Page 6 of Kill Your Darlings

It had started with the girl he’d met at the Tombs earlier. He’d been drinking his first beer of the day with half an eye on the baseball highlights on the television above the bar when she’d stood two stools over from him and ordered a glass of Champagne.

“Celebrating?” Thom had said automatically.

She’d turned and faced him, less pretty, he thought, than she’d looked in profile. “I finished a first draft of my thesis

paper this afternoon.”

“Oh, congrats,” he said. “What’s your discipline?”

“I’m getting an MA in English lit.”

“Here at Georgetown?”

“Yes.”

He was about to tell her that he was an English professor himself, maybe even mention his recent publication, but he could

hear Wendy in his ear telling him that he didn’t need to try to impress the entire female species all the time. Instead, he said, “What was the subject?”

“Punishment in Victorian literature. I mean, a little more specific than that, but that was the general gist.”

“Oh,” Thom said, pursing his lips and nodding.

“You’re either baffled or you’re confused.”

“No, I’m neither. I’m interested. I’m an English professor myself—not here at Georgetown—and I’ve long been interested in

punishment. In fact, I’m writing a book right now, sort of a mystery novel, and I’d say that punishment is its central theme.”

The young woman’s Champagne had arrived, poured into a wineglass instead of a proper tulip, and Thom watched her flick her

eyes toward the front door of the bar.

“Sorry. Ignore me,” Thom said. “The last thing you probably want to talk about is the fucking paper you just finished writing.

And you must be... waiting for someone?”

“I’m expecting friends. And yes, no more talk of punishment.”

“You’ve been punished by it,” Thom said, and he felt the imagined presence of Wendy at his shoulder groaning at his bad joke.

“It feels like it,” the woman said, and then slid onto the stool, a commitment that Thom guessed was an even toss-up between

her being slightly intrigued by him and her deciding that this old man with the dad jokes was not an actual threat of any

kind.

“I’m Alice,” she said.

Thom introduced himself as well, then said, “And that Champagne is on me, by the way. I insist.”

She looked less than pleased, so Thom awkwardly mentioned that he was waiting for his wife, due any moment.

“Tell me about your novel,” Alice said, taking a tentative sip from her glass.

“Well, it’s actually about not being punished, my novel. The main character commits a crime and then he spends his whole life waiting to pay for it, but

it never happens.”

“Oh, that’s interesting. How does it end?”

“I don’t know yet,” Thom said. “Honestly, I’ve only written the first few chapters.”

Then Alice had parted her lips to ask some follow-up question, but Wendy was already there, smelling of lavender, probably

from the strange soap at the rental. Thom made the introductions, surprising himself by remembering his new friend’s name.

A brief memory flashed in his mind from years ago, the time he’d introduced his wife to a visiting writer he was enamored

with, and for a terrifying five seconds he’d actually forgotten Wendy’s name. He’d just stood there, mouth open, both women

watching him in alarm. Had he actually forgotten his own wife’s name? Then it leapt into his head, and everyone pretended

it hadn’t happened. He’d been reliving that humiliating moment on and off for ten years, but lately the memory of it filled

him with a cold desolation, as though it were a premonition.

After the student was reunited with friends her own age to celebrate with, Thom and Wendy decided on one more drink while consulting phone maps for nearby restaurants.

They agreed on Viet namese, with the proviso that the following evening they would go to the chophouse that Thom had picked, an old politicians’ restaurant famous for its lamb.

Decision made, they finished their drinks. The coldness that Thom had felt with the arrival of his wife was ballooning into

something more alarming. It was a feeling he’d had on occasion during the last year or so, the feeling that he had disappointed

Wendy so many times in the course of their marriage that all the love was well and truly gone. That even when she laughed

at one of his jokes, or listened to one of his stories, she was doing it with absolutely no love at all. Thom went to the

restroom and told himself that Wendy was the one who’d planned the trip, after all, that some part of her wanted him there

with her. He told himself to breathe while looking into the slightly warped mirror above the bathroom sink, then went back

out to the bar. Wendy’s coat was on.

