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The Perfectionists

Chapter 9

Zelig Again

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Zelig hit save and pushed his chair away from the desk, letting it drift out into the middle of the room. He leaned back, hands behind his head, and smiled at the ceiling. Yes. YES. This was the tack he needed to take. Keep ’em guessing, that’s the way to do it. Throw them a fucking curveball. His last two novels had been so serious, so self-important. Critically acclaimed, of course. Oh God the critics were going to hate this one! He laughed out loud, sharply, almost bitterly, and then got up to get a drink, inadvertently propelling the chair again, so that it spun 180 degrees and bumped up against the kitchen table. This called for a celebration! He didn’t keep liquor in the house anymore though. Not even beer. He grabbed a glass, filled it with ice cubes, then turned on the tap and filter to fill it with clean water, and took a sip.

It actually tasted good. Ice made all the difference. He swirled the ice cubes in the glass, enjoying the pretty clinking noises they made, as he walked back over to retrieve his wayward desk chair, pull it into place in front of the keyboard, and sit. He gazed happily at the screen. Yes, the critics would hate it. Stupid sheep. Of course they wouldn’t love anything he did at this point, because nothing he wrote was going to measure up to their darling, “In The Castle of the Estranged”, from two books back, or even to the follow up, “Desert Dog”, which had received, for the most part, grudging approval. But the reviews of this next book, though likely still scathing for the most part, would be more commiseration than accusation, as long as he got with the program and made a genuine effort, took some kind of stab at a repeat performance. That was what they expected of him. They’d be sure to be all kinds of butt hurt, and to trash him to the fullest extent of their abilities, if he deviated, in the slightest detail, from the course they had charted for him. The predictions they’d so smugly hazarded. If his words should flatly and willfully fly in the face of conventional wisdom, if he should arrogantly refuse even to try to follow through on “the promise” of his earlier work.

“Promise”. Ha! What promise? He’d never made anyone any promises. Not when it came to writing novels.

So why not white knuckle it, hit the gas, and pull a sharp turn, right off the road and into the wide open desert, where they couldn’t follow? If they were expecting a slump (and they were not wrong to expect one), why not just lean into it? Who knows, maybe he’d emerge on the other side with something so different from his usual that it would be hailed (obviously not in the short term, that would be too much to expect, but maybe in the much longer term) as one of his most daring and inventive experiments.

As for fans, he knew he had nothing to worry about. They’d be thrown off at first, since it was so different from the last book he’d written, by the reviews, by the marketing, and by the writing itself, and doubtless some of them would put it right back on the bookstore shelves after skimming the first few pages. But others would buy it anyway, and end up loving it, like they always did, and if he was lucky he’d develop a cult following, which was always good for an author’s cred, and maybe attract a whole new demographic in the process.

He brought up the page he’d been working on for a second look. It began with his typical prose, or at least, what he considered to be a half-baked version of it. It was the best he seemed to be able to elicit from himself at the moment... maybe he was just done writing this way? Romantic entanglements... each character conflicted within themselves... inadvertent, well-meaning cruelty... the pathos of indecision. God he was bored with this crap. He’d rather satirize everything within range, including himself, than become a poor self-imitation, a caricature of what he once was. His fingers hovered over the keypad, itching to type. So let’s see:

Characters so far:

Hera (Greek Goddess of Marriage and Family, and also Jealousy)

Zeus (Greek God of Lightning and Thunder, and also infidelity)

Jeez. the ancient Greeks had to have a little bit of a dark sense of humor to pair those two together, didn’t they?

Ganymede (Cupbearer to the Gods)

So in other words, a kind of immortal butler. Only he always seemed to be depicted as a kid, so… immortal but also incapable of growing up, apparently.

Let’s see… who else?

Who.

Else.

He drummed on the desktop nervously with his fingertips, then let his hands fall to his lap. The king and queen of the gods, as he'd portrayed them. Did they remind him a little bit of himself and Melissa?

