I check for free booze as I inspect the house. A two-thirds-full bottle of rosé wastes away in the fridge’s lower shelf. I twist off the cap and swig it as I search for anything else out of place. The wooden table in the dining room bears a new permanent watermark from the condensation on someone’s glass. No one besides me would notice. The dining table shows so many circular stains from years of coaster-shunning guests that they appear like old knots.
I pass through the living room to the sliding doors at the back of the house. The pool glitters beyond the glass, a blue topaz in a wooden setting. It has always felt like mine, even though my father built it for himself. He’d taken up swimming during a months-long period of sobriety and had decided that he deserved a lap pool. Mom hadn’t wanted it. The money, she’d argued, should go to my college fund. But no one could tell Don Cole how to spend his cash, and his real estate business was doing well at the time.
In retrospect, it’s one of the few arguments that I’m happy she lost. As I take in the scenery, I recall kissing Jack Maley on the deck at thirteen, sunbathing with Christine on summer weekends, an alfresco dinner during which David complimented my mother’s bone structure, aware that she’d become self-conscious since losing her hair.
It was on this very deck that I first fell for David. I can see him now, sitting upright on the lounge chair, hands folded in his lap, impeccably groomed with his Princeton haircut and golf shirt, earnestly telling my mom about his intent to defend people victimized by the system. He’d tried so hard. As if I’d needed any convincing to be with him. I’d decided to sleep with him the moment he’d approached me in the Columbia law library. He’d walked over to the checkout counter, seemingly another handsome prep-school product without a work-study tuition subsidy. But instead of shoving his book across to me as though his parents were personally paying for my English degree, he’d blushed and asked in his soft Texas twang about the novel in my hand. John Gardner’s Grendel. I still remember.
My nostalgia fails to create any warm fuzzy feelings. Instead, I become aware of a gnawing emptiness in my gut, a space demanding to be filled. I swallow the remaining wine and walk back around to the driveway. My navy duffel is in the trunk. The satchel is heavy, stuffed with my clothes for the upcoming conference and assorted marketing materials: pens, bookmarks, folders. I sling the bag over my shoulder and lumber back through the side door, across the house and up the steps into my old room. Taking over the master alone seems wrong. David’s presence grants me permission to use the grown-up spaces.
My old bedroom is stuffy, filled with hot air that has floated through the floorboards. Breathing is difficult. I squeeze around the bed and turn the painted white knob locking the window. The shutters open inward, revealing the twinkling water beyond. My body relaxes as I inhale the fresh air. I’ve always felt more at home outside this house.
A buzzing interrupts my moment of Zen. I unzip the front compartment of my bag and grab the source. Trevor’s name lights up the cell’s screen. It’s unlike him to reach out so soon after a meeting. Is he trying to renegotiate our agreement?
I can’t take another confrontation after the one with David. Best to let him leave a message. I’ll call back after I tell my husband about Sergeant Perez and am feeling better.
As I return the phone to the bag, my thumb hits the accept button. “Hello, Liza?” I fumble with the handset and attempt a breezy I-wasn’t-trying-to-forward-you-to-voice-mail greeting.
“How are you?” He sounds like he wants to know, not as though he’s making polite conversation before reneging on a handshake agreement, but the British accent impairs my judgment. Everything Trevor says in his deep-throated London singsong sounds either frank or sexy. Hollywood’s fault. The Queen’s English is the sole language of the upper crust, spies, and suave car thieves.
“I’m okay. What’s up?”
“Marketing would like to know when everyone is getting in and out of the conference.”
I’ve been holding my breath. I release it with a long sigh. The emptying of my lungs restores the buzz that I’d been working on moments earlier. “Courtney e-mailed me the flight itinerary a few weeks ago. I can forward the message.”
“That’d be great. Normally, I’d ask her, but she’s out today.”
“Give me a minute.” I rifle through my bag for my laptop, feeling suddenly resentful that the couple days I have not to think about the conference are in fact being taken up by the conference. I’m dreading this trip. Conferences are fun for the famous—authors sure to win an award or who have sold so many books that such things don’t matter. Those of us on the midlist must spend the whole time hustling, trying to gain the attention of more successful scribes and the few book enthusiasts who bother to attend.
My computer hides beneath a weekend’s worth of folded clothes. I pull it out and open my e-mail. The itinerary is in my in-box along with half a dozen messages from me to myself containing attachments of my latest manuscript.
I click on the flight info. “Looks like Sunday morning, arrival 11:10 AM.”
“I’m in then too. How will you come from the airport?”
“Guessing a cab. To be honest, I haven’t decided.” I’m tempted to add that I’ve been busy thinking about Beth’s character arc and writing, but I don’t.
“We can share a taxi to the hotel. You’re booked in the block at the Sheraton, right?”
“That’d be great.” My high pitch rings false. There was a time when I’d take Trevor’s offer as nothing more than a favor for a friend and colleague. But since my so-so streak of novels post–Drowned Secrets and my downright disappointing last book, I wonder whether he wants to break some bad news in person. I grip the bed’s worn coverlet and muster the courage to ask a direct question. “Trev, if there is something you want to tell me, I’d rather know beforehand—”
“No. Nothing. Liza, you really worry too much.”
“Expect the worst and you won’t be surprised.”
Trevor chuckles. “Suspense writers.” I can picture him shaking his head. “Speaking of suspense, how is the work coming?”
My hold loosens on the bedspread. “Okay, I think.”
“Did you give any more thought to what I’d said about the—”
“Shrink?”
“Well, at least adding some psychological tension to the romantic scenes.”
I mimic his accent. “You worry too much, love. I promise to have some proper naughty bits in the shagging scenes. Everything will be tickety-boo.” As soon as the words escape, I realize that my mockery could be considered rude rather than “cheeky.” The wine is blurring the difference.
Trevor laughs. “I don’t say ‘tickety-boo.’ Otherwise, not bad.”
I exhale in relief. Pissing off your editor is never a good idea. “But not great?”
“You require practice. It’s good that we have this conference ahead of us. A few drinks in . . .” He makes a clicking noise with his tongue. “I might break out the cockney.”
“Oh. I’d love that.”
“I bet.”
Are we flirting, or is the wine making me imagine things?
“All right,” Trevor says. “I’ll let you get back to it. Looking forward to the conference.”
Suddenly, so am I.
*
The house has nothing to eat. After writing for an hour, my stomach announces this fact with all the subtlety of a whoopee cushion. I head out to the car at twilight, intent on hitting up the market down the main road before it gets too dark to drive without my distance glasses. While stopped at a red light, I shoot Christine a text that I’m headed to Blue Horse Grocery. As the store only exists in Montauk, the short message serves as an announcement that I’m in town and an invitation. Chris doesn’t need me to ask her to dinner.