Page 75 of Lucky Night

Tom? No way!

Are you sure? Maybe he was threatened by your success.

He’s not like that. He’s delighted for me. For us. He encouraged me to write for years. When I finally buckled down and did it, he was thrilled.

Does he read your books?

He does. Teen romance doesn’t exactly thrill him to the marrow—you guys have that in common—but he’s very helpful.

Tom must have read the third book already. He pissed away the money she earned, yet he gets to know how the cliffhanger at the end of the second book resolves. And how the whole story ends. Bastard!

She drifts back to the nightstand. He watches her pick up his phone and swipe it awake. A lock of dark hair falls against her face.

Tom’s not a bastard. He’s an overgrown boy, with boyish enthusiasms like motorcycles, and fantasy football. Mystifying. But Jenny is fond of him. She shows none of that smug superiority some women have for their husbands, whom they seem to tolerate only so they have someone around to gently deride, and ask to open jars. Even when she was describing Tom’s masterful financial moves, it was obvious she cares about him.

Do they still have sex? Does she flinch when he touches her? She writes about romance so beautifully. She nails the experience of falling in love. He knows novelists have imaginations, they’re not all memoirists. But when she writes about love, is she writing about Tom?

Surely not. Because why would she be here?

What are you looking at? he asks, because she’s glued to his phone again.

News sites, she says. Social media. A retired fireman on Twitter is providing a blow-by-blow of what the fire department is doing. Other people are posting videos from downstairs.

He glances at the nightstand clock. It’s almost one. These people don’t have anything better todo?

Apparently not. You were right, by the way. Everyone’s trying to figure out whether there are celebrities in peril. Apparently Helen Mirren stayed here over the weekend.

Helen Mirren! Why couldn’t she come to our door in a bathrobe?

She smiles and keeps scrolling. He returns once again to the minibar. Not hungry or thirsty. Just bored. He hadn’t described it well. How he and Caroline had changed. The poverty of their sex life, the loss of touch—those are easy gripes. Sticking to the surface allowed him to avoid the bleaker truths.

They are still excellent partners. They feel strong affection for each other, regard and respect, love of a kind. But, loveof akind? What bullshit is that? He doesn’t want loveof a kind.He wants what they used to have. Love, flat-out, impetuous and overwhelming. Love that makes you feel like you’re going to die, that makes you feel like a god, not that you’d ever admit that out loud because it’s so embarrassing, so cringe as the kids say nowadays, but it doesn’t matter what the kids say, what anyone says.

Because you’re in fuckinglove!

Or, you were. It’s gone now, that love—when had that happened, how, surely he was to blame, was he to blame? Passion had been watered down to affection.

Affection. Jesus Christ.

Love is the most powerful thing in the world when you’re young. It’s tidal, it capsizes you. You’ve found the One, the necessary, inevitable other, good God it’s a miracle! You cling, you coalesce, you build a life. Then somewhere along the way, somehow, love dies. The deathless thing, the best fucking thing, just slips out the back one day.

What a scam.

Does Caroline feel scammed? Does she miss what they had? She must, if she loves Jenny’s books so much. He came upon her not so long ago, reading the second one. She looked up at him, eyes shining.

She gets it, Caroline said. She really captures it. How it feels, to…

She trailed off, looking down at the page.

He didn’t ask what she meant.

He knew.

A pleading voice is coming out of his phone.

What is that? he asks.

A TikTok posted by a woman looking for her daughter, Jenny says. She lost track of her as they came downstairs. She thought she’d find her when she got outside, but…

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