your father said you had a great thirst for advenure, right? So what could be more of an adventure than making up a story—creating a world that never actually existed, and peopling it with imaginary people you come to care about more than you often care about people you know, and all the while—all the while, Charlie—never knowing what’s going to happen to them next?”
“When you start writing your novels, you really don’t know what’s going to happen to the people in it?”
“No,” Seana said.
“Sounds good to me,” I said.
“Some writers—Nabokov most famously—claim they always know what’s going to happen next—that a writer is like an omniscient god who controls the destinies of all his characters.”
“Doesn’t sound like much fun,” I said.
“That’s because, despite a sometimes useless habit of being more innocent and timid than is good for you, you’re an essentially unique, adventurous, and playful young man,” she said.
“Maybe,” I said.
“Neither of us are as playful as your father is, though.”
“Not yet anyway,” I said.
“‘ Not yet anyway,’” she said, repeating my words, and when she did she looked away so that I couldn’t see her eyes. Then: “Don’t you think that’s sad, Charlie?”
I wanted to say yes, but instead I answered her question by telling her that the blossoms in the Dicterocap forests were pale and dusty, and looked something like hibiscus blossoms—wide, flat, and fringed like crepe paper, and the color of blood oranges—and that their leaves were light green and fleshy.
“Every four years, did you say? Which means that in two years we can go there, you and I—book a trip together, yes?”
“Is that what you writers do—book trips?”
“You’re not that funny either,” she said. “But sure—I’m game to go.”
I told her it was a deal, and explained what I’d learned on my trips there: that the massive flowering of the trees, and the fruiting that followed, had been a gift to the animals, especially to wild boar, who thrived on the seeds and spread them everywhere. I said that nobody knew how many centuries local populations had depended on those times when there was an abundance of seeds—and lots of pork to gorge on—but that anthropologists believed the relationship had lasted for as long as human beings had inhabited Borneo.
What I didn’t say was that most scientists had concluded that logging had probably reduced the density of the forests below the critical level needed to maintain reproductive cycles, and that the ecosystem was, therefore, irreparably damaged.
When we got to Tenants Harbor, I telephoned Nick’s parents—his mother answered, a lucky break—and I said I was in the vicinity with a friend and would like to stop by. Mrs. Falzetti said to please come, but to give her a half hour or so to tidy up. Seana was surprised I hadn’t called from Northampton, and I said I’d waited until we were nearby because I didn’t want to give them a chance to reject a visit out-of-hand, which I figured would have happened if Lorenzo, who could be nasty at times, had picked up the phone.
We had some time to kill, so I drove us out to Port Clyde, a few miles away, and we walked along the boat landing, where the ferry to Monhegan Island docked. The air was crisp, near freezing, but without wind, and Seana slipped her arm into mine. The ocean, like the lake at Camp Kingswood, was steel-gray and calm, but I knew how changeable the weather could be—how a pearl-gray sky could turn to slate-black within seconds, and how winds could become ferocious and waves could come roaring in and swamp small boats.
“Did you ever spend time here with Nick, just the two of you?” Seana asked.
“Yes,” I said. “Once—a total disaster—when we stayed with his mother and father. And I visited him and Trish a few times after they were married. For a while—before they were married, when the three of us would come up here together—I thought I might settle in these parts—not in a town around here, but on an island off the coast, where I could be totally alone and wouldn’t have to see or talk with anyone.”
“There are people around,” Seana said. “Still, it is peaceful and lovely here. Maybe Max and I can rent a house here for a few months—it would be a good place for getting work done. No distractions.”
“Except for Max,” I said.
“You never said how Nick died.”
“You’re right. I never said how Nick died.”
“Do his parents know how he died?”
“I assume so. The embassy called from Singapore, and I called too.”
“And what did you tell them?” Seana said. “And can you stop being such a tight-ass with me about it? Is there some deep, dark secret here?”
“No,” I said. “Just stupidity. Nick could be incredibly stupid sometimes—a real stupid son of a bitch. A lucky son of a bitch too a lot of the time.”
“But not this time.”
“Not this time,” I said, and I told her what had happened: how, on the first Saturday night after I’d returned from Borneo, he got drunk at a party he threw in his apartment.
“He was showing off,” I said, “and I was out on his balcony—I was pretty plastered too, and busting his chops—and he came at me, and I managed to step aside at the last second and he couldn’t stop—miscalculated—and pitched over the railing. His apartment was sixteen stories high.”
“And…?”
“And I tried to catch him—to grab him—but it was too late, of course, and when I sobered up, I went to the morgue and ID’d the body—puked all over the place, and over Nick too. Projectile vomiting, like a baby…”
“Good,” Seana said.
“Good?”
“A vegetable kind of justice.”
“I thought you’re not supposed to say bad things about the dead.”
“Why not? Given the way you and Max talk about him, it sounds as if he got what he deserved, including your leftovers.”
“Sure,” I said. “The way you got Max’s leftovers, right?”
“You can be nasty.”
“Sometimes.”
“Well, I do like that in you, Charlie,” she said. “But tell me this: given your dislike of Nick’s father, along with your claim about not being affected by guilt, why the compulsion to pay your respects?”
I was ready for her question, and said that Nick had been an only child, same as me, and that all through my teenage years, and occasionally since, I’d imagined what my father would feel if he had to watch my coffin being lowered into a grave, especially if it happened at a time when he was without a
