After He Killed Me

by Natalie Barelli

  He nods thoughtfully. “Thank you, that’s really interesting, it sounds fascinating. I can’t wait to read it.”

  Neither can I.

  “It’s too soon to tell how it will turn out yet.” I smile.

  “I’m even more flattered that you shared it with me, then.”

  “And your millions of readers.” I point at the pen in his hand that is scribbling everything I just said.

  He smiles.

  “You don’t keep your books here?” he says now, looking around the walls.

  I do the same. “My books?”

  “I usually find when I interview writers, particularly accomplished ones such as yourself, that they have floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. At some point in the interview, I always like to take a look at what’s on those shelves, see what they’re reading. It’s very helpful, to find out about someone, more than you’d think.”

  “Really? Well, no. I don’t keep my books in the living room.”

  He waits for more.

  “I keep them in my library.”

  “You have a library?” His eyes open wide, almost as wide as his mouth. It’s kind of charming, really.

  “No, of course not!” I slap my thigh. “I was joking. I mean who has a library these days, right?” I laugh, rocking my head back.

  “At a guess?” He counts on his fingers. “Claire Messud, Woody Allen, Karl Lagerfeld, George Lucas—”

  “Isn’t he dead?”

  “George Lucas? I don’t think so.”

  “Maybe I was thinking of the other one.”

  “Philip Pullman, Neil Gaiman—”

  “All right, I believe you,” I say, gaily, a hand raised to ward off any more names. “People still have libraries. Well, I don’t. I have a Kindle. Do you want to see it?”

  “No bookshelves? Really?” He’s disappointed.

  “I keep books in my bedroom.”

  “Ah. Could I take a look?”

  “Certainly not. My husband wouldn’t like it.”

  “Of course.”

  I’m not sure Jim would care, actually, but I don’t want these people in there. It’s just a pile of paperbacks on my bedside table: a couple of crime fiction authors and one or two romance novels. We are not going in there.

  “And in my room. My office, I mean.”

  “You work here? In this apartment?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Can we see your office?”

  I hesitate just a second. “Sure, why not?”

  He gets up and beckons Sofia with his index finger. I lead them to my office and show them in.

  “You’re very organized.”

  He’s looking at my desk, my beautiful, large, expensive, and pristine desk, upon which I have a small pile of leather-bound notebooks—unopened, neatly stacked—a pen holder, with a couple of nice pens in it, and a small dish for bits and pieces like paper clips or rubber bands, except there’s nothing in it.

  “I pride myself on that,” I say. “But I work on my laptop, here.” I pull open the wide shallow drawer below the desktop, in which my laptop lives.

  “Ah, nice. All right if we take pictures?”

  “Go right ahead.”

  Sofia snaps away and Al takes a look around. The desk stands against the far wall, and hanging above the desk is a large corkboard. I was going to put my index cards on that, for my ideas, but it’s become a receptacle for odd pieces about me, cut out from newspapers and magazines, or things I print from the Internet. The corners of the various pages are mostly curled up; they’ve been there a while.

  I show him my office bookcase. It’s mostly copies of Long Grass Running, actually, in a multitude of languages, but there are a few other interesting novels and books on writing, from that half-hour way back when I thought I’d “give writing another go.”

  When they’re done, we return to the living room and do a quick photo shoot, the part I’ve been looking forward to. I spent a good hour this morning doing my makeup, and I’m pleased with the way I look.

  I stand where I know the light is most flattering. Sofia asks me to turn this way and that, and I put on various expressions—pensive, thoughtful, thinking, creative—which obviously all look the same, but I know the difference.

  “Thank you, Emma, I really appreciate your time,” Al says when we’re finished. He has a warm handshake and a nice smile. We’re outside the door of the apartment.

  “No, thank you,” I say, graciously. “When does it come out?”

  “The fifteenth.”

  “Of this month?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I look forward to it.”

  I’m about to ask if he thinks I’ll make it onto the cover, but I think better of it.

