by Jody Gehrman
Why didn’t I slip out when I had the chance? If you find me here, everything’s fucked.
I let my cockiness get out of hand.
From now on, I resolve to be more careful.
You’re in the bedroom, still humming. Definitely “Wild Night.” I close my eyes and lean my head against the cool, white tile. My heart continues to race. My breathing’s ragged. I can hear you searching through drawers. You must be looking for your yoga pants, your wife-beater. Your humming turns to singing in the bedroom. There’s the sound of coat hangers clicking against one another. Your voice is husky and rich.
Out of nowhere, a ripple of calm washes over me. This is how it will be when we live together. You’ll be in the next room singing while you change clothes. I’ll step out of the shower, wipe steam from the mirror. I’ll walk into the bedroom, a towel wrapped around my waist. You’ll glance over your shoulder at me, your face lighting up as you pull your tank over your head. I’ll sit on the bed and rub my damp hair, caught between the need to touch you and the simple pleasure of watching you from across the room.
You drop something—your phone? The sound jolts me back to the moment. I need to go right now, while you’re still in the bedroom.
I can’t, though. With your scent in the air, your off-key song in my ears, there’s too much anchoring me to the spot. We’re so close right now. I’m in your world, and even though I haven’t been invited, your nearness fills me like a drug.
Oh, god. You’re in the bathroom. You turn on the faucet at the sink. Fuck, this is torture. You’re so close.
So fucking close.
I listen to you brushing your teeth. Smell the minty freshness of your toothpaste. You gargle. Spit.
My breath catches in my throat as you fall silent. What are you doing now? You’re motionless. Are you eyeing the shower curtain? Maybe it’s not as opaque as I thought. You can see my silhouette. You’re standing there, still as a tree, holding your breath, staring at my outline in the pearly white curtain. Any second now you’ll yank open the plastic and—
Oh, god, I can’t stand it, I’m going to—
Wait. You’re leaving.
I exhale in dizzy relief as your bare feet patter back into the hallway and down the stairs.
When I hear NPR come to life in the kitchen, I decide it’s now or never. The stairs end in the downstairs hallway opposite the kitchen, so it’s risky. I have to chance it. Let’s pray you’re in the pantry or at the stove, your back to me. I lift first one foot, then the other, out of the tub, moving like a mime. Every step requires extreme control. My system’s still flooded with adrenaline; my muscles ache to take the stairs at a dead run. In spite of the radio, the oak planks will make way too much noise if I hurry. There’s a window at the landing. I catch sight of your neighbor’s children in the side yard—two little girls. They’re playing a game involving plastic guns. Like marionettes controlled by the same hand, their tiny blond heads swivel toward me. We stare at one another through the glass for a long moment.
I need to get out of here.
Now.
There’s a bad moment at the bottom of the stairs. You’re not in the pantry. Not at the stove. You’re at the sink. All it would take for you to catch sight of me is a quick sideways glance.
Again, the crazy injustice of our situation hits me. I know you better than anyone, Kate, yet I’m forced to run away like a thief.
I hurry toward the front door.
Just as I’m closing it behind me, lunging for the porch steps, I hear you say, “Hello? Is someone there?”
As I slip away, head bowed, hoodie pulled up, one of the little girls next door cries, “Bang-bang! You’re dead!”
I offer her a weak smile and stride toward my car.
KATE
Sometimes I see my life in the form of a book jacket blurb—the pithy hook on the back, a paragraph or two distilling the novel’s essence. They’re much harder to compose than you’d think. There’s a lot of pressure. I used to write them fresh out of college, interning at a small press in Boston. You’ve got a hundred words to convert the casual browser into a committed buyer. It’s like trying to stuff a bag of squirming cats into a hatbox. All the characters seem too important to leave out, every subplot clamors to be included. It helps if you haven’t actually read the book.
Back then, while churning out back-cover copy, I thought I’d be an agent or editor. I never really considered writing novels myself.
