The Way of All Fish: A Novel (41 page)

“Wherein you take no vows, and when your time of preparation is
through, you may go into the world and practice—you’re familiar with the Rule of Benedict?”

Bass looked stupidly at Johnny.

“Never mind. If you choose to do this, you will learn it.”

His mouth hanging slightly open, giving him a foolish look, Bass nodded again.

“You would be giving up your current life and attachments. Have you spoken to your family about this?” When Bass said no, Johnny went on. They decided that Bass would stay for an indefinite period but at least five or six months. Bass seemed almost thrilled, relieved beyond measure. He had a suitcase at the hotel which Paul said he would be glad to collect and bring back, but Bass said just to take it to New York.

“Yes,” said Johnny, “it’s really better to come stripped bare.”

Depends if you’re Bass Hess or a high-class hooker, thought Paul, studying his cuticles.

“Now, Bass, there are certain rules . . .”

Driving back to the hotel, Paul hummed, all the while thinking of the “rules” that he was sure Johnny had tailor-made for Bass Hess, the chief among them being that Bass would have to wind up business, put whatever was on his mind out of his mind, and generally set such conditions as would make a further assault upon Cindy Sella extremely difficult, if not downright impossible.

The next morning he had time to kill before his flight to New York, so he crossed the bridge again to visit the Warhol Museum. He stood in the doorway of the gallery with the parachute-covered sponge but did not go in. He wandered off to another gallery, a smallish one at the end. Here, beneath the ceiling, floated a mass of silver balloon-like pillows. Two little girls and a teenage boy were busy tapping and thumping the silver pillows up and away. They didn’t mind or didn’t notice an adult joining in.

This was so Warholian, thought Paul as he hit a silver cloud away from the girls, just as an older brother might do. They put on scowls and ganged up on this intruder, and sent the cloud he was reaching for out of his reach, just as a kid sister would.

Paul stood on the Sixth Street Bridge and looked at the river. He had come down from the high of the previous evening and felt something that wasn’t and yet resembled melancholy. Something was going out of his life. It was rather like leaning over the rail of a departing ship as it leaves a harbor, and finding oneself at that distance from shore where the lights of the land are barely distinguishable from the stars. It was the way he felt when he finished writing a book.

H
ow long had she been sitting like this, her head bent over her hands on the typewriter? She sat up and looked at the clock. Only ten minutes, but it felt like hours. She was becoming Lulu.

She wondered if she was right about Lulu’s seeming inability to feel anything about people or even things until they left her or she left them. That’s what it looked like, with Lulu being so standoffish and stiff-arming people—that is, keeping them at arm’s length.

Cindy stared at her. That is, stared at the page that Lulu was on. Cindy stared at Lulu’s head, resting on her hands, her hands crossed on the steering wheel. Lulu sinking deeper and deeper into immobility.

Cindy felt more and more that she was losing her grip on Lulu.

Was Lulu the way she was because she couldn’t stand losing people? No, it was more complicated: Lulu couldn’t stand anything changing.

A knock on the door made her jump.

At this hour—ten-thirty, nearly. Edward. She checked to see if the bottle of Old Grand-Dad held enough for a few drinks. Yes.

She looked down at her smock. It was quite ugly; it was stained from the time she’d helped Rosa Parchment paint mirror frames. The last big button was missing. Edward wouldn’t care, so she went to the door.

Joe Blythe looked at her smock. “That’s attractive, too. Hi, Cindy.” He smiled.

She shut her eyes as if that would keep him from seeing her. Then she opened them and said, “No, I’ve just been painting the bedroom. Hi.”

He nodded. “Turquoise. It must be magnificent. Purple trim, maybe? I could use a drink. It’s been a hell of an evening.”

“Really? A drink? Absolutely. Of course.” She was glad she’d checked the liquor level. She hurried to the kitchen, snatched up two glasses, and hurried back to the living room, where she poured a couple of fingers of Old Grand-Dad into each glass. Returning to the doorway, she poked one toward him. “Here.”

“Thanks. Where’s Edward?”

“Edward? Probably having coffee or something at Ray’s.”

“That coffee shop where I met you?” Joe leaned back against the wall and sipped his whiskey.

She nodded almost hysterically, as if there were no way she could overconfirm that it was the place where they’d met. She said, “I supposed you’d gone. Home.”

“Gone? I wouldn’t leave without saying good-bye.”

“You wouldn’t? Oh, of course you wouldn’t.” She made it sound quite casual, as if she had nothing invested in the moment. Then she leaned against the opposite wall and sipped her whiskey, too.

Looking down at his glass, he swirled the whiskey and said, “I was wondering—?”

“Oh?” Her voice cracked on the single syllable. She cleared it. “Oh, really?”

“Do you think we could go inside?”

Her eyes widened. My God, she’d done it again: kept him in the hall. “Of course, of course. I’m so sorry.” She held out her arm, ushering him in.

“Don’t be. I like the hallway.”

She was right behind him to close the door to the bedroom so he wouldn’t see it was just Calamity White. Joe sank down onto the sofa, and Gus slid from the bench, nosed around his feet, and glared up at him.

“What’s your cat’s name?”

“Gus.” She sat down opposite him.

“Hi, Gus.”

Glare.

Cindy got useful and picked up the Old Grand-Dad and poured another inch or so into his glass.

“Thanks. You remembered I don’t like ice.” He smiled.

