Page 15 of Kill Your Darlings

department was located in an old Victorian house on the outskirts of the campus. It was where most of the seminars and smaller

classes were conducted, in high-ceilinged rooms with loud radiators and drafty windows. Thom parked on the street right in

front of the building and wasn’t surprised to see Marcia Lever’s rusty Volvo parked there as well.

He could hear Marcia and Linda talking as he walked down the creaky hallway to the offices located at the back of the house.

“Thom,” Marcia said as soon as he entered Linda’s office, then stood up and gave him an awkward hug.

“I still can’t believe it,” he said.

Linda, who had been in the department longer than any single professor, said, “I won’t be surprised to hear it was his heart. You both know how he ate.”

“I thought he’d live forever, somehow,” Marcia said. “He seemed like the type.”

“Too mean to die,” Thom said, then instantly regretted it. “God, sorry. Too soon.”

“You’re among friends,” Marcia said. “We don’t have to pretend we particularly liked him, but it’s still a shock.”

Linda’s phone on her desk rang and she picked it up, telling whoever was on the other end of the line that the rumor was true.

“Come into my office for a moment,” Marcia said, rising from her chair.

Thom followed her into her immaculate corner office and took a seat in the comfy chair across from her desk. “I know it’s

only July,” Marcia said, running a finger across her empty desk, “but it’s late July and school starts up again in a little

over a month.”

“I know. I’ve already thought about that.”

“Alex was teaching two courses this fall.”

“Like always.”

“Yep. He’d put together that seminar on Shakespeare’s contemporaries. All of two students signed up so I think we can safely

cancel that, but the department is going to need to find someone to teach his survey course.”

“The department is going to need a new chair,” Thom said.

“Yes, and I’m assuming that you are going to throw your hat into the ring.”

“I hadn’t given it any thought yet, but maybe I will. How about you?”

Marcia thought for a moment, Thom knowing that she wasn’t posturing for effect but genuinely considering the question.

He also knew that if Marcia decided she wanted to be chair of the department, it would have everything to do with trying to make the department run better and nothing to do with personal ambition.

“I might,” she said at last. “But if you told me that you had your heart set—”

“God, no, Marcia. Besides, I think our friendship could survive a little competition, don’t you?”

“I do,” she said, and looked relieved.

They returned to the outer office, where Linda was still on the phone. After she hung up, Marcia asked her if she’d like to

join them at the Thirsty Hare for a drink. Linda declined, not surprisingly, and Thom and Marcia walked across the empty campus

toward the bar. It had been a dry summer, and the lawns were withered and yellow. They walked in silence, Thom already starting

to wonder if he really did want to push to be the next chair. It would be between Marcia and him, no doubt about that. Don

had been there longest, but he’d made it clear he had no interest in advancement.

At the Hare they each got an Ipswich Ale and made a toast to Alex.

“Shall we both say something nice about him?” Marcia said.

“Okay. I’ll start. He had pretty good taste in wives.”

“That he did. They were always too good for him.”

They drank, and Marcia said, “He could be an excellent teacher, when the subject interested him.”

“Yes, that is true,” Thom said.

“But a terrible department chair.”

“True as well.”

Midge, the bartender, put a bowl of peanuts between them on the bar, and for a time they silently ate, dropping the shells

on the floor, a Thirsty Hare tradition.

When, after a second beer each, they returned to the bright sunshine outside, Thom felt disoriented and slightly drunk.

They walked to the department building, and Marcia popped back inside to do some work, while Thom returned to his car.

He sat inside its swel tering interior for a moment, sweat creeping out from his hairline, thinking about where he wanted to go next.

He knew it was a risk, but he badly wanted to see Tammy, Alex’s wife, and he didn’t want to call her first. Calling her might look suspicious, but a drop-by, just to check on the well-being of the widow, wouldn’t look too strange, he thought.

