“Two Writers” by Megan Catana

This new restaurant is courting a young, monied crowd.  Snarls of lightbulbs dangle from the exposed rafters.  The servers in their black t-shirts bare full tattoo sleeves.  The food comes stacked upon itself like sculptures and speared through to remain upright.

Hadley sits drinking wine and chatting with three people at a candlelit table.  Inwardly, she’s quaking. 

Beside her sits Patrick, so different from the other men she’s met tending bar, men who come in ball caps to watch sports and flirt with her and drink beer.  Throughout her six months with Patrick, she keeps expecting him to look at her and realize his mistake. 

Across from her sit Patrick’s parents, whom she never expected to meet.  Patrick told her in the beginning that he didn’t introduce them to girlfriends.

“Why not?”

She understood his shrug.  He tired of women so quickly.  Yet here she sits, at his invitation. 

His dad, Jack, matches the book jacket photo she has studied: tweedy and authorial, dark-haired like Patrick, though gray streaks his beard.  As expected, he likes her looks and adopts the posture typical of older men, alternately fatherly and lecherous.       

His mom Elena, however, worried Hadley before this meeting.  She desperately wanted Elena to like her, though women seldom do.  They eye her coolly, warily.    

Elena glided into the restaurant with Jack that night in a swish of beachy linen, her blond hair meticulously, expensively cropped and styled to look carelessly tousled. 

“Hadley, you exist!”  Elena pulled her into an embrace of old friends.  “I was starting to think you were a figment of my son’s imagination.”

Once seated, they slide easily into banter, Hadley’s specialty.  She sprinkles Jack and Elena with pleasantries and questions about their travels.    

They’re in town to visit Patrick, of course.  “Hopefully he can put up with us for three days.”  Then, talking congenially over each other the way people do when they’ve been married a long time, they lay out their plans, the next stop being Pamplona for the Fiesta.

“It’s always so hot,” Jack moans. 

Hadley asks, “Do you run with the bulls?”

“We watch from the balconies and leave the running to the maniacs,” he declares.

Elena adds, “The parties are fabulous.”

Hadley tries to recall if she has ever heard someone use the word “fabulous” in casual conversation. 

After Pamplona, Elena continues, they’ll head to Amalfi to stay with friends for a few weeks, then home to Connecticut for a rest before Jack’s book tour.  Her gesticulations make her slim gold bangles slide up and down her deeply tanned forearms.  Theirs is la dolce vita, a never-ending sun-drenched adventure.

When Hadley asks Jack questions about his latest novel, thoughtful questions to show she has read it with care, he smiles at her, then at his son.  “A beauty and a reader.  Hang onto this one, Patrick.”

“And a writer,” she quips.

“What’s that?”

“And a writer,” she repeats, immediately regretting it.

“Really.”  Jack’s smile flickers.  “Patrick never mentioned.”

He returns to her questions about his novel, laments his agent’s insistence on pairing him with another author for part of the tour.  “I have no idea why he thinks this woman and I make sense on the same stage.”  To atone for her gaffe, Hadley leans toward him and nods. 

When Jack asks Patrick about the progress of his own novel, Elena follows with affectionate scolding.  “Are we ever going to see pages, Patrick?  I keep asking.” 

When he dismisses her, she looks at Hadley and shakes her head.  “I hope he’s letting you read?” 

“He is.”   

Patrick rests his hand on hers, telling his parents, “She’s got a good eye.”

Jack nods along with Elena, who says, “Those fresh eyes are so important.”       

Hadley wants to ask Elena about herself and realizes how little she knows about her.  “What are you up to these days, Elena?  When you’re not traveling?”

“She’s been saving my life,” Jack booms.  “She’s my unofficial assistant, my unofficial publicist –”

“‘Unofficial’ meaning ‘unpaid,’ of course,” Elena interjects.

He rests his hand on hers.  “Elena makes it all work.”

Hadley has prepared a statement about bartending at Harry’s.  She moves through it quickly when Elena asks, shrugging a little to show her remove, feeling her blue collar glowing like a neon beer sign around her neck.  “It pays the bills.  It’s just for now.”  When Patrick doesn’t bring up her recent accomplishment, she mentions that Harry’s is around the corner.           

