Tell Me a Story Read online

  Later that week my publisher called me and, without even saying hello, began to read Pat’s blurb over the phone.

  “He just called me,” the publisher added, “to say how much he loved your book. We talked on and on about the book, and about you. What a great guy he is! He couldn’t have been nicer, and we must’ve talked for an hour. He wanted to hear about my press and the other books we’re bringing out. You did a great job networking, by the way. Keep it up.”

  I hung up thrilled about the blurb but distracted by a new worry. Networking! Surely writers didn’t have to do things like that when a book came out, did they? If so, I was in deep dooky. I wasn’t good at schmoozing. Not for the first time, I wondered if I had what it took to be a writer. Writing was all I’d ever wanted to do, but the business of being a writer was another thing altogether. What if other writers weren’t as nice as Pat? If they were all as snotty as the one who refused Pat his first blurb, how would they treat a nobody like me? Originally, I’d been excited about my book coming out; now the thought filled me with apprehension.

  One thing I had to do, however, was write Pat a thank-you note. I’d sent cheesy little thank-you cards for my other blurbs (all three of them), but hesitated with Pat. For such a big-shot writer, should I also send a box of candy, or bottle of wine? It’d be even nicer if I baked something—my rosemary-shortbread cookies, maybe?—and mailed them in a pretty tin. I couldn’t decide.

  I pondered the options but hadn’t done a blooming thing a few days later when I arrived at the English department to find a note in my box: “Call Pat Conroy.” It included a number, but I didn’t know if it was his home, his office, or an assistant’s.

  I took the note to my office and closed the door to make the call, chagrined. After Pat had been so gracious to me, I couldn’t believe that I hadn’t even thanked him! Thankfully he didn’t answer, and I left a message on the machine, stating only my name and that I was returning his call. The voice on the recording was a woman’s, very professional sounding, and I wondered if it was his assistant. Probably she’d been the one to call me on his behalf to make sure I got the blurb. I was preparing for my upcoming class when the phone rang again, and I answered unsuspecting.

  “King-Ray!” Pat boomed out. I recognized his voice immediately because, like his presence, it was distinctive—warm, friendly, and exuberant. He would call me by my last name until we married and he came up with a more suitable nickname (according to him, anyway). Without wasting time with how’s-your-day niceties, Pat jumped right in to the reason for his call. He wanted to talk about my book. And as he would do in his future calls, he picked right up from our previous conversation as if it’d only taken place a few minutes before.

  “Making Waves in Zion! The title works perfectly now that I’ve read the book,” Pat said jauntily. “But tell me where the hell you learned to write like that and why you haven’t written more?”

  Instead of answering his questions I began blathering like a fool yet again. I groveled on and on about the blurb and his generosity in sending it, then apologized ad nauseam for not having thanked him. I was so embarrassed that I lied and said I’d written him a note but hadn’t gotten it in the mail yet. Pat was having none of it and wanted only to talk about the book. I’d find that one of his favorite topics of conversation would always be books.

  “Those fucking voices you used!” he cried. “Of both an eighty-year-old woman and a twenty-year-old guy? Gimme a break. That’s some hard shit to pull off. I’ve never been able to write in different voices. Tried it, but it’s never worked for me.”

  I stifled a giggle at his language. At the time, none of my friends used the once-forbidden F-word in ordinary conversation, nor with such gusto. (In a few years it’d become as common as dirt but was still somewhat taboo in those days.) Pat, a former altar boy, would later blame his more colorful expressions on the formative years he spent attending The Citadel, the military college of South Carolina. Some of the expressions I’d never heard before, such as shitbird, fuckhead, wad waste. Pat still holds the distinction of being the most expressive cusser I’ve ever known, before or after.

  His mention of voices led us into a lengthy conversation about the merits of multiple points of view as opposed to third person, and before I knew it, I had to interrupt him. “Ah, Pat?” I said reluctantly. “I’ve got a class coming up, so I need to run.”

