The Mentor (21 page)

“What do you mean?”

“I mean you didn’t write it.”

Charles laughs uneasily. “Of course I wrote it. Who else could have written it?”

“Don’t play games with me, Charles. Did you really think you could deceive me?”

“I didn’t come all the way up here to listen to this.”

“What did you come up here for? To be reassured that you could pass off this work as your own? To the one person who knows your writing best? To be told that you’re a genius, that you’re finally, gloriously, out of the slump you’ve been in for the past ten years?”

“Stop it.”

“That you’ve found your voice again, that you’re writing something with heart and soul and real life again, something that matters, something—”

“I said stop it!”

“I’ll stop when you start telling me the truth.”

There’s a long silence, and then that distant cry echoes across the lake. Charles can’t bring himself to look at Portia and so he looks down at his hands. They look veined and blotchy and old.

“I fell in love with her. She made me feel alive again.… I wanted to help her.”

“Help her?”

Charles thinks of Emma sitting at his library table, writing, her face lit from within. He sees a stray lock of hair tumble across her face, remembers that mischievous glint in her eye when she tasted one of his french fries, feels a momentary ache for her body. He does love her. And he’s gone terribly wrong.

“I gave Nina the manuscript, took Emma’s name off it so it would get a fair reading. She thought it was mine. She said it was the great book everyone’s been waiting for me to write.”

“But it isn’t.”

Charles finally looks up at Portia.

“And you can’t pretend it is,” she says.

He looks out over the lake and wonders what has brought him to this place.

“No, I can’t,” he says simply. He reaches over the side and trails his hand in the cold, numbing water. Then he looks at Portia. There’s a challenge in her eyes, but also something else. Is it
forgiveness? Or at least understanding? Her expression softens. She does understand. And she still loves him. He can redeem himself. Charles knows what he has to do: he has to go back to New York and make things right.

Suddenly there’s a sharp pull on Portia’s line. She stands up to reel in the fish and loses her balance. The boat starts to rock and she struggles to regain her footing, shoots Charles a beseeching look. He stands up to help—and the boat rocks more violently. Portia panics, drops the fishing rod, bangs her knee against the gunwale, and begins to tumble forward, toward the frigid water. For one split second Charles is elated: No one can survive in that water; she’ll go into shock, die quickly, cleanly. He’ll be home free; the book will be his.

And then he lunges forward, grabs her, and pulls her to safety.

Charles holds her fast. They’re both breathing heavily, afraid to move, waiting for the boat to stop pitching. Slowly it steadies itself. Charles takes a deep breath and gingerly moves back to his seat.

Portia tries to disguise how shook up she is. She pulls out a Pall Mall and sticks it between her lips. She lights a match and just before she holds the flame to the cigarette, she looks over at Charles. “I’ve never once been wrong about you.”

Charles helps Portia out of the rowboat and secures it to the dock. She follows him across the patch of rocky shoreline. As they climb the steps, the only sound is their footfalls on the old wood. Charles feels emptied out, emotionless; speech seems an impossible effort—and what is there to say? Behind him he hears Portia’s labored breathing as she climbs, and her labored steps, her old feet carrying her old body. They near the halfway point, where the stairs turn and there’s a small landing.

“I’ve got one of my chicken pot pies in the freezer, I’ll stick it in the oven,” she says.

Charles reaches the landing and starts up the final stretch. Portia stops a moment, leaning against the rail, sucking air.

“God bless R. J. Reynolds,” she says.

Charles turns and looks at her.

“You really should think about quitting,” he says.

And then he pushes her.

Anne is thinking seriously about single motherhood as her cab struggles through traffic. The weekend with Kayla was rejuvenating: room-service meals, silly television shows, long talks—and a chance to gain some perspective on the situation with Charles. Divorce would be a big fat mess, of course, and Anne hates the thought of giving up, just hates it. But she’ll be damned if she’ll let Charles take her and her child down with him. He wasn’t at the apartment this morning when she went home to change for work, and it was obvious he’d been living in his office; the room was littered with tangled blankets, take-out food containers, and empty bottles of Scotch. The cab runs a light and a horn blares and she instinctively grabs the door handle—someone has stuck a wad of fresh chewing gum under it.

