Perfect Reader (23 page)

Cynthia’s office was a miniature of her living room—charmingly oppressive, the walls lined with images—though more cluttered, the desk suffocating under paper.

“Death by Turner,” she explained. “I’m at the stage where the research has completely taken over. It now has a life of its own. But don’t worry, I know just where it is.” She flung her vest on the burgundy desk chair and unlocked the oak filing cabinet in the corner of the room. From the top drawer she extracted the small leather bag Flora’s father had carried to and from campus every day of his academic life, at least since Flora had been paying attention. How had she not missed its absence in the house? The dark brown leather was worn around the edges, the threads of the handle precarious. Distinctly not a briefcase—that bulging, steroidal carryall—this bag was made to hold documents of the standard letter size, a few books, a scholar’s day.

“I stole it,” Cynthia said before Flora could ask. “The night your father died. I was deranged and I broke into the house—well, not exactly, I had a key—and I took things. I took his toothbrush, I took the navy blue V-neck sweater that he’d worn the day before, which was lying on the bed, I took his fountain pen from his desk, and I took this. I was in a daze, a frantic daze, if such a thing exists. I put the sweater on, and I shoved the pen and the toothbrush into my pockets, but I had no idea what to do with his bag, so I brought it here and locked it in the cabinet. It made a kind of sense at the time.”

The story of her derangement made Cynthia human and likable—the stealing something Flora could understand. She recognized her. “What’s in it?” she asked. From the way Cynthia held the bag, Flora saw it had greater significance than a toothbrush.

“Drafts and drafts. Drafts with many markings and annotations—some mine, mostly his. These poems didn’t come to your father in some hasty and ill-conceived spasm of inspiration, Flora. I want you to know that. He labored over them, he wrote them slowly, and delicately, and with great care, and he revised and revised and revised.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Flora said. Though really she did. She had never known him to go back; he was not that kind of writer. He wrote in his head, pacing and pausing in the hallway, and came to the page almost finished, done as he began.

“You say they’re not ready, but you see,
he
was ready. After months and months of fine-tuning, he felt they were finished. He’d been living with many of the poems for a lifetime. I’d read several different versions by the time he gave you the manuscript. So you see, you may not be ready, for whatever reason, but your father was.”

What was she, competing?
I saw them first! Marked them with my pen!
With her confession, Cynthia offered a version of herself Flora could like. But it was a false idol. She wasn’t confessing because the bag belonged to Flora and it was the right thing to do; she was pushing, furthering her publication campaign. The woman was relentless.

“You had no right to take that,” Flora said. “What, were you going to hide them away in here forever? If we’d not happened upon each other in the bowels of the earth?”

“No, I told you, I’ve been trying to reach you. What I want to say is, if he were alive right now—”

“If he were alive right now?
We could spend a lifetime on
if he were alive right now.”

“My point is, the poems would be well on their way toward publication. An editor whom he respected—”

“I understand your point perfectly well. But the whole point is he is most distinctly not alive right now. Which changes things, doesn’t it? If he were, I would not be here in Darwin, and most likely I would still be contentedly unaware of your existence, my father having never bothered to introduce us, and my having never read the magnum opus in the first place.” Flora hadn’t intended to admit to that, but there it was—out.

Cynthia sat as the words sank in. “That’s why you were so surprised that day when I showed up at his house. You hadn’t read them.”

“And why should I have? I am his daughter, his child. Has everyone forgotten that? Did he honestly want my critical feedback, my unprofessional opinion? On his soft-core porn and fantasies of having never met my mother? Did it ever even occur to him—or to you, for that matter—that I might find some of the
content
objectionable? His ecstasies at your naughtiness, and the agonies of his former married life? Was the thought that I should be able to read the poems simply as works of literature?”

“Is that how you read them? I don’t read them that way at all—no regrets or revisions. Imagined worlds, perhaps. But they’re about acceptance, finally, and forgiveness, and, yes, sex and love. Even in the poem where he imagines we’d met when we were young, he acknowledges there would be loss in that, too, that then he would not touch me now as he could in this world: ‘touch in that now no longer new.’ That’s the brilliance of his work—he’s so clear-eyed. ‘Rewriting revisionist history,’ he says, and he means it.”

“Yes, then, we read them differently.”

“I’m not your adversary, Flora. We’re on the same side. We both loved your father. We only want what’s best for him.”

“Oh, please. You want what’s best for you. You want the Odes to Cynthia Reynolds to get the attention they deserve. You want the world to finally meet the muse.”

