The Ghost of Greenwich Village: A Novel (39 page)

“Yes,” said Eve, trying to affect more dignity than she felt. “But it’s only temporary.”

“Until when?”

Eve searched for some spin that would mitigate her embarrassment. “Until I don’t have to anymore,” she said at last.

Orla looked tanner for her time in Los Angeles and now sported an armful of silver bangles and large ropes of turquoise beads. But the West didn’t seem to have dampened her essential New Yorkiness: Her persona still appeared to be clad head to toe in black.

Eve handed her a slip to sign for the cake. Orla scribbled her familiar signature and handed it back. “Who’s this from? I don’t see a card.”

“It’s from me,” said Eve. She put the box on the corner of the desk as Orla looked at her quizzically.

“May I sit down for a moment?” asked Eve.

“Why?”

“I have something I’d like to discuss with you.”

“I suppose. But I’m doing a conference call in about three minutes.”

Eve took a seat. She gazed briefly around the bright corner office with its large windows on two sides and the many pictures resting along the walls, waiting to be hung. Boxes were stacked in the corners and an enormous corkboard burst with rows of Post-its and memos.

“I’ll be brief, then,” said Eve. “I’ve been reading about your new venture. And I have a proposal for you.”

“You don’t say,” said Orla, betraying neither interest nor disinterest.

“I noticed that while your series has the visual arts covered, everything from commercial posters to architecture—and music, too—you’re not doing anything on literature.”

“Literature is inherently less interesting on television.”

“Maybe. But the writers themselves are just as interesting—if not more—than any of the fine artists. For one thing, they’re more articulate.” Orla shifted in her chair but said nothing. Eve cleared her throat. “Anyway. I’ve come into possession of a rather important unpublished manuscript. By a writer present at one of the most significant cultural moments in modern memory, both in the United States and Europe.” Eve summed up Donald’s life and named some of the famous artists he’d known. She even explained about the connection between Klieg and Donald and that Klieg would most likely provide one heck of an interview about his old friend.

“The manuscript’s got all kinds of illuminating, never-before-heard stories about lots of famous people. And it details hiding places of work that his New York writer friends weren’t ready to show anyone. Under floorboards, behind mantelpieces, false bookshelves. So much, just waiting to be discovered. I’ve included a full list of what’s likely out there.”

“But how could one possibly verify something like th—”

“I’ve already made contact with the tenants over on East Seventh Street and Avenue D, and 14 St. Luke’s Place, which were home to Herbert Huncke and Marianne Moore, respectively. The manuscript was absolutely right.” Eve opened her shoulder bag and pulled out a folder containing copies of what she’d found. She handed them over to Orla. “It’s a virtual treasure map.”

There was a noncommittal silence as Orla leafed through the pages—notebook writings by Huncke, which described how he’d come up with the term “Beat generation,” and a poem by Moore. “And just who did you say is the author of this astonishing manuscript?” Orla put down the papers.

“His name is Donald Bellows. Here’s a short version of his
bio.” Eve handed Orla a Xerox of his entry from the Village writers book. “This says his symbol-based approach was only a germ, but there’s a good deal of undiscovered writing included in the memoir and I can assure you it went far beyond a germ. And he was the first to do it. Here are some samples, if you want to know what I’m talking about. And here’s the work of one of his acolytes, a young man who sought to build on his ideas and encouraged others to do so as well.” Eve handed over copies of everything, along with a complete proposal of what the documentary could cover.

Orla used the pages to fan her face. “And how did you come to possess this manuscript?”

“I found it in my apartment, which is where Mr. Bellows used to live. It was behind a panel in a cabinet. He died without family and with no estate. I’ve checked with a lawyer. I’m the rightful owner of this material.”

Orla skimmed “Rock, Paper, Scissors.”

“I think to be complete, your series, which I believe is called
Unknown Treasures
, should have something literary, which I realize is well-trodden territory,” said Eve. Orla put the pages down on the desk with what looked like a bored expression. “But this would be something new, something the world has literally never seen before.”

