The Plot

by Jean Hanff Korelitz

  He didn’t take it as one.

  “So then I have this baby I don’t want and they don’t want and I’m out of school, sitting at home with her all day getting yelled at by my mom and dad about the shame I’ve brought on the family, and one morning when they’re out of the house I hear this beeping down in the cellar. The carbon monoxide alarm’s going crazy, and I didn’t know what that meant, but I did a little research. I just took the batteries out, and replaced them with a couple of dead ones. I didn’t know if it was going to work, or how long it would take if it did, or which of us were going to go, and I did keep the window open in my room, where the baby was, too, but to be honest, I think I was okay with whatever happened.”

  She stopped and leaned over him. She was checking his breathing.

  “You want me to go on?”

  But it didn’t matter what he wanted, did it?

  “I tried my best. It wasn’t fun, but you know, I thought, it’s just the two of us here. There was no one to count on, but also no one for me to blame if it went downhill. I kind of lost my drive after the rest of my class graduated, I’ll admit to that. And I got to thinking, maybe this is the way it’s supposed to go, giving up my own life for this other life. I thought I could make my peace with that, and besides, I wasn’t against having that thing you’re supposed to have with a kid. Companionship or whatever. But that girl.”

  There was a ping on the phone. His phone. She picked it up.

  “Oh look,” said Anna. “Matilda says your publisher in France has offered half a million for the new novel. I’ll get back to her in a couple of days, though I don’t think your French publisher will be at the top of our list by then.” She paused. “What was I saying?”

  The cat had returned and leapt up onto the bed. He took one of his favorite positions, alongside Jake’s right calf.

  “Not once, in sixteen years, was there one sign of affection. She pushed me away, I swear, when I was trying to nurse her. She preferred not eating to being close to me, physically. She toilet trained herself so I wouldn’t have that power over her. I knew she didn’t plan to hang around Rutland a day longer than she had to, but I thought she’d at least do things in the normal way—graduate from high school, maybe go as far as Burlington. Not Rose. She just came downstairs one day when she was sixteen and told me she was leaving at the end of the summer. Bang. I couldn’t even tell her there was no money for an out-of-state college a thousand miles away. She had a scholarship, she had a room in a dorm, she even had a stipend for living expenses from some do-gooder down there. I said I at least wanted to take her, and I could tell she didn’t even want that, but when she thought about it practically she understood what it meant for her own convenience. She knew she was never coming home, so she let me drive her, and I let her pretty much fill up the car, everything she wanted, only a little room left over for my own things. But you know what? There wasn’t much I wanted to take for myself. Just a few clothes and an old propane heater.”

  With all of his strength he turned his head to her.

  “It wasn’t an accident, Jake. Even with your supposedly great imagination you couldn’t get your mind around that. Maybe you’ve got some gender blindness about motherhood, like it’s impossible for a mother to do that. Fathers, sure, no one bats an eye if they kill one of their kids, but do the same thing while in possession of a uterus and bam: the world explodes. It’s sexism, really, isn’t it, if you think about it. Evan didn’t have that problem, in case you’re wondering. In his version I take a carving knife to my teenage daughter in the middle of the night, and bury her in the backyard. But then he actually knew me. And he knew my daughter, don’t forget that. He knew what a bitch she was.”

  It reminded Jake of something, that word. But he couldn’t think what.

  Anna sighed. She still had Jake’s phone. She was scrolling through photographs, deleting. Very far away, he could feel the cat, Whidbey, begin to purr against his leg.

  “I let those yokels bury her,” Anna said. “People always want to involve themselves when they see a tragedy. I’d been happy to take care of it myself. Have the body cremated—I mean, it was halfway there already. And sprinkle the ashes, whatever. I’m not sentimental about these things. But they offered, and all expenses paid. So I said, I can’t get over how incredibly kind you people are, and You’ve restored my faith in humanity and Let us pray. And then I left for Athens.”

  Anna smiled down at him. “What did you really think of Athens? Can you see me living there? I mean, I was lying low, of course. I didn’t get involved in any of the social stuff. It was all frats and football, and all that big hair and the good old boys, everybody living in those tacky apartment communities. I got the housing waiver by telling them my mother had just passed away, and I really wanted to be alone. I didn’t even have to go into the housing office, which was lucky. I’ve always looked younger than my age, but I was pretty sure I couldn’t pass for sixteen. Especially after this happened to my hair.” She stopped to smile at him. “I did tell you it happened when my mom died, so that was kind of true. Anyway, I dyed it blond while I was in Georgia.” She grinned. “Helped me to blend in. Just another bottle-blond Bulldawg.”

  He used every bit of his strength to turn away from her and onto his side, but he couldn’t quite get there. His head, though, had moved on the pillow, giving him a blurry view of the half-empty glass and the completely empty bottles.

