The Roughest Draft(26)

Finally, Katrina opens the door. In the uneven light coming from the only lamp on in her bedroom, I note she’s wearing striped shorts and a tank top, which hangs on her lithe frame with grace I wouldn’t have imagined possible for pajamas. Her hair is the way I remember from early mornings years ago, the brown waves wound over one shoulder, brushing her collarbone and below. Her eyes are wary, questioning.

Past her, the pages are splayed open on her bed.

“You took them,” I say.

It’s a stupid observation, the kind I wouldn’t permit my characters to speak because it moves nothing forward, reveals nothing. I’m trapped here now, though. Trapped here with my words, trapped here with the woman who can see through them.

“Nathan, it’s the middle of the night.” While Katrina’s putting on impatience, I know she’s faking. I hear her guarded hesitance. “Why are you here?” The uncertainty in her eyes changes into realization, and she continues. “You went looking for them.”

“I wasn’t the only one,” I say, matching her feigned confidence syllable for syllable. It’s not hard, I find, like an after-hours rehearsal of the performance we put on for each other every day of writing.

Katrina huffs. “Don’t bother yourself with them. There’s nothing in these pages.”

She’s lying. I can read her, the flickers in her expression, the way she plays with the ends of her hair. “What scene is it?” The question comes out of me with a breathlessness I know betrays my interest. I don’t know what the point of hiding my reaction would be, though. It’s not like Katrina can’t read me the exact same way.

She looks away. “An unimportant one.” She’s definitely lying. The flickers of indication in her expression leap into flames. Her cheeks redden. She swallows. Her reactions only heighten my furious curiosity. Now I have to know.

“You don’t want to give them to me,” I say, understanding. “Do I need to remind you it’s my handwriting you’re reading?”

Katrina retreats deeper into her room, positioning herself in front of the bed. There’s protectiveness in the gesture, like she’s putting herself in my way. “Nathan, they’re meaningless. I just wanted to read them to judge what Harriet was saying.”

It’s nearly a convincing explanation, except why would she need to judge Harriet’s feedback in the middle of the night? I walk into her room, highly aware I’m stepping onto dangerous ground. “If they’re meaningless,” I venture, “why can’t I have them? What’s in the pages, Katrina?” I’m coming closer, right up to her, while she stays still.

She lifts her chin up subtly, combative. “Nothing real. It’s just fiction,” she says, practically exhaling. “Fiction.” She repeats the word like it carries enormous weight, or like she wishes it did.

I take another step. I’m walking into fire. It consumes me, fears and fantasies of whatever of my writing lies exposed on Katrina’s sheets. The stagnant heat of the room is suffocating. It’s not just the Florida weather—it’s the room, the feet separating me and Katrina turning into inches. The way I know I shouldn’t come closer, yet I do. I know I’m not thinking straight. Practically dizzy, I keep walking toward the pages, toward the bed.

“Prove it,” I half whisper. “Prove to me it’s fiction.”

I’ve lost track of the layers in the conversation. Katrina’s right in front of me now. I lean closer to reach for the pages—to reach for her?—nearly bringing us together. We have half a foot’s height difference between us, which means when I bend down, our lips are only inches from touching. I don’t know if I’m dreaming, if the restless hours of the night have warped hallucinatory imaginings into my waking moments, or if I recognize the same heat I feel in myself rolling off Katrina. Her perfect stillness feels poised, purposeful. Her round, dark eyes look like they’re waiting.

Without breaking eye contact, she lowers herself to the bed, staring up at me from the sheets.

I’m definitely dreaming, though this is brazen even for my dreams. While I watch, fixed in place, her body unfurls. One slender forearm slides backward. I follow the motion, my heart pounding, not daring to wonder where this is going.

Her hand clenches on the pages. Before I can react, she shoves them into my chest. The fire in her eyes is not what I thought. It’s confrontation.

“Like I said”—her voice is sharp—“there’s nothing worth hiding here. There’s nothing at all.”





14





Katrina


When Nathan leaves the room, his features hard, I collapse onto the bed. The instant he closes the door, I let everything I’m feeling wash over me. It is not refreshing, like the ocean on summer days. It’s more like when unexpected waves hit you right in the face—suddenly you’re underwater, spinning, currents pummeling you from every direction. Flat on the bed, I’m breathless. I’m confused and hating the confusion. How could Nathan Van Huysen conjure this much uncertainty in me all these years later?

I reach a hand under my pillow. From beneath the cool cloth, I retrieve the one creased piece of paper I’d hidden when Nathan knocked.

It’s the only page I knew I couldn’t show him. When his knock echoed into my room, I moved with instinct, shoving the page under the pillow. I couldn’t bear for him to have it—couldn’t bear to lose it, either. I’m not sure where one desire begins and the other ends. I wasn’t lying to him, exactly. The scene is inconsequential. The characters, Jessamine and Jordan, go out to drinks in Greenwich—Nathan insisted on Greenwich so he could draw from his upbringing and his parents’ marriage—and exchange a charged look. It’s nothing, five-and-a-half pages of context, except for one handwritten sentence.