Funny You Should Ask(75)

It was a party for his friend—in New York, practically everyone we knew was a friend of his—a brownstone gathering in Brooklyn to celebrate a book release. All the writers we knew were “serious” writers, who wrote “serious” books like Jeremy’s.

He’d been struggling to finish his second novel—the one that was already way overdue.

“These deadlines are creativity killers,” he always said. “They’re the reason I can’t write.”

He’d been working on it for years. I’d published dozens of articles by that point as well as my first collection and was working on my second.

“It’s not the same,” he would always say when I tried to encourage him to think of the deadlines as motivation.

He’d been in a sour mood all day. He didn’t want to go to the party.

“The book isn’t even good,” he’d said.

It was getting great reviews, and even though Jeremy’s book had gotten the same, he was jealous. He was convinced everyone else was getting the attention he deserved.

“You’ll get it when your next book comes out,” I’d said.

“That’s never going to happen,” he’d said. “I can’t just churn out words like you. Everything I write is carefully crafted.”

He said things like that a lot, and he had laughed when I told him I was thinking about writing fiction.

“Oh, you’re serious?” he’d said afterward. “I’m sorry, I just didn’t think that was the kind of writing you could do.”

He’d laughed even harder when I told him what kind of books I wanted to write.

“I’m just being honest,” he’d said.

We’d arrived at the party and he’d gone straight to the open bar. Three whisky sodas later, he started getting rude, and I was trying to shepherd him out the door when the host cornered us, with a young woman with big glasses and red lipstick trailing behind him. She reminded me a little of myself when I was younger. Eager. Bold.

“A fan of yours,” the host said.

Jeremy had lit up.

“I love your work,” the young woman had said to me.

“Thank you,” I’d said.

“For fuck’s sake,” Jeremy had said.

We’d both turned to him, with different forms of surprise. He’d waved a drunken hand as if to say “carry on.”

The young woman had blinked, and turned to me, affixing her smile back in place. “I just wanted to say how much I enjoyed your book.”

“Thank you,” I said.

Jeremy had snorted, but we’d both ignored him.

“And your article on Oliver Matthias was really beautiful,” the young woman said. “You’re so good at making someone larger than life seem normal and relatable.”

“That’s very nice of you.” I’d been flushed with pride.

I was accustomed to people coming up to Jeremy at parties like these, listening as they told him how much his novel meant to them. And although I’d feel a twinge of jealousy, I was mostly happy for him.

I had figured he would feel the same.

I had been very, very wrong.

“And can I just say”—the young woman leaned forward, her voice going low and conspiratorial—“your Gabe Parker piece is probably my favorite celebrity profile ever.”

“Thank you,” I’d said.

“Of course it is,” Jeremy had scoffed.

“I hope this isn’t too forward,” she went on. “But I’m a writer as well, and I was wondering if I could just ask you about—”

“She fucked him,” Jeremy blurted out. “Obviously.”

My heart had dropped like a broken elevator.

“What?”

“Obviously. She. Fucked. Him,” Jeremy said, each word like a weapon.

The poor girl was beyond flustered.

“I, uh…”

“That’s what you were going to ask, wasn’t it?” Jeremy had demanded. “You wanted to know if anything happened between the two of them, and Chani here was going to give you the same bullshit line she always does about how nothing happened but everyone knows that’s a lie. Everyone knows what you did, Chani, and everyone knows it’s the only reason you have a career at all.”

I had never been more horrified.

“I’m so sorry,” I said to the young woman, who took that chance to get the hell out of Dodge.

I turned to Jeremy, but he wasn’t done.

“You’re not better than me,” he’d said, and walked out of the party, into the rain.

I’d stayed with Katie that night and Jeremy had called when he sobered up, apologizing profusely. He was under stress. He was drunk. He was sorry.

But he never said that he didn’t mean it.

The worst part was that I already knew. I knew what people thought of me, of my writing, and it ate away at whatever pride I might have been able to have in my work. I had just hoped that my own husband didn’t believe what everyone else did.

But he did.

And I wasn’t sure he was wrong.

“Chani?”

I look at Gabe. At the reason I have a career.

“Lost you there for a second,” he says.

“Sorry,” I say. “Just remembering something.”