Shriver (23 page)

“You,” the real Shriver said.

“Let's get out of here,” Edsel said, pulling on Shriver's elbow.

Shriver turned to the real Shriver. “Where's Simone?”

“She's very busy,” the writer said. “Damage control and all that.”

Shriver could see that the man was drunk.

“Come on, Mr. Shriver,” Edsel said.

“Wait for me outside,” Shriver told him.

“But—”

“Please, Edsel.”

His handler sighed, turned, and left the saloon.

Shriver approached his rival.

“What can I getcha?” the blue-haired bartendress asked.

“Give him one of these,” the real Shriver said, holding up his glass. “On me.”

“No thanks,” Shriver said.

The real Shriver shrugged. “Suit yourself.” He finished his drink and ordered another.

“Careful,” Shriver said. “You have a reading later on.”

“Piece of cake,” the man said.

“What are you going to read, may I ask?”

“Oh, an excerpt from my masterpiece, I suppose. Any suggestions?”

“I'm afraid I can't help you there.”

The real Shriver smiled. “No? How about the motel scene?” he asked. “Or the honeymoon scene? Remember writing that?”

Shriver looked away.

“Or the scene on the airplane?” the writer continued. “Which would be best,
Shriver
? You wrote the goddamn thing, after all.”

He had a point, Shriver had to admit.

“Tell me,” the real Shriver said. “What happens in chapter two?”

“I don't know.”

“Caleb arrives in Oregon. How about chapter five?”

“I don't know.”

“That's the art museum scene. Chapter fifteen?”

“I don't know.”

“The wedding. Don't you even know your own goddamn book, man?”

There was something off about this, Shriver decided, but he didn't know what.

“Chapter eleven, the fireworks scene,” the writer said. “Or chapter six—the first time you and your wife make love.”

He had to get out of here, but first . . .

“Stay away from Simone,” Shriver said, trying to sound calm.

The writer swiveled toward him on the bar stool. “Whatever do you mean?”

“I mean, leave her alone.”

The real Shriver tossed some coins onto the bar and wobbled to his feet. “Lovely girl, our Simone. I think you might've stood a chance, if only . . .”

“If only what?”

The man laughed. “If only I hadn't come along.”

Shriver considered slugging him, but the writer was tall and rangy, not to mention drunk. How would it look if he got into a fistfight and lost, especially given all that had happened?

“Now, if you'll excuse me,” the writer said, “I've got a date to keep.”

Shriver watched him exit the saloon.

“Well, what do you want to do now?” Edsel Nixon asked, suddenly beside him.

Shriver lay in Edsel Nixon's claw-footed bathtub, warm water up to his neck, frothy bubbles tickling his nose.

“Everything okay in there?” Edsel called from the hallway.

“Perfect,” Shriver answered. “Thank you.”

The bathroom itself was enormous, as large as Shriver's bedroom back east, with black and white floor tiles and an old-fashioned freestanding sink. The rest of the apartment was to scale, with a spacious kitchen overlooking a vast living room, and a bedroom large enough that the queen-size bed appeared small. Nixon had bashfully conducted a tour, apologizing for what he called messiness, though Shriver had never seen a more orderly home in his life. The hardwood floors were spotless, the antique tables shiny. Nixon's desk—where he worked on his thesis—was neatly arranged, with two piles of paper stacked squarely into boxes. Shriver decided that the place had been decorated by a woman. He had never seen curtains and towels and wall hangings so well coordinated, and the kitchen was simply too organized to have been planned by a lone bachelor. He looked for clues of a woman's presence as he was shown around the place but saw no brassieres on a doorknob, no ladies' magazines on the nightstand. Only here in the bathroom were there a few feminine products, such as bath oil and bubble crystals.

Cleansed of dirt and grime, he felt like a new man already.
He had gargled for a full five minutes with Nixon's citrus-flavored mouthwash and had shaved with a triple-bladed razor and a magnifying mirror connected to the side of the tub. If only he had a fresh set of clothes. His malodorous shirt and trousers lay folded neatly on the commode. On top lay the unopened manila envelope, reminding Shriver of his sins.

