“What does a typical writing day look like for you, August?”
“It’s really quite dull.”
“You live in Bedford Gardens and take breaks at the British Museum. That hardly sounds dull.”
“But you see, it really is. I get up. I drink loads of coffee and sit in my study and think about murderers and people who solve murders and then I write about murders and people who solve murders. I take breaks, walk around the museum. Or I sit in here. I usually teach at least one writing class a year as a guest lecturer at the University of London, where the girls writeI love youon their eyelids like they do for Indiana Jones in that god-awfulAmerican film you all love. I love what I do. It’s just everything that happens in my head is so much more bloody interesting than what happens in my real life.”
Even amid my Irish whiskey buzz, I’m a little miffed that his writing day looks so very different from mine. I don’t have time to meander around museums when the writer’s block hits. It’s hard enough to wrangle Heathcliff into his school clothes and not murder Bill Rhodes at faculty meetings.
August sighs, raps his knuckles quickly on the coffee table in front of us. “I suppose you could say I’m chronically bored.”
“Boring isn’t bad. I’d give anything to have my happily boring life back,” I mutter, my tone darker than I intend.
“Right,” he replies carefully.
I shift in my seat. “Do they really writeI love youon their eyelids?”
“No, but they do leave their numbers on their papers.”
He looks over the jet and fingerprint necklaces. “So what happens if you take it all off?”
A blush burns like a flame on my cheeks.
“I mean the necklaces, the... the sad trinkets.”
Why does everything he says sound so goddamn sexy?
Then August’s actual question sinks in.
WhatwouldI do if I stopped wearing black, took off the jet locket?
The vapors hit hard, like a corset squeezing my chest.
My ears ring.
Ribs compressing, I can’t breathe.
I’m about to fall into a void.
“I’m sorry...” August says suddenly. “I’m so sorry.”
I take deep belly breaths, something my mom taught me to do once when I fell and got the wind knocked out of me. I remember Chloe’s instructions on breaths.
“Forget it, Elizabeth. Let’s talk instead about my great-great-great-uncle Albert. Ran an opium den in Shoreditch with a wooden leg. Interesting chap. He...”
With each breath, the corset loosens. I gradually pull myself away from the void and listen to August’s story. My breathing and heartbeat slow until I’m rooted again. August is a great storyteller. After his tale, I share my much more mundane family history—Midwest farmers descended from rather severe Swiss nonconformists—and eventually forget that terrifying moment a bit earlier.
After we finish our drinks, he signs Ms. Fernsby’s book for me.
“Obligatory author photo selfie?” he suggests, smiling rakishly as he pulls out his phone.
And then before I know it, I’m leaning into him as he snaps our picture.
August insists on paying and escorting me back to the row house. I protest as we step out onto Regent Street, but he won’t listen.
“Now, I’d be a bloody bad chap if I don’t see you back.”
I can’t argue with that. Admittedly, I’m a little tipsy after the drinks.
