Writers & Lovers(56)

I call Muriel. She’s packing for her conference in Rome. I barely get it out. She tells me to write down every word of the conversation I can remember no matter how disjointed. I do and call her back. She listens then speaks at length about the idea of possession in the novel and how the whole history of Cuba is enacted on Clara’s body. She tosses out a few more suggestions that had occurred to her since she read it. I don’t know if Jennifer said anything like this, but they are smart insights, and I write them all down.

I tell her to have a safe trip. I say this three or four times before we hang up.





Oscar says agents are full of it, and it doesn’t matter that I’ve forgotten what Jennifer said. ‘It was clearly unmemorable.’

We’re driving to Wellesley for his reading there. I’m wearing a skirt and a long strand of my mother’s beads. ‘It wasn’t. She’s smart and sharp, and I really liked her ideas.’

‘But not enough to remember them.’

‘I was late for work and hadn’t slept well and my brain is foggy these days.’

‘Listen to you, sounding like a menopausal old lady.’

We get to the bookstore a half hour before the reading. Oscar tells the girl at the register his name, and she doesn’t recognize it and doesn’t know about the reading. She points us to a woman in back, who flushes when she sees Oscar. She says it’s an honor to have him, and she takes us to an alcove where there are rows of seats for his reading and a table with stacks of his three books on it. Two people are sitting in the back row already, knitting. The bookstore owner says that the writer Vera Wilde is coming to the reading and to dinner afterward.

‘I hope that’s all right,’ she says.

‘It will be good to see her.’

‘Oh phew. She said you were old friends. We hosted her at the church last week.’ She shows us to a room in back full of boxes of books and a desk covered in paperwork. There are two plastic molded chairs in the middle. ‘You can put your stuff in here and just relax until seven. Can I get you a glass of water?’

‘No. I think we’ll have a walk,’ Oscar says and heads to the door.

I thank the woman and catch up with him on the street.

He points back to the bookstore. ‘Did you see that pathetic Xerox they taped to the door? Vera Wilde fills the church. I get six chairs and a music stand they nicked from high school band practice. Fuck.’

‘There were at least twenty chairs. Maybe thirty.’

‘I am forty-seven years old. I was supposed to be reading in auditoriums by now. Did you see the cover of the Book Review last week? That was my student. My students are blowing by me. I’m not doing this. I always think it will be okay, but it’s not okay.’

‘I thought you were forty-five.’

‘I know I have a better book inside me. I have something big inside me. I just. Ever since. Fuck.’ It almost seems like he’s going to punch the bricks of the gift shop beside us. Instead he lays his palms on the wall and lets out some jagged breaths.

Nearly every guy I’ve dated believed they should already be famous, believed that greatness was their destiny and they were already behind schedule. An early moment of intimacy often involved a confession of this sort: a childhood vision, teacher’s prophesy, a genius IQ. At first, with my boyfriend in college, I believed it, too. Later, I thought I was just choosing delusional men. Now I understand it’s how boys are raised to think, how they are lured into adulthood. I’ve met ambitious women, driven women, but no woman has ever told me that greatness was her destiny.

My father had this kind of drama in him, sudden surges of despair about his life and wasted chances and breaks he never got. It took me a while to understand that my wins on the golf course, no matter how hard he strived for them, only made him feel worse. I figured that an actually successful man like Oscar would have outgrown all that crap.

He straightens up and looks around for me. I’ve moved a few yards up the street.

‘Every now and then I have a small pity party.’ He wipes his face with his hands. ‘It’s over now.’ He swings an arm around me and we walk back toward the store.

They don’t have enough chairs in the end. The owner’s son is sent down to the basement for more but there are still people who have to stand against the shelves. I sit in the middle of the fourth row, next to a student who takes notes. The owner prepared a long and heartfelt introduction, about where she was when she read his first book and how overcome she was. She quotes passages from reviews, and she lists his awards and fellowships. She tells us a major motion picture is in the works for Thunder Road, which I didn’t know.

Oscar stands up and thanks her—Annie, he calls her now—and praises her ‘renowned collection’ and thanks her for the hyperbole. He thanks everyone for coming out on such a beautiful evening. He takes long pauses between his sentences, giving the audience the sense that he is bashful, that appearing in public is difficult for him, that he never expected to have to do this. When he reads, he puts the book on the metal stand and his hands deep in his pockets. He raises his shoulders and tips his head down so that his eyes come at us at a sheepish glance, almost as if he feels the words aren’t good enough to be read aloud. It’s a pretty adorable performance, if you hadn’t heard him moaning about not reading at the church.