Page 32 of Kill Your Darlings

i

The event was sold out, but they had let in twenty or so ticketless people to stand in the back of the church hall. Thom had

found a column to lean against. It obscured his view of the onstage interview but he could hear the dialogue—Martin Amis was

being interviewed by the president of the Paulding Book Festival—and it didn’t seem to be going very well. The questions were

longer than the answers.

Toward the end of the hourlong interview the discussion had gotten a little livelier, maybe because Amis had steadily drunk

his way through a bottle of red wine, and maybe because they had moved on from the topic of the novel being discussed, Time’s Arrow , and were now talking about pinball machines.

After the question-and-answer period, Thom stayed leaning against his column and watched the audience slowly exit the sweltering

hall. Everyone seemed to be carrying jackets and sweaters and sporting shiny foreheads.

“Is that Thom?”

He’d been expecting to hear those words, but they still startled him. Wendy Eastman stood in front of him, a half smile on her lips, holding a copy of the Paulding Festival schedule of events. She wasn’t alone; a woman around her same age stood next to her, half smiling as well.

“You’re so familiar,” Thom said.

“It’s Wendy Eastman.”

“Jesus, of course. My God, hello.” They hugged, their cheeks brushing up against each other’s.

“This is my friend Becky.”

Thom introduced himself and shook the woman’s hand. “It’s really nice to meet you,” Becky said, “but can we get the hell out

of here? I need air.”

The three of them joined the slow trickle toward the exit, then emerged onto East Fifty-Ninth Street across from Paulding’s

Bookstore. It was zero degrees outside, with a fierce wind, and Thom and his two companions put on scarfs and coats and gloves.

“Do you live here?” Thom said to Wendy.

“I don’t, no. Becky does, though, and I’m staying with her for the weekend. How about you?”

“I live in New Haven, so not too far away. What did you think of the interview?”

Becky intervened to say that she was freezing and maybe they should find someplace to get a drink.

They all walked against the wind toward the park, then pushed through the swinging door of the first bar they came to, a grubby, smoke-filled Irish pub that had several empty booths.

After removing all their outerwear, they ordered a pitcher of Bass and three glasses, and talked about the book festival.

It turned out that they’d all gone to a poetry reading by Sharon Olds earlier that day, but it was even more packed than the Amis interview, so it wasn’t a surprise that Thom and Wendy hadn’t seen each other.

All three of them admitted they were worn out by book talk and were skipping the Sunday-morning panel on the contemporary Russian novel.

“How do you two know each other?” Becky said.

Thom and Wendy looked at each other, neither speaking right away. Finally, Thom said, “Wendy was my middle school girlfriend.”

Becky threw back her head and laughed like he’d just said something incredibly clever. “Really?”

“I very briefly lived in New Hampshire when I was fourteen and fifteen,” Wendy said, “and Thom was the only saving grace of

that time in my life.”

“That’s the cutest thing I think I’ve ever heard,” Becky said. “And you haven’t seen each other since?”

Thom locked eyes with Wendy, briefly, and said, “Wendy had my address, but she never sent me a letter. It broke my heart.”

Becky punched Wendy in the arm. “Why didn’t you send him a letter?”

“He told me not to.”

“Thom, why’d you tell her not to?” Becky refilled her glass, having fun.

“You know. We were just two ships that passed in the night. Two awkward, post-adolescent ships. I was crushed that I never

heard from you.”

Wendy made a sad face, then said, “But now we’ve found each other again.”

Becky said, “I feel like I’m at this momentous moment in your lives. Should I leave you two alone?”

Wendy gripped her arm, both of them smiling. “No.”

“Were you two serious?”

“We were as serious as you can be in middle school,” Thom said.

“And freshman year of high school,” Wendy said.

“Yes, and freshman year of high school. Becky, how do you know Wendy?”

“Rice University. Creative-writing majors.”

“Do you both still write?”

Becky turned to Wendy, who said, “Not really. My concentration in college was poetry.”

“She was really good,” Becky said.

“So what do you do now? You’re married, it looks like.” Thom nodded down toward her ring.

“Oh,” said Wendy. “I was married. He died about five months ago.”

“Oh, Jesus, sorry,” Thom said, as Becky put a hand on Wendy’s back.

