CHAPTER 4
Daniel Matherly laid aside the
manuscript pages and thoughtfully pinched his lower lip between his thumb and fingers.
"What do you think?" Maris asked. "Is it my imagination or is it good?"
Taking advantage of the mild morning, they were having breakfast on the patio of Daniel's Upper East Side townhouse. Terra-cotta pots of blooming flowers provided patches of color within the brick enclosure. A sycamore tree shaded the area.
While Daniel was reading the _Envy
prologue, Maris had helped Maxine put together their meal. Maxine, the Matherlys'
housekeeper, had been practically a member of the family a full decade before Maris was born.
This morning she was her cantankerous self, protesting Maris's presence in her kitchen and criticizing the way she squeezed the fresh orange juice. In truth, the woman loved her like a daughter and had acted as a surrogate since the death of Maris's mother when she was still in grade school. Maris took the housekeeper's bossiness for what it was--an expression of her affection.
Maris and Daniel had eaten their egg-white omelets, grilled tomatoes, and whole-wheat toast in silence while he finished reading the prologue. "Thank you, Maxine," he said now when she came out to clear away their dishes and pour refills of coffee. "And yes, dear," he said to Maris, "it's good."
"I'm glad you think so."
She was pleased with his validation of her opinion, but she also valued his. Her father was perhaps the only person in the world who had read and reread more books than she. If they disagreed on a book, allowances were made for their individual tastes, but both could distinguish good writing from bad.
"New writer?"
"I don't know."
He reacted with surprise. "You don't
#know?" ##############################77
"This wasn't a typical submission by any stretch." She explained how she had come to read the prologue and what little she had learned about the elusive author. She ended by recounting her predawn telephone conversation with him.
When she finished, she asked crossly, "Who goes strictly by initials? It's juvenile and just plain weird. Like The Artist Formerly Known as Prince."
Daniel chuckled as he stirred cream
substitute into his last permitted cup of coffee for the day. "I think it adds a dash of mystery and romance."
She scoffed at that. "He's a pain in the butt."
"No doubt. Contrariness falls under the character description of a good writer. Or a bad one, for that matter."
As he contemplated the enigmatic author, Maris studied her father. __When did he get so _old? she thought with alarm. His hair had been white almost for as long as she could remember, but it had only begun to thin. Her mother, Rosemary, had been the widowed Daniel's second wife and fifteen years his junior. By the time Maris was born, he was well into middle age.
But he'd remained physically active. He watched his diet, grudgingly but conscientiously.
He'd quit smoking cigarettes years ago, although he refused to surrender his pipe. Because he had borne the responsibility of rearing her as a single parent, he had wisely slowed down the aging process as much as it was possible to do.
Only recently had the years seemed to catch up with him. To avoid aggravating an arthritic hip, he sometimes used a cane for additional support. He complained that it made him look decrepit. That was too strong a word, but secretly Maris agreed that the cane detracted from the robust bearing always associated with him. The liver spots on his hands had increased in number and grown darker. His reflexes seemed not to be as quick as even a few months ago.
But his eyes were as bright and cogent as ever when he turned to her and asked, "I wonder what all that was about?"
"All what, Dad?"
"Failing to provide a return address or telephone number. Then the telephone call this
#morning. His claims that the prologue was ###79
crap. Et cetera."
She left her chair and moved to a potted geranium to pluck off a dead leaf that Maxine had overlooked. Maris had urged the housekeeper to get eyeglasses, but she claimed that her eyesight was the same now as it had been thirty years ago. To which Maris had said, "Exactly.
You've always been as blind as a bat and too vain to do anything about it."
Absently twirling the brown leaf by its stem, she considered her father's question. "He wanted to be sought and found, didn't he?"
She knew she'd given the correct
response when Daniel beamed a smile on her. This was the method by which he had helped her with her lessons all through school. He never gave her the answers but guided her to think the question through until she arrived at the correct answer through her own deductive reasoning.
"He didn't have to call," she continued. "If he hadn't wanted to be found, he could have thrown away my telephone numbers. Instead he calls at a time of day when he's practically guaranteed to have the advantage."
"And protests too loudly and too much."
Frowning, she returned to her wrought-iron chair. "I don't know, Dad. He seemed genuinely angry. Especially about the deputy sheriff."
"He probably was, and I can't say that I blame him. But he couldn't resist the temptation to establish contact with you and hear what you had to say about his work."
"Which I think is compelling. That prologue has me wondering about the young man in the boat.
Who is he? What's his story? What caused the fight between him and his friend?"
"Envy," Daniel supplied.
"Which is provocative, don't you think?
Envy of what? Who envied whom?"
"I can see that the prologue served its purpose. The writer has got you thinking about it and asking questions."
"Yes, he does, damn him."
"So what are you going to do?"
"Try and establish some kind of professional dialogue. If that's possible to do with such a jerk. I don't fool myself into thinking it will be easy to work with this character."
###"Do you even know his telephone #########81
number?"
"I do now. Thanks to caller ID. I checked it this morning and recognized the area code I called yesterday."
