Chapter 16

The entryway where Emmit helps her out of her coat is awash with low amber lighting. Saoirse shivers and resists the urge to wring out her hair. When she looks up, she finds Emmit is gazing at her with undisguised longing. He pulls her into an embrace, but steps back as quickly as he grabbed her, his hands coming to rest on her shoulders, where he rubs her up and down to warm her.

“Better?” he asks.

Saoirse nods, not trusting herself to speak.

“Good.” He smiles. Saoirse feels as if she could fall into that smile, but then he’s pushing open the door, one hand on her lower back, and she wants to pinch herself, or else imagine that the hand is Jonathan’s, anything to keep from falling under his spell. “Come on,” he says. “Let’s get inside where it’s really warm.”

To their left is a dining room, LED candles flickering from the tables’ white linen centers. To the right is a lounge packed tightly with high tops. The bar faces the typical row of stools to its front, but is backed against another high counter that’s open to the kitchen. Beyond the bar, a small stage twinkles with lights. At the sight of the microphone, nerves rush through Saoirse’s midsection. Why did the sign have to call out poetry and prose in addition to music, as if Emmit was right and it was some sort of portent? Better yet, why couldn’t the restaurant not have had an open mic at all?

“We could have stumbled on a hell of a lot worse,” Emmit says.

Saoirse murmurs an agreement just as the hostess acknowledges them. “Two?” she asks from behind a menu-strewn counter.

“Please,” Emmit replies.

“Dining room or lounge?”

“Lounge,” Emmit answers enthusiastically. “We want to be close to the open-mic action, should inspiration strike.”

Saoirse starts to protest, but the hostess has picked up menus and is leading them in that direction, saying, “Of course. Right this way.”

No sooner are they settled at a cozy two-top than a waitress appears to take their drink order. Emmit raises an eyebrow at Saoirse. “Shall we split a bottle of wine?”

Saoirse should be arranging a seven-dollar pumpkin on her front stoop and lamenting her decision not to trek home with an armload of mums. Instead, one of the country’s greatest authors is asking her to split a bottle of wine, a man who’s been making a habit of catering to her every whim, and who seems thrilled at the prospect of simply talking with her, of reading at an open-mic night—what Jonathan used to call the writerly equivalent of foreplay—and really getting to know her.

Is that what he’s thrilled by? the voice of her disillusioned, dream-killing husband asks. Or are you being obtuse? I mean, clearly he’s too good to be true. I should know. On top of that, you’re not a drinker. Not since your diagnosis.

One glass of wine won’t kill me, she thinks, then shakes her head to quiet the voice—not Jonathan’s but her own—that reminds her: it might . To Emmit, she says, “Sure. Maybe a pinot noir?”

Emmit chooses one, hands the waitress the wine list, and takes a sip of water from the glass the bus girl has just filled. “I have to admit,” he says when the waitress has walked away. “My brain is reeling.” He checks his watch. “My flight for Baltimore would have taken off in the last twenty minutes.”

Saoirse nods. “I’m right there with you in the ‘reeling brain’ department.”

From across the table, Emmit stares into her eyes, and Saoirse is transported back to the Athen?um, when his penetrating gaze froze her at the top of the stairs like a rabbit in the headlights of a careening semi. She swallows. “It’s nice, though,” she says.

Are you sure about that? Jonathan asks.

“Really nice,” she adds emphatically, hoping to shut her dead husband up.

The waitress appears with the wine, and Emmit gestures to Saoirse’s glass, where the woman pours several ounces of deep-red liquid. Saoirse lifts the glass to her lips, feeling self-conscious. Jonathan had always been the one who determined what and when they would drink. “It’s great,” she says quickly. The waitress fills their glasses. When they’re alone again, Saoirse wraps her fingers around the stem but doesn’t move to take another sip. Emmit lifts his glass and angles it toward her.

“Cheers to meeting someone where they’re at,” he says. “No preconceived notions of significance or hidden meaning. No baggage or expectations.”

“To meeting someone where they’re at,” Saoirse echoes and takes a long, luxuriant pull from her glass, reveling in the tart warmth as it coats her throat and spreads across her insides. It’s been so long since she’s allowed herself this small indulgence.

When she places the glass back on the table, Emmit is staring again. His lips are wet from the wine, and his dark hair hangs over his forehead on one side. He would look so much like Jonathan it would be frightening if not for the interest, the excitement, in his eyes. For the second half of their ten-year marriage, Jonathan looked at Saoirse the way he would someone whose feelings he considered himself unobligated to consider. A maid, or a therapist. Or maybe some sort of kitchen appliance: a mere object that he used to go about his day.

“Do you know what you’re going to order?” she asks, trying to lighten the mood.

Emmit leans across the table. “Who cares what we’re getting to eat. I want to know what you’re going to read up on that stage.”

“That’s easy,” Saoirse laughs. “I’m not reading anything at all.”

Emmit blinks and shakes his head, the left corner of his mouth lifting in that crooked smile she’s coming to know well.

“What about you?” she asks pointedly. “You’ve been blocked too. Are you telling me you’re going to go up there on a wing and a prayer and freestyle something new?”