Of course it would be autobiographical. What he’d written. It always was. And… he did love her. Just as Zeus loved Hera. But clearly, he and Melissa were also, like the mythological couple, ill-suited to each other (though not for the same reasons as Zeus and Hera, despite whatever the whiskey induced incident last week with the twenty-something wanted to say about it).

So there were similarities, and also differences. He could work with that. It would be part autobiography, part imagination, which was the perfect mix for a good story.

Ok, so, that part was settled. Back to work: more characters.

He caught himself nervously tapping one foot against a chair leg as his mind slid right back over to the autobiographical side of things again, like a drunk driver unable to stay in his lane, oncoming traffic or no. If Hera was Melissa…

Then who would Ariel be?

A quick google search revealed a list of Zeus's conquests: nymphs, human princesses, a couple of Titanesses, and several Olympian goddesses, each of whom had apparently borne a child after one dalliance, and none of whom seemed to fit Ariel's description well enough to represent her in his story. There was no way she was a goddess of the harvest like Demeter. Nor was she a simple princess. Or a nymph. Maybe a Titaness… but which one? The closest he could come was Mnemosyne, goddess of memory, mother of the Nine Muses. But Ariel wasn't like the mother of a muse! She was a muse, herself. His muse.

Fuck. If Melissa was going to be in the story, Ariel needed to have a part in it too. If he couldn't work them both in... how was the story supposed to hold his interest? Ariel was the one who'd inspired him to write "Castle". She was his muse, his inspiration. He needed her!

This was a conclusion drawn, not from expectation, but from experience. Over the course of the seven years following his divorce, he'd dated four different women (not counting any of the one nighters, like the girl Melissa had caught him with two weeks ago, who hadn't been able to remember his name or the night they'd spent together either, and had looked relieved and grateful when he hadn't wanted to talk at length or exchange phone numbers and instead just bought her a triple shot caramel at the corner Starbucks and said an awkward but quick goodbye). During the time he'd been dating, he'd come to measure the strength of his feelings for any given woman by her effect on his creative inspiration. If he wrote more, and more interesting, fiction and poetry when dating her, he knew that his feelings for her were strong. If not, he knew that there was nothing much there and that the best thing to do would be to break it off. And if he had a hard time producing anything at all of value, no matter how much effort he applied to the task, he knew that she was no good for him.

The way Melissa had been no good for him, when they were married. It wasn't just that nothing he'd done was ever enough for her. It wasn't just that she'd put him down, compared him unfavorably to other men, flirted shamelessly with his friends and coworkers right in front of him. It wasn't just that she obviously wanted him to be someone he was not, someone more open-hearted and free spirited, someone who went to protests and volunteered at soup kitchens, someone not so cynical and antisocial.

It was none of those things, really.

What it was was this: he couldn't write when he was with her. Not anything good, anyway. Or even halfway decent. Nearly all of what he wrote when they were together was crap. She'd been like his anti-muse. He'd wanted to be with her. He'd wanted it to work. They both had. But it hadn't. Not for him, anyway. And not for her either, because she'd obviously been miserable.

And then she'd divorced him, and kicked him out of the house, and it had nearly destroyed him. And then... a miracle! The words were right there, all of a sudden, as if they'd been waiting to be written, as if they'd been standing at the door, waiting to be let in. And he'd picked up a pen, and just started writing. And not just writing. Stuff that was really good. The kind of thing that used to come out of him in school, the kind of thing that had made him want to become a writer in the first place.

So he'd stayed single for a couple of years, dating a little bit here and there, but mostly writing. And then he'd met Sarah, and they'd started dating, and she... well, the draw had been frighteningly strong, and the chemistry was ridiculous, but he and Sarah were very different people. They'd argued about all kinds of stupid things. But in spite of this, Sarah had never shown any signs of wanting to change him. She was drawn to his essential nature, and because of this, she wanted him as he was, even if their disagreements made things uncomfortable or difficult at times, for both of them. No matter how they'd differed on the surface, Sarah had loved him right through to his core. And he had loved her. She'd been his first true muse, and he'd completed his first novel "Memoirs of the Unborn" while they were dating. It had been published, along with a book of short stories, and several amusing autobiographical throwaway pieces that were picked up by magazines. He'd begun to taste the possibility of success, which was something that had seemed out of reach when he'd been with Melissa. If he was honest with himself, he could see that this failure to succeed, in and of itself, would have spelled doom for the marriage, but how was he to become a successful writer when he was unable to write? When the words he needed had been locked outside in the cold, like unwanted houseguests, tapping at the doors and windows with frostbitten fingers, afraid to enter the rooms that he and Melissa shared.

