My adviser at the Faunce Institute asked me if I’d like to return to America, and I told her that I was fine staying in London. That if there was a memorial service I would probably go back for that, but that, despite the trauma, I was happy in London and happy in the program. It was the truth—I loved my basement flat in Maida Vale, and I loved that Addison, since the incident, was almost never there. I had never thought of myself as a city person, preferring the quiet of Connecticut to the oppressive humanity of New York City, but residential London was different. There was something calming about its long rows of flats, its leafiness, its anonymous, polite bustle. The streets near where I lived were so quiet that birdsong was more common than the sound of humans. I was happy when I heard via e-mail that the Washburns had decided on a private family funeral, and that there would be a larger memorial service planned for sometime in the future. I planned on attending. For one, it would look strange if I didn’t, but I also wanted to see if Faith showed up, and if she did, what her reaction to me would be. I still wondered if she had willingly conspired with Eric to cheat on me during the summer, or if she was a fellow victim of his duplicity. It was something I intended to find out.
A month and a half after Eric’s death, I took a different route from the Tube station back to my flat and walked past the Bottle and Glass. It was a cold, dark evening, and the windows of the pub brimmed with soft light and the outlines of after-work drinkers. I had not been in since the day Eric died. I pushed through the doors into the crowded space, filled up with the murmur of low English voices. I ordered a pint of Guinness at the bar and took my glass over to the wall that explained the rules and regulations of the beer challenge. Nothing had changed, and I wondered if the friendly constable had ever popped around to talk with the pub owners about changing the challenge. If he had, they hadn’t listened to him. Next to the rules was a large wooden board, filled with embossed name plates, the mostly male names of those who had completed the challenge. I went to the end of the list. Eric Washburn was the second-to-last name. There was also a bulletin board, covered with tacked-on Polaroid photographs. All the snapshots looked the same—pale, bleary-eyed men holding aloft an empty pint glass. I found Eric’s picture in the upper-right-hand corner. He held his head slightly back at an angle, and his eyes were bright with what I recognized as pride. He was still a little tan from the summer, and with his head cocked back, his girlish beautiful eyelashes were even more apparent. I thought of taking the photograph for myself but decided against it. It belonged here. A testament.
Finishing my Guinness, I thought that my career as a murderer was over. Not because I had lost the stomach for it, but because there would never be the need. I would never allow anyone to get that close to me again, to hurt me in the way that Eric had. I was a grown woman now. I had survived the vulnerability of childhood, and the danger of first love. There was comfort in knowing that I would never be in either of those positions again, that, from now on, I would be the only person responsible for my own happiness.
I walked back that night to my empty flat, made myself a simple dinner, then settled into my favorite chair to read.
A long, uncomplicated life stretched out before me.
CHAPTER 15
TED
I backed into the foyer, my eyes on the gun in Brad’s hand.
“What the fuck?” I said, and glanced at his face. He didn’t look well, his normally ruddy complexion gray, and his neck muscles taut. He was wearing a jean jacket with a sheepskin lining and there was a sheen of sweat across his forehead. He seemed drunk.
“Nice place you got here,” he said, and the words came out in a strange rhythm, as though he’d rehearsed them.
“Can I show you around, Brad? Can I get you a drink?”
His brow lowered, as though my words had confused him. “Yeah, a lot nicer than my temporary little shithole, right? This is where a real man lives, right?”
A memory flashed through me. The night that Brad and I were drinking. Me saying something about where Brad lived. A hateful look on his face. And suddenly I knew that Brad was here to kill me, and instead of panicking, I became calm and rational, my mind in overdrive. I knew I could talk him out of this. I knew that I was smarter than he was.
“Seriously, Brad, what are you doing with that gun?”
“What do you think I’m doing?” he said, and raised it so that it was pointed at my head. Everything in the room disappeared except that gun.