The Roughest Draft(12)
His face hasn’t changed, incomprehension and humor playing a discordant duet. “I don’t care what people say. Whether you and he had a fling in the past, it’s not for me to object to. We weren’t together. As for this book, I trust you,” he says reassuringly.
The floor feels firmer under me. If this wasn’t the reaction I wanted, why not? He’s being mature, non-territorial, respectful of my professional relationships and romantic history.
“Besides,” he continues, “I understand writing a book with someone is intense.”
His eyes have an indicative flicker. I’m not following.
“You two will share a lot.” He speaks slowly, deliberately. “I don’t . . . have a problem with that. You’ll do what you have to do. Finishing the book is what’s important.”
What was indicative in his eyes has hardened into meaning. In one dizzying moment, I understand what he’s implying. I was giving him credit moments ago, admiring his reserve and respect for me. It’s a little less laudable, him not minding if I have an affair in the name of writing one more goddamn novel.
I almost want to question him on it, clarify he wouldn’t actually “not have a problem” if I fucked Nathan Van Huysen. But I think I wouldn’t like the answer.
He kisses me once more, which I hollowly reciprocate, and gets up. From the door he grins, clearly not noticing how dazed I am.
“Hey, over dinner,” he says, “why don’t you show me some of those wedding venues?”
I hardly process the invitation, one I would have welcomed enthusiastically yesterday or this morning or whenever. Not now.
I nod, wanting to cry. I wonder if being cheated on feels like being given license to cheat. Chris smiles once more, noticing none of this, then shuts the door behind him.
Mechanically, I cross the room. I pick up the bookstore bag and pull out the copy of Refraction, watching my fingers run over the raised lettering of Nathan’s name.
Then I open the back flap, where I find his author photo. It’s not the one from Only Once, and he’s visibly three years older. The changes are subtle, but I take in every one of them. The narrowing of his face, the definition of the edges and angles, the reservation in his eyes.
He’s looking into the camera. Looking right at me. It’s the expression I’ve seen a hundred times, when he’s listening to my ideas, drawing them in, improving them.
I close the cover and walk over to the boxes of books in the closet, where I place the new purchase on top of the copy of Refraction I already owned.
6
Nathan
It’s minutes until the conference call, and I’m expecting an email from Jen informing me Katrina’s called the whole thing off. Of course, I’ve been expecting that email for the past two days. The morning after I met with Jen, while I walked through LaGuardia to my gate, she wrote me confirming Katrina was in. The next day, a conference call was scheduled with Parthenon.
The fact that I haven’t heard from Katrina herself even once is what has me doubting this will ever happen. The point of this call is ostensibly to discuss ideas, yet the coauthors haven’t communicated enough to pick a genre. Granted, I haven’t exactly reached out, either. I fed myself bullshit reasons whenever I considered contacting her. She could’ve gotten a new cell number. She could’ve changed her email. For a fiction writer, I came up with pretty unconvincing excuses.
The email doesn’t come. I’m on my couch in my condo in Chicago, the white room quiet. It’s undecorated and impersonal, except for the books everywhere. Floor-to-ceiling shelves holding my collection of fiction, memoirs, history. They, and the complete absence of anything else noteworthy in my apartment, are reminders of how this—writing—is everything I am. When I found my craft, I clung and clung and clung to it, until it clung to me, intertwined with who I was. And now I have no way of existing outside of it.
Not even Melissa became part of me this way. I’ve asked myself why I couldn’t combine my soul with hers the way I could with writing, the way I knew others could with their spouses. I couldn’t. It didn’t matter that I genuinely cared for her. I just couldn’t. It’s taken me too long to recognize what I couldn’t have known when I proposed to her, what I didn’t even completely understand when we finalized our divorce—I’d mistaken companionship, even chemistry, for love. I found Melissa’s work and work ethic inspiring. She had constructive, kind systems for everything in our life, like how we would trade off each night’s choice of TV, one of her documentaries for one of my HBO dramas. She was funny in her text messages. She was good in bed and a wonderful friend.
Yet if someone had told me love wasn’t just the sum of those parts, but rather the exponent on the end of the equation, I don’t think I would have understood what they meant. Which has left me with nothing but pages and pages in my empty, empty home.
Checking the clock on my phone, I see the time I’ve been counting down to. I dial in to the conference call, putting in the code when the robotic voice instructs me to. I speak into the empty fuzz on the line. “Hello?” I hate this part of conference calls. I feel like I’m shouting into a well, hoping voices respond from the darkness.
“Hi. Jen here,” my agent says. “We’re just waiting on Chris and Katrina.”