The Elizas: A Novel(74)

I nod. Dr. Roxanne is in two days, and I’m no less anxious about it. I’m afraid she’s going to ask cutting questions. Or I’m afraid she’s going to say, to her live audience, that she didn’t like the book. I’m afraid of explaining why I wrote it. It’s a stupid concept, surely—a girl with a brain tumor who has a crazy aunt. The only reason it’s getting buzz is because I made a fool of myself by being pushed into a pool.

Desmond seems to sense my panic and clutches my hands. “You don’t have to go on the show, you know. Seriously. I’ll still think you’re the most amazing vixen ever, even if you don’t. Don’t let the people you work with push you around. Do this on your own terms.”

“Posey would kill me. Laura already said that if I did, she’d probably never sign me for another book.”

“But I thought you didn’t want to write another book.”

“I probably don’t, but I at least want the opportunity.”

Later that night, I wake up alone in a puddle of pillow-drool. I sit up and squint at the digital numbers on the clock: 10:30. There are soft murmurs in the hall, Desmond and Stefan. They’re whispering conspiratorially, maybe about something interesting. I slide off the bed and tiptoe to the door, half because I have to pee, half because I’m curious.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Desmond is saying. He sounds upset.

“Why not?” Stefan’s voice. “What do you even know about her? All those . . .” He speaks even quieter, and I can’t hear.

“But it’s a big deal,” Desmond says. “Isn’t there something else?”

His voice trails off. Stefan responds, but the air-conditioning comes on then, rattling loudly. I press my ear to the door, but the voices have been drowned out. I think of Stefan leering over me the other day. My brother’s a fucking freak. We all know it. He knows it. And the lie he told me about Paula. Or was it just an omission?

The door shoots open, throwing me backward. I scuttle to the bed, pretending I wasn’t listening, but Desmond has come in too quickly and I probably have a guilty look on my face. “Oh,” he says, stopping short. “You’re . . . up.”

“Yep. Just now!” I hate the chirpiness in my voice.

Desmond walks slowly to the bedside table and turns on a lamp. His expression is guarded and suspicious. My gut burns with acid.

“What were you talking about out there?” I blurt out. “Was it about me?”

Desmond’s face tightens. He gets a look of annoyance I’ve never seen before. “What makes you think that?”

“I . . .” My hand rushes to my chest. “What were you talking about, then?”

“It doesn’t matter.” He opens a drawer.

“Why can’t you tell me?”

He turns. His eyebrows knit together. “Are we really having this discussion, Eliza?”

“I just . . .”

“It was boring work stuff. Stefan is helping with some of the convention details.” He pulls out the blue silk pajamas he loves to wear and begins to pull them on. Halfway through the process, his shirt off, his hairless nipples winking at me, his eyes meet mine. “You aren’t that kind of girl, are you? The kind who’s suspicious about even her boyfriend? I like that you question things, but you don’t need to question me. You strike me as way more highly evolved than that.”

I know I should smile back, too, but I can’t make my lips do it. I feel wrapped very tight in invisible bandages. The shaking has extended to my arms and stomach. Come on, I tell myself. Snap out of it. Stop this right now. You have nothing to worry about.

I swallow down the paranoia. “Of course I’m highly evolved. I’m Darwin’s dream.”

Desmond seems to visibly relax. “That you are.” He leans down, and his hair tickles my cheeks. “That you are.”





ELIZA


IT’S TWO DAYS later. Book release day. Dr. Roxanne time.

I’m at my house. Desmond is on his way here to meet me, and we’re going to go together to Dr. Roxanne in a limo the studio is sending. I’m trying to figure out the answers to the questions the studio has sent. What inspires you? Does any of The Dots stem from your real life? What’s your writing process? I am trying to decide whether I outlined this book or went with the flow instead of freakishly writing it in one vomitus go, start to finish, with barely any shifting of scenes. I am trying to come up with a creation myth on how this story came about, but really, it just poured out of me, maybe always there.

But amid all this, something is bothering me. There’s a detail that just doesn’t make sense. I can’t believe that Gabby was at the bar at the Tranquility. Or, rather, she might have come in at the end, and she might have pushed me into the pool, but I spoke to someone else at the bar, too. It was that someone else who riled me into hysterics.

I can feel it. I know it.

I hate that my brain is fighting against what Gabby told me. I hate that reality has begun to shift again, like sand. I want to think that my tumor, surely there, is playing tricks on me, fucking with my happiness, but I know that isn’t true. There was someone else at that bar. More happened at the Shipstead than Gabby’s saying. Whatever happened before, whoever I was talking to before Gabby came in, that’s why I was so panicked when she found me.