The morning after the crisis was one of those sun-soaked mountain days that made the snow cover glisten and hut the eyes to be out and about. Julian discovered this as he took out his trash. He winced into the rays of light that pierced the trees and turned back towards the house. Dana was in the bathroom, and he could see her in the window doing her makeup. They\u2019d a good few days, and they were looking forward to a warm New Year\u2019s Eve. They had no other plan than to indulge in each other\u2019s company, make a meal of a pair of game hens, and swill some champagne. First, though, they had to get through December\u2019s penultimate day. For Julian, this posed the challenge of seriously getting back to work on his novel\u2019s bloody stump. It was slow going, and he kept diving off it to see if Lana had messaged him on Facebook. She hadn\u2019t. For a man so proud of his restraint, he was weak as water when it came to craving the woman\u2019s words.<\/p>\n
Scott, in his cell at the Wood County Sherriff\u2019s Office holding area, was sitting on his first prison cot staring at the white cinderblock wall. He had a series of thoughts, and they chased each other\u2019s tail. Since his emotion had drained away, he was left with some serious respect for the woman whose face he had hit. She had, he realized, not been the helpless, innocent creature he had habitually assumed that she was. She had been as ferocious as any of their aviator heroes, and as handy with a checklist. She had let him lose control, but assiduously kept hers. She had, in a dazzling set of moves, got the upper hand, gotten to higher ground, and had him arrested for battery. That had been, he figured out, just the end game. Prior to that, she had given him many chances to do right by her, had complained about his heavy-handed behavior, and tried to amend it by reason. Had he listened? No, he had not. Prior to that, obviously, she had sent out an SOS to the world by writing that blog. That everyone else in their circle knew about it but him, only showed how much contempt he was held in. He was not even able to handle the fact of his wife\u2019s creativity. Even prior to that, she had been a good wife. She had been a great lover. She had been a friend, and she had been even in some respects a brother. He love and support of the flying madness was always touching, and now it just seemed an act of love. To this set of thoughts he said,
\n\t\u201cShit!\u201d Out loud to the cinderblock cell.
\nThen, he segued to himself. What was his error that had landed him here in jail? Working backwards, as if reconstructing an accident, and he did consider it that, he had hit her in the face with all the force he could manage. He couldn\u2019t believe, even now, with sunlight streaming into the high and tiny window with its thick and impenetrable reinforced glass, and with no phone calls coming or going to liberate him, that he had done that. It was so unlike him to be so out of control. Wasn\u2019t it? When had he lost his temper like that? He remembered scolding, and being an asshole so that he was aware of it, but to hit a woman? That seemed just wrong. He knew, of course, that it was wrong. Not only had he hit a woman but he had hit one that he loved! What had made him do that? Was there any sort of good reason? He was, he understood, going to need a good reason. He recalled that he had heard a man\u2019s voice say \u201cHello, Lana.\u201d How had he heard that voice? He had dialed the last number that she had called. What was he doing with her phone? He had grabbed it off the table. Why did he think he had the right to deny her any privacy with respect to communication? How did he know whom she talked to? The enraging conclusion that he\u2019d jumped to was that she was in cahoots with \u201canother man.\u201d He thought that because of words on her blog. She\u2019d written of her \u201cadmirer.\u201d How did he know that that wasn\u2019t someone that admired her blog? He didn\u2019t. There was no way to know that. Before that, he\u2019d been enraged to the point of abandoning his aircraft, buying a very expensive ticket, leaving behind an unclosed business deal, all because of some words she\u2019d written on a blog. Now, here he sat, for who knows how long, in the slammer. The Cessna, out in Oakland was costing money to hangar by the day. Jail was not going to end up cheap. Lawyers were not cheap. If convicted, doing time would not be cheap. To this series, he said,
\n\t\u201cFuck!\u201d To the walls, the cot and the silver metal toilet.