"Ah, the miracles of advanced technology.
In my day--was
"In your day?" she repeated with a laugh.
"It's still your day."
Reaching for his speckled hand, she patted it fondly. One day he would be gone, and she didn't know how she was going to survive that loss.
She'd grown up in this house, and it hadn't been easy to leave it, even when she went away to college. Her bedroom had been on the third floor--still was if she ever wanted to use it.
Daniel's bedroom was on the second floor, and he was determined to keep it there despite the pain involved in getting up and down the stairs.
Maris recalled Christmas mornings, waking up before daylight, racing down to his room and begging him to get up and go downstairs with her to see what Santa Claus had left beneath the tree.
She had thousands of happy and vivid
recollections of her childhood--the two of them ice-skating in Central Park, strolling through street fairs eating hot dogs or falafel while rummaging in the secondhand book stalls, having high tea at the Plaza following a matinee, reading in front of the fireplace in his study, hosting formal dinner parties in the dining room, and sharing midnight snacks with Maxine in the kitchen. All her memories were good.
Because she had been a late-in-life only child, he had doted on her. Her mother's death could have been a heartache that wedged them apart. Instead, it had forged the bond between father and daughter. His discipline had been firm and consistent, but only rarely necessary. Generally, she had been obedient, never wanting to incur his disfavor.
The most rebellious offense she'd ever committed was to sneak out one night to meet a group of friends at a club that Daniel had placed off-limits. When she returned home in the wee hours she discovered just how vigilant a parent her father was--the kitchen window through which she had sneaked out had been locked behind her.
Forced to ring the front doorbell, she'd had to wait on the stoop for what seemed an excruciating eternity until Daniel came
#to let her in. He didn't yell at ####83
her. He didn't lecture. He simply
told her that she must pay the consequences of making a bad choice. She'd been grounded for a month.
The worst of the punishment, however, had been his disappointment in her. She never sneaked out again.
She'd been indulged but not spoiled. In exchange for spending money, she was required to do chores. Her grades were closely monitored.
She was praised for doing well more frequently than she was punished for mistakes. Mostly she had been loved, and Daniel had made certain every day of her life that she knew it.
"So you think I should pursue _Envy?" she asked him now.
"Absolutely. The author has challenged you, although he might not have done it intentionally and doesn't even realize that he has. You, Maris Matherly-Reed, can't resist a challenge."
He'd practically quoted from an article recently written about her in a trade journal.
"Didn't I read that somewhere?" she teased.
"And you certainly can't resist a good book."
"I think that's why I'm so excited about this, Dad," she said, growing serious. "In my present capacity, most of my duties
revolve around publishing. I work on the book once all the writing and editing have been done. And I love doing what I do.
"But I didn't realize until yesterday when I read this prologue how much I'd missed the editing process. These days I read the final, polished version of a manuscript just before I send it to production. I can't dwell on it because there are a million decisions about another dozen books that are demanding my attention. I've missed working one-on-one with an author. Helping with character development. Pointing out weaknesses in the plot. God, I love that."
"It's the reason you chose to enter publishing,"
Daniel remarked. "You wanted to be an editor. You were good at it. So good that you've worked your way up through the ranks until now your responsibilities have evolved away from that first love. I think it would be stimulating and fun for you to return to it."
"I think so too, but let's not jump the gun," she said wryly. "I don't know if _Envy is worth my attention or not. The book hasn't even been written yet. My gut
#instinct--was ##########################85
"Which I trust implicitly."
?--tells me that it's going to be good. It's got texture, which could be fleshed out even more.
It's heavy on the southern overtones, which you know I love."
"Like _The _Vanquished."
Suddenly her balloon of enthusiasm burst.
"Yes."
After a beat or two, Daniel asked, "How is Noah?"
As a reader, as well as his wife, she'd been massively disappointed that Noah hadn't followed his first novel with a second. Daniel knew that, so mentioning the title of Noah's single book was a natural segue into an inquiry about him.
"You know how he is, Dad. You talk to him several times a day."
"I was asking as a father-in-law, not as a colleague."
To avoid her father's incisive gaze, her eyes strayed to the building directly behind them.
The ivy-covered brick wall enclosing
Daniel's patio blocked her view of the neighboring building's ground floor, but she watched a tabby cat in a second-story window stretch and rub himself against the safety bars.
Maxine poked her head outside. "Can I get either of you anything?"
Daniel answered for both of them. "No, thank you. We're fine."
"Let me know."
She disappeared back inside. Maris remained quiet for a time, tracing the pattern of her linen place mat with the pad of her index finger. When she raised her head, her father had assumed the listening posture he always did when he knew there was something on her mind. His chin was cupped in his hand, his index finger lay along his cheek, pointing toward his wiry white eyebrow.
He never pried, never pressured her
into talking, but always patiently waited her out.
When she was ready to open up, she would, and not a moment before. It was a trait she had inherited from him.
"Noah came home very late last night,"
she began. Without going into detail, she gave him the gist of their argument. "We ended up lovers and friends, but I'm still upset about it."
