Until I Met Her (The Emma Fern Series Book 1)

by Natalie Barelli

  “Oh! You’re here! Thank God! I was so worried!”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’ve been trying to reach you—you were so upset yesterday . . .” I walked, arms open, toward her, and she actually took a few steps back, as if she were slightly repelled by me. “I must have called a hundred times, Beatrice! I didn’t want to leave things like this between us! It’s only a book, right? Why would we fight like this over a stupid book, you and me? But I couldn’t reach you, and . . .”

  I sat on the end of the bed, shaking my head.

  “I was so worried, Beatrice, when I couldn’t reach you. I had to come and see you were okay. I just had to.”

  “How did you get in?”

  “With my key—you know, the one you gave me months ago, when I stayed here with you one night, remember?”

  She put a hand out to me. “Can I have it back, please?” she said sternly.

  “You did say I could use it anytime. I only did to see if you were here. To make sure you were okay.”

  “You thought you might find me curled up in my night table?”

  “Ha ha ha!” I laughed gaily, for quite a while actually, scrambling to come up with an appropriate response. She still had her hand out, waiting for me to give her the key.

  “It’s downstairs, the key, on the table in the hall,” I said finally, wiping my eyes as if from the hilarity of her earlier joke.

  “Can you leave, please?” She turned to her side to make room for me to walk past her, the arm previously extended toward me now pointing in the exact opposite direction, outside the room. “Now?” she added, presumably in case I had misunderstood the directive and assumed she meant for us to have tea and cake first.

  But I had come with a specific task in mind, which was not yet completed, and as anyone who knew me would agree, when I started something, I liked to finish it.

  “Beatrice, don’t be like that, what’s wrong with you?” I stood up again.

  “What are you really doing, Emma? You’re not here to check up on me. You know very well I’m supposed to be in LA, so what, exactly, are you doing here?”

  “I forgot you were going away. Why aren’t you there, anyway?”

  “My session got moved, if you must know. You still haven’t answered me, Emma. What do you want?”

  I sighed. “Let’s talk, please. I really don’t want to fight with you. Let’s go and sit down and talk.”

  She snorted. She was starting to do that a lot with me, which was a bit off-putting, certainly, but also not terribly attractive, especially in someone so particular about her appearance.

  “Talk about what?” she pretended to wonder, eyes raised to the sky, an index finger resting on her lips. “I know! Let’s talk about how you want me to keep my mouth shut, while you continue to be the celebrated author of a bestseller you never wrote in the first place! Am I getting warm?”

  She said this in a mocking, singsong voice, as if talking to a child. It was especially nasty.

  “It will ruin my life,” I said somberly, appealing to her kinder self. “I will be humiliated, Beatrice. I’ll be a joke, a fool. We never worked on my own book, so I don’t even have that to fall back on.” I kept my head bent down, but raised a sad eye at her when I said this, hoping to make her feel guilty that even though she had promised to help me write, nothing had ever come of that.

  “Oh, don’t worry, you’ll recover. A little humiliation never killed anyone. They’ll forget about you. You’ve made a lot of money out of this, and it’s all yours. I never claimed my half and I won’t. Keep it—every cent you made out of me so far.”

  “It’s not about money, Beatrice.” Now I was matching her own angry tone. “If I’d known, I would never have agreed to this!” I shouted.

  “Which is why I never mentioned it,” she said calmly.

  “What do you mean?”

  We were inches from each other now. We could spit at each other with complete confidence of reaching our target.

  She narrowed her eyes at me, her body even more taut with spite, if that were possible.

  “That book,” she hissed, “is my life’s work. It’s the novel I was born to write. I put my heart and soul into that novel. I took ten years to write it, and I wasn’t going to take any chances with it. You said to me once that you would never have given it up if you’d written it. Did you really believe I gave it up?” She laughed in a somewhat insane way, then stopped just as quickly as she’d started. “Do you know what they said about me when I published a novel that wasn’t in the style I’ve been ‘categorized’ into?” She made helpful air quotes with her fingers.

