Antonia Lively Breaks the Silence (26 page)

O
NCE INSIDE,
C
ATHERINE
followed Antonia through the wide, high-ceilinged rooms to the kitchen. The open door led to a Juliet balcony and into a spacious backyard dotted with tombstones. “Don't be creeped out,” Antonia said. “Daniel has made peace with the residents. Apparently, they told him they like his parties.” Then, they were a part of the gregarious chatter and music, as Daniel, the host, came up to greet them. A good-looking, disheveled man in his midtwenties, his face was all angles and sharp lines. He wore a pair of sawed-off khaki shorts, which sat loose on his narrow hips, and a faded green T-shirt. He had a fresh daisy tucked behind his ear, a mane of curly, black hair holding it in place. From his pocket, he produced a pipe, which he lit, the sweet-smelling tobacco reminding Catherine of the air in her dissertation adviser's office at NYU. She was gripped again with regret, though the moment Daniel said, “I know you. You work at that groovy bookstore on Broad Street,” the sorrow lifted.

“So tell us, Daniel: what are the dead drinking tonight?” Antonia asked, laughing.

“Rum punch, sangria, beer, whatever you want,” he said. “There's iced tea for the teetotalers, but I don't think any are making an appearance tonight.” Tall and lean, he had a blunt nose, white teeth, and a gentle, deep voice. He'd done some modeling, Antonia whispered to her, and had lived in Paris for a while. “Now don't be telling any tales out of school. I never would have done it, but this old girlfriend of mine worked for an agency.” He shook his head as if ashamed to be so attractive. “She wouldn't let it go till I agreed to do it. Then, the second I took the bait, she left me for her boss. Years later, we ran into each other, and she finally confessed that she just couldn't be with a guy with better bone structure than she had.” His brown eyes shined in the firelight of the tiki torches.

“Now, if you don't mind, I will inspect the drinks table,” Antonia said, wandering off.

Over the noise, Catherine thought she heard the rush of water and suspected that if she walked to the edge of the property, she'd come to a bend of the Mohawk River. Beyond the dilapidated cemetery, the land sloped and ran on endlessly. Lying in the weeds, the decapitated heads of cherubs stared up at her, marble wings in ruin beside them. No one else seemed to mind that they were all standing in a cemetery, though to her it was a strange, unsettling place for a party.

As Daniel wandered off to say hello to a new batch of arrivals, Catherine wondered what it might be like to kiss him. Yet the second she imagined it, her face blushed hot with embarrassment. Besides being far too beautiful, he's far too young for you, she thought. He isn't too young for Antonia, though, and she looked for her in the chattering crowd. She found her smoking a cigarette and speaking animatedly with a girl who had shocking pink hair and blue eyebrows. As she watched, Antonia stomped her feet angrily, then raised a hand into the air, as if she were going to strike the girl.

The moon came out from behind the clouds, silvering the land, and reminding Catherine that Wyatt also lay in a cemetery, one not far from there. She hadn't been to visit him at all and felt terribly guilty. Meandering through the party, she said hello to people, then found herself at the edge of the cemetery, reading the eroded names and the dates on the stones. A natural hem of trees separated the cemetery and the house from the rest of the land, and through the trees she could just make out the glowing white-marbled facade of a mausoleum. Taking a step into the brush to get a better look, she tried to make out the family name above the door, thinking it looked familiar, though in the darkness she could only see the first couple of letters. She took another step and then another, until she was standing directly in front of the mausoleum, surprised by the name above the door—Leggett, her mother's maiden name. As far as she could remember, her mother had never mentioned having any ties to or family in Winslow, so there probably was no connection.

A single tree stump sat in the vast flat meadow behind the mausoleum, the dense wood picking up beyond it and rolling down to the river, which she now heard clearly. As the moon vanished again and everything went black, she heard footsteps and froze. Yet it was only Daniel. “Apparently, they used to hang people from right over there,” he said, pointing to the stump. “Adulterers, mostly, and ‘witches.' A few blacks, I'm sure. Same old story.”

In the dim light, Catherine imagined the limbs of the tree and the bodies swinging in midair. She shuddered and turned to him, saying, “This is all yours, isn't it? You're a Leggett.”

“I'm a Katz, actually,” he said. “This is my uncle's property. I'm house-sitting for him for a few days.”

“Antonia tells me you're a poet,” she said.

“I write sometimes, but am I a poet? Not really. I'm in law school. If you ever need some legal advice, I'm your man,” he offered as they wandered through the brambles and the bracken and back to the party, where they met Antonia.

