Part 7 (2/2)

He filled a red kettle with water and set it on the stove.

”I hope your wife doesn't mind my showing up so late,” I said, ”but I was in the neighborhood.”

”Wife?”

”I saw Second Time's a Charm in the bookstore.”

”Ah, that. Well, the second time didn't really turn out to be such a charm after all. Jane filed for divorce a month after that one came out.”

”I'm sorry to hear.”

”Apparently, so was Oprah.” He laughed. ”I was this close. Who knows, maybe I could have been the next Deepak Chopra or Dr. Phil. Oh well, there's always another book, eh?” He gestured toward the general chaos of the living room. ”Have a seat. You're making me nervous.”

I cleared a spot on the sofa. The cus.h.i.+ons caved in when I sat down, so that my knees were up in the air. Something smelled weird. I realized the cloying vanilla odor was coming from an enormous, flesh-colored candle on the coffee table.

”Sorry, I couldn't find saucers,” Thorpe said, handing me a steaming mug that bore the insignia of a hotel in Cleveland.

He sat down in the recliner across from me, adjusting the hem of the bathrobe to cover his knees. The top slid open to reveal a pale, broad nipple ringed with curly black hair. A fake palm tree rose up behind his head. On the wall beside the tree were several wooden masks bearing macabre and pained expressions. I thought of Colonel Kurtz in the jungle. I thought of the drunken night almost twenty years before when I'd ended up in bed with this man. He had been an earnest and awkward lover; the night had ended badly. Then, as now, nothing seemed quite real. I'd long ago learned that the world was filled with grotesque and unsettling encounters that could be funny or just depressing, depending upon one's perspective; the jury was still out on this one.

”I wish you'd told me you were coming,” he said, running his hand over the gray stubble on his head. ”I would have cleaned up. As you can see, I don't get many visitors.” The Southern accent was entirely gone; as I suspected, it was just part of the performance.

Because of the relative height of the recliner and the depth of the sofa cus.h.i.+ons, my eyes were level with the soles of his feet. It had been a mistake to come here. Nighttime, after all, didn't neutralize the territory as much as I'd hoped. I cleared my throat to speak, but I didn't know where to begin.

”How long has it been?” he said.

”A long time.”

”I've wanted to see you, Ellie. Very much. Things didn't turn out the way I hoped between us. Losing your friends.h.i.+p, that was harder on me than you can possibly know.”

”It was your choice,” I said.

”Hardly.”

”I begged you not to write that book.”

Thorpe gave the footrest a shove, set his feet on the floor, and leaned forward. ”This is true, but I swear, I never wanted to hurt you or your family. I was at the end of my rope, and the book was my way out. Did I ever tell you about the day I decided to write it?”

I shook my head. ”No.”

”It was a Sunday night, and I'd just spent three hours in a departmental meeting listening to my colleagues argue over which short story should be used for a diagnostic essay-Alice Walker's 'Everyday Use' or Hemingway's 'Hills Like White Elephants.' I kid you not, three hours. About halfway through the meeting I started thinking about what had happened to Lila, and to your family. I couldn't believe they hadn't arrested anybody. I'm sitting there, and some uptight white guy in a turtleneck is going on and on about how we can't ignore the literary canon, while the new women's studies hire is harping about marginalized feminist writers, and I knew that if I was still having the same conversation in five years I'd have to kill myself. So I just tuned out and started writing. By the time the meeting adjourned, I'd filled six pages. I reread it as soon as I got home, and I knew right then it could be really good. If I hadn't taken that chance, I'd still be holed up in some little apartment grading freshman essays, f.u.c.king around with a Hemingway story I never liked in the first place.”

”Would you do it again?”

He didn't say anything. The silence was answer enough. He finished his tea and set the cup on the table. ”I've thought about you over the years, Ellie.”

”I'm not that hard to find.”

”Actually, you are.”

”I'm sure you have resources. Not to mention, until a year ago, my mother lived a quarter mile from here.”

”What? I'm going to show up on your mother's doorstep? I was hoping you'd come to me. I knew if I was the one to make the first move, you'd shoot me down. You made it clear that you didn't want anything to do with me.”

I couldn't argue with that.

”Listen,” he said, ”do you mind if I go change?”

”What?”

”I feel weird, sitting here and talking to you in my bathrobe. To be perfectly honest, it's been a rough couple of days. I've got this new book I'm working on, and I've hardly left my desk. In fact, I was up in my office writing-or trying to-when the doorbell rang.”

He stood. ”Make yourself at home,” he said. ”Wander around. Who knows, you might find something interesting.”

”You mean that?”

He smiled. ”Eat my food, drink my liquor, read my mail, rifle through my drawers. Just don't leave.”

I knew that he meant it. There had, after all, been a reason we got along so well all those years ago. He was easy to talk to. He was generous with his time. He liked me. I never bothered with how I looked when I went to see him, never worried that I'd say the wrong thing. When we talked, I could always tell he was really listening. The camaraderie we shared, the genuine ease I felt in his presence, had made his betrayal all the more devastating.

