Wonder Boys - Michael Chabon [130]
“That was Macaulay.”
“Or Hemingway, when Hadley lost all those stories.”
“He was never able to reproduce them.”
“Bad example,” said Crabtree. “Here we are.”
He turned into the long avenue of tulip trees that led up Founder’s Hill to the center of campus, and I directed him toward Arning Hall, where the English faculty kept office hours. We parked in the tiny faculty lot, in the space reserved for our Miltonist. Crabtree checked his watch and ran a cocksure hand through his long hair. There was still half an hour until the Farewell, the closing ceremonies of WordFest, was scheduled to begin—thirty minutes to set up his monte table and his trick manacles and his box with the hidden chamber, and tie a few balloon animals for Walter Gaskell. He reached into the backseat for the black satin skeleton key that would spring James Leer. Then he got out of the car and pulled on his own suit jacket. He shot his cuffs and worked a stiffness out of the muscles of his neck. He lit another Kool Mild.
“Wanna come?”
“Not particularly.”
Crabtree ducked his head back into the car and gave me a quick once-over, more for his benefit than my own, the way an actor about to go onstage will nervously check the costume of a fellow cast member whose cue is still two scenes off. He slid my eyeglasses up the bridge of my nose with his index finger.
“You going to be all right?”
“You bet. Uh, Crabtree,” I said. “Tell me if I’m wrong. It sounded to me like you aren’t going to do this book at all. Am I wrong about that?”
“Yes. Look, Grady, I don’t want you to think …” He let the sentence go. It was hard seeing Crabtree unable to choose among all the different unthinkable things he didn’t want me to think. “But—perhaps—in a sense—perhaps this”—he nodded toward the little puddle of Wonder Boys in my lap—“is for the best.”
“Kind of a sign, you’re saying.”
“In a sense.”
“I don’t think so,” I said. “In my experience signs are usually a lot more subtle.”
“Uh huh. All right.” He stood up again and tugged on the lapels of his jacket. “Wish me luck.”
“Luck.”
He slammed the door.
“So you still want to be my editor?” I said, staring straight ahead, my voice deadpan and, I hoped, self-mocking.
“Of course. Give me a break.” His voice cracked with impatience or mock impatience. “What do you think?”
“I think that you do,” I said.
“I do.”
“I believe you.” I didn’t believe him.
“All right,” he said. He looked in through the car window at me again, his face suddenly the pale, bony country-boy countenance of twenty years earlier. “I guess it’s probably better if you don’t come with me.”
“I guess it is,” I said. It hurt me to have to say it. All male friendships are essentially quixotic: they last only so long as each man is willing to polish the shaving-bowl helmet, climb on his donkey, and ride off after the other in pursuit of illusive glory and questionable adventure. Not once, in twenty years, had I declined to second Crabtree, to share the blame for and to bear witness to his latest exploit. I wanted to go with him. But I was afraid—and not only of having to confess to Walter Gaskell my role in the killing of Doctor Dee and the ignominious means by which I’d come to know the combination of the lock on the secret closet. At least I knew what needed to be said to Walter, more or less. But if there was the question of expelling James Leer to be decided, then the Chancellor was the one to make that decision—Sara was going to be at this meeting, too. And I had no idea what I wanted to say to her, or to the quickening little packet of cells in her belly. I looked down at a page I had designated as 765b and spoke into the collar of my shirt.
“Next time,” I said.
He nodded, and coughed into his fist, and set off across the parking lot toward Arning Hall, leaving me with the tuba, which seemed so intent on following me everywhere that I now began to regard it with some uneasiness. I watched Crabtree bounce up the worn granite steps of Arning Hall. He held the satin jacket by the shoulders and gently shook it out, as though