Page 17 of Beneath the Poet's House

Saoirse doesn’t respond. She can only stare at the man who, five minutes ago, she would have sworn was stalking her, the man whose eerie resemblance to Jonathan—as if he were her husband’s long-lost (and more attractive) brother, or maybe a cousin—makes her breath catch in her throat, and who she was going to go as far as accuse of following her home from Carr Haus so he could sneak a career fair flyer into her foyer four days later. Now that same man is suggestingsheis stalkinghim. Saoirse looks away, then back, to find the man’s expression has changed yet again. Now he’s eyeing her like he thinks she might be a little unstable.

“Areyou a writer?” he asks in the same tone one might use to ask someone if they had a gun.

“No!” Saoirse bursts out. “I mean, yes, but not like that.” He cocks his head. “Not to where I’d be pursuing you, staging ‘impromptu meetings,’ or whatever the hell you said people do. Jesus, that sounds crazy. I sound crazy.” She stops and takes a deep breath. “I stopped writing a long time ago. I did just start again, but I’m certainly not looking to pursue an MFA, and I had no idea you were a writing professor. I saw you watching me at the Athenæum last week and thought it was weird you were at the coffee shop a few days later. Though, I suppose you could have been there first,” she admits.

He stares at her, lips pursed, but then the small smile returns to one corner of his lips. “Are yousureyou’re not a writer looking to get into the Literary Arts program? This sounds like the start of the conversation in which you ask me to review your personal statement.”

Saoirse huffs out a breath of laughter, despite herself. “I suppose it does. Alas, sorry to disappoint you, Mr.—”

“Powell. Emmit Powell.”

Saoirse almost drops the binder again. “Emmit Powell?”

He grins. “That’s right.”

“As in, the Emmit Powell whose debut novel won the Pulitzer a few years ago?”

She doesn’t add,And whose second novel was the subject of a reportedly historic auction among the top five publishing houses, or,Emmit Powell, the darling of the national literary scene.

“The very same. And you are . . . ?”

“Saoirse White.” Emmit holds out his hand, and she shakes it. “Well, shit,” she says.

“What?”

“Not only did I come to a career fair where I found zero job prospects, a career fair that someone probably invited me to as a mistake, but I’ve accusedEmmit Powellof stalking me.”And of being a pawn for my husband’s best friend’s vendetta,she thinks but doesn’t say. Saoirseslides her binder into her backpack, ignoring the haphazard corners of paper sticking out from every side. “I should call it a day.” She holds up her hand in a self-deprecating little wave, turns, and starts down the sidewalk. “Nice to meet you, Emmit Powell,” she calls over her shoulder.

“Wait a minute,” he says from behind her. “It all sounds way worse when you put it like that.”

She turns back, and he’s smiling. Not the half smile but a full one. The smile transforms his face, and suddenly he doesn’t look a thing like Poe or Jonathan. Neither, however, does he look like the handful of photographs she’s seen of Emmit Powell online and in newspapers, photos of a professional, respectable author. She remembers how he watched her across the open air of the second-floor Athenæum and from behind the paned glass of the coffee shop. The intense, knowing stare; the mischievous curve of his lips. This man—somehow—seems like dozens of different men, personas he embodies, roles he tries on as easily as slipping on a mask.

He’s lying,she thinks abruptly. He knows she wasn’t stalking him, just like he knows he’s the one who initiated this supposed run-in. No man looks at a woman like that, shows up at the same location she is on three separate occasions, without some sort of nefarious intent. Just as quickly, however, the rebuttal comes: How could he be lying? He’s an accomplished writer who, if not well known outside of the writing world, certainly has a reputation worth upholding. He’s a professor at one of the world’s most prestigious universities. Her alma mater, no less. He’s polite. He’s charming. He’s laid out ample reasons to be waryof her.

You’re confused,Jonathan says from her head.The séance last night really scrambled your brain.

Saoirse forces herself to meet Emmit’s eye. “It sounds bad no matter how I say it,” she quips.

“How about we do go to Carr Haus for that coffee, then? Change the narrative.”

“Change the narrative.” She repeats his words slowly, skeptically.

“We’re both writers.” He winks. “We shouldn’t have any problem with a little editing.”

She hates how that wink causes a quiver of excitement in her stomach, and tells herself it’s the same pathetic anticipation she felt when Lucretia asked her to go for coffee.It’s because I never go anywhere or do anything, and it’s so hard to fill the hours. I’m moved by the prospect of not having to trudge home yet, not by the idea of sitting across from an intelligent and charismatic man.Still,doesshe want to fill her hours chatting with someone she has no intention of seeing again?

“I don’t know,” she says. But Emmit has already started up the sidewalk, ushering her along with him, slipping her bag off her shoulder as he goes and easing the binder—which was sticking out at an awkward angle—all the way into it. He slides the bag to the top of her shoulder again and gives the strap a pat.

Again, the quiver of excitement, and again, she chastises herself for being so ridiculous. He probably feels bad for her. The unemployed, washed-up writer she’s somehow become.

“Fine,” she agrees. “But just for a quick cup of tea. I’m sure you have student manuscripts to critique or your own writing to work on.”

Emmit laughs a little bitterly. “Hardly.” He puts a hand on her back at the end of the sidewalk and guides her right onto Benefit Street. Pathetically, she thinks,This is the most physical contact I’ve had with another man since Jonathan.

As they pass the Athenæum, Saoirse keeps her eyes fixed on the sidewalk ahead. She has the notion that, should she turn toward the glass doors at the library’s entrance, she’ll see her dead husband, his depthless black eyes charting her progression—on the arm of another man—down a street along which they used to walk together. A ghost leering out from the broken windows of his haunted house.

Chapter 11

The café is busier than when she was here with Lucretia, but they’re able to get a spot along the far wall, away from the register. For the tenth time since leaving Chafee Garden, Saoirse asks herself what on earth she is doing, but she hangs her coat over the chair and takes a seat.

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