  After they’ve gone, I sit on the nearest chair and put my head in my hands. I thought they would never leave. But I feel okay, and I’m pretty sure I rescued the situation when Al brought up the business about an email, but I don’t understand. I didn’t send that email. This is the kind of thing that keeps happening to me. I feel like I’m losing my mind. I need to go and take a look at my emails, but first I call Frankie.

  “How did it go?”

  “Really well, I think. A bit slow at the start, but we got there in the end.”

  “Great, well done!”

  “I told them all about my new book.”

  “You did?”

  “Yes, I think they really liked what they heard.”

  “Oh, Emma, that’s fantastic! Next time, run it past me before you give interviews about it.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I don’t know what it’s about. And now I can buy the New Yorker and find out.”

  I chuckle. “You’re right, sorry. I’ll tell you all about it next time I see you. And it’s going really well!”

  “Music to my ears,” he says, and I laugh.

  10

  But I’m not really laughing. I’m confused, and I go to my laptop to check my emails. Did I really send this? Was I drunk? What did he say again? That I wanted to make some kind of confession? I scroll through my sent mail folder, but there’s nothing remotely like that in there. I sit at my desk, pinching at the skin on the side of my thumbnail. I don’t know who to ask, or what to do. It’s a relief when I hear the front door, and I know that Jim is home.

  I walk into the living room, expecting him to be there, or at least to call out for me, but all I see is his coat thrown across the back of an armchair, which is a little odd, and not like him. He’s very particular about his clothes.

  “Darling? Where are you?”

  “I’ll be there in a minute, Emma.”

  I go to his office. The door is closed, so I knock quickly and open it. He’s staring at his computer screen, his back to me, hunched over. There are a couple of folders on the floor, the contents spilled onto the carpet.

  Lately I’ve noticed he seems to have moved most of his office—his other, outside office, that is—here, to our home. There are cardboard boxes piled high, dangerously leaning in some cases.

  “Everything okay?”

  He turns. “I said I’ll be there in a minute, okay?”

  He’s got that red patch again, just above the bridge of his nose. The telltale sign that Jim is stressed.

  I walk in and bend down to pick up the papers from the floor.

  “Leave it! Please!” He says this so loudly that I stand quickly and almost stumble.

  “What’s happened?” I ask, as gently as I can, as if he’s a dangerous animal.

  “Nothing, really, I’m sorry. I have to work, okay?”

  There’s a spreadsheet open on his laptop. It takes up the whole screen, numbers all over it. A line graph in a corner.

  “Emma, please?”

  “Okay, sure,” I say, somewhat petulantly, as I turn around to leave. I’m annoyed too now.

  “Thank you, darling. Sorry, I’m really swamped here,” he says.

  I smile quickly and retreat. Part of me wants to ask him
about the email. I want to know what he thinks. But I don’t dare. I know he’s going to say something about me being vague again. Or losing things. Like my mind.

  I fix myself a drink, and consider offering him one, but then I change my mind. He can get his own drink.

  Maybe it was a misunderstanding. Maybe Al was thinking of a different email. Maybe Frankie said something about my memoir concerning Beatrice to Al. Yes, that’s what it was. It must be.

  I flick through a magazine, determined to keep it out of my mind. What should I be making for dinner? If I still had money, I think I’d consider hiring someone to cook for us. I do love it, but some days, like today, not so much. I try not to think about Nick, but I can’t help myself. The more I think about him, the more convinced I become that he’s a fraud, a phony. A poseur. I bet his book will be awful. Why would Frankie court someone like that? He was literally dripping with adulation for this man. I just don’t get it.

  “Okay. All done,” Jim says as he comes over and sits next to me on the couch, putting his arm around my shoulders. My annoyance dissipates immediately.

  He closes his eyes and we lean back together. “Sorry about before. Big day.”

  “Everything all right?”

  “Sort of. It’ll be okay. Just work stuff.”

  I move away from his embrace, so that I can face him, look at him. “You can talk to me, you know?”

