The Jane Austen Book Club (7 page)

The other writers in the group became important to Corinne, so much so that Allegra minded that she was evidently never to meet them. She heard about them, but only in abridged versions. The critique circle was built on trust; there was an expectation of confidentiality, Corinne said.

Corinne was not good at keeping secrets. Allegra heard that one woman had brought in a poem on abortion, written in red ink to represent blood. One man was doing a sort of French bedroom farce, only without any actual humor to it, and the text
messily annotated with arrows and cross-outs, so it was no pleasure to read; yet week after week he reliably turned in another plodding chapter of cocks and cuckoldings. Another woman was writing a fantasy novel, and it had a good plot, ticked right along, except everyone in it had amber eyes, or emerald or amethyst or sapphire. Nothing the other members said could persuade her to substitute brown or blue or not mention the goddamn eyes at all.

One evening Corinne said casually over dinner that she was going out that night to a poetry reading. Lynne, from her writing group, was reading an erotic set at Good Vibrations, the sex-toy store. “I'll go with you,” Allegra said. Surely Corinne didn't expect her to stay home while racy poetry was being read aloud in a landscape of whips and dildos.

“I don't want you making fun of anyone.” Corinne was obviously very uncomfortable. “You can really be severe when you think someone has no taste. We're all just novices in the group. If I hear you make fun of Lynne, I'll know that I'm probably ridiculous, too. I can't write if I think I'm being ridiculous.”

“I would never think you're ridiculous,” Allegra protested. “I couldn't. And I love poetry. You know that.”

“You love your sort of poetry,” Corinne said. “Poems about trees. That's not what Lynne will be reading.” Corinne never actually said that Allegra could go, but Allegra did, since she was now anxious to prove that she could behave, in addition to getting some glimpse of Corinne's other life. Corinne's real life, as she sometimes thought. The life she wasn't to be any part of.

Good Vibrations had set up fifty chairs, of which seven were taken. Inflatable crotches hung on the walls behind the podium in various stages of openness, like butterflies. There were cabinets in which corsets and strap-ons had been scattered together. Lynne was charmingly nervous. She read, but she also talked about the issues, personal and artistic, that her poetry raised for
her. She'd just finished a piece in which a woman's breast spoke in several stanzas about its past admirers. The poem had a formal structure, and Lynne confessed that she wondered whether this was really the way to go. She begged her audience to regard it as a work in progress.

Even the breast spoke in a poetry-reading voice, with that lilt at the end of each line, like Pound or Eliot or whoever it was who had started the unfortunate custom. The audience clapped at the hot parts, and Allegra was careful to clap, too, although what she found hot was apparently different from what others found hot. Afterward she went with Corinne to congratulate Lynne. She said how much she'd enjoyed the evening, as blameless a statement as anyone could make, but Corinne shot her a sharp look. She could see that her presence was making Corinne unhappy. She had forced her way in, when she'd known Corinne didn't want her. Allegra excused herself to use the bathroom. She took her time, washing her face, combing her hair, and all on purpose so that Corinne could talk to Lynne without Allegra there to hear.

That weekend Sylvia and Jocelyn came down for a dog show at the Cow Palace and Allegra met them for lunch. Corinne had been invited, but the words were suddenly flowing, she'd said, she couldn't risk stopping. Jocelyn was in a very good mood. Thembe had taken Best of Breed, the judge noting his great reach and drive, as well as his beautiful topline. He would compete in Hounds in the afternoon. Plus, Jocelyn had in her pockets the cards of several promising studs. The future looked bright. The Cow Palace was thunderous and odorous. They took their lunches to the picnic tables so as not to eat in front of the dogs.

