Fall from Grace (28 page)

Jenny nodded. “I know it would be for me. Still, I’d like to see everything I can.”

Ben regarded her with curiosity. “Why is that?”

“Because writers shouldn’t protect themselves. I want to know the truth, whatever that is, then write about it in a way that causes other people to see.” She shook her head. “My problem is how little I’ve experienced.”

“Oh, you’ll catch up,” Clarice assured her. “At this age, you and Adam have barely nibbled around the edges.”

With a dubious smile, Jenny looked around her at the polished antiques, the ornate Persian carpets, the African masks, and Asian tapestries on the Blaines’ spacious walls. Adam could follow her thoughts—Clarice’s remark, though intended kindly, reflected an ease of access to the world Jenny Leigh had never known. Judging from his observant look, Ben saw this as well. “I know what you’re feeling,” he told her. “I remember having nothing, and wondering if my ambitions were delusional. Like you, I’d barely been off this island. But for all its faults, this is a meritocratic country. A smart young woman like you has the power to create her own future. But you have to want that with every fiber of your being.”

This, Adam knew, was the heart of Ben’s code—that the world was a malleable place for those with the will to make it so. Pleasantly, his father said to Jenny, “Tell me about your family.”

Briefly, she averted her eyes. “Not much to tell. My father’s long gone. There’s only me and my mom.”

There was a great deal of meaning, Adam knew, in these few words—abandonment, struggle, an adolescence without nurturing. “My father was a vicious drunk,” Ben responded bluntly. “I used to wish he had taken off. But not all of us can be so lucky.” He paused, moderating his tone. “I don’t mean to make light of it. Drunk or absent, we both wanted the father we didn’t have.”

From Jenny’s expression, open now, Adam perceived that his father had succeeded in disarming her. “It’s all I know,” she told him. “In some ways, I guess I raised myself.”

Ben smiled at this. “From what Adam tells me, and from meeting you, I’d say you’ve done just fine.” He turned to his wife, including her. “Wouldn’t you say so, Clarice?”

“I would,” Clarice said firmly. “On that point, at least, it seems that the Blaines are unanimous.”

Turning from Ben to Clarice, Jenny gave them both an incandescent smile. Relieved, Adam began to hope that the evening would go as he had planned.

At dinner, his biggest concern was for Jenny herself, nodding each time Ben offered to fill her glass with wine, chilled on ice inside the Herreshoff Cup—an act of proprietary lèse-majesté that, Adam suspected, was calculated to remind the son that this prize belonged to his father. Though he rarely saw Jenny drink, Adam could anticipate the changes in her behavior—by dinner she was vivacious, even charming, but poised on the brink of unpredictability. “If you had your choice of travels,” Clarice asked her, “where would you go first?”

To Adam’s mind, Jenny considered the question too long, as though wine had altered the chemistry in her brain. “This may sound strange, but I don’t really care. I’d like the experience to pick me, then let me be surprised by how I’ve changed. Sort of like going in the Peace Corps, and winding up somewhere you’ve never imagined.”

“A fair response,” Ben answered. “Only my Peace Corps was the army. I learned about cowardice then, and cruelty, and nobility. And I was forced to look inside myself—the best of me and the beast in me.” His tone became insistent. “Good writing takes courage. You have to see the truth about other people, and about yourself. Often, it’s not pretty. But after Vietnam I couldn’t read novels that sugarcoated the human condition, and it’s good you don’t want to write them.” Glancing at Adam, he said more easily, “My son says you brought a short story. If you don’t mind, I’d be pleased to read it.”

Jenny flushed. “I’d love that,” she answered, her voice laden with humility.

Ben took the story to his den, closing the door behind him.

Minutes passed, with Adam and Clarice trying to keep Jenny at ease. Adam knew that what was happening behind Ben’s door must feel momentous—a verdict not just on her writing but on Jenny herself. Adam understood the feeling all too well.

Suddenly, Jenny covered her face, a comic pantomime of apprehension. “God,” she told them. “I feel like I’m sitting outside the emergency room and someone’s operating on my baby.”

“Well,” Clarice ventured with a hopeful sigh, “maybe they can save him.”

Jenny managed to laugh. “In all seriousness,” Clarice went on, “Ben’s an honest critic, but not a cruel one. Whatever he says, he’ll mean it to be helpful.”

