Chapter 5 The Virtuoso #2
“ARE YOU SINGLE?” yelled a woman knitting in a middle row—of course there was a knitter. Everyone laughed.
“To the best of my knowledge, yes,” said William, and a happy noise ran through the crowd—which, like Sam’s audiences, was primarily female. Strike that, Sam realized, looking around: This one was all women. Nary a long-suffering husband in sight.
Laura delivered the mic to another reader. “Mr. Corwyn,” she said, “your books are PART of me. I carry them right here.” She
tapped her chest. “My question is, how do you write women so well?”
“First, thank you,” William said, “and second, dozens of female readers on Goodreads and disagree with you.” More laughter.
“Seriously, I get this question at every reading, and it perplexes me as much as honors me. Why wouldn’t I be able to write women well? We’re all just people, with hopes, dreams, loves, and fears—we’re all lambent souls,” he said,
gesturing to his book poster on an easel next to the podium, the title embossed in gold over green Irish hills. “Or maybe
I’m fibbing. Maybe I write female protagonists because what straight male writer would not want to spend all his hours in contemplation of the fairer sex?”
Oh my God, Sam thought. Did he really just say that? It sounded like something from Pygmalion. This roomful of feminist women would tear him apart. Instead, they laughed some more. Only one woman didn’t join the jollity:
She was standing a few feet away from Sam, wearing a librarian’s flowered dress and a baseball cap pulled low, so all Sam
could see was an overbite, a waterfall of blond curls, and a posture of concentration so rapt, she didn’t seem to be breathing.
Yeesh, thought Sam, and I thought I had superfans.
Laura ferried the mic to another woman, who said, “William, your books have been so influential for me—I’m a writer, too,
though nowhere on your level. But what I wanted to ask about isn’t your novels, it’s the Darlings. Can you talk about them,
please?”
“Yes,” William said, with emphasis. “Thank you. If you’ll indulge me, I’ll tell you about the Darlings by spinning a yarn, trick
of the trade.” Sam squinted. Why did this sound familiar? Then she remembered William’s letter: If you’ll indulge me, I’ll explain by spinning a yarn. Professional hazard. She did this, too, running lines in writing and then verbalizing them, in a sort of unconscious rehearsal.
William came out from behind the podium and sat on the edge of the signing table with the mic. He shrugged off his suit jacket
and rolled up his sleeves to show his forearms. “Oh my GOD,” the knitter said.
“Once upon a time,” said William, “there was a young man who wanted to be a writer. He wasn’t very good, but he was determined.
And he worked hard. He wrote and wrote and wrote, and by some grace of God, after college, he got into a graduate program
for creative writing. The young man was in heaven. He was learning from some of the best literary minds in the country. Every
day he got to talk craft, debate, exchange shop talk with other writers. And just when he thought his life couldn’t get any
better, he fell in love with a woman in his program.”
He drank from the bottle of water Laura had set out. The room had grown so quiet, Sam could hear the hiss of car tires on
the wet road outside the store, birds chittering in the bushes. Even the knitter’s needles had paused.
“They did everything together,” William continued, “eat, sleep, write, critique. They spent whole weekends in the bathtub
reading to each other, wrinkling like raisins.”
He took out a handkerchief and blotted his forehead, sweating visibly now.
“In the early spring of their second year, the young man proposed. Which he did in workshop, by way of a terrible poem. The
young woman said yes, and they began planning their wedding.
“Because they were in love, because he believed he knew her better than anyone on earth, because of their dreams . . . it
came as a great shock to the young man when, that summer, he came home to find that she—forgive me, this is sensitive—she
had . . . taken her own life.”
A woman in the front row gasped. Sam flinched. For a second she saw her own hand reaching for a doorknob, the beige carpet
soaked in blood.
William gulped his water and continued.
“The young man was devastated. Everything he’d loved had vanished, in the most sudden and shocking way. He couldn’t eat. Couldn’t sleep. Couldn’t read or write. Everything lost all meaning. All he could think was: Why. Why?”
