Envy

Chapter 18

Mike Strother laid the manuscript pages aside. He sipped from his glass of lemonade made with lemons he had squeezed himself. He was taking a day off from working on the mantel. Yesterday he had applied a coat of varnish and was giving it an extra day to dry because of the humidity. That was the explanation he’d given Parker anyway.

Throughout the morning, Mike had worked outdoors. Parker had seen him on his hands and knees turning the soil in the flower beds with a trowel. Later, he’d swept the veranda and washed the front windows. But the afternoon heat had driven him inside in time to prepare Parker’s lunch, which he was only now getting around to eating.

He had been writing—actually rewriting—since dawn and was now anxious to hear Mike’s reaction to this latest draft.

Parker valued Mike’s critiques of his work, even when they were negative. Although he sometimes felt like telling the older man to go to hell and to take his lousy opinion with him, he invariably reread the disputed passages with a different perspective, only to realize that Mike’s observations were well founded. Even if he didn’t agree with them, he took Mike’s insights into consideration during his rewrites.

Mike was never quick to comment, whether his review was good or bad. But when he was piqued at Parker for one reason or another, he deliberately withheld his remarks until Parker asked for them. Today, he was taking even more time than usual, and Parker knew he was doing so just to be vexing.

But Parker was feeling rather ornery himself. He stubbornly waited as Mike thumbed through the pages a second time, rereading several passages, making noncommittal harrumphing sounds like a physician listening to a hypochondriac’s litany of complaints, and tugging thoughtfully on his lower lip.

This continued for at least ten minutes more. Parker was the first to crack. “Could you please translate those grunts into a semblance of verbiage?”

Mike looked across at him as though he had forgotten he was there, which Parker knew to be a ruse. “You use the word ‘fuck’ and its derivatives a lot.”

“That’s it? That took ten minutes of contemplation? That’s the substance of your critique?”

“I couldn’t help but notice.”

“Guys their age use that kind of language. Particularly in the company of other guys. In fact, they try and top each other, see who can be the most vulgar, talk the dirtiest.”

“I didn’t.”

“You’re an aberration.”

Mike scowled but let the insult pass. “You also use the word ‘homo.’ Very offensive.”

“Granted. But in ’88, we hadn’t yet coined the term ‘politically correct.’ And, again, I’m staying true to my characters. Randy, heterosexual males having a private conversation aren’t going to be sensitive and deferential when referring to gay men.”

“Or to the female anatomy, it seems.”

“Particularly to the female anatomy,” Parker said, ignoring the implied reproof. “They wouldn’t use the polite or clinical word for an act or a body part when there’s an off-color alternative. Now that your fussiness over the coarse language has been addressed, what did you think—”

“You didn’t go to the cotton gin today, did you?”

“What’s that got to do with the manuscript?” Parker asked impatiently.

“Does it have something to do with the manuscript?”

“You’re being awfully contrary this afternoon. Did you forget to take your stool softener last night?”

“You’re changing the subject, Parker.”

“Or is that lemonade spiked with Jack Daniel’s?”

“More to the point, you’re avoiding the subject.”

“Me? I thought the subject was my manuscript. You brought up—”

“Maris.”

“The gin.”

“The two are linked,” Mike said. “After months of preoccupation with that place, you haven’t been back to it since she left.”

“So?”

“So the fact that you haven’t gone back to the gin has nothing to do with what happened there between you and Maris the morning she left?”

“No. I mean yes. I mean… Shit. Whatever the hell you just said.” Parker hunched his shoulders cantankerously. “Besides, nothing happened.”

“Going there wouldn’t bring back memories either pleasant or disturbing? It wouldn’t remind you of her? Wouldn’t make you recall something that she said or something that you said that you’d rather forget?”

“You know what?” Parker tilted his head back and eyed Mike down the length of his nose. “You should have been a woman.”

“Let’s see. During this one conversation you’ve managed to accuse me of being a freak, then a closet drunk with bowel problems, and now you’re insulting my masculinity.”

“You’re as nosy as an old woman who has nothing else to do except butt into other people’s business.”

