The Architecture of Snow Page 4

  “Eat?”

  “I made soup and a salad.”

  “But I can’t impose.”

  “I insist.”

  Except for a stove and refrigerator, the kitchen might have looked the same two hundred years earlier. The floor, the cabinets, and the walls were aged wood, with a golden hue that made me think they were maple. The table and chairs were dark, perhaps oak, with dents here and there from a lifetime of use. Flaming logs crackled in a fireplace.

  I smelled freshly baked bread and, for the first time in a long while, felt hungry. The soup was vegetable. I ate three servings and two helpings of salad, not to mention a half loaf of bread.

  “The potatoes, tomatoes, onions, and carrots, everything in the soup comes from my garden,” Wentworth explained. “The growing season is brief here. I need to be resourceful. For example, the lettuce comes from a late summer planting that I keep in a glass frame so I can harvest it in the winter.”

  The fresh taste was powerful, warming my stomach. Somehow, I had room for two slices of apple pie, which was also homemade, the fruit from Wentworth’s trees. And tea. Two cups of tea.

  Helping to clean the dishes, I yawned. Embarrassed, I covered my mouth. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t be. It’s natural to feel sleepy after we eat. That’s what mammals do. After they eat, they sleep.”

  “But I slept all day.”

  “A sign of how much rest you need. Lie down on the sofa in the living room. Read more of my book.”

  “But I ought to go back to my motel room.”

  “Nonsense.” Limping, Wentworth guided me into the living room. The furnishings reminded me of those I saw long ago in my grandmother’s house. The sofa was covered with a blanket.

  “I won’t be an imposition?”

  “I welcome your reaction to my manuscript. I won’t let you take it with you to the motel, so if you want to read it, you need to do it here.”

  I suppressed another yawn, so tired that I knew I wouldn’t be alert enough to deal with anyone following me to the motel. “Thank you.”

  “You’re more than welcome.” Wentworth brought me the rest of the manuscript, and again I felt amazed that I was in his company.

  The fireplace warmed me. On the sofa, I sat against a cushion and turned the pages, once more absorbed in the story. Jake announced that his sense of humor had gotten him fired from the radio station. He told his listeners that he had only two more broadcasts and then would leave Boston for a talk show in Cincinnati. Eddie was devastated. He hadn’t seen his mother in two days. All he had to eat was peanut butter and crackers. He put them in a pillowcase. He added his only change of clothes, then went to the door and listened. He heard footsteps. Somebody cursed. When the sounds became distant, Eddie did the forbidden-he unlocked and opened the door. The lights were broken in most of the hallway. Garbage was stacked in corners. The smell of urine and cabbage made Eddie sick. Shadows threatened, but the curses and footsteps were more distant, and Eddie stepped through the doorway.

  The crackling in Wentworth’s fireplace seemed to come from far away, like the faint tap of a typewriter.

  The hand on my shoulder was again so gentle I barely felt it. When I opened my eyes, Wentworth stood over me, but this time he was silhouetted by light.

  “Good morning.” He smiled.

  “Morning?”

  “It’s eleven o’clock.”

  “I slept thirteen hours?” I asked in shock.

  “You’re more tired than I imagined. Would you like some breakfast?”

  My stomach rumbled. I couldn’t recall waking up with so strong an appetite. “Starved. Just give me a moment to. .”

  “There’s an extra toothbrush and razor in the bathroom.”

  As I washed my face, I was puzzled by my reflection in the mirror. My cheeks were no longer drawn. Wrinkles on my brow and around my eyes were less distinct. My eyes looked bright, my skin healthy.

  At the kitchen table, I ate a fruit salad Wentworth prepared-oranges, bananas, pears, and apples (the latter two from his trees, he reminded me). I refilled my bowl three times. As always, there was tea.

  “Is it drugged? Is that why I’m sleeping so much?”

  Wentworth almost smiled. “We both drank from the same pot. Wouldn’t I have been sleepy, also?”

