by Linda Quinby Lambert (2022 words)

In the sparsely furnished lobby of Pine Tree Lodge, conferees waited for Margaux to announce dinner. Jasper, enveloped in Bunny’s clouds of strong perfume and extravagant praise, tried to edge away, but she was the narrative he couldn’t edit or escape. Mavis, the self-appointed lookout for the last tardy participant, Sicfic560@memail.com, was positioned at the rain-streaked window, occasionally consulting her phone. “You’re all enjoying wine and I don’t drink,” she’d said. “I’ll watch for the last participant until Margaux gets back.” Charles Kowalski, the NY cop turned true-crime buff and Ed Tremayne (should his handle be HistFic?) were swapping plotlines as if they were trading evidence bags with a police report from 1890 or a lipstick-smeared cigarette butt. Perhaps they’d write something together. 

Peter had dragged a metal chair, Sharpie-marked PTL on its back, up to the sofa where Jane and Lucy were seated. Lucy, embarrassed by her first “Oh, wow,” reaction and remembering her hope for conversation with fellow writers, directed a question to the Deveralls. “I don’t know anything about your genre. What did you call it, ‘romantasy noir?’”

Peter leaned towards her. “Psycho-thriller romantasy noir!” It’s all about the dark art of love and destruction. A romantic story that feels like a crime. Velvet and razor blades, you know.”

Lucy didn’t know. She studied the wine in her glass. “Almost sounds like something you’ve survived yourself.” 

“Jane and I use our own demented lives as bedrock to our writing,” he winked, “and lots of bed, at that.” Ignoring Lucy’s blush, he rushed on. “Jane and I are both unreliable narrators with an urban gothic past. Like us, our characters never know whether their lovers are architects of disaster or saviors for salvation.”

Pausing to look into Lucy’s puzzled face, he said, “Haven’t you ever experienced the dark arc of love as destruction and seen how wealth and sex can hide rotten relationships?”

“Well, no, I, um, I’ve been with Paul since college. We have a little girl.” 

Jane was no longer wearing a tight-lipped expression that looked like curdled milk left out in the sun. Her fingers traced the rim of her wine glass, a deliberate sound like a blade being tested for sharpness. 

“You’re impossible, Peter. For once, why can’t you mansplain to someone at your own level of jaded?” She managed a smile “I guess you can’t help it. You love an audience.”

“Maybe, I do. At least some people”—he lifted his glass to Lucy—”still listen. I stopped auditioning for you a long time ago. You’ve been booing me for years.”

“Oh, please. Come to think of it, what you really want is a sparring partner, not an audience. Someone to toss daggers at you so you can analyze the pattern they make on the wall. Someone like me, right?”

“Yep,” he said, “I enjoy pulling out whatever you throw—switchblades or scalpels or penknives—while you watch to see if I’ll bleed or rewrite the ending.” He leaned back in his chair, relaxing a raised eyebrow and affecting an expression of what looked almost like appreciation.

“Of course,” she said. “That’s why we work together. We’d be insufferable partnered with anyone else. What we do even passes for affection.”

“For sure. It’s our love language—plot, conflict, revision. We love, we hate, we write, we fight, and sometimes we even publish.  Our best stuff,” he patted a thick sheaf of papers, “is all served up and blurb-worthy of Jasper’s exceptional reputation.” He increased the volume of his voice, hoping to stimulate Jasper’s interest in him. Then he grinned at Lucy. “I do like someone who asks me questions. As if I know something.”

Lucy cast her eyes downward. “I like questions too, but mostly I pose them to myself. They usually end up in essays no one’s asked me to write, though I did publish one story about Eula Bliss in a literary magazine. “I like her work. She writes about ordinary things until they start meaning something else. Not that I get to read favorite authors as much as I’d like these days.” She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear, as if filing their conversation away with the rest of her observations.

Peter, who didn’t bother to ask a question about the writer Lucy mentioned and he never heard of, noticed a flicker of tenderness crossing his wife’s face

“I envy you,” she said to Lucy. “You seem to look at the world like it might surprise you and even make you happy.”    

“I think happiness is quieter than most people think, even though life with a toddler isn’t very quiet right now.” 

“A toddler? You have a toddler? Was it hard to get away for a conference like this.”

“Not really. It was Paul’s idea. My husband. You don’t have children?”

“No.”

Perhaps taking advantage of the chance to say something practical and forget about the children they couldn’t have, Jane glanced at Lucy’s wet sleeve. “Your raincoat didn’t keep off all the rain.  I have an extra wool shawl. Here, put it around your shoulders.” 

The shawl smelled faintly of cedar and Jane’s perfume—warm, expensive, and a little sad.

“Keep it, Lucy. It suits you better than it ever did me.”

 Their conversation sounded human, Peter thought. Then he wondered when he’d stopped sounding human. 

***

Mavis had been an observer since birth.  Her parents named her after a small bird, a thrush known for its clear melodious song. They thought it paired well with their Irish surname, Kelly, from Ceallach, meaning “bright-headed and a warrior.” Growing up, she was indeed what Irish lore suggested, “a gentle songbird before she speaks,” though her warrior side showed up, especially in adolescence. 

She was standing near the entrance to the Lodge. She’d always been drawn to thresholds because thresholds, in life and in literature, were places where something would change. Every scene began with an arrival and whoever entered and crossed into new territory, impacted the balance, the flavor, the atmosphere. As far as she knew, no one except for her understood the impact SicFic560 would make when his expensive shoes stepped into the space they occupied. 

