Words Unspoken (4 page)

Her biography was sketchy at best. Female. Age unknown—presumed to be in her mid-fifties now. First published book, 1960, immediate success.
Eastern Crossings.
A small novel with a powerful punch. Dark, dark. The thin paperback had made its way into the back pocket of every college kid. But the woman wouldn’t give interviews.

Her next novel had not come along until almost seven years later, with not a word from her in between.
The Equal Journey.
This book was 723 pages long, a family saga of life in an unnamed communist country. The book’s style was completely different—third person narrative. Long, descriptive phrases. Chillingly beautiful. As seamless and haunting by its length, a winding river, as
Eastern Crossings
had been in its bleak first-person portrayal of child refugees and prostitution.

Again, the book had become an instant success. The college kids were now married, and they couldn’t carry this tome in their jeans back pockets. Instead, it sat beside their beds, its hardbound cover hidden beneath the glossy dust jacket that portrayed a mass of people looking vacantly into the sky on a cold evening.

The story of the author S. A. Green went on like a fine spy novel. An untitled manuscript appearing without warning in a burlap bag, years after the last release, the novel almost faultless, the editing minimal. No wonder. The lady took five or six years in between each work of art. She had plenty of time to get it right.

Now he, Silvano Rossi, held the manuscript of her sixth novel in his hands. This manuscript was rather short at 263 pages. If he hurried, he could get a ways into the novel before anyone arrived. Just a sneak peek and then he’d pack it back up.

Thirty minutes later, he was still turning the crisp white pages, placing each one facedown in the pile to his right after reading the double-spaced typewritten page. He surprised himself by needing to clear his throat once.

Amazing. How did she do this? How?

His predecessors had always been happy to leave well enough alone. Let the novels sell. It made the publishing house a bundle. And the lady was loyal. As far as anyone could tell, she’d never sent another manuscript to another house. So no one worried about the refusal for interviews or signings. No one wanted to look any further.

But Silvano was curious. What did this lady do with her money? Where was she hiding? Why did she hate interviews? And how could a nutty woman write a book that made his heart race and cramp at the same time, that felt like a long skinny finger jabbing into his soul? In the year and a half that he’d held this job, he had read—or at least started to read—over three hundred manuscripts, and not one of them had caused this kind of fluttering in his gut.

By the time Silvano heard the voices of his co-workers, he had replaced the manuscript in its box, retied the twine, and put the box back in the burlap bag. He made sure he knotted the twine in the same way it had arrived.

“Hello, Silvano. Early as usual.” Eddy Clouse wore a dark suit, perfectly cut to enhance his large frame. Imposing, polite, shrewd. Loud.

Americans were always loud. Couldn’t they learn to communicate without involving the whole room?

“Yessir.”

Mr. Clouse entered his office with Silvano following, his boss’s coffee in one hand and the burlap bag tucked under his arm.

“Mmm. Smells great. Thanks, Silvano.” Leaning over his desk, his boss flipped through a few memos, his square face with the heavy jaw turned down.

“My pleasure, sir.” He set the coffee on Mr. Clouse’s desk.

“Perfect,” the boss said when he had taken a sip. He gulped down the espresso and motioned to Silvano. “What have you got there?”

“I found it outside your office this morning. A burlap bag.”

Mr. Clouse’s head jerked up. “A burlap bag, did you say?
The
burlap bag?”

Silvano nodded. “Looks like it, sir.”

Mr. Clouse sat down in the swivel chair. Clear blue eyes looked up expectantly, and a smile twittered on his lips. “Well, let’s have it, Silvano!”

“Looks like another masterpiece, sir,” Silvano commented, placing the burlap sack on the desk. He noticed a slight flicker of annoyance on his boss’s face.

“You’ve opened it?”

“Oh no, sir. Just admiring the packaging. You know—my first peek at the publishing house’s lucrative mystery writer. Mystery writer who doesn’t write mysteries.” He chuckled awkwardly.

“Yes. Yes. Fine then. Thank you, Silvano. That will be all.”

