A Special Place for Women

by Laura Hankin

  “Hold up,” he said, pulling away for a moment. “Are you not wearing anything under this weird robe?”

  “No,” I said, pulling him back in. “No, I am not.”

  FIFTY-FOUR

  I went to Margot’s aunt’s apartment the morning after spending the night with Raf to find that all my stuff had been boxed up and left outside the door, and that my key no longer worked.

  As I stood in the hallway, staring at the meager contents of my life, Miles called me. I’d gotten four missed calls from him over the course of the night. “Beckley, thank God,” he said when I answered, his voice ragged. “I’ve been worrying about you. Where the hell did you go?”

  “They found out I was a journalist, right before the fire started,” I said. “I had to get out of there.”

  “Oh shit. Are they going to retaliate? Do anything to you?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Probably? But so far, they just locked me out of that apartment and, honestly, that seems fair.” He laughed a little, but it was a worried, halfhearted sound. “I saw Caroline cornering you. What did you say to her?”

  “I said we were building inspectors, but obviously that wasn’t true, and then we got out of there too.” He sighed. “Jesus, what a mess. I’m so glad you’re okay, though.”

  “Thanks, yeah, you too.”

  The line was silent for a moment, both us of taking a breath. “What’s our next move here?” he finally asked.

  “Well, the evidence is all gone,” I said. “So I think there is no next move.”

  “No,” he said. “Come on. You already wrote the article. There’s got to be some way to make this work. E-mails they sent you, something we can fact-check.”

  “I’m sorry. There’s no way to back up the bigger claims in the article without the clubhouse. And like you said when I signed the NDA, it’s just not going to be worth it for some catalog of the insipid girl-power posters they’ve hung up on the walls.”

  “Look, you know I didn’t mean . . . There were a bunch of women in robes on the roof—it’s clear that you were right, and something juicier was going on.”

  “Mm,” I said.

  His voice got softer. “Can I see you? Come over to my place, and I’ll go into work a little late.” I swallowed. The switch from editor to lover jarred me, even though it had been happening all along in subtler ways, hadn’t it? “And if you need to stay with me for a bit—”

  “Did you ever think that maybe this article was doomed from the beginning?” I asked.

  “What?”

  “I was never going to make the best decisions about it because I had such strong feelings for you. You must have known that on some level.”

  “I . . . well, no, I trusted you to be professional.”

  “And you had feelings for me, even though you didn’t want to admit it, so you made bad decisions too. You said so yourself—you talked up the story too much, created an impossible situation.”

  “Are you trying to say I just gave you the article to get into your pants?”

  “No—”

  “Because that wasn’t it at all. I respect you as a writer—”

  “I know that you do, but still, on some level, the whole thing was fucked up. Don’t you see that?”

  He let out a grunt of frustration on the other end of the line. “I think you’re exaggerating a little.” I chewed my lip. He wasn’t admitting it, or he truly wasn’t getting it. I’d wanted to feel that I was special by proving myself to a special man. But maybe I didn’t need to prove anything, and Miles wasn’t that special after all.

  “I’m not going to come to your place, because I’m staying with Raf,” I said.

  He was silent for a moment. Then he said, “You’re really screwing me over here, Beckley.”

  “I’ll repay the money you gave me. It might take some time, but I will. And in the performance review, you can say what you need to say. Tell them I’m too scared of retaliation to keep going, if that helps. The fact-checker you brought can back you up that there was a fire and shit got dangerous. Now I should go—”

  “Did they get to you somehow?” he asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Are they blackmailing you, or promising you things? You’re not being yourself.”

  “Actually, I think I am,” I said, and hung up.

  FIFTY-FIVE

  They didn’t come for me that day, or the day after. I waited and waited, expecting them to show up, looking for them around every corner.

  There were some news stories about a fire in a West Village building, which burned entirely to the ground. No one was hurt, and it didn’t spread. The building, an old one, hadn’t been up to code, a tinderbox just waiting for a spark to set it ablaze. And still no one came for me, no cops wanting to question me about arson, no mysterious beautiful women ready to plunge a knife in my back.

  At random moments, I smelled the flames again. How many people knew what I had done? Had Margot told the whole coven, had word gotten around to all the members, to the staff? Oh God, in my burn-it-all-down impulse, I hadn’t even thought about the fact that I might be putting people out of a job. A sinking feeling of guilt took up residence next to the fear in the pit of my stomach.

  * * *

  • • •

  A few nights later, I was working in the bar. Raf was going to stop by at the end of my shift to pick me up since I was nervous about retaliation, about walking in the dark by myself. Together, Raf and I would go back to his place, which, at least for the moment, was my place too. I was going to start looking for a (probably shithole) apartment soon—living together immediately was not a great way to start off a relationship—but, God, it felt nice to be around him all the time, to kiss him good-night and wake up next to him. Nice, and also terrifying.

  At eleven p.m., the regulars were still going strong, but the rush was over. I stretched my neck, rolling my head from side to side. The door swung open and I looked up, nearly dropping the glass I was holding when I registered the identity of the new patrons: Margot and Caroline. I briefly considered ducking out the back. But, no, I needed to hear what they had to say. So I braced myself as they looked around the bar, something strange like trepidation on their faces.

