by Sarah Jio
A very special thanks goes to my dear editor at Plume, Denise Roy, who stuck with me through the many, many drafts and who helped me see the light—or, rather, the beautiful garden—at the end of the tunnel. You have a very special gift. Also, much gratitude to Milena Brown, Elizabeth Keenan, Ashley Pattison, Kym Surridge, Phil Budnick, Kate Napolitano, and everyone else at Plume. It is a privilege and a pleasure to work with you all.
A heartfelt thanks to the lovely Stephanie Sun, who has read every one of my books in the early draft stages, and who provided such brilliant feedback on this novel in particular.
Many thanks to the amazing Jenny Meyer, who has shared my stories with readers in seventeen countries around the world and who somehow manages to keep up with all of my books. I am so grateful.
To Dana Borowitz, for believing in me and for reminding me that the best things in life aren’t achieved by a short sprint, but rather a steady pace and lots of endurance.
To my dear friends: Sally Kassab, for reminding me of the importance of loyalty and “showing up”; Wendi Parriera, for making me smile and always taking my side; Camille Noe Pagan, for the encouragement; and many, many others who have cheered me on in so many ways. Thank you.
Last but not least, my family: Mom, Dad, Jessica, Josh, Josiah, love you. And, a special message to my husband, Jason: Consider this an I Owe You for a prime rib dinner (and by prime rib, I do not mean the vegan “meat” in the freezer that you always eat so graciously because I make it). I love you. xo
Chapter 1
“I guess this is it,” Joel said, leaning into the doorway of our apartment. His eyes darted as if he was trying to memorize every detail of the turn-of-the-century New York two-story, the one we’d bought together five years ago and renovated—in happier times. It was a sight: the entryway with its delicate arch, the old mantel we’d found at an antique store in Connecticut and carted home like treasure, and the richness of the dining room walls. We’d agonized about the paint color but finally settled on Morocco Red, a shade that was both wistful and jarring, a little like our marriage. Once it was on the walls, he thought it was too orange. I thought it was just right.
Our eyes met for a second, but I quickly looked down at the dispenser in my hands and robotically pried off the last piece of packing tape, hastily plastering it on the final box of Joel’s belongings that he’d come over that morning to retrieve. “Wait,” I said, recalling a fleck of a blue leather-bound hardback I’d seen in the now-sealed box. I looked up at him accusatorily. “Did you take my copy of Years of Grace ?”
I had read the novel on our honeymoon in Tahiti six years prior, though it wasn’t the memory of our trip I wanted to eulogize with its tattered pages. Looking back, I’ll never know how the 1931 Pulitzer Prize winner by the late Margaret Ayer Barnes ended up in a dusty stack of complimentary books in the resort’s lobby, but as I pulled it out of the bin and cracked open its brittle spine, I felt my heart contract with a deep familiarity that I could not explain. The moving story told in its pages, of love and loss and acceptance, of secret passions and the weight of private thoughts, forever changed the way I viewed my own writing. It may have even been the reason why I stopped writing. Joel had never read the book, and I was glad of it. It was too intimate to share. It read to me like the pages of my unwritten diary.
Joel watched as I peeled the tape back and opened the box, digging around until I found the old novel. When I did I let out a sigh of emotional exhaustion.
“Sorry,” he said awkwardly. “I didn’t realize you—”
He didn’t realize a lot of things about me. I grasped the book tightly, then nodded and re-taped the box. “I guess that’s everything,” I said, standing up.
He glanced cautiously toward me, and I returned his gaze this time. For another few hours, at least until I signed the divorce papers later that afternoon, he would still be my husband. Yet it was difficult to look into those dark brown eyes knowing that the man I had married was leaving me, for someone else. How did we get here?
The scene of our demise played out in my mind like a tragic movie, the way it had a million times since we’d been separated. It opened on a rainy Monday morning in November. I was making scrambled eggs smothered in Tabasco, his favorite, when he told me about Stephanie. The way she made him laugh. The way she understood him. The way they connected. I pictured the image of two Lego pieces fusing together, and I shuddered. It’s funny; when I think back to that morning, I can actually smell burned eggs and Tabasco. Had I known that this is what the end of my marriage would smell like, I would have made pancakes.
