I read from Willis's laptop screen, deep into the night until I finished what he had written thus far, the story of a vampire priest who preaches the Gospel after dark and falls in love with a symphony cellist. Luna meets him at the stage exit each night, her white neck a terrible temptation in the moonlight.
Had we just enacted the neck in the moonlight scene?
In the morning, I got out of bed and looked in the mirror, imagining Luna emerging from the back door of the performance hall, unbuttoning the front of her dress, finally and forever offering him her neck. Father Kitt stares for a moment and then buttons her back up to her chin saying, "Luna, we barely know each other."
"Bite me," I said aloud to the mirror.
"What is wrong with you?" Bets moaned from her pillow, back from wherever she'd been for the last two days, mascara smudged below her eyes more than usual. "It's impossible to sleep in this place."
"Where is my necklace?" I asked. I always checked her neck, just in case my necklace reappeared; now I would check for bites.
"Stop it," Bets growled, dragging herself out of bed to the window, slamming it shut.
"Get my necklace and I'll leave you alone forever," I said.
She went down the hall to use the restroom and I opened the window again, readmitting fresh air and noise from the outside world. No need for air-conditioning in our building; the thick walls performed as a refrigerator. I could see Gary in the distance, walking toward the dorm, coming to fetch Bets as he did every day. Bets hadn't gone missing on his watch, which made me think they were up to something. Bets wouldn't cooperate without an angle.
Bets returned from the bathroom, dropped her towel in a heap on the floor, and walked naked to the dresser, squinting, hopping on one leg and then the other as she adjusted a thong. Bets didn't do Regency undergarments.
"Where is my necklace?" I asked.
"What necklace?" she asked, slipping the ivory gown with blue trim over her head, the same one she always wore. "Oh, the necklace that reminds you of your mother."
I waited.
"I told you," she said, walking to the door. "I don't know." Bets opened the door and ran smack into Gary. "Oh my God, you scared me."
I climbed the attic stairs several times that day, first to return the laptop, then to tell him how much I liked the story. He was never there. On every visit, I sat looking out the window and breathed deeply to calm myself, reminding myself to hold back, we barely knew each other. But we'd known each other forever, hadn't we met in a secret garden in a previous life? An elderly tourist was pushing a walker over uneven ground three stories below my window, when I finally heard feet on the stairs. "Willis?" I called, each footfall coming closer. I'd be lost without him now.
Willis placed several books on the table, slightly breathless. He came around to sit next to me on the window seat. "What did you think?"
I smiled at him, willing him to touch me. On the leg or the arm, just something. "I absolutely love your novel."
He leaned back. "Oh, I'm relieved. I've been worried you'd find it too simple."
"I love it," I said.
"I'm so glad. It's not Jane Austen, of course." Willis shrugged. "But."
"I know you so much better now," I said, "having read your book."
Willis's expression turned serious on me. Just like the time I'd brought him the book or when I asked him to join me in public. He looked straight into my eyes and spoke slowly. "You don't know me."
My Jane Austen's billowing skirt appeared behind me. Reassured by her presence, I ventured a question more probing than usual. "What do I not know?" I asked softly. I imagined a witness protection program, weird political secrets, or a mafia connection forcing him to hide in the attic.
Willis shifted, leaning against the window's frame. "I have a lot on my mind." He paused, perhaps deciding how deep to go. He held one ankle over his knee. "I came here to think, and make decisions."
"Here?" I asked. "As in this attic?"
He nodded.
"Is that why you were brooding in the dark church?" Perhaps he was conflicted over the final ordination, trying to decide whether to break the vows he'd made as a deacon. There must be so much pressure to complete the process once begun.
"You're quite a distraction," he whispered, but he didn't look happy about it.
My stomach flipped; I was not a mere sheep of his flock. Yet I couldn't stand to see him so conflicted. "Should I stop coming to the attic?" I asked. During the long pause, I imagined how I would feel if he said yes.
He shook his head. "I like you."
I broke eye contact and touched his knee. That was enough for me. I would find the patience to wait; I was good at waiting.
"I like you, too," I said.