Slowly, Jenny nodded. “I know he will. And I wanted so much for him to read it. It’s just that I’ve never shown my work to anyone but my teachers, and all of them consider Benjamin Blaine one of our greatest writers. Now I’m sitting here wondering what he thinks of me.”

“Your story,” Clarice corrected. “Not you. After all, your life is subject to many more revisions—”

Ben’s door opened abruptly. He emerged with a snifter of cognac, his thoughtful gaze directed at the rug, then sat in his chair across from Jenny. Looking up at her, he raised his eyebrows in an ironical expression. “I suppose you’re curious what I think.”

Jenny laughed nervously. “A little.”

“All right,” he responded briskly. “For openers, you can write. Your imagery is strong, though strained at times. I’ve scribbled some notes in the margins, and underlined passages I particularly liked or questioned. I wouldn’t have bothered if this story were no good.” His voice became stern. “Just from reading it, I’d have known you were young. Too often you try to kill your readers with sentence after dazzling sentence, until you’re all too likely to succeed. You want to write simply and clearly, so that the reader sees and feels what you’re describing rather than stopping to admire the brilliance of your prose.” He leaned forward, looking at Jenny with deep seriousness. “That said, you’ve written a number of passages with real clarity and grace. But there’s also a depth to the writing, a genuine grasp of character.”

Watching Jenny sag in relief, Adam felt this, too—his father would not have delivered this speech unless he meant it. In a lighter tone, Ben told her, “I particularly like the young woman in the story. She’s so uncertain of herself, yet so clear about what she sees around her.” Smiling, he added, “You probably know that girl, too.”

“As well as I can,” Jenny confessed. “Sometimes she confuses me.”

“Then try to get her figured out,” Ben urged. “The talent is there. The only question is whether that same young woman is tough enough. And only you can answer that.”

Jenny cocked her head, her eyes filling with doubt. “What do you mean?”

“Several things. Tell me when you write.”

Jenny moved her shoulders. “In spurts, I guess. When I’m feeling creative.”

“That won’t cut it, Jenny. Writing, like life, is showing up every day.” Animated by his own passion, Ben stood and began pacing, seeming to fill the room. “Make a deal with yourself—ten hours of writing, every week, or maybe five good pages. Then stick to it.” He took a deep swallow of cognac. “Life is choices. You can go to a movie or you can write a chapter. So ask yourself this: Would you rather watch someone else’s creation or create something that’s yours alone?”

Listening, Adam was struck by his father’s elemental force, seldom quite this naked. Suddenly, Ben pointed. “See that chair, Jenny? Jack made it with his own hands. It’s perfect in form, at once elegant and simple. A novel is like a chair—a tangible thing, with a distinctive shape and design.” Turning, he waved to a shelf filled with his work. “And I made these. Everything they are comes from me. And yet, unlike Jack’s chair, millions of people have held them in their hands and in their minds.”

Adam noticed Clarice look down. For the first time, a discordant note had entered the room, Ben’s denigration of his brother. But Jenny did not seem to notice. “Too many writers,” Ben went on, “lack the guts and drive to take their talent all the way. Don’t let go of a sentence or a scene until it’s the best you’ve got inside you. You have to be ruthless with the people who distract you, and even more ruthless with yourself. If you can do that, Jenny, I’ll read your second draft. Do we have a deal?”

Jenny looked stunned. Belatedly, she gave Ben her brightest smile. “Definitely.”

“Good.” Pausing, Ben seemed to step out of his own spell, then looked from Adam to Jenny with a smile that seemed to mock his own passion. “So go have fun, the two of you. You’ve spent enough time with pontificating elders.”

Adam and Jenny drove away, headed for the beach at Dogfish Bar, Jenny glowing with wine and elation. “He was so amazing,” she exclaimed. “When you’re with him, you just know why he’s so great. It’s unbelievable that he liked my story.”

Adam felt the tug of jealousy. “True enough,” he allowed. “But what’s even more unbelievable is that I’ve never read it.”

Jenny gave him a sideways look. “Don’t confuse things, okay? This is about my writing, and between me and your dad. You and I are separate.”

“Not if you’re anything like him, Jen. What he writes is all about who he is.” Adam paused, trying to unravel his emotions, then cautioned, “He’s admirable and selfish in equal measure. You don’t need to be exactly like him to succeed.”