  “Give me your home number, then,” Pat said, “and I won’t bother you at work. But don’t write me a fucking thank-you note, okay? Those go straight to my assistant and I never see them anyway.”

  * * *

  As I walked home after work that day I kept thinking about my conversation with Pat, as well as the talks I’d had with my publisher lately. The closer it came to my pub date, the more I wondered how much, if at all, my life would be affected by the book’s release. Because of my long friendship with Bill Cobb, who’d published several novels, I probably knew more about publishing than a lot of first-time novelists did. I even had a hotshot New York agent (thanks to Bill’s introduction), who I hoped would sell my next novel. I knew that small presses did very limited book tours, though my publisher had plans to send me to a lot of regional events. Even so, I couldn’t help but wonder how touring—even on a small scale—would work out with my crazy family life, which had recently gotten crazier than ever. And that was saying a lot.

  When I reached my house, a cute little cottage only a block from campus, I went around to the back to let myself in. If the neighbors wondered why I didn’t use the front door, I’ll never know. No one asked, and I wasn’t about to tell them. At the time, my family life was too complicated to explain.

  Several years earlier my husband and I had bought the house as an investment, a good rental for college students. Since we lived in a parsonage in Birmingham, furnished by the church where my husband was senior pastor, we didn’t own a home. Instead of renting to students, however, we ended up renting only the separate wing in back, so we could use the main part of the house as a getaway. When I finished a graduate degree and got a job at the college, I began staying in the house during the week and returning for church activities on the weekend. When our youngest son started high school, we decided he’d stay with me and attend Montevallo High School.

  I’ve seen studies that say living apart puts too much strain on a marriage; since mine was already troubled it’s hard to pinpoint when or how it fell apart. When counseling failed, I filed for a legal separation as the first step toward divorce. The preacher man was so opposed to giving up the house that I moved into the rental in back. Living in a separate wing was my pathetic and misguided attempt at a stable family life after we split up.

  It wasn’t working out as I’d hoped, and why I ever thought it would is still beyond me. But at the time my guilt for breaking up my family was such that I would’ve done anything, no matter how misguided, to make things better. As I saw it, I’d been the one who wanted out of the marriage, so I should be the one to make it easier for the family. If living under the same roof while leading separate lives would do it, then it was worth a try.

  For a short time, I thought it might work. My son, by then a high school senior, occupied the other part of the house, and during the week his father came down to spend time with him. Since I no longer went to the parsonage, the house also provided a place for family get-togethers when our two older sons visited. The oldest was away in medical school; the middle one had two little boys, making me a grandmother since age forty-four. Just when it seemed my plan would work out for everyone, things between my ex and me began to deteriorate. My experiment in familial normalcy teetered on the brink of failure. The lab rats were still alive, but barely.

  Foolishly, stubbornly, I kept trying. I had another motivation as well, one that shames me: staying in the same house with my ex was also my way of keeping up appearances. If I’d learned anything in my two decades as the wife of a preacher, it was the importance of putting up a good front. Putting up a go
od front was so deeply ingrained in my psyche that only a few close friends knew my true situation. After Pat and I started seeing each other on a regular basis, he told me that from the first night we met, he’d been interested in getting to know me better. But when he asked the librarians hosting the party about me, they said that he might as well look elsewhere. I was not only happily married, my husband was a prominent pastor of a local church. Pat got the message: I was about as unavailable as anyone could be. He wouldn’t find out otherwise for several months, and only after the two of us had become friends.

  But I didn’t know that on the afternoon of my first phone call from Pat, a couple of weeks after our meeting in Birmingham. I entered my living quarters in a state of anxiety and exhaustion. The tension between my ex and me, which was higher than ever, was taking its toll on all of us. At least I’d be home alone that evening, I thought gratefully; my son was rehearsing for a school play and my ex was supposed to be at the parsonage. As usual, I carried home a stack of essays to grade. I looked forward to kicking off my shoes, pouring myself a glass of wine, and getting started on them. Nothing like a hundred student essays to take your mind off your troubles. A blessedly quiet, uneventful evening was just what I needed.