Then the idea for Pay Dirt hit me—struck me with such force I knew I had to write it. I felt like a cartoon character bludgeoned by an anvil. For seven weeks I did nothing but write that book. People often marvel that I wrote the entire novel in so short a time. I doubt they realize how long seven weeks can last when you do nothing else for twelve hours a day, seven days a week. I was a woman possessed. I didn’t see anyone. I didn’t venture out. I lived on crackers and cigarettes.
Ever since my internship at Briar Press, book blurbs frequently shape the way I think about my life. I’ll observe something I’m doing, a choice I’m making, a person I’m being, and imagine how it would be described in that tiny, confining box. I consider which verbs to pluck from my dusty collection, which adjectives to stir in.
As I poke around the kitchen after class Tuesday, NPR droning in the background, I hear Carl Kasell’s crisp diction narrating my life.
Kate Youngblood, professor of English at a small liberal arts college, has lost everything. Her husband’s left her for a younger woman; her best friend’s left her for an infant. Now, she’s finally had sex with someone new, a suave restaurant owner, and he turns up dead. Will Kate discover the killer before she becomes his next victim?
Not my kind of book. There would be pounding hearts and chilling revelations. Endless interviews with red herrings. I don’t have the patience for that sort of thing.
Plucky professor Kate Youngblood has everything: a steady teaching job, a thriving career as a novelist—and a taste for young male scholars. When her eye falls on the promising, and gorgeous, Sam Grist, she realizes she has to choose: risk her teaching career, or risk never knowing what it’s like to be in his arms.
God, I’m on a roll. I can’t believe I’m living this shit.
A rustling movement from the front of the house yanks me from my thoughts. What was that? A latch catching? A door shutting? I look for Emily and Charlotte. They’re both right here, staring up at me. Charlotte meows with the chiding disapproval of a neglected old lady and swipes at Emily for no good reason.
There it is again—something—what? Footsteps on the porch?
I reach for the cashmere poncho draped over the back of a chair. Gooseflesh stipples my arms. Wrapping myself in the wool, I creep toward the front door. Before I leave the kitchen, almost as an afterthought, I seize a cast iron skillet. It’s not much as weapons go, but it will have to do. I feel silly, paranoid.
Entering the front hallway, I could swear I see a blur of motion outside the wavy glass panels flanking the front door. When I finally get my glasses on, though, it’s gone. I look around, gripping the skillet, remind myself to breathe. Nothing seems disturbed. Probably just my imagination.
Charlotte rubs against my ankles, blinks at me.
“It’s not time for dinner yet.” I scoop her up and cradle her in my arms. Her warm bulk comforts me.
I flash on Zoe holding Drew, and a jolt of embarrassment shoots through me. She’s clutching a living, breathing human being, someone she made from her own flesh. I’m holding a judgmental cat that would eat my face if I died.
There’s some other emotion under the humiliation. It takes me a moment to name it: envy.
Not that I want a baby—God forbid! But to have someone who needs you that completely? It must be intoxicating. Nobody’s ever felt that way about me. I value my independence, but at what cost? What part of the human experience am I missing out on entirely?
I go back to the kitchen, put the skillet on the stove, and pour myself a glass o
f wine. I check my phone to see if there’s anything new online about Raul’s murder. He’s been dead twelve days; the police don’t have a clue who killed him. They’ve questioned me twice. I was probably one of the last people to see him. Unless you count being drunk alone in my house, I don’t have an alibi. The lead detective has an especially suspicious manner that makes me sweat whenever he looks me in the eye. Maybe when you’re a homicide detective, everyone’s a potential murderer. I’m not used to people sizing me up like that, trying to peer into the darkest corners of my heart.
Another shiver passes through me. I go to the thermostat on the wall, turn the heat up a couple of degrees.
That’s when I notice it: the bag of cat food sitting on the counter.
I know better than to leave that there. Emily once chewed through a cardboard box to get at the hard little nuggets inside. A flimsy bag like this would be all over the floor by now. Easy work for a couple of skilled feline bandits.