Alex and Tammy’s house was over the river in West Essex, a modest shingled Cape that was a stone’s throw from a slice of rocky

beach. Thom knew that Alex had spent the last year living in the studio apartment above the garage while Tammy had the house

to herself. He thought there’d be cars parked out front, but he spotted only Tammy’s BMW in the driveway. Alex’s Mustang was

probably still parked near the quarry. Feeling empty-handed, wishing he’d brought some food or even flowers, Thom went up

the stone path to the front door. Tammy must have seen him coming, and she opened the door before he had a chance to knock.

He was surprised to see that she’d been crying.

“Tammy,” he said, and she stepped outside to hug him.

When they were in her kitchen, she said, “I don’t know why I’m crying, exactly, but I can’t stop.”

“He was your husband.”

“You and I both know how little that particular designation meant.”

Tammy had been a graduate student at New Essex in the art department when she’d first met Alex. She still made ceramics, at

least Thom was pretty sure she did, but she’d gotten her real estate license two years earlier and had quickly become her

agency’s top seller. She was rail-thin with dark, straight hair and looked more like an artist than a typical real estate

broker, but she was gregarious and well liked. No one really understood why she’d married Alex.

“I didn’t think you’d be here alone,” Thom said, after accepting a cup of coffee, even though he’d rather have had another

beer.

“My sister is on her way from Albany. But basically, I keep shooing people away. Janet came by with a casserole. I made a joke that it was the same temperature as my husband. Still warm.”

“God, what did she say?”

“She was confused, and said something like she suspected Alex was probably cold since he’d drowned in cold water.”

“Dear lord.”

“Dear lord is right. I sent her packing. And the police have been here, of course. I thought they’d take me to see the body,

but instead they drove me over to the station and showed me a photograph of Alex’s face on the slab. It was him, all right.

That’s when I started crying. It’s just so strange to think I’ll never hear his voice again. That’s what I kept thinking about.

Then they took me back here and asked me where I was at six this morning.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah, of course they did. I’d already told them that Alex was living above the garage, that we weren’t exactly husband and

wife anymore.”

“So where were you at six this morning?”

“Asleep, of course. Alone in bed.”

“Right.”

“Where were you at six this morning?” Tammy said, her lips curling into a strange smile, as though she were trying to indicate she was making

a joke.

“Not swimming with your husband. Home in bed with Wendy. Do you think there was something suspicious about his death?”

“I asked them, the police, and all they could say was that they were just following protocol. I believed them. He really shouldn’t

have been swimming alone at his age. Still, I’m surprised he drowned. I think it’s much more likely that he had some kind

of stroke while he was swimming.”

“They’ll perform an autopsy?”

“Are you asking?”

“I guess.”

“I’m assuming they will. I’d like to know, even though it makes no difference. Gone is gone, right?”

“Yes,” Thom said. “Gone is gone.”

They sat quietly together for a moment, then Tammy said, “Wendy know you were planning to come over here?”

“I’ll tell her, I guess. No harm in coming to see how you’re doing. I was over at the university earlier, had a drink with

Marcia Lever.”

“Where’d you have a drink? At the Hare?”

“Yes. And we even toasted him.”

“God,” Tammy said, and looked as though she was going to cry again.

Thom stood and went to her, and they hugged tightly in the kitchen, her body feeling impossibly thin in his arms, her hair

smelling of coconut shampoo.

“You’re not hitting on the grieving widow, are you?” she said as they separated.

Jokes flitted through Thom’s head but he said, “No, I’m not hitting on my friend.”

She smiled at him, tears now spilling from both eyes. Thom and Tammy had actually slept together once, five years earlier,

two years after she’d married Alex. They’d run into each other one weekday afternoon at the YMCA, then Tammy had invited Thom

back to her house for coffee. It was January, dark and unmercifully cold. Wendy was at work. Alex was away at some literary

conference in Portugal. They’d skipped the coffee and gone straight to a guest room with drafty windows and a creaky bed.

And there they’d had their one and only sexual encounter, ten minutes of ineptness that felt, to Thom, at least, like they

were each dancing to a very different tune. Afterward, Thom had felt a wave of desolation pass through him and it was all

he could do to not get up and flee from the room.