The Villa(41)

“It’s very fucking cool,” I assure her. “Plus, at the end of it, she wins! Sure, they ship her off to a hospital for a while, but then in the last chapter, she’s been released and is living back in the house that she loved, and all the other assholes are dead. And so of course, male critics were, like, ‘this is bleak as shit.’”

“And female critics were, like, ‘actually, this rules’?” Chess supplies.

I nod. “Exactly. And that’s why Lilith Rising is considered a masterpiece of feminist horror.”

Chess claps, careful not to spill her wine, and I lift my glass to her. “It’s no TED Talk, I know, but I’ve hit the high notes for you.”

Chess grins at that. “And you think there are more connections between the book and the house than just ‘she wrote it here.’”

A little of my tipsy enthusiasm fades. Now we’re back on my story, and I’m probably imagining it, but there’s something so … avid in Chess’s eyes as she studies me.

“I think there could be,” is all I say.

I don’t tell her what I’ve really been thinking, which is that Mari Godwick wasn’t just writing a book inspired by this house and people she knew. She was actually trying to tell us something, something more about what happened that summer. Was Pierce Sheldon’s death really as simple as a drugged-up argument between two men that went too far? And if it was, why were the survivors so secretive about it for the rest of their lives?

“Your brain is working, I can tell,” Chess says, and no, I’m not imagining it, the hungry expression on her face. Suddenly, I think of the past few days and try to remember if I’ve seen Chess working at all.

She was out most of yesterday, and then the day before, I saw her reading at the pool. I’ve been so absorbed in my own stuff that I haven’t really been paying attention.

And then something in her voice goes sly as she says, “And you’re a dirty rotten liar, because you absolutely have a book.”

I blink at her, my stomach lurching. “What?”

She’s very drunk, I realize now, way more than me, and she’s giggling as she sits up. “Okay, don’t be mad, Emmy…”

Emmy.

It’s always “Em,” unless Chess suspects she’s fucked up. That means she knows I’ll be mad.

“But”—she places both hands on her knees, watching me—“the other day, you left your laptop open when you ran out to the store, and I was just passing by, and maybe I had a teensy little peek.”

Holding her thumb and index finger close together, she gives me what I’m sure she thinks is an endearing squint.

“You read it?” I ask, holding very still, and she drops her hand, some of the silliness immediately falling away from her.

“It’s not like it was some password-protected document, Em. It was just up on your computer, and you’ve been so weird about all of it that I mostly wanted to check and make sure it wasn’t a hundred pages of ‘All Work and No Play Makes Emily a Dull Girl.’ I was looking out for you.”

“You were snooping,” I counter, and she rolls her eyes, throwing up her hands.

“You’re being so dramatic, oh my god. I just read through what you were working on because it was there on an open laptop. And it’s really fucking good, Em! That’s why I wanted to tell you, so that I could compliment you, and now you’re making, like, a federal case out of it.”

“I’m not,” I argue, standing up off the sofa, my shins bumping the coffee table. Chess sits there, her arms crossed now, her expression petulant, and it could be sixth grade again, the time I found her flipping idly through my diary in my bedroom after I’d gone downstairs to get us some snacks.

“You are,” she insists. “And honestly, I’m the one who should be kind of pissed at you.”

Chess Logic is occasionally baffling, but this is particularly confusing. “Um, why?”

“Because you’ve been holding out on me!” She sits forward again, her forearms on her knees. “You were all, ‘Oh, it’s just some ideas, it’s nothing really,’ and then it’s actually this amazing thing about books, and stories, and murder, and life and, like, how do you not see it?”

She slaps the coffee table. “This is it, Em. Fuck Green, and any of our other stupid ideas, this is the book we were meant to write together.”

I stand there, staring at her, surprised by the sudden rush of anger that surges through me.

“What?”

“This is nonfic, Em, and it’s a whole other world than your little garden party murder books. This is the kind of stuff that’s on NPR. Reviewed in the Times. It’s a big idea.”

“And it’s mine,” I say, the words rushing out before I can even think about them, the feeling almost primal.

This is mine.

“I know that,” she says, waving a hand. “But, Em, my name on this could take it even further. And I have some ideas, too, you know, ideas about how we can broaden the story, make it apply to more women.…”

Her eyes are bright now, and I can see it all taking hold of her the same way it’s taken hold of me. I also think of how quickly she gets bored. How this will just end up being another thing she throws herself into only to dump it when it gets too hard or too boring.