On the tea-theatre's opening day, I felt uplifted by the joyful news that Willis liked me. Not Cosmo me or earth me—but the real me: the original me that had been too weird to introduce to any other boyfriends. The me I wouldn't have been able to invent. The me that now walked the halls as if I were Elizabeth Bennet, mistress of the tea-theatre. No more wrong turns into closets, I solved the hot water problem by borrowing an electric hotplate and reconfiguring the orange cords. I trained Gary to play the part of Count Cassel, recruited a volunteer's husband to play the baron, and talked John Owen into playing the rhyming butler. I was the person in charge; the volunteers all wanted face time with me. When asked to do something, they responded with brisk action. Tickets sold out and our waiting list grew. I began to believe that I was no longer needy, having outgrown that character flaw before it had a chance to scare Willis away.
When our time came, as the last scene of Mansfield Park ended and the room cleared, I gave the go-ahead for volunteers to roll out tables and set them quickly with their wedding china. Tables featured every sort of pattern from understated metallic bands to profusions of blooming wild-flowers. We walked among the tables, a china garden, lifting plates to read pattern names: location names like India and Monaco, or female names such as Juliet and Guinevere, or expressive titles like Celestial Platinum and Crown Sapphire. My mother's china, Ivy Flowers, would fit in nicely here, if it weren't being held hostage by Sue, or worse, trashed.
Once the cast sequestered themselves in the music room, volunteers admitted the audience into the china garden for tea.
Omar arrived at the last possible moment dressed in his black staff clothes.
"Where's your costume?" I asked, restraining the alarm in my voice.
"Look, I said I would do this," but Omar did not finish speaking since Magda interrupted, poking her head in the door, sunglasses on, purse slung over her shoulder.
"Gamal," she said, then spoke rapid Arabic.
Gary looked up from adjusting his pink satin cape. He responded in Arabic. I looked from one to the other as Gary, scowling, pulled the cape off his shoulders. "What's going on?" I asked.
"My brother will be late if he doesn't hurry. I don't know what he's doing here since he knows he's scheduled for an ESL test at four-thirty." English as a Second Language.
"Reschedule it, Gary," I said.
Gary shrugged, handing me his jacket, speaking angrily in Arabic to Magda.
I turned to Magda. "People have paid money to see him perform this afternoon," I said.
"He should have mentioned the conflict to you," Magda said, her nostrils flaring. "He is not enrolled in an academic program because he has not passed the ESL exam. If he doesn't take the test and matriculate, he will have to leave the country anyway, tea or no tea. It's up to him." She threw her hands up. "Do you want to go home?" she asked Gary.
Gary walked past me, unbuttoning his shirt.
"Bring me the costume before you go," I said.
"When you work with amateurs—" Magda started to say, but I interrupted her.
"Please excuse us." I pointed to the hallway, allowing tension full rein in my voice.
With them gone, Omar in his street clothes returned to focus. "Not a single word from you," I said. "Go and dress in your costume and come back here immediately. Or I will kill you with my bare hands."
How to replace Gary fifteen minutes before teatime? Perhaps an actor could be persuaded to do it. I ran to the Freezer hoping someone lingered from the last scene but found only Gary, who placed his costume in my arms. "Sorry," he said. Mrs. Russell and Stephen Jervis practiced lines in the tiny butler pantry. Tea patrons lined up in the hall waiting to be let into the ballroom, men and women in period dress, little girls in tea-length dresses and jumbo hair ribbons. What would we do without a Count Cassel? The buffoon of the skit. Without his humor, it would fail. I would fail. Nigel and Vera arrived happy and excited, expecting a tea-theatre.
"Are you ready?" Vera asked, before noting my expression. "What's the matter?"
I told her about Gary. "Do you think Nigel would be up for a part?"
Vera frowned. "Not Nigel," she said, "but what about this line of potential actors?" She gestured toward the tea patrons standing against the wall as if we'd put out a call for Regency extras. "You said patrons should be allowed to join in the acting. Here's your chance."
A giant iron door opened, allowing me entry into the next level. What a great idea, and it was my idea. They were even dressed in Regency attire, ready to go on stage at a moment's notice. "Ladies and gentlemen," I said, as the crowd silenced and all eyes turned to me, "Literature Live believes that patrons should participate in performances. We have arrived at the moment when one of you will be chosen to play a role in our production. Who among you will play the part of Count Cassel?"
The line buzzed, several women pushed their blushing men to the fore, but my attention fixed on a tall, blustery man who announced, "Count Cassel, at your service." He removed his hat and executed a deeply dramatic bow. He reminded me of self-important Mr. Rushworth.
