Sex and Death in the American Novel (10 page)

My body was there but my heart wasn't in it. Looking at the picture of his smug face in the program, I reveled in a hateful glee; like a common schoolyard bully, I wanted to make fun. “Look Mom,” I said. “He's been writing since he was seventeen! Honestly, how much experience can you gain holed up in your room typing. He hasn't
lived;
at least Tristan went out and had fun before he got serious. Isn't a writer supposed to live?”

My mother stared at me. “Vivianna. Please lower your voice,” she said, looking around. People filed in at intervals from doorways below us. A few came in and sat behind us or farther down the aisle. Eric gave me a look that questioned my behavior, but didn't say anything.

I threw up my hands. I wanted to tell her all about Jasper Caldwell and how he'd left Tristan standing there almost literally with his dick in his hands, and then stood him up the next day to boot. The tense look on her face cooled that urge. She seemed to really want to hear him again—maybe
relive the time, just for a few more hours, a time in both of our lives when we were still complete. The warring urges to be obnoxious and play the good girl twisted me up inside.

Before I could answer my mother, the lights went down and a white-haired woman walked up to the podium and spoke for several long minutes about the importance of Jasper's work, and listed his credentials. It was college all over again, like we couldn't read the program. Most of the people here were probably as in love with him as my mother was and already knew this stuff anyway. A
New Yorker
article at nineteen. An O. Henry Award at twenty-three. Finalist for the National Book Award for his second novel at twenty-seven. Now this current one was getting the right reviews in the right publications.

After several long minutes of introduction, the woman stretched an arm toward the side of the stage and Jasper emerged tipping his head back to look up into the rafters, shielding his eyes from the stage lights. Since I'd seen him, he'd cut his hair, and it seemed to have darkened. Gone was the puffy geek look. Here stood a tall, slender, dark-haired guy with compact black spectacles and a deep-gray button-down shirt.

He took a full minute to remove his jacket, folding it over once. He bent to his bag, dug through it, removing several scattered pages and placed the jacket on top of the bag and stood. He looked around, adjusted the microphone, and ran his hand through his lightly feathered hair. He took the glass of water that sat on the podium, brought it to his lips, took a sip, placed the glass back down and slid it to the side of the podium with the backs of his fingers. His fingers wrapped around the sheets of paper in front of him, tapped them into a neat orderly pile, the sound echoing crisp in the silent anticipation of the audience. Finally he placed his feet apart and looked out on the crowd.

“Jeez, he knocked five minutes off his talk time right there,” I said. Mother shot me a look with narrow eyes and placed her finger to her lips. She leaned toward me and said, “I want to see this. Your brother thought so highly of him, I want to listen more closely this time.”

She still thought he was some kind of hero. I couldn't wreck her feeling that she was in the presence of some positive way to remember my brother. Her face was like that of someone in church: turned up, rapt, worshipful.

Jasper rolled up the sleeves on his crisp, button-down shirt and leaned forward, wrapping both hands around each side of the podium. He looked down at the pages in front of him, cleared his throat and said, “It's an honor to be asked to appear here. I will be reading from a speech I gave last year in the UK.” He arched his back, and put both hands down the back of his pants
pushing his shirt down. “I don't get out much and it is great to see so many people willing to make an effort for the sake of literature.”

“Oh brother, like no one else knows how to read. He's surprised that anyone else reads
literature
,” I said, under my breath. An older woman down below turned and looked into the balcony, unable to figure out exactly where the voice had come from. Mother shifted in her seat, looked around and faced forward and pretended she hadn't heard me.

I decided to behave myself and pulled the fabric of my jacket over my lap and began to examine it. I did listen, though most of what I heard sat with me and lodged itself in the place where my worries went to harden into full-blown anxieties. The main thrust of what he spoke about was getting to the place where he as a writer was afraid, and working with that material, often for years before knowing if he had anything worthwhile. No wonder my brother had to end his life if this was what he had to look forward to.

The performance was truly comic how many times he had to stop to correct some reference that wasn't applicable anymore. He lifted his head at one point and said, “I promise I'm going to go home and update this speech.”