“I've been looking for you,” she said. “I thought you'd been kidnapped, but I see you're in safe hands.”

“No safer hands than mine,” Daniel said.

“You're all out of beer,” Antonia said. “I'm going into the house to get some.”

“You must be very proud of her,” he said as Antonia ducked inside.

“I am proud of her,” she said, though was confused by his non sequitur.

“Do you think her success will affect your relationship? I mean, I've heard about sisters—”

“Oh, Antonia's not my—”

Someone suddenly leapt between them and handed Daniel a joint. He took a puff, then offered it to Catherine. In the spirit of the evening, she brought it to her lips and inhaled deeply, filling her lungs, then handed it back to him. They shared the joint, passing it back and forth, and then he excused himself, moving through the party, shaking hands, laughing. Her body began to loosen as the marijuana coursed through her, and she giggled to herself when she thought about his mistake. Sisters, she thought. Maybe distant cousins but certainly not sisters, and she giggled again, because she could see now how Daniel had made the leap—they shared the same color hair, the same olive skin, the same athletic frames. They were even almost the same height.

When Antonia returned, she was still giggling. “What's so funny?” she asked, and Catherine told her what Daniel had said. “Sisters in spirit, for sure,” she added.

“Don't look now, but the pink-haired girl is back,” Catherine said, gesturing at the Juliet balcony where the girl was standing, gazing down at Antonia.

“Her,” Antonia said glumly. “She's one of Henry's former students, if you can believe it. She just finished reading my novel. She hated it, of course. She said she couldn't believe anyone had published it.”

“Do people really say that kind of stuff?” Catherine asked.

“Jealous writers do,” she said just as Daniel reappeared.

“Hey, there's some guy looking for you,” he said. “He's around here somewhere. He really wants to talk to you.”

“Oh, great,” Antonia said, gazing around. “Another fan in the graveyard.”

“Yeah, he told me that he's your biggest and oldest fan,” he said. “He said he knew you when you were a little girl. He was passing around a Polaroid of you on your eighth birthday.”

When Antonia heard this, Catherine noticed that the muscles of her face constricted, and she lost the last of her smile. Suddenly she was rushing through the graveyard on her way to the balcony, as Catherine followed her, knowing already that Royal had found them. Yet every step Catherine took was labored and worse, she couldn't stop laughing. She tried to follow Antonia up the stairs and into the house, though the house looked miles and miles away and the ground kept shifting under her feet and she kept laughing, tears spilling down her face. She saw Antonia disappear into the house and then she thought she heard screaming, though it could have simply been in her head, yet it wasn't in her head, it was Antonia's scream, and this sobered her long enough for her to make it up the stairs and into the house, just in time to see Royal dragging Antonia by the hair out the front door while everyone looked on. Help her, she wanted to shout, though her tongue wasn't working. Finally, she was through the front door and out in the night, but there was no Antonia, no Royal. She called out for Antonia and took a few steps into the yard, looking and looking, as people passed her on the way into the party. Catherine staggered through the yard and looked down to see a copy of Antonia's novel in the grass, and then she was at her car and looking through the windows, and that's where she finally found her—curled up in the backseat, her face pressed into the vinyl, and Catherine saw that she was shaking and sobbing. Daniel was suddenly behind her, asking what the hell that was all about and she hushed him and sent him back into the house. Climbing into the backseat, she held the girl, who trembled and sobbed. She sat with Antonia as the men and women arrived with cases of beer because this was a party, and they were all so young, and Catherine was stoned and she looked down at the girl and thought about how she'd now lost everything and how Catherine could do nothing to help her but stroke her hair and tell her everything was going to be fine, although they both knew she was lying.

She sat with Antonia on that wretched, hot night as all the beautiful, young people swarmed across the yard, floating in and out of the house that to Catherine also seemed to float. She shut her eyes against the dizziness and the sorrow of what she, too, had lost, and for one brief moment she felt herself the receptor of an unearthly message, and the message said that things were going to end miserably. The sensation came quickly and went just as quickly, yet it would stay with her that night and for many nights after. Finally she spoke to Antonia and asked if she were hurt, yet the girl said nothing, curling further into herself as Catherine felt her own body growing heavy and knew that within minutes she'd be fast asleep.

