Chapter 39 Peggy
My first day back at the library.
I was worried how the staff and volunteers would look at me.
If they would trust me. I need not have worried.
One man, Jerry, a guy who volunteers one day a week, asked me some uncomfortably direct questions about what specific medications I was on, but apart from him everyone has been considerate.
Mrs. Appleby took me to one side after lunch and told me her sister had some trouble years ago and needed rest time in the exact same place.
She said her sister had been overtired, and the weeks she spent at St. Mary’s helped her.
My plans are coming together in my head.
Escape routes and new high schools. How I’ll ration out the book money.
I’m going to ask Mrs. Appleby if it can be paid into her checking account and then I’ll tell Drew it’s half the amount I actually received.
I’ll fabricate paperwork in advance using the library computer.
I’d like to write a diagram of the plan, the stages, but I can’t risk him finding any notes.
Unpacking new arrivals is one of my favorite tasks. Seeing which new releases we have in stock, and organizing the areas to shelve them in. I like the coding logic, the Dewey decimal system, the sense of gradually building and shaping a resource the whole community can rely on.
By four I am exhausted. I am so out of practice, not only with work, but with talking to people.
I take my purse and my jacket. I say goodbye to Stephanie on the front desk and walk out clutching the envelope.
Inside is an apology letter to my publisher explaining my hiatus, without going into too much detail, and expressing how excited I am about the novel making its way into the world.
I didn’t ask about the check, who to make it out to, whether it can be made out to cash so I can keep control of it.
I’ll deal with all that next. The letter is stamped.
I have written the library’s address on the back of the envelope in case it is not delivered.
I walk outside, cold dry air on my face, and turn the corner toward the post office.
I jump when I spot him.
Drew is waiting by a pay phone.
“All right,” he says.
“You frightened me, Drew.”
“Thought I’d walk you home. Keep an eye on you. Make sure you’re safe.”
His face is severe.
“You didn’t have to do that.”
We set off, and the leather hobnail soles of his work boots tap on the pavement. He walks upright, shoulders back, making the most of his size.
“I need to mail this, won’t take a minute.”
He looks at it and stops walking.
Him breathing. Me watching him breathe.
“About that,” he says, gesturing to the white envelope.
“Yes?”
“Let’s walk that way instead.”
“I need to mail this first. It’s important, Drew.”
“I said we’ll go that way.”
There are people all around us, but I am trapped inside a tight, invisible cage. A shrinking cage.
He claims he gifted me the gold necklace. That it was a higher-quality version of the mail-order one Mom used to wear. This has been going on for so long. I am not sure which version, which truth, which perception of history, is accurate.
It is not important.
Not now.
We walk toward the bus station. We take the long way around, past the hardware store.
“You OK?” I ask.
“It happened.”
“What did?”
He looks straight ahead as we walk, not at me.
“What we talked about, Peg.”
“I don’t understand.”
He sighs impatiently. “You went into the hospital, you remember that part, yes? And then it happened. I helped you out like we’d agreed. To save face. To make sure it didn’t all fall apart, you remember?”
What is he talking about? To save face?
“I don’t know what you mean.”
He clears his throat. “You take your meds today?”
“Yes.”
He scratches his head and talks slower. “When you got sick and went up to St. Mary’s I took it over to help out. Like you asked me to. Well, let’s just say we weren’t dealing with professionals. Bunch of cowboys.”
“Cowboys?”
“Incompetents. Philistines. Wouldn’t know a clean, coherent piece of work if it hit them square in the forehead.”
“Drew, can you just slow down? What do you mean piece of work?”
He doesn’t listen. We pass a drugstore. He keeps on walking at his own brisk pace. If anything, he speeds up.
“Like we talked about. You went into St. Mary’s to get your head right.
Well, you had a contract, didn’t you, you remember that?
You signed it, Peg. You had legal obligations, a time schedule, deadlines.
I took it over, like you asked me to. I did my part, even though it wasn’t my kind of thing, not at all. Far from it, in fact.”
My heart sinks.
“Are you talking about my book, Andrew?”
He keeps walking.
Lifts his jaw.
“Deal’s dead and buried,” he says. “You shouldn’t deal with them again. Not to be trusted.”
My mouth falls open. “What… what have you done?”
“Did you a favor, girl.”
“Tell me.”
“Just did.”
“The deal’s dead?”
“Mutual agreement.”
“I never agreed to anything. Drew, slow down a second, tell me what went wrong.”