  I studied him as hard as he had studied me. Despite his age, his cheeks glowed. His eyes were clear. His hair was gray instead of white. “You’re in your early eighties, correct?”

  “Correct.”

  “But you look at least twenty years younger. I don’t understand.”

  “Perhaps you do.”

  I glanced around the old kitchen. I peered toward the trees and bushes outside. The sun cast a glow on falling leaves. “This place?”

  “A similar compound in another area would have produced the same effect. But yes, this place. Over the years, I acquired a natural rhythm. I lived with the land. I blended with the passage of the sun and moon and seasons. After a while, I noticed a change in my appearance, or rather the lack of change in my appearance. I wasn’t aging at the rate that I should have. I came to savor the delight of waking each day and enjoying what my small version of the universe had in store for me.”

  “That doesn’t seem compatible with your gun.”

  “I brought that with me when I first retreated here. The loss of my family. . Each morning was a struggle not to shoot myself.”

  I looked away, self-conscious.

  “But one day crept into another. Somehow, I persisted. I read Emerson and Thoreau again and again, trying to empty myself of my not-so-quiet desperation. Along with these infinite two acres, Emerson and Thoreau saved my life. I came to feel my family through the flowers and trees and. . Nothing dies. It’s only transformed. I know what you’re thinking-that I found a sentimental way to compensate. Perhaps I did. But compare your life to mine. When you came here, when you snuck onto my property, you looked so desperate that for the first time in many years I was frightened. I knew that homes had been broken into. I got the gun from a drawer. I hoped I wouldn’t need to defend myself.”

  Shame burned my cheeks. “Perhaps I’d better go.”

  “Then I realized you were truly desperate, not because of drugs or greed, but because of a profound unhappiness. I invited you to stay because I hoped this place would save you.”

  As so often with Wentworth, I couldn’t speak. Finally, I managed to say “Thank you,” and was reminded of how humbly he used those words when I told him how brilliant The Architecture of Snow was.

  “I have some coveralls that might fit you,” he said. “Would you like to help me clean my gardens?”

  It was one of the finest afternoons of my life, raking leaves, trimming frost-killed flowers, putting them in the compost bin. We harvested squash and apples. The only day I can compare it to was my final afternoon with my father so long ago, a comparably lovely autumn day when we raked leaves, before my father bent over and died.

  A sound jolted me: my cell phone. I looked at the caller ID display. Finally, the ringing stopped.

  Wentworth gave me a questioning look.

  “My boss,” I explained.

  “You don’t want to talk to him?”

  “He’s meeting the company’s directors on Monday. He’s under orders to squeeze out more profits. He wants to announce that The Architecture of Snow is on our list.”

  Wentworth glanced at the falling leaves. “Would the announcement help you?”

  “My instructions are not to come back if I don’t return with a signed contract.”

  Wentworth looked as if I’d told a slight joke. “That explains what drove you to climb over my fence.”

  “I really did worry that you were ill.”

  “Of course.” Wentworth studied more falling leaves. “Monday?”

  “Yes.”

  “If you go back, you’ll lose sleep again.”

  “Somebody’s got to fight them.”

  “Maybe we need to sa
ve ourselves before we save anything else. How would you like to help me split firewood?”

  For supper, we ate the rest of the soup, the bread, and the apple pie. They tasted as fresh as on the previous night. Again, I felt sleepy, but this time from unaccustomed physical exertion. My skin glowed from the sun and the breeze.

  I finished my tea and yawned. “I’d better get back to the motel.”

  “No. Lie on the sofa. Finish my manuscript.”

  The logs crackled. I might have heard the distant clatter of a typewriter as I turned the pages.

  In the story, Eddie braved the dangers of the rat-infested apartment building, needing all his cleverness to escape perverts and drug dealers. Outside, on a dark rainy street, he faced greater dangers. Every shadow was a threat. Meanwhile, a chapter about Jake revealed that he was a nasty drunk when he wasn’t on the air. The station’s owner was glad for the chance to fire him when Jake insulted one of the sponsors during the program. But Eddie idealized him and was ready to brave anything to find him. As the rain fell harder, he wondered how to find the radio station. He couldn’t just ask a stranger on the street. He saw a store that sold newspapers and magazines and hurried from awning to awning toward it.

