“Helena?” Mark is standing now, looking at me with an expectant air. Now that he’s here, we should knock out some work. There is still an outline to do, rewrites to complete, plus the awkward act of depositing him into his truck and nudging him in the general direction of the New London airport.
My stomach picks that unfortunate moment to growl. I look down at it and weigh the idea in my head. “Okay,” I concede. “But just a quick lunch.”
He’s barely had this truck, yet it already smells of male. It’s been so long since I’ve been so close to a man, so long since I spent this much time with anyone, other than Kate. And Kate knows my limits, she doesn’t press my buttons, and she understands her place. This man is different. He will be a bulldozer, one who slowly grinds over my carcass and then backs up to complete the job.
“What do you feel like eating?” Mark shifts the truck into drive, the lurch of the cab causing me to grab at the door, the other hand tightening on my seatbelt. He doesn’t look over, his eyes on the road, his voice calm.
“Thai.” It’s an easy answer, a food I have been craving for years. In the Life After, I eat at home, an easy way to avoid an Approach: the sympathetic and slow shuffle of a stranger, their hands reaching forward for a handshake or hug, an overwhelming need to say something to the widow of Simon Parks. You’d think that, four years later, locals would have forgotten, but they haven’t. That’s the problem with a small town and a beloved teacher. Anything tragic sticks in their history books. I need an action and reach forward, opening the glove box, finding and pulling out a vehicle rental contract.
“Mark Fortune.” I read, settling back in the bench seat, and tucking one foot under my thigh. “Sounds like a porn star.”
“Helena Ross sounds like a librarian.”
“Ehh…” my voice drifts off, my life comprised of little more than books and regret. “That shoe kinda fits.” I read further. “So, Mr. Fortune, you’re from Memphis.” I eye the top of the contract, one dated yesterday. He stayed the night. In this little town just off the Sound, where no one but soldiers and college students live, the wee bit of locals a hodgepodge of whaling descendants and nosy families.
“Yep. Born and bred.” He stops at the exit of my neighborhood. “Right or left?”
“Left. What’s Memphis like?”
“It’s nice. I have a ranch on the outskirts. My daughter goes to Ole Miss, so it’s close.”
His daughter. I shift in the seat, remembering that painful fact. “She’s a freshman?”
“Yep.” He turns to me, the corner of his mouth lifting ruefully. “The house is a little empty with her gone.”
My bad luck continues. A year earlier, and his callused life would have been busy with teenager drama and prom fittings. He certainly wouldn’t be sticking around, sucking up my days with dining and conversation and other time-wasting events. He reaches forward and flips on the radio, a country song softly rolling out from the speakers. I return to the contract.
“This thing is eighty bucks a day?” A bump in the road jostles the contract and I look up. “Turn left. You should have gotten insurance.”
“Insurance is a rip-off.” He seems unworried, steering the wheel with only one hand, his eye contact with me unnecessary given our high rate of speed.
I distract myself with the page, my stomach twisting when I get to the extension of the rental. “This contract is for a month.” I shove the pages in his direction.
“I figured I’d stick around.” There is a spot of traffic ahead and he lifts his foot off the gas, his calmness growing more frustrating by the second.
“I don’t want you to stick around.” I mean it, but the words come out flat, as if I’m having second thoughts. I’m not. I want my empty house back. I want my rules and full control over every aspect of my environment. I want something that, two weeks ago, my prognosis stole from me. Once Mark starts writing, I’ll be at the mercy of his pen. Can I tell him my story? Can I give him my heart and trust him with it?
We come to a red light and he turns his eyes from the road to mine. “I won’t get in your way. Just give me a little bit of time each day, and we can knock this out. Two hours a day, whenever you want. In a month, this could be on its way to the publisher.”
An entire book, written in just a month. He could do that? It sounds like heaven, to have everything off my chest in that length of time. It also sounds like hell, to go through all of that pain, that quickly, with a stranger.