He turns to look at me and his gaze is blank. “Your head, that’s what went wrong. Can’t you remember that either?”
“You talked to my publisher directly? In New York?”
I jog a few paces to keep up.
“Helping you out, otherwise the whole thing would’ve gone down the tubes.”
“What did they say?”
“Say? Didn’t say a word. I found their details in Writer’s Market and wrote them.
Nipped it in the bud. Worked through your edits myself.
Course, it wasn’t my kind of writing, romance, genre fiction, not my wheelhouse, but I finished the rewrites, tidied it up best I could.
Lots of dead wood there was, Peggy. Filler.
Not your fault, your head wasn’t right at the time. ”
I never agreed to any part of this.
I try to maintain my composure. If I scream he will have me locked away again. “Why didn’t you just tell them I was sick?”
“You wanted that, you think? Tell them their new author was in the nuthouse drugged out of her skull. Not likely. My job’s to protect you, love. Keep the wagon on the road.”
A cyclist rings her bell and passes us.
I am faint. Unsteady.
“I don’t understand this.”
“That’ll be the medication.”
I jog again. Sweat, cold on my back.
“I’ll talk to them. Explain. I can do the work again.”
“No,” he says, snorting. “Said they don’t want any more contact. It got heated, shall we say. Letters were exchanged. Talk of lawyers. They’re third-rate, Peggy, a shambles, and I told them so. Not worth thinking about. I can give you a list of worthwhile publishers if you like.”
“I’ll write them a new letter.”
“Did you not hear me?” he says, firmly. “Strike them off the list, Peggy, and learn from your mistakes. Important lesson for any writer, that is. Know when to move on.”
An ambulance drives by. Flashing lights but no siren.
I take a deep breath and say, “We never talked about this. Did they think you were me?”
“Course they did, like we talked about. You’re telling me you can’t remember asking?
I signed letters. Your signature isn’t exactly a challenge, is it?
Peggy Jenkins. You pretty much write it out like a ten-year-old.
We talked on this plenty before you went into St. Mary’s. You don’t remember, really?”
“No.”
“The pills they put you people on, you don’t know what day of the week it is half the time. Not your fault, Peg. Keep walking, girl. Keep up.”
“I lost my deal?”
“Wasn’t much of a deal to begin with. But the characters showed promise, Peggy, I’ll give you that. Have another crack at a fresh piece, something with depth, voice, pathos. I’ll give you a few pointers and all this mess can be avoided next time.”
“We didn’t discuss this. I’d have remembered.”
“It’s you that’s mentally ill, not me.”
Dry in my mouth.
I can’t catch my breath.
The plan just went up in flames.
“So we won’t have that check coming in?”
“We’ll manage. Scrapyard wants more hours. Might take Samson with me this weekend now he’s getting stronger. Have more cash coming in.”
I jog another few paces.
“But. He’s so young.” Everything is falling apart. Moving too quickly. “Make sure he doesn’t get injured.”
He laughs.
“Don’t laugh, Drew. I’m serious. He’s fourteen.”
“If it weren’t for me he’d be with child welfare by now, you ever think about that?
Children’s home just like my cousin. Taken away forever.
You hurt yourself, swallowing pills, sent up to St. Mary’s all that time for a rest. All right for some.
If it weren’t for me he’d have been taken away, Peg.
Child services doesn’t take chances. So, yes, I’ve been looking after the boy.
You might have noticed. You might have been grateful. ”
“I noticed.” It’s like I’m trapped deep inside a maze of his design, unable to see over the top. “He seems happier.”
“There you go then.”
We walk on for a few minutes, me trying to keep up. Past the check cashing place, past the pet store, past the boxing gym.
In how many ways can my existence be compressed? Each escape route walled in?
“I think it can be salvaged,” I say. “I’ll schedule a phone call, maybe, from the library, explain, come clean. They’ll understand. I can still save this book.”
He stops and turns to face me properly for the first time. The wind blows hard and his eyes water a little.
“Book’s gone, Peggy. Let it go. Your head can’t be relied on; the doctor said it to my face.
You know that, right? Told me straight to keep an eye out for warning signs.
Delusions of grandeur, detachment from reality, that sort of thing.
So I am keeping an eye out. Trust me, that book wasn’t taking you anyplace good.
Would have been an embarrassment. Start again from scratch.
Something stronger, something worthy of you.
Genuine publisher this time. Someone with pedigree.
Let’s hear no more about that dead book. ”