Shriver (5 page)

“Hello, Simone,” Wätzczesnam said, his voice turning softer. “I'm just grabbing a quick lunch.” He pointed back toward the saloon. “Care to join me?”

Simone's eyes narrowed. “No thank you.”

“Are you handling Shriver here yourself?” the cowboy asked.

“For the time being.”

“Well, well,” he said, sizing Shriver up. “ ‘Fame is the scentless sunflower, with gaudy crown of gold.' ”

“Are you done, T.?” Simone asked, rolling her eyes.

Wätzczesnam smiled impishly and turned to Shriver. “Remind me to give you a copy of one of my books, Shriver, before this whole shebang is over.”

“I'm sure Mr. Shriver has better things to do than read about your adventures on the farm,” Simone said. She took hold of Shriver's elbow and began to usher him toward the door. “Now, if you'll excuse us, you can get back to your ‘lunch.' ”

Looking a bit wounded, the cowboy waved and called out, “We'll talk later, Shriver!” to their retreating backs.

Outside, near the entrance, tied to a light pole, stood a horse. It was a bluish-white color, with dark spots. A battered saddle rested atop its swayed back.

“That decrepit old thing belongs to Professor Wätzczesnam,” Simone explained.

The horse looked over at them with sad eyes, as if it recognized her voice.

“T.'s not allowed to drive a car anymore, for obvious reasons,” she added as she climbed into her massive vehicle.

With his bruised buttock, Shriver had a difficult time hoisting himself up into the passenger seat. Fortunately, Simone did not seem to notice.

“T. sometimes thinks he's running the show here,” she said.

“From the Prairie Dog Saloon?”

“Exactly,” she snorted. “That's sort of his unofficial office.”

Shriver was himself dying for a drink but was even more hungry. As he tugged unsuccessfully at his ring, he realized he hadn't eaten all day. There had been no time this morning for his usual bowl of oatmeal, and he'd declined the airline peanuts due to anxiety. By this hour he'd have had his lunch, typically a heated-up can of soup. Every week, Blotto, the delivery boy, delivered multiple cans of soup, along with Shriver's other groceries. Shaped like a Bartlett pear, Blotto had narrow, sloping shoulders and wide hips, and a round face that always beamed with blissful ignorance no matter the situation. His smile reminded Shriver of a cartoon graveyard with tombstones poking out at odd angles. Rain, snow, broken elevators—nothing stopped Blotto from his appointed rounds. Into the apartment he would spill, sending Mr. Bojangles scurrying for safety from the deliveryman's large, flat
feet. Thinking of his friend's odd face put Shriver in mind of a bowl of cream of mushroom soup.

“Simone, is there anyplace where I might get a bowl of soup?”

“Of course. You must be famished. There's a cafeteria in the Union basement.”

“That would be fine.”

“Or I could drive you to one of our nice local restaurants. Believe it or not, there are a few in town.”

“I believe you, but the cafeteria will do.”

“We're scheduled to have dinner with some of the other writers tonight at Slander's, which is probably the best place around.”

“That sounds delightful.”

“Some of our visiting dignitaries assume it's just buffalo burgers and sauerkraut around here, but we're not all yahoos, you know.”

“It never helps to assume, I always say.”

“I mean, it's not the Big City,” she added with a sniff, “but we do have some taste.”

“I don't doubt it.”

From the hotel they drove into the campus area, with its odd mix of dreary modern dormitories and older, stone-constructed classroom buildings. Students walked the streets and pathways, textbooks clutched under their arms, looking insanely youthful and vibrant.

“These are the spring/summer students,” Simone said. “Quite a lot take classes year-round. It's a nice break from our harsh winters.”

As Shriver continued to wrestle unsuccessfully with his wedding band, forcing it around and around his finger, a mosquito settled onto his right hand. Without thinking, he
squashed it, then flicked the corpse out the open window. As he did so, his gold band flashed in the sun.

“Mosquitoes are kind of an issue here,” Simone said. “There's probably going to be a lot of them after the heavy rain we had this morning, and now this sun.”

