Epilogue

EPILOGUE

7 December 2023, 7:30 p.m.

It is such a long way down. I step toward the balcony's edge. There are hundreds of them packed into the bookshop; the hum and the heat of their bodies pressed close, the clatter of their voices rising up to meet me. My fingers trace where Nate's once were, gripping the mahogany handrail, seeking comfort in its cool worn surface.

Those words float back to me from that evening, words that we wrote together.

No one can really bear the truth that every minute of our life hangs by a thread. However much we think we can script our own existence and try to ensure nothing bad can ever happen to us, it does and it will.

How I labored over those lines, how prophetic they turned out to be. But even the worst outcomes can turn out well in the end, given the right spin and a little imagination.

Now it is my own editor, Tash, who stands up, taps a pen against her wineglass until the clamor subsides. Tash is older than Priya, less driven, more of a listener. I warmed to her as soon as we met, with her elegant mane of silver hair and wise olive green eyes. She has my best interests at heart. I look out at the sea of animated faces, mainly female, below. I speak softly, like Nate, so people crane to listen.

"Thank you so much. First, I want to say I couldn't have done all this without my fantastic editor, Tash, who encouraged me to write something for myself. Kath too, who has been an invaluable consultant on the book. As you may know I started out in publishing as a ghostwriter two years ago and although that memoir was successful, it only really told part of her story. But it did teach me one thing. I needed to write a different sort of ending—for both of us.

"In All About You , I wanted to tell Eva's story in a new way, to explore how she paid the ultimate price for a life without pain. I always saw her as the ultimate unknowable woman, cool, elusive, unattainable. She was what someone like me could never be. Yet in coming closer to Eva, I discovered a rare vulnerability. She yearned to empathize with others, to feel whatever they felt and, I think, in the end, she really did. It is in the spirit of Eva's desire to understand that I wrote this book. Let's raise a glass to her."

There are cheers and clapping while Tash tells guests I'll be signing copies on the floor below. I walk down the wrought iron staircase just as Nate did a year ago. These days I try not to think about him and that final evening, but it's more difficult coming back here. In the months that followed, I would wake up haunted by horrific images replaying in my mind. In quiet moments, it's been a struggle to make peace with what happened and how it all ended, but I've come to realize there is no other way.

I jump when Tash touches my shoulder, her smile is rich and warm and reassuring. So unlike Priya's. She's as thrilled as I am that the book is already tipped to be a bestseller.

Tash hands me a glass of champagne, my first in many weeks, and I figure I deserve it. She tells me that our Spanish publisher can't wait to meet me and after that she'll introduce me to the publicity team from New York. But first I must sign my books.

A long queue curls its way through to the back of the shop. Usually, I can't help reflexively scanning the crowd, looking for the one face I'll never see. But this time I focus only on the blank page and the repetitive task of each signature. It is only when there's a slight lull that unthinkingly I look up. It is the line of shoulders I notice first, not exactly in the queue but standing to the side with his back to me. The nape of his neck and the short hair that's more silvered than I remember.

But when I look again, he's not there. I was imagining it after all. It has happened before, this shadow circling and prickling at the edge of my vision, and I wonder if through sheer force of will I conjure him into being. He's vanished again and something in me deflates, a chasm deep inside yawns open.

The queue tapers and a woman steps forward, beaming, hands me a copy of the book. She is animated, taking up space with the details of her life that at this moment are of no real interest to me. Depression. Divorce. Redundancy. Triumph over tragedy. I should engage but I'm a million miles away. I watch her lips move, words pouring out that register only as white noise. Smile and nod, smile and nod. My face is flushed, my breathing shallow. What I would give for her to finally shut up. Every cell of my being is drawn to what I know can't be there.

"I'm so glad that at last you've found some resolution," I say, managing a smile. She thanks me, catches my eye as she leaves. But I'm elsewhere, fixated on a flicker that settles into an outline, no longer just my imagination. There is the pure rush of the moment, the lurch in my chest as I try to focus only on steadying my hand to sign each book.

He waits patiently for his turn and when at last we're face-to-face, he doesn't smile. Neither do I. We say nothing and instead he frowns a little to himself, an intensely solemn expression so deeply familiar to me, and offers up the open book. I take it and begin to write:

To my partner in crime.

Love always,

Anna