Free Under the Wide and Starry Sky by Nancy Horan Page A

me.”
    â€œWho’ve we got with us this mornin’?” Henley turned his friend’s book face-up to see the title. “Cervantes … ha! I should have known.”
    â€œI wanted to look at his style again. To try it on.”
    â€œComment?”
A French writer, who was recovering from the previous night’s excesses, raised his head from the tabletop where it had been resting next to a potted red geranium. “No man is a writer if he
imitates
!” he exclaimed, pulling himself upright.
    â€œI have taught myself the writing craft in just that way,” Louis said, “by aping the greats.”
    â€œTo write is to give the soul,” the man objected. “Truth comes from this place.” He jabbed his chest with a forefinger. “No French writer says, ‘I ape this man. I ape that man …’”
    â€œPerhaps he does not
admit
it.” Louis grinned. “Come now, what does it matter? Let us hear what your souls are saying today.”
    Laughter, followed by silence. Then the sound of paper unfolding, as one after another of the writers took a turn reading aloud his verses and paragraphs to the others on the terrace.
    Henley leaned over and spoke softly in his ear. “Have you been wandering in the forest pitying yourself?”
    â€œNo.” Louis smiled. “Well, maybe. Actually, I am thinking about starting a story.”
    â€œYou are going to abandon your essays?”
    â€œIt’s the law I want to abandon.” Louis sighed. “I’m simply in the mood to try something different, and fiction … “
    â€œMagazines buy essays,” Henley said.
    â€œAn adventure story.…”
    â€œI don’t begrudge you your adventures, lad. Why don’t you write a little story about setting out in a canoe?”
    â€œBetter still,” Louis said, his voice growing dark with conspiracy, “set out with me in one of the canoes after lunch.”
    Henley glanced dolefully at his abbreviated limb.
    â€œForget the game leg,” Louis said, “you’ve got a mighty pair of arms on you, man.” He turned to the others in the group. “Gentlemen and ladies, I propose we writer types take on the painter types in a friendly boating contest this afternoon. What say you?”
    â€œYes! Yes!” the cry went up.
    Later in the day, when the canoe wars had been waged and the paddlers had retired to their rooms to nap before dinner, Louis paced his bedroom. Something had come over him when Fanny Osbourne had emerged from the inn wearing her bathing costume. More than the magnificent form she made in her black cotton suit, it was the red espadrilles with laces tied around her ankles that nearly undid him. When he saw her, he’d wrapped his towel around his waist and tried to think about the Napoleonic code. Now the red shoes batted around in his brain like flies. He was a fool for footwear and he knew it. But could a pair of scarlet shoes render him so hopelessly smitten? Or was it the way Fanny’s somber focus on her paddle broke under his teasing? How she screamed helplessly when he tipped her over, then emerged from the water slick as a seal and, grabbing on to the bow of his boat, upended him with the power of a man. The scene as it replayed in his mind was almost perfect, except for the part where Bob lifted her wet and lovely body into his own canoe.
    Louis could not bear it any longer. He poked his head out into the hall and found it empty. He stepped over to Bob’s door, knocked, then entered when he heard his cousin’s steady snore. “Bob … Bob.” Louis shook his shoulders.
    â€œWhat is it?” The voice—a frog’s—croaked his annoyance.
    â€œWe need to talk.”
    â€œCan’t it wait?”
    â€œHere,” Louis said, and handed him a glass of water. “Wake up.”
    Bob sat up in bed, yawned. His hair was wet and flattened on