  It was not to be. No sooner had I changed into my sweats than I heard a car in the driveway, the slam of a door. I knew with a sinking heart that the preacher man had arrived. He wasn’t supposed to be here tonight, but lately he’d been driving down more often, trying to reason with me. The sermon was always the same: I needed to stop this foolishness and return to the fold. If I could put aside my sinful ways, then forgiveness was possible. At the sharp rap on my door, I cringed and braced myself for the inevitable.

  * * *

  A week or so later, I was closed off in my quarters grading yet another stack of essays. The second semester of the required freshman English course, Composition 102, was dedicated to research. Instructors usually assigned their classes to write about a famous writer or historical figure, but I’d developed what seemed to me more of a true research project. (If nothing else, my students couldn’t plagiarize a former student’s work. And thankfully the internet wasn’t a factor then.) I gave my classes the Myers-Briggs personality assessment test then applied the results to their unique writing and learning style. Based on the results, I asked each of them to come up with a self-improvement project, do the research, and write the conclusions as their paper. To my surprise, the students really got into it and worked enthusiastically. The first batch of essays in the project were their personal analyses of their learning styles, which I was marking for stylistic problems.

  A knock on my door startled me, but it had to be my son Jake, since no one else was there. Rare for Jake, he’d been home that evening and we’d had a nice dinner together. Sure enough, Jake stuck his head in and motioned for me to pick up the phone. “A man for you, Mom,” he said with a wink. I picked up the phone with a frown. Occasionally male colleagues called about school matters, but it was pretty late. Fearing it might be my ex’s lawyer, I took a deep breath before answering. One reason I’d stayed in a troubled marriage for so long: there was no question how a custody battle between an upstanding preacher and a runaway wife would turn out in the Deep South. It had been a potent threat. “Hello?” I said in a small voice.

  I was taken by surprise to hear Pat’s hearty “King-Ray! I tracked you down at home. So, how’re things going?”

  Once I regained my composure, I forced myself to match his bright, cheery tone. “Everything’s great, Pat! And how’re you doing? It’s nice to hear from you again.”

  “Hope I’m not calling too late. Is it a bad time?”

  “No, no. I’ve been grading essays and couldn’t be happier to take a break.”

  “Oh? What’s the dreaded essay topic this week?”

  And so our conversation went, or at least somewhere along those lines. Although neither of us could’ve known it at the time, Pat’s call that night was the beginning of what would become a two-year relationship between us—conducted solely by phone. It was the damnedest thing and wouldn’t make sense until later when I got to know Pat and his quirks. I’d find that most of his social life took place over the phone. He hated going out, but genuinely loved people and had a whole slew of phone buddies whom he talked to regularly, mostly other writers he’d met on the circuit. Somehow, I became one of them.

  At the time, however, I didn’t know what to make of his calls. After that night, Pat began calling fairly regularly, and he was prone to end our conversations with what came across as “Hey, it’s been nice knowing you, King-Ray. Hope you have a good life. See you, kiddo.” I’d hang up bemused, staring at the phone and wondering what just happened. Had I said something he didn’t like? But it couldn’t be that—he’d sounded much too jovial and upbeat. I’d tell myself that we’d talked for an hour or so; maybe he just got tired. Oh well, I’d think with a shrug. Guess he’s just weird that way. Then to my surprise, a week or so would go by then he’d call again, out of the blue. And we’d pick up right where we’d left off in our last conversation.

