Page 63 of The Villa

I stop.

Had I? She said that I had, and I’d been too freaked out and pissed off to really think carefully about it, because Ididsometimes walk away from my computer without closing the document.

But then I think about that little icon on my desktop with “THEVILLABOOK.doc.” and how that might have acted like a siren song.

Chess’s computer isn’t locked, but she has her own icon calling to me. Not “SWIPERIGHT.doc” or anything that obvious, just “NewBookDraft2-July.”

I sit down.

I click.

Have you ever asked yourself, “Am I grabbing all there is in life?”

I let out a slow breath.

It’s her self-help book, no mention of Mari, the house, any of it.

God, I’m a psycho, creeping around on her laptop, thinking she was… well, I don’t even know what I’d thought. But this is clearly a Chess Book.

I scroll past her usual stuff—How often do you ask yourself if you’re reaching your highest potential?—and feel my shoulders unclench a little.

She hasn’t stolen my book. She isn’t telling my story.

I scroll further down. More New Age word salad.

Enlightened.

Powered Path.

Soul Cleanse.

I’m just about to scroll back up to the top when another word catches my eye.

Emma.

Not my name, obviously, but close enough that I pause.

And then I read.

It’s not much, just a couple of paragraphs, but as my eyes move over them, nausea and rage surge up from the pit of my stomach.

Of course, there are times in life when we step off the Powered Path, and find we can’t get ourselves back on. Settle in while I tell you a little story about a friend of mine. We’ll call her Emma. Emma was always the Smart One at school. Perfect family—you all know what a messminewas!—and she had gone on to an adult life that we’d say had allllllll the markers of success: A good career, a nice house, a loving husband. But what happened when Emma, who was so used to things going her way, lost two of those three things? She couldn’t handle it. Complete life meltdown.

That’s because Emma was neveractuallyon the Powered Path. She’d just accepted an illusory version of it, and when that failed her, she was totally adrift. If Emma had had to work for any of the things she’d attained, she would have had the Titanium Core we talked about in chapter four, butshe didn’t. That’s why you should never regret the hard work you do on yourselves! Otherwise, you can end up an Emma (repeat after me: Don’t. Be. An Emma).

Despite my anger, a horrified laugh bursts out from me at that last line.

Holy fuck, this bitch is going to sell T-shirts that say “Don’t Be an Emma.”

This is what Chess thinks of me, then. As a woman who never worked for anything and who, when things fell apart, fell apart with them. That’s all this vacation has been, probably, a chance to observe me in the wild, to get a few more anecdotes of Sad Sack Emily—sorry,Emma—for her fuckingbook.

I scroll down further, bizarrely, sickly hoping there’s more. I want to read all of it, to suck down every bit of poison, an impulse I barely understand, but can’t resist.

There’s nothing, though. Just white space. Then I get to the bottom of the page.

When most people think of Villa Rosato—if they think of it at all—they think about the murder of Pierce Sheldon in 1974.

In a way, it hurts more, but at the same time, an almost dizzying wave of relief sweeps through me. I wasright. I’m not crazy. Oh, she was smart, hiding it inside this document, but I knew it, I fuckingknew it, and the satisfaction may be bitter, but it’s still real.

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