crablike, to the front door.

  "Aren't you lucky, my dear."

  "He's five hours early."

  "Absence is an incredible aphrodisiac."

  "He's never this early. Sometimes fifteen minutes. Half an hour."

  "You underestimate your charms, Sophy. Take a good look at me, because next time you see me, I'll look the way I did on my wedding day. I'll send you a postcard from the fat farm, if I have the energy to lift a pencil. You know that's why monks fast, don't you? Because it makes you so exhausted, you can't even think about fucking. All you want is food."

  "Thomas Merton never said a word about that."

  "Never wrote a word, but I'm certain he said plenty, in between the vows of silence. He was too weak to write about it."

  There was the faintest knock at my door. Of course. Daniel felt sheepish appearing this way, his libido raging, his libido some bucking bronco he could not control—no fasting monk, he! If I'd been alone, I might have found it more winning to be dropped in on, but with an audience, even one as open-minded as Henderson, I was embarrassed to seem so available. Did he think I was there to service him at any hour of the day? And wasn't I? I swung open the big metal door, expecting to see him in his summer suit with a lascivious half-smile, the Times folded under his arm, something to read in the cab coming over here, his thoughts drifting lazily between Al Gore and 'me, me and my absurd willingness, the almost-divorced maid of constant hunger.

  But it was nothing of the sort.

  It was his daughter Vicki at my door. Not Mr. Jacobs, as I'd heard on the intercom, but Miss, age ten, approximately.

  "What happened?" I said. "What's wrong?" All I could imagine was that she'd come to tell me the others had perished at sea.

  "Nothing, Sophy."

  "Are you alone?"

  "Sure." She looked like an assortment of rich sorbets—wearing peach-colored shorts and a lavender T-shirt I had seen in the Gap Kid window on Broadway, and clutching a lime-green knapsack. I stepped aside to let her in and saw her look up suspiciously at Henderson. She was small for ten, but also for nine or eleven—none of the children had birth certificates; all their ages were ball park—and had to look up a long way. When I introduced them, she said, "Is that your first name or last?"

  "My last, but people started using it as my first when I was twenty-one."

  "How old are you now?"

  "Fifty-three."

  "Do you have any kids?"

  "As a matter of fact, I do. A son named Philip."

  "How old is he?"

  "He's thirty-one. He has a son too. His sons almost five." He wasn't camping it up when he said he was going to look as he had on his wedding day. He'd married right out of college—missing Vietnam because of a high draft number—and was so determined to prove his heterosexuality, he convinced his wife to have a child right away. When the inevitable came, she expressed her rage and revenge by taking their son to her parents' Texas home to be raised among rednecks. Though his son's name is Philip, Henderson usually refers to him as Dwight D., as in Eisenhower, because he is military-minded and homophobic. Henderson is convinced that Philip became a career army officer not only to rebel against his father but to dwell at an address—Fort Bragg, these days—that would deter Henderson from ever visiting.

  "Was the little boy born, or was he adopted?" Vicki said.

  "They were both born," Henderson said. "My son and my grandson. What about you?"

  "I was adopted. From Vietnam. You know where that is?"

  There was the slightest pause in his reply, slight in seconds, though I knew the silence went deep; that was where he had lost his first batch of friends. "I sure do."

  "Did you ever go there?"

  "No. I was supposed to, once, but I—it's a long story. I'll tell you sometime if you're interested. Do you remember it well?"

  She nodded. "I lived on a boat on the Perfume River. When I was little I slept in a basket that hung from the ceiling of the boat. Then I slept with my parents on the floor and we rocked all night because of the waves. Then my mother died. Then we moved to Danang. I remember a lot of chickens and my father's bicycle."

  "Vicki, honey, how did you get here?" I was transfixed by her appearance, the sudden intimacy with Henderson, the backward glance to Vietnam, but alarmed by the thought that Toinette, the children's Haitian nanny, would soon discover her missing and panic. And that there might be a substantial reason for her coming here—something she had to show or tell me.

  "I took a taxi."

  "How did you get my address?"

  "My dad's address book. The one by the phone in the kitchen."

  "Does Toinette know you're gone?"

  She shook her head.

  "You two obviously have some things to talk about," Henderson said, "and I've got to finish packing. It was a pleasure meeting you, Vicki, and I hope to see you soon."

  "I'm ten," she said, looking up at Henderson. "Approximately."

  "Really?"

  "I mean, I'm old enough to know that I was born and adopted. I was just trying to trick you."

  "It was a good trick." I could see he was trying not to smile. "You had me fooled."

  "Excellent," she said, and her sprightly inflection assured me that she was probably not here to deliver terrible news.

  When Henderson left, I invited her to sit on the couch, said I'd find something for us to snack on, and tried to affect nonchalance. It occurred to me she had read too many of those books about kids with no parents who are emboldened by their hard lives toward reckless gestures. "So what's up, kiddo?"

  "Don't tell my dad I came here, please, Sophy. The other kids are pretending I'm home in case Toinette looks for me."

  What did nervy ten-year-olds need these days that they had to keep from their parents? Marlboros? Glocks? RU 486? Or would this turn out to be some bit of innocence: she needed help buying a birthday present for Daniel? I filled two glasses with orange juice and a small plate with biscotti, and as I carried them to the coffee table by the couch, I saw she had taken something from her knapsack and placed it on the corner of the table. A large handmade greeting card, I thought, like something I'd helped the children make.

  "What have you got there?"

  "It's for you." She handed me the card, and for a moment I was too touched to speak. My name was spelled almost right, S-O-P-H-E, written in purple glittery ink and surrounded by a chain of bright blue feathers.

  "It's beautiful," I said.

  "Open it."

  It must have something to do with my birthday the week before. The ink inside was black and looked like Vicki's fairly grown-up hand, except for the signatures, which each child had done for him- or herself, in a variety of colors and sizes, at angles all their own, and it had nothing to do with my birthday.

  We herebye want you and Toto

  to live with us

  forevere

  please.

  Sincerely, Vicki

  Cam

  Tran

  Van

  For the f
irst time all day—an odd locution, given that it was only eleven-thirty in the morning—I was relieved to hear the doorbell ring. I turned away from all of Vicki's brave longing, and all of my own, and didn't ask who was at the door, didn't look through the peephole. My New Yorker's caution had not shielded me from any of the day's other bizarre intrusions. When I saw Jesús across from me in a dapper seersucker suit and glossy slicked-back hair, the two words that came to mind were "cognitive dissonance."

  "We can do ten," he said.

  "Ten what?"

  "Cash. Ten thousand."

  I mumbled something legalistic about my marriage and my divorce; the answer would have to be no for now, but thanks, thanks for thinking of me, as if he'd offered an extra ticket to the theater. When I turned and saw Vicki, to whom I could not mumble something so glib and final, she was ensconced on my couch, reading a book she must have had in her knapsack. She wore the glasses with tortoise-shell frames that she needed for reading, and she suddenly looked official, like a university librarian. I wondered whether she thought her invitation was one I had to reply to, like Jesus's, or one she held out to me as an expression of feeling, like an invitation to a hug.

  "What are you reading?"

  " The Secret Garden. I'm at the scene where Mary Lennox got the key to the garden where her aunt died and where no one's been for ten years. Do you know what she does after that?" I shook my head. "I know, because I read it before. She sneaks into the messy garden every day without telling anyone and makes it beautiful." Then Vicki bent her head and continued reading, as if there were no handmade greeting card on the coffee table between us.