Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5

His foot nudged mine from the other side of my sofa. How’s it going? I tucked my feet under myself and groaned. Not well. He smiled as if he had expected me to react like that.

We had been spending regular nights like this at mine, with our laptops and a bottle of wine. We didn’t go out much anymore, but it was nice, I reasoned; we had skipped to the part where we were a proper couple at home. Only, as Ruth pointed out, we still hadn’t defined the relationship and we didn’t live together.

He typed rapidly, with reading glasses and deep concentration lines, but I couldn’t write with him—not that I could write without him, but having him here dominated my thoughts. I was always on high alert, like I was afraid to concentrate on something that wasn’t him. Last week, I had read him a section of my novel, and he had listened and nodded and told me to just keep writing. You can’t call yourself a writer when all you do is stare at a blank page, Enola. I joked that the blank page was my favorite, and he had said that made me a fantasist, not a writer.

When did you know you wanted to be a writer?

After I read Catch-22 , he answered without thinking.

He didn’t ask for my answer, but when I was seven, Dad bought me a book of ghost stories. One story was about a girl who found her room full of dust. She cleaned, but the next morning it returned, thicker. This happened again and again until, finally, she left. The first morning that she wasn’t there, a truck plowed through the wall and smashed where she would have been sleeping to pieces. The dust had been a warning. I asked Dad who put the dust there, and he shrugged and said: The writer? That was the part of the answer I wouldn’t have shared. The fact that it was about control. The school therapist had encouraged me to write whenever I felt powerless. If she had suggested I pick up the bassoon, maybe I’d still be pursuing that.

Are you insisting on a prologue? he asked.

After I had read him a section of mine, he had read me a section of his, and it was everything I knew it would be. Sardonic and intelligent and warm. Every word belonged to him. He wasn’t trying to be a writer. He was one. And I was just writing to stop a truck from smashing through my bedroom wall.

I nodded, and he looked up. Why? he said. You’re not writing a thriller. I answered that there were thriller elements, and his face crinkled. What does that mean, thriller elements ? It’s pretentious. Focus on the story.

I explained that I wanted to write something with a dark female voice, and he stretched his neck as if he was preparing for a fight. Honey, why do you talk like your gender is separate? You are female; anything you write will have a female voice. You have to be honest, or the reader will see through you.

I asked if he meant that people should only write about things they have personally experienced.

I didn’t say truthful , I said honest .

Is there a difference?

Yes.

I sighed, and he softened. Enola, he said, you’re a good writer, much better than Amy or Chris. You could write something great. But it has to come from you. You’re wasting time. And I say that as someone who spent their twenties wasting time.

Didn’t those experiences help your writing?

Sure, but I’m thirty-five and there are people making debuts at twenty-two.

It bothered me that he insulted people from the group. I hadn’t been back since we met, partly because I was afraid that he would make fun of me.

You know, you can compliment me without insulting my friends, I said.

I could, but what’s a compliment without relativity?

He continued typing like he was writing the next great masterpiece, and I pressed “Control-A” and changed my font to Garamond.

There, he said, holding up his laptop like a trophy. Fuck, I get so much work done at yours, honey.

I looked at my work, unchanged apart from the font.

I keep hearing of all this crap being published and I know that my book will have an impact. I mean, all those guys from your writing group, none of those books will get published, let alone get agents—

Well, Amy’s is.

Is what?

Amy’s first book, I’m sure I told you? The one about the detective and the serial killer that turn out to be twins? It’s getting published next year. She has a deal—a big one. You didn’t know? It’s the 2015 lead debut for—

His face clouded over. Why are you telling me that now?

I don’t know. Because it’s true.

No, it’s because I pissed you off and rather than tell me I pissed you off you’re being passive-aggressive.

He removed his reading glasses and started rubbing his eyes.

I told him that I hadn’t meant anything by it, but that he shouldn’t feel threatened. Amy was just further along. She has an agent and has been on submission before.

He slammed his laptop down. You know why? Because of her—how did you put it?— dark female voice . I opened my mouth, but he pounced: Don’t defend her, Enola. She’s written about a female killer and a female detective. It’s the “thing” at the moment. What’s it called?

I don’t remember…

Enola, come on. What’s the book called?

It’s called The Dark Side of the Coin .

Fuck off.

He reached for his glass, but it was empty, so he finished the wine in mine and then left. I assumed that he’d gone to the bathroom, but then the front door opened and closed. Minutes passed, and I started to feel uneasy, like I might never see him again.

Why had I told him about Amy? Because I wanted to hurt him? Because it was a normal thing to tell someone? Because I wanted him to know everything that I knew: my favorite color, Ruth’s middle name, how I liked my tea?

I went to the front door. My keys were gone from the monstera tray, which meant that he was coming back. I waited until the handle was pushed down and then ran back to the sofa like I had never moved.

He started explaining straight away: Look, I’ve just been working on this book for fucking ages, and when I finish it, I’m going to be told by every agent that it’s great but it’s not what they’re looking for. And then I’ll watch while every Gen-Z with a laptop gets handed a six-figure deal. Celebrity memoirs. Fuck , don’t get me started on celebrity memoirs.

Gary Neville? I joked softly.

He smiled at my joke and rested his head on my shoulder; his hair smelled like cigarettes and rain. Enola, he said. I know I can be a fucking nightmare. You wouldn’t be the first girl to say that. But you don’t understand how stressful it is. He lifted his face and his eyes looked heavy. I didn’t know anything about the other girls he had been with, but I wanted to be different. If they found him a nightmare, then I would understand him.

Listen to me, I said. You are the most amazing, talented, funny, honest man I’ve ever met. Agents are going to jump to sign you when you’re ready to query.

He told me that I hadn’t read his book. I told him that I had read enough. He told me that I hadn’t even read three chapters. I told him that I knew him . Then he asked me to hold out my hand and placed a chocolate egg in my palm. Let’s go on holiday after Christmas, he said.

I looked down at the egg and then up at him.

I really need a fucking holiday. And look, I know it’s early days but I’m pretty confident I’ll still want you to be my girlfriend. If you still want me?

Girlfriend.

The word ran through my body. I wanted to squeal and kiss him and tell him how happy I was to be his girlfriend. I wanted to call him my boyfriend and tease him about being too old for that word. But I couldn’t let him think that mattered, so I hummed to tease, to lighten, to minimize that which I felt profoundly, and said: I’ll still want you to be my boyfriend. The word tumbled awkwardly off my tongue, but he smiled when he caught it. He kissed my cheeks, my neck, my lips, and I was coming up from a drug.

Later, we had sex like a couple who just had their first fight: without foreplay. After, I asked him what he was thinking, and he said that he wasn’t thinking anything, he was just happy. I told him that I was happy too. And I was. But it was a different kind of happiness, the kind that made me question if I had ever been happy before. And it meant more, I thought, that we were people to whom happiness didn’t come easily.