  They spotted me and made their way over to the bar in front of my station. They were far from the bar’s usual clientele, and the regulars stared accordingly. One older man wolf-whistled at Margot as she walked by, and she stopped right next to him, whispering something in his ear. His face dropped and, chastened, he went back to watching the game with his buddies. Caroline took a tissue out of her purse and cleaned off the barstool before sitting down on it, so as not to ruin her tailored gray skirt. The two women settled themselves and looked up at me in silence.

  My heart pounded. “Are you here to hex me off the face of the Earth?” I asked.

  “We considered it,” Caroline said. “Especially when I found out that the insurance company was going to deny my claim because the roof wasn’t up to fire code, so your actions are going to be costing me hundreds of thousands of dollars—”

  Margot put her hand on top of Caroline’s. “But then we thought about the men coming up the stairs. I saw the way that one of them started moving toward you, when you came out of the building, so I looked up pictures of the New York Standard’s staff, and we put two and two together.”

  “I guess Margot was right,” Caroline said. “That in the end, we could trust you after all.”

  “I didn’t do it just to destroy the evidence, you know,” I said quietly. “You were fucked, doing things the way you were, and I thought that if it was all gone, you could start fresh. Start better.”

  “It’s funny, we talked about that,” Caroline said. “Once we got over the shock of losing so much, of course.”

  “We’ve been talking pretty nonstop over the last few days,” M
argot said. “About everything, including how to move forward with Nevertheless. Caroline made a very detailed chart of the possibilities.”

  “It was a normal amount of details,” Caroline said, and Margot smiled at her. Caroline smiled back. In the background, the bar hubbub raged, but there was a new calmness between the two of them.

  “The conclusion that we came to,” Margot said, “is that Nevertheless, as it was, is over.”

  “No more clubhouse, no more club,” Caroline continued. “Though we’re committed to paying the cleaning staff and security guards until they can find new work, of course.”

  “Good,” I said. “But the members aren’t going to be too pleased about the club shutting down, are they?”

  “We’ll just have to deal with their displeasure,” Caroline said. “And they’ll just have to get over it. If they need to call me a bad leader or drag my name through the mud, well, that’s probably what I deserve.”

  “We’ll still try to hold some events, talks and workshops and such, maybe through Women Who Lead and In the Stars,” Margot said. “But they’ll be first come, first served. And, whenever possible, they’ll be free.”

  “That sounds . . . nice, actually,” I said.

  “And are you still going to write an article about Nevertheless?” Caroline asked. “Obviously I wish you wouldn’t, but if you have to, you have to, and we won’t sue.” She pursed her lips. “Unless, of course, you make any false claims about us. Then we will sue you for libel.”

  “No, I’m not going to write the article. I . . . I think I have something else in mind.”

  At that, Caroline let out a small breath of relief, but to her credit, she tried not to look too pleased.

  “So,” Margot said.

  “So,” I replied.

  “That obviously leaves the other . . . matter,” Caroline said. The Coven, she mouthed, trying to be discreet, and I held back a laugh.

  “We talked about how to move forward with that too,” Margot said.

  “Together,” Caroline said. “With a new kind of focus, somewhere in between. Not selfish, or at least not as purely selfish.”

  “Helping,” Margot said, “but not controlling. Only with people’s best interests in mind, instead of trying to be the queen-makers so we can have the ear of the queen.”

  “And we wanted to ask . . .”

  The two of them looked at each other, then back at me, and Margot said, “Will you start fresh with us?”

  This time, I couldn’t hold back the laughter. “Right. Because I’m a legacy? I almost sold you out, I lied to you for months, I burned down your clubhouse, and you still want me? Wow, I feel like a boy applying to an Ivy where his grandpa donated a building.”

  “Not just because you’re a legacy. Because of everything,” Margot said.

  I pushed an old beer bottle out of the way and leaned forward onto the bar. “I didn’t draw the Three of Cups, you know. In the tarot reading. You all left me alone for a minute and I turned over my third card, and then I hid it in my pocket because it freaked me out. But it was supposed to be the Ten of Swords.”

  “Huh,” Margot said, the corners of her mouth turning up ever so slightly. “Betrayal. That tracks.”

  “I don’t think I belong with you. I’m not even sure if I believe in magic of any kind. You should’ve chosen Libby instead.”

  “Maybe,” Margot said slowly. “Or maybe we should have chosen both of you. Or we shouldn’t have chosen anyone at all, and just let people choose us. It’s like what you said on the roof—we made people pass so many tests so that we could feel like we were superior. It’s so much nicer to give the tests than to take them, but perhaps everything we were using to decide doesn’t actually matter.”

  “What matters is that, when we started locking the door behind us, we told ourselves it was for protection,” Caroline said. “But then it became about keeping other people out.”

  “And now that building is gone,” Margot said. “But it was always better when it was just us in the woods anyways, with no locked doors at all.”

  The two of them leaned toward me. And maybe I couldn’t say for sure that together, we would make magic. But I thought—I hoped—that we would make something.

