Page 4 of Kill Your Darlings

Back in his office, Thom checked his email and saw that Wendy had sent a link to the Airbnb that she’d booked.

He clicked on it. It was something called an English basement apartment.

It looked cozy, had a fireplace and hardwood floors, and boasted that it was in walking distance of Georgetown Cupcake.

Thom brought up a map. It looked like a cool area, and he began to check out nearby pubs.

Maybe it would be a nice trip. Things had been a little chilly between Wendy and him of late, and maybe she was genuinely hoping for a romantic weekend.

And it might be a good time to tell her about the book he was working on.

He didn’t want it to be a secret, his mystery novel, but he knew if he brought it up that she would be upset.

He just needed to convince her that it really wasn’t autobiographical.

She might read something into it, but no one else would.

Thom looked at the map some more, using two fingers on his trackpad to check out the area. It was only when he saw the link

for the Exorcist Steps just down from their rental that he suddenly understood the real reason why Wendy had booked this trip.

Why hadn’t he thought of it immediately? Washington, D.C., and especially Georgetown, had been the site of the very beginning

of their romance. Two lifetimes ago, really. Thom and Wendy, in their eighth-grade year, had gone on the three-day school

trip down to D.C. They’d sat next to each other on the bus ride down, talking mostly about horror movies, and how The Exorcist had been filmed in Georgetown. And it was there, in Georgetown, on the last night of the trip, that Thom and Wendy had kissed

by the steps that were featured in that film. Thom’s first kiss ever, and Wendy’s as well, or at least that was what she’d

told him. And even though he hadn’t thought of that school trip for many years, he remembered it now with startling clarity.

It had been spring, as well, the air smelling of flowers and rain. They’d eaten one of their meals at an old-timey Italian

restaurant with red-and-white check tablecloths, and he’d dropped a meatball down the front of his shirt. D.C. had been all

right, but it really just seemed like one big museum, every element some sort of ode to history. Georgetown had felt alive,

though. All these town houses tight together. College students strolling by. For some reason he also remembered the smell

of clove cigarettes in the air. To him it was the smell of sophistication.

Suddenly he was excited to return. For some time now, it had been clear that everything he did seemed to disappoint his wife.

He drank too much and talked too much and slept too late.

Sometimes he caught her looking at him with true disgust in her eyes.

The problem was that he believed he deserved it.

His whole life he’d been waiting to be punished, always thinking that it would arrive in the form of a catastrophe.

Something Old Testament. A debilitating disease.

Chronic pain. The deaths of loved ones. Something awful happening to Jason.

But Wendy and he had had a successful life.

They both had good jobs. They had more than enough money.

They had their lovely, kind son. They surely didn’t deserve happiness in marriage as well.

They didn’t deserve love. Despite that, the thought of returning to Georgetown for a weekend, his wife having made the arrangements, filled Thom with something he hadn’t felt for a long time. A sense of hope.

At the end of his office hours Emily knocked at his open door.

“Come in, come in,” he said, a little bit in a daze. He’d been reading lists of the best restaurants in Georgetown and D.C.

“First of all,” Emily said, a file folder hugged to her chest, “thanks for such a nice time last week at your house. Your

wife is a very good cook.”

“She is,” Thom said.

“Did she tell you that we talked about her poetry?”

Thom was confused, but because he was used to not remembering the details of his life, he said, “She did mention it, I think.”

“I’m a huge fan.”

“Of Wendy’s poetry?”

“Yes. She’s good, don’t you think?”

Thom, still a little confused, said, “Of course. When did you come across her work?”

“A while ago, I think. I don’t really remember. She wrote a poem called ‘The Coyote Watches Me Watching Him.’ It’s one of

my—”

“Yes, I remember that one. Do you know she made it up? I remember after reading it that I asked her when she had a stare-off with a coyote, and she told me she was just imagining what it would be like if she had. It’s funny.

For some reason I always imagine that fiction is truly fictional, and that poetry is always somehow the truth, but I don’t think I’m right about that. ”

Emily was quiet for a moment, so Thom quickly said, “Is that for me?”

She remembered the file folder she had brought into his office and pulled it away from her chest, saying, “Oh, it is. I just

need your signature on this purchase order. It’s the books you requested for the fall semester.”

“Right.”