“And why do you care? What would you get out of this?”

“I want to work on it. I want to work for you.”

“You worked for me once. Things didn’t go so well.”

This was the blow she’d been anticipating, and she was prepared. “Look, I made a mistake about the fish my first day, I admit. I was intimidated by everything at
Smell the Coffee
. I was new in town, in over my head, and afraid to say something in case I was wrong and looked stupid. But I earned my way into that department. You can ask anyone, even Mark. I’m a good writer, a quick study, and I work hard.” She paused, looking down at the cake. “Even at this. You can call my manager at the bakery. The number’s on the box.”

Orla squinted at her.

“I’ve taken up enough of your time for today,” said Eve, standing. She thought it best if she was the one to end this meeting. “But I’ll be honest about something. I can’t work for anyone else in television. Giles Oberoy has made sure no one will hire me. That’s why I’m delivering cakes. He fired me for not kowtowing to Bliss Jones during our interview. It wasn’t fair,” Eve said, running her palms down the front of her thighs. She paused a moment. “Just like maybe them firing you wasn’t fair.”

She backed out and shut the door quietly behind her.

   • • •

Nearly a week had gone by since their meeting and Orla hadn’t called. Eve wanted to kick herself. Why had she been so stupid as to leave all that material behind? Even if Orla decided she liked the idea, she could just keep everything and do it herself. She had only pieces of the manuscript, but she had enough to work something out if she really wanted to.

In any case, Orla probably wasn’t interested at all. That’s what it usually meant when you didn’t hear from people.

Eve drafted a new list of literary agents, but none was interested in seeing anything short of a full manuscript. And she and Donald weren’t anywhere near done.

“Donald?” Silence greeted Eve as she entered her apartment. She trudged to her room, crawled onto the bed, and sandwiched her head between two pillows. She felt Highball jump lightly onto the mattress and lie down, pressing her warm, soft bulk into Eve’s ribs.

So this was what the end looked like. It had been there all along really, just waiting for her to see it. This past year had been a masquerade, one long session of dress-up. But now it was time to take off the drapey dress, kick off the sloshy shoes, and admit it was over. Strangely, she thought as she moved the top pillow for some air, the moment didn’t feel as bad as she’d thought it would. She might even call it a relief. It was clear now: Her time
away from home had served the purpose it was meant to. To shake her out of her zombie-like malaise.

And home wasn’t so bad! Those wide-open spaces. Family she had come to appreciate. It wasn’t like she’d be going back with her tail between her legs. She wouldn’t live in Rolling Links, for one thing. She’d move into the city. Gin would be so happy to have her back, he might even pay for grad school instead of law school. That way she could study writing. Working on the book, she’d been bitten by the bug. She wouldn’t mind becoming an editor, either. Or she could get another job in television; after all, she hadn’t been blackballed in the Midwest.

The next few days would be a time of goodbyes. Or would they? Undoubtedly easiest for everyone would be for her to simply slink out of town. It would be impossible to say goodbye to Gwendolyn face-to-face anyway. She’d never had a friend like her. For a moment, Eve contemplated moving to Queens or some other borough. At least they’d be only a subway ride from one another. But the thought made her shudder. The whole point had been to live in the Village.

Besides Gwendolyn, who’d really miss her? Klieg was all right now. He and Günter were still in Germany, spending time as a family with Klieg’s brother, Henrik—they’d made up—and his wife, Claudia. They were having
eine wunderbare Zeit
, according to Klieg’s latest postcard.

Quirine? She would be a little sad, but she and Victor were in major cocooning mode. Likewise Russell and Susan. Couples were different.

As for Vadis, the one who started it all, the one who talked Eve into believing she could make it here like the “thousands of others doing it every day”? Eve tried to wonder what Vadis was doing these days but couldn’t bring herself to care.

