Barefoot (45 page)

BLAINE

How come?

BRENDA

Because. (in a whisper) I have to make money.

Brenda finished typing in the screenplay for
The Innocent Impostor
on the third day, in the middle of the night. She was sitting on the sofa with Ted’s computer resting on Aunt Liv’s dainty coffee table. There was a breeze coming in through the back screen door. ’Sconset was quiet except for the crickets and an occasional dog bark. Brenda typed in the last page, the scene where Calvin Dare, as an older gentleman with his career behind him, enjoys an afternoon of quiet reflection with his wife, Emily. Dare and Emily look on as their grandchildren frolic in the yard. The scene was taken directly from the last page of the book; it was the scene that gave critics pause. Was it right for Dare to enjoy such bliss when he had all but coopted the life of the man that he had all but killed? Brenda meant to include some kind of questioning imagery in her cinematography notes—but for now, dialogue and direction were . . . DONE! She stared at the computer screen. Fade out. Roll credits. DONE!

Brenda pushed Save and backed up the screenplay on a disc. It was twenty minutes after one, and she was wide awake. She poured herself a glass of wine and drank it sitting at the kitchen table. Her body ached from so much sitting; her eyes were tired. She cracked her knuckles. DONE! Euphoria like she thought she would never feel again. This was the way she’d felt when she finished her dissertation; this was the way she’d felt when she finished grading final papers her first semester at Champion. Job completed, job well done. Tomorrow she would worry about what to do with the damn thing; for tonight, she would just savor the euphoria.

She finished the glass of wine and poured herself another. The house was filled with the sounds of people breathing, or so Brenda imagined. She thought about Walsh—then blocked him out. She found her cell phone on the side table and carried it and her wine out to the back deck. She scrolled through her numbers.

What was she doing? It was quarter to two; any normal person would be asleep. But Brenda couldn’t afford to let that matter. She was excited about her screenplay now; in the morning, when it was printed out, she might find flaws, she might question its big-screen potential.

She dialed Amy Feldman’s number and tried, in the split second of silence before their lines connected, to remember everything she could about Amy Feldman. Brenda had now spent enough time with Blaine to know that Amy Feldman looked like Velma from
Scooby-Doo
. She was short and squat with a grandmotherly bosom, she had short hair, she wore square glasses with dark frames, and she kept the glasses on a chain so that, when the glasses were off, they rested on her bosom. Amy Feldman was like an intellectual beatnik from forty years ago, and this, somehow, translated into her being cool, or if not cool, then at least accepted. The other girl-women in the class had seemed to like her; they’d listened respectfully when she spoke, though this may have been because of her father, Ron Feldman. Brenda’s class had been, she saw now, a class of aspiring actresses, playing themselves up not only for Walsh but for Amy Feldman. Amy Feldman was majoring in Japanese. What was she doing this summer? Was she traveling in Japan? Had she stayed in New York? If only Brenda had known that she would be fired, and sued, and then in the hole to the tune of a hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars and hence dependent on the proceeds of a screenplay she had to sell, she would have paid more attention to Amy Feldman. As it was, what stuck in her mind were the glasses on a chain and the Japanese.

Like a thunderbolt Brenda recalled overhearing Amy Feldman talking to Walsh about sushi, a place called Uni in the Village that
absolutely no one knows about,
that was
undiscovered
and
completely authentic. Just like the sushi they have on Asakusa Road in Tokyo.

You’ve been to Tokyo?
Walsh, fellow world traveler, had asked.

I was with my father,
Amy said, in a voice that was meant to impress.
On location.

Amy Feldman, quite possibly, had been in love with Walsh, too.

Three rings, four rings, five rings. Brenda wondered if she was calling Amy Feldman’s apartment or her cell phone. If she got voice mail, would she leave a message? A message was too hard to ignore, Brenda decided; Brenda wanted to connect with Amy Feldman in person.

“Yes?”

Someone answered! The voice was male, older, and overly pleasant, as if to say, in the nicest possible way,
Why am I answering the phone at two o’clock in the morning?

“Hi,” Brenda said, in what she hoped was a sprightly voice, to let this person know that she was neither drunk nor an obscene caller. “Is Amy there?”

