The Children(64)

“You could try Arlene.”

“Fitzpatrick?” Guin made a face, unsure whether Candy was messing with her. “Ennis’s ex? What does she know?”

Candy didn’t reply. Nor did she hang up. Guin could hear Wire playing in the background, low. She said, “I’m not asking you to break the NDA. I’m looking for a yes or a no. Is the art . . . is there something about his art . . .”

Abruptly, with the brash cadence of someone jumping off a high place on a dare, Candy said, “Arthur Borelli.”

She might as well have lobbed a rock. Guin didn’t say, Who?, didn’t pretend not to recognize the name. She tried to get her breath back.

“And”—Candy cleared her throat—“Marla Kaufman.”

An ocean sound yawned in Guin’s ears. “What about her?”

“You said you’re making connections. And I said two names. This isn’t a conversation, I signed an NDA.”

“Right. Yes. Thank you.”

“For what? I didn’t even answer when you called.”





Thirty-Three

2003




Guinevere lay on her belly beneath the great room window, notebook open on the floor. Her body was in shadow, her hands and head in a patch of sun. In the story she was revising the sky was sapphire, then cerulean. She chewed her pencil end. Azure?

When you were a writer like she was, everything mattered, not just the words. The way the floorboards lined up beneath her, the bite and glide of her blue rollerball pen, the sun an itch in her hair. Most importantly, her family was elsewhere—woods, studio, third-floor room.

It was only when she was alone that it happened.

She didn’t have words for it, not sensible ones. Unsensible ones, then: when she got everything right, reality receded. It left in its wake a shimmering place. She thought—though she never asked him—it might feel the way a spotlight had for her father, when he was onstage.

And when the spotlight came, the other thing might follow.

What happened was, the house drew closer. Not the walls, the something else. Looking over her shoulder, breathing cedar scent into her hair. Its very atmosphere concentrating into a point so fine it felt like a presence.

This presence (she imagined) was proud of her. It marveled at her: Guinevere Sharpe, the writer. If it had a shape, it would be a woman’s. Leaning close, whispering in her ear, so that all the little nerves there thrilled. Good girl. Bright girl.

“What are you writing?”

In one motion she clapped her notebook shut, sat up, and turned toward the voice.

“Whoa.” The stranger standing there had his hands up. “I didn’t mean to surprise you. Being a nosy git, that’s all.”

Guinevere said nothing, only looked at him. She felt famished and shaky. The sun had moved while she was inside the spotlight, retreating to the farthest wall. And he was a lot to look at. A human willow tree, skinny and tall, standing at a forward lean. His wild willowish hair was brown, his brows nearly black. His face was so narrow she would’ve thought he was a teenager, if not for the deepness of his voice.

“I’m a writer, too,” he said. “That’s why I asked.”

Guinevere already knew what he was. Or at least what category he was in. Her parents’ houseguests were all like him. Opinionated, arty. Sometimes beautiful, often weird, always intense.

You mean batshit, Ennis said. He was jealous. The guests were musicians, poets, playwrights, sculptors. People Edith met in the city or Llewellyn met in town. Some were strangers trying their luck, showing up at the house with their books and paintings and guitars.

The woman who kissed Ennis in the woods two years ago was only the first of Edith’s pilgrims. Her trespass seemed, almost, to start something. Or to break it: the magical seal over their playland that only Anne had managed to pierce. After the kissing woman, lots of people came. Edith was famous enough, in the distant world, that the house had become famous, too.

Everyone knows about the Farmhouse.

One of Llewellyn’s models told Guinevere this. Long ropy body like a Schiele woman, hair scooped into a fat black bun. She was walking the grass between studio and orchard in a robe and bare feet, eating peaches, bored enough to talk to the grubby little girl watching her.

It’s a really big thing to get an invite, the woman confided. Her breath smelled of stone fruit and beer. You’re so lucky you get to grow up here. She rolled her eyes. When I was a kid I lived in a ranch house. On a cul-de-sac.

Nothing could’ve sounded more exotic to Guinevere. Ranch house, evoking misty prairie land, soft-mouthed animals. Then the French lilt and uncouth slap of cul-de-sac.

The Farmhouse, on the other hand, was a stupid, inaccurate nickname, thought up by some city visitor. The only farms around here were for Christmas trees.

The willow-tree man drifted over to the coffee table, covered in cups and ashtrays and teetering stacks of books. “Complete Curriculum: Grade Four,” he read, touching one dusty cover then another. “The Renegades of Pern. Hah. I know which one I’m picking. I’m Arthur, by the way. You must be Guinevere.” His face brightened. “Oh, snap! I just heard it.” Crossing to where she sat, he offered his hand. “My queen.”

He spoke in a fancy voice, like a total dork. She let him take her hand. Arthur bowed low as if to kiss it, then loosed a conscious laugh, letting go before his lips made contact.