“I’d like to see it,” Elena says.  “I say you and I go for a drink after this and let the men fend for themselves.” 

“Absolutely,” Hadley falters, clenching her linen napkin into a wad beneath the table.  She never anticipated one-on-one time. 

***

After dinner, she walks with Elena, who calls the restaurant “sweet,” the town “charming.”  Hadley smiles and chatters.  Inside, the threads that formed during dinner to loosely resemble calm are unwinding.  What will Elena think of the windowless pub where Hadley spends most of her time, with its clutter of TVs and Miller Lite mirrors on the walls? 

“Cozy,” Elena pronounces it once they’ve claimed the last two stools at the bar.  “Probably lots of regulars.”

Several of them occupy the bar now, including Kid Rock, thusly nicknamed for his long, stringy, unwashed hair, and the old timers who come to play Keno and bicker about their classic cars.  They nod at Hadley.  Tracy, alone behind the bar that night, says hello.  Beyond that, perhaps sensing some delicacy of occasion, no one engages.  

Hadley orders a beer and admires how Elena orders an old-fashioned, clearly with a lifetime’s practice giving commands.  She wants a bourbon Tracy has never heard of, and Elena waves off her apology.  “That’s fine.  Whatever you have is fine.”

“I’ll be right back,” Hadley tells Elena.  When she slips off to the bathroom, her phone chimes, a text from Tracy.   Your daughter-in-law audition! 

The reflection that satisfied her before leaving her apartment that night now makes her wince.  In her tight tank top, short denim skirt, and heavy makeup, she doesn’t look like anyone’s daughter-in-law.  

Hurrying back to Elena, she notes with relief that both glasses on the bar in front of them are clean.   

“Tell me,” Elena says, “how did you and Patrick meet?”

“We met here.”  Hadley swigs for courage, then remembers herself and resolves to sip.  “We started talking about writing.”

She asked him what he did for a living.  He told her to guess and laughed when she said “lawyer,” which she knew didn’t quite fit.  He had the polish but not the stiffness.

“I’m a writer,” he told her.

“Are you?”  She never met writers.  “What do you write?”

A novel, fully outlined and half finished.  He said he’d always known he’d find his book, and now that he had, he couldn’t stop.  As he talked, Hadley wondered if she’d ever find her book. 

To Elena, she says, “He told me his novel was an example of masculine writing.” 

Elena sips.  “How so?”

“He said because it’s outward-facing, driven almost entirely by action.  And that feminine writing faces inward and focuses on emotion.”

Elena laughs.  “And you kept talking to him after that?”

Hadley laughs, too, relaxing.  “I did.”

When she talked to Patrick, her voice and hands shook.  She kept dropping glasses.  They bounced off the rubber floor mats and rolled toward Tracy, who smiled knowingly.  Squeezing past Hadley to access the register, she murmured, “Well, well.” 

“He started coming in pretty regularly after that,” she tells Elena.  Before Patrick learned Hadley’s schedule, she arrived for shifts and heard from co-workers, “Your writer’s been in here looking for you.” 

“We talked a lot.  He told me about Brazil and France.”  He spent years in each place, the former under his parents’ wing, the latter on his own.  His fluency in their languages and cultures enthralls Hadley and makes her feel hopelessly provincial.   

“And he told me all about you guys, of course,” Hadley continues.  “I’m so glad I’m finally meeting you both.”  Patrick in fact talked primarily about Jack, about his career.  The first time he said his dad’s name, Hadley wanted to shout it to the whole bar. 

“We’re happy to be meeting you, too.” 

Hadley pauses and volleys Elena’s question back to her.  “How did you and Jack meet?”

“We were in the same MFA program in Iowa.”

“You write?”  Hadley blinks.  “Patrick never mentioned.”

“It’s been a while.”  Elena drains her glass and rubs her hands together.  “Tell me about your writing.” 

Hadley folds the corners of her damp cocktail napkin.  “They’re just short stories.”

“Stop it.”  Elena clasps her arm.  “Tell me everything.”

How she glows with love for Elena, so classic in her linen and gold, so maternal, so unlike her own mom, who wears micro shorts and halter tops from Forever 21, despite being well into her fifties.  When she lurches into Harry’s, talking too loudly and drinking too much and flirting with men half her age, Hadley’s face burns.