T
HEY WERE STILL
in the backseat of Catherine's car when dawn broke. Catherine woke first and let Antonia sleep; she climbed out to stretch her arms and legs. Her back ached, and she leaned over to touch her toes, and as she rose, she gazed around the littered yard, full of discarded plastic cups and cigarette butts and even a lampshade, which sat beside Antonia's novel. She wandered through the grass, her head swimming with the night's images, the stricken look that had come into Antonia's face. She gazed up and down the street, feeling suddenly as if she were being watched, though the street was empty. She picked up the novel, its spine broken, the jacket ripped, returned to the car, and drove them back to her house. There, she woke Antonia and led her into the bedroom, the girl saying nothing as she lay down and curled into the same fetal position she had been in the backseat. “Sleep as long as you can,” Catherine said, shutting the door behind her.

Then, she went into the bathroom to remove her makeup, shocked to see the face staring back at her, which did not seem to belong to her at all but to someone else entirely. Her eyes were big and sunken, her cheeks smudged black, as if she, too, had been crying, though she had no recollection of crying at all. The lines around her mouth were more pronounced, her lips oddly swollen, the whole of her face distorted, which made her wonder if she still might be stoned. She knew she wouldn't be able to sleep, so she went into the kitchen to make coffee. Through the window, she gazed at the dark cottage, knowing that Henry probably hadn't moved out of it yet.

Outside, the birds chirped obliviously; she just wanted them to stop. Right now she hated them, though not as much as she hated Royal, and Henry. Everything led back to him, it seemed to her, and she realized that she wouldn't have been surprised to learn that Henry had some part in Royal's scheme, in his terrorizing Antonia. What have you done, Henry, she thought, and what are you up to now? She suspected she had only one way of finding out for sure, and upset with herself for what she about to do, she grudgingly went into the study and grabbed Wyatt's manuscript. After pouring a cup of coffee, she went out on the deck and began to read the third and final part of his novel, hoping to find a connection between Henry and Royal.

The Bats Under the Bridge

_____

A couple of hours later, Catherine finished reading the last page, then set the whole manuscript in her lap, sighing. The late morning spun around her in a bonanza of colors, the sun glinting off the pool's oily surface and reflecting prismatically in the trees. The stultifying heat lay thick in the air. Though she was sweating, her skin was cold as she thought about Wyatt, and all at once it was a different morning, a winter morning, and he was getting into his car again and driving away. The image was still just as vivid to her as the chiaroscuro of alternating sunlight and shadow that passed over the cottage, which became Henry's beach house the more she looked at it. Now she knew everything about him and why he'd come to see Wyatt that night. Now she knew everything about Wren, the girl in the road, and about those dollar bills. Now she not only had the complete story of Henry's life but also the complete story of her life with Wyatt, one version of it at least. His version.

You poor man, she thought, though not knowing if she meant Henry or Wyatt or Royal or Linwood. Maybe all of them. Maybe none of them. She only knew that each of them had done terrible things, wittingly and unwittingly, and that they were all paying for it.

Catherine went back into the house and set the manuscript on the counter, then went to check on Antonia. The girl was still curled into a tight ball, asleep, sucking one of her fingers. The sight of her brought Catherine such sadness that she quickly shut the door just as the phone rang. It was Harold. “I know it's your day off, but I need to see you right away,” he said.

“I can't leave the house right now,” she said, wanting to be around when Antonia woke up.

“It should only take a few minutes,” he said. “If you value your job, you'll make the right decision.”

“Are you threatening me?” she asked.

“I wouldn't dream of it,” he said. “After all, it seems you have quite an itchy trigger finger.”

“That's not the least bit amusing,” she said.

“No, it isn't,” he said, and hung up on her.

She didn't want to have to argue with Harold or to defend herself, not today, when she'd had only a couple hours sleep, Antonia was languishing in the next room, and she had to figure out what to do about Henry. You can start by tearing up his check, she thought, going to get her purse, which she always left hanging on a hook next to the door. Yet the purse wasn't there. “Oh, Jesus,” she said, hurrying to the car, but it wasn't in there, either. “Where in the—” Then, she remembered bringing the purse into the party with her, just in case she wanted to touch up her makeup. She had no recollection, though, of where she might have set it.

So she left Antonia to sleep and locked up the house, driving back across the railroad tracks to the east side of town. She walked through the door of the old house, which still sat open, and called out Daniel's name, yet the house remained silent. She went out back into the cemetery, which, to her, seemed just as forlorn in the daylight, stepping around the trash on her way toward the tree line, because, she suspected, that's where it must have slipped off her shoulder as she and Daniel had shared the joint. She found the purse lying in the weeds and, relieved, made her way back into the house. No sooner had she pulled the front door closed behind her, however, than she saw Royal Lively leaning on the hood of her car. She turned to go back into the house, but the door had locked itself behind her. “You have something of mine,” Royal called to her. For a moment, Catherine thought he meant the novel that he'd clearly left in the grass and that she'd picked up, though, it turned out, this wasn't it at all. “Where is she, Catherine?”