After they’d finished eating, Thom found himself saying, “I’ve decided to quit writing the book I started.”

“Was that the mystery novel?”

“Yes, did I...?”

“You mentioned it to Marcia, I think, when she was over for dinner.”

“Oh, right.”

“But you’re quitting it?”

“I think so. Maybe I was only writing it in the first place just to see if I could write a novel.”

“You’ve written a few half-novels in your time,” Wendy said.

“Yes, exactly my point. Come End of Summer will enter the pantheon of Thom Graves’s half-finished novels.”

“ Come End of Summer is the title?”

“Oh, I didn’t tell you that? The working title anyway.”

Wendy’s lower lip slid a little ways forward, as it often did when she was forming an opinion. But nothing came. The subject

changed to their plans for the following day.

When they were walking back to their rental apartment, Wendy mentioned the Exorcist Steps, the first time she’d referenced the fact that once upon a time they’d been children in this part of the world, and that this was where their story began. “Let’s go look at them before heading back.”

Thom almost made a joke that they could re-create their kiss, but instead found himself talking about time, and how strange

it was, and all the while he was speaking, he was telling himself to shut up, that the last thing Wendy wanted to hear was

some cheap philosophy about growing old. She’d told him numerous times that he talked too much about it. Still, he kept talking,

and that palpable dread he’d felt earlier in the afternoon had returned, the feeling that Wendy was no longer by his side.

Well, by his side physically, but not by his side in any metaphorical way at all. He was all alone in an empty universe.

They reached the steps, not quite how he remembered them. When they’d first been there, more than forty years ago, the steps

were imbued with a mythic quality, probably because he’d only ever heard about The Exorcist , first from his older sister, Janice, who had watched it at her friend Karen’s sleepover party. The following night Janice

had sat on his bed, a ghoulish smile on her face, and told him every gross moment from the film, including a scene with a

crucifix that Thom didn’t really believe could actually have been in the movie. Or any movie. His sister was prone to exaggeration,

both then and now.

Still, the unseen film grew in Thom’s mind, haunting him. He was both desperate to find a way to see it and terrified at that

very prospect. He actually had dreams about it, the first of a lifetime of dreams in which films and reality blended together.

When he’d boarded the bus that was bringing the eighth graders down to D.C.

, the only free seat had been next to Wendy Eastman.

He didn’t really know Wendy; no one did, since she’d only arrived at the beginning of that year, having moved from somewhere out west. He couldn’t believe he’d wound up next to her on the bus, especially since the ride to D.C.

was about eight hours total. He’d have been happy with just about any member of his class except for Wendy.

In the end, though, it had gone okay. They’d made decent small talk, with Wendy listing all the places she’d lived in her life, and then, as they’d neared D.C.

, she mentioned that she hoped to go see the Exorcist Steps while they were there.

That it was a location from her favorite movie.

Thom, who hadn’t even known that The Exorcist took place in D.C., told her all about what his sister had relayed to him from the sleepover, and how he’d become obsessed

with a film he hadn’t seen. So Wendy told him the entire plot, not just the icky parts, and by the time they’d finally arrived

at their hotel they were both determined to find the long, narrow steps down which the priest had fallen to his death.

Thom remembered that on the final night of the three-day trip their teachers had taken them to eat in Georgetown and then

Wendy and he had snuck off to find the steps. Bringing it up to Wendy now, she had a very different memory—that they hadn’t

snuck off at all but that MissAckles was with them. And when she’d said it a memory came back to him, vague and unformed,

MissAckles telling him how they were always being watched. She’d done it in a spooky voice, like something from a Scooby-Doo cartoon. Still, they both agreed that they’d kissed. And now he was standing at those steps again. They were unchanged, he

thought, while he and Wendy had completely changed. They’d grown old—older, maybe, was the better description—and they were

no longer children. He’d been looking down the steps, steep and narrow and impersonal, then turned to look at his wife.

