The Villa(53)

“Well, now that you’ve warned me I could turn into your mother, I am indeed a new woman,” I tell her, and she grins, pressing a smacking kiss to the place she’d just poked.

“That’s why they pay me the big bucks!” she singsongs, and I laugh, putting my now-empty glass back down.

I watch her back as she begins rifling through the cabinets for dinner supplies, and think again about Matt’s call. He’d heard I was working, and suspected it was on something new.

Chess is humming to herself, something from Aestas, and I keep my voice casual as I ask, “You haven’t talked to Matt recently, have you?”

She turns around, pulling a face. “Matt? Jesus Christ, no. Not since you split up. Why would I?”

She looks so baffled that I feel stupid for even asking. It was Rose, surely. Something to do with all this legal wrangling.

“I just wondered,” I offer lamely. “You two were close, too.”

She turns back around, pulling down a large serving dish. “Only because we both loved you. Once he was out of your life, he was out of mine.”

She spins back around, squinting her eyes at me with exaggerated suspicion, her mouth twisted to one side. “Why? You haven’t been talking to Nigel, have you?”

That actually makes me laugh. Nigel was Chess’s last serious boyfriend, some rich tech bro who was obsessed with cryptocurrency and said “San Fran” instead of San Francisco and owned sunglasses that cost more than the down payment on my house. Still, Chess had been completely crazy about him, and their breakup had hit her harder than I’d expected.

Now, I joke along with her, saying, “Just every other Friday. We’re talking about starting a book club. Maybe getting a time-share.”

“You fucking traitor,” she replies, and I laugh again. The drink has relaxed me, and I’m thinking about getting back to work on the book after dinner. I want to write a chapter about Mari’s mom, about Lilith and the connection between Marianne Godwick’s short story and Mari’s book. It was clear her mother’s death had had a huge effect on Mari, and given Lilith’s influence on Victoria in Lilith Rising, it feels like there’s something to say there. About the ways in which a legacy is both a gift and a curse. And given the villa’s own legacy of both horror and beauty, I thought I could tie those two ideas together somehow, really dig into the idea of how artists are inspired and influenced.

Normally, that thought would fill me with a kind of giddy excitement, an itch in my fingers to get back to work.

Now, though, there’s a weight in my stomach.

What if you write it, and it’s all you wanted to be, and then Matt sues over the fucking thing?

He can’t, I remind myself again. Or he can, but he won’t win.

But would that matter? Wouldn’t it just mean more lawyers, more bullshit, more—

That’s when I feel it.

Not a sudden thing, more like a slow-motion wave approaching the shore.

It’s been months, but I recognize the sensation immediately, and the terror makes me feel cold and hot all at once.

My head swims, the room tilts just the littlest bit, and I feel sweat beading on my forehead, my upper lip, the small of my back.

“Em?” Chess asks, but I’m already sprinting away, heading for the tiny bathroom in the hall.

I barely make it, retching into the toilet, my fingers clenched around the sides of the bowl.

It feels like forever, feels like my body is turning itself inside out, but finally, it ends.

I flush the toilet, but experience has taught me that sometimes there’s a second wave, and so I don’t risk trying to leave just yet.

I crouch there like an animal. My eyes are closed, but I still feel like I’m spinning, and I press my hand to the base of the toilet to steady myself.

Not again, I think, desperate, tears and sweat mingling on my cheeks. Not again, please, please, please.

It’s been months since I’ve felt this way, and I let myself believe that everything was finally getting better, that I was getting better. Instead, it seems like whatever it is that’s wrong inside me has just been coiled up, waiting to strike again.

“Em?”

I hear Chess enter the bathroom, the sink running, and then Chess is there, wet towels in hand.

Her face crumples in sympathy as she moves to kneel next to me.

“Oh, honey,” she says, and then she presses the towels to my face. They’re cool and damp against my heated skin, and I’m thankful for it, closing my eyes as more tears spill out.

“I thought I was better,” I say, and I hate how weak my voice sounds.

“Maybe it was the shrimp you had at lunch,” Chess suggests, helping me sit up. “Fish is always a risky business.”

She’s still got the towels pressed against my cheek, and she slides them to the back of my neck as she hands me a bottle of Perrier. I take a sip, grateful.

“Maybe,” I say, hoping she’s right, hoping more than I’ve ever hoped for anything.

I was better, I was better, I was better.

We crouch there in the bathroom, Chess’s hand on my knee as I take slow, steady sips of the Perrier. “My doctors all thought it was psychosomatic,” I say. “Stress or something.”

Chess wraps her arms around me even though I have to be a sweaty, disgusting mess. “And talking to Matt stressed you out. I’m so sorry.”