“Maris is my business, too, Parker.”

His sharp tone changed the character of the conversation and signaled that the banter was over. Parker turned away and stared out over the ocean. It was calm this afternoon, a mirror casting a brassy reflection of the sun off its surface.

As they did each day at about this time, a small flock of pelicans flew in formation just above the treetops toward their nighttime roost. Parker wondered if it was constraining or comforting to be part of such a closely knit group. He had been a loner for so many years, he couldn’t remember what it was like to be a member of a family, or a fraternity, or any community of individuals.

Mackensie Roone was beloved by readers all over the world. He resided on their nightstands and in their briefcases. He accompanied them to the beach, to the toilet, and on modes of mass transit. He was taken into their bathtubs and beds. He shared a rare intimacy with them.

But Parker Evans was known only by a few and loved by no one. That had been his choice, of course, and a necessary one. Recently, however, he had begun to realize the tremendous price he had paid for his years of reclusion. Over time, he had become accustomed to being alone. But lately he’d begun feeling lonely. There was a difference. That difference became evident the moment you realized that you no longer liked being alone as well as you liked being with someone else. That’s when aloneness turned to loneliness.

Staving off the threatening despair, he quietly apologized to Mike for involving him in his scheme. “I know you feel responsible to some extent, and I admire you for having a conscience about it.”

“I played along with that ridiculous test we put her through because you asked me to. Was that necessary?”

“Probably not,” Parker admitted in a quiet voice.

“I could have told her you were Mackensie Roone. I could have pretended that it slipped out. You would have been angry at me, but you would have gotten over it. Instead, I went along with the whole charade, and I’m ashamed of myself for it.”

“Don’t be, Mike. You’re blameless. This is all my doing. From start to finish, beginning to end—whatever the end may be—I’m the guilty party here, not you.”

“That doesn’t exactly absolve me for my voluntary participation.”

With a rueful shrug, Parker said, “No, but that’s the best I can do.”

They lapsed into a weighty silence. Eventually Mike picked up his reading glasses, unknowingly reminding Parker of Maris and the eyeglasses she had been wearing the last time he saw her. Which might have been the last time he would ever see her, he reminded himself.

“These young men seem to have reconciled completely,” Mike remarked as he thumbed through the pages again. “I don’t sense any residual hostility between them.”

“Following the incident with Hadley, Roark carried on as though it had never happened,” Parker explained. “He made a conscious decision not to let it affect their friendship.”

“Noble of him. Nevertheless, it’s still—”

“There,” Parker interrupted, completing the other man’s thought. “Like an unsightly birthmark that mars an otherwise beautiful baby’s face. Neither wants to acknowledge the blemish on their friendship. Both look past it, hoping that it will gradually fade and ultimately disappear completely, as some birthmarks do, so that, eventually, no one can remember the baby having had it.”

“Good analogy.”

“It is, isn’t it? I may use it.” He jotted himself a note.

“You didn’t specify or explain the family obligation that prevented Todd from leaving with Roark.”

“It’s discussed in the next scene. Roark extends condolences to Todd for his mother’s death. She didn’t want to worry him during those last few crucial months leading up to his college graduation, so she didn’t tell him that she’d been diagnosed with a rampant cancer. She attended the commencement exercise, but it was an effort for her. The therapy she’d been receiving had weakened her, but unfortunately had had no effect on the malignancy. So rather than leaving for Florida, Todd accompanied her home. He stayed with her until she died.”

“Quite a sacrifice, especially when you consider what moving to Key West represented to him.”

Parker smiled sardonically. “Save the kudos. I have him saying… Wait, let me read it to you.” He shuffled through the sheets of handwritten notes scattered across his worktable until he found the one he was looking for.

“Todd thanks Roark for his expression of sympathy, so on and so forth, then he says, ‘ “Actually, her death was very convenient.” ’ Roark reacts with appropriate shock. Then Todd adds, ‘ “I’m only being honest.”

“ ‘ “Cruelly honest,” says Roark.