She had never met him in person, but she knew him. Of course, she wasn’t sure that the headlights of his vintage Citroen would pierce the paned windows of the Pine Tree Lodge. Would he even show up? In any case, she would do her job. She intended to listen, record, and evaluate. In fact, she had a contract to do so. Named “a debuting young writer,” she had a contract to attend incognito and observe “writers in the wild.”

Three years ago, after graduate school, she signed up for an international critique group that met online. She liked the way he shared, his words like smokey gravel warmed by a smile, tasting the air before escaping his lips as if he enjoyed the syllables and wanted to keep them. They became online friends. 

He liked that she was unjudgmental and, like her, he had a particular interest in names. Like Mavis’ parents, his had been aware of specific names for children. They, originally from the South of France who had immigrated to Canada, wanted their first (and only) son to be aware of his noble ancestry. They told him his name, Sicard, meant “strong and brave,” a derivative of medieval Latin. His surname was a direct line to the Renaissance philosopher Marsilo Ficino, a courtly individual of elegance and intellect. Sicard had intellect, but he disliked his name and experienced excessive bullying as a child because of it. “Too bad your name means sick,” or, from cleverer students of Latin, “Too bad you are a mistake.” If he, born in May 1960, changed his name, his parents’ considerable wealth, including an annual stipend, would go to charity. He respected his parents’ wishes, choosing to live well as a peripatetic, occasionally successful writer, ignoring the slivers of animosity that could slip into his behavior. 

Mavis’ name had been popular from the late Victorian period through the early twentieth century, now seemed quaint. She liked the meaning of her name, remaining an observer, a bystander, an unknown and curious figure in most social situations. Also: a very good writer. Though, decades younger that Sicard, she seemed to understand him. She did not, however understand why he could turn hostile.

On one of the stories she submitted to the critique group, his comment was pointed: “Your characters don’t look in the mirror enough.” She wasn’t sure what that meant. More than other members of the group, he had evaluated her writing in a blunt way, which helped her writing improve. In other submissions, he praised her insight, but mocked her “over-sincerity.” He felt her remarks were restrained, lacked authenticity, even accused her of using A-I to generate poorly researched opinion pieces. She once shared the draft of a story and he, without a single word of praise, shredded it with merciless comments. She asked for understanding, for more feedback. Perhaps their relationship would improve at the writers retreat they’d be attending.

Usually, she was not motivated by residual anger. Usually. Her approach to life was measured. But: she realized if his vintage Citroen which he had written about—Citroens had been off market since 1974 in Canada and the US—ended up in a ditch, she would not cry. 

***

Blood? Was it really blood? Maybe wine had spilled from the decanter. The idea clung to her like a life preserver buckled tight to save her from destruction.

She tried to make sense of the shape—a bundle of tarps, a coat fallen from a hook, animal remains, a mannequin left over from a party, a man folded in on himself like a collapsed puppet. The shape was too still, too deliberate, as if someone had arranged it to look like a body. Perhaps it’s not a body, she said to herself. The words hovered in her mind, thin and lifeless. Saying them aloud almost made them true, but her eyes seemed to know otherwise. Every time she fixed her gaze on the hump, she imagined a shoulder, a head, an elbow, a patch of hair.

The moment her hand had met the floor, however, a sticky residue clung to her palm. The smell told a story, the kind that didn’t belong to a tarp or wool or upholstery. Margaux staggered to her feet, the smell of something both metallic and sweet rising to her nostrils. She blinked hard, hoping that when she turned on the lights, the corner would be empty—a clean floor, a bare wall, a drizzle of something other than that substance that started with a “b.” She wouldn’t ignore the truth, but what was the truth? What if she’d been tricked, as she had been so many times when she and Jasper were children.

From an early age, Jimmy was a trickster, testing boundaries, unsettling adults and scaring the bejesus out of Marjory. He saved old things like dead bugs and chicken bones and slipped creepy messages under her bedroom door: “Don’t go downstairs. A strange man is hiding in the closet.” He smeared ketchup on his own face to simulate an injury or played monster sounds from a hidden tape player. His favorite ruse was to position a coat stuffed with a pillow under a bedspread. At twelve, he read about Frankenstein. When Jimmy was successful—as he often was because Marjory could be gullible—he was gleeful, dizzy with his own genius It was all about power and spectacle. He liked that he could make something happen, something that made Marjory gasp and the grownups react. Afterwards, Marjory always shook her head and laughed at her clever little brother.

Margaux stood quickly, too quickly, a little dizzy from the effort. Somewhere, a clock ticked, perfect in its indifference to her problem. She wiped her palm against her pants, regretting the move. Now her clothes were stained. Oh well, the group would think it was wine. She had to find Jasper right away before anyone else walked in. Before some innocent writer turned on the light and discovered whatever was real. 

The individuals in the room were authors—a mix of earnest scribes, voluminous egos, and mysterious urges, she mused. Some could make murder a reality on the page, others, she suspected, had even killed in person.

She’d been gone less than ten minutes. The Sterno wouldn’t last forever, the bowls of nuts were probably empty. She hoped the missing SicFic had arrived and Jasper had stepped in to welcome him.

Striding into the room, she said, “Dinner’s soon! While you’re waiting, here’s some Beatles music! Yeah, I know some of you weren’t around in 1966 when Paul McCartney wrote “Paperback Writers,” but let it inspire you.”

“I was around! I was around!” Bunny belt out a bright, brassy mezzo-soprano, blending exactly with the boombox’s lyrics: “Dear Sir or Madam, will you read my book? It took me years to write, will you take a look….”

Miracle of miracles, nearly everyone joined in. Margaux, helped along by wine and a singalong, had what she needed: time, and now, her brother.