  She took a deep breath, and I said nothing, knowing a rhetorical question when I heard one.

  “I wrote another book, years ago, that also was not”—helpful air quotes again—“a ‘crime novel.’ It was a serious work, a truly literary tour de force. Do you know what they said? ‘If only female crime writers like Ms. Johnson Greene would stick to the genre their readers enjoy so much, literature would be grateful.’ ” She waited for my reaction, which was shock of course. In terms of nasty reviews, that one did seem a bit over the top.

  “Was that the book you told me about? The one lining the walls of your storage unit?”

  She ignored me. “They demolished me. They called me pretentious. They wrote that it was excruciating that writers like me should pretend to pen a masterpiece that was at best a poor imitation of better novels. Whatever that means.”

  She looked like a witch, her face distorted in anger, her eyes filled with fury. Go back to snorting, I thought, I take it all back.

  “What was the book?” I asked again. I’d read everything she’d written and I didn’t remember that.

  She deflated, shook her head, lost a little of her composure. “I took it out of circulation. It sank without a trace and I couldn’t bear it. I recalled every copy, and it’s never been mentioned in any of my bios or my backlist. It doesn’t matter anymore.” She waved a hand in the air, then turned to me sharply.

  “I wasn’t going to let that happen with this one. Middle-aged men who had failed to write anything more worthy than a hack job, turning on me like that because I was rich, successful, and achieved a million times more than they ever would in their entire pathetic lives.”

  She stood up straight. “I needed to show them. I was going to write a masterpiece, yes! A masterpiece! But publish it as someone else, someone with no history. Let those critics wax lyrical in their praises and then, bang! Hello, boys! Guess who’s back?” And from the full height of her superiority, she looked down at me and said, “I needed a stand-in. You were perfect.”

  I sat back down on the edge of the bed. I felt lightheaded and couldn’t breathe properly.

  “You set me up like that?”

  “You really were gold, Emma. I couldn’t have found anyone better if I’d tried. I mean, from the moment I met you, you’ve wanted to be me. You copied me; you followed me around; you wanted to write a book, although by now we both know that’s not likely to ever happen; you dressed like me; you talked like me. You were perfect.”

  “Oh my God. And all this time I thought you liked me.” It was as if the bottom of the world had fallen out, and I was spinning down into space.

  “Oh, I did a bit. It was sweet having you around, your little puppy eyes on me all the time.” She laughed.

  “They’ll hang you out to dry, Beatrice. No one should do that to another human being—it’s too cruel.”

  “No. Of course they won’t. Because you’ll say you were in on it. You knew the whole time I would come out at some point as the real author.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “Because you’ll look like a complete idiot if you don’t, with your interviews, your photo shoots, your deluded monologues about your writing efforts. How do you think that’ll work out for you now?”

  I had of course thought of that eventuality before, but it hadn’t occurred to me to pretend to
the world that it was all a front on my part. I even contemplated that possibility just then, to see how it tasted.

  “What if the book had flopped? Would you have still come out and owned it?”

  “What do you think?” She snorted again. “Anyway, it’s all decided now. You do as you please, but if I were you, I’d definitely take the route that this was always part of the plan as far as you’re concerned. At least you’ll be remembered as an excellent actor.”

  She walked out of the bedroom then, and left me there, sitting on the bed, feeling crushed. I had been used right from the beginning. There was no friendship, no mentoring; she didn’t even like me, for God’s sake.

  I wish I could say I don’t remember what happened next, but I do, unfortunately, in hyperrealistic detail.