I look away from his eyes and pull on the top of the seatbelt, my chest suddenly tight. “I don’t really work well with others. Literally and figuratively speaking. Plus…” I hesitate, unsure whether to mention the elephant sitting between us. “You and I don’t have a history of getting along.”
“You’re referring to the emails.” He tosses out our history as if it’s minor, a cutesy squabble between friends.
“Yes.”
“I thought we got over that.”
Did he? He thought that all of these years, all of these hateful words… had they not meant anything to him? Maybe the issue is that he knew. He knew, for all these years, that he wasn’t Marka Vantly, that it wasn’t a gorgeously annoying supermodel who was showing me up on bestseller lists, and outselling my print runs. He knew, and probably guffawed his way to the bank, and found me and all of my snide remarks amusing. My face flares with embarrassment, and I’ve never felt so stupid. “Stop the truck.”
“What?” He glances over, his foot not moving from the gas pedal, the truck still humming along at a pace that will surely kill me. “What are you talking about?”
“I don’t want to ride with you.” And I don’t want to write with him either. How could I? Everything I knew about him is false. “You’re a liar.”
“A liar?” He finally slows, pulling the truck to the side of the road, the vehicle bumping over a curb and coming to a stop on the shoulder, so close to the guardrail it almost kisses it. I reach down, fumble for the handle, and crack the door open, the guardrail in the way, preventing it from opening. I feel claustrophobia swell and think of the safe room, the locked steel, being trapped. “Helena.”
I turn to him. “I’m stuck. Pull up and give me more room.”
“We’re on the side of a highway. I’m not letting you walk down it in this traffic.”
I close my eyes, slow my breathing, and try to think of a giant meadow, of wind, of open space. “Then pull forward. Start driving. NOW.”
I don’t open my eyes but I feel the truck lurch forward, the ease of the seatbelt as it loosens, and I relax, reaching forward and hitting the window control, welcoming the burst of fresh air.
“How am I a liar?”
He’s either an idiot or obtuse, and I’d place a bet on either. “You’re a man.”
“Yes.” He turns his head, one hand loose atop the steering wheel, and I glance nervously down the road. “And that bothers you?”
I shift in my seat, trying to formulate an explanation that I haven’t yet worked through myself. In some ways, I’m happy—overwhelmingly so—that he looks the way he does. I’d been intimidated by Marka’s perfection, her pouty lips and sex appeal. When you combined that with her writing, her sales, her following… it had been unfair, had pissed me off, put our relationship on uneven footing that had always left me the loser. Now, that intimidation factor was gone, the competition diluted, my vision of her gone.
Still, I knew how to battle with her. With a man, with HIM, everything is different. He smiles when I would have expected her to jab. He chuckles when she would have sneered. His eyes soften, are dipped in compassion and understanding—qualities I hadn’t expected her to possess.
In this fight, I don’t even know where to stand. I swallow. “You should have told me the truth.”
“I’m sorry about that,” he sighs, and he actually sounds sincere. It must be a cowboy thing, the a
bility to drag words along the ground and kick up emotional dust. “I’m not in the habit of telling anyone. My daughter and my agent. That’s all who know.” He leans forward, turning down the air conditioner. “Well, and now you.”
“And Kate.” I add quietly, and cracks form along the ridge of my anger. I, more than anyone, understand secrets. I understand how one person, one whisper of truth, can crumble empires, destroy lives, reveal monsters.
There was a day that I was a monster. And this man… he will soon have to carry that truth, hold that secret, guard that pit.
Maybe it isn’t a bad thing he’s kept this façade for so long. The man can keep his mouth shut. It’s a tool that will, in the next few months, come in handy.
I look out the window, and feel some of my hate fade.
“It won’t be that bad.” He puts on his turn signal and merges into a space between two cars that an elephant would find tight. “I talk less when I write. It can only be an improvement to this.” He gestures in the open space of the cab, and I smile despite myself. This: (a noun) the awkward exchange of words between two opposites.