###Hesitantly Daniel asked, #######87
"Did you overreact?"
"Do you think I did?"
"I wasn't there. But it sounds to me as though Noah had a logical explanation."
"I suppose."
He frowned thoughtfully. "Are you thinking that Noah has reverted to the habits he had while living a bachelor's life?"
Knowing the admiration and respect her father had for Noah, she was reluctant to recite a litany of complaints against him, which, when spoken aloud, would probably sound like whining at best and paranoia at worst. She could also appreciate that using her father as a sounding board placed him in an awkward position. He wasn't only Noah's
father-in-law, he was his employer.
Daniel had brought Noah into their publishing house three years ago because he had proved himself to be the smartest, shrewdest publisher in New York, save Daniel himself. When Maris and Noah's relationship became more social than professional, Daniel had expressed some reservations and cautioned her against an office romance. But he had given his approval when Noah, after being with Matherly Press for one year, confided in Daniel his plans to marry his daughter. He had even offered to resign in exchange for Maris's hand. Daniel wouldn't hear of it and had embraced Noah as his son-in-law with the same level of enthusiasm as he had hired him as vice president and business manager of his publishing house.
For almost two years, they had successfully managed to keep their professional and personal roles separate. Airing her wifely
grievances could jeopardize the balance. Daniel wouldn't want to say too much or too little, wouldn't want to choose one side over the other or trespass into marital territory where a father-in-law didn't belong.
On the other hand, Maris needed to vent, and her father had always been her most trusted confidant.
"In answer to your question, Dad, I'm not thinking anything that specific. I don't believe that Noah's having an affair. Not really."
"Something's bothering you. What?"
"Over the last few months, I don't feel like I've had Noah's full attention. I've had very little of his attention," she corrected with a
#rueful little laugh. ####################89
"The champagne fizz of a honeymoon doesn't last forever, Maris."
"I know that. It's just ..." She trailed off, then sighed. "Maybe I'm too much a romantic."
"Don't blame yourself for this stall. It doesn't have to be anyone's fault. Marriages go through periods like this. Even good marriages.
Dry spells, if you will."
"I know. I just hope he isn't getting tired of me. We're coming up on our two-year anniversary. That's got to be some kind of record for him."
"You knew his record when you married him," he reminded her gently. "He had a solid reputation as a ladies man."
"Which I accepted because I loved him. Because I had been in love with him since I read _The _Vanquished."
"And out of all those women, Noah returned your love and chose to marry you."
She smiled wistfully, then shook her head with self-deprecation. "You're right, Dad. He did. Chalk this up to hormones. I'm feeling neglected. That's all."
"And I must assume some of the blame for that."
"What are you talking about?"
"I've vested Noah with an enormous amount of responsibility. He's doing not only his job, which, God knows, is demanding enough, but he's begun taking up the slack for me as well.
I've slowed down, forcing him to accelerate.
I've suggested that he hire someone to shoulder some of his duties."
"He has difficulty delegating."
"Which is why I should have _insisted that he bring someone else on board. I'll make a point to see that he does. In the meantime, I think it would be a good idea for the two of you to go away together for a few days. Bermuda, perhaps. Get some sun.
Drink too many tropical drinks. Spend a lot of time in bed."
She smiled at his candor, but it was a sad smile. He'd said practically those same words last year when he'd packed them off to Aruba for a long weekend. They'd gone in the hope of returning pregnant. Although they'd made every effort to conceive and had enjoyed trying, they hadn't been successful. Maris had been greatly
#disappointed. Maybe that's when she and ######91
Noah had started drifting apart, though the rift had only recently become noticeable.
Daniel sensed that he'd touched on a topic best forgotten, or at least left closed for the present. "Take some time away together, Maris,"
he urged. "Away from the pressures of the office, the zaniness of the city. Give yourselves a chance to get back on track."
Although she wouldn't say this to Daniel, she didn't share his confidence that spending time in bed would solve their problem and set things right. Their disagreement this morning had ended with sex, but she wouldn't call it intimacy. To her it had felt that they were doing what was most expedient to end the quarrel, that they had taken the easy way out. Their bodies had gone through the familiar motions, but their hearts weren't in it.
Noah had defused her with flattery, which, in hindsight, seemed ingratiating and patronizing.
She'd been genuinely angry, which wasn't an ideal time to be told how beautiful she was.
Falling into bed together had been a graceful way to end an argument that neither had wanted to have. She hadn't wanted to accuse him further, and he hadn't wanted to address her accusations, so they'd made love instead. The implications of all that were deeply troubling.
For Daniel's benefit, she pretended to think over his suggestion of a tropical vacation, then said, "Actually, Dad, I was thinking of going away by myself for a while."
"Another good option. To the country?"
Frequently, when the city became too
claustrophobic, she went to their house in rural western Massachusetts and spent long weekends catching up on paperwork and reading manuscripts.
In the Berkshires, without the constant interruptions imposed on her in the office, she could concentrate and accomplish much in a relatively short period of time. It was natural for Daniel to assume that she would choose their country house for her retreat.