It was a great relief to Allegra to be able finally to tell someone about the poetry reading. She remembered particularly choice lines; Sylvia laughed so hard she spit her sandwich into her lap.
Afterward Allegra was contrite. “I wish Corinne would let me in a bit,” she said. “She's afraid to be laughed at. As if I'd laugh at
her.
”

“I once broke up with a boy because he wrote me an awful poem,” Jocelyn said. “ ‘Your twin eyes.' Don't most people have twin eyes? All but an unfortunate few? You think it shouldn't matter. You think how nice the sentiment is and how much work went into it. But the next time he goes to kiss you, all you can think is ‘Your twin eyes.' ”

“I'm sure Corinne's a wonderful writer,” Sylvia said. “Isn't she?”

And Allegra said yes! She was! Wonderful! In fact, Corinne had yet to show Allegra a word. The books she liked to read were all really good books, though.

“The thing is,” said Allegra, and in Jocelyn's experience, good things rarely followed those words, “if she had to choose between writing and me, I know she'd choose writing. Should I mind that? I shouldn't mind that. I'm just sort of an all-out person, myself.”

“The thing is,” Sylvia answered, “she doesn't have to choose. So you never have to really know.”

When Allegra got home, much to her surprise, she met Lynne just leaving the apartment. They stopped for a moment on the step to exchange pleasantries. Allegra had walked several blocks uphill from the only parking place she'd been able to find—she might as well have left the car in Daly City—and was hot, cross, and out of breath. But she managed to say again how much she'd enjoyed Lynne's poetry. This wasn't a lie. She had thoroughly enjoyed it. “I brought some cookies by to thank you both for coming,” Lynne said. “I was so happy to find Corinne working. She's such a talent.”

Allegra felt the bite of jealousy because Lynne had seen Corinne's work. Even the woman who wrote abortion poems in red ink had seen Corinne's work. “Wonderful stories,” Lynne
said, hitting the first syllable of “wonderful” like a gong. “Her piece about the retarded boy? ‘Billy's Ball'? Like Tom Hanks in that castaway thing, only genuinely moving.”

“Corinne wrote a story about a retarded boy?” Allegra asked. And she hadn't even changed his name? Corinne wouldn't do such a thing.
Our secrets. Trust me.

Lynne covered her mouth with her hand, smiling through her fingers. “Oh! Everything that happens in critique is absolutely classified. I so shouldn't have said that. Of course, I thought she'd have shown
you.
You have to promise you won't tell. Please don't tell on me.” She persisted with such a distasteful, flirty girlishness that Allegra made the promise just to make it stop.

Allegra went inside, walked into the study, where Corinne was still working at the computer, and watched her hit Sleep, the words disappearing from the screen in the time it took Allegra to cross the room. “No more writer's block?” she asked. One touch on any key would bring the words back.

“No,” said Corinne. “The muse has returned to me.”

That night Corinne asked for a story even though they hadn't made love. Allegra propped herself up on the pillow and looked at her. She had her eyes closed, an ear poking through the hair on one side of her head. Her chin tilted upward, her neck a snowy slope. Her nipples visible through her tank top. Seductive innocence.

Allegra said:

5. There was this girl I knew in high school who got pregnant. I liked her when I first met her, and I felt sorry for her when she got pregnant—you should have heard the things boys said about her. But by then I didn't really like her much anymore. There's a whole middle to the story, but I'm too tired to tell it.

A
llegra had gotten drunk. She didn't think she was the only one. She could see that Prudie had flushed cheeks and glassy eyes. The Petit Syrah had disappeared like magic, and Jocelyn had sent her to the kitchen for a bottle of Graffigna Malbec and to see how Sylvia was doing since she had never come back after Daniel's phone call. When Allegra stood up, she knew she was drunk.

Sylvia was sitting in the dark kitchen with the phone back in its cradle. “Hey, darling,” she said, and her voice was fine.

There was no need for such a charade, especially in front of Allegra. “How do you take it so calmly?” she asked. “You hardly seem to care.” She knew she was out of line. She could hear her drunk, out-of-line voice coming out of her mouth.

“I care.”

