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Emmit rubs his hands together. “I’m going with something hot. How about you, Saoirse White, what’s your pick of nonalcoholic poison?”

The waitress appears, and Saoirse orders a hot chai with oat milk.

“Size?”

“Large,” Emmit cuts in before Saoirse can respond. “I’ll have the same.”

The waitress nods. “Is that all, Mr. Powell?”

“For now. Thanks, Jess.”

The waitress flushes, smiles, and hurries away.

Saoirse refrains from commenting on the way he completed her order. If he thinks having a greater amount of tea in her cup will keep her sitting across from him longer, he’s mistaken. She’ll leave when she wants to. She has no intention of seeing this man—talented writer or not—after today.

“So, Saoirse,” Emmit starts. “That’s not a name you hear every day. Are you Scottish?”

“Irish. My father was born there. It was his grandmother’s name, and my mother took a liking to it.”

“Have you been to Ireland?”

“Once, when I was a teenager. It was a family trip. The last before my parents’ divorce.” She isn’t sure why her words come out so easily, but she’d forgotten how enjoyable it could be to converse with another person without putting up walls, without going out of her way to avoid certain topics, her certainty that this relationship is casual and transient giving her the freedom to say whatever she wishes.

“I’m sorry to hear your parents are divorced.”

“It was for the best.” The waitress reappears, places two steaming mugs on the table, and flashes another timid smile at Emmit, but he doesn’t look at her. “What about you?” Saoirse continues. “Do you have a good relationship with your parents?”

Even as she poses the question, she’s trying to remember if there was anything in Emmit’s explosive debut novel that hinted at a writer intimately familiar with warring parents or a turbulent childhood. She read it when it first came out, and while she knows it featured a main character with skeletons in his closet, she couldn’t remember if those skeletons eventually came out and danced, tempting the reader to flirt with the idea that their genesis was autobiographical in nature.

“My father ran out on my mother, brother, sister, and me when I was a year old. My sister was a newborn. My mother died a year later, and I was raised by my aunt and uncle in Virginia.”

Saoirse wishes her tea wasn’t so hot; she doesn’t know what to do with her hands. “I’m so sorry,” she says. “How awful.” Had she ever read anything about his upbringing? She doesn’t think so.

Emmit shrugs. “I got to travel a lot. I lived in London for a year. My uncle and I only had one major disagreement in seventeen years, while I was an undergrad at Johns Hopkins. I wanted to drop out to pursue writing, and my uncle insisted I stayed. We laugh about it now, but at the time, I was certain he was condemning my creativity to an early grave. I became suitably melancholy, of course, as any dramatic, literary type is wont to do. I spent the entirety of my senior year in black, reading nothing but Dickinson, Blake, and Plath.”

Saoirse raises an eyebrow. “You? A Goth English major quoting tortured poets from the back of the lecture hall?” She chances a small sip of tea then nods at his crisp button-down shirt and well-tailored sport jacket. “I can hardly picture it.”

Emmit lowers his head, pushes his chair back slightly from the table, and leans forward. From beneath hooded eyes and long lashes, he recites:

“Gaunt in gloom

The pale stars their torches,

Enshrouded, wave.

Ghost-fires from heaven’s far verges faint illume—

Arches on soaring arches—

Night’s sin-dark nave.”

He sits up straight, scoots his chair back in, and smiles like the impromptu recitation never happened. “What can I say?” he says. “He might not’ve been tortured, but James Joyce could pen a bleak verse with the best of ’em.”

Saoirse has the unexpected thought that the old her, the one who never married, who never met Jonathan, would have laughed off this strange performance. This Saoirse, however, is mesmerized. She studies the man across the table. There is something about him. For a professor, a professional writer, he is so ... what? Unrestrained comes to mind. So does unconventional. Free-spirited and easygoing are too trite. Whatever it is, the effect is one that renders him almost aggressively interesting. Most people who try to be different fail miserably, or else come across as shameless impostors. Emmit Powell is the real deal. But whatishis deal? Saoirse can’t be sure. All she can settle on, for now, is that Emmit is not just unlike anyone she’s ever met, he’s unlike anyone she’s ever comprehended.

“Of the three you mentioned,” Saoirse says, forcing an air of casualness, “I’m partial to Dickinson. I like how she balances her interestin death with an exploration of nature. Of light. Death certainly was one of her favorite subjects, but it never slipped into preoccupation.”

“I beg to differ,” Emmit says and sips his chai. “Respectfully, of course. I think she forced herself to tackle bumblebees and metaphorical mermaids because she knew death was everywhere. I mean, deathiseverywhere.” His tone isn’t flippant. It’s sad and awestruck and full of deadly solemnity. “It’s a wonder any writer anywhere ever writes about anything else.”