I looked once again into Joel’s face. His eyes were sad and unsure. I knew that if I rose to my feet and threw myself into his arms, he might embrace me with the love of an apologetic husband who wouldn’t leave, wouldn’t end our marriage. But, no, I told myself. The damage had been done. Our fate had been decided. “Good-bye, Joel,” I said. My heart may have wanted to linger, but my brain knew better. He needed to go.
Joel looked wounded. “Emily, I—”
Was he looking for forgiveness? A second chance? I didn’t know. I extended my hand as if to stop him from going on. “Good-bye,” I said, mustering all my strength.
He nodded solemnly, then turned to the door. I closed my eyes and listened as he shut it quietly behind him. He locked it from the outside, a gesture that made my heart seize. He still cares. . . . About my safety, at least. I shook my head and reminded myself to get the locks changed, then listened as his footsteps became quieter, until they were completely swallowed up by the street noise.
My phone rang sometime later, and when I stood up to get it, I realized that I’d been sitting on the floor engrossed in Years of Grace ever since Joel left. Had a minute passed? An hour?
“Are you coming?” It was Annabelle, my best friend. “You promised me you wouldn’t sign your divorce papers alone.”
Disoriented, I looked at the clock. “Sorry, Annie,” I said, fumbling for my keys and the dreaded manila envelope in my bag. I was supposed to meet her at the restaurant forty-five minutes ago. “I’m on my way.”
“Good,” she said. “I’ll order you a drink.”
The Calumet, our favorite lunch spot, was four blocks from my apartment, and when I arrived ten minutes later, Annabelle greeted me with a hug.
“Are you hungry?” she asked after we sat down.
I sighed. “No.”
Annabelle frowned. “Carbs,” she said, passing me the bread basket. “You need carbs. Now, where are those papers? Let’s get this over with.”
I pulled the envelope out of my bag and set it on the table, staring at it with the sort of caution one might reserve for dynamite.
“You realize this is all your fault,” Annabelle said, half-smiling.
I gave her a dirty look. “What do you mean, my fault?”
“You don’t marry men named Joel,” she continued with that tsktsk sound in her voice. “Nobody marries Joels. You date Joels, you let them buy you drinks and pretty little things from Tiffany, but you don’t marry them.”
Annabelle was working on her PhD in social anthropology. In her two years of research, she had analyzed marriage and divorce data in an unconventional way. According to her findings, a marriage’s success rate can be accurately predicted by the man’s name.
Marry an Eli and you’re likely to enjoy wedded bliss for about 12.3 years. Brad? 6.4. Steves peter out after just four. And as far as Annabelle is concerned, don’t ever—ever—marry a Preston.
“So what does the data say about Joel again?”
“Seven point two years,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone.
I nodded. We had been married for six years and two weeks.
“You need to find yourself a Trent,” she continued.
I made a displeased face. “I hate the name Trent.”
“OK, then an Edward or a Bill, or—no, a Bruce,” she said. “These are names with marital longevity.”
“Right
,” I said sarcastically. “Maybe you should take me husbandshopping at a retirement home.”
Annabelle is tall and thin and beautiful—Julia Roberts beautiful, with her long, wavy dark hair, porcelain skin, and intense dark eyes. At thirty-three she had never been married. The reason, she’d tell you, was jazz. She couldn’t find a man who liked Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock as much as she did.
She waved for the waiter. “We’ll take two more, please.” He whisked away my martini glass, leaving a water ring on the envelope.
“It’s time,” she said softly.
My hand trembled a little as I reached into the envelope and pulled out a stack of papers about a half-inch thick. My lawyer’s assistant had flagged three pages with hot pink “sign here” sticky notes.