  “I know.” He smiles briefly, but there’s a flash of something behind his eyes. It’s so fast I almost miss it. I lie back against his chest.

  “How was your day?” he asks.

  “Great, I had the New Yorker interview today.”

  “That’s right! Congratulations. It went well?”

  “Very well. We talked about my new novel . . .” I let the thought trail as I recall my conversation with Carol. Just write something brilliant. Watch him squirm. I wish Jim had said that to me. I wish I’d had that conversation with him.

  Should I tell him? I had a lovely afternoon with your ex-lover yesterday. I can see why you liked her so much. She’s really nice!

  “That’s good,” he says. And for a moment I wonder whether I spoke out loud. “What did you do yesterday, by the way? After you called me. I forgot to ask.”

  I sit up. “Nothing much, I caught up with an old friend,” I say, flicking through my magazine again.

  “That’s good. Who?”

  “Jackie,” I lie.

  “So you did have a drink.”

  “No, I didn’t. We had coffee.”

  “How is Jackie?”

  I pick at the lint on my skirt. I don’t even know why I brought her up. Jackie who used to run the store with me. My home decor store that I loved, until I published Long Grass Running and I sold the business to her.

  “She’s good. She looks very well, happy.”

  “That’s nice. And your book? It’s going well?”

  I sit up again, look at him. He still has his eyes closed. “What does my book have to do with Jackie?”

  “Nothing, I know it’s on your mind, that’s all.”

  “Are you worried about it? That I won’t be able to write another book?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Of course not.”

  “Maybe I want to go back to the store, with Jackie.”

  I lean back against his chest and feel him twitch beneath me.

  “Why on earth would you do that?” he asks.

  “Well, it was an easier life, in many ways. Less pressure, for one thing.”

  He puts his arms around me, over my shoulders. It’s a lovely feeling. I kiss his hands and feel his lips on the back of my neck.

  “You’re not going back to work with Jackie. That’s the most ridiculous suggestion I ever heard, so drop it. You’ve been working very hard on this new book. You talk of nothing else,” he continues, “and I am so proud of you, sweetheart. Your success, what you’ve achieved, it’s incredible. Just today I was telling my clients all about you. What you do. How amazing you are.”

  “Really? Why?”

  “Because you’re the most interesting thing about me.”

  It’s so unexpected, hearing Jim say those words, that my eyes well up. I think it may be the nicest thing he has ever said to me.

  “Don’t give up, Emma, you must believe in yourself. This is your destiny, Em. It’s our destiny.”

  I sigh. “If you say so.”

  “I say so. You won’t think about this again, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “I mean it.”

  “It’s all right, I wasn’t actually thinking of doing it.”

  I couldn’t sleep. Neither could Jim, I suspect, from his tossing and turning about whatever was keeping him working at home last night. Were the Forum’s finances really as tight as Terry had said? Or was it something completely different?

  But that’s not what kept me awake last night. No. Me, I was fantasizing about my next novel. The brilliant one. It’s not going to be Long Grass Running, obviously. Part of me thinks nothing will ever be that good, but just the thought of not having to listen to Frankie going on and on every five minutes, saying, Go write something, Em, fills me with joy. He’ll give me a break. He’ll tell me to take a vacation. Shame I spent the advance already.

  Armed with my morning coffee, I sit at my desk—now preserved in photographs for all to see—and open my laptop.

  I say it out loud: “I’m going to write something brilliant.” The phone rings? Sorry, can’t take it, I’m writing.

  I pull out one of my beautiful notebooks, and open it to the first pristine ruled page, and take a pen from the pen holder.

  The man in the mirror.

  Now that sounds familiar. I cross it out.

  Reflections of . . . something.

  Look at me.

  I see you.

  Through the looking glass.

  That one’s a joke.

  Echoes.

  Maybe.

  I leave the “what’s the title?” exercise for now, and start to jot down what my story will be about. I’m sure I have the thread of something here. I just need to get hold of the end of it, pull gently, and let it unravel itself into a story.

