You’re going to write it down and publish it.
The fiend had played me perfectly.
18
In the days following Helen’s Christmas party, I told myself I was finished—with the story and possibly writing in general. Even if I saw the demon, I would write no more. But then, I knew, would come the lilt of his voice, wending its way through my memory. I wouldn’t be able to bear it if I couldn’t expel the words onto the page like a medieval surgeon bleeding himself into a bowl to cure himself of ill humors.
So I would write only to rid myself of it, but I would shred the pages. And I would delete the account beckoning to me from my hard drive like a Lorelei.
But even as I thought this, I knew I wouldn’t.
At least I wouldn’t publish it. I would tell Helen it wasn’t working, that the well had gone dry, that I had a phenomenal case of writer’s block. She would have no choice but to accept it.
But I didn’t talk to Helen because the truth was this: I wanted it. I wanted the story, and I wanted to publish it. I had access to something no one else did, a story too fantastical to stay in the drawer. And like Cassandra of myth, I could never purport to be telling the truth without being seen as a liar, a lunatic, or worse. But I could sheath it in fiction, where lies were warmly welcomed.
Meanwhile, as though to punish my vacillation, five full days passed in silence.
I stared at the papers on my desk. I returned to the chronicle on my computer.
SHEILA CLOSED MY DOOR and came to stand at the corner of my desk, her arms crossed not so much in front of her as around herself, her hands clasping her upper arms as though she were cold.
“Yes?” I didn’t bother to disguise my impatience with her hallway request to talk to me. I was practically unable to look at her of late and found the way her wasting state garnered sympathetic inquiries from others nauseating.
“Clay, I need a favor.”
“Yes?” I repeated.
“I know you haven’t seen Dan much since your divorce. . . .” She unfolded her arms and pulled at her hands as if they ached. Her lips looked chapped, as though they would crack and bleed if she merely grimaced. “But right now, I don’t know what’s going through his head.”
I looked at her.
“I thought if you could talk to him, it might help.” Her eyes were shining but did not seem to have the energy to well over.
“Excuse me?”
“I wondered if you’d be willing to call him.”
Anger surged up my torso. It wasn’t enough that she was cheating on him; now she had to pull me into it? What—to win sympathy? To say, as Aubrey had, that she had tried everything?
“I’m not going to do that,” I said, flatly. “You need to straighten this out with Dan yourself.”
Just then, an incoming chat request from “Light1” jerked my attention to the corner of my screen.
My heart stuttered in a mixture of relief and anger. I could hardly look away from it. I was vaguely aware of Sheila nodding, of her hesitation. The way she loitered, as though waiting for more, or to say something more, annoyed me. I lifted my gaze meaningfully to her.
She looked on the verge of breaking down, as if she would have already, had she the strength. For a moment I almost reconsidered my response. I would not talk to Dan on her behalf, but maybe I could be gentler. I could encourage her to talk to him herself. To consider what she really wanted and how she was going about it. But she murmured something unintelligible and let herself out, her hair shielding her face.
I turned my attention to the blinking request on my monitor and clicked Accept.
Light1: As much as humans strive to be individuals, they have one universal weakness: the susceptibility to temptation.
BandHClay: You played me.
Light1: Like the two little eyes on a coconut, the perfect place to crack it open. Eat enough coconuts and you know.
BandHClay: You knew just how to do it, didn’t you—how best to tempt me. Is that what you’re saying?
Light1: With what would I tempt you?
I stared at the screen. Did he not think I would realize what he was doing? After several minutes, he sent:
Light1: Have you been writing?
“When haven’t I been?” I wanted to type in large, angry caps. I wanted to yell through that chat window that I was like a man possessed, that I was running on an average of four hours of sleep, Chinese takeout, coffee, and whatever happened to be in the office break room, that he had manipulated me, that I was never going to give the story to Helen, and that the sooner hell was invented, the better.
BandHClay: As though I could help it, as you very well know. You know you could have written it all down and really submitted it to Katrina—or even here—yourself.
Light1: And languish in submission and publishing hell? Please and no thank you. Besides, I told you: My story is ultimately about you.
BandHClay: I still don’t understand!
Light1: You will.
I must have broken a sweat at the first appearance of the chat box. It beaded now against my nape, my hairline.
Light1: Distribute the proposal for next week’s meeting.
BandHClay: What makes you think I have a proposal? I need a synopsis for that, and to write a synopsis, I need to know how it ends.
Light1: Just give her what you have. Helen will love it and ask for the full manuscript.
BandHClay: Don’t you get it? There isn’t a full manuscript!
Light1: There will be.
19
The old woman’s scalp was just visible through the feathery curls of her hair. Beneath the fake fur collar of her wool coat, her back curved up into a bump at her nape, reminding me of the woman at Vittorio’s as she blew out the candle on her cake. Over the tops of her gray boots, stockings a shade too tan bridged the distance to the hem of her skirt, the skin beneath as veined as pink marble.
I was shopping for my niece, studying an elaborate nativity scene. Aubrey had started Susanna’s collection two years before we married, and that had been our gift to her every year since.
The woman’s head swiveled on her bent neck as she looked from one Christmas tree to another, each of them crammed with ornaments like a chicken breast stuffed with bread crumbs. Above us, glass baubles hung from the ceiling in a fantasy rain of giant, multicolored drops.
“How I love the trappings of the season.” She plucked an ornament from a nearby tree: a rendition of a snowman worthy of Dr. Seuss.
My happiest childhood memories were of Christmas, when a covert visit from Santa was the pinnacle of the season; before I learned that some children got more gifts than others, that visits from Santa cost money. Before I got my first job and the holiday got reduced to paycheck bonuses, unpleasant gatherings, and a pile of trash left out on the curb on January 2.
“And how I adore your nativity scenes. Porcelain and pristine, so pretty.” Separating the syllables of “pretty” as my grandmother used to do, the demon passed along the edge of the table, looking down at the nativity scene the price tag of which was quietly displayed on a corner of the stable: $2,499. She plunked the snowman down in the manger on top of baby Jesus.