So Sarah had been a revelation to him. Another miracle. And when the time had come to part ways, it was a difficult parting, for both of them. But they'd done it, and they'd remained friends, albeit at a distance. They'd both understood that they couldn't stay together forever. It was obvious. They were too different from each other, or more accurately, what they wanted from life was too different. But the pull had been strong, and it had taken them months to finally say their last goodbye. That was the first time he'd been in a relationship that he could honestly say had made him stronger.

Then he'd been alone for a while, and continued to write, to continued critical acclaim. He'd dated here and there, but nothing serious until he met Gretchen. And things had gotten serious with her rather quickly, serious enough that within five months, she'd moved in.

And they'd been really comfortable together. Not amazing, but good. Solid. He'd thought: maybe this is what I need. Maybe this is what love feels like when you're an adult and it's real and instead of it being as if someone's poured kerosene all over you and lit you on fire, it's like lying on a sandy beach being warmed by the sun. the way it felt had been different, but he'd liked it. He'd liked spending time with her. They'd made each other laugh a lot, and enjoyed many of the same activities. It was perfect. Except...

He couldn't seem to write anything really earthshakingly amazing when he was with her. He wrote stuff that was decent, but decent wouldn't cut it after the bar he'd set with Sarah. decent wouldn't cut it with him, and certainly not with his critics, or fans, or publisher. This was confusing, because he really did like her, so he struggled with it for almost a full year. A second book was published, to mixed reviews. He began to feel discouraged, then depressed. He didn't start drinking again, but he could tell it was only a matter of time.

And then, all of a sudden, Gretchen had changed. One day she was right there with him, telling him she loved him and acting like he could do no wrong, and the next... apparently she'd been holding a lot of things back, from the very first time they'd met, and suddenly, all of it had wanted to come pouring out. All of the hurt, anger, criticism, blame... any feeling she'd ever had that she'd pushed away because she thought it might present a threat to their partnership. Bit by bit, over the following month and a half, Zelig had been given a very different picture of things, as they looked from her side. And he hadn't liked it. Not because of what she had to say (she did, he admitted to himself, have some valid points). And not because he was hurt that she hadn't been honest with him from the beginning (he could see that she was afraid to be honest, probably because being honest had not gone so well for her in the past). No, he was upset with her because she had held back so much, for so long, that it was impossible to talk with her about it. She flatly refused to hear anything from him but what she already knew to be true: that he was a faithless, lying sack of shit who would chicken out and leave her, just like everyone else had.

And he did. He left her. Because as much as he'd wanted to help her, after a certain point the constant recriminations and accusations began to feel like abuse. And also because, no matter how it made him feel about himself, he had to admit that her accusations about the depth of his commitment were accurate: He'd never really been as into her as he'd wanted to be. What he really wanted was for someone to pour kerosene all over him and light him on fire. Figuratively, of course. He'd settled for something tame when what he really wanted was something dangerously, insanely, heart-poundingly risky and beautiful. He had lied to Gretchen, and to himself, without wanting to realize it. As much as a part of him craved stability, he didn't want to compromise. He didn't want to play it safe. And... look where playing it safe had got him anyway! And poor Gretchen, for whom the strategy had clearly backfired.