Flora had not removed her coat, and felt hot. She had raised her voice only just, but infused it with a reduction of sarcasm that seemed to suit the accusation as well. It was a tone she had never taken with someone she did not love.

Cynthia looked stunned. Had no one ever spoken to her that way? Maybe she’d never seen the Dempsey meanness—that, too, unearned in the briefness of their romance. But she said nothing, and Flora wondered if the silence meant she had won. Cynthia pushed the bag across a clear and narrow path on the desk.

“You should have these,” she said.

It was unsatisfying to have her not fight back. If it was a victory, it was a cheap one. There were many things Cynthia might accuse her of: She was an absent daughter, never visiting; she was not her father’s perfect reader, not the reader as understander, but had read his poems selfishly; she was hoarding the poems, the house, the memorial, keeping everything his to herself.

Flora took the bag.

“I was hoping for a friendship,” Cynthia said. “That’s what I had wanted for us. I thought we’d both be grown-up enough to do that.” There it was, the dig embedded in the endearment. “And yes, Flora, you are his daughter—I’m well aware of that. No one has forgotten that. But you are no longer a child.”

In her chair, Cynthia looked small, as though she were hiding behind the papers, worried Flora might throw something at her.

“Thanks for this,” Flora said, lifting her father’s bag so Cynthia could see it. “If you’d like, I’d be happy to make you a copy.”

18

The Science Correspondent

T
WO PLANS WERE SLATED FOR EARLY
M
ARCH,
Flora and Paul beginning to plan on each other: On Saturday, they would have dinner at Madeleine and Ray’s, and the next day they would drive to his father’s house for a family luncheon, his sister from the city briefly visiting.

“We want to meet this guy you’re spending all this time with!” Madeleine had said.

“I’m not spending that much time with him,” Flora argued, but she had agreed and then failed to extend the invitation, which would necessitate telling Paul about Georgia, telling Paul about herself. She’d seen the McNair-Wallachs twice since Thanksgiving, and each time had been lovely—if you didn’t count the crowd of unlovely unspeakables these cozy reunions unearthed.

At her old job at the magazine, one of Flora’s favorite things had been cutting—an article had been assigned at three thousand words but an ad had fallen out, they’d lost a page, and it needed to run at fifteen hundred. She was often called upon, the other editors finding the task tedious. But it amazed her how so many words proved themselves expendable, that the story could be just as good, better even, when reduced by half. It amazed and depressed her. But the hewing itself was only pleasurable, a puzzle, a word game. If, as her father’s literary executor, she could simply cut his poems in half, cut half of them sheer away, her life would now be simpler. Still, there were other ways to cut. Secrets were a kind of cutting, silences another sort. There were many such cuts between her and Paul. She thought of the stories Cynthia had told her—of her father reading aloud while she worked in the garden—the complete image, the fantasy of companionship. It was hard not to envy. Flora did not tell Paul of her fight with Cynthia because she knew whose side he’d take. And when Madeleine asked her to bring him to dinner, it occurred to Flora she had never mentioned them to Paul.

The week before the chosen day, as they lay in his bed, not yet sleeping, she made herself give Paul the pared-down, brutally edited, clause-pruned version.

“When I was nine, after my parents split, there was an accident at the President’s House.”

Paul put his crossword aside.

“My best friend, Georgia, was badly hurt.”

“You never said.”

“I know. That’s why I’m telling you.”

He stared at her.

“She’s fine now,” Flora added. “In Mongolia, actually.”

“What happened?”

“Oh, stupid kids’ games. She fell.”

“You still don’t like to talk about it?”

“Believe me, I’ve talked about it. I spent years talking about it with Dr. Berry, among other people.”

He nodded. “Love that woman.” He wouldn’t stop looking at her. He had a way of looking at her that made her feel like she couldn’t breathe. His gaze vacuumed the air out of the room. She wanted him to say something thoughtful and benign, but he said nothing. Was her mother right that she expected people to adhere to a script? That she was too easily disappointed by what they came up with on their own? But didn’t certain announcements presuppose certain responses? Wasn’t mind reading, in times like these, a matter of being fucking human?

“I’d been close to her family—they were almost like surrogate parents—and then I wasn’t, and now since I’ve been back in Darwin, we’ve gotten back in touch, and anyway, they want to meet you,” Flora said. “Madeleine and Ray—Georgia’s parents. They’ve invited us to dinner.”