But she shook her head. "I think I'll go to Georgia."
Noah took it with equanimity. "I'm all for your getting away for a few days," he told her when she announced her intention to take a trip south. "A change of scenery will do you good. But
#what in heaven's name is in Georgia? ####93
A new spa?"
"An author."
"You'll be working? The whole point of taking a few days off is to relax, isn't it?"
"Remember the prologue I told you about yesterday?"
"The one from the slush pile?"
She ignored the skeptical slant of his grin. "I had difficulty locating the author but finally did."
"Difficulty?"
"Long story, and we've got that meeting in ten minutes. Suffice it to say he's not your routine writer trying to get published."
"In what way is he different?"
"Recalcitrant. Rude. And unenlightened.
He doesn't realize how good his writing is.
He's going to need some stroking, possibly some coaching, and a great deal of coaxing. I think a face-to-face meeting will yield more than telephone calls and faxes."
Noah was listening with only one ear. He was shuffling through a stack of telephone messages that his assistant had discreetly carried in and laid in front of him before slipping out. Then, checking his wristwatch, he stood up and began gathering materials off his desk for the upcoming meeting.
"I'm sorry, darling, but a continuation of this conversation will have to wait. This meeting won't keep.
When do you plan to leave?"
"I thought I'd go tomorrow."
"So soon?"
"I need to know if I should get excited about this book or drop it. The only way to find out is to talk to the author."
He rounded his desk and gave her a
perfunctory kiss on the cheek. "Then let's go out tonight, just the two of us. I'll have Cindy make reservations. Where would you like to go?"
"My choice?"
"Your choice."
"How about having Thai brought in? We'll eat at home for a change."
"Excellent. I'll pick the wine."
They were almost through his office door when he drew up short. "Damn! I just remembered, I have a meeting tonight."
She groaned. "With whom?"
He named an agent who represented several
#notable authors. "Join us. He'd be ####95
delighted. Then we can go somewhere alone for a nightcap."
"I can't be out all evening, Noah. I have things to do before I can leave town, packing included."
"I've postponed this engagement twice," he said with regret. "If I ask for another rain check, he'll think I'm avoiding him."
"No, you can't do that. How late will you be?"
He winced. "As you know, this guy likes to talk, so it might be late. Certainly later than I'd like." Sensing her disappointment, he stepped closer and lowered his voice. "I'm sorry, Maris. Do you want me to cancel?"
"No. He's an important agent."
"Had I known you planned to go away, I--was
"Excuse me, Mr. Reed," his assistant said from just beyond the doorway. "They're waiting for you and Mrs. Matherly-Reed in the conference room."
"We're coming." Once his assistant had withdrawn, he turned back to Maris. "Duty calls."
"Always."
"Forgive me?"
"Always."
He gave her a hard, quick hug. "You're the most understanding wife in the history of marriage.
Is it any wonder I'm crazy about you?" He kissed her briskly, then nudged her toward the door. "After you, darling."
* * *
"Envy" Child. 1
Eastern State University,
Tennessee, 1985
Members of the fraternity thought it brilliant of their chapter founders to have designed and built their residence house to correlate with the diamond shape of the fraternity crest.
But what they attributed to genius had actually come about by happenstance.
When shopping for a lot on which to build their fraternity house, those thrifty young men in the class of 1910 had purchased the least expensive property available, a deep corner lot a few blocks from campus whose owner was eager to sell. Its appeal was not its shape or location but its price. They acquired it cheaply.
So the lot came first, not the architectural
#renderings. They designed a structure that ##97
would fit on their lot; they didn't choose a lot that would accommodate their design. After the fact, some members might have noticed that the house was indeed diamond-shaped like their crest, but the similarity was coincidental.
Then, in 1928, a university planning and expansion committee fortuitously decided that the main avenue bisecting the campus should be converted into a landscaped mall open only to pedestrian traffic. They rerouted motor traffic onto the street that passed in front of the unusually shaped chapter house.
Consequently, through no genius of the founders, this location at a key intersection gave the fraternity a commanding presence on campus that was coveted by every other.
The front of the three-story house faced the corner, with wings extending at forty-five-degree angles from either side of it. Between the wings in the rear of the building were a limited and insufficient number of parking spaces, basketball hoops sans baskets, overflowing trash cans, two rusty charcoal grills, and a chain-link-fence dog run that was occupied by Brew, the fraternity's chocolate Lab mascot.
The building's facade was much more imposing. The stone path leading up to the entry was lined with Bradford pear trees that blossomed snowy white each year, providing natural decoration for the fraternity's annual Spring Swing formal.
Photographs of these trees in full bloom frequently appeared on the covers of university catalogues and brochures. This bred resentment in rival fraternities. Whenever threats of chain saws circulated, pledges were ordered to post twenty-four-hour guard. Not only would the fraternity lose face on campus if their trees were cut down, their residence hall would look naked without them.