He turns right, and I watch a jogger stop, bouncing up and down in place, her eyes meeting mine through the window. “I can’t even picture you writing,” I admit. The thought of this man hunched over a laptop is amusing. He probably pecks at the keys with his pointer fingers. He probably double spaces the start of each sentence and forgets to save his work.
“It’s a very masculine endeavor. A lot of grunting and flexing.”
I laugh, the sound barking out of me, and I lift my hand to my mouth to cover the slip. “You’re not going to take this seriously.”
“It sounds like a dark book, Helena. You’re going to need some comic relief at some point.”
I turn to look at him, and his eyes are soft, the kindness in them clear. It’s cute that he thinks he can handle this, that he can take in my sad story and create a novel from it. But all he knows is that I lost my family. He doesn’t understand how.
And it’s the how that is the most twisted piece of it all.
We end up at a Taco Bell drive-through, the Thai restaurant closed, a sudden yearn for chalupas rearing its head. There is a storm coming, the air electric with anticipation, the sky dark enough to be dusk. We head back to my house, racing the rain, his foot heavier on the gas, my eyes watching the clouds. He holds his hand out toward the takeout bag.
“Pass me a taco.”
I tighten my grip on the bag. “Not in the car.” If I had a rule book handy, I’d outlaw drinking, eating, and talking in the car. I’d insist that only eighties music be played, nix any air fresheners, and require absolute control over the car’s climate.
“I’m a grown man. If I want a taco I just paid for, in my truck, I can have one.” He shakes his hand and I scrunch up my face, digging in the bag and unwrapping one of the six tacos he’d ordered. Six. Who needs six tacos?
“Here.” I shove it into his hand and look away, closing my eyes briefly at the crunch made when his jaws close around the hard shell. There will be bits of cheese everywhere, strings of lettuce falling into the floorboard, his hand one dirty mop that will touch the steering wheel, gearshift, and door. In my purse are hand wipes, and if he thinks he’s stepping into my house without a thorough wipe-down, he’s crazy.
He puts on his turn signal and makes the turn without me telling him, his sense of direction better than mine. I used to constantly get lost. I once drove to a meeting in New York and ended up in Princeton. It was a lack of focus issue, my mind wandering through the pieces of my latest work-in-progress, miles and important turns slipping by unnoticed. Now, there are probably apps that keep you on the road, constant reminders of upcoming actions, a way to easily see where you are in your journey. But back Before, all I had were maps, ones with directions scribbled in the margins, my chances slim of getting anywhere on time. Simon always drove, his hand occasionally leaving the steering wheel to reach over and touch my knee, the weight of his palm comforting, his smile at me shy, as if I might push his hand away.
“Are you married?” The question is a hollow attempt to push away the memories, Simon’s eyes, and the curl of his fingers around my bare knee.
“No.”
I recognize it immediately, the clip of words, the tightening of his shoulders. I don’t want to think about the past, he doesn’t want to talk about his present. It’s too bad for him, because he isn’t allowed to cut my head open and then protect his own. “Why not?”
“I was married. She passed away.”
I suddenly understand the look I’d seen in his eyes, the haunt of grief that hugged the edges of his smile. No wonder I feel a kinship with him. We’ve both lost someone, his pain still as raw as my own. I look away. “How’d she die?”
“Cancer.”
Go figure. I sigh. “That’s encouraging.”
“Sorry. It’s a popular disease.”
“You could have been more creative with it.” I risk a glance at him. “Told me that she got trampled by elephants while on safari.”
“Fine. It was a band of cannibals. They broke in and feasted on her. I barely escaped with my life.”
“Oh my God…” I try and swallow a smile. “Please tell me that she passed ages ago, so that this isn’t terribly painful and rude.”
