The Villa(40)
“Dr. Burke,” she repeats, nodding. “Who hated me.”
“She didn’t hate you,” I say, “she was just tough on your stories.”
Chess rolls her eyes. “She told me, and I quote, ‘If you’re this interested in yourself, Miss Chandler, maybe you should move to memoir rather than fiction.’”
I don’t remember that, but it does sound like something Dr. Burke would’ve said. Especially to Chess, who seemed to push her buttons for some reason. That was around the time we were working on Green, and Chess had decided she wanted to take a creative writing class with me, that if we were writing for the same teacher at the same time, it would help our collaboration or something.
Except that Chess had ended up with a C while I made an A, and it wasn’t long after that Green was abandoned.
I wonder why she’s bringing it up now.
“Well, you took that advice,” I remind her. “And sold a gazillion copies and made a gazillion dollars, so maybe you should send Dr. Burke a thank-you note.”
She snorts at that. “Maybe. Anyway, if you need any help, let me know,” she says, and her voice is breezy, but there’s something in her eyes that doesn’t match that tone. “This is my deal, after all. The nonfiction thing. I’m happy to read what you’ve got, give some tips, whatever you need.”
“Thanks,” I tell her, “but it’s really nothing I’d want anyone to read yet. It might not be anything at all.”
A lie. It’s something, I know it is.
And it’s not that I don’t want anyone to read it.
It’s that I don’t want Chess to read it, specifically—and I can’t really explain why.
* * *
“SO, WHAT IS the book even about?”
It’s two days later, and Chess and I are back in our favorite room in the house, the small sitting room with its soft sofas and crystal candelabras. Tonight’s wine of choice is a red, a Sangiovese that Giulia brought for us, and it’s sliding over my tongue like velvet as I study Chess on the other sofa.
“Lilith Rising,” she clarifies. “I know, I know—you don’t even have a book yet, right?”
What I have is 21,863 words that I now know in my heart are absolutely a book, but I make myself shake my head. “No, I’m still just in the exploratory stage. But you really want to know about Lilith Rising?”
Chess is slouched on the sofa, her feet on the coffee table, the toenails a bright coral, and she lifts her glass like a toast. “If my best friend is obsessed with something, I wanna know about it. Like when you got super into those dragon books in ninth grade, and made me read the little stories you were writing about them.”
I laugh at the memory. “You never even read the dragon books.”
“And I’m probably not going to read Lilith Rising, but I still want you to tell me about it. I know it’s all demons and possession and stuff, but—”
“It’s more than that,” I tell her, and she immediately holds up a hand.
“Okay, sorry to insult your new favorite book. Please continue.”
I throw one of the tiny decorative pillows at her, and she dodges nimbly, her wine sloshing, but not spilling. She’s laughing, and she once again looks like the Chess I knew years ago. Less polished, less perfect, her hair in a messy bun, dressed in an old T-shirt and pajama pants with watermelons on them instead of one of her Guru in Italy looks.
Maybe that’s why I let down my guard a little.
“All right, so Lilith Rising is about this teenage girl, Victoria Stuart, who moves with her family to a big old manor in the English countryside called Somerton House. And everything is perfect and bucolic and summery, and the house isn’t even super creepy, and you’re, like, ‘Oh, okay, so maybe this isn’t gonna be so bad!’ But then she meets this priest, and they fall in love.”
“Hot,” Chess acknowledges, and I nod.
“Also, timely. This book came out right after The Thorn Birds, so everyone was very into that. But this priest is evil.”
“Not exactly a shocking plot twist.”
I forgot how fun it can be to talk with Chess like this, like bouncing a ball back and forth, both of us somehow always knowing the right thing to say to each other. I’ve never experienced that kind of intellectual chemistry with anyone else. Not even Matt.
“No,” I agree, “but that’s kind of the point of the book. By the end, you’re not sure who was the corrupting influence, him or Victoria. And he’s dead, so she’s the only one telling the story, and obviously she’s putting herself in the best possible light. But…”
I sit up, warming to my story, feeling excited all over again. “That’s what’s so cool about the book. Horror was pretty straightforward at the time. This person is bad, they do a bad thing, or this house is bad, it makes people do a bad thing. But Lilith Rising is just really ambiguous. Was there even a demon? Is Victoria making up a story to explain why she does all this violent shit? Or did she just want to kill her family, kill the priest who seduced her, and blame it on some outside force?”
“That is kind of fucking cool,” Chess says, propping her ankle on her knee, her foot jiggling, the light catching on a thin gold anklet she’s wearing.