“Amy?” the man said. Then, in a curious voice to someone else, he asked, “
Is
Amy here?” The other voice, female, murmured a response. The man said, “Yes. She’s here, but she’s sleeping.”

“Right,” Brenda said.
Hold it together,
Brenda thought. This was not Amy Feldman’s cell phone, nor was it her apartment (insofar as Brenda meant “apartment”: some college dive with roommates, laundry in the basement, and a hot plate). This was Amy Feldman’s home number, her family home, probably some extremely fine pad overlooking Central Park.
Amy Feldman lives at home,
Brenda thought.
And I am now talking to her father, Ron Feldman.

Ron Feldman said, “Would you like me to leave Amy a message?” Again, his voice was so pleasant that there was no possibility he was sincere.

“This is Brenda Lyndon calling,” Brenda said. She was speaking very quietly because she didn’t want to wake up anybody in the cottage. “
Doctor
Lyndon? I was Amy’s professor last semester at Champion.”

“Ohhhh-kay,” Ron Feldman said. “Do I have to write this down or can you call back in the morning?” It was clear he would prefer the latter, but Brenda was as shameless as a telemarketer. She had to keep him on the phone!

“Would you mind terribly writing it down?” she asked.

“All right,” he said. “Let me find a pen.” To his wife, he said, “Hon, a pen. It’s a professor of Amy’s from Champion . . . I have no goddamned idea why.” To Brenda he said, “What’s your name again?”

“Brenda Lyndon. Lyndon with a
y.
”

“Brenda Lyndon,” Ron Feldman repeated. The voice in the background raised an octave. Ron Feldman said, “What? Okay, wait. Honey, wait.” To Brenda, he said, “I’m going to put you on hold for one second. Is that all right?”

“All right,” Brenda said.

The line went silent, and Brenda kicked herself. She was a complete idiot. She had decided, only seconds before making this phone call, that she wasn’t going to leave a message, and here she was leaving a message. And this was the one and only time she would be able to call; she couldn’t stalk the Feldman household.

The line clicked. Ron Feldman said, “Are you there? Dr. Lyndon?”

“Yes.”

“You’re the one who got in all the trouble?” he said. “With the student from Australia? You’re the one who nicked up the original Jackson Pollock?”

At that second, a light went on in one of the cottages that backed up to Number Eleven Shell Street. In the newly brightened window, Brenda saw the face of a woman her mother’s age who appeared to be throwing back some pills and drinking water. Aspirin? Brenda thought. Antidepressants? Pills for arthritis? High blood pressure? Osteoporosis? When you peered into the windows of someone else’s life, you could only guess what was going on.

“Well,” Brenda said. “Yes, I guess I am.”

“We heard all about you,” Ron Feldman said. “Or my wife did, anyway. Amy told us you were a good teacher, though. She liked your class. She liked that book you taught.”

“
The Innocent Impostor
?” Brenda said.

“
The Innocent Impostor,
hon?” Ron Feldman said. “Um, we can’t remember the name, neither of us had ever heard of it. Anyway, Dr. Lyndon, it’s late, but we will pass on to Amy . . .”

“Because that’s why I’m calling.”

“What is?”

“
The Innocent Impostor,
the book Amy liked, the book you’ve never heard of. I turned it into a screenplay. I have it right here in front of me, as an adapted screenplay.”

“Waaaaaaaait a minute,” Ron Feldman said. “Are you . . . ?” He laughed, but he no longer sounded overly pleasant or polite; he sounded suspicious, verging on angry. “Did you call here to
pitch
me?”

“Ummmmm . . . ,” Brenda said.

“You call here in the middle of the night pretending to look for Amy when really you want to pitch me your screenplay?”

“No, no, I . . .”

“I’ve had people do it a hundred different ways. They leave the script with the maître d’ at Gotham, because that’s where I eat, or they bribe my doorman or my driver—or hell, they get
jobs
as my doorman or my driver just so they can get a script in my hands. I am not surprised to find that you, a recently fired Champion professor, have a screenplay, because everyone on God’s green earth has a screenplay, including my periodontist’s nephew, including my secretary’s brother who’s currently doing time in Sing Sing. But this is totally fucked-up. This is like nothing else. You . . . caught me with my guard down. Me! How did you get this number?”