“You leave her alone,” she said, her voice sounding weak and stringy even to her. “She doesn't want to see you.”

“Oh, I know she doesn't want to see me, but she has to see me,” he said, making his way toward her. “I need her to make my introductions to that literary critic of hers. Unless you'd like to do the honors,” he added, grinning at her.

“Henry Swallow is gone,” she said. “I kicked him out. I have no idea where he is, and neither does Antonia, so you're just wasting your time here, Mr. Lively.”

“Call me Royal, please,” he said, glancing down at the lampshade still in the grass, his face oddly youthful and bemused. “How is my niece doing this morning anyway? Talking up a storm, I imagine. She was always so very chatty.”

Catherine was no longer listening to him. She knew her only chance was to get to her car and, though exhausted, she leapt down the stairs, and ran. Royal lunged at her, yet she managed to get past him by slicing his cheek with her car key. He let out a loud curse as she climbed into her car and sped away, not daring to look back until she reached the end of the block. Yet when she checked for him in the mirror, she saw no sign of him at all. It's like I imagined it, she thought, blinking her eyes, her whole body shaking, except of course she hadn't imagined it, because, when she got to Broad Street and parked, she found his blood on the key.

Before Catherine could face Harold, she needed a cigarette, so she took a seat on a park bench to smoke. The act had no stimulating effect at all, however, instead leaving her all the more drained and sluggish. She only finished half of it, then dragged herself across the street and walked into the empty bookstore, the cooler air fortifying her just as the sight of Jane fortified her. Even before Catherine could say her hello, Jane said, “He's expecting you. In the back,” her voice sounding cool and flat to Catherine, who made her way toward the storeroom.

In the room, she found Harold sitting in the same chair in which she'd found Jane a couple days before. He was staring intently at the bathroom door, rolling a toothpick in his fingers. “Do you know how much a new door costs?” he asked, spinning around to meet her. “A lot, that's how much.”

“You can take it out of my next paycheck,” she said.

“Oh, that's already a fait accompli,” he said, rising. “I won't even tell you how much a new leather chair goes for these days.”

As he spoke, Catherine folded in on herself, but then she was telling him about running into Royal this morning and about the party and about Antonia. When Jane appeared at the door, she pivoted in her direction and said, “Jane forgave me, so why can't you?”

“This has nothing to do with forgiveness. You should have called me immediately and told me what you did, Catherine. I had to hear about it from Jane? Unacceptable,” Harold said. “This is more than just a safety matter. This is about how you damaged my property and endangered the life of one of my employees.”

“What about my safety?” she asked. “The gun was there, I was terrified, and I used it. How many times do I have to explain myself?”

“That's my point exactly,” Harold said. “You don't use guns. You fought against even having the gun in the store, remember?” She did remember. “If there really was an intruder—and I'm not saying there wasn't—why didn't you just call the police?” he asked.

“There wasn't enough time, and I just wasn't thinking,” she said.

“Well, Jane and I have been talking it over, and we both think—”

“You've been talking about me?” she said.

“Yes, and we both think it would do you good to see to someone,” he said. “Professionally, that is.”

Now Catherine turned to Jane. “You didn't believe me?” she asked. “You think I made the whole thing up? Why would I do that?”

Harold stared down at the floor, as Jane said, “Why does anyone make stuff up? Maybe it's because they're under too much stress, or they aren't getting the kind of attention they feel they deserve.”

Then Catherine was getting out her keys saying, “Look”—she held the long, grooved car key up to the light—“that's his blood, right there. Royal Lively's blood.” Yet she knew even then that she might as well have been holding up his still-beating heart for all they believed her. “You told me you forgave me,” she said, turning to Jane, who took a step away from her.

“You shot at me. You could have killed me,” she said as coolly and as flatly as before.

“Speaking of which, where is the gun?” Harold asked.

“I thought I'd returned it.”

“No, because it's not under the register. You need to find it. Today. It's my gun and I'm liable. Jesus.” Catherine said she'd go home and look for it. “You know something, you're just lucky Jane doesn't want to press charges.”