  “So we try again, but different this time?” I said, slowly. “With Vy back in, and anyone who thinks they have something to offer?” Caroline nodded. “Doing it for the right reasons, without all the fancy shit?”

  “We try again,” Margot said.

  FIFTY-SIX

  When I knocked on Libby’s door, Rat Dog Bella began to bark wildly inside her apartment. “Okay, okay, honey,” Libby started saying in a soothing tone as she swung the door open wide. When she saw me, the expectant smile on her face dropped and she began to close the door, hard.

  “Wait,” I said, and stuck my foot out—an idiotic reflex. The door slammed on my foot before bouncing back open, and I let out a cry of pain. “Motherfucker.”

  “Oh my God, sorry!” Libby said.

  “It’s okay,” I said, shaking my foot out. I was going to have a bruise tomorrow, but it didn’t seem to be broken.

  “I mean, no! Not sorry. I’m not apologizing to you, you should apologize to me!”

  “I know. That’s why I’m here.”

  That flustered her. “Well,” she said. “Well, maybe I don’t want an apology!” She glared at me and went to close the door again.

  “Now that you’ve maimed me, can you at least hear me out?” I took a deep breath. “I want to bring you to the back room.”

  That stopped her short. “You can’t,” she said. “Haven’t you heard? The clubhouse burned down.”

  “I’m taking you to the back room. I’ll explain everything on the way,” I said, and held out my hand.

  FIFTY-SEVEN

  So, there is no article. There is only this instead. It’s the truth, as much of it as I could tell, though I’ve had to change some names and identifying details. I’m hopeful that I’m telling it for good, like I promised my mother.

  If you want to come find us, wait until dark on the night of the new moon. Then come to where the sounds of the city can’t be heard, down a dirt path that winds and bends, where it passes a grove of crooked, gnarled trees: we’ll be meeting there at midnight.

  You don’t have to prove that you’re worthy. You only have to want to try. The fire we build will be a large one, with plenty of room around it. We’ll gather in our circle and join hands, and we’ll dance with our imperfect bodies.

  Maybe nothing will happen. We’ll just be a bunch of women dancing in the woods, and it will be really fucking fun. Or maybe, just maybe, we will lift into the air, and we will fly.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Even though much of writing is quite solitary, it takes a village to make a novel, and I’ve got one incredible village. I’m so grateful to the following people for their help in bringing this book to life.

  My editor, Jen Monroe. The text you sent me when you first finished reading a draft of this book was so wonderful, it almost made me cry. Working with you is a dream. I’m very lucky that I get to enjoy both your expert editorial guidance and your friendship.

  My agent, Stefanie Lieberman, along with Molly Steinblatt and Adam Hobbins. Thank you for pushing me to be the best writer I can be, and for not letting me spend too much time on book ideas involving complex magic systems/multiple realities that don’t make any sense outside of my own head! I value your guidance so much. And thank you to everyone at Janklow & Nesbit for working on behalf of this story.

  My writing group, Kate Emswiler, Becca Roth, and Celey Schumer, who never blinked when I sent them e-mails like “I HAVE A DEADLINE COMING UP IN A WEEK, CAN YOU READ THESE 75 PAGES AND GIVE ME YOUR TYPICAL THOUGHTFUL, BRILLIANT FEEDBACK?” We jokingly called ourselves “the Coven,” but the magic of drinking tea and discussing writing together
was real.

  My excellent friends who have cheered me on during the highs and lows of publishing. I’m writing this acknowledgments section during COVID-19, and my God, I miss hugging you all so much. Special shout-outs to Sash Bischoff, whose feedback improved this novel immensely, and Rebecca Mohr, who texted me title ideas at all hours of the night when she was up feeding her new baby (one of which, There’s a Special Place in Hell, inspired the eventual title).

  The whole team at Berkley, from the social media experts to the copy editors. Special thanks to the core four—Jin Yu, Jessica Mangicaro, Danielle Keir, and Tara O’Connor—who have headed up my marketing and publicity for two books now with good cheer, lots of patience, and excellent Instagram comments, and to Emily Osborne, Craig Burke, Diana Franco, Jeanne-Marie Hudson, Christine Ball, Claire Zion, and Ivan Held. I look forward to the day when we can once again drink wine and gossip together.

  The people at Paragraph, my quiet, friendly writing oasis in New York City, and Laura, my host in Hastings-on-Hudson, whose tiny cottage was where I wrote some of my favorite scenes in the book. Like Jillian, I envy those writers who can just churn out their brilliance anywhere, because I’m certainly not one of them!

  Cas, the guide of a Salem Night Tour that I took while figuring out this book, whose enthusiastic but questioning attitude about witches helped inform Jillian’s arc.

  The whole reading community. I’m in awe of the booksellers and librarians who spread the word about Happy & You Know It with such passion and kindness, the readers who let my characters into their lives (and took beautiful pictures of my book to boot), and the other authors I’ve gotten to know, who support one another with such enthusiasm, write the best blurbs, and inspire me with their talent. I got to meet some of you bookish people before the world turned upside down, and I hope I get to meet more of you when we’re right side up again.