“Your daughter gave it to me,” Brenda said.

“Dandy,” he said. “Dan-dee.”

“You said she liked the book, right?” Brenda said.

He paused. “What’s the name of the goddamned book?”

“
The Innocent Impostor.
”

“There’s your first problem right there. You have to change the title. No one wants to see a movie about an innocent anything.”

“Change the
title?
” Brenda said.

There was more yammering in the background. “Okay, right, yes. I stand corrected. My wife makes a point about
The Age of Innocence
. Edith Wharton, Martin Scorsese, nominated for an Oscar. Fine, okay, fine. Go ahead.”

“Go ahead, what?”

“Pitch it. I’ll give you thirty seconds. Go!”

“Uh, well,” Brenda said, thinking,
Speak!
She knew the book inside and out; it was her passion, her baby. “It’s a period piece, seventeen hundreds, this man, Calvin Dare, our protagonist, is tying up his horse in front of a tavern and there’s lightning and his horse startles and kicks this other man, Thomas Beech, in the head and kills him.”

“I’m practically asleep.”

“So then the first man, Calvin Dare, goes through this process where he
becomes
Thomas Beech. He takes Beech’s job, he marries Beech’s fiancée, he lives Beech’s life for him, basically, and sheds his own identity so that he can become Beech. Because Beech’s life was better than his, maybe. Or . . . because he feels guilty about killing Beech.”

“That’s it?” Ron Feldman said.

“Well, no, but you’d have to read . . .”

“Thank you for calling, Dr. Lyndon.”

“Can I send you . . .”

“Here’s an idea: Write a screenplay about a professor who has sex with one of her students and then destroys millions of dollars of university-owned art. We’re talking about small release for sure, but that, at least, has half a story line. The other thing, no.”

“No?”

“Good night, Dr. Lyndon.”

“Oh,” Brenda said. In the other cottage, the light went off. The woman disappeared from view. “Good night.”

Josh was going to quit.

There was only a week and a half of babysitting left anyway, and now that Ted was around, Vicki had cut back Josh’s hours nearly every day.
Bring the kids home early. We’re going to take them out to lunch. Drop them off at the casino. Ted is playing tennis.
Josh heard talk about another evening picnic out at Smith’s Point but he had yet to be invited, and if they did invite him, he would say no. And yet, the fact that they didn’t invite him bothered him. Was Josh no longer “part of the family”? Were they through with him? Was he expendable? Well, yeah, he’d have to be an idiot not to sense things coming to a close. After all, Vicki’s chemo was over, it had been successful, she was gearing up for her surgery, which would be in Connecticut. Brenda had finished her screenplay and was now consumed with printing it, nestling it into cardboard boxes, and sending it out, cold, to studios. And Ted was here for his vacation. So there was no reason to include Josh on the family outing; they probably thought it wise to cut Josh loose from the kids now, otherwise the separation would be too hard on them. That was all fine and well, and yet Josh was hurt. He had been more a part of this family than anyone knew, because of Melanie. And yet, it was because of Melanie that Josh, ultimately, wanted to quit. He couldn’t stand to be around Melanie, just to see her was excruciating. She had cornered him once since the day of Peter’s visit. She’d begged him to meet her at the beach parking lot, she’d be waiting there as usual, ten o’clock. They needed closure, she said.
Closure,
Josh was pretty sure, meant a long, painful conversation as well as, probably, some good-bye sex, and that would be akin to ripping the Band-Aid off the fresh wound in his heart and would set it bleeding all over again.

Josh told Melanie no.

He was going to quit. The story of his summer was over.

When Josh walked into Number Eleven Shell Street with his resignation speech written in his mind, the house was silent. Ted, Melanie, and Brenda sat at the kitchen table, staring at one another. Through the screen door, Josh could see the kids in the backyard, rolling a ball in the grass. This was highly unusual. Vicki didn’t like the boys hanging out in the backyard because she had found poisonous mushrooms along the fence line and the rosebushes attracted wasps. The front yard was much safer, according to Vicki, as long as they were always with an adult, which they always were. So out back, unsupervised—something was wrong.