He got a soft patient laugh from the audience. I shook my head, and made a big show of putting my head in my hands. After a few moments the only thing I could do was sit still, lest I slip out an insult, or worse. Images of my brother hunched over his laptop, printing that stupid letter, scribbling on it, tossing it aside, starting over. Nausea rose in my throat imagining the reverent tone he was searching for, for hours and possibly days. Then my throat tightened again, almost a daily occurrence until a few months ago—apparently the feelings were back. Lovely. What had Tristan finally told his fair author? You inspire me…or more awful…how can I be like you? God, I hoped my brother hadn't sunk as low as soliciting advice. I imagined Jasper skimming the letter and tossing it aside, scurrying back to his work hole, blocking out the rest of the world.

Jasper went on for another twenty minutes, then took questions from the audience. When the applause finally died down and the lights came back up, I was the first to stand.

“So?” I asked my mother as we filed toward the reception area. “Could he have delivered that any worse?”

“I think he is just a tortured soul, working so hard in seclusion.”

“And he hardly ever gets out,” Eric offered to my mother, then gave me a pointed look before leading her ahead.

“It shows,” I said.

Barbara, the drag queen from Neighbours, fell in step beside us. She smelled of cigarette smoke and powdery-orange perfume. She was dressed
well for an event like this. If I didn't know who she was, I might miss the fact that she was a guy.

“You coming out tonight?” Barbara asked.

“I hope so,” I said, hoping indeed I had enough energy to make it to the car after this. Her voice got low and said, “That was brilliant, absolutely brilliant.” Then she switched topics with a wide-eyed look. “What you did with your hair? You look great in purple.” She stroked my cheek with her large hand, then said, “Gotta run, I want to be first in line with that little one.”

“He's not that little,” Eric said.

Barbara gave him a long up-and-down look. “They're all little to me, sweetie,” and with that she blew past us toward the crowd forming on the balcony section of the lobby near where Jasper was supposed to greet everyone. At the moment, servers in black and white were setting out assorted cheeses and bread. A stiff young man stood next to a round table topped with assorted glasses of wine and big round water glasses.

When we got to the area and could go no further, my mother turned to me. “Honestly Vivianna, I don't know what has gotten into you. I did not raise you to behave this way.” She looked to Eric, then to me, and stalked off to stand in line. I hung back with Eric.

“What's the deal,” he said, squeezing my arm. When he did this, the façade I'd built began to crack.

“I wouldn't tell my mother this,” I said. Hearing my voice waver, I took a breath and let it out my nose. The air was cool and I closed my eyes. “My brother loved this guy…wrote him letters…read every stupid long-winded book he ever said was an influence. He worshipped him.”

“That's why your mother wanted you to come to this with her,” Eric said.

I nodded. “So we go to this conference in Montana. He spoke there and Tristan waited a half hour to be able to talk to him, and then when he finally got there, Jasper just waved at him and ran off with this fucking bimbo.”

“What did Tristan do?”

“Nothing. Made excuses for him, typical Tristan.”

Eric crossed his arms. “So what do you want to do?”

I bit my lip, my stomach churned. I didn't want to make a scene—that was the last thing I wanted. I leaned over on tiptoes and saw that Mother was in line two people back and would soon be able to talk to Jasper. I paced while Eric watched me. On one hand, it would give me immeasurable satisfaction to tell Jasper what I thought of him, to tell him just what his lack of courtesy had cost my brother, had cost me. What would Tristan think? Silly, but I looked around the room, hoping to catch a glance of him or someone who looked like him, something that happened every so often, just enough to give me comfort.

There was just Eric, and then my mother was stalking over. “Well, I did it. I told him he was a wonderful writer and that my son loved his work very much. He was very gracious…We can go now.”

With a glance at Jasper I said, “I'm going to catch a cab home.”

My mother put her hands up and let them fall. “You?” she looked to Eric.

He gripped her elbow and said, “I'll walk you to your car.”

As I waited my turn in line, Barbara passed me, took a look at me and stopped. “Everything okay?”

I nodded and gave her my biggest smile until she stopped searching my eyes and whisked back toward the exit in a cloud of jingling bracelets and sandalwood perfume.