She moved around to his side of the desk and put the order in front of him. Her proximity made him feel that odd mix of attraction

and solace, as though he might at any moment bury his head against her shoulder. She handed him a pen and pointed to where

he needed to sign.

“Who’s Annabel Majorino?” he said, seeing the name of the person who’d initiated the order.

“Oh, me. That’s my real first name. Annabel. Emily’s my middle name and the one I use.”

“Annabel,” Thom said aloud, and Emily took a step back from him.

“Yes, just hearing you say that name aloud has reinforced my decision,” she said, laughing, then coughing.

“What decision?”

“Oh, to change my name. I mean, to use a different name.”

Before she left the office, she said, “Thank Wendy again for me for dinner.”

“I will,” he said, and watched her depart, her toes pointing inward, and spent about thirty seconds trying to remember what

that was called, before coming up finally with that odd phrase “pigeon-toed.”

That night, after dinner, Thom went out onto the porch with a whiskey. There was still some light in the sky and even though the temperature had dipped, Thom was comfortable in his jeans and cotton sweater. Wendy stepped out to join him, and Thom said, “Summer’s coming.”

“You call this summer?”

“Well...” Thom said. He’d grown up in New England, while Wendy had mostly lived out west, leaving her in a constant dispute

with Massachusetts’s weather patterns. “Grab a sweater and come join me. Maybe a drink as well.”

She said something he didn’t quite listen to, then retreated into the house. He assumed she’d told him that she was going

to watch television but was surprised when she returned with not only a sweater but half a glass of red wine.

“Oh,” he said.

“You sound surprised.”

“Usually when I suggest something, you do the opposite.”

“Is that really true?”

“I don’t know,” Thom said. It was his new answer to everything. He was in his fifties and somehow felt like the world had

become a bigger mystery to him as he got older.

“Are you excited for our trip?” Wendy said, settling down onto the metal spring chair that Thom was convinced was about to

break.

“I am,” Thom said. “What made you think of booking it?”

“Remember when Jason was young and we used to always say how much we missed taking spontaneous weekend trips? Well, now he’s

gone, and we don’t even have a cat anymore, so what’s stopping us?”

Thom sipped at his whiskey and considered asking Wendy if the trip was to commemorate where their love story had begun.

But he couldn’t quite bring himself to ask that question.

Maybe it was the fear that she’d look at him blankly, having forgotten all about that part of their life.

Instead, he said, “You have a fan, you know, of your poetry.”

“Do I?”

“You know Emily, the new secretary?”

“Yes, I know her. She had dinner here.”

“Oh, yeah, yeah. Of course. Did you know she’s read your poetry?”

“She mentioned it that night. She read Specifics Omitted .”

Thom wondered if they’d already talked about this but didn’t want to ask. Instead, he said, “Her real name is Annabel.”

“What do you mean?” Wendy said, straightening up a little in her chair.

“Emily is her middle name. She told me today. I was thinking about it because... Well, it’s a poetic name. Your favorite

poem, right?”

“Not quite my favorite poem, but yes.”

Thom watched Wendy turn her head to look out through the screened porch toward the cove. There was a tiny scrap of light left

in the sky and he could just make out her profile, the slope of her nose, her pursed lips, the jut of her chin. She was deep

in thought, and Thom had a familiar feeling—at least it was familiar of late—that he had missed something important. “Are

you thinking of getting in touch with Judy while we’re there?” he said, to change the subject.

“Who’s Judy?”

“Your friend Judy, from work. Didn’t she move to D. C.?”

“God, I haven’t thought about her in years. No, I hadn’t planned on it. I don’t even know if she’s still there.”

“Sorry for asking,” Thom said.

“Oh no, did I sound... You just took me by surprise.”

They were quiet for a moment. Thom’s drink was gone and he was starting to get cold. “Well,” he said, and put his hands on

his knees.

“About Emily, that woman you work with,” his wife said.

“Uh-huh.”

“You don’t have something going on with her, do you?”

“With Emily? No, she’s, like, half my age. I mean, not that if she was older... You know what I mean.”

“You promise me?”

“Promise you what?”

Wendy was looking at Thom, but her face was in shadow, her body rigid. “Promise me you’re not lying about this. You haven’t

done anything stupid, have you?”

“Plenty of stupidity, but nothing stupid with Emily. She’s a sweet kid. I haven’t even thought of her that way.”