As he had expected, Clouse dismissed him. No help needed. No thanks, no opinion asked. He existed only for espresso and midlist authors. Well, now he had just what he needed to move up in the publishing world. Evidence. Finally, arriving early had paid off. A photocopy of S. A. Green’s manuscript lay at the bottom of his slush pile, hidden by a dozen manuscripts that would never be read.

You’re on your way now, Silvo. Espresso, gelato, Roma. This is good. E Buono!

Immediately he heard another voice in his mind.
You are good, Silvano, buono! Buono! Yes, yes, that is good!
The nun at St. Jude’s Montessori School hovered over him. At four, Silvano’s English was limited but growing. Thank heaven for Maria Montessori—the woman whose face was on every lira! Way back in the early 1900s she’d founded her schools in the poorest district of Rome, insisting that all children could learn. St. Jude’s employed her methods; the nuns took in some of Rome’s poorest and educated them in Italian and English.

This is your destiny, Silvano. The Blessed Virgin has answered our prayers. You have been chosen. You will bring honor and wealth to the family. You will go to America!

He had studied hard, had worked through three phases of the Montessori school’s curriculum so that at age twelve he was ready to move to America. America! The land of opportunity! His English was impeccable. Yes, the average American recognized a faint accent, but only a few could identify it as Italian.

Bring honor to the family, Silvano; bring honor.

It echoed in the recesses of his mind.

No matter how long it takes.

He gave a stiff smile and thought
Now I’m on my way!

________

The wind outside the little house in Montpellier was blowing fiercely, but no one seemed to pay any attention. Huddled around the small coffee table, the women bowed in prayer. Janelle thought she might fall asleep from weariness and, ashamed, was thankful for the chance to close her eyes. So many sad stories, whispered in French and Arabic.

“He hasn’t paid child support in three months. I don’t know how we’re going to make it. Before, with his pitiful salary, we barely made ends meet. Now, impossible.”

She recalled an evening last year when the same lady had shared in front of the whole group of friends and her husband, “Well, you know he doesn’t make much more than minimum wage. He never has. So obviously we can’t go.”

Janelle had winced, for the hundredth time, at the typically demeaning remark. Now the husband was gone. He’d gotten so tired of it that he had simply walked out of the house.

And honestly, that was what she felt like doing at the moment. Standing up in the middle of prayer time and walking out, saying, “I am very sorry, but I’m too tired, and I quit.” Wasn’t almost twelve years enough time to invest in this ministry in France that was doomed from the start?
I quit!

She opened her eyes to stop the barrage of thoughts, to shake herself out of the torpor. It didn’t help. What she kept hearing over and over were two little words:
Go home! Go home! Go home!

Perhaps she even said it out loud because, instead of staying for the usual half hour after prayer time to chat, eight minutes later every woman had left her house. She was alone, finally.

Every bone in her body was tired, weary.
Don’t grow weary of doing good, for in due time you shall reap… .

But in truth she
was
weary, and not just physically, not just from raising her kids in a different culture. Oh, yes. She was tired. But the weariness had settled into her mind and then traveled down into her heart, her very spirit. The fight had gone out of her. Maybe the faith too. Oh, how could she even tolerate such a thought!

She didn’t have the strength to fight the nagging voice. She longed to go home, to the Georgia red clay, baked and cracking under the summer sky, and the music of the grasshoppers and katydids and the blinking of the lightning bugs on a muggy September evening. She wanted to sit on the porch, resting her head in her father’s lap, the feel of his warm hand seeping through her cotton shirt and onto her back. She wanted to be a little girl again.

Life in this country had cost them too much. She and Brian had prepared for it, trained, spent their energy and zeal in the land, and now she was weary.

She peeked in on Sandy and Luke, sleeping soundly, left the house, and made the mile walk to the graveyard alone. Her pilgrimage. She knelt by the grave, cleared away the wilting flowers, and replaced them with a potted bright red geranium.

“I miss you,” she whispered.

How in the world could she go home? Life here had cost her everything, but if she left, who would come to replace the flowers on the grave? Janelle trudged back toward the house.
Go home
.