"Come with me," I said, taking his arm and leading him to the music room.
We ran through Count Cassel's lines and played vinyl LPs in the music room while volunteers served the three courses in the ballroom: scones, sandwiches, and tea cookies. The ballroom filled with noise of conversation, people laughing, enjoying themselves at our tea, excitement building for the entertainment. Once the play began, I watched from the butler pantry as Mrs. Russell embraced her long-lost son, Stephen Jervis. I saw how convincingly Mrs. Russell admired her son's physique as he said, "I will never leave you. Look, Mother, how tall and strong I am grown. These arms can now afford you support." Of course, we'd seen him without his shirt.
"I think Mrs. Russell has a crush on Stephen," I remarked to Omar, but he was busy looking over his lines. Just then Sixby walked in and stood at the back of the room, the spot Magda usually occupied during productions. But no Willis.
Omar and I took the stage to perform the scene where Anhalt, the tutor, is sent to instruct Amelia, who is secretly in love with him, on the good and the bad aspects of matrimony. Amelia manages to wrangle a proposal of marriage out of him before the scene ends. Omar looked a bit green. He spoke his first line and I knew we were in trouble. I wished Sixby wasn't watching, nor Nigel and Vera. Omar's eyes never left the floor. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other and his fingers fiddled with the side seam of his breeches as he forgot to ask why my character had been crying. "If you please, we will sit down," he said. I feared he would not remember the next part of his line but it came to him. "Count Cassel is arrived."
"Yes, I know," I said.
Omar took a deep breath, looking sideways at nothing. Then he skipped the next ten lines, proceeding directly to his very long line about matrimony as "the meeting of sympathetic hearts" which I knew he would never finish. I wanted to stop the show. I saw myself interrupting the scene with an apology or tears. I couldn't look at Vera. Magda was right; I should have bought a Eurail pass. As I scrambled to improvise and stop Omar's misery, I saw Sixby walking through the tables with a wild look in his eye. Perhaps he would stop the show for me.
"Miss Wildenhaim," Sixby said, dismissing Omar with a flutter of his hand. "I come from your father with a commission. Count Cassel is arrived."
"Yes, I know," I said.
"And do you know for what reason?" Sixby asked. My hero. He knew all the lines, of course, and we sailed along, improvising where he wasn't familiar with our condensed script.
Willis walked in. My heart jumped as our eyes met and he sat in a vacant chair near the door. The room came to life. "You may tell my father—I'll marry," I said.
"I must beg you not to forget that there is another picture of matrimony," Sixby said. "When convenience and fair appearance joined to folly and ill humor forge the fetters of matrimony, they gall the married pair with their weight," Sixby continued, "till one of them sleeps in death. The other then lifts up his dejected head, and calls out in acclamations of joy—Oh liberty! Dear liberty!"
"I will not marry," I said.
"You mean to say that you will not fall in love," Sixby said.
"Oh no!" I said. "I am in love." We sorted through Sixby's professed confusion until reaching the line where I accept his unintended proposal of marriage. "If you love me as you say, I will marry; and will be happy," I said. "But only with you." I glanced at Willis over Sixby's shoulder. "It will soon be known that I am your bride, the whole village will come to wish me joy, and heaven's blessing will follow."
The skit succeeded from the moment Sixby joined in. My Jane Austen especially enjoyed the baron, played by a volunteer's husband, who turned out to be an improv comedian, roasting the guest who played Count Cassel. The rhyming butler closed with his moral:
The audience finally cleared out so the volunteers could pack up the china. As Stephen carried Mrs. Russell's boxes to her car parked behind the Carriage House, I ran to the attic.
"A smashing success!" Willis said. "You must be very happy."
"I can't believe it."
"It was every bit as professional as anything Magda's ever put on a stage."
"Vera and Nigel loved it. Vera said Lady Weston would have enjoyed it immensely. Perhaps a less formal approach was what Lady Weston envisioned in the first place."
"I had no idea you were such a good actress."
"Neither did I!" I laughed.
"So, you'll do it again?"
"Every Wednesday at four. We've already got a waiting list for next week. Vera says we need to add more tables or do a second seating." Willis joined me on the window seat. "I'm so glad you were there," I said. "I wanted you to see it."