She sat down, ran her hand through her hair, and shrugged slightly. “Of course.” No, she hadn’t. She just hadn’t had time to dump out the ice tray. “Cheers.” She tried to mirror that one-sided smile of his but imagined she merely looked like one of those crazy ladies in
Grey Gardens.
In this smock of hers. “So,” she said, hoping she would be dead drunk in another ten seconds, “you haven’t gone home.”

“Nope. I wanted to see you.”

Three seconds. Her stomach was somewhere around Gus’s level, bunched at his feet. “Oh. I’m glad you did. I mean, I was hoping—” God. Listen to her. “How do you know Paul Giverney and the others? Like that redhead?”

Joe seemed to chew the side of his mouth a little bit. “Blaze? I don’t know her.”

Good. “But you were all at the Clownfish the other night with Candy and Karl and a man I’d never seen.”

“Arthur. We were meeting about something.”

“You know they’re hit men, don’t you?”

“Arthur and Blaze?”

Impatiently, she said, “
No.
Candy and Karl. They’re contract killers.”

“Really. I’ve known them for a long time. They’re pretty nice guys.”

“If you like hit men. Are you going back to see my awful ex-agent? If you do, can I go?”

Joe laughed. “He’s gone.”

She fell back against the soft cushion. “They killed him.”

“No. He just left.” Joe made a whooshing sound and flew his hand through the air. “Vamoosed. I think to Florida.”

“Florida?”

“Um. He has a very rich aunt there. She wanted him to come and stay with her. He’s her only heir. You bet he went.”

“What about the Hess Agency?”

“I don’t know, but I suppose he’s turning that over to someone else. Ask Paul.” He looked around the room. “This is really nice. You like Manhattan, I guess. Being a writer. I always found it too exotic. Surreal.” He slid down in his seat and rested his head against the back of the sofa as if he meant to stay.

Perhaps she could cover him with the wool throw and then he would
stay. Before she could do anything or think anything, he’d leaned over and picked up the Gissing book. “I’ve never read this. What’s New Grub Street?”

“A street in London. Or it was in Dr. Johnson’s day, in the eighteenth century. Later, it became a street of hack writers. Something to do with the new journalism. That’s why Gissing called it
New Grub Street.
It was when writing for the market started, you know, commercializing fiction. It was all a little more complicated than I’m making it sound.” She leaned over, as he had, and placed her fingers on the book. “The main character is a writer who can’t make himself write for the marketplace. His name is Reardon. Maybe it’s sentimental to feel sorry for him, but he’s poor; he dies; his wife marries the friend, who’s a big commercial writer.”

“That’s rotten, for sure.” Joe leaned back again, sipped his whiskey. “You really love writing, don’t you?”

Cindy looked up, astonished; appalled, almost. “No. I hate it. It’s too hard.”

He laughed. Then he finished off his drink as he rose in one swift motion. “I’ve got to go, Cindy.”

“No!” She was swifter. “Not yet. I don’t want you to.” She was dangerously close to tears. Her voice was gravelly.

“Cindy—”

She couldn’t help it; she threw her arms around him and planted her face against his neck. Just as suddenly, she took her arms away and stepped back. “I could go with you.”

“I keep pigs. I throw knives. Do you want that?”

“I like pigs.”

“You like knives?”

She tried to make out that it was nothing worthy of consideration. “Oh, come on, you’re not always throwing knives.”

“Candy and Karl aren’t always shooting people, either.”

“So now you’re telling me you’re a hit man?”

“No.”

“Ha! I didn’t think so. Anyway, I don’t care.”

He smiled. “Cindy, you don’t need me.”

How irritating. “Don’t you tell me what I need. I hate it when people do that.” She was so nervous that she was trying to tie the ends of her
smock together. She stuck her thumb through the buttonhole at the bottom. “Don’t tell me what I need.”

He ignored that. “I don’t think you need other people.”

“What? I didn’t say other people. I said you. I need you. You have the bluest eyes anyone has ever had.”

He seemed to be thinking. “What about Steve McQueen?”

She stared. “Steve McQueen?”

“I’m exaggerating. Cindy, you’ve got what you need. You’ve got it. Your mind, your writing, your characters—”

Her mouth dropped open. She threw up her hands, or tried to. Her thumb was stuck in the buttonhole, so the smock came up with it. “Oh, now you’ve done it! Oh, boy, you have really done it now!” She got her hand free and snatched up her notebook. “My characters? Do you think for one bloody minute that this character is company for me?” She shook the notebook in his face. She wanted to throw it against the wall, but with the loose papers in it, she was afraid she’d never get them back in order, so she just slammed it down on the end table. “Lulu? You think Lulu’s company?”

“Lulu?”

“Who does nothing but sit, sit, sit in her car! Nothing. Does that sound like company for a person?” She felt either tearing mad or about to dissolve in tears, she wasn’t sure which. “Look at me! I’m hopeless. I can’t ever plan for anything. I could have worn my red dress, but no, oh, no. I’m in this goddamned smock! And you think this is a life?”

“All right, then.” He sat back down. “Get your stuff, and we can drive on up to the farm.”

“What?”

“Just pack a bag and we can go.”

She half-laughed. “Wait. You mean just like that?”

“Sure.”

“Right now? Tonight?”

“Why not?”

“You’re being awfully
positive
about it.”

“I’m not. You are, though.”

And there it was, right there. Right in her hand or right at her feet.

The light fandango.

Cartwheels on the floor.

Ceiling flying away.

She stared at Joe.

At last he rose and said, “I didn’t think so.” Then he leaned down and kissed her, not terribly hard. “Come up to the farm sometime. I’ll use you for target practice.” He went to the door. “Bye, Cindy.”