“ ‘Todd shrugs indifferently. “Maybe, but at least I’m not a hypocrite. Am I sorry she’s dead? No. Her dying left me completely untethered and unencumbered. Free. I’ve got no one to think about except myself now. No one to account to. Nothing to cater to except my writing.” ’ ”

Mike assimilated that. “So the white gloves are coming off in the next segment.”

“If by that you mean that Todd’s true character will be revealed, no. Not entirely. We do, however, begin to detect chinks in the facade.”

“The same way Noah Reed’s true character was revealed to you once you moved to Key West. Bit by bit.”

Parker felt his facial muscles stiffen as they did whenever Noah was called to the forefront of his mind. “It takes Roark only a few chapters to see his so-called friend for what he really is. It took me a couple of years. And by then it was too late.”

He stared hard at his legs for several moments, then, forcing those ugly memories aside, he referred once again to his handwritten notes. “Professor Hadley is also resurrected in the next scene.”

Mike poured himself another glass of lemonade, then sat back in his chair and assumed a listening aspect.

“Actually, it’s Todd who introduces the subject,” Parker explained. “He comments on how wonderful it is that they managed to turn that situation around. He says if he hadn’t pulled that trick on Roark, their present relationship with the professor might not be as solid as it is. He says Roark should be thanking him for what he did.

“Roark isn’t ready to go so far as to thank him, but he concedes that it worked to their advantage in the long run.” Parker took a breath. “This conversation is to inform the reader that Professor Hadley had seen such promise in these talented young men, he’s offered to continue critiquing their work even though they’re no longer his students.”

“Very generous of him.”

Parker frowned. “He’s not completely selfless. I have a chapter planned, written from his point of view, where the reader learns that he would coach these two young writers simply because he recognizes their talent and wants to see it honed and refined, and then, hopefully, published and shared with an appreciative audience.”

“I sense a ‘however’ coming.”

“However, wouldn’t it be a star in his crown if he discovered the next generation’s defining novelists?”

“In other words, he’s an opportunistic old bastard.”

Parker laughed. “Everyone is opportunistic, Mike. Everyone. Without exception. Only the degree of one’s opportunism separates him from others. How far is one willing to go to get what he wants?

“Some fall by the wayside early. They give up, or take another course, or simply decide that what they’re after isn’t worth the risks or the costs involved in getting it. But others…”

He paused and focused on a spot in near space. “To get what they want, others are willing to go to any lengths. Any lengths. They’ll go beyond what’s lawful, or decent, or moral so long as they come out ahead.”

Mike seemed about to remark on that bit of philosophizing, when he changed his mind and asked a question that Parker guessed was less incendiary. “Do you want to assign that much importance to a secondary character?”

“Hadley, you mean? He’s important to the plot.”

“He is?”

“Integral. I have to set that up.”

Mike nodded, seemingly distracted by another thought. Half a minute passed. Finally Parker asked him what was on his mind. “The pacing? The dialogue? Too much narrative about the Key West apartment, or not enough?”

“The brunette stripper on the roof—”

“Mary Catherine.”

“Is the girl—”

“In the prologue who accompanies them on the boat. Remember, one of the boys removes her bikini top and waves it above his head before they’re even out of the harbor. So it’s important that I establish in the reader’s mind that she’s a friendly, playful sort. There’s more about her in an upcoming scene.”

“She’s a nice girl, Parker.”

“The stripper with the heart-shaped ass?”

Mike gave him a sour look.

Parker cursed beneath his breath. Mike was determined to talk about Maris, and when Mike got something into his head to talk about, he would continue dredging it up until it was talked about.

Parker returned his notes to the worktable, knowing that he might just as well get this conversation out of the way so he could get on with the rest of his afternoon. “First of all, Maris is a woman, not a girl. And whoever said she wasn’t nice? Not me. Did you ever hear me say she wasn’t nice? She says ‘please’ and ‘thank you,’ keeps her napkin in her lap, and covers her mouth when she yawns.”

Mike fixed an admonishing glare on him. “Admit it. She’s not what you expected.”

“No. She’s taller by a couple inches.” He was on the receiving end of another baleful look. He spread his arms wide. “What do you want me to say? That she’s not the snob I thought she’d be? Okay, she’s not.”