I reached into my bag for a pen and felt a lump in my throat as I signed my name on the first page, and then the next, and then the next. Emily Wilson, with an elongated y and a pronounced n. It was the exact way I’d signed my name since the fifth grade. Then I scrawled out the date, February 28, 2005, the day our marriage was laid to rest.
“Good girl,” Annabelle said, inching a fresh martini closer to me. “So are you going to write about Joel?” Because I am a writer, Annabelle, like everyone else I knew, believed that writing about my relationship with Joel as a thinly veiled novel would be the best revenge.
“You could build a whole story around him, except change his name slightly,” she continued. “Maybe call him Joe, and make him look like a total jerk.” She took a bite and nearly choked on her food, laughing, before saying, “No, a jerk with erectile dysfunction.”
The only problem is that even if I had wanted to write a revenge novel about Joel, which I didn’t, it would have been a terrible book. Anything I got down on paper, if I could get anything down on paper, would have lacked imagination. I know this because I had woken up every day for the past eight years, sat at my desk, and stared at a blank screen. Sometimes I’d crank out a great line, or a few solid pages, but then I’d get stuck. And once I was frozen, there was no melting the ice.
My therapist, Bonnie, called it clinical (as in terminal) writer’s block. My muse had taken ill, and her prognosis didn’t look good.
Eight years ago I wrote a best-selling novel. Eight years ago I was on top of the world. I was skinny—not that I’m fat now (well, OK, so the thighs, yes, maybe a little)—and on the New York Times best seller list. And if there were such a thing as the New York Times best life list, I would have been on that, too.
After my book, Calling Ali Larson, was published, my agent encouraged me to write a follow-up. Readers wanted a sequel, she told me. And my publisher had already offered to double my advance for a second book. But as hard as I tried, I had nothing more to write, nothing more to say. And eventually, my agent stopped calling. Publishers stopped wondering. Readers stopped caring. The only evidence that my former life wasn’t just a figment was the royalty checks that came in the mail every so often and an occasional letter I received from a somewhat deranged reader by the name of Lester McCain, who believed he was in love with Ali, my book’s main character.
I still remember the rush I felt when Joel walked up to me at my book release party at the Madison Park Hotel. He was at some cocktail party in an adjoining room when he saw me standing in the doorway. I was wearing a Betsey Johnson dress, which in 1997 was the ultimate: a black strapless number that I’d spent an embarrassing amount of money on. But, oh yes, it was worth every penny. It was still in my closet, but I suddenly had the urge to go home and burn it.
“You look stunning,” he had said, rather boldly, before even introducing himself. I remember how I felt when I heard him utter those words. It could have been his trademark pick-up line, and let’s be real, it probably was. But it made me feel like a million bucks. It was so Joel.
A few months prior to that, GQ had done a big spread on the most eligible “regular-guy” bachelors in America—no, not the list that every two years always features George Clooney; the one that listed a surfer in San Diego, a dentist in Pennsylvania, a teacher in Detroit, and, yes, an attorney in New York, Joel. He had made the Top 10. And somehow, I had snagged him.
And lost him.
Annabelle was waving her hands in front of me. “Earth to Emily,” she said.
“Sorry,” I replied, shuddering a little. “No, I won’t be writing about Joel.” I shook my head and tucked the papers back into the envelope, then put it in my bag. “If I write anything again, it will be different than any story I’ve ever tried to write.”
Annabelle shot me a confused look. “What about the follow-up to your last book? Aren’t you going to finish that?”
“Not anymore,” I said, folding a paper napkin in half and then in half again.
“Why not?”
I sighed. “I can’t do it anymore. I can’t force myself to churn out 85,000 mediocre words, even if it means a book deal. Even if it means thousands of readers with my book in their hands on beach vacations. No, if I ever write anything again—if I ever write again—it will be different.”
Annabelle looked as if she wanted to stand up and applaud. “Look at you,” she said, smiling. “You’re having a breakthrough.”
“No I’m not,” I said stubbornly.