I felt Jasper's eyes on me while there were still a few people ahead. I stared back hard, then dropped my eyes. There were now only three people left in line. Eric stood back against the far wall, arms crossed, and tipped his head lightly to me, urging me on. My stomach dropped and I stepped back to allow the people behind me to go ahead, buying time, and I watched him again. Every time I made contact with his deep green and gold eyes, I reminded myself that I had purpose.

When the guy in front of me with a grey ponytail moved off, Jasper Caldwell stood before me, and I paused to let the moment sink in. Every fiber of me shot through with nervous tension, tingling at the back of my neck. I put out my hand, and he took it. Already I was farther than Tristan ever got.

“Hello,” he said.

I could feel him trying to release my grip. I held him firm, covering his hand with my other one. His smile was tentative, his eyes alert, and up close even taller than I remembered. He had to lean down to look directly into my face.

“You met my mother earlier. Did she tell you about my brother Tristan?”

“Yes, she did,” he said. “I am sorry.” His voice sounded tired, strained. “Well, it was nice meeting you,” he said, and again tried to release my grip.

I squeezed further, feeling like I was rolling down a cliff as I opened my mouth. “He worshipped you. You totally blew him off at that conference in Montana.”

His face clouded, lines formed on his forehead, and his eyes slid in their sockets left, then right. He shifted his weight grounding himself, seeming to resign to the fact that he wasn't going anywhere soon. With his other hand he pushed his glasses back with the tip of his index finger. “I…don't remember that. When was this again?”

I thought I saw recognition in his face though, so I plowed on. “And then, he wrote you a letter. You. Possibly…no, for
sure
, the most depressing, uninspiring person I could think of him to talk to, but that's what he did. He went to you for direction.”

“Miss,” he said, and pulled his hand free, and stuck it in his jacket pocket. “I am very sorry about your brother…I get thousands of letters, especially when a book comes out. I get very busy.”

I nodded and cringed when I heard the hysterical cackle that came from my mouth. “I thought about that. I can give you the benefit of the doubt for a few months. Then you know what I thought? Three months. That's how long he waited until he gave up waiting for you.” I glared, satisfied with the way he began searching the crowd beside me and behind me for assistance. I had finally gotten to him and I was insanely happy for a second. “And how many people write you three-page letters anyway?”

When no help came, he hung his head low, his mouth a tight line, and looked at me from under his eyebrows.

I backed away, and Eric took my arm. Before we turned to go down the stairs I caught sight of Barbara again, waiting at the bottom with an amused expression on her large, painted face.

“This feels like when I wrote to my father after he flaked on Tristan's graduation. Funny how I could avenge slights against my brother before I could my own. You know why?”

Eric raised his brows in expectation as he hit the elevator button.

“Because I have already accepted human fallibility, and my dear, perfect brother couldn't. He needed his gods, failures in reality or not.”

“You are a poet my love,” Eric said and eased me into the elevator. “A little confused at the moment, but you are a poet.”

Chapter 5

We rode in a cab up the hill to Neighbours. Inside I was profoundly grateful for the familiar surroundings, making it easier to put thoughts of the evening's adventures out of my mind. I danced with Eric, distractedly, and when he began to scan the crowd over our heads, I grew impatient, wanting to find someone to play with. We were here to celebrate. I had to enjoy this giddy happiness before I came down. Something about the way I felt was hollow, the sense that I'd gotten away with something huge was about to wear off and underneath I was going to be sick with regret.

The place was packed, the air smelled like powder, chalky with stale smoke from the fog machine, and every few feet my nose would pucker with the scent of especially tangy cologne, calling up images of hard wood and exotic places.

After dancing a few songs I figured it was time to give up and just get drunk. As I stood in line at the bar, I felt a pair of eyes on me. I looked up to the balcony hanging over the club to see a figure hunched over a long pair of legs, and higher up, something reflected the dim light. Did I know this guy? I didn't think so, nonetheless he was watching me. This wasn't a surprise—even in a gay bar there were still enough straight men lurking in the shadows. What mood was I in tonight?