  I remember hearing a great big sob come out of me; I remember shaking; and I remember that as I watched her leave the room, a wave of violent fury rose inside me. I wanted her to turn around and look at me. I wanted to smash that haughty face of hers with the lamp conveniently within my arm’s reach. I imagined blinding her, strangling her, and I saw myself as if from above, standing up suddenly like a spring that’s been released. I walked toward her in great strides. Her back was to me. She was strolling toward the staircase as if she didn’t even remember that I was in the bedroom anymore, or if she did, she no longer cared. I heard growling, shouting, and realized it was coming from my throat. I started to call her names, my arms extended in front of me to grab at her hair, to pull her back, stop her from discarding me like this, and throughout all this she completely ignored me. She was at the top of the stairs when I reached her and she turned her head to me. She was actually smiling. Instead of clawing at her, grabbing her, closing my hands around her neck as I’d intended to, I pushed her. Violently, with all the force of my wrath.

  She screamed and tumbled, and not at all like a rag doll. It was more like a full-body roll, but the violence of my action had given her such momentum that she literally bounced down the stairs. I heard her head crack at one point, or was it her neck? Every part of her was getting smashed on those steps. Her back, her shoulders, her head, her knees—she was flinging her arms around a bit, but her fall was unstoppable.

  I watched it all, frozen on the top landing, my mind completely blank, unable to comprehend what was happening in front of me, until, after what seemed an awfully long time, she landed hard at the bottom with a thud, and then I screamed. Then I stifled that scream.

  I ran down to her, wobbling with shock, calling out to her, “Beatrice! Beatrice!” I wanted to touch her, to lift her up, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it, I was so frightened of breaking her even more. I tried to feel for a pulse, but I was shaking so violently I couldn’t hold her wrist steady for long enough. And then I saw the blood, dark and thick and oily, seeping out of the side of her head, and I thought, She’s dead.

  It ran out of her so fast it was like a horror movie. The blood would not stop oozing, and I thought it would fill the floor and then rise up against the walls and I’d be trying to keep myself above it, until it reached the ceiling and there was nowhere to go to breathe anymore, and it would drown me. I was about to stand up to get out of the way when I heard a noise—a deep growling moan that didn’t sound human at all—coming from her. I saw that she was trying to move her head, and I didn’t know what to do, how to help her. I turned around for the phone I knew was standing in its base on the low bookshelf nearby, and I scrambled up to get it, but then I stopped. I might survive the humiliation of being outed as a fraud, barely, but I would not survive this, if she lived.

  So I went back to her. She was still moaning—it was more like a guttural bubbling sound now. She’d probably die shortly, but I put one hand on her mouth anyway, the other on her nose as I crouched beside her, and I waited, sobbing, begging for her forgiveness, her eyes wide, staring at me, until I saw the light go out of them and I was sure that she was really, really dead.

  When I stood up, I saw that the tip of my shoe had left a small imprint in the pool of her blood. I took my shoes off and was about to run out the door, but decided to do one last thing first. I stepped over her body and ran to the very top of the stairs, where that bit of carpet had never been glued down properly, and clutching my shoes under my arm, I pulled hard at it, really hard, so that it was gaping up slightly, dislodged from where the brass bars held it down on either side of the step.

  I gave the room downstairs one last check; the blood had pooled where my toe had previously left its mark. I ran the hell out of there, barefoot, not even stopping to put my shoes back on until I’d reached the basement parking garage exit.

  22

  “You never said it was a complete manuscript,” Frankie says to me when I walk out of the studio. It’s over, I keep telling myself. I did the show. I survived it. I survived it because Beatrice wasn’t there to ruin my life.

  After a few false starts, Books and Letters went extremely well and now we’re having coffee, as usual. It’s what we do after any event or interview: we “deconstruct” what has taken place, as Frankie calls it. I don’t know why, considering how much effort we put into constructing it in the first place. “You did say you’d started a few times but never finished, and even threw it out.”

  “Which is what I meant. I know it didn’t come out like that, but it’s what I meant to say. There is no ‘other’ manuscript.”

  God, I feel better. No. I feel great! This is the first time in I don’t know how long that the threat of Beatrice isn’t engulfing me in a total panic. That weight has truly lifted from me. I feel so light I could grow wings.

