“I called you at the hotel, Jack, but they said you were napping.” None of the saleswomen in The Book Room would look at Jack; they’d all seen the photos and had read the insinuating story.
The magazine’s cover photo was of Lucy hanging naked from around Jack’s neck, resembling a pornographic ornament. Both police officers appeared to be struggling as much with Jack as with Lucy. The photographs inside the magazine—particularly the ones that had been rescued from his trash—were no less condemning. The pink thong was not only very small; it was still wet. Emma naked at seventeen had been doctored for magazine propriety. Jack thought that the black slash across Emma’s eyes made her unrecognizable, even to anyone who knew her at that age. And who but Jack had really known her naked at that age? (He’d forgotten that Mrs. Oastler was familiar with that photograph.)
In the case of those photos of his mother, the movie magazine had selected only one; there were two black slashes, across Alice’s nipples. The photo of Emma had been so badly mangled in the trash that you couldn’t see her nipples very distinctly; the magazine hadn’t bothered to conceal them, although they’d had the decency to crop the photograph above Emma’s waist.
Dr. García was mentioned in the article. Jack was sure that she would have refused to comment. But a former patient, whose name was withheld and who described the therapist’s methods as “unorthodox, to say the least,” said that Dr. García strongly discouraged her patients from dating one another. Jack knew perfectly well that Dr. García didn’t believe for a moment that he was dating Lucy, but everyone knows what kind of magazine would do this; the story is implied, and nothing is stated. Even the headline, the very name of the article, was deliberately misleading; in the case of the Lucy story, the headline was a real winner.
JACK BURNS DENIES ANY HANKY PANKY,
BUT WHAT’S HE HIDING IN HIS TRASH?
Jack hadn’t done anything, but he looked guilty. It was too weird, as Michele would say.
Charles Burchell was a good guy; he gave Jack his heartfelt condolences. Jack had a pounding headache by the time he got back to The Prince George. He took a couple of Tylenol, or maybe it was Advil—he wouldn’t remember taking anything.
Jack had fun calling his number in L.A. and listening to all the messages on his answering machine. Commiserations from Richard Gladstein, Bob Bookman, and Alan Hergott; Wild Bill Vanvleck had called from Amsterdam. (Jack found out later that The Mad Dutchman’s anchorwoman girlfriend had been the first to report the scandal in the Netherlands.) Someone with a St. Hilda’s connection had alerted Leslie Oastler to the story; Mrs. Oastler was hopping mad. “I can’t believe you kept that photograph of Emma, and those pictures of your mother. You idiot, Jack!”
“I’m surprised you haven’t called me,” he heard Dr. García’s voice say on his answering machine. “I trust you’ve changed your mind about the stopover in Boston, or that Michele has changed her mind about it. And I wouldn’t recommend any further contact with Lucy, Jack. We might want to reconsider how much time you spend in the waiting room. You might run into Lucy’s mother.”
Jack wondered how the sleazy movie magazine had missed that little tidbit—namely, that Lucy’s mom was also Dr. García’s patient. (It made perfect sense that she would be somebody’s patient.)
Once, in the waiting room, one of the young mothers had explained to Jack that Dr. García was unique among all the psychiatrists she’d ever seen. You didn’t have to make an appointment. Apparently, this young mother tended to feel the need to see her psychiatrist on the spur of the moment. Many of the young mothers in Dr. García’s waiting room said that they found the presence of other young mothers comforting. It was such a loose arrangement, no therapist in New York or Vienna would have allowed it. (No psychiatrist’s patient in New York or Vienna would have accepted the situation, either.) But loose arrangements were what Jack appreciated about living in Santa Monica.
He gave his plane tickets to the concierge at The Prince George and asked her to do what she could to change his flights. “Just get me back to Los Angeles tomorrow—the most direct way you can,” he told her. “No stopover in Boston, please.”
Then Jack went off to the Press Gang, where he had made another dinner reservation; he hadn’t eaten all day and was hungry.
Jack sat alone at his small table and ordered one of the appetizers. Except for his table for one, the restaurant was crowded and noisy. Maybe the Press Gang seemed noisier than it was because Jack was alone and had a concussion. He sat facing a window, with his back to the other tables. He’d brought a book with him—something Charles had recommended—but when he tried to read, his headache came back and the noise in the restaurant was amplified. The table nearest him was the loudest, but Jack couldn’t see the people at that table; if they were looking at him, all they could see was his back.
One loudmouth in particular was the dominant storyteller. He was braying about an altercation in a hotel bar—according to him, it had been a fair fight. “Fucking wrestlers!” he shouted. “They can’t take a punch.” That certainly got Jack’s attention, concussion and all. “Jack Burns landed like a dead fish,” the man was telling his friends.
As someone engaged in telling the story of his life in chronological order, Jack had discovered that what many people lazily referred to as coincidences weren’t necessarily coincidental. One might think, for example, that it was coincidental for Jack to find himself in the same restaurant with Doug McSwiney—only one night after the fat, fur-faced author had coldcocked Jack with a sucker punch. But Halifax was not a big city, and the Press Gang was a popular place.
Jack tried to get a look at him, but McSwiney’s broad back was all there was to see. The way one of the writer’s friends suddenly recognized Jack, Jack could tell that none of them had known he was there—McSwiney hadn’t been telling his tale for Jack’s benefit. Jack got up from his table and walked over to McSwiney. The big man’s friends let McSwiney know that Jack was there, but the bastard didn’t stop his story. “The little lightweight just lay there,” McSwiney was saying.
Jack stood beside McSwiney but a little behind him. There were three couples at the table; Jack couldn’t tell which of the women was with McSwiney. The two men were smiling at Jack—they were almost smirking—but the women were expressionless as they observed the unfolding drama.
“I want to apologize,” Jack said to Doug McSwiney. “Those notes I wrote about your screenplay weren’t meant for you. I would never have expressed myself that frankly, that personally—not to you directly. It was only because Cornelia couldn’t read my handwriting that she showed those notes to you. She can’t read English if it’s in longhand. I hope you know it was an accident. I wouldn’t have said anything to intentionally hurt your feelings.”
Now McSwiney’s two male friends were definitely smirking, but the women were smarter; women had always known how to read Jack Burns.
Jack wasn’t really apologizing—he was just being nice twice, as Mrs. Wicksteed had taught him. (Back in the bar at The Prince George, when he’d offered to shake Doug McSwiney’s hand, that had been being nice the first time.) Of course Jack knew that McSwiney was too drunk and too belligerent to understand this. The author just went on with his story.