\nThen, there was the agony of actual imprisonment. He hated his father. That fucking old marine would give him hell about bailing him out, if he would even do it. One thing he had in common with Lana was the absent mother. His mother was not persona non grata as Lana\u2019s was, but rather simply dead and buried. She\u2019d gotten cancer when he was in his teens and he\u2019d watched her be eaten up and die. She would have bailed him out, but neither of his parents would have thought much of his reason for landing in the clink. As for Dad, he\u2019d rather just rot in here. Outside those walls, shit was going on regarding him. He knew that much. If he could get himself to respect himself enough to do it, his best bet was to ask the guard to let him call a lawyer. Who did he know? Oh right. Lana worked for a pair of \u2018em. Great. He knew that she was going to be, right this minute, working on it. If any lesson had been learned, it was that Lana was not to be underestimated. Of course, his partner, and former friend, Bruce Sibley, would have a stake in getting him sprung. It was clear from the doings of the previous evening that Sibley had been in on the whole event. They had expected him to lash out. They had set it up like a chess game, and he had fallen right into the trap. They all knew about the blog. They knew about the consequences of his discovering it. He was quite sure they\u2019d all warned Lana. She was funny that way. Once she decided to do something, she could barely be stopped. So he was being decided about. His fate was being sealed. To this series he said,
\n\t\u201cCocksucker.\u201d
\nHe meant himself. His wife was on top, and he was, as usual, on the bottom. He might as well get used to thinking of himself as a fool. If the shoe fit\u2026<\/p>\n
Scott was quite right, of course. They all went out to breakfast together, with Lana\u2019s purple shiner as a beacon, and ate eggs, bacon, pancakes, hash-browns, and talked about what to do about Scott.
\n\t\u201cI\u2019m going to have to bail him out. I can\u2019t afford not to.\u201d
\n\t\u201cRight, Bruce,\u201d said Lana. \u201cBut I have to get a restraining order first. I can\u2019t afford not to.\u201d
\n\t\u201cWhat about moving out?\u201d Christine was asking this, because she and Jason had talked about letting Lana stay with them.
\n\t\u201cI want to be in my house with Tory and Mea. Once I have a restraining order, Scott will be back in the slammer if he violates it. So, thanks, guys, but I\u2019m going to kick him out and stay at home.\u201d
\n\t\u201cWhere do you expect him to stay?\u201d Asked Bruce.
\n\t\u201cHe can sleep under that Piper.\u201d
\n\t\u201cYou know that\u2019s exactly what he\u2019ll do,\u201d said Lisa Roiter.
\n\t\u201cI have a feeling he\u2019ll have to sell it to pay his legal,\u201d said Jason.
\n\t\u201cYou\u2019re right about that, most likely,\u201d said Ron Roiter.
\n\t\u201cNot to mention all the fees involved in rescuing out Skyhawk.\u201d
\nBruce shook his head.
\n\t\u201cHow fast can you get a restraining order?\u201d
\nLana pushed herself back from the table.
\n\t\u201cOh, if I can get either David or Stephen on it, I\u2019ll have it by this afternoon. If not, he\u2019ll have to stay in the lockup until January 2nd.\u201d<\/p>\n
So after returning home from breakfast and bidding her gang farewell, Lana called the Law Offices of Weinstein and Fetterman, and talked to the answering service. It seemed as though Scott\u2019s incarceration might be extended on account of holidays. Her cats were being expressive of their diverse natures. Mea was upside down on the couch next to her, purring like a vibrator on high. Tory was on the prowl, looking to see why the can of hairspray was out of pace on the end table. Sniff, sniff. Lana got to thinking about Julian. It was the first time he\u2019d come to mind since the events of the night before. Her habitual compartmentalization made her resist telling of what she knew was the dramatic end of her marriage. She respected his resistance despite his clear attraction; self-discipline was attractive in a man. She\u2019d liked Scott\u2019s self discipline too before it became wrapped up in such odious possessiveness and, now, out-and-out berserk violence. Julian, she mused, was a man with a sense of right and wrong. Let him be right. Let there be light. So she let him be.<\/p>\n