In autumn the leaves of the Bradford pears turned the vibrant ruby red they were on this particular Saturday afternoon. The campus was uncharacteristically quiet. The football team was playing an away game. Had the team been at home, the front door of the fraternity house would have been open. Music would have been blaring from it.
It would be a raucous gathering place for the members, their dates, their parents, and their alums.
###Game-day traffic would be backed up ###99
for miles, and because every vehicle had to pass through this crossroads to reach the stadium, the members would enjoy a front-row seat for this bumper-to-bumper parade. They'd jeer at the rival team's fans and flirt with the coeds, who flirted back and sometimes, upon a spontaneous invitation, would leave the vehicles they were in to join the party inside the house. It was documented that several romances, and a few marriages, had originated this way.
On game days, the campus was drenched in crimson. If the school color wasn't
worn, it was waved. Brass and drums from the marching band echoed across campus for hours prior to kickoff. The campus was energized, hopping, festive.
But today it was practically deserted. The weather was rainy and dreary, incompatible with any sort of outdoor activity. Students were using the day to catch up on sleep, study, or laundry--
things they didn't have time to do during the week.
The halls of the fraternity house, smelling dankly of beer and boys, were dim and hushed. A few members were gathered around the large-screen TV that a prosperous alum had donated to the house the year before. It was tuned to an NCAA football game on which money was riding.
Occasionally either a cheer or a groan filtered up the staircases to the resident rooms on the second and third floors, but these sounds did little to compromise the sleepy quiet of the corridors.
A quiet that was punctured by, "Roark! You asshole!" followed immediately by a slamming door.
Roark dodged the wet towel hurled at his head and started laughing. "You found it?"
"Whose is it?" Todd Grayson brandished a Styrofoam cup that contained his toothbrush. Which wouldn't have been remarkable except that the cup had been used as a spittoon. The bristles of Todd's toothbrush were steeping in the viscous brown fluid in the bottom of the cup.
Roark was reclined on the three-legged sofa beneath their sleeping lofts, which were suspended from the ceiling by short chains. To maximize the small room's floor space, the lofts had been designed and constructed by the two young men in direct violation and defiance of fraternity house rules against any alteration to the structure of the building.
A couple of stacked bricks served as the sofa's fourth leg, but the eyesore was the focal
#point of their habitat, the "nucleus of ##101
our cell," Todd had intoned one night when he was particularly drunk. When furnishing their room, they'd found the atrocity in a junk store and bought it for ten bucks apiece. The upholstery was ripped and ratty and stained by substances that remained unidentified. The sofa had become so integral to the overall ugliness of their room, they had decided to leave it there upon their graduation as a legacy for the room's next occupants.
But Todd, who had once waxed poetic about the sofa, was so angry now that every muscle in his body was quivering. "Tell me. Whose spit cup is this?"
Roark was clutching his middle, laughing. "You don't want to know."
"Brady? If it's Brady's, swear
to God I'll kill you." Brady lived down the hall. He was a terrific guy, an ideal fraternity brother, the type who, on a moment's notice and without any complaint, would come out and get you if your car broke down on a snowy night.
Brady had a heart of gold. Personal
hygiene, however, wasn't one of his strong suits.
"Not Brady."
"Castro? Jesus, please tell me it's not Castro's," Todd groaned. "That fucker's diseased!" The second man under consideration wasn't Cuban. His real name was Ernie Campello.
He'd been dubbed Castro because of his talent for growing curly black hair, not only on his head and the lower half of his face, but all over his body. "God only knows what's crawling around in that pelt of his."
Roark laughed at that, then said, "Lisa somebody called."
The casual statement instantly doused Todd's anger. "Lisa Knowles?"
"Sounds right."
"When?"
"Five minutes ago."
"Did she leave a message?"
"Do I look like a secretary?"
"You look like an asshole with teeth. What'd she say?"
"She said you had a pencil-dick. Or did she say needle-dick? Gee, Todd, I can't remember. Sorry. But I did write down her number. It's on your desk."
###"I'll call her later." ##########103
"Who is she? Is she hot?"
"Yeah, but she's seeing some Delt. She's in my North American history class and she needs notes."
"Too bad."
Todd shot his grinning roommate a dirty look, then tossed the offensive cup into their trash can. He'd been showering in the communal bathroom down the hall when Roark sneaked in and put his toothbrush in tobacco-laced sputum.
"Don't be pissed," Roark said as Todd rummaged in a bureau drawer for a pair of boxers. "It was a damn good joke and worth the expense of a new toothbrush. It was worth twice the expense."
"Are you going to tell me whose it was?"
"Don't know. Found it on a windowsill on the third floor."
"Jesus. It could be anybody's."
"That was the general idea."
"I'll get you back," Todd threatened as he pulled on a T-shirt. "I mean it.
You've just screwed yourself but good, buddy."
Roark merely laughed.
"Didn't you have anything better to do? You've been lying on your ass all day."
"Gotta finish this over the weekend." Roark held up a paperback copy of _The _Great _Gatsby.
Todd snorted scornfully. "The most pussy-whipped character in the history of American fiction. Want to go get something to eat?"