As he rested his head back on the edge of the tub, Shriver replayed the scene from the saloon in his mind. He heard the real Shriver's derisive laugh. Could Simone fall for such an arrogant person? Delta didn't think she would succumb to another writer, but she was clearly vulnerable, and there was that poet last year . . .

Soft sunlight filtered through the gauzy window curtain. Shriver gazed up to see a poster tacked onto the ceiling: a field of tall grass, a forest in the distance, all beneath a blue sky dotted with cottony clouds. Near the bottom of this picture, obscured by the tall grass, he saw a dark smudge. He squinted. Was that an animal lurking in the grass? A panther? Shriver sat up, sending a small wave of foamy water over the lip of the tub, and stared. The bucolic scene was now somehow menacing. His heart beat rapidly in his ears.

“Here's a towel,” Edsel Nixon said from the other side of the partially open door. A hand appeared, setting a fluffy, powder-blue towel on the edge of the sink.

Shriver continued to gape at the picture.

“Where'd you get this poster on the ceiling, Mr. Nixon?”

“Oh, that,” came Edsel's calm voice from the hallway. “That was here when I moved in. I've been meaning to take it down, but for some reason I never have.”

Shriver blinked and the black creature seemed to disappear. He lay back and shut his eyes. Just a few more minutes, he thought. Then I'll dry off, get dressed, retrieve my things, and fly
home. Never mind Simone. She would never understand his predicament. Hell,
I
don't even understand, he thought.

He heard the melodious ring of a doorbell, followed by a familiar rumbling voice coming from the front room.

“Where is he?” T. Wätzczesnam asked.

Shriver froze and held his breath.

“I haven't seen him,” Nixon said, sounding stricken.

“They told me at the hotel that he left with you.” T. sounded steamed.

Shriver watched a drop of water form on the tip of the spigot, plumping itself until too heavy to hang on anymore. It fell in slow motion onto a bubble-free patch of water.
Plop.

“What was that?” the cowboy asked, his voice growing louder as he entered the hallway. “He's here, isn't he?”

“Professor,” Edsel pleaded.

Shriver inhaled and immersed himself beneath the thick bubbles. From above he could make out a few watery syllables but no words.

This is quite pleasant, he thought. Enveloped in warm water, his senses dulled, he wished he could stay here forever. He recalled a program about a shipwreck he'd seen on public television. Apparently, there is a reflex among drowning mammals that slows the heart rate and shifts blood flow so that the brain receives more oxygen than normal. Amazing how the body reacts to trauma, he'd thought at the time. Even now he was sure he could feel the blood coursing to his brain.

Then he felt a hand grab him by the hair and tug him to the surface.

“Shriver!”

Shriver coughed and heaved and wiped the bubbles from his eyes. T. knelt by the tub, his weathered face just inches away.

“What're you gonna do about this imposter?” the cowboy asked, each syllable arriving with a sour whiff of whiskey.

Shriver could not speak. He was still sucking oxygen into his deprived lungs.

“Do you know that charlatan stayed at your sweetheart's house last night?”

“He did?” Shriver croaked. “I knew it!”

“I thought that would arouse your interest.”

“You don't think—” Was that why the real Shriver had laughed like that back at the saloon?

“Anything is possible,” T. said. “I hate to tell you this—I know how sweet you are on our Professor Cleverly—but last year she did succumb to the charms of an admittedly charismatic but decidedly second-rate poet.”

“I know all about that, T.”

“You know about the poet?”

“I know about the poet. And the first husband.”

The cowboy sat on the clothes and envelope atop the commode. “That woman broke my heart, Shriver.”

“
Your
heart? You mean—?”

“I know, I know. ‘It is thought a disgrace to love unrequited,' Shriver. ‘But the great will see that true love cannot be unrequited.' ”

“So when you said she was not on the market—?”

“Wishful thinking on my part, old boy.”

“I'm sorry, T.”

