Erika Swyler - The Book of Speculation

But it’s a map.

I write everything I can, page by page, for hours, until my hand cramps. I shake it out and begin again. Names, dates, places, bits of lines Peabody found amusing. “Simple is the lamb who makes the wolf its confessor.” Cities traveled to, New York, Philadelphia, New Castle, Burlington, Tanner’s Ferry, Charlotte. Vissers, Ryzhkova, Koenig, and those whose names were not paired with a last — origins unknown. Any questions I have about copying the information are silenced by what I’ve read in Binding Charms. What makes a curse isn’t the words themselves, but the will bound to them, intention married to ink and tragedy. A blister bursts in the cradle between my thumb and forefinger, a stinging drop of lymph falls, smearing a word. I can break the curse but preserve the history.

A car pulls into the driveway, followed by an insistent pounding recognizable by its annoyance.

“It’s open.”

Enola stomps in with Doyle behind her, a languorous presence. “I told you to come back. Where the hell have you been? I tried your cell but it’s going to voice mail.”

“It got shut off. Watch the floor.” I gesture to the hole.

“Was that there the other night? What the hell happened?”

“Pothole,” Doyle says, grinning.

Enola edges around the living room, eyes roaming the floor and walls. “I thought you didn’t want to come back here. That’s what we agreed. Thom said he’s good to take you on when you’re ready.” She pauses by the picture of her and Mom, the picture Frank took. “You can’t be here anymore. Get your stuff and come with us for a while. It’ll be fun.”

“Little Bird, what’s a day’s difference going to make? He can catch up to us.” To me Doyle says, “We’re heading to Croton for some of August before we swing down south again. Atlantic City for part of the fall, then down south.” He leans up against the door and props his feet on the frame, worn boot heels showing this to be a favorite position.

She shoots him a look.

“I’ll come with you,” I say. “There’s a curator job in Savannah I’m looking into. I just need to take care of something first.”

“If it’s about the book, it has to stop, Simon. You’re scaring me. If it’s about Frank and Mom — let it go. She’s dead and there’s nothing he can do to take it back.” As if on cue, Frank’s truck starts up. We watch it roll out of the driveway and down the street — to the marina, to the bar, to wherever sad men who’ve fucked their best friends’ wives go.

“I think we should have a last bonfire before we go.” The idea is so quick, so natural, it’s almost brilliant. “Remember when we were little and we used to cook out?”

“No,” she says. Doyle is up from his post at the door, rubbing his hands against her shoulders.

“It was great. Corn and hot dogs, burgers, lobsters, too. Dad and Frank would make a bonfire and let us toast marshmallows.” The us who toasted marshmallows was Alice and me. Even then we had our shared and parallel lives, watching each other while flakes of charred sugar and cornstarch flew into the sky. “I want a last bonfire. I want one good memory here. We deserve a good memory.”

“As if one bonfire could fix it,” she says.

I picture Alice across that fire, Alice standing on my porch, furious, Alice at the restaurant waiting for me while I talked to Enola, Alice on a date with me, without me .

“Haven’t I been here every time you’ve called? Haven’t I always answered, even when it’s three A.M. and you need me to drive somewhere to take care of you? Haven’t I always? I carried you when you were bleeding. I patched you up and I waited for you to come back. Don’t you know that’s why I stayed? I thought you’d come back but you never did.” Enola was never abandoned; I was. I have the right to guilt. “I want one last bonfire.”

She shakes off Doyle’s hands and flops down on the couch. The floor squeals and we all hold our breath to see if it will give out. It doesn’t. I’ve got her; she’s pissed off, nearly crying, and thinking of a hundred things to yell at me, but I have her. She looks at Doyle, then me. “Then you’ll come with us?”

“Then I’ll go with you.”

“Fine.”

“Cool, cool,” Doyle murmurs.

“Good. Thank you,” I say. I get up, test my weight on my ankle. The pain is still there, though duller than yesterday. “I want it to be perfect.” I turn to Doyle. “I need you to help me get something.”

* * *

Doyle and I stand outside Frank’s workshop. Enola is inside with Frank’s wife, having refused to participate in these activities. She’s checking on Leah, to see how she’s holding up and to keep her distracted. Once Leah let her in, Doyle and I went to the barn. He offered me his shoulder when my ankle threatened to roll. He has no objection to what we’re about to do.

“I get it, man. Dude took a wrecking ball to your family so you want to torch a few of his things. I totally understand. It’s okay.”

In front of the workshop it’s not okay. A large padlock hangs on the door latch, rusted and intimidating. Of course it’s locked. Why would I think it wouldn’t be locked?

“We need bolt cutters,” I mutter.

The man next to me tilts his head, swings an arm back behind his neck and pops his shoulder in a gruesome cephalopodan spasm. “Nah,” he says. “We’re good. I got it. Hang on a second.” He disappears for a few minutes, leaving me alone with the light-headedness that seems to accompany impending thievery. Eventually he comes loping back, empty-handed. “Car,” he says, by way of explanation. I must look confused because he adds, “Paper clip,” and pulls a large silver clip from the pocket of his baggy cargo shorts. “Always got a few.”

Before I can respond he’s already unbent the clip, straightening one end and leaving a large hook at the other, clearly something he’s done before. He drops into a crouch below the lock, and begins to gently work the straight end of the clip inside. His tongue pokes from the corner of his mouth. He strokes the top of the lock, as if feeling for movement. Suddenly, he flicks his wrist and the lock twists open, pulling free. He spins the paperclip around on his finger and stuffs it back into his pants. “Haven’t done it in a while, but you never really forget.”

“Doyle, why do you know how to do that?”

A shrug, the tiniest movement of suckers at his brow. “I used to play around with stuff like that when I was a kid. Wanted to see what I could get into. Started out because I always forgot my keys. Figured it was a good idea to make it so I didn’t need them.” He opens the door.

“Did you ever steal the change out of pay phones?”

He winks and smiles broadly, enough to be charming. “Now why would I do that?” Unlikely as it should be, my sister has found her perfect match.

Frank’s workshop is littered with empty bottles, freshly accumulated since I was last here.

“I’ll get the paintings. You work on the curtains.”

We pile it all, portraits and fabric, onto the frame of the dory Frank was working on. It needs to be gone, everything that was drawn in the book, because it, too, is marked by tragedy, if not intent. I’m moving slowly, awkwardly, but Doyle manages the curtains with an acrobatic grace, jumping and tugging, flinging the fabric over his shoulders.

“You’re freaking Enola out, you know,” he says, tossing a length of curtain onto the boat’s bones.

“I don’t mean to.”

“Yeah, I know. But just — I don’t know. I’m worried about her a little, okay? She talked like you guys were really close. I thought her coming here and seeing you would make stuff better, but then you’re not close and you’re not so good either. This is making her worse.”