For about six months she’s been thinking of moving her company downtown, creating a twenty-first-century workplace that would generate a lot of press and a lot of prestige for Anne Turner Inc. A real estate agent called to let her know about two adjoining
warehouses with a large hidden courtyard between them. Anne was intrigued. An architect she’s interested in, a young Italian woman who’s creating a stir with her ravishing lofts and Silicon Alley offices, is going to look at the properties with her. Anne has to be at the Hilton in an hour, really should have scheduled this at another time, but she wants her days to be jammed beyond reason.

Anne hops out of the cab in frustration and walks the last six blocks. The buildings are in the far West Twenties, near the Hudson River. The architect and the real estate agent are standing out front. The agent is an older man, tweedy and reserved. Gabriella, the architect, is pulled together in that uniquely Milanese way—belted black cashmere coat, black hair in a striking geometric cut—all postmodern cool.

The agent leads them through the two vacant buildings, with vast open floors and fantastic old mullioned windows that look out at the river and New Jersey beyond. The courtyard is a junk heap but has the kind of potential that thrills Anne. She imagines it as a garden, an unexpected oasis for her staff, with shade trees and rushing water.

The tour over, the three of them stand in front of the building.

“Why don’t you let your imagination go crazy, and call me next week,” Anne says to Gabriella.

Gabriella nods and lights a cigarette. She looks up at the buildings. “Fantastic.”

“I’m sorry I have to run,” Anne says.

“I am embarrassed,” Gabriella says with a charming smile. She pulls out an Italian edition of
Life and Liberty
. “Your husband’s work, it means so much to me. I found this first edition. If he would sign it, please?”

The day is humid and still, the world covered with low clouds; at the end of the street the river is wide and gray. Anne hears children’s voices from the corner playground. She looks down at Charles’s book, runs her hand over the jacket. How old was she when she first read
Life and Liberty
and was so transported by it? For a moment she thinks she might cry.

“I know he’ll be happy to sign this. I’ll messenger it down to you by the end of the week,” Anne says. Then she steps off the curb and hails a taxi.

Anne pushes through the Hilton’s revolving doors and strides up the moving escalator to the ballroom. She’s late for the luncheon—considered skipping it, but it’s important—for the Children’s Defense Fund. She wrote them a check, but wants to be here in person, to feel like a part of the work they do, to connect. And to be seen. It’s very important for her to be seen these days, for people to know she’s out there doing her job, that everything is fine.

As she crosses the mezzanine she runs into Nina Bradley.

The two women stand looking at each other across all the years, all the dinners, all the laughs. Anne always thought of Nina as an extension of Charles in some funny way—the two of them were so close, almost like siblings.

“I’m so sorry,” Anne says.

“You have nothing to apologize for.”

“Thank you. You’re very generous.”

Nina smiles—beautiful Nina. “I need some time, Anne.” Then she starts into the ballroom.

Anne doesn’t want to lose her. There are few people whose opinion she trusts more.

“Nina?” she calls. Nina turns and Anne lowers her voice: “His new book, is it really that good?”

Nina looks at Anne for a long moment. “Yes,” she says.

And then she walks away.

Anne stands there in the cold expanse and a chill runs up her neck. She heads into the ballroom, hoping she’ll be able to sit still through the lunch.

Emma is curled up in bed with all the lights off, staring at a paint chip on the wall. She hasn’t eaten in two days, hasn’t bathed in a while. The red neon glow streams in the window and she can hear voices down on the street below, happy voices, and all Emma wants to do is die. She feels like she’s back in the hospital, during those endless early months when she lay on her bed unable to move and the doctors came and talked to her and she couldn’t answer because she didn’t understand what they were saying, because the words made no sense, coming from so far away, from that other world. Emma’s world ends, then and now, at the edge of her bed, just falls away, black and hopeless.

After a weekend of the phone constantly ringing, Charles hasn’t called once all day. He’s given up, come to his senses. Why would he ever leave a woman like Anne Turner for a girl like her, a girl with no family, no breeding, no education, a BadGirlSickGirl. Emma shrinks further into herself on the bed. She turns and gets caught up in the tangle of bedclothes; they’re sweaty and dirty and
dank and all she wants is the energy to climb up to the roof and jump, fly into nothingness—sweet release.