  There’s nothing quite as confidence-boosting as killing someone, I now realize. Especially someone who plans to ruin your life.

  “Of course,” Frankie says, pulling me out of my reverie, “but just so we’re clear, that manuscript that isn’t there? I’m the first to not see it, okay? Will you promise me that?”

  “I promise you solemnly,” I say, nodding.

  “Good. Because we need something to follow this with, you know? And I’m being serious here, Emma. Your fans—”

  I snort so hard, I spray coffee all over the table.

  “Don’t kid yourself. That’s the business you’re in now. You have fans, and they need something from you. That’s the transaction you’ve entered into.”

  Again, I nod solemnly.

  “So? Are you working on something?”

  “Don’t, Frankie, please.”

  “I’ll cut you some slack, Emma, for now, because I know there’s a lot going on here for you, and you’re doing a terrific job, you really are.” He takes my hand above the table. He makes me feel loved.

  “Thank you, Frankie, for understanding. Give me a little time and then we’ll talk about that again.”

  “Fine.”

  “And what about you? You’re okay now?” I’m changing the subject. “Things are more . . . secure for you? Financially, I mean?”

  “They sure are, and thank you for asking.” He takes my hand and raises it to his lips, kisses it, and puts it back down. “Thanks to you.” He smiles. I love him. I really do.

  “I’m glad, Frankie. You deserve it.”

  “We both do! And I have a couple of prospects I’m about to sign up.” He grins, clearly pleased with himself.

  “Do you! Now, that’s interesting! Anyone who’s going to take the wind out from beneath my wings?”

  “Certainly not. I wouldn’t allow it.” We both laugh.

  “Does this mean you’ll be able to afford a publicist now? You won’t have to accompany me everywhere and hold my hand?” I ask.

  “I’ll always come with you to these sorts of things Emma. I don’t care how successful we become.”

  “Good. Just checking.” I smile.

  I’m about to suggest we have another cup of coffee—Frankie is like me in that regard: we drink coffee like it’s water—when my phone vibrates on the table.

  “Take it.” He st
ands. “I’ll be right back,” he says, and moves toward the restroom at the far end of the café.

  I glance at the screen but it’s not a number I recognize.

  “Hello?”

  “Emma? It’s Hannah. Hannah Beal.”

  “Hannah! How are you?” I exclaim, as if she’s a dear friend I’ve been longing to hear from. I don’t know why, since I don’t particularly want to speak to Hannah.

  “Oh, you know,” she sighs, and I remind myself that we have both lost someone very dear to us, and I need to tone it down a notch. So I sigh also.

  “I do, I do. Lord, I do. So, how are you holding up, Hannah?”

  “Same as you, probably.” She laughs bitterly. “But let’s not go there.”

  No. Let’s not.

  “How did the taping go today?”

  She means Books and Letters of course.

  “Oh, you know, it was sad. I couldn’t stop thinking that Beatrice should be there with me, by my side. I didn’t want to do it, you know, but Jim convinced me I should. You know what husbands are like,” I chuckle.

  “Not really, no, but I’m sure he meant well. That’s—” She pauses a moment. “That’s actually what I wanted to talk to you about. Can you explain what that was all about? The two of you going on the show? Beatrice never told me. It sounded big, but I can’t for the life of me guess. It’s been bothering me a lot,” she says.

  “Oh please! Don’t I know it! It’s been bothering me hugely too! I’ve been racking my brain, but I’ve come up blank. I was going to call you to ask the exact same thing. So she never said anything to you either?”

  “Oh.” I can hear how disappointed she is. I bet she’s been stopping herself from making this call until it was appropriate. Like after the Books and Letters interview. “No,” she says. “It was very odd though. It’s a strange thing to suggest, an interview like this, without discussing why.”

  “I’m with you. To be honest, it worried me a little, but she promised she’d tell me the morning of the show. Well, she would have had to, if we were to be joint guests. I suspected she had the idea that we write a book together.”