Read Online Laura Rider's Masterpiece by Jane Hamilton - Free Book Online
Authors: Jane Hamilton
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allowed.”
“I’ll be sure to bring that up with the author,” Jenna said. “I’m sure saying so won’t offend anyone.”
On Friday, for fifteen minutes, she spoke by phone with Al Gore. In the studio she had a scientist from the Climate System
Research Center, as well as an emeritus professor of meteorology, an expert on hurricanes, a global-warming nay-sayer. It
was the type of show she least enjoyed, the sort of program that could so easily turn into a shouting match. The phone lines
had gone berserk after the professor had said that chemicals and pesticides had helped make our nation the safest, the healthiest
in the world. From her seat in Studio B, Jenna looked through the picture window into the next room, where Pete Warner managed
the control desk, and Suzie, at her computer, screened the callers. Suzie had a knack for ferreting out the toxic and the
schizophrenics, and in addition she could anticipate Jenna’s thinking, often sending her a caller who would give the show
a forward movement. It was when Suzie was separated from her by glass, and in the heat of the moment, that Jenna felt at one
with her. Separated by glass, Jenna loved frizzy-haired, buxom, gap-toothed ADHD Suzie Raditz.
After the climate show, Jenna closed her office door, took her headache medication, and began her weekend rereading of short
stories by a woman she called “the Saint.” It was her proudest accomplishment, to have finally snagged an interview with the
woman she considered to be the greatest living writer. She had forgotten about her Wednesday-evening
e-mail to Charlie Rider, had not, in fact, thought twice about a response from him. On Saturday, she sat on the porch at home
all morning and into the afternoon reading through the Saint’s collections, alternately terrified and thrilled at the prospect
of Monday’s interview. She would have been no more nervous, she said to Frank, if she’d been called upon to interview Virginia
Woolf or Henry James.
“You’ll be terrific,” he’d said. “She’ll love you.”
“I’m not after love,” she said. “I just want to do her
justice.”
“When are you not terrific?”
Would that every woman had a friend in her corner like Frank. Jenna had kissed her husband’s freckled summer pate, and gone
upstairs to check her mail. Who would have written her in the hours she’d been away? What delightful communication awaited?
“Charlie Rider?” she said out loud. She hoped she would not have to write him back; that was her first thought. She hoped
he was writing a simple thank-you for her thank-you, and that would be the end of it. She remembered, already with a pang
of regret, that she’d written to him more soulfully than she should have.
Subj: Highway S
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Dear Jenna (if I may):
Might I say that I have always admired you? Your warmth and energy have been a bright spot in my day for years now, in the
potting shed, in the car, in the kitchen. You are a light (but not a supernatural one) that has followed me from home, to
work, and back again. You might be tired of people telling you what you mean to them but it would require more discipline
than I have not to speak from my heart. I feel that you do not judge people, and so I feel safe telling you about my first
encounter with those beings I have always called the Silver People. I was eighteen. It was a Saturday night in midsummer.
Petie Druzinsky, Bill Mabbit, and I were walking through Doc Webster’s back forty. You will assume that we were under the
influence but I swear to you we weren’t. We hadn’t had a puff, a swig, nothing. As clear-minded as usual, which I admit is
not all that crystal clear. We experienced an unbearable light coming toward us. All of us remembered being in the grip of
it. None of us can explain what happened during the four hours that we can’t account for. Was it real? Did it happen? I
“I’ll be sure to bring that up with the author,” Jenna said. “I’m sure saying so won’t offend anyone.”
On Friday, for fifteen minutes, she spoke by phone with Al Gore. In the studio she had a scientist from the Climate System
Research Center, as well as an emeritus professor of meteorology, an expert on hurricanes, a global-warming nay-sayer. It
was the type of show she least enjoyed, the sort of program that could so easily turn into a shouting match. The phone lines
had gone berserk after the professor had said that chemicals and pesticides had helped make our nation the safest, the healthiest
in the world. From her seat in Studio B, Jenna looked through the picture window into the next room, where Pete Warner managed
the control desk, and Suzie, at her computer, screened the callers. Suzie had a knack for ferreting out the toxic and the
schizophrenics, and in addition she could anticipate Jenna’s thinking, often sending her a caller who would give the show
a forward movement. It was when Suzie was separated from her by glass, and in the heat of the moment, that Jenna felt at one
with her. Separated by glass, Jenna loved frizzy-haired, buxom, gap-toothed ADHD Suzie Raditz.
After the climate show, Jenna closed her office door, took her headache medication, and began her weekend rereading of short
stories by a woman she called “the Saint.” It was her proudest accomplishment, to have finally snagged an interview with the
woman she considered to be the greatest living writer. She had forgotten about her Wednesday-evening
e-mail to Charlie Rider, had not, in fact, thought twice about a response from him. On Saturday, she sat on the porch at home
all morning and into the afternoon reading through the Saint’s collections, alternately terrified and thrilled at the prospect
of Monday’s interview. She would have been no more nervous, she said to Frank, if she’d been called upon to interview Virginia
Woolf or Henry James.
“You’ll be terrific,” he’d said. “She’ll love you.”
“I’m not after love,” she said. “I just want to do her
justice.”
“When are you not terrific?”
Would that every woman had a friend in her corner like Frank. Jenna had kissed her husband’s freckled summer pate, and gone
upstairs to check her mail. Who would have written her in the hours she’d been away? What delightful communication awaited?
“Charlie Rider?” she said out loud. She hoped she would not have to write him back; that was her first thought. She hoped
he was writing a simple thank-you for her thank-you, and that would be the end of it. She remembered, already with a pang
of regret, that she’d written to him more soulfully than she should have.
Subj: Highway S
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Dear Jenna (if I may):
Might I say that I have always admired you? Your warmth and energy have been a bright spot in my day for years now, in the
potting shed, in the car, in the kitchen. You are a light (but not a supernatural one) that has followed me from home, to
work, and back again. You might be tired of people telling you what you mean to them but it would require more discipline
than I have not to speak from my heart. I feel that you do not judge people, and so I feel safe telling you about my first
encounter with those beings I have always called the Silver People. I was eighteen. It was a Saturday night in midsummer.
Petie Druzinsky, Bill Mabbit, and I were walking through Doc Webster’s back forty. You will assume that we were under the
influence but I swear to you we weren’t. We hadn’t had a puff, a swig, nothing. As clear-minded as usual, which I admit is
not all that crystal clear. We experienced an unbearable light coming toward us. All of us remembered being in the grip of
it. None of us can explain what happened during the four hours that we can’t account for. Was it real? Did it happen? I
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