Deena Goldstone - Surprise Me

And of course finding Isabelle’s pages couldn’t help but take him back to that stifling hot afternoon in May, in his large and messy L.A. kitchen, when he looked up from reading to see her young body silhouetted in the doorway, practically naked in that wisp of a dress. There were so many things he could have said to her that day but never did. And remembering all that prompted him to start writing, endless e-mails of things he wished he had said or wanted to say to her now, e-mails he knew he would never send because they were inappropriate — too needy, too intrusive, feelings he could barely acknowledge to himself, let alone send to her. But somehow they became the foundation for more writing. And then, later, when Isabelle did contact him and they began to e-mail regularly and far more benignly, it felt as though they were building some sort of web of support, a safety net of writing from which the novel came. So without Isabelle, there would be no book. He’s sure of that, and he wants her to understand how grateful he is.

But how to do that? Such an unfamiliar feeling for Daniel: gratitude, with its implication that life is good or that something in his life is to be applauded. And so he has put off the e-mail, and now the book is out and he has to alert her, has to share with her how they did this together. That’s how he feels: that the book is a joint project, even though Isabelle never knew she was contributing.

What will she think of the nature of the book — the fact that he’s written a fully romantic love story? He can’t predict. And all the intimate scenes between the characters? Okay, all the sex, which of course he has imagined and written in great detail. He has only the memory of his lips on her perfect young breast. And from that memory he has created the rest. He hopes she feels adored, because he sees the book as a celebration of her.

All these thoughts render his fingers motionless. The weight of the proposed e-mail sinks it before he even starts. And so he stares out the window and locks eyes with Orphan, who waits patiently, head on his front paws, but can’t help him out at all.

The morning crush of customers over, Bev comes with her coffeepot and refills his cup, then pulls out a chair and sits down opposite him. Over the years of morning coffee and evening classes, they’ve become easy with each other, comfortable.

“Something wrong with the cinnamon bun today? You haven’t touched it.”

“No, Bev, of course not.” And Daniel takes a big bite. “I’m too busy being stuck is all, trying to figure out how to tell Isabelle that the book is coming out.”

Bev laughs. “About time. She figures fairly prominently in it, wouldn’t you say?” She’d read the book as soon as she had been able to coerce Daniel into giving up a copy of the galleys, blushing in the solitude of her small living room at the sex scenes and marveling at Daniel’s ability to bring this girl to life. She knew he’d be a wonderful writer, and he is. She told him so, but he deflected the compliment, always uncomfortable with any kind of praise, the hallmark of a man who hasn’t welcomed a lot of goodness into his life.

“It’s my memory of Isabelle,” Daniel corrects her now. “She’s the inspiration for the character.”

“Hmmm,” Bev says as she gets up, not buying Daniel’s explanation for a second. “Well, good luck with that.”

“Maybe she won’t see the book,” Daniel calls to Bev’s retreating back.

“She works in a bookstore!” is thrown over her shoulder.

Right. There’s that. He’d better get busy with the e-mail.

Daniel told Bev quite a bit about Isabelle over the years he was writing Out of the Blue . He’d come in each morning with his brain full of what he had been working on the day before or what he was hoping to tackle that day when he got home, and Bev was always a willing audience. To his surprise, Daniel found himself talking about the progress of his writing as he was doing it. In the past he had always felt that it all was so fragile, so mystical almost — this writing business — that talking about the work might shatter all that delicacy into a million irreparable pieces. But somehow, in Winnock, with Bev, he found himself wanting to talk. She knows more about this book than anyone else.

Women — he could always talk more easily to women. His mother first and foremost. Daniel doesn’t know where she got the strength to be constantly available to the three needy men in her life: his father, his brother, Roman, who acted out when things got bad at home, and especially to him, who would flee when the latest alcohol-fueled storm of his father’s escalated. Gone…gone for as long as he could manage. And then later, when he would creep back into the house, he would sniff the quality of tension in the air to figure out whether it was safe to return, or relatively safe.

And he would seek out his mother, praying she would be alone. If he was lucky, he would find her by herself, usually in the kitchen, or sometimes outside reading on the back porch when the weather was nice. Those were the times he would be able to see the toll his father’s injury and drinking had taken on her. In repose, while she read, her face would relax into a vision of sadness — slack and lined and careworn. And he couldn’t bear it, to see the suffering that she made sure to hide from him most times behind her steady gentleness. And so he would go to her, sit with her, and tell her stories. It was an instinct of his, to fabricate long, elaborate tales which took them both away from the loud suffering that was their life with Gus Jablonski. All Daniel wanted to hear was his mother’s astonished reaction of “No!” when he made up something very far-fetched, and then her laugh — that was the grand prize — at the preposterous nature of whatever he said was “true, Mom, completely true.” Somehow those stolen moments with his mother would make things instantly better.

Daniel understands now that he has always gone to women. Despite all her shortcomings, Stephanie was a listener, too. She would sit, uncomplaining, for hours in a high-backed wooden booth at the Lakeside Diner in Erie, nursing cup after cup of coffee, and listen to Daniel, barely past his twenty-first birthday, spin the real stories that would one day become his first book, about his father. The irony, never lost on him, was that it was only after he had left Stephanie that he could write them down.

And now in his new life in New Hampshire, Bev’s steady presence gives him much the same gift. She listens. She’s thoughtful. Well, to be fair, she pretty much dispenses that same thoughtfulness to everyone. She takes in her customers’ stories as they buy her sourdough bread and carrot cake and hot cross buns, nodding as she bags maple scones for David Leighton, who opened the bookstore a few years back and is now showcasing Daniel’s new novel prominently in the window, or making sympathetic sounds when Marie Tibbett worries about a grandson whose asthma has gotten worse.

Who listens to Bev? Daniel wonders. Maybe Sarah, whose husband has finally died and who seems liberated now, reborn into life after a decade of caretaking. Bev must talk to Sarah. They drive together to the Monday and Thursday class. He supposes there are other times when they see each other, but he doesn’t know for sure. He’s curious about Bev’s life away from the bakery and those two nights a week he sees her in class, but she reveals little, preferring to listen. As it is, he’s content with the package deal he does have — Bev, the Internet connection, and the best cinnamon buns in 100 miles — all in one place.

—

AS DANIEL IS STRUGGLING WITH FINDING just the right words for his e-mail to Isabelle, she is struggling to find her way from Boston to Winnock. They gave her a map at the airport Budget Rentals with the route highlighted in yellow marker, but she’s useless when it comes to maps and directions. Taking 93 north out of Boston was fairly easy, and she made the transition to 495, but once she hit 3 and got past Nashua, New Hampshire, she had trouble on 101A after Ponemah trying to navigate the East Milford interchange to get to 101 proper. And then she missed the turn at 123, which was where she had to be, and once she doubled back and found it, she had to stop twice and ask if she was on the right road. It seems to be impossible to find the practically nonexistent town Daniel has decided to settle in, and her anger grows with each mile she travels. Almost nobody has heard of Winnock, and she’s beginning to think Daniel may have made it up.