Page 42 of Kill Your Darlings

August

The crowd around the registration tables seemed to part, allowing Wendy Eastman, eight years older than when he’d last seen

her, to emerge into his sight line in all her adult perfection. Thom had already picked up his name badge and schedule and

was now standing awkwardly amid a cluster of fellow attendees, deciding what to do next. The weekend retreat was an annual

affair at Kokosing College in Ohio called the Aspiring Writers’ Conference, designed for recent college graduates interested

in a career in creative writing.

Wendy spotted Thom a moment after he’d seen her, and she walked toward him, somehow appearing nonplussed by the coincidence

of their meeting. There was a smirk on her face and Thom found himself laughing as she stopped in front of him. “Am I funny?”

she said.

“I can’t believe it’s you.”

“Are you going to hug me, or at least shake my hand?”

They hugged, and Thom wondered if she could tell that he was trembling.

“I can’t believe it’s you,” Thom said again.

“I knew you were going to be here,” Wendy said. “You were on the list of names in the orientation packet.”

“Oh, right. Of course.”

“My name is there, too, but you probably didn’t recognize it.”

“Wendy Barrington,” Thom said, remembering that he had spotted the name and even briefly considered the possibility that the

attendee from Lubbock, Texas, might be a married version of the Wendy he’d known so many years ago. But he’d discarded that

idea as a ridiculous pipe dream.

“Yes, I’m a Barrington now.” She showed her left hand, the ring finger circled by a diamond ring that Thom recognized as being

abnormally large.

“Congratulations.”

“What about you?”

“I’m not married, but cohabitating,” Thom said, holding out his hand to show his ringless finger.

“You’re in Connecticut now?”

“I am.”

“What’s the name of your...?”

“Her name is Maggie. We went to college together.”

“Same with me. I married my college boyfriend. His name is Bryce.”

“Bryce Barrington.”

“You are correct.”

Neither said anything for a moment then they both laughed again. “Are we all caught up now?” Thom said. “Should we go our

separate ways?”

“I mean, if we have nothing left to talk about.”

“You live in Texas?”

“Terrible topic, but, yes, I do live in Texas.” She said it with a slight drawl, and her eyes flashed, the way they did when

she was joking. It brought her back to him as he’d first known her—just a kid, really, but world-weary and sarcastic and his

favorite person to talk with.

“Where in Texas?” Thom said.

“Lubbock. My husband’s from there, and went to school there, and his whole rich family lives there, so chances are I’ll spend

the rest of my life there as well. Unless we get divorced.”

“Any chance of that?” Thom said.

“Depends on how long we stand here talking,” Wendy said, her eyes brightening more. Thom didn’t immediately speak, and Wendy

laughed. “You look scared.”

“I am scared. You’ve always scared me.”

“Have I?”

“Maybe not scared me, but... What’s the right word? You always stop me in my tracks.”

“I’ve missed you, Thom,” Wendy said, lowering her voice.

“I just figured you’d have forgotten me. It was a long time ago.”

“Trust me, I haven’t forgotten you.”

They were silent again, looking at each other, and Thom knew that they were going to sleep together that weekend, that it

was preordained. In some ways it was as though it had already happened. And he felt himself reflexively shoving the thought

of Maggie, his sweet, trusting girlfriend, to the back of his mind, preparing himself for this betrayal, telling himself he

had no choice in the matter.

“Where are you staying?”

“One of the dorms. Isn’t everyone?”

“I think so. I am.”

Wendy was fiddling with her name tag, which had come prepackaged, as had his, in a clear plastic case on a lanyard. “Our room

number and combo are supposed to be behind our name tag.” She pulled out a slip of paper. “Benchley, Room 22.”

Thom looked behind his own name tag and found a similar slip of paper.

He remembered the woman at the check-in desk saying something about where to find the information about his housing, but he’d already developed his lifelong habit of never listening to instructions the first time they’d been given.

“I’m in a dorm called Robinson. Room 331.”

“Let’s go look at the wayfinding map and figure out where to go,” Wendy said, turning and walking, apparently aware of what

a wayfinding map was, and where it was located.

Thom followed her.

They were together the entire afternoon. After dropping off their luggage in their respective dorm rooms they wandered the

campus together, steering clear of the conference’s other participants. They found a bench down by a murky pond and sat on

either end.

“Why didn’t you write me?” Thom said.

Wendy pressed her lips together in an amused smile. “You’re talking about when we were fifteen? You do remember you told me not to write to you.”