“You don't have to hide it. No one out there will think any worse of you if you throw a glass or scream or go to bed or tell them all to get the fuck out.”

“You'll have to let me be who I am, dear,” Sylvia said. “Do you know where we were when Daniel told me he wanted a divorce? He'd taken me out to dinner. To Biba's. I'd always wanted to go to Biba's, but we'd never been able to get in. So that's what just occurred to me. That he had to make a reservation way in advance and then pretend for weeks that everything was okay. Such a thoughtful way to dump your wife.”

“I'm sure he wasn't planning the evening like that! I'm sure he didn't know what he'd say or when he'd say it. Some people do things without planning them all through like you.”

“You're probably right. A person's no more sane falling out of love than falling into it, I guess. Thank God it's raining. We didn't get enough rain this year.”

Sylvia's face was dimly reflected in the kitchen window. Allegra thought how she was seeing both sides of her face at once. Her mother had been such a pretty woman, but after holding her own for quite some time, she'd aged all of a sudden a few years back. You could see how the aging would go on now; you could see where the hammer would hit next.

Allegra knelt unsteadily and put her head into her mother's lap. She felt her mother's hands combing through her hair. “What do we know about it, you and I?” Allegra asked. “We're not the sort who fall out of love, are we?”

A
llegra got up when she was sure Corinne was sleeping, and went into the study. She emptied the wastebasket onto the floor. There wasn't much, and what there was had been torn into tiny, despairing bits, none looking as if they'd come from Corinne's printer. Allegra found the word “Zyzzyva” embossed on one piece. She persisted, sorting by color, until she had three piles. She was wearing nothing but the knee-length T-shirt she slept in, so she dragged a blanket out of the linen closet and lay on the floor, swaddled, piecing bits of paper together.

 

“We must regretfully pass on the story you've sent us,” she read at last. “ ‘Billy's Ball' has much to recommend it, and although it didn't seem exactly right for us, we would be willing to see other work from you in the future. Good luck with your endeavors, the Editors.”

 

Fifteen minutes later: “We are returning your story ‘Good-bye, Prague' to you as we are only interested in lesbian material. We highly suggest you familiarize yourself with our magazine. A subscription form is enclosed. Thank you, the Editors.”

 

Ten minutes later: A form rejection—“does not suit our purposes at this time”—but someone had penned a single sentence across the bottom in ballpoint ink: “Who among us has not tormented ants?”

 

Allegra swept the pieces up, mixed them back together, dumped them into the wastebasket. She felt as if she'd been stripped and then strip-mined. So Corinne's desire to keep her away from her writing friends had nothing to do with Allegra's sarcastic tongue. How unkind of Corinne to make her feel that she was the one at fault.

Of course, this small unkindness was nothing compared with the betrayal of trust. It had begun to rain, but Allegra didn't know that until she went outside. She hardly felt it even then, though she was wearing only her T-shirt. She walked three blocks to her car, drove two hours to her parents' house—longer than usual, because she'd forgotten to bring money for the bridge toll (forgotten even her driver's license) and she had to pull over to the side, get out undressed as she was, to talk about this. Eventually she was waved through, such was the persuasive power of crying uncontrollably when you were practically naked.

It was after three in the morning when she arrived home, soaking wet. Her father made her a cup of hot milk; her mother put her straight to bed. For three days, she got up only to go to the bathroom. Corinne phoned several times, but Allegra refused to speak to her.

How dare Corinne write up Allegra's secret stories and send them off to magazines to be published?

How dare Corinne write them so poorly that no one wished to take them?

I
t wasn't Jane Austen's fault that love went bad. You couldn't even say she didn't warn you. Her heroines made out well enough, but there were always other characters in the book who didn't finish happily—Brandon's Eliza in
Sense and Sensibility
; in
Pride and Prejudice
, Charlotte Lucas, Lydia Bennet; in
Mansfield Park
, Maria Bertram. These were the women to whom you should be paying attention, but you weren't.