And Donald. She literally could not imagine life without him. But he’d be fine without her, eventually. He acted as though he was excited at the thought of having his memoir published, but
he was probably just going along because she was enjoying it so. If she left, he’d soon have a new tenant to harass. And now that he’d honed his physical skills, his fun would increase exponentially.

These things that she told herself swirled through her mind and acted on her like a sleeping pill, gently sucking away her instinct to struggle against fate.

   • • •

She felt silly even sitting at the library. There was no way she could finish the stupid book. Even if she managed to complete it once she got back to Ohio, and even if she managed to find a publisher, she’d have no way of ever telling Donald.

“Did you ever get that last box?” she asked when she reached the front of the line at the desk.

“Been saving it for you,” said Mrs. Chin. “Here.” The box was smaller than the others, perhaps a foot square, but it had the same cavelike smell.

“Thank you,” said Eve, picking it up. She turned to go, then remembered her question. “Did you ever find out who the benefactor was?”

“His name’s on just about everything inside that box; you can’t miss it.” Mrs. Chin smiled with her lips pressed together, then went back to her paperwork.

Eve placed the box on her table and unfolded the four flaps of cardboard that latticed to make its top. Sitting inside were about a dozen soft-backed notebooks, all identical, with marbleized brown covers, black spines, and white labels containing dates. Before opening any of them, she put them in order. They spanned 1960 to 1969. She opened the first one: 1960, April–November. Inside the cover there was a label: P
ROPERTY OF
.

Mike McGuire
was the name scripted on the line provided.

Eve scooted her chair in closer to the table. Mike McGuire. Donald’s disciple.

It was a thrilling moment until she realized with a thud that the man she’d hoped to locate—somehow—and interview, was dead. Nothing was going right anymore. She sighed, rubbed her forehead, and pulled out a pad to take notes.

The first notebook told the story of a young man deciding to move to Manhattan from upstate New York, the Finger Lakes region. He wrote about his well-meaning but stifling parents, the factory work he was expected to take on, just like his older brother, the friend who proposed they hitchhike down to the city for a wild weekend the summer after high school. A weekend that turned into a lifetime.

He started in a rented room on MacDougal Street. Apparently, he’d first seen Donald at the San Remo on Bleecker.

Mike McGuire had hoarded literary journals, looking for inspiration. It took him almost a year to work up the courage to write something himself, and when he did, it was like a gasket had sprung a leak. He couldn’t stop. He even began to speak up at the San Remo.

Outside, the blue sky began to darken, and Eve hastened to cram in as much as she could. She couldn’t bear to have to come back and finish another time. She read about Mike’s invention of the “stoem”: a combination of a short story and a poem. It was a somewhat unwieldy enterprise, with some lines rhyming and others not. He’d included several in his diaries and many of them
resembled Donald’s work at the time, but with heart. More like Donald was writing now. He wasn’t as talented as Donald, of course, but his work was passionate.

Mike had died just a few months ago, more than thirty-five years after the final writings in the box. Donald said he’d gone traveling. Did he produce work somewhere else, or had he quit writing? And if so, why? If he’d kept at it, he might have gotten somewhere. Eve kept reading, jotting notes on her pad. She still had one more notebook to go when the library staff began to shuffle around, cleaning up for the night.

She brought back the box. “I’ll be back tomorrow. For this last one.”

“Not happening,” said Hector, the tall and jowly evening manager. “They’re going off to be photographed and catalogued in the morning. We should have them back in a couple of weeks, though.”

Eve was just about to stammer something when Mrs. Chin came over. “Which one is it, dear?”

“This.” She pulled it out of the box.

“I’ll keep it for you. As long as you’re back tomorrow. Can’t hold off the hounds forever.” Mrs. Chin gave Hector an elbow to his waist, which was as high as she came on him. He walked off muttering something about the decline of Western civilization.

   • • •

As soon as she was done with her bakery shift, at five before seven, Eve was back at the library. Mrs. Chin was helping someone with a rather involved problem and slid the book at her without a word. Moments later, Eve was settled at her table, back in Mike’s world.