Lana also thought about the fate of her character, Amy. Amy was now as liberated as Lana herself was. She\u2019d taken the blow for Amy. She was proud of the welts that got raised for Amy\u2019s right to tell all. Still, she was troubled by the alleged popularity that Amy had been reported as having. Too many of her confidants had reported Amy as \u2018viral.\u2019 She wondered if she wanted to have such a virus. Lana could fall into Amy in a heartbeat, certainly. Amy would say, \u201cDoes that mean my nose will be runny? I don\u2019t like the sound of \u2018viral.\u2019 It could be crampy and messy.\u201d She, Lana, had decided to give Amy a rest, if not a retirement. Let the buzz die down. Fame in America was not much fun. Of that, she was properly certain. <\/p>\n
Yet this was the pivot upon which the whole creaky mechanism turned: there was really no putting the genie back in the bottle. The Blue Ridge Community College that felt keenly their part in the discovery and popularization of \u201cAmy Tells All\u201d felt a palpable loss at its disappearance. They would ask Julian Gray about it, and he could only shrug. He had no idea, really what happened to that blog. He was aware that by rejecting the advances of its creator, he was likely to alienate his most recent muse. \u201cHell hath no fury like a woman scorned.\u201d The gossip ran high, but information was sketchy. The knights in second-hand Chevies had been out to Scott airstrip and found the place abandoned. The hangar was locked and there was no activity. They\u2019d been over to Bald Eagle, too, and learned only that nobody had any idea what had happened to \u201cAviation Synergies\u201d recently. (Julian hadn\u2019t been the only one to figure out who \u201cAmy\u201d was, or where she lived. A moment of exposure as herself was enough. The whole situation was being observed, without being observed overtly. It had yet to become the media circus that it would become. <\/p>\n
Other interests were eager to capitalize on that degree of potential audience. As the mechanism of magazine publication worked at getting \u201cAmy\u201d in print media for the first time, and an editor worked at reducing the word count and heightening the punch of \u201cThe M Words,\u201d a significant set of players in the publishing world had access to Lana Andrews\u2019 contact information. The elderly men had daughters with ears to the blogging ground. The middle-aged women had either followed it themselves, or had friends (or daughters) who did. Its abrupt disappearance only heightened its allure as a limited and vulnerable commodity. The outfit most properly poised to scoop \u201cAmy Tells All\u201d was the Harper-Collins entity. The problem now was that except for some scattered fragments the whole one hundred post content had now become unavailable. If they wanted to keep looking at it and thinking about it, somebody was going to have to contact Lana. Were they going to simply ask for more material for consideration, or were they going to make an offer? If they waited too long, the public would forget all about it. There was a movement afoot to sign Lana to the imprint ahead of even the publication of the fragment in \u201cHarper\u2019s Monthly.\u201d Late February was too far off for commerce.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, it became New Year\u2019s Eve in the Shenandoah Valley. Julian puttered around in the morning, gathering wood and making sticks out of it. Dana assembled the ingredients for a delectable feast. Julian worked on his novel. Dana typed away on Facebook. By mid afternoon, Julian had crafted several decent new scenes. Dana had poured herself an early afternoon drink, and by about 3:45 in the afternoon, was out cold on the couch. Julian himself took a peek at last at Facebook. He had no sooner sat still with it for a moment, looking at its soothing buzz of teeming faux friendships, than did the little laptop speaker go \u2018dink!\u2019 and the red \u2018one\u2019 appeared in his message area. He clicked and read this from Lana Andrews:
\n\u201cJules! Things have been crazy here! How are you?\u201d
\n\u201cLana. I wondered what was up over there. We\u2019re good.\u201d
\n\u201cScott hit me.\u201d
\n\u201cChrist! He hit you?\u201d
\n\u201cSmacked me across the face. Split my lip. Left me with his hand print in purple welt.\u201d
\n\u201cBabe. I\u2019m so, so sorry. Are you\u2026 otherwise OK?\u201d
\n\u201cI\u2019m OK, yeah. I was thinking of you. I hope you don\u2019t mind that I called. Spontaneous. No appointment.\u201d
\n\u201cNo, it\u2019s quite alright. I have the many questions that the writer in me wants to have answers to. Tell me more about what happened with Scott. I think I spoke to him on the phone.\u201d
\n\u201cYes, you did. I had locked myself in the bathroom and armed up with a can of hairspray.\u201d
\nAt this, Julian barked out a laugh. He couldn\u2019t help it. The image was too uproarious.