Emmit leans forward farther, and she’s treated to another flash of his endearingly crooked smile. She wishes the wine wasn’t drawing attention to his perfectly smooth, perfectly full lips.

“Oh, no,” he says matter-of-factly. “I’ll just read a bit of Edgar Allan Poe.”

Saoirse feels the color drain from her face. She never mentioned anything about Poe or Whitman to Emmit at the coffee shop. Not the house she’s moved into or people’s fascination with it; neither did she tell him about stumbling onto the Ath exhibit. But before she can say as much, the waitress is there, asking what they’d like to eat. Emmit nods for Saoirse to go first, and she mumbles out the name of a pasta dish with a side of broccoli rabe. Emmit orders chicken parmigiana.

When the waitress has left them, Saoirse leans into the table so hard, water sloshes over the lip of her glass. “Okay, what the hell is going on? Why did you say Edgar Allan Poe?”

Emmit scrunches his face, and she sees for the first time that there are dimples in his cheeks. There’s also a small cleft in his chin that deepens when he’s thinking ... or confused, as he appears to be now.

“I know it’s weird,” he says. “An established writer reading someone else’s work. We used to do it all the time at the one open mic in Woodsto—” He stops. “In college. Poe’s my go-to for public readings when I don’t have anything original prepared.” Emmit pauses. “In fact,” he adds, “Poe’s sort of my go-to for any challenge in writing. I feel like following an author’s recipe for success to a T—an author whose success has only grown with time—can only benefit a modern writer in establishing their own legacy.” He pauses again, and she knows he’s taking in her flushed skin, the way her hand is shaking ever so slightly as she reaches for her wine. “Is that okay?” he asks. “Have you been personally victimized by ‘The Raven’ or something? What’s wrong?”

Saoirse gulps wine from her glass, medication be damned. The figures of Poe, Jonathan, and Emmit flash through her mind, the spectral wave ebbing and flowing over the course of the séance, covering her ceiling with disembodied features, writhing insects, flickering faces.

“It’s just ... I live in Sarah Helen Whitman’s old house,” she says. “And ever since I moved back to Providence, the number of Poe-themed coincidences I’ve experienced has been uncanny.”

Emmit stares at her, mouth open. “You live at 88 Benefit Street? So, let me get this straight, you moved here from—” He stops. “Where did you move here from?”

“New Jersey.”

“New Jersey, and you moved into what was originally 50 Benefit, then 76, when owned by Sarah’s mother, Anna Power? You live in Sarah Helen Whitman’s house? You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Saoirse laughs a little bitterly, thinking of how this declaration elicited similar disbelief from Roberto, Lucretia, and Mia the night she moved in. “I live at 88 Benefit Street. It was the first fully furnished house that appealed to me when I did a search for rental properties in Providence last spring. If I had known living here would be so interesting to so many people, I would have hit the thumbs-down icon on the goddamn listing!”

Would she have, though? Sure, Poe and Whitman popping up everywhere is beyond strange, but if she hadn’t moved into the old red house overlooking the graveyard, she wouldn’t have met Roberto, Mia, or Lucretia. She wouldn’t have adopted Pluto. And she wouldn’t have been the recipient of the Brown career fair flyer that resulted in Emmit and her running into one another.

Saoirse sighs. “I guess I don’t mean that. The house is gorgeous, and its historical significance is inspiring. It’s just wild how Poe and Whitman are still so intriguing, one hundred and seventy-five years later.”

Emmit lifts the bottle of wine. “Have you read Whitman’s work?”

He refills his glass, then hers. Saoirse’s too distracted by their conversation to stop him. She says, “I hadn’t before a week or so ago. But once several, uh, fans, I guess you could call them, enlightened me as to where I was living, I did a deep dive into her poetry. She was incredibly talented. I love ‘Summer’s Call to the Little Orphan,’ and the satirical verse she composed for a suffragist banquet, ‘Woman’s Sphere.’”

“I’m partial to the valentine she wrote for Poe in 1848, months before she met him, addressed in the character of his famous raven,” Emmit says. He takes three long sips from his glass. They’re going to need a second bottle before the food arrives.

You can’t have any more wine, she chastises herself, and Emmit has to drive back to Providence. Already, her thinking is a little bouncy, as if each thought is a rock in a river, and she’s jumping from one to the next to get across. Still ... it’s nice to let go a little, to not feel imprisoned by her demons, by her depression. She hasn’t seen a single fly since before coming upon Emmit in the grocery store earlier that afternoon.

“Did you say fans clued you in as to where you are living?” Emmit asks, interrupting her reverie. “Let me guess, some kids came to your house after one of the Providence Ghost Tours, asking if they could see where the grand poetess once lived?”

“God, no,” Saoirse exclaims, almost choking on her wine. “At least not yet. I didn’t realize that was a thing that might happen.” She shakes her head, takes another sip. “It was a trio of writers who ...” She decides to tell him about Lucretia, Mia, and Roberto without admitting that they’d functioned as her unexpected welcoming committee. “Well, I guess before I moved in, they had a bit of a history accessing the house without a key. Some weird little trick paneling along the walkout basement. I still need to examine it myself. They stopped by my first night in the house, wanting to meet the new inhabitant. They’re really nice.”