“We don’t need to talk about it. I came out here—”

“Yeah, we don’t need to talk about it,” Becky said, suddenly serious. “Not this weekend, anyway. Thom, how about you, were

you a creative-writing major in college?”

“Mather didn’t have it as a major, so I was English lit.”

“But you write?”

“I do. Stories, mostly, nothing very good.”

“And what do you do for work?”

“It’s not very exciting. I work at a video store.”

“Oh, fun.”

“It’s not bad. It’s a pretty cool indie store in New Haven called Penny Farthings Video. I just got made manager so there’s

that.”

Becky and Wendy held up their glasses and congratulated him.

They talked some more about jobs; Becky was an assistant for a big-time editor at Knopf, and had lots of literary gossip.

They ordered another pitcher, and Becky took herself off to the restroom.

Wendy turned her head to watch her friend cross the now-crowded bar, then turned back to look at Thom.

Neither said anything and they just looked at each other across the booth, each smiling.

Thom desperately wished they were alone, but he also knew that it was a good thing that Becky was there to witness their reunion.

He wondered if Wendy wanted it that way.

He thought of asking her, but she hadn’t spoken yet and they just continued to look at each other, pressing their knees together under the table.

“It’s very nice to see you.” Thom had spoken first.

“Yes. Are you all right?”

“I am. You?”

“Yes. I’m good.”

Thom saw that Becky was working her way back toward them, and he leaned back in the uncomfortable wooden bench and lit a cigarette.

As Becky retook her spot next to Wendy, she said, “God, I wasn’t going to ask, but can I have one of those? I quit three months

ago.”

Thom gave her a cigarette and lit it for her. It was clear that he wasn’t going to be alone with Wendy tonight, but that was

fine. She was here across from him. She was real. For now it was enough, and some part of him was happy that they weren’t

alone, that tonight was not the night that he would have to lie to her about what had happened in Texas.

ii

“It’s an hour drive from here,” Thom said apologetically as he pulled away from the airport’s parking lot. They’d been speaking

on the phone for the past five months, but it was the first time they’d seen each other in person since New York.

“No problem,” Wendy said. “In Texas it’s an hour drive to get to your neighbor’s house.”

“Oh, good. I was worried you’d be sick of traveling.”

She’d flown in from Lubbock that morning, leaving just before dawn and watching the sunrise from her window seat on the nearly empty flight to D.C.

On the second leg of her trip, a crowded flight from D.C.

to Hartford, the plane had hit a pocket of extreme turbulence that lasted fifteen minutes at least. The man next to her had closed his eyes and seemed to be praying.

Wendy had looked out the window, wondering if she were going to die.

She imagined that it would be a notably tragic story.

Her husband drowning in his own swimming pool nearly a year ago, and then the grieving widow going down in a plane along the eastern seaboard.

The pilot came on to reassure the nervous passengers that they’d “unexpectedly hit a little bit of rough air” but that the wind wasn’t expected to be a problem on the landing.

Wendy felt calm and wondered if the money she’d recently secured would automatically go to her mother upon her death.

“How was the flight?” Thom said.

“Bumpy.”

Since meeting at the Paulding Festival in January she and Thom had exchanged numerous letters and spoken on the phone at least

once a week. They’d talked about Bryce, of course, Wendy’s dead husband, but nothing about the specifics of his death. It

wasn’t that Wendy thought her phone might be tapped, although she supposed it was possible, or that someone might read her

letters, another possibility, it was just that they were now playing roles, and it was important to stay in character.

They were driving through Hartford, and Thom pointed out where he’d gone to school, Mather College, its spires visible from

the highway.

“You don’t want to give me a tour?” Wendy said.

“God, no. I still know people there.”

They reached New Haven by early afternoon, parking on a narrow street lined on either side by triple-decker apartment buildings, some beautifully painted and maintained, but most dilapidated, with sloping porches and faded vinyl siding. “Lower your expectations,” Thom said. “I live in a dump.”

“I don’t care. You know that.”

They kissed in the car, the bucket seats making it awkward. Wendy could feel Thom’s heartbeat through his rib cage. “God,

I forgot how much I love kissing you,” she said.

“Do you?” he said.

“Of course.”

Thom took a breath, seemed to think of something, and snapped his fingers.

“What was that?” Wendy said.

“Nothing. An inside joke. I’ll tell you later, but let’s go upstairs first.”