  So I begin.

  It’s about a man, who is trapped in the reflections of—anything, really. Mirrors, obviously—all the other things I told that Al guy—and this man, he’s in love with a woman. He follows her around, from one reflection to another. When he can’t see her—because wherever she happens to be, there are no windows/mirrors/puddles of water—he is devastated, longing to find her again.

  Then I write more, gibberish mostly, and after an hour or so, I reread what I’ve got, and because I’m so impressed with what I’ve come up with so far, I then write things like: What the fuck is this guy doing there in the first place? and In the category of really stupid ideas, the envelope please . . . the prize goes to Emma Fern for Echoes of Imbecility. Thank you very much. I’d like to thank my pea-sized brain, first and foremost, and secondly my appalling education. I couldn’t have done it without you both.

  “Sam Huntington.”

  “Sam, it’s Emma Fern.”

  “Hey, Emma Fern!”

  I can hear the smile in his voice as I start chatting. Small talk. That I still owe him money for the other day, and I’m glad to see his website is still up, when all I want to ask is: Are you really as good as you say you are?

  “Did you find your credit card? I meant to ask last time we spoke.”

  “Yes, I did, under my wireless keyboard of all places.”

  “That’s where most of my things are, I think. I’m afraid to look under there. There’s bound to be an overdue notice from the IRS or something equally unpleasant.”

  He makes me laugh. But I need to get on with it. I have business to attend to here, so I take the plunge.

  “I know we said we’d get together for a coffee, but I wonder if we could make it a more professional meeting.”

  “Sure, what do you have in mind?”r />
  Deep breath, Emma, deep breath. “Will you ghostwrite with me? Or is it for me? What’s the term?”

  There’s a pause, and I close my eyes tightly. Did I say the wrong thing? Did I give something away about myself? Am I a complete idiot?

  Then he says, “Work with you? Yes, I would love to work with you, Emma.”

  And my breath comes out finally, the breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. I’m relieved he didn’t say, But why? What’s the problem? You’re a Poulton Prize winner, for goodness’ sake! You don’t need the likes of me!

  I also like that he called me Emma, not Emma Fern. I expected the “Fern” to come after the “Emma” when he said he would do it, because that’s what he calls me, and I was already cringing. I don’t want to be reminded that I am Emma Fern, because invariably, Emma Fern is followed by “bestselling Poulton Prize winner,” and for the first time in my existence, I don’t want to hear it.

  He makes it very easy. It’s like making an appointment with your doctor. Which is what he is, after all, a kind of doctor. He’s going to fix me up.

  “Great. Thank you,” I say. “I’m free this afternoon. Can I come over to your office?”

  “This afternoon is fine. I just had a cancellation.”

  “Wonderful.”

  I’m so relieved. There’s a future ahead of me and it’s bright and happy, and there’s a novel at the end of the rainbow.

  11

  It’s a nice office; much nicer than I expected, although I hadn’t expected anything, so I don’t know why I’m surprised. But if I had thought about it, I would have pictured an executive suite, very impersonal. Lots of glass, gray carpet, concealed lighting, tall potted plants in the lobby. Like a law firm, I suppose.

  “Do you have an assistant?”

  “No. In my business it makes people nervous. The fewer people who know about my clients, the better. That’s how it is.”

  We’re in a converted warehouse, and the curved windows remind me of Beatrice’s apartment—but I’d rather not have to think about Beatrice or her apartment if I can help it, so I shake off the memory. Anyway, that’s where the similarity ends. The space is way smaller than Beatrice’s penthouse, for one thing. It’s divided between an office area with a desk, a workstation-type space, and a sitting area. The walls are white. It’s bright in here, warm and friendly. There are flowers in vases; the floors are polished wood, the color of honey. It makes me think of a wedding planner’s office, but since I’ve never been in one of those either . . . Maybe if I went to one I’d find it was all glass and chrome.