  It was also odd how long it took for us to discuss anything of a personal nature, despite the fact that we talked for hours. Neither of us knew that we were operating on false assumptions about the other. Based on the dedication he’d written to his wife and children in his latest book, The Prince of Tides, I assumed Pat was a devoted family man. (His calls had started early in the spring; Beach Music, which was a bit more revealing, wouldn’t come out until the summer.) Pat’s phone calls were always strictly friendly, not flirty or suggestive in any way whatsoever. I told him next to nothing about my personal life, and he didn’t ask, having been warned off by the librarians. Instead, we talked about the books we were writing and reading, the classes I taught, and the essay topics I assigned my students. He especially loved the unintentionally funny things my students wrote and would hoot with laughter when I quoted them. (“I think Hemingway must’ve written this story before he died.”) I loved his great big laugh and would find myself still smiling after one of his calls.

  From the first time he called, Pat drilled me about my writing. He never failed to ask how my book was doing, or what I was working on. I told him about whatever articles or short stories I had in the works. I’d had a couple of short stories published in literary journals and had another one rejected, probably because of the cheery subject matter. It was about a dying woman who goes to a Native American medicine woman for a suicide potion, digs a grave that she fills with flowers, then crawls in to drink the potion. The last thing she hears is the medicine woman playing a lute in the distance. The editor’s comment on the rejection slip amused me, asking if I was Native American and, if not, if I was familiar with their burial rituals.

  I wasn’t yet ready to talk to Pat about the novel I’d started. Taken from my journals of my life with the preacher man, it was the most personal thing I’d ever written. But I wasn’t at the point where I could share it with him or anyone else. Since I wasn’t sure I’d ever be, I’d put it aside and started another novel, a made-up story about a female rodeo rider. (Whose grandmother, incidentally, was a Native American medicine woman. Not sure how I got stuck on that twist.) That one wasn’t far enough along to talk about either, though later a chapter from it would be published as a short story then reprinted in an anthology from Milkweed Press, which made me proud.

  Scholarly papers were a safer topic for Pat and me at the time, and we talked about those as well. I’d helped Loretta edit an article on linguistics, which couldn’t have been more boring. But Pat wanted to hear all about it. If it had anything to do with reading or writing, he was interested. Or rather, he was if it was about someone else’s writing, not his. Try as I might, I couldn’t get much out of him about his work. After finishing the final edits of Beach Music, he hadn’t had the energy to start anything new. About the edits, he said his editor, Nan Talese, was fantastic and had guided him every step of the way.

&n
bsp; Because we talked mostly about teaching and writing, it would be several months later before Pat had his first inkling of how things were on the home front for me. As I’d feared, my relationship with my ex had only worsened. Despite our best efforts, we just couldn’t seem to be civil to each other. Eventually I had no choice but to get my own place. I waited until after Jake’s graduation that May before giving up all pretense of normality, then I packed up and moved out. I’d found a great place, a two-room efficiency close to the campus where I worked. That summer, Jake left for college in North Carolina, where he’d earned a full scholarship in theater. For the first time in more years than I could remember, I was completely on my own. I couldn’t believe how much I cherished my hard-earned solitude, especially in my cozy little efficiency, just the right size for me. Despite my lame excuses and explanations, I couldn’t understand why I’d been so reluctant to seek out being on my own sooner. All my life, I’ve needed solitude in much the same way I need air, or water. It’s essential for my soul.

  Later that fall, Jake happened to be home for the weekend and visiting his dad when Pat called me. He’d used the only number he had, at my old house, and Jake had answered the phone. Yet another fateful moment? Pat and I would ask each other later. The way things were between my ex and me at the time, I can’t imagine him giving anyone my new number if he’d been the one to answer the phone instead of Jake. The caller would’ve more likely gotten a litany of my many shortcomings instead.

  When I picked up the phone at my new place, Pat’s voice was less exuberant than usual. “Ah . . . King-Ray?” he said tentatively. “Your son gave me this number for you?”

  Yeah, I said, I’d gotten my own place, a studio apartment closer to the college. I said nothing about the divorce, nor why I’d moved out. Neither did I tell him that shortly after I settled in, someone slashed all four of my tires. The police immediately suspected my ex, despite my shocked denial. No way, I told them—he was a respected man of God! Oh, you’d be surprised at the crazy things divorce would drive even the most respectable folks to do, they responded.