Receding into her thoughts, Jenny did not answer. They headed down South Road toward the Gay Head cliffs, perhaps a hundred feet from the lighthouse that marked the turnoff to the beach. Suddenly, impulsively, Jenny said, “I want you, Adam. Right now.”

Adam laughed, startled by her change of mood. “Where?”

Smiling, Jenny gazed out the windshield. “Don’t you have a passkey to the lighthouse?”

“My dad does. They gave him a key for helping save it.”

“Then find the closest parking place. You and I are standing watch.”

She was pretty drunk, Adam knew, but also high on excitement, feeling reckless now and looking for an outlet. He could either resist her, deflating the moment, or go along for the ride.

Braking, Adam parked, snatching his father’s key from the glove compartment. “Come on,” Jenny urged. As they left the car, she tugged at his hand, pulling him in her wake. Together they ran across the grass to the lighthouse.

Taking out Ben’s key, Adam jerked open the metal door. They darted inside, slamming it behind them, Jenny scurrying up the twisting steps, her footsteps and laughter echoing as he followed.

Panting, he reached the top. Jenny looked out the aperture, eyes fixed on the water. Her dress was on the floor.

Adam stared at her. Still watching the sunset, Jenny unhooked her bra and stepped out of her panties, arching her back toward him. “This way,” she instructed. “Hurry.”

Astonished and aroused, Adam stripped, entranced by this new Jenny. Bracing her hips, he gently began to enter her, and discovered she was wet. As he slipped inside her, she leaned her torso out the window. “Touch my nipples,” she implored him.

He did that. “Harder,” she demanded, and then Adam was caught in the frenzy of her desire. When he placed his head beside hers, he saw the orange light spreading on blue water. Then Adam closed his eyes, his thrusts from behind her swifter, deeper. Suddenly, she cried out, the shudder consuming her body in a way he had never felt. When he joined her, Jenny laughed in delight. “Stay inside me, Adam, as long as you can. This is my favorite sunset ever.”

Once it had been Adam’s, as well. Now, ten years later, he sat at his old desk, studying their photographs—his father, dead; Jenny, gazing at him from a time before she tried to end her life.

Four

Unable to sleep, Adam felt his thoughts drifting from Jenny to Carla Pacelli.

I followed Ben on one of his nightly jaunts, his mother had said, and saw him standing with a woman on the promontory.

In the morning, he went there, barely cognizant of a day ironic in its warmth and brightness. Again and again, his mind returned to whether Carla had known about the will and, as Teddy’s account might suggest, had come to fear that Ben might change it back. He tried to imagine his father and Carla standing here together as dusk enveloped them, Ben blurting out his misgivings, Carla facing the loss of ten million dollars—a combustible moment between a dying, weakened man and a newly desperate woman. A split second of calculated fury, with Benjamin Blaine sent hurtling into the void.

If that were true, his brother was paying for a lethal combination of ill luck and a stupid lie that rendered his story unbelievable. But in turn this thesis required Carla Pacelli to have lied about every key element of her narrative—her ignorance of the will, her refusal to enter Ben’s property, his father’s decision to live with her, her belief that he was murdered by a member of his family. Unless Adam could prove all this false, and Carla a murderer, Clarice faced losing the only life she knew, and Teddy faced a life in prison that, for him, might be worse than dying. He could not let this happen.

Reining in his emotions, he walked toward Carla’s cottage.

The sun grew warmer, the breeze light. Still, he hardly noticed this. He was too intent on forcing some telling mistake from a woman whose intelligence and self-possession seemed a match for his own.

Crossing the grassy field toward the guesthouse, Adam saw the deck, sheltered from his view by pine trees, on which Carla and his father had sat on the first night he had come to her. From this angle all that was visible was one corner, with a book and sunglasses on the railing, suggesting that she was nearby. But only when he passed the tree line did he see her.

She was lying naked on a chaise longue, sunbathing. Her eyes were closed, her robe draped on a nearby chair. Adam froze, mute. She was stunningly beautiful, her body ripe but slender save for the incongruous roundness of her belly. In the moment it took him to comprehend what he was seeing, Carla opened her eyes.

She looked startled, and then her face set, her eyes ablaze. “Don’t you ever call first?” she said with tenuous calm. “Even your father learned to do that.”

Adam willed himself to see only her face. “I apologize,” he managed to say.