She tells Elena, “I just had a story published a couple weeks ago.  My first publication.”  This is the news she hoped Patrick would share at dinner.  

“Congratulations!”  Elena clinks her glass.  “Send me the link.  I’ll read it tomorrow.”

They exchange numbers.  Hadley sends the link, and Elena suggests another round.  Though Hadley feels herself swimming, Elena’s poise never wobbles.  “What does Patrick think of it?”

“He hasn’t had a chance to read it yet.”  Hadley flags Tracy.  She’s asked Patrick twice and feels uneasy asking again.  Elena’s eye has landed on this slightest of fissures. 

“He will,” Hadley hurries on.  “He’s just focused on his novel right now.”  Every day, he hunches over his laptop, tapping away.  Every night, he talks through the problems and progress with her.  “With this momentum he’s got going, it’ll be done in no time.”

“How is it?”

“It’s amazing,” she says.  The story, in which a man first seduces the women he kills, reminds her of one she has heard many times before.   

Another small fissure.  Hadley averts her gaze so that it won’t grow.

“It’s meant for a male audience, but I’m glad he thinks I can be helpful.”    

“Well, when it’s finished, Jack will help him with contacts.”  Elena’s tone cools by a degree, barely perceptible.  “And his name will certainly open a few doors.”

  Hadley nods.  Elena adjusts the angle of her body away from her, toward the bar.  

“You know, Patrick never introduces us to anyone.”   Hadley cannot read Elena’s face.  “He must be very fond of you.”

Fond.  Hadley stumbles, “I’m fond of him, too.”

“Are you?”  Elena has become a mystery.

“Yes.”  Hadley’s sincerity radiates.  She thinks of the first time Patrick told her he loved her.

She waited for it, longed for it.  When he said it, she reciprocated in a rush, making him smile and move closer.  “Tell me why.”

She allowed him to ease her onto her bed as she spoke.

He crossed her arms above her head, pinning them there.  “Tell me why.”

The more he commanded her, the more she answered, the truer it became.            

Elena glances at her.  “I must say, I pictured you differently.”    

Hadley wilts.  Here is the real reason Elena wanted to be alone with her, her previous warmth a pretense, an opportunity to say what Hadley has expected all along.  You’re not good enough for my son.

“Elena.”  Her voice unsteady, she reiterates what she said at dinner.  “Bartending is just for now.  I don’t plan on doing it forever.”

            Elena tilts her head at her.

“I’ve been writing.”  Her fingers work her cocktail napkin, massacring it.  “I’m going to keep writing.” 

“And you should.”  Elena takes a long pull of her drink.  “Don’t stop.”    

Maybe Elena is drunk, after all, Hadley thinks.  She tries to regain her hold on this conversation.  “Do you miss it?”

“I do.  But with marriage and children, a lot can change.”  Hadley waits.  “Jack’s career became quite demanding.”

Hadley murmurs her assent.

“And Jack has a big life, a big personality.  Patrick’s the same.  They’re the kind of people who –” Elena searches – “who fill up a room, any room they’re in.  Doesn’t leave much space for anything else.”

Hadley nods along.  “Maybe that’s how it works with big talent,” she speculates.  “Maybe, for it to fully form and become what it’s supposed to become, everything else…”  She stops to consider.

“Everything else becomes a casualty?”

“Not exactly a casualty.  Or, not necessarily.  More like, maybe everything else has to be reshuffled behind it.”

“Maybe,” Elena concedes.  “But then maybe, the big talents shouldn’t get married.” 

Hadley strains to maintain a neutral expression.   

“I think you misunderstood me before.”  Elena rattles the ice in her glass to dislodge another sip.  “I wasn’t criticizing your job.”

Hadley looks over at her.  She hates bartending.  The more men drink, the more convinced they become that they are sitting in a strip club.  When they advance, exhorting her to take shots with them and pay attention to them and go home with them, she smiles politely, impassive, unmoved. 

Patrick brought her to her knees. 

“I meant I was surprised that Patrick would date someone who writes.”  Elena holds her gaze.  “I would have thought it a liability.”