"Sure." Roark rolled off the sofa and shoved his feet into a pair of sneakers. As they went through the door, he and Todd ritualistically kissed their fingers and slapped them against the Playmate of the Month on their calendar. "Later, sweetheart."
It was their place. They were regulars. The moment they cleared the door of T.R4's, T.R. himself drew them a pitcher of beer and delivered it to their booth.
"Thanks, T.R."
"Thanks, T.R."
There were no menus, but it wasn't even necessary for them to order. Knowing what they liked, T.R.
waddled back behind the counter and started building their pie. It and their beer would go on their joint account,
#which they would pay when they got around to it. ####105
T.R. had been providing his customers with this kind of personalized service for thirty-something years.
The story was that he'd enrolled in the university as a freshman, but ended his first term by skipping finals. He used his second-semester tuition money to make a down payment on this building, which was then on the verge of being condemned. T.R.
hadn't bothered to make renovations and it stood today as it had when he assumed occupancy. Engineering and architectural instructors continued to use the building as a case study for load-bearing beams.
The light fixtures were layered with generations of greasy dust. The linoleum floor was slick in some spots, gritty in others. No one dared look beneath the tables for fear of what he would find, and only in emergency situations did
beer-bloated bladders seek relief in the restroom.
It wasn't much of a place, but it was an institution. Every guy on campus knew T.R4's because it provided two basic needs of the male collegiate--cold beer and hot pizza.
By midterm, T.R. could call every customer by name, and even if the name escaped him, he knew how he liked his pizza. Todd's and Roark's never varied--thick crust, pepperoni, extra mozzarella, with a little crushed red pepper sprinkled on top.
Roark ruminatively chewed his first
wonderfully cheesy bite. "You really think so?"
"Think what?"
"That Gatsby was a puss."
Todd wiped his mouth with a paper napkin from the table dispenser, took a gulp of beer. "The guy's rich. Lives like a frigging prince or something. He has everything a man could want."
"Except the woman he loves."
"Who's a selfish, self-centered airhead, borderline if not full-fledged neurotic, who continually craps on him."
"But Daisy represents to Gatsby what his money couldn't buy. The unattainable."
"Respectability?" Todd lifted another slice of pizza from the bent metal platter and took a bite. "With his money, why should he give a shit whether or not he's accepted? He paid the ultimate price for an ideal." Shaking his
#head, he added, "Not worth it." ########107
"Hmm." More or less agreeing, Roark drank from his frosted mug. They discussed the merits of Gatsby, then of Fitzgerald's work in general, which brought them around to their own literary aspirations.
Roark asked, "How're you coming on your manuscript?"
A novel of seventy thousand words, minimum, was their senior project, their capstone prior to receiving a bachelor of arts degree. The one obstacle standing between them and graduation was the scourge of every creative writing student, Professor Hadley.
Todd frowned. "Hadley's up my ass about characterization."
"Specifically?"
"They're cardboard cutouts, he says. No originality, spontaneity, depth, blah, blab, blah."
"He says that about everybody's characters."
"Yours included?"
"I haven't had my critique yet,"
Roark replied. "Next Tuesday, bright and early, eight o'clock. I'll be lucky to escape with my life."
The two young men had met in a required composition class their first semester as freshmen.
The instructor was a grad student, who they later decided didn't know his dick from a dangling participle. The first week of class, he assigned a five-page essay based on
John Donne's _Devotions.
Taking himself far too seriously, the instructor had assumed a professorial stance and tone.
"You may not be entirely familiar with the text, but surely you'll recognize the phrasèfor whom the bells toll.`"
"Excuse me, sir." Todd raised his hand and innocently corrected him. "Is that the same as `for whom the bell tolls`?"
Recognizing a kindred spirit, Roark
introduced himself to Todd after class. Their friendship was established that afternoon. A week later, they negotiated a swap with the roommates the university had randomly assigned them. "Suits me," Roark grumbled when they proposed the idea to him. He gave Todd a word of warning. "He pecks on that goddamn typewriter twenty-four hours a day."
###They received the two highest grades in ##109
the class on that first writing assignment. "The jerk wouldn't dare award an A," Roark sourly observed. Scrawled on the cover of his blue book was a large B plus.
"At least you got the plus sign after yours,"
Todd remarked of his B.
"You would have if you hadn't been a smart-ass that first day. That really pissed him off."
"Fuck him. When I write the Great American Novel, he'll still be grading freshmen writing assignments."
"Ain't gonna happen," Roark deadpanned.
Then he flashed a wide white smile. "Because _I'm going to write the Great American Novel."
Love of books and the desire to write them was the foundation on which their friendship was built. It was a few years before cracks were discovered in that foundation.
And by the time those fissures were discovered, massive damage had already been done and it was too late to prevent the structure's total collapse.
They were well-rounded students, maintaining good grades in the required subjects, but excelling in the language arts. Their second semester, they pledged the same fraternity. They were avid sports enthusiasts and good athletes. They played on their fraternity football and basketball teams, sometimes competing with each other as avidly as with rival teams.
