Page 11 of Kill Your Darlings

“I don’t know yet,” Thom said. “Honestly, I’ve only written the first few chapters.”

Then Alice had parted her lips to ask some follow-up question, but Wendy was already there, smelling of lavender, probably from the strange soap at the rental. Thom made the introductions, surprising himself by remembering his new friend’s name. A brief memory flashed in his mind from years ago, the time he’d introduced his wife to a visiting writer he was enamored with, and for a terrifying five seconds he’d actually forgotten Wendy’s name. He’d just stood there, mouth open, both women watching him in alarm. Had he actually forgotten his own wife’s name? Then it leapt into his head, and everyone pretended it hadn’t happened. He’d been reliving that humiliating moment on and off for ten years, but lately the memory of it filled him with a cold desolation, as though it were a premonition.

After the student was reunited with friends her own age to celebrate with, Thom and Wendy decided on one more drink while consulting phone maps for nearby restaurants. They agreed on Vietnamese, with the proviso that the following evening they would go to the chophouse that Thom had picked, an old politicians’ restaurant famous for its lamb.

Decision made, they finished their drinks. The coldness that Thom had felt with the arrival of his wife was ballooning into something more alarming. It was a feeling he’d had on occasion during the last year or so, the feeling that he had disappointed Wendy so many times in the course of their marriage that all the love was well and truly gone. That even when she laughed at one of his jokes, or listened to one of his stories, she was doing it with absolutely no love at all. Thom went to the restroom and told himself that Wendy was the one who’d planned the trip, after all, that some part of her wanted him there with her. He told himself to breathe while looking into the slightly warped mirror above the bathroom sink, then went back out to the bar. Wendy’s coat was on.

After they’d finished eating, Thom found himself saying, “I’ve decided to quit writing the book I started.”

“Was that the mystery novel?”

“Yes, did I...?”

“You mentioned it to Marcia, I think, when she was over for dinner.”

“Oh, right.”

“But you’re quitting it?”

“I think so. Maybe I was only writing it in the first place just to see if I could write a novel.”

“You’ve written a few half-novels in your time,” Wendy said.

“Yes, exactly my point.Come End of Summerwill enter the pantheon of Thom Graves’s half-finished novels.”

“Come End of Summeris the title?”

“Oh, I didn’t tell you that? The working title anyway.”

Wendy’s lower lip slid a little ways forward, as it often did when she was forming an opinion. But nothing came. The subject changed to their plans for the following day.

When they were walking back to their rental apartment, Wendy mentioned the Exorcist Steps, the first time she’d referenced the fact that once upon a time they’d been children in this part of the world, and that this was where their story began. “Let’s go look at them before heading back.”

Thom almost made a joke that they could re-create their kiss, but instead found himself talking about time, and how strange it was, and all the while he was speaking, he was telling himself to shut up, that the last thing Wendy wanted to hear was some cheap philosophy about growing old. She’d told him numerous times that he talked too much about it. Still, he kept talking, and that palpable dread he’d felt earlier in the afternoon had returned, the feeling that Wendy was no longer by his side. Well, by his side physically, but not by his side in any metaphorical way at all. He was all alone in an empty universe.

They reached the steps, not quite how he remembered them. When they’d first been there, more than forty years ago, the steps were imbued with a mythic quality, probably because he’d only ever heard aboutThe Exorcist, first from his older sister, Janice, who had watched it at her friend Karen’s sleepover party. The following night Janice had sat on his bed, a ghoulish smile on her face, and told him every gross moment from the film, including a scene with a crucifix that Thom didn’t really believe could actually have been in the movie. Or any movie. His sister was prone to exaggeration, both then and now.

Still, the unseen film grew in Thom’s mind, haunting him. He was both desperate to find a way to see it and terrified at that very prospect. He actually had dreams about it, the first of a lifetime of dreams in which films and reality blended together.

When he’d boarded the bus that was bringing the eighth graders down to D.C., the only free seat had been next to Wendy Eastman. He didn’t really know Wendy; no one did, since she’d only arrived at the beginning of that year, having moved from somewhere out west.He couldn’t believe he’d wound up next to her on the bus, especially since the ride to D.C. was about eight hours total. He’d have been happy with just about any member of his class except for Wendy. In the end, though, it had gone okay. They’d made decent small talk, with Wendy listing all the places she’d lived in her life, and then, as they’d neared D.C., she mentioned that she hoped to go see the Exorcist Steps while they were there. That it was a location from her favorite movie.

Thom, who hadn’t even known thatThe Exorcisttook place in D.C., told her all about what his sister had relayed to him from the sleepover, and how he’d become obsessed with a film he hadn’t seen. So Wendy told him the entire plot, not just the icky parts, and by the time they’d finally arrived at their hotel they were both determined to find the long, narrow steps down which the priest had fallen to his death.

Thom remembered that on the final night of the three-day trip their teachers had taken them to eat in Georgetown and then Wendy and he had snuck off to find the steps. Bringing it up to Wendy now, she had a very different memory—that they hadn’t snuck off at all but that MissAckles was with them. And when she’d said it a memory came back to him, vague and unformed, MissAckles telling him how they were always being watched. She’d done it in a spooky voice, like something from aScooby-Doocartoon. Still, they both agreed that they’d kissed. And now he was standing at those steps again. They were unchanged, he thought, while he and Wendy had completely changed. They’d grown old—older, maybe, was the better description—and they were no longer children. He’d been looking down the steps, steep and narrow and impersonal, then turned to look at his wife.

She stepped toward him, her eyes not quite meeting his. “Strange, isn’t it?” he said.

After she placed a hand flat across his chest, a memory tried tosurface. It was from a few weeks ago, that drunken party at their house, when he’d fallen down the stairs. The memory was Wendy’s face, and now that her face was close to his again, he was filled with a deep, unnerving sense of déjà vu.Here it comes, he said to himself,the end of the story.

He opened his mouth to say something to Wendy, immediately forgetting what it was he needed to say. But still he spoke. Thom said, “Go ahead, I’m ready,” not knowing if he was making a joke or not.

She smiled in the moonlight.

vii

Thom fell almost slowly at first. For one moment Wendy thought he might come to rest just a few steps down, but then gravity went to work, his legs going over his head as if he were a child doing a slow-motion somersault, picking up speed, bouncing down the remaining steps until he came to a stop at the bottom, just a dark, shadowy mass in the lamplight.

She let out a long, hissing breath. Her legs felt watery and she took hold of the railing and lowered herself so that she was sitting on the top step. It felt strange that nothing momentous had occurred to mark her husband’s fall. No one had screamed. No sirens had sounded. No dogs had barked in the distance. It was quiet.

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