“You expected a spoiled rich girl.”

“A total bitch.”

“An aggressive and abrasive—”

“Ball-buster.”

“Who would blow in here, disrupting the peace and trying to intimidate us with her New York sophistication and superiority. Instead, Maris was… well, you know better than I what she was like.” As an afterthought, the old man said, “All the same, she did make an impact, didn’t she?”

Yes, she had. Just a much softer, more feminine impact than Parker had expected. He glanced at the vase on the coffee table. Maris had gathered sprigs of honeysuckle during a morning stroll and had asked if he would object to her putting them in water. “Just to brighten the room up a bit,” she’d said.

Mike, infatuated with her to the point of idiocy, had turned the kitchen upside down until he found a suitable container. For days, the wild bouquet had filled the solarium with a heady fragrance. Now it was an eyesore. The blossoms were shriveled, the water swampy and smelly. But Parker hadn’t asked Mike to remove it, and Mike hadn’t taken it upon himself to empty the vase. It was a reminder of her they weren’t quite ready to relinquish.

The shells she had collected on the beach were still spread out on the end table where she’d proudly displayed them. When she carried them in, her feet had been bare and dusted with sand. They’d left footprints on the tile floor, which she had insisted on sweeping up herself.

His dying houseplant was rallying because she had moved it to a better spot and had watered it just enough, not too much.

Two fashion magazines that she’d browsed through while he worked on his novel were still lying in the chair she’d last occupied.

It was that throw pillow there, the one with the fringe around it, that she had hugged to her breasts while she listened to him reading a passage from his manuscript.

Everywhere he looked, there was evidence of her.

“She’s an intelligent woman,” Mike said. “She proved that. Smart but sensitive.”

Mike was speaking in a hushed voice, as though he felt her spirit in the room and didn’t want to frighten it away. Which annoyed Parker more than if he’d scraped his fingernails down a chalkboard. They were acting like saps. He as much as Mike. A pair of sentimental fools.

And anyway, who said his room had needed to be brightened up a bit? He had liked it just fine the way it was before Maris Matherly-Reed had ever darkened the door.

“Don’t get misty, Mike,” he said, a shade more harshly than he had intended. “She plays sensitive because she wants a book from me.”

“A book. Not income. I don’t think she cares if Envy makes her company a red cent. She loves your writing.”

Parker shrugged indifferently, but secretly he agreed. In spite of the haggling, Maris seemed much more interested in the storytelling aspects of his book than in its earning potential.

“She can also laugh at herself. I like that in a person.” Then, looking at Parker askance, Mike added, “I guess there’s no need mentioning that she’s beautiful.”

“Then why’d you mention it?”

“So you noticed?”

“What, you think I’m blind as well as lame? Yeah, she’s good to look at.” He made a gesture that said, So what? “Her looks were no surprise. We saw her picture in that magazine article.”

“The photo didn’t do her justice.”

“I expected her to be attractive. Noah never dated an ugly girl,” Parker muttered. “Not that I knew about.”

When Mike declined to comment one way or another, Parker went on. “You know what? I’m glad she’s attractive. Real glad. It’ll make what I’m going to do all the more enjoyable.”

“What are you going to do?”

“You know I never talk over a plot until I’ve written at least some of it down. Guess you’ll have to use your imagination.”

“You’re going to use Maris.”

“Fuckin’-A. And if you don’t approve of my language, cover your ears.” He wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead. The air conditioner was working, so why did it feel so damn hot in here? “Now, can we please end this discussion? I’ve got work to do.”

Mike calmly finished his glass of lemonade, then rifled through the manuscript pages again. At last he stood, crossed to Parker, and passed the sheets to him. “It’s coming along.”

“Don’t go overboard with the praise,” Parker said drolly. “I might get a swelled head.”

On his way out, Mike said, “You may want to rethink your motivation.”

“My characters’ motivation is perfectly clear.”

Mike didn’t even deign to turn around and address Parker face-to-face when he said, “I wasn’t referring to your characters.”