Until now. When it is happening to me.
“You know precisely what I mean,” I say to Simone. “We’ve discussed literary thievery. I will not allow you to appropriate my life for fiction.”
“William! What are you talking about!”
But that furtive tone is back in her voice.
“My fiancée? Her suicide? At my graduate program?TheDarlingFactor? Are you clueless or just malevolent? This is a thousand times worse than Billy Faulkner taking careless credit for a writing adage. You aredeliberatelyrepurposing my personal tragedy for your novel.”
Simone sits up. She switches on the lamp and peers at me. “William.You can’t be serious.”
“Serious as a lawsuit, Simone.”
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“You’re really going there? I don’t appreciate being threatened.”
I sit up too. “It’s not a threat. It’s a promise.” I get out of bed and start to dress.
“Where are you going?” she asks.
“For a walk,” I say.
“It’s two thirty in the morning.”
“I need some air. There’s less danger to me out there than there is in here.”
“What isthatsupposed to mean?” She has the audacity to sound exasperated.
“Out there, there may be stalkers. Or bears. In here I’m trapped with a vampire.”
“William!” Simone laughs and shakes her head. “What are you eventalkingabout?” she says again. “Stop. Please, stop a minute and look at me. Do you think you’re the only writer who ever went to grad school? I have my master’s, too, you know. Or that you’re the only person who ever lost somebody to suicide? In my college, it was so common that they offered a four-point-oh GPA to the surviving roommate, to compensate for the trauma!”
“We are not talking about apocryphal,fictitiouspeople, Simone,” I say. “We are talking about your stealing mypersonalpain.”
“It’s not just your pain. It’s mine too. I just lost a novelist from my workshop. Did you forget that? I went to the Hamptons straight from her memorial!”
I don’t bother answering this. Of course I remember that sad lost-soul writer. The world is full of these women. What does Simone think I have been trying to do my whole life, via the Darlings and such? All I do is help. I step into my shoes.
“Oh my God.William.Wait. Please.” Simone gets up and walks toward me, unabashed or unaware that she’s naked, and again I admire her despite myself. Despite her effrontery. Who does she think she is? She puts a hand on my arm, and I look down at it.
“I’m sorry if I triggered you,” she says. “I didn’t mean to. I know you suffered a terrible loss. But I have to write what I have to write, you know? It’s the number one rule of writing. You have to be free to write about what’s most important to you.”
“No, Simone,” I say, “the number one rule of writing is to write what you know. This ismine. My territory.” I bend toward her, raise my eyebrows for emphasis. “Ihatea thief.”
I remove her hand with my own, very deliberately, as if I’m unbuckling a seat belt, and place it back at her side.
“I am going for a walk,” I announce. “When I come back, I’m going to sleep. You have kept me up late enough as it is, and lest you forget, I am still on tour. We can discuss this further or never revisit it again, as you wish. But know this, Simone: As fond as I am of you—and until tonight I hadextremelyhigh hopes for us—if you write this book, our story ends here.”
“William,” she says. She’s shaking her head. There are tears in her eyes. “That’s not fair.”
“You are hardly qualified to speak of fairness in this moment, Simone,” I say. “Think about it while I’m gone. Sleep on it. Let me know your decision in the morning.”
She squares her chin. The flush has risen on her face, her breastbone, hiding her freckles like a rising storm front obscures stars.
“I’m a writer,” she says. Her voice is wobbling, but I can’t tell whether it is passion or fear. “So are you. I’d expect you to be more understanding.”