"I enjoyed it very much," Willis said. I watched as his face assumed a more sober expression, evolving into a question. "I thought you said Omar was playing opposite you as Anhalt."
"That was the plan." I smiled. "But we had to let him go before he fainted on stage."
Willis straightened. "I was surprised to see Sixby."
The next time I went to the attic, ratty green cushions had been stuffed into the window seat for my comfort. We met almost every day except Wednesday afternoons. Attic time operated on a different basis than the lower floors of the manor house, a phenomenon I assumed would transfer to any venue where I experienced intense pleasure. Whoever controlled time had decreed that if I were allowed to be happy, I would be allotted half the normal time in which to be so. Each day I anticipated Willis's casual greeting, hunched over his keyboard in the afternoon light when I arrived—the comfort of being expected, as if we were a married couple living in an attic. When he got to a stopping point, he would hand me the laptop and sit back to listen while I read what he'd written. My Jane Austen seemed equally content, sitting beneath some cobwebs in a shadowy corner compiling an alphabetical list of all the male heroes of her books—she'd gotten as far as Edmund Bertram.
"You'll have to dedicate your book to Lady Weston," I said, "in gratitude for her attic."
I wrote to Karen, telling her of the tea-theatre's success. After selling out the first event, we added more tables at the second tea, and cut the scones smaller to feed more people, easily seating sixty. Magda threw a fit when tea patrons lined up in the hall and made noise before her scene was over. In fact, the tea-theatre attracted more people than her professionals-only scene. I told Karen about Willis, leaving out the parts about meeting in the attic and the vampire novel. The only thing bugging me was that I really didn't know what Willis was deciding about. I assumed it had to do with his ordination, but he'd never come right out and said so. I'd replayed the conversation many times in my head, unsure what he meant, afraid to bring it up again for fear of provoking a decision that might go against me. I told Karen I was in love. She replied in bold letters: BE CAREFUL.
"What exactly is the decision you have to make?" I asked him one afternoon.
My Jane Austen fell violently off the stack of boxes she occupied nearby, sending a cloud of attic dust into our midst. His face fell as if I'd broken his laptop and I instantly regretted my impulsive question. If only I could rewind the conversation back to a comfortable subject, like my childhood in Texas and his at boarding school, me being chosen last for the softball team and Willis claiming speed reading as a sport. His gaze left me as he focused inward to form a response. Willis rose from his desk and joined me on the window seat, another sign that something bad was coming. Why hadn't I left things alone, happily learning of his master's in theology at St. Stephen's House, Oxford, and how he'd written only two pages of his thesis, now displaced by the vampire novel? This was starting to feel like the time my dad apologized for missing my high school graduation. I didn't want pity. "I'm afraid I haven't been fair to you," he said.
My blood froze. Dust particles paused on their inbound sunbeam. This was about me.
"I haven't been thinking clearly," he said.
I shivered. My future as Elizabeth Bennet, assured twenty seconds ago, vanished. "What is going on?" I whispered, searching his face.
"There is someone else," he said.
Someone Else. The room spun as his words reverberated and pain spiraled downward in awful glory. I stared at the cushion; its particular shade of lime green seemed so unfair, then folded my arms and held myself. "I can't believe it," I said.
"You must understand, my situation is complicated." He gestured. "I've known her for years; I've known you for weeks."
I didn't know what to say. At first he looked past me, out the window. When I didn't speak, he stood as if he might leave. "I don't want you to go," I said. The news was too difficult to accept, it circled around me, retreating as denial prevailed and then reappearing for another punch in my gut. "I'm so confused," I said, shaking my head as he stood at his desk, packing his things. "Why didn't you tell me?"
He faced me, his hands in his pockets. "I think that's obvious."
"Does she know about me?"
"No." He shook his head. I imagined her asking why he seemed so distant and Willis reassuring her everything was fine as he silently resolved to stop the attic meetings before things got even more difficult. Only he didn't stop the attic meetings.
