Page 24 of Beneath the Poet's House

“The Farmer’s Daughter. One of my graduate students turned me on to it last year. It’s in South Kingstown. You’ll love it.”

Pretty confident for a guy who’s had one conversation with you,Jonathan sneers.Are you really getting into a car with this stranger?

Saoirse grits her teeth.This is Emmit Powell,she responds silently.Pulitzer Prize–winning novelist.Even if he does turn out to be nothing more than a womanizer with over-the-top pickup lines, he isn’t going to murder her. Saoirse slides into the passenger side and buckles her seat belt.

You’re strapped in now,Jonathan warns,literally and figuratively.

Exactly,she thinks back defiantly.Might as well enjoy the ride.

“Once we get off I-95, the drive is really scenic,” Emmit says. “And there are pumpkins at the Farmer’s Daughter in colors you won’t find at Trader Joe’s.”

Saoirse marvels at the way he jumps from casual to contemplative in the space of a single sentence. As if the shades of pumpkins have moved him in some profound, gratifying way.

“Is that so?” She’s careful not to meet his earnestness with sarcasm. “Well, I’m excited.” They drive for several minutes in silence.

They’re almost to the highway when Emmit glances at her. “I’d resigned myself to never seeing you again. What have you been up to since I saw you last?”

“Writing,” she says, surprised by how quickly she answers him, how quickly he’s elicited her trust. “Four poems in a single evening. It’s wild, because I was never much of a poet.”

“More like a mystery novelist,” Emmit says. She stares at him hard, and he grins at her. “Did you think I wasn’t going to look you up onGoodreads after you told me you were a writer? I saw the series you did with Ballantine. It was pretty successful.”

She blushes. “That’s generous,” she says. “Especially coming from—”

He cuts her off with a raised hand. “Don’t say what you are about to say. I happened to write something that, for whatever reason, appealed to both the critics and the masses. Talent is talent, and aside from the handful—and I mean handful—of geniuses, those literary giants that captivate us all, most talent at the Big Five publishing level is comparable. The fact thatVulture Eyessold as many copies as it did does not mean it was any better thanSugar and Splice.”

Saoirse barks out a little laugh. “Um, of course it does. But I’m touched you know the name of one of my books.”

“Not just one,” he says. “AfterSugar and SplicewasScience Doesn’t Take Whisks, followed byWe Knead to Keep Our Ion You.” Emmit smacks the steering wheel. “Sugar and Splicewas delightful!”

“You read it?”

“I did. And let me tell you, a baker and a scientist who team up to solve murders is far more enjoyable than a man driven to madness by guilt so intense it becomes corporeal. If I didn’t writeVulture Eyes, I’d never want to read it.”

Saoirse stares out the windshield. “The woman who wrote those novels was a different person,” she says. “One who was amused by lighthearted things.”

“And then your husband died, and the idea of writing another installment in the series sounded as enjoyable as being gnawed on by rats or eviscerated by a swinging pendulum.”

“That sounds about right.”

Emmit allows his eyes to stray from the road for a moment to observe her. “You said at Carr Haus you’d already stopped writing before your husband’s death. So your metamorphosis from commercial writer to death-obsessed poet has been much longer in the making.”One side of his mouth raises in its lopsided grin. “Speaking of your dark, death-obsessed poetry, when do I get to read it?”

“I’m not sure I’m ready for anyone to see this stuff. You’re right that it’s dark. Dark and disturbing.”

“I like dark. Ilivein the dark. I don’t care if it’s on another planet from theSugar and Spliceseries. I’d love to read more of your work.”

Saoirse’s cheeks feel warm. Emmit Powell wants to readherwork? She sits in silence, a twinge in her chest. A good one, though—not the tightness she experiences when she’s overexerted herself or missed a day of medication.

Emmit steers them around the curve adjacent to Thurbers Avenue, and the horizon beyond the highway darkens. “That looks sufficiently ominous,” he says, frowning.

Saoirse stays quiet as raindrops spatter the windshield.

“I’m not averse to pumpkin picking in the rain,” Emmit adds, “but neither of us is dressed for inclement weather.” His frown deepens. “And I don’t have an umbrella. Should we turn around?”

“I guess?” Saoirse responds, trying to hide her disappointment.

“Unless ... you’re hungry?” Emmit asks.

Saoirse’s eyes flick to the back seat.

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