82.

The trouble with writing about Portland was that Jaime had been happier then, as she remembered it. No matter that her life now was carefully arranged the way she wanted it. In Portland they’d been young and full of their own power, with their raffish old house in Lake Grove, their bright young friends, the painters and writers and dreamers of Portland. And Kira had been a baby. It had all seemed so easy.

She found herself losing track of why she’d chosen to write about this time and these people. Not to show how wonderful everything had been, but to show how the wonderfulness must have looked to someone excluded from it. Someone who wasn’t invited to the hootenannies or dancing parties, but only to blowjob dates in cars or in the back stairwells of the Portland Auditorium. Someone who learns that talent, perseverance, and desire would not be enough. You had to be beautiful or charming as well, you had to be likable. Jaime had always been likable, and to get inside Mary’s character she had to shed her likable skin, her beauty and charm. After a while it was easy to do, and then of course the trick was to change back into herself at the end of the writing day. If she failed, she’d find herself going around all day as a mousy little girl with no confidence, waves of music passing through her mind, blocking out rational thought. The music was part of the process. Jaime always liked to have music playing softly in the background as she wrote, to block other sounds and sweeten her mood. Usually jazz, coming over the radio from KJAZ, but writing Mary’s story she played only classical music, Bach, Haydn, and Mozart. Mary was a little snob, Jaime decided affectionately. She had her integrity. She found Beethoven a little blowsy and romantic. Haydn was her ideal.

The routine was simple. No matter what time she got home the night before, get up at six or six thirty. Slip into her gray sweatsuit and sneakers, awaken Kira, then walk across Park Presidio to the hidden entrance to Mountain Lake Park, through to its Fifth Avenue exit, then down Fifth to Clement, west on Clement to Seventeenth, and back to her flat. A two-mile walk, begun in sullen mindlessness and ending in cheerful anticipation of the workday. To avoid losing the cheer she’d take the paper inside unopened, leaving it for her post-work pleasure. If Kira wasn’t up yet she’d rouse her and make tea. Other times Kira already had the water boiling. They spoke little at this hour, Kira groggy with sleep and Jaime already turning into Mary Rosendaal. Kira never asked what she was writing. So far as Jaime knew, her daughter had never read any of her work. Though it would have been in character for Kira to read the stuff secretly and say nothing. Normal enough, but Jaime wanted Kira to admire her. To tell Jaime she loved her writing, that she knew her work was important and understood why her mother was so strange. Apparently they weren’t close enough for this kind of talk, and Jaime wouldn’t force it on her. Bad enough that she’d wrecked their family life.

Kira at fifteen looked more like eighteen or nineteen, ripe and ready to plunder, one of the reasons Jaime didn’t bring men home. Her daughter was beautiful, but not the kind of beauty that translates into modeling jobs or wealthy marriages, more the beauty of youth. The kind which as she grew older would turn into handsomeness and character. Jaime hoped. She hardly wanted her daughter to be a model or actress. She most particularly didn’t want her daughter to be casually seduced by one of her literary friends. Or God forbid marry one of the bastards. So she saw people not at home but at Enrico’s or Tosca, though who even knew if Kira was still a virgin? Or had herpes. Or clap.

This got into The French Horn Player. The character became Jaime’s second daughter, someone Jaime had known since birth, someone she’d protect with her life. Jaime often cried as she wrote, knowing that no matter what she did, no matter how well she loved her soft little Mary, she’d also have to kill her. At times she sat desperately wishing for a way out for Mary Rosendaal. But there could be no way out. The book was begun to show a certain hard truth, and she couldn’t back out now, just because it was breaking her heart. Poor fucking Mary Rosendaal, moving slowly toward death.

She had another task in managing the difference between the real Marty Greenberg and the character she required for her story. The real Marty Greenberg had reappeared a while before, while she was still married to Charlie. She’d run into him at Tosca’s, and they sat drinking cappuccinos and talking about the I–Thou philosophy of Martin Buber, one of Marty’s heroes. Their final parting came when Marty put his hand on Jaime’s exposed knee and gave it a meaningful squeeze. “We should make love,” he said, smiling sincerely into her eyes.

She pushed his hand away. “Really? Why?”

“Everyone should make love with everyone. That is the true I–Thou.”

She learned later Marty had tried this I–Thou shit on most of the women he knew, and some of the men. Kenny Goss had been scandalized by it. His former shipmate from the Breckenridge had made a pass at him. “Get the clouds out of your mind,” Marty had said to Kenny. “Love is love.”

Marty then moved to Berkeley, and Jaime hadn’t seen him since. She fought not to wreck the character with her personal feelings. The book required that she show Marty as a nice person, a good person, bright, friendly, everything he ought to be except compassionate. More and more her book was about coldness. And the meaning of words. Words like “blow job.”

So Marty the philosopher must turn into Marty the pimp, without at the same time losing any of his charm. An intricate literary problem. She hoped her unconscious would solve it.