Page 47 of I'm Not Done with You Yet

“Never heard of it.”

My skin crawls with embarrassment. Of course he hasn’t heard of it. I would never presume that Kurt fucking Fenton would’ve heard of my little book, but the way he says it, dismissing me like a fly, stings more than expected. I focus on my wineglass, wrapping both hands around it and feeling the drops of condensation.

“So you’ve known Thalia for a long time, huh?” he says, and there’s something in his voice that makes my ears prick. Something that reaches deep into the primordial instincts of my body, a whisper of danger that sidesteps my brain and goes straight for my muscles, tensing them.

“Um, you could say that, I guess. We got to know each other at our MFA program.”

“In Oxford? That was where she met Ivan, right?”

I nod. Take another sip of wine to keep from having to reply. Then I realize I should redirect, turn the questions back on him. “And you? How do you know Thalia?”

Kurt smiles, and it’s not a pleasant one. “Oh, everybody who’s anybody in publishing knows Thalia. You know that.”

There’s a sourness in the back of my mouth, because no, I don’t know that, and I am in publishing, but I guess I’m a nobody in publishing and he’s a somebody and so is Thalia.

“I got to know her a few years back, at some con or another; I don’t remember, there are so fucking many of the things.”

Yet another one of those things that plebs like me had to beg and scrape to attend and superstars like him think are a chore. I force a smile and say, “Tell me about it.”

“We hit it off right away. She’s got a way with people, doesn’t she?” He empties his glass, and I get a whiff of whiskey breath.

I wonder if it’s just me or if he’s talking about her in a weird way. I get like this sometimes. Too in my own head—that’s whatTed says. I’d think that someone said or did something weird, and Ted would say,Nah, it’s just you; you’re too in your own head.

A shadow crosses over us, and I look up to see Thalia, carrying two full glasses, one with a refill of Kurt’s whiskey drink and the other with white wine. She hands them to us and smiles. “What are you two talking about?”

“You,” Kurt says, and that one word is so loaded and so heavy with meaning I feel it like a physical blow.

Thalia’s smile freezes for just a second before she recovers. “Nothing interesting about that. Tell us about your current work in progress, Kurt. I’m dying to hear all about it.”

She’s touched on the right note. Kurt settles back, taking a long, slow gulp of his drink, and starts telling us about his latest work, which he evidently thinks of as his masterpiece, a blessing to the literary world.

The rest of the afternoon passes by in a blur. There isn’t a lunch per se; a lush, abundant grazing table has been laid out on the kitchen counter, and everyone goes back and forth throughout the day, taking bits of cheese and cured meats onto their plates. They chat about books and other writers, and as the drinks are steadily refilled, the talk turns nasty. Which writer is a hack, which writer is a snob, which writer is “problematic.” I don’t partake in the conversation, because I don’t know any other writers; I’m not part of the #WritingCommunity, and even if I were, I wouldn’t be part oftheir#WritingCommunity. They’re A-list and I’m barely on any list. So I sit a little bit outside of the group, losing count of how many glasses of wine I’ve had.

At some point, the group breaks up as everyone staggers away to their rooms to write. A couple of people choose to write in the common areas. I skulk off into the room I’m supposed to share with Thalia and wait for her to come up. She does so aftera while, and now I’m nervous because I have no idea what she’ll be like toward me. I want to ask her why she’s been so cold and stiff the whole day, but it doesn’t seem right to ask such things. Too confrontational.

“Hey, you okay?” she says, and I almost burst into tears because her voice is now the soft, warm Thalia voice I know. She sees my expression and her face softens. “I’m sorry if I was a bit standoffish downstairs. I just get so nervous around these people, you know? Like, we chat with one another online every day, but seeing them in person is like, whoa.”

I nod, the room swaying along with me. “I understand.”

“I’m so glad you’re here. It’s just like old times.”

“Yeah.” I wish I could say something more interesting, but after all the wine, my brain is slush.

“I’m going to write downstairs. Are you going to write up here?”

My throat thickens. I find it hard to swallow. I’d fantasized about us writing together, glancing up at each other once in a while and smiling, knowing that we’re creating worlds with only a few feet between us. We’d do writing sprints, maybe, race each other to get to five hundred words. But now she’s abandoning me. I could come downstairs with her, but god, writing in the same room as those A-listers? Me? What a fucking joke. They’d eye me with open derision; they’ve been eyeing me with barely concealed distaste the entire day, their expressions making it clear that I don’t belong.

“You go ahead. I’ll write up here.”

“Okay.” And just like that, she’s gone. Leaving me up here alone. I open up my laptop and stare at the blank page and the blinking cursor. Then, as though of their own accord, my hands float up over the keyboard and then they’re flying across it,words flowing out of me the way they haven’t been for months. It’s the kind of state that writers are forever chasing, the one where the world around you melts away and you drop into this hole where there’s nothing between you and the words. It’s just you and the story, and your fingers aren’t even yours anymore, they’re just bypassing your mind and doing the story’s bidding, typing out words that you weren’t even aware were inside you all along. At some point, Thalia must have come back up, because I become half-aware of a new glass of wine being placed next to me. At some point, I drank it. I don’t stop writing.

It’s the Thalia effect; I know it. I haven’t felt this way since Oxford. Since those afternoons she and I spent in the cozy darkness of the Bodleian Library, tapping away at our keyboards, pausing only to share with each other little snippets of our work. Even though I’m barely aware what I’m writing, I know it’s good. I know because I’m no longer held back by my own self-conscious thoughts, that little inner editor who’s always nagging at me and telling me that what I’m writing is shit. Just being near Thalia is enough to silence that voice.

When I next look up, the sky has darkened to a deep purple and voices are floating up from downstairs. People are done writing, and so am I. I’ve somehow pounded out two thousand words. I don’t dare read them yet, not now while I’m still woozy from the booze and the writing. I stumble down and everyone’s there and I guess they’ve all been drinking throughout the day like I have, because they’re all just on the edge of drunkenness; some of them maybe well beyond drunk. We all crowd around the kitchen counter and paw at the boxes of takeout.

The boxes say:Green Village, Clean Body, Clean Mind. And when we open them, we find steamed vegetables and lightly seasoned white fish. Not a single carb hiding among them.

Thalia frowns at the anemic boxes. “They must have gotten our order mixed up with someone else’s. I ordered their party set. I’ll call them and ask them to come pick these up.”

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