“Sure you are,” she countered. “Let’s analyze this some more.” She clasped her hands together. “You said you want to write something different, but what I think you mean is that your heart wasn’t in your last book.”
“You could say that, yes,” I said, shrugging.
Annabelle retrieved an olive from her martini glass and popped it into her mouth. “Why don’t you write about something you actually care about?” she said a moment later. “Like a place, or a person that inspired you.”
I nodded. “Isn’t that what every writer tries to do?”
“Yeah,” she said, shooing away the waiter with a “we’re fine, and no we would not like the bill yet” look, then turning back to me with intense eyes. “But have you actually tried it? I mean, your book was fantastic—it really was, Em—but was there anything in it that was, well, you?”
She was right. It was a fine story. It was a best seller, for crying out loud. So why couldn’t I feel proud of it? Why didn’t I feel connected to it?
“I’ve known you a long time,” she continued, “and I know that it wasn’t a story that grew out of your life, your experiences.”
It wasn’t. But what in my life could I draw from? I thought about my parents and grandparents, and then shook my head. “That’s the problem,” I said. “Other writers have plenty to mine from—bad mothers, abuse, adventurous childhoods. My life has been so vanilla. No deaths. No trauma. Not even a dead pet. Mom’s cat, Oscar, is twenty-two years old. There’s nothing there that warrants storytelling, believe me; I’ve thought about it.”
“I don’t think you’re giving yourself enough credit,” she said. “There must be something. Some spark.”
This time I permitted my mind to wander, and when it did, I immediately thought of my great-aunt Bee, my mother’s aunt, and her home on Bainbridge Island, in Washington State. I missed her as much as I missed the island. How had I let so many years pass since my last visit? Bee, who was eighty-five going on twenty-nine, had never had children, so my sister and I, by default, became her surrogate grandchildren. She sent us birthday cards with crisp fifty-dollar bills inside, Christmas gifts that were actually cool, and Valentine’s Day candy, and when we’d visit in the summers from our home in Portland, Oregon, she’d sneak chocolate under our pillows before our mother could scream, “No, they just brushed their teeth!”
Bee was unconventional, indeed. But there was also something a little off about her. The way she talked too much. Or talked too little. The way she was simultaneously welcoming and petulant, giving and selfish. And then there were her secrets. I loved her for having them.
My mother always said that when people live alone for the better part of their lives they become immune t
o their own quirks. I wasn’t sure if I bought into the theory or not, partly because I was worried about a lifetime of spinsterhood myself. I contented myself with watching for signs.
Bee. I could picture her immediately at her Bainbridge Island kitchen table. For every day I have known her, she has eaten the same breakfast: sourdough toast with butter and whipped honey. She slices the golden brown toasted bread into four small squares and places them on a paper towel she has folded in half. A generous smear of softened butter goes on each piece, as thick as frosting on a cupcake, and each is then topped by a good-size dollop of whipped honey. As a child, I watched her do this hundreds of times, and now, when I’m sick, sourdough toast with butter and honey is like medicine.
Bee isn’t a beautiful woman. She towers above most men, with a face that is somehow too wide, shoulders too large, teeth too big. Yet the black-and-white photos of her youth reveal a spark of something, a certain prettiness that all women have in their twenties.
I used to love a particular photo of her at just that age, which hung in a seashell-covered frame high on the wall in the hallway of my childhood home, hardly in a place of honor, as one had to stand on a step stool to see it clearly. The old, scalloped-edge photo depicted a Bee I’d never known. Seated with a group of friends on a beach blanket, she appeared carefree and was smiling seductively. Another woman leaned in close to her, whispering in her ear. A secret. Bee clutched a string of pearls dangling from her neck and gazed at the camera in a way I’d never witnessed her look at Uncle Bill. I wondered who stood behind the lens that day so many years ago.
“What did she say?” I asked my mother one day as a child, peering up at the photograph.
Mom didn’t look up from the laundry she was wrestling with in the hallway. “What did who say?”
I pointed to the woman next to Bee. “The pretty lady whispering in Aunt Bee’s ear.”