My Dark Vanessa(123)

“It’s helping me,” I say. “But it didn’t fix everything—hence the dog.”

Taylor smiles down at Jo. “Maybe I should try that, too.”

She seems fragile in a way I wasn’t able to see before, not when she and I were in the coffee shop or in any of the stuff she posts online. I see now what should have been obvious, that she was lost and looking for a way to understand it all—him, herself, what he did, and why it still means so much despite it being so seemingly small. I can hear Strane asking, impatient and impenitent, the question that must still ring through her head: When are you going to get over this? All I did was touch your leg.

Taylor looks to me. “At least we’re trying, right?”

It feels like this is the moment when I’m supposed to open my arms and embrace her, to start thinking of her as a kind of sister. Maybe that could happen if our stories were closer, if I were nicer—though it seems absurd to expect two women to love each other just because they were groped by the same man. There must be a point where you’re allowed to be defined by something other than what he did to you.

Before she leaves, Taylor gives Jo another scratch behind the ears and me an embarrassed little wave.

I watch her walk away, not a rumor but a real person, a woman who used to be a girl. I’m real, too. Have I ever thought that about myself so plainly before? It’s such a small revelation. Jo tugs on the leash and, for the first time, I can imagine how it might feel not to be his, not to be him. To feel that maybe I could be good.

With the sun on my face and a dog at my side, I have so much capacity for good.



There’s nothing else to do but start from here, with the gentle pressure of the leash in my hand, the clink of metal and click of toenails on brick. Ruby says it will take a while to feel truly changed, that I need to give myself the chance to see more of the world without him behind my eyes. I’m already starting to feel the difference. There’s a clearness, a lightness.

Jo and I arrive at the beach, empty in the off-season, and she lowers her nose to the sand.

“Have you been in the ocean before?” I ask, and she looks up at me, ears pricked.

I unhook the leash. At first she doesn’t realize, doesn’t understand, but when I pat her back and say, “Go on,” she takes off across the sand, down to the water, barks at the waves lapping her paws. She ignores me when I call, doesn’t yet know her name, but when she sees me sit on the ground, she bounds over, tongue out and eyes wild. She flops down at my feet, panting happy little whines.

We walk home under the pale winter sky, and back in my apartment, she checks all the rooms, inspects every corner. She’s still getting used to it, the freedom and space. I lie on the couch and she eyes the empty spot alongside my legs. “You’re allowed,” I say, and she jumps up, curls into a tight circle, and sighs.

“He’ll never meet you,” I say. It’s a hard truth, carrying within it grief and joy. Jo opens her eyes, doesn’t lift her head as she watches me. She’s constantly taking in my face and tone, noticing everything about me. When I start to drift away, her tail thumps against the couch cushion, like a drumbeat, a heartbeat, a rhythm of grounding. You’re here, she says. You’re here. You’re here.





Acknowledgments




First and foremost, I have to thank my agent, Hillary Jacobson, and my editor, Jessica Williams, two brilliant women whose advocacy and love for this novel continue to astound me.

Thank you to those who worked to bring this novel into the world, to everyone at William Morrow/HarperCollins, to Anna Kelly and everyone at 4th Estate/HarperCollins UK, and to Karolina Sutton, Sophie Baker, and Jodi Fabbri at Curtis Brown UK.

Thank you to Stephen King, for the early support and for saying yes when my dad asked, “Hey, Steve, would you read my daughter’s novel?”

Thank you to Laura Moriarty, who read draft after draft and whose generosity and encouragement helped transform this sprawling, nebulous story of mine into a novel.

Thank you to the creative writing programs at the University of Maine at Farmington, Indiana University, and the University of Kansas for giving me the opportunity to study and write. I’m deeply grateful to the friends I made in those programs who read and loved early versions of Vanessa: Chad Anderson, Katie (Baum) O’Donnell, Harmony Hanson, Chris Johnson, and Ashley Rutter. A special thank-you to my undergraduate advisor, Patricia O’Donnell, who in 2003 commented in the margins of a short story I wrote about a girl and her teacher: Kate, this made me feel like I was reading real fiction. It was the first time I’d ever been taken seriously as a writer, and that feedback was life-changing.

Thank you to my parents for never telling me to give up and get a real job, for my dad whose immediate response to hearing my book sold was “I never doubted you for a second,” for my mum who filled our house with books so I grew up surrounded by words.

Thank you to Tallulah, who grounded me and saved my life.

Thank you to Austin. And here I’m stumped because what is there to say to a partner so relentlessly supportive and good? “For everything” is the best I can do.

Thank you to my internet pals who have always been my first readers, who supported and encouraged me over the eighteen years I worked on My Dark Vanessa. Some are still in my life and some have drifted out of it, but I’m grateful to all for the years of giddiness, vulnerability, and tough love. You are my best, dearest friends.