Though I’ve already been upstairs, I make myself go through every room in the house, eyeing every possession suspiciously. Was that paper clip sitting on my desk when I left? Did I leave that closet door open? I’m no Miss Marple, though. The truth is, I don’t pay enough attention to my surroundings.
Still, I sense a thickness in the air, a humid trace of someone’s presence.
I consider going to Zoe’s but decide against it. Baby Drew scares me more than my imagined intruder.
I lock my doors and go upstairs to take a bath.
SAM
“Hey, Sam.” Jess lingers near my table. She’s not, for once in her life, thrusting her cleavage at the world. She wears an oversized fleece sweatshirt, no makeup, and a face so sad it’s a deflated balloon.
“What’s up?” I try to say it with no interest, my eyes only leaving the screen of my laptop for an annoyed couple of seconds. She’s so different from her usual self, though; a tiny flame of curiosity flickers to life in my brain. What’s with the Sad Girl routine? Did something happen, or is this another ploy?
She looks around the truck-stop diner, takes in the greasy, laminated menus, the men in baseball caps digging into hash browns, the craggy-faced waitresses with feathered hair. “This where you write?”
Is there anything more infuriating than a girl invading your hideout? Eva did it once. She believed I wanted to be found. Her compulsion to know my secrets was a disease.
“Sometimes,” I admit. “Depends on what I’m writing.”
“It’s very Raymond Carver.” She catches me off guard with that one. It’s not what I’d expect from Cleavage. She strikes me as more of a reality TV fan than a reader.
In spite of my obvious desire to be left alone, she slides into my booth. She fiddles with the salt and pepper shakers like a girl playing with dolls. “I won’t bug you. I just can’t deal with the dorms right now. This murder thing’s freaking me out.”
I lower the screen of my laptop half an inch. “What are you talking about?”
“Remember that girl I told you about?” She sighs the words, like she’s too tired to speak them aloud.
“No.”
“The one who dated that guy at The Woods?”
I keep my expression blank.
She speaks with forced patience, like I’m a child. “That time I saw you at The Woods, you asked if I knew a guy—Raul? Same dude we saw at the theater with Youngblood? Anyway, he used to date a friend of mine. My roommate.”
“Right…?”
“Well, he was murdered. They found him in his home, duct-taped to a chair.” She licks her lips, drawing out the moment. “Somebody shot him in the head.”
I say nothing. Her fruity perfume causes a headache to flair inside my skull. My temples throb.
“That’s terrible.” I sound okay. A little wooden. I will myself to add some empathy. “Who do they think did it?”
“The cops keep interviewing Sadie. She was still seeing him—more like midnight bootie calls, but whatever. They got in a fight a couple weeks ago in a bar, so now the cops won’t leave her alone.”
“You’re worried?” I try to sound gentle, but I must hit a sour note.
She shoots me a look like I’m crazy. “Um, yeah! She’s my best friend, my roommate, and now she’s a murder suspect.”
“Okay. Don’t get upset.”
“God, you’re weird.” She runs her hand through her hair.
This is one of the phrases I hate most in the English language, along with “brain fart” and “warm fuzzies.” Those I despise out of principle. “You’re weird” I hate because I heard it all too often growing up, before I learned to school my expressions and temper my inflections.
A fat waitress with bad skin offers me a coffee refill. I hold my cup out and watch the black liquid steam into my cup. She asks Cleavage if she wants anything. To my relief, Cleavage shakes her head no.
As the waitress wanders off, I warm my hands on the hot mug.
“You know who else they questioned?” Dark pleasure lights up her face.
I have my suspicions, but I say, “Who?”
“Professor Youngblood.” The delight she takes in this pronouncement makes me want to toss my scalding coffee in her face.
“Because she dated him?”
“Yep. It’s usually the girlfriend who did it. Especially when he’s still seeing other girls on the side.” She looks at her phone.