She stepped toward him, her eyes not quite meeting his. “Strange, isn’t it?” he said.

After she placed a hand flat across his chest, a memory tried to surface.

It was from a few weeks ago, that drunken party at their house, when he’d fallen down the stairs.

The memory was Wendy’s face, and now that her face was close to his again, he was filled with a deep, unnerving sense of déjà vu.

Here it comes , he said to himself, the end of the story .

He opened his mouth to say something to Wendy, immediately forgetting what it was he needed to say. But still he spoke. Thom

said, “Go ahead, I’m ready,” not knowing if he was making a joke or not.

She smiled in the moonlight.

vii

Thom fell almost slowly at first. For one moment Wendy thought he might come to rest just a few steps down, but then gravity

went to work, his legs going over his head as if he were a child doing a slow-motion somersault, picking up speed, bouncing

down the remaining steps until he came to a stop at the bottom, just a dark, shadowy mass in the lamplight.

She let out a long, hissing breath. Her legs felt watery and she took hold of the railing and lowered herself so that she

was sitting on the top step. It felt strange that nothing momentous had occurred to mark her husband’s fall. No one had screamed.

No sirens had sounded. No dogs had barked in the distance. It was quiet.

She unclasped her purse and took out her phone, dialing 911.

After being asked for her emergency, she broke into the breathless words that she’d already planned.

“My husband, I think he was drunk, he just fell down the steps.”

“What steps?” came a voice that was so regulated that for a brief moment Wendy wondered if she was talking to a real person.

“I don’t know what they’re really called, but they’re the Exorcist Steps. From the movie.”

“Are you in Georgetown?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. I’m sending people your way right now. Are you near your husband’s body?”

“No, he’s... down at the bottom, and I’m up...”

“That’s okay. Can you be very careful and walk down to the bottom of the steps toward your husband?”

“Okay,” Wendy said, and ended the call. She knew she wasn’t supposed to, but she needed a moment to think. For one terrible

moment she thought she was being watched, and turned around to look back at the dark buildings. There was no one there, just

her alone. The 911 operator had told her to go down the steps, and that was what she did, climbing down them now, one hand

still holding her phone, and one on the handrail. It was still quiet and her shoes made clacking sounds on the concrete.

When she got to the bottom and saw the way that Thom was lying, she knew he was dead. It would have been surprising if he

wasn’t. He’d fallen so violently.

She sat down again, on the second step from the bottom, about a yard away from Thom’s body. He was cast in a sickly yellow

light from a streetlamp. One arm was up and over his head as though he were attempting to answer a question in class. There

was less blood than she thought there would be, but his head was at an unnatural angle. She thought there might be some blood

on his neck, but then she realized she was looking at a sharp bump under his skin that was causing a shadow to fall where

there shouldn’t be one. Something had snapped in his neck.

She turned and looked down the street instead. Someone was on a bike, pedaling past on the other side of the nearest road,

but Wendy kept quiet. She had already heard the sirens in the distance.

Sitting still on the step, Wendy worked on her breathing, not knowing if she was scared or if the walk down the steps had taken it out of her.

She repeated some of the lines she’d been telling herself the past several days.

This is what’s best for her. And this is what’s best for Thom.

But it still felt momentous, like she’d cracked her world in two.

There was the world she had five minutes before, Thom still alive, and now there was this world, and who knew what that was going to bring.

The sirens were closer now. She took another look at her husband, all of his angles wrong. Darling, darling, she thought,

and almost looked away. But she kept her eyes on him, forming a memory she would one day push to the very back of her mind.

It would go into a room with other memories. Not gone forever, of course. But the room had a door and she knew how to shut

it.

Blue lights flooded the scene and she turned away from her husband to the arriving ambulance.