WHEN I HEARD A DOOR CLOSE UPSTAIRS, I WENT into the kitchen to examine the collection of photographs on Thorpe's fridge. There were snapshots of him with various local personalities-Barry Bonds, Bill Gates, Jim Mitch.e.l.l, Armistead Maupin-as well as national media types like Barbara Walters, Ted Turner, and that narrow, white-haired guy from 60 Minutes. There was a calendar featuring The Simpsons, the page turned to the month of June, which had already come and gone. I flipped to July-almost every square was filled. There were radio shows, readings, book clubs, an elementary school fund-raising luncheon. I wondered what kind of grade school would enlist the services of a true crime author to raise money for crayons and monkey bars.

On the wall above the counter was a corkboard, on which was tacked a schizophrenic mishmash of ticket stubs from a couple dozen movies-The Lives of Others, Ocean's Thirteen, The Squid and the Whale, Shrek-and music shows-Sugar dePalma at the Rockit Room, Walty at Hotel Utah, Steve Forbert at the Great American Music Hall, the Polyphonic Spree and Pilar Dana at Slims. There was also a two-day pa.s.s to the New Orleans Jazz Festival from 2003. I was impressed with his musical tastes, surprised to see that we still had so much in common on that front, until I saw the $115 stub for a Journey revival tour.

There was more: a year-old receipt for an $800 coat purchased from Neiman Marcus-maybe he'd planned to return it but never got around to it-and a postcard from Hawaii, postmarked five years ago in November, addressed to ”Mr. & Mrs. Thorpe,” bearing the handwritten message: Memo to self: remember the honeymoon, and the signatures Jane & Andy. Apparently they hadn't followed their own advice.

I took the stairs to the second floor. I pa.s.sed a closed door, behind which I could hear him moving around. I liked the freedom of being able to wander around his house unimpeded. I had come prepared to ask Thorpe for answers, but a few minutes with him had led me to understand what I should have known all along-that it wouldn't be as easy as asking a simple question and getting a direct and honest response. Socially, beneath the dishevelment and disorganization, Thorpe had always been a crafty, clever man.

I turned right and came to a square room equipped with a large metal desk, which was flanked by industrial filing cabinets. The desk was shoved against a large window. Books and papers were everywhere, and the chair was covered with file folders. On top of the desk, anchoring a stack of papers, was a pair of binoculars. The hardwood floor had ring-shaped stains where potted plants once stood. I flipped the light switch, but nothing happened.

Thorpe was walking around, opening and closing drawers. I heard him curse to himself. The fountain gurgled in the courtyard.

I was amazed by how quiet his house was. Having lived in apartments for years, I'd grown accustomed to the constant noise of neighbors-garage doors opening, toilets flus.h.i.+ng, televisions blaring. It didn't matter how nice an apartment building was, how exorbitant the rent, you could never escape the sounds of your neighbors. I imagined that if I were ever to move into a proper house, one without any shared walls, I would find the silence somewhat creepy. I liked the proximity of neighbors, even those I didn't know. I figured, if need be, I could always call for help. I could never entirely banish from my mind the image of Lila, alone with her killer in the woods. If she called out, no one heard her. Urban places provided at least the illusion of safety. It was hard to believe that houses like this existed in the middle of San Francisco-solitary houses, where you could scream and no one would hear you. Of course, that was probably why Thorpe's neighborhood was the last piece of land in the city to be developed. Despite its amazing views and central location, Diamond Heights had an eerie, windswept quality.

I leaned over the desk and peered out the window. Whereas the living room windows faced north, the office had an eastern view. There was a steep, wooded hill beside the house. Beyond the hill the streets of Noe Valley glowed vaguely under the automatic lamps. I felt unnerved, but I couldn't pinpoint the source of my discomfort-it was just a vague sensation of something not being quite right. I moved the file folders off the chair, sat down at the desk, and peered down the hill. Midway down, someone had set up a makes.h.i.+ft encampment. The end of a cigarette glowed. That was unremarkable, it was part of the accepted absurdity of San Francisco-homeless people living within yards of multimillion-dollar homes. At the bottom of the hill was a fence, and beyond the fence a small playground, and beyond that a narrow street lined with rows of Victorians. There were many such streets in Noe Valley, of course, but I realized with a s.h.i.+ver that this wasn't just any street. From the house on the corner, I counted down the block until I came to the sixth house on the right. A light burned in an upstairs room. A person appeared in front of the window and stood there, still as a photograph. I lifted the binoculars to my eyes and experienced several seconds of confusion as the binoculars picked up the objects in front of me on the desk, absurdly magnified. I moved them back and forth, finally finding the house, the window. Affixed to the outside frame of the window was a wooden bird feeder, a Victorian house in miniature. I recognized the bird feeder immediately-the small scalloped roof, the little red door-I'd built it from a kit and painted it myself during my freshman year of college. There had been a hummingbird with an iridescent blue throat that came at ten every morning. It was Lila who cleaned the feeder and kept it supplied with nectar. After she died I forgot to fill it, and the hummingbird stopped coming.

I was looking at my old bedroom. Thorpe had a perfect view. The person standing before the window was a woman, not much older than I was, dressed in a pale green bathrobe, arms crossed. She s.h.i.+fted, lifted her arm in a wave. For a moment, I thought she was waving at me. Then I saw the person on the street below her window-a man, waving up at her. I couldn't be sure, but he looked like an old neighbor of mine.

Twenty.

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