So that explained the yellow slicker. The rain must have been part of the same weather system that had caused the flight turbulence. A low-pressure front out of the west, as meteorologist Lance Boyle of Channel 17's Action News Team would call it.

Another mosquito landed on the back of Shriver's right hand. Keeping his left hand—and wedding band—out of sight, he watched the insect navigate the dark hairs on his knuckles, then insert its proboscis into a vein.

“I hope you know your wife could have come along.”

“Excuse me?” Shriver jammed his left hand beneath his leg, as if burying his wedding band there would somehow counteract the question. Meanwhile, the mosquito on his right hand finished with its grisly meal and flew out the car window.

“I mean, we couldn't spring for the airfare, but she certainly could have stayed with you at the hotel.”

“My wife?”

On the back of his right hand rose a small pink welt, where the mosquito had left its toxic saliva.

“Oh, I'm sorry.” She covered her mouth. “I just thought . . .”

“The wedding ring?”

“I couldn't help but notice.”

He removed his hand and waved it about. “It's just that I haven't been able to take it off.”

She nodded. “Oh, I can appreciate that. I left mine on for a whole year after my divorce.”

“Really?”

“Yes. I wasn't ready to be not married, I guess.”

“No, that's not it,” Shriver said. “I really can't take it off.” He made a show of trying to yank the ring off his finger. “See?”

Simone laughed, her crow's feet dancing. “How long has it been?”

“Twenty years.”

Shriver had always wondered what a guffaw sounded like, and now he knew as Simone nearly rear-ended the pickup truck ahead of them.

“I'm sorry,” she said. “It's not really funny.”

“No. It
is
.”

“But it
isn't
. And it's none of my business.”

“I don't mind.”

“Divorce can be very traumatic,” she said. “At least for me it was.”

You too?
Shriver was about to say, but Simone jerked the vehicle into a parking lot and, clearly relieved to change the subject, announced, “Here we are.” She pointed to a three-story building made of gray stone. “The College Union. This is where all the readings and panels are held.” She switched off the engine and glanced into the rearview mirror. “Ready, Edsel?”

Shriver turned to see a young man sitting in the backseat.

“Hello,” the young man said.

“Goodness. I didn't see you there.”

“This is Edsel Nixon,” Simone said. “He's a grad student here, and your official ‘handler.' ”

“I know what you're thinking, Mr. Shriver,” Edsel Nixon said. He was a handsome young fellow in his late twenties, with a lilting Southern accent and searching, sincere eyes. “You're thinking, ‘This is the most unfortunately named individual I've
ever encountered.' I guess you could say my parents have a queer sense of humor.”

“Perhaps it's good luck to have such a name,” Shriver said.

“That's a very positive outlook, sir, and I appreciate it.”

“Edsel is in our MFA program and teaches a seminar on modern American lit,” Simone said.

“We're in the middle of
Goat Time
,” the graduate student said. “The kids find it very . . . interesting.”

Simone grabbed a shoulder bag and climbed down from the car. Shriver limped after her into the building, where he followed her down a set of stairs to the basement level. Like a child unable to resist touching a sore, he kept rubbing his left buttock, hoping the ache would disappear.

“So, Mr. Nixon,” Shriver said, trying his best to be sociable, “what sort of writing do you do?”

No answer. Somehow, en route, his handler had disappeared.

“Where did he go?” Shriver asked, glancing around.

“Edsel? Don't worry, he'll be back. He's a poet. Very mercurial.”

Shriver followed her into a large student lounge furnished with pastel-colored chairs and low tables. Those students who had been sitting around chatting or reading—there were about twenty of them—suddenly turned, in unison, to stare. He nodded, and they all returned, again in unison, to what they'd been doing.

“Over here is the cafeteria,” Simone said, directing him to the left. They entered through a turnstile into an ordering area, with different stations for sandwiches, pizza, soup, etc. While Simone poured herself a cup of tea, Shriver approached the pimple-faced student behind the counter.

“What soups do you have?”

The student swallowed, as if he'd been asked something personal. “Pea,” he said in a trembly voice, “vegetable barley, plain old vegetable, cream of mushroom, chicken noo—”

“I'll take the cream of mushroom.”