“Press charges?” she said, stupefied. “I made a mistake. So shoot me.” And then she was laughing, laughing so hard that she thought she might never be able to stop. She laughed at the way Harold and Jane were looking at her now and at the utter absurdity of it all, a deep, furious, sorrowful laugh that brought tears to her eyes. She laughed at the summer itself, at the girl lying curled up in her bed, at Henry and his dollar bills locked away in her cottage, and at Wyatt—she laughed at him, too, for keeping his secrets and for writing them all down. She laughed even as she said, “Antonia's giving a reading here next Wednesday, so you'd better let the world know.” She laughed as she walked out of the storeroom and into the afternoon heat, laughing all the way to her car and all the way home, laughing even as she climbed the porch steps and went into the house. Then she abruptly stopped laughing because there was Antonia on the sofa reading Wyatt's manuscript.

The girl did not look up when Catherine said, “What do you think you're doing?” She did not look up when Catherine went over to her and reached for the stack of pages. She had luckily only read a few of them, she noticed, but even a few was a few too many. She tried to wrest the page out of the girl's hands, yet the girl clung to it and wouldn't let go. “Antonia, really,” she said gently now. “Let me have it.”

“It's so good,” she said, finally looking up at Catherine and reluctantly releasing the page. “It's so . . . compelling.”

Catherine took the page from her and added it to the others, then wrapped her arms around the stack and pressed it to her chest as if protecting it. “Yes,” she said, “but you really had no right to read it.”

“It was just sitting there,” Antonia said.

“Yes, well, I'm sure you wouldn't like it much if I went rummaging around your house,” she said.

“It was just sitting there,” she repeated. Then, “I don't have anything to hide.”

“What makes you think I have something to hide?” she asked.

“Oh, I've upset you,” she said, and climbed off the sofa.

Catherine sighed. “No, it's not you,” she said, then told her about running into her uncle and about Harold and Jane. “You need to call the police, Antonia” she said. “If you don't, I will. This has got to stop.”

“It will stop,” she said, though she didn't explain how or why. Then she was drifting toward the front door and opening it, mumbling incoherently to herself as she went. She stepped out into the twilight, down the steps and into the yard, drifting away, even as Catherine went out to watch her. She didn't call her back, she didn't go after her, just let her go. She watched the girl float down the sidewalk on bare feet, her hair a tangle of knotted curls, and she looked to Catherine like someone who'd just escaped from an asylum. She watched until the girl disappeared around the curve in the street, then went back into the house, where she locked and chained the door.

F
OR WHAT FELT
like the first time in weeks, Catherine was relieved to be alone. She poured a glass of wine and took it out on the deck, lighting the citronella candles and savoring the final moments of sunshine. This was supposed to have been her day off, and she had wanted nothing more than to spend it with a good book, a few laps in the pool. After finishing the wine, she disrobed and lowered herself into the dirty, lukewarm water, caring nothing about the dead insects floating around her. She swam back and forth, the water on her skin caressing and gentle. Then she was on her back, the heat hanging tautly above her, and she breathed easier, knowing that in less than a month, the air would cool down and she would have to cover the pool. Like a great rolling tide, the town would sweep away the vacationers only to draw back the faculty and students. The students would arrive in an onslaught of shiny new cars (“Get ready for the assault vehicles,” Wyatt would say every year), running red lights and drag racing down Broad Street. Her quiet neighborhood of West Campus would again become home to raucous fraternity boys and sorority girls, the evenings erupting in house parties that stretched well into the night. From the porch, she and Wyatt used to watch the parade of students return with their clear and simple desires—fun at any cost. We used to have such fun, she thought as she kicked at the water. The neighbors' dogs barked at the bats that suddenly appeared, as they did every evening.

Winslow had few actual tourist attractions, but the bats happened to be one of them. Thousands of them spent their days under the Kissing Swans Bridge. As she swam, she remembered all the times that she and Wyatt had gathered on the bridge at dusk to watch the bats' swirling exodus. She avoided the bridge and hadn't been back on it since his death, since a lone backpacker braving the snow had discovered his car and his body in the ravine. She drifted for a while on her back under the darkening sky, imagining her poor Wyatt in all that cold water. The police had ruled it an accident, though even now Catherine still wasn't so sure. Others clearly thought it was suicide.

Suddenly she stopped floating and stood up. Someone was knocking on the cottage door. Was it Royal, who'd finally come for Henry? She climbed out of the pool as quietly as she could and hurried up the stairs to the deck. She gathered her clothes and was heading for the door, when she glanced down to see Antonia, still wearing the same dress and still barefoot. Catherine wondered what she was doing there, since it seemed to her that Henry was the last person she should have wanted to see. It's always like this, she thought. We go back to the ones who hurt us most because it's comforting and familiar.