“When does Tom ever write?” Maggie asked, glancing outside the window at the hunched figure pushing a lawnmower to and fro across the neat, perfectly green expanse of grass.
“At night,” said Rachel. “In the middle of the night, actually. During the day he’s out and about. Walking the dog, toiling about the backyard, cleaning the shed, repairing some things about the house, or working on that old car. Three times a week he goes to the public pool, you know. He does 60 laps — in the slow lane, but still. He never stops. When the day’s over, he’s dead tired. He usually starts snoring before the news are over on TV, with the newspaper sprawled out on his lap. Then we go to bed, and he’s not able to fall asleep. He tosses around and sighs and stares at the ceiling — I can see that annoyed little glint in his eyes in the dark. He can’t stop thinking about his stories.”
“Really?” Maggie stared at her friend with mild curiosity.
“I asked him about it once,” Rachel continued. “He said it was like a voice in his head, telling the story. He can’t shut it off once it’s started, and if he lets it ramble on he’d lose the thread, if you see what I mean. So he has to get up and write it down.”
She took a long sip from her bitter black coffee and looked at Maggie over her cup. Rachel spoke of her husband’s writing as the most serious business — it was something important but obscure, which she did not discuss often.
“You know where he writes?”
“Where?” Maggie was surprised at how intrigued she was.
“In the laundry room.”
Rachel paused, for effect.
“Really?” Maggie’s voice had dropped to a whisper.
“He has a study, of course. Downstairs. But he says it’s too far, and since he’s too busy to write during the day it never gets used, that’s why I want to make it into a spare room, for when Sarah comes with the kids. Anyway, when he gets up to write at night he needs to act fast. So he walks down the hall and heads straight for the laundry room, for some reason. He writes on my ironing board, standing up — for his back, you see. He has to be careful with his back.”
“He writes on the ironing board?”
“Yes! I have to keep a stash of pencils in there. He writes on these little cards, and if we don’t have any left he grabs what he can: envelopes, bills, receipts. I found a bit of crossed out dialogue on the recipe for fennel salad you copied out for me last month.”
“Why doesn’t he keep a notebook in there? Some lined paper. Anything?”
“I try not to meddle in his writing, you know. But of course, I find it a bit strange, sort of counterproductive. But I think the spontaneity is what does it. It helps him to get his creative juices running, or whatever you call it. If it’s too well planned, if he feels like writing becomes the principal thing, then he doesn’t write at all. It has to be something done on the side. So he has to write in the laundry room, on scraps of paper. An afterthought… And I have to keep the ironing board out at night.”
“You know what that reminds me of? The writing habits, I mean, not the ironing board. It’s like Emily Dickinson. The poet. I read about her, once. It’s fascinating how she wrote. As she went about her daily chores, she would jot down bits and pieces of poetry on little scraps of paper. Then, when she’d written enough, she would sew the pieces of paper together into little booklets.”
Although Rachel did not read much poetry, or indeed any poetry at all, the comparison seemed to ring true.
“Maybe it’s a writer’s thing,” Maggie continued. “You know, we expect writers to sit down at a desk and just write all day. But writing is an art. You have to let your creativity flow freely. I’m sure it’s much harder than it looks. It takes time. Especially writing something good, like Tom does. You know, something literary.”
Rachel looked at Maggie carefully. She had always assumed Maggie had never read any of Tom’s books — she assumed that of everyone they spoke to in Baybridge. It was just that kind of town. But then, there had always been something different about Maggie, which was why Rachel had always enjoyed a special relationship with her. She enjoyed her company just a bit more than the two other girls in their gang of old retired suburban wives and widows, and that little bit made such a difference. On the surface, Maggie was like the rest of them — but underneath, Rachel knew there was a certain depth that was hard to grasp.
“Well, anyway,” said Rachel. “Even if it takes a long time to finish his books, I’m surprised every time he does finish one. It never lasts long when he writes at night. An hour, maybe — usually less. He just jots down a few lines, and then stares at them for a while, and either crosses them out or rewrites them with different words. I went to get a glass of water at night, once, and saw him there, just staring at the pieces of paper, completely oblivious to anything else. He stayed absolutely still for so long. And I run across the bits of paper when I go do the laundry, of course. I try not to meddle, I tell you, but it’s hard not to think about it when you have to have to shuffle through a pile of paper just to iron some shirts. It’s no surprise his books are so short, but let me tell you, it’s a miracle he gets anything published.”
“Is he close to finishing one now? A book, I mean.”
“I don’t know. He doesn’t talk to me about it. I suppose we’re due for one, anytime now. He finished the last one over three years ago. But I never know with him. He never tells me until he has to get his agent to send him a typist. For some reason, she has to come do the work in the house, so he can give her all the scraps in the right order, and change some more things as she works. That first book he wrote, when we were first married — we were in New York at the time — well, that one took him seven years! And it’s one of his shortest, mind you. Of course, he wrote differently back then. In some ways he was more serious about it — more open, as well. It’s as if he’s become ashamed of his writing as he’s grown older. I just never know with him.”
Rachel’s black coffee had gone cold. Maggie had long finished hers, creamed and sugared. She had sipped it in short, intense gulps while her friend talked.
“Well, it’s getting late,” said Maggie, slowly pushing her bulk up from the chair and grabbing the large plastic purse she carried around with her everywhere. Rachel was unsure if the creaking sound came from Maggie or the chair. “I’d better be heading home if I want to get dinner ready for when Paul gets home,” said Maggie.
“Did he go bird-watching today?”
“Yes. And we’re having chicken, poor dear. It was on sale at the grocery store, I don’t know what I was thinking!”
Maggie was already at the door, Rachel following behind her. The two women, lips pursed, pecked at each other’s cheeks. Maggie stepped out of the house and into the bright outside.
“Have a nice weekend, dear!” Rachel called after her friend.
“Yes, I’ll see you at my place on Monday with the girls!”
Rachel watched her friend amble down the driveway in the afternoon glare, which pulsed deeply with the sound of lawn mowing. Maggie was elegant despite her size. She was wrapped in an expansive, bright red dress with an African pattern of squiggles and dots. It billowed and sagged as she moved, and when the sunshine caught in it, the fabric became translucent and Maggie’s large silhouette was glimpsed underneath — a mass of cut out shadow, a solid anchor about which the red cloth rolled and lapped.
Rachel closed the door. She took the two cups left on the kitchen table, rinsed them carefully, and put them away in the dishwasher. She walked over to the window that looked out on the back of the house. She saw Tom shut off the lawnmower and carefully bend down, straining his knees, not his back, to empty the grass in an orange plastic bag. He was meticulous. He carefully manipulated the large canvas container, fitting the plastic bag properly on it so as not to drop some cut grass. He did everything with serious, quiet efficiency.
Rachel went over to the sink and prepared a glass of cold water to bring to her husband.