  “Vicodin,” she said helpfully. “And something called gabapentin, which I got for my restless leg syndrome. It makes the opioids work better. Did you know I have restless leg syndrome? Well, I don’t really have it, I just said I did. There’s no actual test for that, so all you need to do is go to your doctor and say, ‘Doctor! I have a strong, irresistible urge to move my legs. Especially at night! Accompanied by uncomfortable sensations!’ Then they rule out iron deficiency and neurological stuff, and voilà: you’re diagnosed. I made the appointment last fall in case they wanted me to do a sleep study before giving me the prescription, but this doctor went straight to the drugs, so good for her. She also gave me some Oxycontin for the terrible pain, and she threw in the Valium when I told her there was this crazy troll accusing my boyfriend of plagiarism online, and we were both stressed out beyond belief. That was Valium in the soup, by the way.” He heard her laugh. “Which definitely was not in my mother’s version. I also gave you something for nausea, to make sure you don’t throw up all my hard work when I’m halfway to Seattle. Anyway, it’s all pretty foolproof in combination, so I’d relax if I were you.” Anna sighed. “Look, I can stay a bit longer. See you through the worst of it, if you want. Do you want? Squeeze my hand if you want.”

  And Jake, who couldn’t have said what he wanted, and had already forgotten what he was supposed to do about it, felt her squeeze his hand, and he squeezed back.

  “Right,” she said. “What else? Oh … Athens. I was loving being back in school. Education really is wasted on the young, isn’t it? When I was in high school I used to look at people in my class, and my brother and his friends, and think, This is fantastic! We get to sit here all day and learn stuff. Why are you all such assholes about it? My brother was the biggest asshole of them all, by the way. Not once in my entire life did he ask me a question about myself, or say a single loving thing to me, and I had zero problem with never laying eyes on him again till he started trying to get in touch with me. By which I mean, in touch with Rose. And that wasn’t because he was suddenly interested in her, either. It was because he wanted to sell the house. Maybe because the bar was tanking. Maybe because he was back on the drugs, I didn’t know, but I guess he figured he couldn’t leave my daughter out of it and not expect a lawsuit. I didn’t answer any of his calls or emails, so one day that winter he just came down to Georgia. I saw him waiting in a car in front of Athena Gardens. Unfortunately, he saw me first.”

  Anna checked the time again.

  “Anyway, I gave him the benefit of the doubt. I thought, Okay. He’s seen m
e. He can obviously recognize his own sister, so even a moron like my brother is going to figure out what happened here. I hoped we were just going to leave each other alone, the same way we’d always done. And I mean, I knew he’d moved back into the house himself, so a little appreciation wouldn’t have gone amiss, but of course that was never my brother’s way. And one day I saw on Facebook that he’d signed up for some writing program in the Northeast Kingdom. And maybe you’re thinking, Okay, but why assume he was going to write about this one thing? All I can say is: I knew my brother. He wasn’t what you might call an imaginative guy. He was a magpie. He saw a pretty, shiny thing on the ground and he thought, Now that’s got to have some value. So he helped himself. I’m sure you can understand, Jake, what that must have been like, having someone steal from you like that. So a couple of months later I drove back to Vermont and I waited till he left for work, and you can color me surprised because that asshole actually managed to write almost two hundred pages. Of my story. And don’t think he was doing it for himself, either. This wasn’t some inner exploration through creative writing, trying to find his voice or understand the pain at the center of his family of origin. I found publication contests, lists of agents, the dude even had a subscription to Publishers Weekly. He knew what he was doing. He had a plan to make some serious money. Off me. People today bitch if you use a culturally appropriated word or hairstyle? That bastard just helped himself to my entire life story. Now you know that isn’t right, Jake, don’t you? Isn’t that what they say in the writing programs? Nobody else can tell your story but you?”

  The not so distant cousin of Nobody else gets to live your life, he thought.

  “Anyway, I went through the house and I got together everything I didn’t want left behind. All the manuscript pages for his masterpiece, and the notes. Any pictures of me or Rose that were still lurking around. Oh, and I got my mom’s cookbook with all her recipes, including the one for that soup you like. It’s been out there in our kitchen for months, on the shelf over the sink, not that you ever noticed. Where’s that novelist’s eye for detail, Jake? You’re supposed to have one, you know.”

  He knew.

  “And I found his drugs, of course. He had a lot of drugs. So I waited for him to get home from the tavern, and when he did I said I thought it was time for us to have a civilized talk about selling the house. He needed a shitload of benzos, by the way, before I could get near him with that syringe, but that’s what happens when you abuse opiates for as long as he did. I had no sympathy for him. I still don’t. And the way he went, it was even more pleasant than this. And this is pleasant, I think. It’s supposed to be.

  It wasn’t, but it wasn’t painful, either. He felt as if he was reaching out to claw through something that had the consistency of cotton candy, but he still couldn’t get to the other side of it. He might not be in pain, exactly, but there was an idea that kept hammering at him, like when you know you’re supposed to be somewhere else but you have no idea where that place is or why you were going there, and also he kept thinking the same ricocheting thought, which was: Wait, aren’t you Anna? Only that made no sense, because obviously she was, and what he didn’t understand was why he’d never questioned it before, and also why he was questioning it now.