“Three years ago. But conversation with you seems to lean toward painful and rude anyway.” He finishes his taco and I watch as he crumples the wrapper into a ball and tosses it into the floorboard. I wouldn’t have thought that littering in a vehicle needs a rule, but it obviously does.
“I’m sorry about your wife.”
“Thank you.”
There is silence, and against the windshield, the first drop of rain hits. I watch it, then a second, then there are a hundred blurry dots across the smooth surface, his hand reaching up to start the wipers.
“Have you outlined anything yet?” He has to speak up over the rain, and I turn to him.
“No. I will this afternoon.”
“I won’t need a lot, just an idea of what is next.”
“Have you worked off an outline before?”
“No.” He grins at me sheepishly, like it’s any confession whatsoever. I could have told you that five chapters into any of his books. His writing lacks the organized structure that comes from an outline. It wanders in places where he should be concise. He has plot threads that sometimes dangle, as if he’d planned to go one route, then unexpectedly switched courses.
I’ve told him this, of course. I have criticized his sloppy execution in plenty of emails—dozens of them. They haven’t made any difference in his work, my criticisms ignored, his own path consistently and stubbornly retread, book after book, like a broken record played by a deaf DJ.
“You’ll have to learn to work off an outline.” He may push every rule I set, but this is non-negotiable. If he can’t stick to the path I give him, it won’t work.
“I’ll be fine.” We are on my road now, passing homes of people I used to know, of children Bethany once played with. He turns into the driveway and parks.
I didn’t realize I was lonely until I met him, until he fused himself into my life so completely that there wasn’t Helena and Simon, but only US.
And once I got used to US, I didn’t want to be alone any more.
The rain fills our silence, hammering against the kitchen’s window. It took twenty minutes to eat. Ten more to organize ourselves and devise a system. Now, two hours later, and neither the rain, nor our hands, pause for breath. I outline a chapter, write the first paragraph, and pass the page over. He picks it up, reads it over a few times, and begins to write. I was correct. He is fast. Not just his writing, but the execution of it. I had envisioned a hen-peck-typist—but he surprises me, his prowess that of the 100 wpm variety. I listen to him go and my fingers ache from just the sound of it.
/>
We are still in romantic country, and he jumps in where my first four chapters left off, finishing the story of my first year with Simon—the giggling, happy girl that I became in his presence—the way my virtue crumbled with something as simple as flowers. I was so young back then, so inexperienced in love and courtship. Simon took me to the movies, and I bought my own popcorn. He interrupted my sentences and I ate up his words. When his hand snaked up my shirt, I let it. When he pushed my palm to his zipper, I obeyed.
I fell in love impossibly early, just months into our relationship. I thought it was cute how Simon would drink too much and hang all over me. I felt sexy when he pushed me against a tree in the darkness of the park. I told him about my books, and he listened. I cooked dinner for him, and beamed when he ate it.
He wasn’t all bad, and I wasn’t all naive. In between the idiocy, there were a few moments of sweet young love. In between the lies and the secrets—especially in the beginning—we did love each other. At least, I loved him. Fiercely. Blindly. Stupidly.
“You think he didn’t love you?” Mark speaks and I look over at him. I’ve almost forgotten that he is here, my mind and my mouth running away with me, spurred on by the wine, the bottle now half empty before me. I haven’t had alcohol in years. I forgot how weak it makes my throat. How much it opens my heart. I stopped drinking because it made me feel too much. I stopped drinking because I was worried, after pouring a glass, what I might say, what might slip out. A stupid fear for a woman with no friends, no drinking buddies, no social media accounts to corrupt.
“You think he didn’t love you?” I hadn’t said that exactly, but I understand where Mark gets it. Half of the time, I convince myself that Simon didn’t love me—that he was married to our big house and the lonely girl that worshipped his words and overlooked his faults. But I think he did. Early on, I think he fell just as hard for me as I fell for him. I tell Mark and he nods, as if unsurprised, as if there is anything likable in my emaciated frame and bitter words.