He was gone for two agonizing days. On the third day, I ran into him, as if by accident, as I entered Newton Priors. "Will you be up later?" he asked. I went as soon as I could and every day after that, holding my questions and staying on safe topics in his company. We never spoke of the Someone Else but she was present, looming in the background, raising the stakes. My Jane Austen sat frozen in her corner, observing my cautious behavior, flinching when she thought I might fall off my wagon. He behaved like a monk; his reserve over the past weeks made sense now. We talked about his vampire novel and my tea-theatre, and we never touched. But the longer we carried on in this "trial basis" manner, the closer I felt to him emotionally, the more I began to think he might ditch the Someone Else. If Willis wanted to be with her, why was he with me? I spent every minute of my workdays calculating when I could go to him. Precarious life flourished in the attic. Fed a diet of forbidden fruit, everything around Willis grew, from the story under his fingertips to the organic matter thriving beneath the damp boxes and rotting wood, to me.
"Doesn't this place remind you of Anne Frank's attic?" I asked. "Nobody knows we're up here." When we got hungry I snuck into the music room where the volunteers kept leftover tea refreshments, filling napkins with scones and cookies to eat in the attic. I helped myself to bottled water kept in reserve for festival speakers. I borrowed a lamp from one of the parlors and set it on an upturned box we used as a table. Willis brought a green plastic chair for me so that we could both sit with our feet on the bench and look out the window. "Why is there a window seat in this attic?" I asked.
"So the imprisoned heroine can look out the window and see her lover approaching." A smile played around Willis's mouth and we shared The Look. But I was thinking: My prince is always in the attic. Had I imagined that kiss so long ago? Our interaction was so restrained that any light touch of his hand, the contact of our fingers when we passed the laptop, or lingering glance when I looked up to find him watching me at the end of a chapter, carried a force far greater than its own weight. I cherished each subtle gesture, hoping they would eventually accumulate into something tangible again. I didn't push. I proceeded with cautious optimism based on the fact that Willis felt like my best friend and he no longer left town. The regular absences to London stopped occurring. I didn't ask why, just allowed myself to hope.
Until one Sunday, as Newton Priors buzzed with festival activities, everyone seemed mildly peeved. Patrons lining up for tickets stomped away mad when they learned the tea-theatre had sold out a week in advance. Nigel expressed irritation that someone had put Mrs. Russell onto the mystery of "several letters still in private hands." Claire said a thief was helping herself to water bottles, and Bets complained of nasty perfume on her favorite black blouse. I didn't tell Bets that the nasty perfume came from her own cosmetics bin. Finally, Mrs. Russell barged into the office complaining that the lines in the scene had been changed and someone needed to do something about it—Fanny Price and Sir Thomas were explicitly discussing slavery. I escaped to the attic.
Opening the door triggered the conversion from one world to the next. Once past the door, I inhaled the musty damp brick-and wood-scented air. I heard the tick-tack of his keyboard—confirming Willis's presence—as I ran up the steps, each stair creaking under my footfall.
"Did Father Kitt bite her yet?" I asked routinely.
"No." He put a hand out to touch me as I passed, the casual gesture I'd come to love and anticipate. I could pretend nonchalance at the contact of our fingers, but goose bumps on my bare arms gave me away. I sank into my window seat, opened my copy of The Monk, and read while Willis bent over his keyboard. I'd had no idea when Omar gave me The Monk, saying I couldn't possibly understand Ann Radcliffe's novels without reading it, that it would be so racy—an abbot seduced by a woman disguised as a monk. Taking care to hold my book so My Jane Austen couldn't read over my shoulder:
The woman reigns in my bosom, and I am become prey to the wildest of passions. Away with friendship! 'tis a cold unfeeling word. My bosom burns with love, with unutterable love, and love must be its return.
Willis spoke and I jumped, caught reading a racy novel. "Do you think Luna is a convincing female?" he asked. He turned in his chair to face me and I put The Monk facedown on my bosom, my heart pounding, while I focused on his question.
"Luna?" I took a deep breath and stretched my arms languorously, the way that had always distracted Martin from ESPN. "You might make her a bit more affected by Father Kitt."
Willis nodded, encouraging me to elaborate. "What do you mean?"
"Luna's passion is not convincing because it's all intellectual; she's not engaged enough." I paused, hoping I wouldn't have to spell it out for him.
"I'm not getting it."
"Physically."
"A cheesy love scene?" Willis looked at me. "You don't want them to have sex in my book, do you?"
"Well," I said slowly, "why don't you let him hold her hand and see where it goes from there."
He looked back at his screen and I resumed reading. I hadn't finished another page when Willis turned to me again, "Don't you think there's a metaphor in there for marriage? Doesn't everyone have to make a decision to take the bite? Plunge into the unknown abyss with one person, or be lonely forever?"
