Halfway to You(3)

MAGGIE: Oh, I thought you were . . . that’s an interesting description. Can you elaborate?

ANN: Have you not read it?

MAGGIE: I have. I’m just easing us in with a few simple sound bites.

ANN: Oh. Well, more literally, the book is about Jane, whose mother goes missing somewhere in Europe. In Jane’s search to find her mother, she meets a handsome stranger who ends up betraying her.

MAGGIE: Spoiler alert.

ANN: Can a book as old as mine be spoiled?

MAGGIE: Fair enough. [Breath.] Some have speculated that the premise of Chasing Shadows was semiautobiographical. Is that true?

ANN: My mother didn’t go missing.

MAGGIE: It’s not a metaphor for a distant relationship?

ANN: All my relationships were distant. I lived halfway across the world.

MAGGIE: By design?

ANN: My personal life is off limits, remember?

MAGGIE: Apologies. I’m just trying to better understand the book.

ANN: It’s fiction.

MAGGIE: I realize that, but—

ANN: Why don’t we switch gears for now?

MAGGIE: Sure. [Papers shuffling.] For someone not on Facebook or Twitter, the news of your new story collection practically broke the internet. Why publish something now, thirty-seven years after the release of your first book?

ANN: That’s personal.

MAGGIE: You can’t expand on—

ANN: I’m happy to discuss the book, but the timing—it’s complicated.

MAGGIE: The write-up in the Post speculated that, like Chasing Shadows, the new collection—called Letters I Should Have Written—is about your mother. Care to comment on— ANN: I encourage readers to take the book at face value, without speculation.

MAGGIE: You have nothing to say about—

ANN: I think you’re forgetting our agreement.

MAGGIE: Excuse me?

ANN: Our agreement: no personal questions.

MAGGIE: I’d hardly say these questions are— ANN: They are.

MAGGIE: One might argue that all writing is personal.

ANN: Do you really want to argue? I was clear in my email.

MAGGIE: What would you like to talk about?

[Pause.]

ANN: You’re right. Maybe this was a bad idea.

MAGGIE: I didn’t mean it like that.

ANN: [Muffled.] I’m terminating the interview.

MAGGIE: Please, I apologize. I’m just looking for a deeper take on your writing.

ANN: I didn’t invite you here for a deeper take.

MAGGIE: Then why am I here?

ANN: To pry, apparently.

[Two voices at once.]

ANN: [Louder.] Look, I know you came all this way, but I don’t think I can continue. I’m sorry to waste your time.

MAGGIE: What if I turned off the recorder?

[—]

“That doesn’t change anything,” Ann says, folding her arms over her chest. Her cobalt shawl billows behind her as she leads Maggie to the front door. “Please go.”

As soon as Maggie steps onto the porch, Ann shuts her out. Shame burns across Maggie’s face as she walks down the garden path toward her car. Frost crusts the gravel drive, sparkling in the morning light. The damp chill cuts through Maggie’s North Face shell, her wool sweater, her skin, muscle, tissue—freezing her cells.

At least the cold might numb the pain of this massive failure.

Sliding into the driver’s seat of her car, Maggie can already hear the disappointment in Grant’s voice. She blew it. She absolutely bombed. It couldn’t have gone worse if she’d tried. As soon as she sat down with Ann and hit record, all her interviewing skills went out the window. Not only was she starstruck, she was mesmerized. Here was a woman Maggie had idolized for years, finally sitting in front of her. She wanted to bombard her with questions, to learn every last juicy detail.

No wonder Ann felt uncomfortable. She could probably smell the desperation on Maggie’s breath.

Seated behind the cracked windshield, Maggie grits her teeth. She should be turning the ignition, driving away, calling Grant. She should be leaving, as Ann asked.

But instead, Maggie feels a slight tug in her chest, a tether to Ann’s home that’s been pulling her here since she left Portland yesterday. A tether that’s been tugging since she was a teenager in Colorado discovering Ann’s novel for the first time. Whether aware of it or not, Maggie has been inexplicably tied to this stranger her whole life, all because of Keith.

No one can cut this cord. Regardless of her mother’s warnings and Ann’s dismissal, going home feels like the last thing Maggie should do. What she wants to do is bang on Ann’s door and plead for a second chance.

She stares up the lavender-edged walkway, past the glistening doilies of spiderwebs strung up in the yard and illuminated by the sun. Her eyes rest heavily on Ann’s front door. She can’t turn back now. She can’t not try. It’s not just the job or Maggie’s fangirl curiosity—some unexplainable voice inside is telling her she was meant to be here. The voice is soul level.

She gets out of the car.

She storms up the path.

This is so unlike timid, mild Maggie. It’s as if her legs move independently of her reason. The tether is tightening now, spooling Maggie closer.

She rings the doorbell. She knocks. She calls out, “Ann, I can’t just walk away. I think we were meant to talk.”