\n\t\u201cAnd then?\u201d
\n\t\u201cI couldn\u2019t stay in there for ever. I heard him say, \u201cWrong number.\u201d
\n\t\u201cYeah, that was after I said, \u2018Hello, Lana?\u2019\u201d
\n\t\u201cWow. Well that explains it. Because when I got out of the bathroom, he started yelling, phone in hand. Then he hauled off and whumped me. So I sprayed him in face with the Shaper Plus and grabbed the phone. I locked myself in the car and called the cops.\u201d
\n\t\u201cThey talked him down?\u201d
\n\t\u201cThey saw my bloody lip and hauled him off in cuffs.\u201d
\n\t\u201cHe\u2019s in the jailhouse now.\u201d
\n\t\u201cYes.\u201d
\n\t\u201cStill?\u201d
\n\t\u201cYes. He\u2019s going to be in there until day after tomorrow when I can get a temp restraining order.\u201d
\n\t\u201cThen what happens?\u201d
\n\t\u201cThen there\u2019s a hearing. Then there\u2019s a trial. Then there\u2019s hopefully a conviction. Then there\u2019s a divorce.\u201d
\n\t\u201cI\u2019m sorry.\u201d
\n\t\u201cDon\u2019t be. Be happy for me.\u201d
\n\t\u201cOK, I\u2019m happy for you, but I don\u2019t like the idea of your face having a hand print.\u201d
\n\t\u201cIt tingles more than it stings.\u201d
\n\t\u201cYou are an amazing woman. You are so sanguine.\u201d
\n\t\u201cBloody me.\u201d
\n\t\u201cYes, hot-blooded you. To think I ever thought that you were vulnerable or fragile.\u201d
\n\t\u201cI am both of those things, also. The thing about being a cat among the coyotes, as you once put it, is that you have to sometimes deploy your clawed paws and know how to get away from the fangs.\u201d
\n\t\u201cYou are awesome, Lana.\u201d
\n\t\u201cI can\u2019t tell you how much I\u2019ve missed writing to you and reading you.\u201d
\n\t\u201cI can completely agree with that sentiment.\u201d
\n\t\u201cI\u2019ve also thought about our meeting. I wanted to be sure I didn\u2019t somehow upset you. I was way too aggressive.\u201d
\n\t\u201cI wasn\u2019t upset. I rather thought it was one of my finer hours. I\u2019m not stupid enough to think I\u2019ve gotten it in any sense out of my system. I\u2019m a human being. It\u2019s blood in my veins, not antifreeze.\u201d
\nShe had to ponder this. There was a silence.
\n\t\u201cOut of your system. Maybe I am a virus.\u201d
\n\t\u201cBeg pardon?\u201d
\n\t\u201cOh, I hear that \u2018Amy\u2019 went viral. So when you say \u2018get it\u2019 \u2013 meaning me \u2013 \u2018out of your system, it reminds me of that. I\u2019m like a disease.\u201d
\n\t\u201cYou\u2019re mixing your idioms now, I think. Take it from the old English professor, popular idioms are not to be mixed in with sober self-analysis.\u201d
\nJulian said this, but he thought that she was too smart for him. She was actually taking an accurate assessment of the popularity of her blog and applying it to the likely impact of her potential fame to her life. It would be like having a disease. The realization made him gasp.
\n\t\u201cI know what you\u2019re saying. \u2018It\u2019s just a figure of speech.\u2019 But I do not seem to be a good thing for you. I threaten your very existence by my own. I\u2019m a \u2018femme fatale.\u2019\u201d
\n\t\u201cYou\u2019re a femme alright.\u201d
\n\t\u201cI\u2019ll let you go now. I\u2019ll see you on Facebook.\u201d
\n\t\u201cYes, Lana. I\u2019ll write. You do the same.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was New Year\u2019s Eve, however, and Lana had declined the party. She was alone with Tory and Mea. She was thinking constantly about Julian. She was unable to stay away from Facebook. She could see that he was also part of the traffic there. He was messaging his friends and generally making crazy comments on the many wild status updates of his students and friends. As the hour became late, and the old year went down the funnel of the virtual hourglass, Lana decided to break in to Julian\u2019s traffic. He\u2019d been going back and forth with one of his students about Dylan and Caitlin Thomas. The famous poet from whom the even more famous Robert Zimmerman had taken his pen name had had a stormy relationship with a babe who married and survived him. He began with Caitlin in a bar, but had extended his run with her in their ramp up to marriage by entering into a literary correspondence.
\n\t\u201cThey talked about books. Books are about life. They talked life.\u201d
\n\t\u201cA fine syllogism, professor,\u201d commented Lana.
\n\t\u201cThanks,\u201d commented Julian. \u201cLana, do you have a literary correspondence going?\u201d
\n\t\u201cI do now.\u201d
\nThe student gave this the like sign.