________

Ted Draper was going to make it big. The graph for the Dow Jones with its erratic ups and downs was like the machine in the hospital that registered heartbeat.
His
heartbeat was the stock market, and at the present time it was soaring. Company benefits! He checked his commission runs. Over 600,000 dollars in production credits by mid-September, with several of his biggest deals forthcoming. He would easily reach the million-dollar mark in commissions before the end of the year, qualifying him for the company trip to China.

Lin Su had always begged him to make the trip again. Job pressures and little kids—and spending too much money on other things, he admitted to himself—had kept them so busy that they had put it off for way too long. But now it was going to happen. This, he thought to himself, made his hard work, his overwork, worthwhile. A trip with Lin Su and the kids to her homeland.

“Hey, Ted, the line’s for you. The big client,” Janet, his secretary, whispered while holding her hand over the phone.

“I’ll get it in my office,” he answered.

The big client. The big break. He smiled, self-satisfied. With this conversation, China was sealed. Well, maybe that was a bit overly optimistic, but it wouldn’t be long.

“Hello, Dr. Kaufman! Ted Draper here …” His voice oozed confidence and adrenaline. Ticker tape, the graph shooting skyward, Dow Jones over the top. He had made it.

When Ted walked past the open cubicles of the younger brokers, the appropriate silence ensued. Awe. Yes, that was it. He was one of the firm’s top brokers. At the ripe old age of thirty-two he had already passed many of the older brokers.

The year 1987 was turning into an amazingly profitable year, as had the preceding five years. It was the right time to get rich as a stockbroker. If you were willing to take risks, which Ted was, and if you were very bright, which he was, and if you could keep your cool while trading, which he could, then you were cut out for the brokerage business. In five years he had risen to the top ranks, and so, when he stepped into the room, the aura of awe followed him.

“Hey, Ted!” a younger broker said. “What have we got today?”

Ted shook hands, nodded eagerly, slapped a back. “We’ve got those three new junk bond issues coming out. Get on the phone and you can become a millionaire too!”

Go, go, go, Ted! All the way to the top! And don’t you dare stop to look back!

________

Katy Lynn Pendleton checked her face in the rearview mirror as she pulled into a parking space at the Capital City Country Club. She retrieved a tube of lipstick from her purse and spread it across her lips, satisfied with the bright pink color. She reached across the seat to lock the passenger door. The minute the engine was cut and the air-conditioner went off, she almost melted. She estimated the temperature at ninety with enough muggy Georgia heat added in to wilt the most stalwart hairdo plastered with a thick layer of hair spray.

She gave a long sigh as she shut and locked the door to the driver’s side and placed her keys carefully in the side pocket of her purse. She closed her eyes briefly and recalled walking into this same beautiful old sandstone building sixteen years ago for her wedding reception. The limousine had driven them from the church and let them off at the front door. Hamilton had looked perfect in his black tux with the white shirt, the gray bow tie, and the red rosebud boutonnière.

“You are absolutely exquisite,” he had whispered as he helped her out of the limousine and paused to give her a long kiss. “Let’s get this over with so the fireworks can really begin.”

She blushed even now with the memory. Then she cleared her throat and walked determinedly to the same front door, the heels of her low pumps making a
click click click
on the smooth pavement. When she reached the door, a black man in a blue suit opened it for her, tipping his hat.

“How ya doin’ today, Miz Pendleton?”

“Okay, Tom. Hot enough for you?”

“Yes, ma’am.” He smiled his wide smile, the same one that had greeted her on that wedding night. For only one second their eyes met, and for that second she wished she could throw herself into his arms and sob on his shoulder. Instead, she kept her head up, played the part.

But as she stepped into the building, Tom called out softly behind her, “You gonna make it, Miz Pendleton. You’re a strong woman. You gonna make it.”

Katy Lynn felt the prickle of sweat on her brow even though the dining room was almost chilly from the air-conditioning. She surveyed the other women and felt both at home and as if she were from a different universe. They had so much in common, and yet, nothing at all. Or perhaps they were all pretending too.

She thought of Tom’s reassuring words,
“You gonna make it, Miz Pendleton.”
Well, Tom should know. He had seen it all during his forty-one years of service at the Capital City Country Club. Nothing caused him to raise his bushy black eyebrows anymore. “Human nature’s all the same, Miz Pendleton. Rotten at the core.”