I hate it when people look at their phone in the middle of a conversation. It implies they’ve got more important people they should tend to. I don’t expect to be the most important person in Cleavage’s life, but she’s the one who invaded my fortress, infected my writing zone with her sticky-sweet strawberry scent. An intolerable bubbling starts up inside my rib cage, a carbonated rage.
She types something and lines her phone up beside the saltshaker. “You think she did it?”
“Who?”
“Youngblood!”
“No.” I sip my coffee. “Of course not.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“She’d never do something like that.”
“’Cause you know her so well?” Her eyes sparkle.
“I can just tell.”
“Her books are pretty violent,” she says, her lips puckering in disapproval.
“You’ve read them?”
“No.” She folds her arms across her chest, leaning back in the booth. “But I know what they’re about.”
“You can’t read the blurb and think you know the book.”
She scoffs. “Judgmental much?”
“And you definitely can’t know the author or what she’s capable of,” I add, unable to stop myself.
She stares at me, her eyes narrowing to slits. “You’re not…?”
“What?”
“Like, into her, are you?”
I raise one eyebrow, refusing to dignify this with a response. She takes it the way I mean her to.
She laughs. “Shit, you scared me there for a second.”
“So, what’s going to happen with your roommate?”
“Sadie?” She frowns. “I don’t know. I feel sorry for her.”
“Because she’s a suspect?”
She widens her eyes like she can’t believe how stupid I am. “And she found out her boyfriend was fucking some middle-aged hag.”
It takes all my self-control not to stab her in the face with my fork.
KATE
From: Maxine Katz
To: Kate Youngblood
Subject: Your Latest Manuscript
Hello Kate,
I’ve just finished reading your latest revision of Blood Ties. I know you worked hard to integrate my feedback, so thank you for that. I just can’t help feeling it’s still not working. Forgive me for being blunt, but there it is.
The relationship between the protagonist and her mother feels stilted. The plot still drags, in spite of the shorter chapters. The climax doesn’t deliver. The character arcs feel forced, overly cheerful, and illogical.
&
nbsp; I know this will not come as a shock to you. There was a note of embarrassment in your voice when we discussed it at lunch. Since you and I can agree this isn’t your best work, I suggest you put it aside for a few months. Try something else. Remember that circus thriller we talked about? Tinker with that.
The bottom line is I can’t sell something I don’t love. I definitely can’t back something I actively dislike. We have to be savvy about what we shop. In a year, when you’ve written something better, you’ll thank me for not embarrassing you by sending this out. If you’re upset with me in the meantime, so be it. It’s my job to be the brains of this operation—the business brains, I mean. It’s your job to create, so don’t worry about this small setback. I’m confident you’ll turn out something amazing in no time.
Best,
MK
A shiver passes through me. I seem to be cold all the time lately. It occurs to me briefly, illogically, that Raul could be haunting me. Ghosts are supposed to bring a chill wherever they go, right? Raul wouldn’t choose me, of all people, to haunt, though. The murder investigation’s turned up all kinds of random liaisons—with college girls and waitresses, a kindergarten teacher. I feel dirty, tossed together with all of his other conquests. I’ve never thought of sex as giving something up, not even the first time, but sex with Raul definitely cost me something. My pride. My anonymity. In this sleepy college town, Raul’s murder is big news. The fact that my name’s been dragged into it will not help my quest for tenure.
And now, just to add momentum to my downward spiral, my agent hates my book.
I hate my book. Why wouldn’t she?
God, I ache to write the way I used to. When I wrote Pay Dirt, I was a whirling dervish, a mad weaver of words. I slept a few hours at a time, like a cat. My eyes would pop open at two, three, five in the morning, and I’d type feverishly in the dark, my brain still marinating in dreams. My dingy little apartment was a wreck, but I didn’t care. I wasn’t even there. I was off in the Chicago night, riding in cop cars and partying with bank robbers. My characters blossomed uncontrollably—they sprang to life fully formed, like deities. I smoked compulsively and ate only when the pain of hunger grew intolerable. My apartment smelled like a casino. I was deliriously happy.