Sam shuddered. She rubbed her arms, which had seized in goose bumps.
“After a few weeks, the young man realized he was in danger of following his darling into the darkness, and part of him wanted
that. So he did the only thing he could think of. He invited everyone in their program to his apartment. All the writers came,
and it turned into an impromptu memorial that lasted three days. The writers comforted the young man, talked about his darling,
tried to understand what happened. There was plenty of beer, and there might have been . . .”
William pantomimed smoking a joint. There was some uncertain laughter, though there was more sniffling. Some audience members
took advantage of the moment to wipe their eyes.
“And something extraordinary happened, even more so than the generosity. The writers started to share. First one, then another,
then they all confessed their struggles. Some, perhaps like the young man’s fiancée, had depression, what Billy Styron called
Darkness Visible. They all had doubt. Impostor syndrome. Worry how they’d earn a living. Fear of what they’d do if they didn’t make it—they
were all career writers; they’d never wanted to be anything else.”
Yes, Sam thought. She was unaware she’d breathed it aloud until her coil-haired neighbor glanced her way.
“It was such a helpful jam session,” said William, “that we—because of course I was the young man—decided to keep it going.
We met every week until graduation, and I maintained the group after that, wherever I happened to be. Because talking to one
another about the problems was so helpful in siphoning off the darkness.
“So that is the Darlings,” said William. “A support group for writers. A sort of moveable feast of camaraderie that takes
place around New England. Because I failed my darling—I failed to see she was in distress, to reach her—I help others as they
helped me. It’s the least I can do.”
He stopped and drained his water. After a moment of stunned silence, the room burst into applause so explosive Sam felt it in her throat. The women gave William a standing ovation, Sam included. The only one who seemed unimpressed was the librarian in the baseball cap, who was doing a golf clap.
Laura came to William, and they hugged, rocking back and forth.
“Oh, I got mascara on your suit!” she said, laughing and wiping her eyes. “Thank you, William. We’ll check out the Darlings
for sure . . . William will be signing here at the table, folks, and you can buy more of his books at the register.”
“William thanks you too,” called William, his voice almost lost in the scrape of chairs and stampede of feet. “Oh, and the
Darlings meetings are free!”
Sam stayed put, waiting for the room to clear. She felt stun-gunned, limbs weighted in a familiar way. Part of her wanted
to go home and crawl onto the couch. But she still wanted to meet William, now more than ever. Laura spotted her and waved
Sam over.
“Two Sam sightings in a month,” she said, “how lucky am I! Do you know William? You guys are both published by Hercules.”
“Only by reputation,” said Sam. “And he wrote me a lovely letter about Sodbuster.”
“C’mon, let’s cut the line,” said Laura. “Author perk.”
At the signing table, William was scrawling his signature in a hardcover with a Montblanc fountain pen that put the disposable
in Sam’s braid to shame. He smiled up at the reader he was signing for. “Is that Barbra like Streisand or Barbara old-school?”
he asked, and then he saw Sam. His face went still for a second, then lit again in that delighted grin.
“Excuse me a moment,” he told the reader. He stood and walked around the table.
“It is you,” he said to Sam.
Then he was hugging her. Sam stood inhaling his woodsy-musky cologne and a sharp note of sweat. He was roasting hot and damp,
as she always was after she performed. His heart thudded against her cheek.
“You came,” William said, when he released her. “Hi. Hi.”
“You’re so tall,” Sam said idiotically.
“Comparatively,” he agreed, smiling. He turned the mic back on. “Ladies and . . . ladies! You’re in for a treat. Tonight you
get two writers for the price of one: Sam Vetiver is here! Author of the classic The Sharecropper’s Daughter. Her new book is just out, you can buy it up front, and she’s agreed to sign with me.”
He put down the mic. “Okay?” he said.
“Okay!” said Sam. “If you’re sure. I don’t want to intrude—”
“You can’t intrude if you’re invited,” said William. He smiled and lifted one of the folding chairs over the table as easily
as if it were a marshmallow. “Come,” he said, and patted it. “Please. Sit here by me.”