The Plot полностью

Jake shook his head. “No. That’s not what happened. And whoever’s threatening me, it’s not him. Evan Parker is dead.”

Anna stared at him. “He’s dead.”

“Yeah. And actually a long time ago. Like, within a couple of months of that Ripley workshop. He never did write his book. Or at least, he never finished it.”

For a moment she said nothing. Then: “How did he die?”

“Overdose. Awful, but absolutely nothing to do with his story, or me. And when I heard about it … I really wrestled with this, of course. But I couldn’t just let it go. The plot. You see?”

Anna took a sip of her wine. Slowly, she nodded. “Okay. Keep going.”

“I will, but I need you to understand something. In my world, the migration of a story is something we recognize, and we respect. Works of art can overlap, or they can sort of chime with one another. Right now, with some of the anxieties we have around appropriation, it’s become downright combustible, but I’ve always thought there was a kind of beauty to it, the way narratives get told and retold. It’s how stories survive through the ages. You can follow an idea from one author’s work to another, and to me that’s something I find powerful and exciting.”

“Well, that sounds very artistic and magical and all that,” Anna said, with a definite edge to her voice, “but you’ll forgive me if what you writers think of as some kind of spiritual exchange looks like plagiarism to the rest of us.”

“How can it be plagiarism?” Jake said. “I never saw more than a couple of pages of what Parker was writing, and I absolutely avoided every detail I could remember. This isn’t plagiarism, not remotely.”

“All right,” she conceded. “So maybe plagiarism isn’t the right word. Maybe theft of story gets closer.”

That hurt terribly.

“Like how Jane Smiley stole A Thousand Acres from Shakespeare or Charles Frazier stole Cold Mountain from Homer?”

“Shakespeare and Homer were dead.”

“So was this guy. And unlike Shakespeare and Homer, Evan Parker never actually wrote something another person could steal from.”

“As far as you’re aware.”

Jake looked down into his rapidly cooling soup. Only a few spoonfuls had made their way into his mouth, and that seemed like a long time ago. She’d managed to put her finger on his worst fear.

“As far as I’m aware.”

“Okay,” Anna said. “So Evan Parker isn’t the person who wrote to me. Who did it, then? Do you know?”

“I thought I knew. I thought it had to be someone who’d been with us at Ripley. I mean, if he told me about his book, why wouldn’t he have told somebody else in the program? That’s what the students were there for, to share their work.”

“And be taught how to become better writers.”

Jake shrugged. “Sure. If that’s even possible.”

“Says the former teacher of creative writing.”

He looked at her. She was clearly still angry at him. Which he deserved.

“I thought I could make it go away. I thought I could spare you this.”

“Why? Because it was going to be too much for me, this pathetic internet troll? If some loser out there decides to go after you because you’ve actually accomplished something in your life, that’s his issue, not yours. Please do not hide this kind of thing from me. I’m on your side.”

“You’re right,” he said, but his voice really was cracking now. “I’m sorry.”

Anna got to her feet. She took her own nearly full bowl of soup to the kitchen sink. Jake watched her back as she rinsed it and put it into the dishwasher. She brought the wine bottle back to the table and poured more for each of them.

“Honey,” Anna said, “I hope you know, I don’t care in the least about this creep. Like, zero compassion for somebody who does what he’s done, no matter how justified he thinks he is. I care about you. And from what I can see you’ve really been harmed by this. You must be devastated.”

Well, that’s absolutely true, he wanted to say, but all he could manage was: “Yeah.”

They sat together in silence for a few moments. He wondered if it made her feel better or worse to know how right she’d been, all these weeks, about how badly he was feeling. But Anna wasn’t a vindictive person. Just now, she might be frustrated at the extent of his secrecy and his withholding, but already empathy was getting the upper hand. What he needed to do, though, was tell her everything.

He took a sip of his wine and tried again.

“So, like I said, I thought it was someone from Ripley, but I was wrong.”

“Okay,” Anna said warily. “So who?”

“Let me ask you something. Why do you think Crib got the response it did? I’m not looking for praise, I’m saying … lots of novels are published every year. Plenty of them are tightly plotted, full of surprises, well written. Why did this one blow up?”

“Well,” she said with a shrug, “the story …”