They were active and well-known on campus.
Todd was elected to the Student Congress.
Roark organized a campus-wide food
drive to benefit a homeless shelter. Both wrote occasional editorials, articles, and human interest stories for the student newspaper.
After one of his stories was published, Roark was approached by the dean of the journalism school.
He was highly complimentary of Roark's work and asked him to consider switching the focus of his endeavors from creative writing to journalism.
Roark declined. Fiction was his first love.
Roark never told Todd about that conversation, but he celebrated when Todd won first place in a national collegiate fiction-writing competition.
Roark's submission hadn't even earned an honorable mention. He tried to conceal his jealousy.
They caroused and partied with their fraternity brothers. They drank enough beer to float a fleet. Occasionally they shared a joint, but they
#didn't make a habit of it and never ####111
tried hard drugs. They nursed one another's hangovers, loaned each other money during temporary financial crises, and when Roark contracted strep throat and his temperature shot up to one hundred and three, it was Todd who rushed him to the campus infirmary.
When Todd was notified of his father's sudden death, Roark drove him home across two state lines, and then stayed on through the funeral to lend the emotional support his friend needed.
Disagreements arose now and then. Once, when Roark borrowed Todd's car, he backed into a fireplug and dented the rear fender. Todd asked several times when he planned to have it repaired.
He asked so frequently that it became a touchy subject.
"Will you get off my goddamn back about that?"
Roark snapped.
"Will you fix my goddamn car?"
That heated exchange was the extent of the disagreement. Roark took the car to be repaired the following day, and Todd never mentioned it again.
And then there was the case of the missing Pat Conroy.
Roark drove to a bookstore in Nashville and stood in line for over two hours to meet the author and obtain a signed copy of _The _Great _Santini. He admired Conroy more than any other contemporary novelist and nearly embarrassed himself when Conroy wished him good luck with his own writing pursuits. The autographed book was his most prized possession.
Todd asked to borrow it. He claimed that when he finished reading it, he replaced it in Roark's bookshelf. It never turned up, not even when Roark practically tore their room apart searching for it.
What happened to the book remained a mystery.
They eventually stopped arguing about it, but Roark never loaned Todd a book again, and Todd never asked to borrow one.
They were good-looking, each in his own way, so there was never a shortage of girls. When they weren't talking about books, chances were very good that the subject was women. If one of them got lucky and a young lady stayed over, the other bunked down in a neighboring room.
One morning after a young lady had taken the
"walk of shame" down the hallway of the
#fraternity house on her way out, #######113
Todd looked over at Roark and said
morosely, "She wasn't all that hot, was she?"
Roark shook his head. "Last night you were looking at her through beer goggles."
"Yeah," Todd sighed. Then with a sly smile he added, "But it all feels good in the dark, doesn't it?"
They talked about women tirelessly and shamelessly, unabashedly adhering to the double standard.
Only Roark came close to having a serious relationship, and only once.
He met her during his food drive. She had volunteered to help. She had a beautiful smile and a slender, athletic body. She was a smart and conscientious student and could converse intelligently on any number of subjects.
But she also had a good sense of humor and laughed at his jokes. She was an excellent listener who focused on the topic when it turned to something serious. She taught him how to play
"Chopsticks" on the piano, and he persuaded her to read __The Grapes of _Wrath.
She was a passionate kisser, but that's as far as she would go. She clung to a strict moral code, founded on her religion, and she didn't intend to break it. She hadn't in high school with her longtime sweetheart, and she wasn't going to until she knew she was with the man she would marry and grow old with.
Roark admired her for it, but it was damned frustrating.
Then she called him one night and said she had just finished reading the Steinbeck classic, and if he wasn't busy, she would like to see him. He picked her up, they went for a drive, then parked.
She had loved the classic novel and thanked him for sharing it with her. Her kisses that night were more passionate than ever. She raised her sweater and pressed his hand against her bare breast. And if caressing her and feeling her response wasn't the most physically gratifying sexual experience Roark had ever had, it was certainly the most meaningful. She was sacrificing something of herself to him, and he was sensitive enough to realize it.
He wondered if he was falling in love.
A week later, she dumped him. He was
tearfully informed that she was resuming the relationship with her high school sweetheart. He was
#dumbfounded and not a little angry. "Do I ##115
at least get to ask why?"
"You're going to be somebody great, Roark.
Famous. I know it. But I'm just a simple girl from small-town Tennessee. I'll teach elementary school for a couple of years, maybe, then become a mother and the president of the PTA."
"There's nothing wrong with that."
"Oh, I'm not apologizing for it. It's the life I choose, the life I want. But it's not the life for you."
"Why do we have to plan the rest of our lives now?" he argued. "Why can't we hold off making major decisions and just continue to spend time together, enjoy each other, wait and see what happens?"
"Because if I continue seeing you, I'll sleep with you."
"Would that be so terrible?"
"Not at all terrible. It would be ..." She kissed him deeply, her sweet mouth tugging on his with the restrained passion he had come to expect.