“Not a problem, Shriver. Your feelings for my dear Simone are entirely understandable. Later on we can shoot at each other with pistols. At the moment, my concern is purely literary. We have an imposter in our midst, and we must stop him!”

“But, T.,” Shriver said, “he's not an imposter.”

“What does
that
mean?”

“
I'm
the imposter.”

T. did a double take. “Explain yourself, sir.”

“I didn't write
Goat Time
.”

“Of course you did.”

“That other Shriver wrote it.”

T. turned to Edsel. “What on earth is he talking about, Nixon?”

The graduate student shrugged.

“I got the invitation by mistake,” Shriver explained. “And for some idiotic reason, I decided to come anyway. I don't know why. Maybe I was lonely. Maybe I was looking for something meaningful.”

T. stared at him for a moment, not blinking his bloodshot eyes. Then his face cracked open into a grin and he laughed.

“Oh, this is rich!”

Shriver laughed with him. It felt so good to tell the truth. “Crazy, isn't it?”

T. bent over and convulsed, tears forming in his eyes. “You are one clever son of a bitch.”

“Not really,” Shriver said. “Just stupid.”

“You know, when I heard about that charlatan this morning, I was ready to believe him for two reasons. One, I could see how my dear Simone was growing fond of you, and I was jealous, I admit it.”

“Wait,” Shriver said. “Simone was growing fond of me?”

“But the other reason,” T. barreled on, “was your blasted modesty. I've never in all my years met a writer—a real, bona fide
writer
—who didn't think his shit smelled like eau de cologne. But you, Shriver, a giant among us, you skulk around like some insecure graduate school poet just dreading the moment when someone's going to tell you to put away your
quill and take up haberdashery. I can't believe you've
always
been like this. What the hell happened to you?”

“You don't believe me, do you?”

T. sighed and stood up from his perch. “You didn't come here because you're lonely, Shriver. You came here because, goddamn it, you're a writer.”

“But, T.—”

“Don't ‘but' me, sir. You're the real deal, Shriver. I feel it in these tired old bones. Now, get your ass outta that tub and go reclaim your good name.”

Seated in Edsel Nixon's shuddering jeep, stopped at an insufferably long-lasting red light, Shriver swatted at the mosquitoes that swarmed around his head. The graduate student shifted into neutral and revved the engine, as if the noise might keep the insects at bay.

Professor Wätzczesnam had left before Shriver got dressed, swearing he'd track down “that goddamn imposter” while Shriver returned to the hotel for his story and some clean clothes.

“You have a reading to give today, Shriver,” T. had said. “You don't want to stink up the joint with those rank rags.”

“But what about the
real
Shriver?” Shriver asked him.

“You mean the
fake
Shriver? Don't worry—we'll take care of him.”

Then he was gone.

The intersection formed a gray X in the middle of an oppressively flat stretch of prairie. A mile south, the town water tower and clumps of various campus buildings nestled beneath a blanket of rich blue sky.

As they sat there the shrill buzz of mosquitoes intensified and Shriver swatted helplessly at them until he realized too late that it was not the sound of insects at all: a motorcycle was fast approaching the jeep from behind. Shriver tensed. As the motorcycle pulled up alongside, he ducked, waiting for
something—a bullet?—but the driver just waved, then tore ahead through the red light.

“That guy has the right idea,” Edsel said. He shifted into drive and peeled out.

Shriver could hardly breathe. He felt like he'd lost what little control he'd ever had of his destiny and was now being jostled and pulled around like a character in a novel. He appreciated that Edsel Nixon and Professor Wätzczesnam believed in him and wanted to help him, but he really needed to get out of this place.

“Mr. Nixon,” he said, “this is what's going to happen. We're going to the hotel, where I'll gather my things, and then you'll drive me straight to the airport.”

“But the imposter—”

“Never mind him.”

“But Professor Wätzczesnam said—” The poor boy looked crushed. “What about your good name?”

“That's just it, Edsel. My name is no good. It's certainly not worth getting killed for.”

“
Killed
, sir?”

“Look what happened to Ms. Smithee! I'm done here. I want to go home.”