  This time, Wentworth didn’t need to touch me. I sensed his presence and opened my eyes to the glorious morning.

  “Did you sleep well?”

  “Very. But I’m afraid I didn’t finish it. I’m where Eddie found the radio station’s address in-”

  “Next time,” Wentworth said.

  “Next time?”

  “When you come back, you can finish it.”

  “You’d like me to come back?”

  Instead of answering, Wentworth said, “I’ve given your problem a great deal of thought. Before I tell you my decision, I want you to tell me what you think of my manuscript so far.”

  “I love it.”

  “And? If I were your author, is that all you’d say to me as an editor? Is there nothing you want changed?”

  “The sentences are wonderful. Your style’s so consistent, it would be difficult to change anything without causing problems in other places.”

  “Does that imply a few sections would benefit from changes?”

  “Just a few cuts.”

  “A few? Why so hesitant? Are you overwhelmed by the great man’s talent? Do you know how Sam and I worked as editor and author? We fought over every page. He wasn’t satisfied until he made me justify every word in every sentence. Some authors wouldn’t have put up with it. But I loved the experience. He challenged me. He made me try harder and reach deeper. If you were my editor, what would you say to challenge me?”

  “You really want an answer?” I took a breath. “I meant what I said. This is a terrific book. It’s moving and dramatic and funny when it needs to be and. . I love it.”

  “But. .”

  “The boy in The Architecture of Snow struggles through a blizzard to save his father. Eddie in this novel struggles to get out of a slum and find a father. You’re running variations on a theme. An important theme, granted. But the same one as in The Sand Castle.”

  “Continue.”

  “That may be why the critics turned against your last book. Because it was a variation on The Sand Castle, also.”

  “Maybe some writers only have one theme.”

  “Perhaps that’s true. But if I were your editor, I’d push you to learn if that were the case.”

  Wentworth considered me with those clear probing eyes. “My father molested me when I was eight.”

  I felt as if I’d been hit.

  “My mother found out and divorced him. We moved to another city. I never saw my father again. She never remarried. Fathers and sons. A powerful need when a boy’s growing up. That’s why I became a grade-school teacher: to be a surrogate father for the children who needed one. It’s the reason I became a writer: to understand the hollowness in me. I lied to you. I told you that when I heard you coming across the yard, when I saw your desperate features, I pulled my gun from a drawer to protect myself. In fact, the gun was already in my hand. Friday. The day you crawled over the fence. Do you know what date it was?”

  “No.”

  “October 15.”

  “October 15?” The date sounded vaguely familiar. Then it hit me. “Oh. . The day your family died in the accident.”

  For the first time, Wentworth started to look his true age, his cheeks shrinking, his eyes clouding. “I deceive myself by blaming my work. I trick myself into thinking that, if I hadn’t sold ‘The Fortune Teller’ to Hollywood, we wouldn’t have driven to New York to see the damned movie. But the movie didn’t kill my family. The movie wasn’t driving the car when it flipped.”

  “The weather turned bad. It was an accident.”

  “So I tell myself. But every time I write another novel about a father and a son, I think about my two boys crushed in a heap of steel. Each year, it seems easier to handle. But some anniversaries. . Even after all these years. .”

  “The gun was in your hand?”

  “In my mouth. I want to save you because you saved me. I’ll sign a contract for The Architecture of Snow.”

  Throughout the long drive back to Manhattan, I felt a familiar heaviness creep over me. I reached my apartment around midnight, but as Wentworth predicted, I slept poorly.

  “Terrific!” My boss slapped my back when I gave him the news Monday morning. “Outstanding! I won’t forget this!”

  After the magic of the compound, the office was depressing. “But Wentworth has three conditions,” I said.

  “Fine, fine. Just give me the contract you took up there to get signed.”

  “He didn’t sign it.”