"Willis." I laughed. "That's such a pessimistic view for a priest."
He smiled. "I suppose you prefer happy endings." Willis turned back to his computer.
I closed The Monk and sat up to look out the window. Three stories below, all was quiet. Far down the lawn a young couple posed for a photo, the abyss of the pond in their background, swans slinking in and out of the picture. Willis hadn't noticed I'd stopped reading, so I sighed aloud.
"Everything okay over there?" he asked without turning.
"No," I said, wanting more than anything to drag him to my window seat and replay the black blouse incident once more with feeling.
Willis stopped typing and turned to face me. "Something the matter?"
"Are you sure you want to be a priest?" I asked.
His face changed and he smiled to himself as if I'd stumbled on an inside joke. "You don't waste time on small talk, do you?"
I shrugged. "I'm just curious." I was intensely aware of the texture of the foam cushion under my fingers, the sensation of my feet touching the dirty floor. My stomach clutched in nervous anticipation.
"Just curious," he repeated playfully, rising from his desk, taking the four steps to join me on my cushion, my stomach fluttering with each step. "Just probing a man's deepest thoughts and fears is all."
"You've dropped a few clues." I faced him, my head tilted back, presenting an extended view of my neck and cleavage.
"Such as," he said, stretching.
"Well, there is the vampire novel for one." He was so close I could smell him, soap mingled with perspiration.
"Yes." He smiled.
"And the consideration of impending doom and the business of the abyss."
"You've got me there."
"So, I just thought perhaps there's some discontent generating these ideas." I struck the pose that always made Martin kiss me, but Willis looked out the window. Inching closer, I looked out the window with him so that our faces were perfectly positioned to touch when we turned back. But he moved away so it didn't happen.
I left early that day.
On Monday, I thought about not going to the attic. I dressed slowly and took my time reading a story written by one of Omar's workshop participants. The festival was closed that day, Newton Priors deserted when I arrived in the attic much later than usual. Willis met me at the stairs as if he'd been waiting.
"Did he bite her yet?" I asked.
Willis almost took my hand. "No," he said. "But he's giving it serious consideration."
"That's progress." I touched his arm as he moved away.
"I want to show you something." Willis led me between boxes to a place halfway down the room where he pulled a rope hanging from the ceiling.
"Are we going to escape from this attic?" I sighed.
He smiled as a wooden ladder unfolded, not unlike my attic stairs at home. "They forgot to lock it the other day." Climbing, he lifted the heavy trap door in the ceiling, exposing us to the wan light of the outdoors, and then reached down for my hand.
"How wonderful," I said, climbing the rickety steps behind him. "No one's ever shown me a rooftop before." Emerging, I sat on the roof and swung my legs up. Willis held on to me as I steadied myself; but once standing, he let go. All around me were the tops of trees, leaves rustling in the chilly breeze. Holding the hair out of my face, I walked across the flat roof, tar mixed with rough bits of stone. The wind felt much stronger at this altitude. The entire perimeter, crowned by a stone balustrade, itself broken in places, patched with concrete where the blocks joined, lay covered with dusty gray lichen. Dry leaves accumulated at the balustrade's base. Three stories high, we had a good view of St. James's roof and the stained glass window; two people walking on the lawn looked like little dolls playing in an architect's model, and the herb garden revealed its careful blend of textures and patterns.
"I thought you would like it," he said, gazing toward the pond where the grass appeared weed-free and the trees spaced themselves precisely. My Jane Austen paced the perimeter nervously. "Being up here reminds me of you," Willis said.
I couldn't have predicted that remark. "I remind you of a roof? What does that mean?" I asked. My Jane Austen stopped pacing and held her breath.
He turned to face me, not joking at all. "You offer me a new perspective."
I waited.
He looked out to the view and then back at me. "Would you mind terribly if I wasn't a priest?" he asked.
"No," I answered too eagerly, thrilled he had asked for my opinion on a matter of such importance to his future and what this meant about us.
He shrugged and shoved his hands in his pockets as he turned away from me. After a silence, as if reconsidering, he spoke to the sky. "You'll be gone soon." The wind rustled the leaves warning me to hush, and My Jane Austen stopped breathing again.
"Willis," I whispered, "how long must we know each other?"