  “After that I decided to leave Athens. I’m so not cut out for the south. I stayed down there long enough to pack up and find an attorney to handle the sale of the Vermont house. What did you think of Pickens, by the way? Bit of a douchebag, isn’t he? He got handsy with me once and I had to threaten to contact the bar association. As you might know, he was already on thin ice with them because of assorted other transgressions, so he became very proper and attentive after that. I did call him last week to warn him a guy named Bonner might turn up, and remind him about the sacred bonds of attorney-client privilege, but I don’t think he’d have talked to you, even if I hadn’t. He definitely doesn’t want to get on my bad side.”

  No, thought Jake. Jake, also, didn’t want to get on her bad side. He knew that now.

  “Anyway, I wanted to go west to finish my degree, but I wasn’t sure where. I was thinking about San Francisco, but at the end of the day I picked Washington. Oh, and I changed my name, obviously. Anna sounds a bit like Dianna, and Williams is the third most common surname in America, did you know that? I guess I thought Smith and Johnson felt too obvious. Also I stopped coloring my hair. Seattle is full of gray-haired women, lots of them even younger than I was, so I felt super comfortable. I never lived on Whidbey, though I had a couple of fun weekends there with Randy. We did have a bit of a thing while I was interning at the station, which I’m pretty sure worked in my favor when the producer job opened up. Hey,” she said. “Why don’t you stop staring at those pills? You can’t do anything about it, you know.”

  She tugged on his shoulder until he was on his back again, his eyes sometimes open, sometimes not. It was also getting harder to hear her.

  “So everything’s cool. I’ve got a house and a job and an avocado plant, and then, one afternoon, in one of Seattle’s fine coffee establishments, I hear these women talking about a book they’re reading, this crazy story about a mom who kills her daughter and takes her place. And I can’t fucking believe it! I’m sitting there thinking, No goddamn way! I wasn’t thinking it was connected to me, because there wasn’t anyone left who could possibly have known, and besides, I took everything out of that house, and I destroyed it all after I read it. I left flash drives and pages in every trash bin on the Eisenhower interstate system. I threw his computer down a porta potty in Missouri! Like, it had to be some insane coincidence or else my fucking brother wrote his book in hell and emailed it to the publishing firm of Lucifer and Beelzebub, lies and stolen stories our specialty!” She actually smiled. “I went over to Elliott Bay and I asked for a book I’d heard about, about a woman who kills her daughter. And there it was. And when I looked you up and saw you’d taught at Ripley in the MFA program it was pretty obvious what happened. I mean, a plot like that doesn’t come out of nowhere, does it? Well, does it?”

  Jake did not respond.

  “Your book had its very own table, you’ll be happy to hear, right in the front of the store. Placement is so important to an author, I know. And Crib was number eight on the list that week, the guy at Elliott Bay told me. I didn’t know what ‘the list’ was. Not then. I do now. I couldn’t believe I had to spend my own money to read my own story. My story, Jake. Which wasn’t my brother’s to tell, and it sure as hell wasn’t yours. Before I even left that store I knew I was going to get it back from you, even if it took a while to figure out how. You’d already come through Seattle, on your book tour, and that was annoying, because it meant I had to wait for you to come back, but I started working on Randy as soon as they announced the City Arts lecture. That was my plot, I guess you could call it,” she said with extravagant sarcasm. “And I have to say, I’m pretty impressed with myself, though can you explain to me why should I have to actually marry someone who stole from me, just to get back what was already mine? There’s a subject for a novel, isn’t it? Not that I could write a novel, Jake. Because it’s not like I’m a writer. Not like you.”

  He looked vaguely up at her. Already he was having trouble understanding how any of this related to him.

  “Hey, wow,” she said. “Your pupils. They’re like little points. And you’re very clammy. How are you feeling, would you say? Because what we’re looking for here is depressed respiration—that’s fancy medical speak for slow breathing—drowsiness, weak pulse. And something they like to call ‘change in mental status,’ but I’m not really clear about what that means. Besides, how am I going to get you to describe your mental status now?”

  His mental status was that he wanted it all to stop. But at the same time, he was feeling that he would still scream if only he could figure out how.

  “I hate to cut this short,” said Anna, “but I’m going to be stressed about traffic if I stay much longer, so I’m going to head
out. I just want to set your mind at ease about a couple of things before I go. First, I’ve left out a lot of food for the cat, and plenty of water, so don’t worry about him. Second, I don’t want you worrying out about how I’ll manage afterward. We got all that legal stuff taken care of, and the new book’s finished, so there shouldn’t be any problems. Actually, I wouldn’t be surprised if Crib went right back up to the top of the Times list after this, and hey, if this nice offer from France is any indication, your new book’s going to do really well, too. You must be relieved. Sometimes that next book after a hit is kind of a letdown, isn’t it? But however it works out, you shouldn’t worry, because as your widow and your literary executor I’ll do everything I can to manage your estate prudently, because that’s my duty and, I think you’ll also agree, my right. And finally, I’ve taken the liberty of writing something along the lines of a suicide note into your phone while we’ve been hanging out here, and I’m making it clear that no one’s to feel responsible for this, and that you were in some kind of awful despair because, well, blah, blah blah, you were being harassed by someone online, and you have no idea who it is, but they accused you of plagiarism and that’s such a devastating experience for any writer.”