Paul’s dimple appeared midcheek, in the sudden, magical way that it did. He was smiling at her. “So, this is getting serious?” he said.

“What is?”

“You and me. You’re getting serious about me.”

“Why, because I told you?”

“Because of this dinner. Taking me to meet the almost parents.”

Was he really finding a way to make this about him? But Flora couldn’t help it: She laughed; she played along. “Don’t get any funny ideas,” she said. “I’m just using you for the free legal advice.”

“What about my ass?” he said, pulling her on top of him. “I thought you were using me for my finely toned ass?” This was one of their jokes. Paul, one of those lanky men, his long body two parallel lines, a piece of linguine, with no ass to speak of.

“That, too.” She reached her hands under him. “Your legal advice, your ass, and your dimple.” She kissed him on the dimple.

“Let’s face it,” he said. “It’s a winning combination.” He slipped her tank top off her shoulders, then stopped and looked at her again, looked at her like her face was an endless bewilderment. “My sad Flora,” he said. “What am I going to do with you?”

As the dinner approached, it loomed, a mistake. A day after she’d invited him, he’d reciprocated, inviting her to meet his dad and sisters, so that was nice. But she’d left too much out. On the drive there, she said, “Please don’t mention the accident.”

Paul’s face flashed irritation. “So many secrets with you,” he said. “How could I mention it? I don’t know anything about it.”

“Just don’t,” she said. “And maybe don’t mention my dad, either.”

“Are you sure you want me to come, Flora? Are there any topics I have your permission to broach?”

But she couldn’t say, couldn’t explain. She tried to smooth the wrinkles between them. “You know Darwin. Where grudges stick to the ribs like porridge.”

They pulled into the driveway and Paul bent his head to examine the bright salmon of the house through the windshield. “Weird color,” he said.

“I think it’s pretty,” Flora said, defensive. An inauspicious start to the evening.

She was relieved when Ray announced the cool night warm enough to cook outside. She wanted to talk to Madeleine alone. Grilling was no casual recreation for Ray—natural wood, not charcoal, timing very sensitive. And even in Darwin, gender rules decreed that where there was meat being charred, there were men. Ray and Paul monitored the smoldering briquettes, the steam from their breath the miniature of the smoke from the grill, and in the kitchen Madeleine and Flora chopped mushrooms and peppers, tofu and lamb into neat squares for the brochettes. When Flora went out to bring the men each a glass of wine, they were on the innocuous topic of tennis. Did Paul play tennis? She didn’t even know.

“Very cute,” Madeleine half-whispered to Flora as she came back in. “And tall. I see why he caught your eye.”

“You don’t think it’s too weird—the way we met? Through my dad’s will?”

“Well, of course it’s weird, Flora. But who cares? Something about him reminds me of your father, actually. The way he carries his body—that elegant slouchiness.”

“Great, Madeleine. There’s an image I don’t need.”

“Hey, these things are important. We’re drawn to the familiar. Don’t underestimate the value of narcissism.”

“Believe me, I don’t. But isn’t that maladaptive, to be drawn to the familiar? Shouldn’t the preservation of the species drive us to look for mates who are completely different from us? You know, to avoid incest?” Flora had been reading Darwin’s letters, as her father had months before. Darwin had insinuated himself into her daily life, the way people in books did. Darwin—the most present man in her life these days. Who understood more about species and their survival than anyone around him, and still married his first cousin; who wrestled to reconcile his faith and his science until his beloved daughter Ann died and faith no longer served.

“We shall now hear from our Evolutionary Biology Correspondent,” Madeleine said, deepening her voice to sound like a news commentator. She held the eggplant she had been about to slice in front of Flora as though it were a microphone—an old family joke the McNair-Wallachs brought out when anyone waxed authoritative on a subject of which she knew nothing: the Science Correspondent, the Foreign Policy Correspondent, the Ancient Cultures Correspondent.

“That reminds me,” Flora said.

“That reminds you?” Madeleine said, eggplant still in place, laughing.

“Yes, I’m serious, listen.” Madeleine lowered the eggplant. Flora wanted to tell her everything; she’d wanted to for weeks. Madeleine didn’t like Cynthia; Madeleine would be on her side. “Cynthia Reynolds wants to host a reading of my father’s work. She’s found an editor, and she wants to publish it, too.”

“The criticism? The Hardy Boys? Hasn’t that already been published?”