“I didn’t mean it. I was very dramatic back then.”

“If you didn’t mean it, you shouldn’t have said it.”

“Probably not, but I just figured you wouldn’t listen to me. I wouldn’t have, if our situations were reversed.”

“I did write you. A lot. All the time. I just didn’t send the letters. We lived too far apart. There was so much going on

in my life, and the truth was that I believed what you told me, that we shouldn’t write, that we should only remember one

another on our birthdays.”

“I was a pretentious little shit. I’m sorry about that. But did you...”

“Remember you on our birthday? Of course. How about you?”

“I did. Every one of them I thought of you.”

Clouds were gathering in the sky and the air was charged, a rainstorm imminent, but they sat and recounted their birthdays

and where they’d been and what they’d done to celebrate. When the first fat drops began to fall, they ran back toward the

student union, but it was too late. The skies had opened up and they were drenched by the time they were standing underneath

the awning, hand in hand.

“We should go to the opening events, you know,” Wendy said.

“We should.”

By the time Thom was back at his dormitory, the rain had ceased, and the air was thick with humidity. He took a cold shower

then changed for the cocktail party. He no longer had any interest in the conference, in the other writers, in his career.

He was only interested in seeing Wendy again, even just seeing her across the room. It didn’t matter. She was back in his

life.

That night, in the hubbub of the party, they were actually introduced. The moderator of Wendy’s workshop—she had signed up

for the poetry concentration, while Thom was registered for short fiction—had actually been a professor of Thom’s at Mather

College, and he introduced the two of them.

“Did you bring a story to workshop this weekend?” Wendy said as the moderator slid away into the crowd.

“I have two possibilities, but I reread them on the train coming here and now I’m in a panic.”

“No good?”

“I don’t think so,” Thom said. “But what do I know? That’s why I’m here, I guess.”

“What are they called?”

“My stories?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, my Raymond Carver rip-off is called ‘Let Me Introduce You,’ and my Salinger rip-off is called ‘Delilah Snow’s Ninth

Birthday Party.’”

“Hmm.”

“What about your poetry?”

“I’m not even going to tell you any of my titles.”

“That’s not fair.”

She shrugged, tilting her head, and then her workshop moderator was back and pulling her away from him.

Toward the end of the party they met again in front of the food table. “In the program, this party was advertised as having ‘substantial appetizers.’ What do you think that means?”

Wendy said, “I think they’re telling you that they are not providing dinner, so eat lots of these mini-sandwiches.”

“I will. I have.”

“There’s a bar near here, apparently, that some people are going to after this. If you’re interested...”

“Are you going then?”

“I was thinking about it. But if I go, I’m going to drop off this at my dorm.” She held up the tote bag they’d been given

at registration. “I don’t know why I brought it.”

“I’ll walk with you,” Thom said, his voice hoarse, and waited for her to say something like “No, I’ll just meet you at the

bar,” but, instead, she said, “I’d like that,” and together they left.

Two hours later, sweaty, naked, and tangled in Wendy’s single bed, Thom said, “You haven’t changed.”

Wendy laughed. “I hope I’ve changed. Last time we did this I was fifteen years old.”

“I guess you’ve changed a little.”

Wendy showed him the groove on her forehead that she called her frown line, and Thom ran the tip of his finger over it, then

she told him how her thighs had gotten fat. He ran his hand along the inside of her right thigh, tracing a trickle of sweat.

“No, you’re perfect,” he said. The air in the room was the same as outside, hot and muggy.

“I don’t think we’ve ever been completely naked together, have we?” Thom said.

“What about at Salisbury Beach?”

Thom’s mind went back to the two or three images he had from the time they’d snuck up into the dunes to have sex, not for

the first time, but for the second. “I’m pretty sure my bathing suit was around my knees the whole time,” he said.

“That sounds right.”

“And I think your bathing suit was more or less still on as well.”

“You have a good memory.”

“For some things, yes.”

Thom’s hand was still on Wendy’s thigh. Sweat was pooling where they touched. “Why is it so hot in here?”

“Because we haven’t turned the air-conditioning on.”

“That might be it.”

Wendy got up and walked across the dim interior of the room, the only light coming from the yellow sodium glow of an outside

lamp. Thom gazed at her body, her graceful lines as she fiddled with the thermostat. Something about the heat and the yellow

light and the distant sound of thunder made Thom think that for a moment he’d gone to some tempting version of hell, a version