The Villa(42)

But what scares me more is … what if she doesn’t?

“No,” I hear myself say, and she rocks back on the sofa, almost gaping at me. “I don’t want to cowrite this, I … I want to keep working on it. By myself.”

Silence.

The tick of the ormolu clock, the creaking of the house.

My breaths, sawing in and out of my lungs.

And then Chess speaks.

“Fine. It was just an idea.”

I nod, telling myself to unclench. “And in the future, please don’t go through my things.”

She gives the most extravagant eye roll I’ve ever seen. “There was no going through!”

“I’m just saying, I wish you hadn’t done it,” I continue, talking over her, my voice louder, and Chess stands up, too, grabbing her empty glass.

“Okay, well, I did, and I’m sorry, and now I’m going to bed, so please, feel free to work on your precious book without worrying that one word of it will reach my unworthy eyeballs.”

“Now who’s being dramatic?” I call after her, but she’s already stomping up the stairs, probably muttering under her breath about what a bitch I am.

I sit back down on the sofa with a sigh. Maybe this is why Chess and I haven’t spent that much time together in the past few years. Put us in the same room for too long, we fall back into old patterns, old fights.

But it still bothers me, the thought of her scrolling through what I’m working on, not asking, just taking.

Like she always does.

I should go to bed and hope that by tomorrow, she’ll have sobered up and maybe I’ll get an actual apology.

Jesus, if all those fans of hers who think she’s the most enlightened being since Gwyneth Paltrow’s vagina could have seen her tonight, I think as I stand up.

Powered Path, my ass.

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Subject: [no subject]

S—

Almost done with the excruciatingly titled Swipe Right on Life!, so using this time in Italy to think about what’s next.

I really feel like there are only so many times you can advise women to journal their feelings or start every day with lemon water and cleansing breaths, and we don’t want to go stale. I know the next big thing in wellness seems to be selling $500 vibrators, but I’m not sure that path is for me.

What I’ve been thinking about is—and this will sound nuts, but I swear to you, it’s brilliant—something in the true crime sphere. But not the usual kind of thing, four hundred pages about some dead white girl from Nebraska, I’m talking something a little more elevated, a little more sophisticated.

The villa where I’m staying was the scene of a pretty famous murder in 1974 that involved a bunch of artist types—rock stars, writers, that kind of thing. One of the men was murdered by another guy, blah blah blah, we don’t care so much about the murder. But! The women staying here ended up producing two really important works of twentieth-century art. We get Lilith Rising, a famous feminist horror novel, and Aestas, which is basically Tapestry, but sadder. What if the next book focuses on them and that summer? The ways in which adversity can spur women to creation? How toxic men hold women back from reaching their full artistic potential?

This is amazing, right? You’re dying and imagining putting “National Book Award–Winning” in front of my name, aren’t you?

Will talk soon!

Chess





MARI, 1974—ORVIETO


“Fancy getting out of here for a bit?”

Mari has been sitting by the lake, her tears hidden by sunglasses, and she wipes quickly at her cheeks as she looks up at Johnnie.

She’s surprised to see him, given that he’s been keeping his distance ever since that night in the study. Maybe Lara told him what she saw, or maybe he’d just sussed it out on his own, but Mari sensed that he knew something had happened between her, Noel, and Pierce, and that it had hurt him.

There hasn’t been a repeat of that one mad night, but Lara is still upset and Noel is snapping at her too much, which in turn makes Pierce angry. (God forbid he miss leaping to Lara’s defense, Mari has thought more than once.)

And Johnnie …

Johnnie had seemed to be slipping further and further away from all of them, lost in a haze that Mari had not quite understood until she’d seen Pierce emerge from Johnnie’s room, holding a small packet.

You didn’t know? he’d asked when Mari had questioned Pierce. That’s why he’s here. He’s Noel’s dealer, and Noel didn’t want to be stuck in Italy without … resources. Why did you think he was here?

I thought they were friends, she’d replied, and Pierce had laughed in that way he did, smoothing her hair back to kiss her forehead.

My innocent girl, he’d said, and then his eyes had heated, and he’d taken her to bed, and she’d forgotten how much she hated it when he called her things like that.

But now Johnnie looks like he did the first day they arrived, bright and happy, his skin golden in the sunlight, and if he sees she’s been crying, he doesn’t mention it.

“Where did you have in mind?”

“Needed to go into town,” he says, nodding in the direction of Orvieto. “Thought you might like to come along.”