Page 45 of The Villa

I really feel like there are only so many times you can advise women to journal their feelings or start every day with lemon water and cleansing breaths, and we don’t want to go stale. I know the next big thing in wellness seems to be selling $500 vibrators, but I’m not sure that path is for me.

What I’ve been thinking about is—and this will sound nuts, but I swear to you, it’s brilliant—something in the true crime sphere. But not the usual kind of thing, four hundred pages about some dead white girl from Nebraska, I’m talking something a little more elevated, a little more sophisticated.

The villa where I’m staying was the scene of a pretty famous murder in 1974 that involved a bunch of artist types—rock stars, writers, that kind of thing. One of the men was murdered by another guy, blah blah blah, we don’t care so much about the murder. But! Thewomenstaying here ended up producing two really important works of twentieth-century art. We getLilith Rising,a famous feminist horror novel, andAestas, which is basicallyTapestry,but sadder. What if the next book focuses on them and that summer? The ways in which adversity can spur women to creation? How toxic men hold women back from reaching their full artistic potential?

This is amazing, right? You’re dying and imagining putting “National Book Award–Winning” in front of my name, aren’t you?

Will talk soon!

Chess

MARI,1974—ORVIETO

“Fancy getting out of here for a bit?”

Mari has been sitting by the lake, her tears hidden by sunglasses, and she wipes quickly at her cheeks as she looks up at Johnnie.

She’s surprised to see him, given that he’s been keeping his distance ever since that night in the study. Maybe Lara told him what she saw, or maybe he’d just sussed it out on his own, but Mari sensed that he knew something had happened between her, Noel, and Pierce, and that it had hurt him.

There hasn’t been a repeat of that one mad night, but Lara is still upset and Noel is snapping at her too much, which in turn makes Pierce angry. (God forbid he miss leaping to Lara’s defense,Mari has thought more than once.)

And Johnnie…

Johnnie had seemed to be slipping further and further away from all of them, lost in a haze that Mari had not quite understood until she’d seen Pierce emerge from Johnnie’s room, holding a small packet.

You didn’t know?he’d asked when Mari had questioned Pierce.That’s why he’s here. He’s Noel’s dealer, and Noel didn’t want to be stuck in Italy without… resources. Why did you think he was here?

I thought they were friends,she’d replied, and Pierce had laughedin that way he did, smoothing her hair back to kiss her forehead.

My innocent girl,he’d said, and then his eyes had heated, and he’d taken her to bed, and she’d forgotten how much she hated it when he called her things like that.

But now Johnnie looks like he did the first day they arrived, bright and happy, his skin golden in the sunlight, and if he sees she’s been crying, he doesn’t mention it.

“Where did you have in mind?”

“Needed to go into town,” he says, nodding in the direction of Orvieto. “Thought you might like to come along.”

Mari thinks about that packet in Pierce’s hand again and wonders if that’s the reason for Johnnie’s errand. But she hasn’t been writing, and the tension in the house has started to give her a headache.

And it’s Billy’s birthday.

Or it would be his birthday, if he had lived.

He would be two, an idea that is almost impossible to contemplate. He was only nine months old when he died, a baby still, chubby and sweet in her arms. What would he be like at two? Would his blond hair have darkened to Pierce’s brown or reddened like her own? What words would he be saying?

All of it hurts to think about, hurts in a way she can hardly bear, and it hurts all the more to know that Pierce doesn’t remember the date.

She’d waited this morning for him to say something, even to simply catch her eye or pull her into his arms wordlessly.

But nothing.

So yes, the idea of zipping down the mountain in the ridiculous sports car Noel lets Johnnie drive, feeling the wind and summer sun on her skin, is appealing enough to make her putaside any misgivings about why Johnnie might need to go into town. Whatresourceshe might be bringing back to the villa for Noel to use.

“I would, actually,” she tells him, and he offers a hand, pulling her to her feet. His palm is warm against hers, bicep flexing beneath the tight sleeve of his Jefferson Airplane T-shirt, and when she’s upright, he doesn’t let go right away, pulling her just the littlest bit closer.

Testing the waters, maybe, seeing how she’ll respond, but Mari just pulls her hand back from his with a flustered sort of laugh, and he gives an easy shrug, hands shoved in his back pockets.

“You all right?” he asks as they make their way across the lawn, and Mari looks over at him sharply. Hehadnoticed her red eyes. He had, and Pierce hadn’t.

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