“Sorry, we're out of cream of mushroom.”

“Oh. I thought you said ‘cream of mushroom.' ”

“Sorry, sir.”

“Vegetable barley, then.”

“Yeah, we're out of vegetable barley also.”

“But I could swear you said you had vegetable barley.”

“Sorry, sir.”

Shriver sighed. “What
do
you have?”

Again, the student swallowed and chanted, “Pea, vegetable barley, plain old vegetable—”

“But you said you
don't
have vegetable barley.”

Simone appeared at Shriver's side. “Hi, Charles,” she said to the student.

“Hi, Professor Simone Cleverly.”

“He has to go through the whole list,” she explained to Shriver. “It's just the way Charles works.”

“I see.” Shriver turned to the student. “Do you have pea?”

“We're all out of pea.”

“How about vegetable?”

“Yes, we have plain old vegetable.”

“Are you sure?”

The young man looked hurt. “Of course I'm sure.”

“I'll take plain old vegetable, then.”

At the checkout counter Simone removed a manila envelope from her shoulder bag.

“Here,” she said, handing it over. It was unexpectedly heavy, the bottom half bulging as if filled with pebbles. “Your per diem.”

Shriver looked inside the envelope to see a mass of nickels, dimes, and quarters.

“It's thirty-one dollars and fifty-eight cents per day,” she explained. “I don't know how they arrived at that figure, but anyway, it's all there. Three days' worth.”

Shriver used the money to pay for his lunch, piling up the change for the seemingly unfazed Charles, who made sure to count every coin. From there they made their way to a booth in the corner.

While Shriver spooned up his soup, Simone set her overpacked shoulder bag on the table. She cursed softly and removed several small items, one at a time. Keys, lipstick, crumpled receipts, tissues, more keys, a small can of Mace. Finally, she managed to free a sheaf of papers.

“This is the schedule for the conference. It's for you to keep, so you know what's happening. This afternoon there's a reading by Gonquin Smithee, the poet. Tonight there's a reading by Basil Rather, the playwright. Are you familiar with their work?”

Shriver shook his head no. The soup was hot and salty, just how he liked it.

“They're extremely talented, and sort of controversial.”

“ ‘Literature as Confrontation,' ” Shriver said.

“Exactly. The readings should be interesting, anyway. A couple of the drama students are performing a scene from one of Rather's plays tonight. Then there's a Q-and-A.”

“Am I to do a Q-and-A also?”

“Of course. We find that the audience is very interested. We typically get about seven hundred people.”

A mouthful of soup erupted through Shriver's nose.

“Are you okay?”

He nodded, wiping his face. “That's a lot of people.”

“Wait till
you
read,” she said. “We expect standing room only.”

The former moth in his chest, which had since grown into a butterfly, now inflated to about the size of a fruit bat.

Simone proceeded to remove her yellow slicker. She was not naked underneath. She wore a simple white blouse, with the top two buttons undone, revealing a splash of freckles across her collarbone area.

Shriver forced his eyes away, toward the schedule. Tomorrow at noon was the discussion panel, with the theme “Reality/Illusion,” moderated by T. Wätzczesnam, featuring Basil Rather and Gonquin Smithee, as well as Shriver. In the afternoon someone named Zebra Amphetamine was to read. Shriver was also scheduled to meet with some creative writing students in the morning. Various receptions, book signings, and dinners were scheduled between events.

The soup roiled inside his stomach.

Still, he forced himself to continue eating. So far, Simone appeared to believe he was the real Shriver, but he would have to come up with some conversational topics—ideally, about himself—if he was to convince these people he was an actual writer.

Among the papers Simone had removed from her bag was a copy of the conference brochure.

“Can I ask where you got that photograph?” Shriver asked, then immediately regretted the question. What if she examined the photo more closely and found that its subject barely resembled the man in front of her?

“Sorry, but I'm unable to reveal my sources,” she said with a cocky grin, clearly proud that she'd managed to uncover a candid shot of the elusive Shriver.