Flora smiled, surprised by Madeleine’s memory: Her father’s name for his main men. “No, there was more, more writing than just the scholarship. There were poems.”

Madeleine did not look surprised. She was nodding, as if it made perfect sense. “He’d always wanted to write poetry, hadn’t he? And he finally did it. That gives one hope for the future, doesn’t it?”

“Does it?”

“Oh, it doesn’t?”

“No, it does, it does. Only they’re complicated—the poems. Beyond autobiographical, they’re intensely private. They’re hard.”

“So you don’t want to have a reading. You don’t want an editor.”

“It’s not that. I do, I think. I just don’t want to do it now. I need more time.”

“And Cynthia understands that?”

“I wish there were no Cynthia.”

Madeleine’s face scrunched into a smile. She ate a bite of yellow pepper. “Your father had a good life, Flora. He accomplished a lot. It shouldn’t be a child’s job to make sure a parent gets all he wanted out of life in death. That’s not your job.”

Flora skewered a lump of tofu. “But isn’t it? As his literary executor.”

“If you want to know what I think, I think it was selfish of him to appoint you. You’re young, and still sorting out what to do with your own professional life—you shouldn’t have to sort his out, too. It makes it impossible for you to move on, and ultimately that’s what you need to do.”

Flora had asked for this, known what she was getting. She felt disloyal. Also grateful. There was one thing more she wanted to ask Madeleine, about the poem “The Wizard,” but she stopped herself. It belonged to the forbidden past. “You don’t think I’m avoiding the inevitable?” she asked instead.

“So what if you are? Speaking of evolutionary traits. Avoidance has served a range of species admirably for millennia. Avoidance often starts out adaptive. Only later does it become neurotic.”

Flora rested her head on Madeleine’s shoulder. The firmness of the shoulder, the softness of the arm, for a second it was home. How much easier would it be if this really were her family, if she were the daughter bringing her boyfriend home to meet Mom and Dad? Madeleine gave her arm a quick squeeze. The men called out, the grill was ready. Flora lifted her head and relinquished Madeleine from the moment.

At the table, Madeleine told them about a student in her Freud seminar she was convinced had come to class stoned three times in a row. “My question is,” she said, emphasizing each word, “why bother coming? It’s insulting. Does he think I don’t know what being high on dope looks like? Does he think I’m that old and out of it? Or does he think it’s okay, it’s cool, it’s so like whatever, dude?”

Ray focused on his food. Flora feigned shock. “I’m sorry—did you just say ‘like whatever, dude’?”

A reformed hippie, Madeleine had become rather strict. She explained that the same thing happened every semester—some student who riled her with his or her rudeness, or the slovenliness of his or her work, or a more general pattern of childishness. Previous years’ infractions included baseball cap wearing, lack of teeth brushing and all varieties of limited hygiene, inappropriate cleavage bearing, lateness, and a phantom vibrating cell phone. “I’m not their mother,” she said. “Why are they always looking for a mommy? I bet they don’t pull this stuff with their male professors.”

“Maybe their male professors aren’t watching them like hawks,” Ray said. He winked at Paul, who received the comment with excessive pleasure.

“Maybe the kid’s just sleepy,” Flora offered in defense of the most recent case.

“That’s what Ray said.” Madeleine glared at her husband. “You guys are such softies.”

“Or,” Flora added, “maybe he has some terrible debilitating illness and it’s medical marijuana. Maybe he has to smoke to deal with the pain.”

Madeleine jerked her head back, as if to get a better look at who the hell Flora really was. “Cheerful, Flo. Now I have to stop feeling annoyed at the kid and start feeling sorry for him?”

“Or, maybe …,” Flora teased.

“Enough! Enough! I see I’m not going to get any sympathy from you.”

“For a stoned freshman? No, I don’t think so.”

Ray changed the subject: “Has Madeleine told you what I’ve been working on, with your alma mater, Flo, Darwin Regional High. The school, that is?”

“No, what is it?”

“A meditation course. I’m helping to organize it.” In recent years, Ray had become a dedicated student of meditation. The way some analysts could trace their lineage back to Freud, Ray’s teacher at the Darwin Transcendental Meditation Center was only two steps removed from the Maharishi—one of the many things, Ray said, connecting him to John Lennon. “It’s going to be offered in the cafeteria after school, once a week. Meditation, yoga, pranayama. There’s a lot of interest in the school system. In the wake of school shootings and rising dropout rates. There’s a lot of activism in reducing stress, and violence.”