So he'd left Gretchen, and the writing had come back, and he'd decided not to mess with it anymore and instead to just focus on writing for awhile, and be celibate. And that was when Ariel had come along. Ariel, who was to give him “In The Castle of the Estranged” without even dating him. And later, after things had gotten messy, and when he could begin to see that he was going to have to call it off with her, "Desert Dog". Ariel, who had been, and at the time still was, one of Melissa's friends. Ariel, who he'd seen a thousand times, but had never payed any attention to. Who always did her best to look cool, aloof, professional in public, because it felt too vulnerable to let strangers see her as she really was: a delirium, a tuning fork, a lightning storm in the shape of a girl. A fire burning in thin air, consuming nothing, and everything. Ariel, who spoke without filters, when she was in her element, among people she trusted, blatantly spewing every thought that came through her head, just to get them out into the open where she could look at them, and saved her apologies for afterwards. Ariel who trusted him. Ariel who had texted him to ask for writing advice because she was working on an intriguing idea for a novel based on a terrifying fairy tale she'd read. Ariel who'd got his number from Melissa.

Melissa, who'd realized, when she'd seen the two of them together, that she still had feelings for him. That she needed to talk to him. That she wanted to be with him. That she didn't want him to be with Ariel.

Ariel.

Who wasn't here now, because he had pushed her away. Ariel, who should be, had to be, one of the characters in this story. Ariel, his secret weapon. His devastating muse.

This was ridiculous. He had to see her.

He picked up his phone, hit the text icon, and scrolled through the conversations until he found the last text he'd sent her. The one asking to talk. It was pretty far down. He tapped it to open up a new message.

Miyu. How are you?

No.

I miss you. I’ve made a terrible mistake...

No.

I need to see you. Is there any chance you’d be willing to talk?

He sighed and tossed the phone on the desk. He couldn’t do it. He knew how badly he’d hurt her when he’d returned to Melissa. And he knew (even at the time he’d known) that he was making a mistake. But he just hadn’t been ready yet. There had been too many unanswered questions about his marriage, his divorce. Too many unanswered questions about himself. He hadn’t wanted to dive in blindly this time. He'd needed a better understanding of his own psyche, of the ways in which he’d been (so obviously) getting it wrong. His whole life, really. He'd needed time to do things slowly for once, methodically, with plenty of self-examination along the way. He’d asked Ariel to wait, but she was upset because she’d already left her boyfriend to be with him. She was all in, she’d told him. It was the only way she knew to do it. All or nothing.

It was now or never.

Maybe she was right. Maybe he’d chosen never. Maybe he’d never get a chance to explain, a chance to show her how he really felt about her.

Maybe the writing of this story was all that he had left of her.

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©2018 Bennett Italia, all rights reserved.

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It's National Novel Writing Month! Along with sixteen other freewriters from @freewritehouse I've accepted the challenge of writing an entire novel in one month (the others are: @amelin; @botefarm; @felt.buzz; @grow23; @improv; @kaelci; @kaerpediem; @linnyplant; @mariannewest; @ntowl; @stinawog; @carolkean; @byn; @kipswolfe; @aislingcronin; @nonsowrites).

Each of us must write 50,000 words total, which breaks down to 1,667/day, in the month of November.

This is not as easy as it sounds. Many experienced writers take at least a year, sometimes three or four, and sometimes much longer, to write a novel, and here I'm expecting myself, a newbie, to do it in one month. But I'm doing it anyway, because: 1. it's fun; and 2. it's helping me to become a better writer, which is really the point. My intent in doing this is to push my own envelope, and... yeah, let's just say that plan is working. Almost too well.

Thank you for checking out this ongoing story, I hope you enjoy it!

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For a chance to WIN SteemBasicIncome, read and comment on my #freewritemadness posts For more information visit the @freewritehouse

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In case anybody's wondering, this is my 86th 5 minute freewrite. (Disclaimer: even under normal circumstances, these usually take me significantly longer than 5 minutes to write and edit. And given that November is novel writing month, "significantly longer" has taken on a whole new meaning ).

Today's prompt is "I know", but I didn't use it. Well, kind of I did :D

Word count for this installment is 1620.

*Come take part in the festivities at @freewritehouse! Lots of contests and other fun stuff for both writers and fans *

Many thanks to the incomparable @mariannewest for hosting these wonderful daily freewrites :) https://steemit.com/freewrite/@mariannewest/day-385-5-minute-freewrite-friday-prompt-i-know

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Horizontal rulers courtesy @cryptosharon

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