He looked at me, surprised. A single green plastic chair sat vacant in the garden. St. Francis stood frozen in concrete, watching naked birds bathe. I'd gone too far. Backtrack, I told myself. Think of something. But I couldn't stand it anymore. I refused to spend another day imprisoned in the attic.
"You're not working today?" he said, choosing to ignore my question and push past the awkwardness.
"No," I said.
Willis hesitated while a bird hopped on one pediment and then another.
"I'm hungry." I frowned at him.
"So am I." He frowned back.
"And I'm going down to get a cookie," I said. "If you don't come with me, I'm going back to my room. You'll starve up here by yourself." He said nothing but followed me down the folding ladder, past his desk, and down the attic stairs to the second floor landing where anything could emerge from the closed doors without notice. We descended the stairs leading to civilization, although, being Monday, Newton Priors was deserted. As a precaution, we tiptoed down the last steps, passed the front door where tourists got in, and the Freezer where Magda fired people. Willis was still with me when we passed the ballroom where adaptations of her prose daily tortured My Jane Austen, and the butler pantry where Mrs. Russell played footsie with Stephen Jervis. I pulled Willis into the music room and shut the door.
"This," I whispered, "is where the volunteers hide the tea cookies." As I bent to open a cupboard, Willis turned away. When I looked up, he stood at the door with a hand on the knob. "Oh, don't go," I said, disappointed, extending a hand offering a cookie, "I haven't played my song for you."
Willis turned the bolt. Then, without looking at me, he walked purposefully to the other door and turned its bolt, as if he were in charge of festival security. Willis took the cookie from my hand and laid it on a low table. His face bore a hint of shy amusement I'd never seen before, as if he acknowledged the force of resistance he'd put up for so many weeks as well as the act of removing that obstacle between us. Part of me wanted to shake him and demand an explanation for his arbitrary behavior. But that impulse was overcome by the wonder of a breakthrough and the idea of exploring mysterious new territory.
He straightened to look at me. "I'm starving, too," he said, a slight tremor in the word too.
The eye contact, the step toward me, and the hand reaching out offered tangible signs that I hadn't been delusional all those days in the attic. I had been waiting for this. My affection was returned. Willis felt what I felt: the anticipation of receiving intimacy. Never had being me granted such possibility of joy, a room such comfort, a person such completion. Not just because of his appealing physical chemistry and his subtle, intelligent manner, but the way he thought about things; his seriousness of purpose. As Willis kissed me, I experienced the sensation of falling into the right place. No other place existed. He walked me to the ratty sofa, my arms around his neck, and we fell on it together. But then Willis hesitated, raising himself on his elbow and looking into my face. He gently touched my hair as his eyes formed a question, utter fulfillment of The Look. He would not use words, nor would he proceed lightly.
"Yes," I said. "Yes, yes, yes." I pulled him to me, trusting him with my happiness; ready for what would come next because I believed whatever happened with him would be good and carry the same meaning for him that it carried for me. As we lay together I experienced the kind of happiness I never believed would be mine—not complete enough to be chosen for this. The cosmos fit together perfectly, everything related to something else and everything belonged, especially me. I felt utterly connected, a part of the deep unknowable universe.
"You are lovely." He kissed me.
We lay together for a long while, my head on his shoulder, listening to his pulse, smelling his sweat, feeling the hair on his skin, and I kept moving; every new touch or slight shift of position satisfied a craving to get closer and renew the sensation of his physical presence. He brushed the hair out of my eyes and ran his hand lightly over my back and down my thigh. And I remember thinking he was more wonderful than a really good book, or music.
"Oh," I said. "My song." I rose, and went to the old record player. I pulled the vinyl LP from its sleeve and loaded it onto the turntable.
"You're well made," he said, watching me from the sofa.
The first fluttery notes of a harpsichord played. "I think of you when I hear this song," I said. I lay back down and Willis covered me with his shirt.
"Bach," he said.
I closed my eyes to listen but opened them again, needing to see Willis, the damp hair on his brow, the clothes on the floor, curling shreds of wallpaper in the upper reaches. Willis held me while the music played and I memorized all the details, although it was hard to concentrate, worried that anything that made me feel this good would surely not happen again.
"I can't resist you, Lily," he said.
"Thank God for that." I kissed him as if he were mine.