LITMIR.BIZ

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best interests at heart—said three hundred and forty thousand of that money had flowed through Christopher. Did Amanda know that? Was, perhaps, Christopher starting a business?

      When Amanda sank down in her chair and started playing with her hair, Tinker had called her husband in. Together, standing before her, holding hands, the Millers gently suggested to their daughter that she might want to see a doctor…perhaps she and Christopher together.

      Christopher, no…but yes, Amanda would see the doctor.

      Amanda had been in therapy for five months when she flew up to Syracuse for a visit. Her parents were encouraged by the change in her. (Though, they sighed in secret, she was not their Amanda anymore, was she?) There were papers to be signed with Mr. Osborne, money matters to be rearranged. Amanda wasn’t sure what all the papers meant (a Mr. Osborne was not of much value without a Mr. Hammer), but she agreed that it would be a good idea to curtail Christopher’s access to her money.

      When Amanda came home—on that fateful Saturday evening—she found her home in a full-swing party, the majority of the guests being what are sometimes described as “screaming queens.” Her husband, Christopher, was the loudest. Wearing a little fig leaf. And in the dining room, among the bottles of booze and piles of joints, Amanda saw an array of pills and powders and needles and razors and a mirror, and a burner was scorching the finish off of Nana’s table and—

      Amanda moved into the Plaza Hotel—where, she remembered, her earliest literary heroine, Eloise, lived—and asked Mr. Osborne to handle her divorce.

      Amanda settled fifty thousand dollars on Christopher, though Mr. Osborne told her she certainly didn’t owe him a thing. Amanda thought she did though.

      She bought the apartment on Riverside Drive at once. From the ground looking up, she thought her building looked like a castle. And her apartment, on the top floor, came complete with a tower room. She flew down to Baltimore, tagged furniture that was in storage from Fowles Farm, and had it shipped to her new home. In time, Amanda started riding in Central Park, and then her reading resumed, and her writing resumed, and then her talking to herself resumed. But the plays never came back, nor did her costumes ever leave the closet.

      The idea of writing a novel from the perspective of Catherine the Great had originated in Florence. After having read and digested some three hundred tomes of Russian and European history over the years, in the fall of 1981 Amanda finally sat down and wrote the first line of the book. “I, Catherine, Imperial Empress of Russia, answer to no man.”

      “He’s gone,” Rosanne said, coming back into the writing room. She stared at Amanda for a moment and then abruptly turned away. “Uh, ya better…”

      Amanda was confused. But then she looked down at herself and saw the state of her dress, of her undress, of her half undress. She pulled the dress down over her thighs and smoothed it. She brushed back her hair with her hands and felt the absence of an earring. Amanda rubbed her face, dropped her hands and sat back against the window. She sighed. “I am utterly at a loss as to what to say to you—except, thank you.”

      Exhibiting caution, Rosanne slowly brought her eyes back around. “Don’t worry about it,” she said. She swung her weight onto one leg and brought up her hand to the opposite hip. “Look, Amanda,” she said, looking down at the floor, “it’s none of my business—and it’s not none of Mrs. G’s either—” She looked up.

      Amanda covered her mouth and coughed.

      “Don’t get mad—”

      Amanda crossed her arms over her chest, sighing.

      “I think you’re great,” Rosanne said.

      Amanda was looking confused again.

      “And Mrs. G thinks so too, and we just kinda worry about ya. I mean, it’s not like we think anything’s wrong with that guy or nothin’,” she rushed on, “it’s just we wish you were a little happier.”

      Amanda nodded slightly, lowering her eyes. “Thank you for your concern, Rosanne,” she murmured.

      “You’re not mad or nothin’—vexed, are ya?”

      Amanda raised her eyes, shaking her head. “Of course not,” she said.

      “Okay then. Well, I better be goin’,” Rosanne said, moving toward the door. “Oh, man, I almost forgot to tell ya.” She spun around. “Amanda, I think Howie wants to read your book.”

      Amanda blinked.

      “Howie—you know, Mondays, Howard Stewart. The editor.” Rosanne waved her arm in the air to make sure Amanda was paying attention. “Listen, okay?”

      “I’m listening,” Amanda said.

      “Now don’t go gettin’ freaky, but he was really interested in your book. I told him it wasn’t finished or nothin’, and I told him it was kinda long—”

      “Long,” Amanda repeated, looking at the shelves that were Catherine.

      “So is it okay if he calls you or somethin’?”

      Amanda looked at her, hesitating.

      “He’s really the greatest guy,” Rosanne said. “Just talk to him, will ya? You know, like he’s an editor. And he won’t push ya about it, he isn’t pushy at all.” She nodded her head vigorously. “Just say yes, Amanda.”

      Amanda lowered her arms to her sides, sighed and said, “Yes.”

      “Great!” Rosanne said, leaving the room. “See ya next week!”

      Amanda covered her face with her hands. I nearly had sex in front of the cleaning woman, she imagined herself saying to Dr. Vanderkeaton.

      It had started with the apartment on Riverside Drive. This sex thing had. One man on Mondays and never one that she could even remotely like. For the last eight months it had been Roger, and Rosanne and Mrs. Goldblum had known about him only because Roger had forever been stopping in to try his luck. (“Mondays,” Amanda would hiss at the door, with Rosanne lurking dangerously close by, “I have told you repeatedly. Every other Monday at one o’clock.”

      “Yesterday was Monday,” Roger would hiss back, trying to grab hold of her, “and I came back to finish up.” “Mrs. G told me to tell ya,” Rosanne would say, coming out into the foyer, “that she hopes you’ll invite your visitor to join you guys for tea.” And the confounded dolt had said, “Love to!” no less than six times.)

      In the beginning, five years ago, it had worked. Sex had pushed something back into place for Amanda. After one of those Monday afternoons something would temporarily subside inside of her—that awful, gnawing sensation that her moorings were fraying to the snapping point. But, over time, it had stopped working that way, leaving Amanda only to agonize over what seemed like some sort of curse on her body. On her.

      She still ran into Christopher on occasion. Once at F.A.O. Schwarz, once at Lincoln Center, twice on the terrace outside the Stanhope and, most recently, in the Whitney Museum. She had been alone; Christopher was never alone.

      Each time she saw him—and most strongly this last time—Amanda felt weak at the sight of how unattractive he had become. His hair was thinning almost too fast to be normal; he had lost far too much weight; his muscle tone was gone; and his teeth showed nicotine stains when he smiled at her. His eyes, too, had lost their luster. And Christopher was losing his—his maleness, too.

      Looking at him made Amanda feel queasy and disoriented. This was the man who had commanded such love and desire from her? This was her Christopher?

      Amanda lowered her hands from her face and looked at the shelves of Catherine that made up one wall of the writing room. There was her work, yes. There was that. And maybe…maybe it was time to do something about it. What had Rosanne said? Something about an editor wanting to read it?

      The thought made her feel cold and scared and so she banished it.

      She walked over to

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