\n\t\u201cSo, Prof Gray, what is your fave by Thomas?\u201d
\n\t\u201cFern Hill. I adore the ending. \u2018Green and dying, chained and singing.\u2019 It makes me cry, especially when drunk.\u201d
\n\t\u201cThomas is a natural linguistic compliment for the sauce,\u201d commented the student. The three of them clicked \u2018like,\u2019 and the thread went silent. This was in part because Julian had gotten into Lana\u2019s message area and sent a private message.
\n\t\u201cHey, Lana, the old year\u2019s passing!\u201d
\n\t\u201cWhoopie!\u201d
\n\t\u201cI\u2019d be knocking down a few with Dana, but she passed out hours ago.\u201d
\n\t\u201cReally? Wow. Well, I guess it\u2019s just you and me then.\u201d
\n\t\u201cWhat are you doing?\u201d
\n\t\u201cYou mean, \u2018what am I wearing?\u2019\u201d
\n\t\u201cHar. No, \u2018doing?\u2019\u201d
\n\t\u201cWatching TV. It\u2019s Dick Clark.\u201d
\n\t\u201cHe\u2019s gotta be a vampire.\u201d
\n\t\u201cHe\u2019s absolutely orange; the color of an Oompa-loompa.
\n\t\u201cHa! I love those books.\u201d
\n\t\u201cAnd the movies. Yeah, it\u2019s all about chocolate.\u201d
\n\t\u201cA moment on the lips\u2026\u201d
\n\t\u201cOoo. Don\u2019t remind me. I\u2019m needin\u2019 some time on the trails.\u201d
\n\t\u201cYou\u2019re a walker?\u201d
\n\t\u201cOh, yeah. But you have learned that from Amy.\u201d
\n\t\u201cI remember her strolling in the hollers. I never could tell what her reality was or her distance.\u201d
\n\t\u201cI can pack with the best of \u2018em. I\u2019m kind of a tomboy, remember.\u201d
\n\t\u201cYou look like one hundred percent woman.\u201d
\n\t\u201cFlatter will get you\u2026\u201d
\n\t\u201cSay it.\u201d
\n\t\u201cThe same place you didn\u2019t want to go before.\u201d
\n\t\u201cI\u2019d consider hiking with you, though.\u201d
\n\t\u201cHmm. Pondering that. We might put it in the future file. Say, dude, what are you doing?\u201d
\n\t\u201cTyping at you, kid. I\u2019ve got Kathy Griffin and Anderson Cooper. Kathy\u2019s stripped down to just her bra. Global warming? They\u2019re crazy! Ball drops in two minutes!\u201d
\n\t\u201cThree, two, one! Happy New Year, darling! I\u2019m so in love with you.\u201d
\n\t\u201cMy dear Lana, I wish you the BEST this year. I love you too, you know.\u201d
\n\t\u201cI know. Kisses.\u201d
\n\t\u201cKisses.\u201d
\nHe closed his laptop, and stared at the TV another minute. The calendar year was now a nice even number. He wished for peace, both inside and outside.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The morning after the crisis was one of those sun-soaked mountain days that made the snow cover glisten and hut the eyes to be out and about. Julian discovered this as he took out his trash. He winced into the rays of light that pierced the trees and turned back towards the house. Dana was in the bathroom, and he could see her in the window doing her makeup. They\u2019d a good few days, and they were looking forward to a warm New Year\u2019s Eve. They had no other plan than to indulge in each other\u2019s company, make a meal of a pair of game hens, and swill some champagne. First, though, they had to get through December\u2019s penultimate day. For Julian, this posed the challenge of seriously getting back to work on his novel\u2019s bloody stump. It was slow going, and he kept diving off it to see if Lana had messaged him on Facebook. She hadn\u2019t. For a man so proud of his restraint, he was weak as water when it came to craving the woman\u2019s words. Scott, in his cell at the Wood County Sherriff\u2019s Office holding area, was sitting on his first prison cot staring at…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chapters","comments-off"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ken-beck.com\/bloggers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ken-beck.com\/bloggers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ken-beck.com\/bloggers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ken-beck.com\/bloggers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ken-beck.com\/bloggers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ken-beck.com\/bloggers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ken-beck.com\/bloggers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ken-beck.com\/bloggers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ken-beck.com\/bloggers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}