“So nice that they’ve been breaking into your house?” Emmit asks with a smile she can’t quite read.

Saoirse shrugs. “They’re interested in Whitman as a historical figure. And yes, they are nice. A little weird, I suppose, but, hey, aren’t all us writers?”

Emmit’s mouth drops open in mock outrage, and she smacks his arm. “Anyway, Lucretia, Roberto, Mia, and I, we’ve become friends. They’ve been good for me, helping me get out of the house, commit to making plans, stuff like that.”

Emmit frowns. “I didn’t realize you were struggling with that sort of thing,” he says quietly. “No judgment, of course. Believe me, I get it.” He reaches for her hand, stroking it with his thumb, then releases her and clasps his hands together in his lap. “Just be careful, okay. Some writers are weirder than others. I’d hate to see you open up to these people only to find out they’ve been using you.”

Saoirse wants to say that this isn’t Lucretia, with her vegan, gluten-free cupcakes. Neither is it Roberto; though he’d teased her about cleaning the basement stairs, she remembers the genuine concern on his face, his comment that they had to get her back into writing to save her from her depression. Mia was touched when Saoirse agreed to adopt a cat from her favorite rescue, and Saoirse can tell there aren’t too many people with whom Mia shares her time and ideas. Before she can challenge Emmit’s warning, however, their waitress appears with their entrées.

The conversation is abandoned for cutlery and talk of how good the first bites are. So, Saoirse is surprised when, a few minutes later, Emmit reaches across the table and grabs her arm. “I just realized something. You moved into Sarah Whitman’s house after a long bout of writer’s block, and now you’re not only writing again, but writing poetry? And fantastic poetry, at that?”

Saoirse swallows a bite of pasta, trying to ignore the similarities between what Emmit’s said and Lucretia’s words at the shelter earlier that morning. “Who says my poetry is fantastic?”

“I can tell from the earnestness with which you insist you don’t want me to read it.”

As if to punctuate this statement, a woman walks onto the stage. Saoirse looks around to see that every table in the lounge has filled while she and Emmit have been talking and drinking wine.

“Welcome,” the woman says, “to the lounge at Buon Appetito and to our weekly open mic.” The diners cheer politely, though there are a few whoops of more enthusiastic applause. “There’s a sign-up sheet at the hostess station,” the woman continues, “but we usually operate on a ‘jump up and go for it’ kind of policy.”

Emmit nudges her foot under the table. “Since I’m not reading my own work, I’ll queue things up for you.”

“No, you won’t,” Saoirse warns.

He smiles, and that smile stays with her as he makes his way to the stage.

She wants to shout after him, I’ll pour my poems into your ears if you want to hear them, and is immediately shocked by the intensity of this compulsion. Still, the image of it fills her with excitement, giving Emmit Powell all her words, tracing them onto his skin with her tongue.

As if to highlight her descent into madness, Jonathan chimes in from the depths of her skull:

You’ve lost it. The Saoirse of just two days ago would hate you for falling for another man, for any man, so fast.

She doesn’t bother replying. It feels too good to embrace the rush of dopamine, the high of surging norepinephrine. It’s too tempting to believe that, this time, she’s in the right fairy tale. Not one where she’s at the mercy of her opportunistic father or locked in a tower by her ogreish husband. Saoirse catches their waitress’s eye and lifts their empty bottle of wine. Yes, she says with a nod of her head, we would like another .

“Don’t judge me,” she whisper-hisses at Jonathan. Mercifully, he stays silent.

Emmit joins the woman onstage and takes the microphone. “Thank you.” Though he seems to address the crowd, he stares directly at Saoirse. “I’m Emmit Powell, writer-in-residence at Johns Hopkins and a creative writing professor at Brown University. My novel, Vulture Eyes , won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction a few years back. Despite these perceived accolades—and while I’d love the opportunity to regale you all with a little Edgar Allan Poe while you dine—I’m here to introduce”—he gestures in her direction—“Miss Saoirse White.”

A chorus of Nos! and What the hells? sound in Saoirse’s head. Despite his grandstanding, she hadn’t thought he was going to do it. Hadn’t wanted him to do it. But the only thing worse than reading would be to get onstage and not have anything to read, so she fumbles for her cell phone—amazing how much a few glasses of wine after not drinking for so long have affected her—opens her photos app, and navigates to one of the poems she wrote last night.

“Saoirse’s poetry is both moving and disarmingly candid. I know you’ll enjoy listening to her tonight.”

The expression on his face is one she’s never seen before: pride and lust, like some mix of a literary colleague and the stranger from the top floor of the Athen?um ... a stranger who’s becoming less and less unknown to her at every turn. Clearly, he’s just being nice, since he doesn’t know the first thing about her poetry. Nice and wildly presumptuous. Though, despite her anger, doesn’t something else flutter inside her? Excitement? Self-respect at her newfound prowess and prolificacy? More of a thrill at being alive than she’s experienced in years?

There’s no time for further contemplation, however, because Emmit is gesturing for her to join him.

“Please help me welcome her to the stage.”