The Elizas: A Novel(31)

Posey shuts her eyes. “And here I’ve been whining to everyone about IVF and carrying three watermelons. That must have been horrible for you. I’m so sorry.”

“It was, mostly because I’ve always been afraid I was going to get a brain tumor,” I admit, hating that I’m practically echoing my mother’s words. “It was a self-fulfilling prophecy. Anyway, after I recovered, I went back to my parents’ house. I was stuck in my room, feeling out of it, and I needed something to do, so this is what I wrote.”

Posey’s eyes gleam. “And you wrote this book in just days, didn’t you?”

“Well, not days, but it only took a few weeks. I couldn’t stop. I had to keep going until I was done.”

“You were in a fugue state.” Posey sounds delighted. “I’ve always wanted to meet someone who’s gone through it. What was it like? Did you take on a different personality?”

“Uh . . .” I wish I had. That sounds so interesting. “No. Not really. I just had this idea, suddenly, and I wanted to make sure I wrote it before I forgot it.”

Posey laces her fingers over her belly. “You authors and your processes. Do you know that I work with a man who wrote his entire novel on the subway to and from his shitty job at some doctor’s office on the Upper East Side? He did the whole thing on his BlackBerry. Poor thing didn’t even have a new phone. He had to use that awful keyboard.” She leans forward. “So why did you write this particular story? What led you down this path?”

“I just started writing. First it was to try and put words to my experience—you know, being sick. So I wrote about a girl who was stuck in a hospital room looking at the steak house across the street. She imagined herself there, with a cast of interesting characters. I gave her someone to talk to. And then it just . . . morphed.”

“Did you have to do a lot of rewriting? Did you outline?”

Maybe I had been in a fugue state, because I don’t exactly remember my process or how ideas came to me, only that when they did I wrote them down. Maybe there was some invisible beast perched next to me, whispering in my ear. A Roman goddess of fiction. Desmond would probably appreciate that.

I feel insecure not having easy answers; older, wiser authors probably do. Eliza the dilettante, fiddling around at her keyboard, hammering out some words, forming them into sentences, the words rolling their eyes and doing the job for her, somersaulting and catapulting around until they form a story. That’s how writing my book felt. Like something else took over. Like I’d just been along for the ride. “My best thoughts came in the middle of the night,” I dredge up, even though it isn’t true. “From a dead sleep.”

“Marvelous. And do you think we’ll read another book about Dot?”

I make a face. Why would I write another book about Dot? She has nowhere to go in the end. She seals her fate.

“Excuse me.”

The New York City Flasher stands over us. Up close, he smells like Head & Shoulders shampoo. His eyes aren’t as wild as I expect, but still my heart thunders in my chest. He is standing so close we are almost touching.

“Yes?” Posey touches her belly territorially.

The man looks at me. “We’ve met, right?”

I blink. The berry seeds in the few sips of smoothie I drank feel gritty on my tongue. All at once, my heart is throbbing in my throat. Should I know the answer?

A furrowed frown invades his craggy face. “Well. Maybe not. My apologies. Sorry for bothering you.” And then, giving me another nod, he walks off.

Posey wrinkles her nose at him. “Los Angeles is just as weird as New York.” She says this joyfully. The world, I realize, is a funny place to most people. A fascinating place. Nothing to be afraid of. If only I was like everyone else.

Posey takes my hand. “So listen. We just got a really exciting media request for you. It’ll air the day your book comes out. Are you ready? Dr. Roxanne.”

I frown. “A medical show?”

She smacks her temple in an oh, silly me sort of way. “You’re the type who doesn’t watch TV, aren’t you? Of course you are. Dr. Roxanne is a talk show. She’s almost as big as Oprah. Took over the book club thing when Oprah went off the air!”

“Wait, you want me to be on TV?”

“Laura said you’d be okay with it. Please, Eliza? We’ll preview all the questions before you’re on the air. You don’t have to get into your medical history if you don’t want to. Think of it as a spa day—you’ll get your hair and makeup done, you’ll get dressed up in wardrobe, everyone will adore you.” She pops a bite of cake in her mouth. “Besides, you deserve it. Especially after your ordeal in the hospital, you know?”

The door to the café opens; Flasher has gone. Ushered in is a tall, beautiful man who smiles at me. It’s a refreshing trade.

I press my fingers against my knees and then nod at Posey. “Okay,” I say. Because I want her to like me. I don’t want to let her down.

Besides, how bad could it be?





From The Dots


When Dot was in junior high, she became good friends with Matilda. Like Dot, Matilda enjoyed hacking off her hair and dressing in postmodern outfits involving tinfoil. The two of them sat on a sweaty-smelling beanbag in Matilda’s brother Kyle’s bedroom and listened to punk rock on vinyl: The Dead Kennedys, Descendants, Alice Donut. Matilda pierced Dot’s belly button with a needle and rubbing alcohol. Dot shaved Matilda’s head with her dad’s clippers. They made out some. They read Shakespeare’s Dark Lady sonnets over and over, wishing they could inspire such fitful and frenzied feelings in a person.