"I want to," she whispered against his lips.
"I want to so bad. But I made a pledge of abstinence. I can't break it. So I can't see you anymore."
To his mind, that was totally irrational, but she would not be dissuaded. He was depressed and testy for weeks. Todd, sensing that the budding romance had suddenly withered and died, walked on eggshells around him.
Finally, however, he'd had all the moodiness he could stand. "Christ, get over it already." He insisted that the only cure for one woman was another woman. He practically dragged Roark from their room. They got drunk and got laid that night.
Roark wasn't "cured," but eventually he came around because he had no choice. And, in retrospect, everything she had said was right.
Maybe not the part about his guaranteed greatness. That remained to be seen. But regarding everything else, she had been inordinately insightful.
At the end of the semester, she transferred to a college nearer her hometown, where the boyfriend was attending. Roark wished her well and told her that her sweetheart was the luckiest bastard on the planet. She blushed, thanked him for the compliment, and said she would be watching for his name in print.
"I'll buy a dozen copies of your books and distribute them to all my friends, and boast that I once dated the great Roark Slade."
###That was as close as either he or Todd ##117
came to having a serious romantic entanglement.
But women consumed their thoughts and fueled their lusts, and on that rainy Saturday evening, it was a girl that brought to a close their conversation about Professor Hadley's grueling, demoralizing critiques.
A pair of coeds were actually brave--or brazen--enough to enter the testosterone-charged sanctum of T.R4's just as Roark was advising Todd to deflect Hadley's comments. "After all, they're just his opinion."
Todd, who was facing the door, changed the subject by saying, "Well, it's my opinion that that is one hot chick."
Roark glanced over his shoulder at the two girls. "Which one?"
"Blue sweater. Packing Tic Tacs." That was their coded reference to evident nipple projection.
"She's hot, all right," Roark agreed.
Todd grinned at her and she grinned back.
Roark said, "Hey, Christie."
"Oh, Roark, hi." Her drawl stretched the single-syllable words into roughly three apiece.
"How are you?"
"Great. You?"
"Couldn't be better."
When Roark came back around, Todd was swearing into his beer mug. "You son of a bitch.
I might've known."
Roark merely smiled and sipped his beer.
Todd continued to ogle. "She's a fox. I don't remember you ever going out with her."
"We didn't go out."
"Casual acquaintance?"
"Something like that."
"My ass," Todd scoffed. "You got on her."
"I--was
"Didn't you?"
"Maybe. Once. I think. We might've just mugged during a party."
The girls were now receiving instruction from several other customers on how to line up a pool shot.
The lesson required bending over the billiard table, which provided Todd an anatomical perspective of Christie that actually caused him to moan. "Damn."
"Try not to drool, okay?" Roark
#admonished. "It's embarrassing." ######119
He slid from the booth and approached the laughing group. The other men eyed him resentfully when he took Christie's elbow and steered her toward the booth. "Christie, Todd, my roommate.
Todd, this is Christie."
Roark ushered her into his side of the booth, so that they were seated across from Todd. "Hi, Christie."
"Hi."
"Would you like a beer?"
"Love one."
Todd signaled T.R. to bring another
pitcher and a third mug. "Pizza?"
"No, thanks."
Roark waited through the pouring of the beer before saying to Christie, "Listen, this is a bitch, but I gotta split. Are you okay with me leaving you in Todd's company? He's fairly harmless."
Her pout could have sold a million tubes of L'Oréal lipstick--to men. "It's
Saturday night, Roark," she whined. "Where do you hafta go?"
"I left Gatsby, Daisy, and the gang waiting on me. I need to get back to them."
He tilted his head toward Todd. "If he gets out of line, let me know. I'll knock him around for you."
She glanced flirtatiously at Todd. "I can handle him just fine."
"I bet you can," Todd said, bobbing his eyebrows. "Anytime, sweetheart."
Roark left her giggling over the innuendo. It was hours later before he returned to his and Todd's room. After listening at the door for several moments, he knocked tentatively.
"Huh?"
"Okay if I come in?"
"Yeah."
Todd was alone in his loft, lying on his back, one bare leg and foot dangling over the side.
He looked completely done-in but managed to mumble, "Thanks for keeping your distance. Where've you been all this time?"
"The library."
"How's Gatsby?"
"No more pussy-whipped than you, ol'boy.
When did Christie leave?"
"About ten minutes ago. Your timing was perfect."
###"Happy to oblige." ##############121
"You know, she actually asked if they were friends of yours."
"Who?"
"That's what I asked. And she said, `Those people waiting for him.`"
"You're kidding."
"Nope. Never heard of Gatsby. But who the hell cares? She fucks like she invented it."
Roark crossed to the window and opened it.
"Smells like sex in here."
"Oh, before I forget, our favorite professor called and left you a message."
"Hadley?"
"Said he has a conflict at eight, so he bumped your appointment up to nine o'clock Tuesday morning."
"Fine by me. I won't have to get up so early."
Todd yawned and turned toward the wall.
"Thanks again for Christie. She was something else.
G'night."