  “What? But you said-”

  “That contract’s made out to R. J. Wentworth. He wants another contract, one made out to Peter Thomas.”

  “The pseudonym on the manuscript?”

  “That’s the first condition. The second is that the book needs to be published with the name Peter Thomas on the cover.”

  The head of marketing gasped.

  “The third condition is that Wentworth won’t do interviews.”

  Now the head of marketing turned red, as if choking on something. “We’ll lose CNN and the Today show and the magazine covers and — ”

  “No interviews? That makes it worthless,” my CEO complained. “Who the hell’s going to buy a book about a kid in a snowstorm when its author’s a nobody?”

  “Those are his conditions.”

  “Couldn’t you talk him out of that?”

  “He wants the book to speak for itself. He says part of the reason he’s famous is that his family died. He won’t capitalize on that, and he won’t allow himself to be asked about it.”

  “Worthless,” my boss moaned. “How can I tell the Gladstone executives we won’t have a million seller? I’ll lose my job. You’ve already lost yours.”

  “There’s a way to get around Wentworth’s conditions,” a voice said.

  Everyone looked in that direction, toward the person next to me: my assistant, who wore his usual black turtleneck and black sports jacket.

  “Make out the contract to Peter Thomas,” my assistant continued. “Put in clauses guaranteeing that the book will be published under that name and that there won’t be any interviews.”

  “Weren’t you listening? An unknown author. No interviews. No serial killer or global conspiracy in the plot. We’ll be lucky to sell ten copies.”

  “A million. You’ll get the million,” my assistant promised.

  “Will you please start making sense.”

  “The Internet will take care of everything. A month from pub date, I’ll leak rumors to hundreds of chat groups. I’ll put up a fan website. On the social networks, I’ll spread the word that Wentworth’s the actual author. I’ll point out parallels between his early work and this one. I’ll talk about the mysterious arrival of the manuscript just as his editor died. I’ll mention that a March and Sons editor,
Robert Neal, had a weekend conference at Wentworth’s home in October, something that can be verified by checking with the motel where Mr. Neal stayed. I’ll juice it up until everyone buys the rumor. Believe me, the Internet thrives on gossip. It’ll get out of control fast. Since what passes for news these days is half speculation, reporters and TV commentators will do pieces about the rumors. After a week, it’ll be taken for granted that Peter Thomas is R. J. Wentworth. People will want to be the first to buy the book to see what all the fuss is about. Believe me, you’ll sell a million copies.”

  I was too stunned to say anything.

  So were the others.

  Finally my boss opened his mouth. “I love the way this guy thinks.” He gave me a dismissive glance. “Take the new contract back to Wentworth. Tell him he’ll get everything he wants.”

  So, on Tuesday, I drove back to Tipton. Because I was now familiar with the route, I made excellent time and arrived at four in the afternoon. Indeed, I often broke the speed limit, eager to see Wentworth again and warn him how March amp; Sons intended to betray him.

  I saw the smoke before I got to town. As I approached the main street, I found it deserted. With a terrible premonition, I stopped at the park. The smoke shrouded Wentworth’s compound. His fence was down. A fire engine rumbled next to it. Running through the leaves, I saw townspeople gathered in shock. I saw the waitress from Meg’s Pantry, the waiter from the Tipton Tavern, Jonathan Wade from the book store, the barber who was the town constable, and Becky. I raced toward her.

  “What happened?”

  The constable turned from speaking to three state policemen. “The two outsiders who’ve been hanging around town broke into Bob’s place. The state police found fresh cigarette butts at the back fence. Next to a locked gate, there’s a tree so close to the fence it’s almost a ladder.”

  My knees weakened when I realized he was talking about the tree I’d climbed to get over the fence. I showed them the way, I thought. I taught them how to get into the compound.

  “Some of the neighbors thought they heard a shot,” the constable said, “but since this is hunting season, the shot didn’t seem unusual, except that it was close to town. Then the neighbors noticed smoke rising from the compound. Seems that after the outsiders stole what they could, they set fire to the place-to make Bob’s death look like an accident.”