And then there’s a knock on the door.

“Emma? It’s me.”

Emma stumbles out of bed and switches on a light. The place is a mess. She frantically straightens the bed, shoves papers under the sofa.

“Emma?”

“Coming,” she calls, slipping on a robe over her T-shirt and panties. She takes a deep breath and opens the door.

How strange he looks—sunken and tortured and scared. Does she smell whiskey on his breath? He needs her as much as she needs him—that’s it! These days apart have been an equal agony for her poor Charles.

He kicks the door closed behind him and pushes her against the wall and kisses her hard, his body pressing insistently into hers. He opens her robe and grabs her panties in his fist and rips them and pushes down his pants and enters her. His thrusts are violent and Emma is scared by his need and she’s knocking into the wall and she wants him to stop and take her to the bed and make gentle love to her but still he thrusts and thrusts—and then there’s nothing but his smell and his tongue and his cock and she wraps her legs and arms around him and thrusts back again and again and again, matching his violence with her own.

It’s after one in the morning when Charles finally walks in the front door. The apartment is dark. He’s so exhausted; he’s never been this exhausted before—beyond thought, beyond feeling. He only wants to sleep, to sleep and wake up in a better world. He walks into the living room and over to the bar. He pours himself a stiff Scotch and downs it. That moment—his hands pushing Portia—floods back and he shudders. He can smell himself, rank with sweat and fear. What has he done?

“Welcome home.”

Charles spins around to see Anne sitting on the couch by the fireplace. In the dim light, her face looks hard and angular. He has a sudden urge to confess, to be forgiven, absolved, cleansed. No. That would destroy everything.

“I didn’t see you there,” he says.

“I didn’t expect you would. Hard night?”

“Let’s not be childish, Anne.”

“No, let’s not. Let’s be very adult. How much longer do you need to finish your book?”

“About two weeks.”

“Today’s Monday. On Friday I’ll leave for a week in Los Angeles. Kayla and I have some business plans. When I come back, I want her out of your life.”

“I appreciate this.”

“I don’t want your appreciation. I want our marriage back.”

The world goes on and people like Anne put one foot in front of the other and do what they have to do.

“So do I, darling,” he says.

“I’m three months pregnant.”

Charles sits beside Anne and she recoils slightly—his smell, no doubt. He takes her hand and holds it to his cheek, smells it, kisses it. Then he gently touches her stomach.

“Thank you … for everything,” he says.

They sit there without speaking. It’s been such a long day. But worth it. He’ll deliver a great book—for Anne, for their child, for the man he once was and still at heart remains.

It’s early, but Emma is already at her typewriter. She’s exhausted, hasn’t even dressed yet, but Charles will be arriving soon and she wants him to find her at work. They’re nearing the end of the book and she’s finding it almost impossible to write. She wants the boy, Zack, to get away from his mother, escape their squalid, sorry life. She imagines him rescued by his aunt, a shadowy but important character in the book. Rescued, taken away—as she hadn’t been. She can see him playing in the sun on the fresh green lawn of his aunt’s house. Safe. Happy. Saved.

But no, Charles won’t hear of it. He says it would read like a tacked-on Hollywood ending; it would lack dramatic punch and tragic resonance, sabotage the climax they’d been building up to. He’s been fierce and unrelenting on this point, has mocked all of her objections. There’s only one way to end it, he insists: have Zack kill his mother. Not pretty, but honest. Bold. Horrifying.

•     •     •

That March night, as the soft snow fell outside the window, the small town lay curled in on itself and Emma lay coiled on her bed, her body covered with wounds and welts, trembling with fear and rage, staring at her bedroom door, barricaded with all the room’s furniture, waiting, almost afraid to breathe, her mother,
the devil
, in the middle of a three-day speed-fueled fit, a fury, and then suddenly—she must have crept close—a crashing as she threw her skinny venomous body against the door again and again and again, screaming, and the furniture started to slide across the floor and her mother started to laugh and Emma realized with a sudden clarity that her mother was insane and so was she, they were both crazy,
sick crazy
, and she hated her mother for making her crazy, wanted only to kill her, and then the door was halfway open and Emma looked out at the snow and it was so pretty.…