Here, now, Elena is pointing at the fissures. 

Hadley cannot make her understand how Patrick has filled and stretched her life.  Without him, it would deflate, becoming flat and pointless.

Elena muses, “Hadley.  What a beautiful name.”

“Thank you,” says Hadley, grateful for the change of subject.  

“Did your parents name you after Hadley Hemingway?”

Hadley almost laughs.  Instead of volunteering that she’s never met her dad and that her mom doesn’t read, she says, “No, I never heard that.”

“Oh.”  Elena looks disappointed.  She flutters her fingers at Tracy, who brings more drinks.  “I always felt sorry for her.”

“Her?” Hadley asks stupidly, gesturing at Tracy.

“No.”  Elena smiles, forgiving her.  “Hadley Hemingway.”

Hadley flushes.  “Why did you feel sorry for her?”

“Because she was only ever her husband’s appendage.  That’s a hard life for a woman.”

For a kid, too, thinks Hadley, who grew up chained to her mom’s bumper, dragged along from behind as her mom sped and swerved and crashed from one relationship to the next, pinning her salvation to each one.   

“She chose that, though.”  Hadley’s voice recedes from her like a tide.  “Right?”            

“She did.  But maybe she didn’t know what she was choosing.”  Elena gulps.  “I don’t know.  I wish I did.”      

Hadley slowly, carefully sets her glass on the bar.  “Elena,” she says faintly, “I think I’m a little drunk.”

Their phones chime simultaneously.  Jack and Patrick are coming to meet them.  When they arrive, drunk and jovial, Elena smiles.  “Hello, darlings.” 

Hadley tries to recall if she has ever heard someone use the word “darling” in casual conversation.

Scanning the crowded bar, Patrick says, “There.”  He points to a booth where some college kids are paying their tabs.  “They’re leaving.” 

He pounces on the booth as they vacate.  Hadley, Elena, and Jack follow.  Tracy brings fresh drinks, and they sail toward closing time, their restored foursome freshly animated.

***

In the morning, Hadley stirs when Patrick sits up beside her. 

She did not wash off her makeup the night before and feels it caked around her eyes.  Rubbing them, she says groggily, “Your parents aren’t afraid of a few drinks, are they?”

“To say the least.”  He pops out of bed.  “Coffee?”

“Sure.”

He ambles to her tiny kitchen, visible from the bed.  She gropes for her cell phone on the nightstand and checks the time.  They slept only four hours.

Still, as Patrick runs the water and opens and closes cupboards, he moves quickly, light on his feet.  She can tell that he knows exactly where and how to resume his writing today, that he is eager to begin. 

Watching him, so beautiful and boyish in his UCLA t-shirt and drawstring pajama pants, his hair sleep-ruffled, she thinks of her mom.  Hadley has always fled from any comparison. 

Now, for the first time, she sees a commonality she has not managed to outrun.      

A flurry of consecutive text messages, all from Elena, brings Hadley’s phone to life.  She scrolls and scrolls, reading. 

True to her word, Elena has read her published story.  Her texts map out a lengthy response, full of attentive questions and insights, laden with hearty praise. 

Patrick brings her a cup of coffee.  Seeing her face, he asks, “Who’s that?”

She hesitates.  “Your mom.”

“My mom?  You exchanged numbers?”

“Yeah.”

To read the last message in the string, Hadley brings her phone closer to her face.

Try not to be so dazzled, dear.  Remember, between the two of you, who is published.      

She sets her phone face down on the bed.

Patrick looks pleased with this new intimacy.  “I told you you had nothing to worry about.  I told you she would like you.” 

She drops back against the pillows.  “Why didn’t you tell me nobody in your family sleeps?”

He grabs his laptop from the top of her dresser.  More and more, he’s sleeping and working here. 

Laptop under his arm, a mug in his free hand, he heads for the balcony.  This perch among the trees is her one luxury, the reason she picked this apartment.  She showed it to him the first time he spent the night.

Looking out, he said, “Our treehouse.”  Our. 

He grasps the rattly knob of the screen door.  He will close it behind him.  Before he disappears, he turns, repeating, “Nothing to worry about.”  He smiles at her like the sun. 

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