Page 77 of Coming in Hot

“Why?!”

He tips his head, sardonic, and leans casually on his desk. “Because I’m Mummy’s special boy. You needn’t get stroppy—I called you in here to heap praise upon you. That”—he points at the pages I’m mashing in one fist—“is fuckin’ brilliant. And I know you still essentially loathe me, but I’m a solid writer, and… I’d liketo offer to beta read. I have a good eye with critiques. My comments could be useful.”

I’m about to deliver aHell, nowhen he holds up a hand and adds, “Let me rephrase that: I’m morebeggingthan offering. Your writing is a delight, and I’m already invested enough in the story that if I have to wait a year or more until you publish—which you certainly will—I’ll go mad.”

I inspect him with a moody squint. “Hmm. Considering that ‘negging’ thing you always do, I can’t imagine your crit comments being helpful.”

“Give me a chance. I’ll do the first chapter, and if you hate my style, you need never send me another word. But I promise, I’m good at this.” His tentative smile is boyish. “I’d like to be friends, and make it up to you, what a pain in the arse I’ve been this year. Truly.”

I smooth out the pages and cautiously hand them over. “Just one chapter. But you’d better not be doing this to clear the runway for asking me out again, because the answer is a permanent no.”

“On my honor.” He taps the little stack square and sets it aside, taking a pencil from his desk and jotting something at the top of the first page. “And condolences on things not working out with Emerald’s TP. I know he’sdishy.” Alexander punctuates the assessment with a roll of his eyes. “Besides, I’ve… set my sights on someone new. I’ll plague you no longer with my affections.”

“That poor thing, whoever she is,” I tease, backing into the open doorway. “Somebody should warn her.”

“Cruel woman.” Alexander lobs the pencil in my direction, and I slip around the corner.

Heading to my office, I think about the book project, and where it might go. The opening paragraphs—which I’ve been overso many times they’re all but tattooed on my brain—unfurl in my mind’s eye:

When Sherri McNeil was a 1980s teenager in Kentucky, resentful of a world that felt too small to contain her big dreams, she never expected life to contract around her further, as it did over the next decade. But months after meeting Jason Evans—a rural country boy with Hollywood looks and charm—she found she’d traded her little home in Lexington for an even more suffocating one in an unincorporated South Kentucky town. The baby, unexpected but loved by the nineteen-year-old parents, made the rented clapboard house feel all the more crowded.

Seven years later, Sherri spread her wings and flew west to L.A., hoping to free her family from the limited future she envisioned for them in a map-dot hamlet with one stoplight, two fast-food restaurants, and four churches.

The moment the door of her prison cell shut behind her, she thought,If my life gets any smaller, I may disappear entirely.

And to her seven-year-old daughter, she did.

KENTUCKY

SIX WEEKS LATER

Opening the lines of communication started with an email while I was still in Hungary, but Sherri had to convince me before I’dpick up for a phone call. The next hurdle was video calls. I almost put the kibosh on that after the first one because it freaked me out how she kept bursting into tears and saying, “It’s just so good to see your face!”

By the time I flew home in early September, I was cautiously ready to attempt in-person family stuff. I asked Auntie Min to give me a few days to acclimate and manage the jetlag, plus get my feet under myself emotionally, post-breakup. Then I agreed to muffins and coffee—a one-hour commitment. Next we did dinner, a backyard barbecue. The week after that, Minnie and I went to visit at Sherri and Jason’s little rental, a half hour away.

The “excuse” for interacting has been the book project. Sherri is taking online college courses in writing, world history, and algebra. During our second phone call, I asked her if maybe we could collaborate on telling her story. She was initially skeptical that anyone would want to read “a biography about a regular person who made a lot of mistakes,” until I showed her examples of some fantastic popular memoirs. I asserted that books like this incite changes in the world, expanding readers’ perspectives on controversial subjects.

My boss’s connections in publishing were a big help—I got a modest book deal, and Nefeli’s own longtime agent has taken me on. I hopeFaded Sunlightisn’t just entertaining, but alsoimportant. I have an office set up in Auntie Min’s guest room, under the window looking out on her garden—a perfect view of the bird feeders!—and I write and do research (and consult with Sherri on FaceTime) about ten to twelve hours a day.

Keeping myself busy has been critical, but it doesn’t always work—my heart still aches for Klaus, remembering our passionatemoments together, his touch, his scent, his voice in the dark, his low laugh. When you’re waiting for time to heal a wound, the only thing that can make time speed up is a deadline, so I’ve been giving myself strict ones.

This week’s challenge in “the Sherri and Jason Project” is spending time stuck in a car together. Sherri and I are going to Mammoth Cave National Park, two hours away. I only see a little of Jason. I think he’s slightly afraid of me. Sometimes I catch him watching me with a nervous optimism like I’m a feral animal he’s trying to befriend.

We stop at the Dairy Bar, so the first fifteen minutes of the trip are mercifully taken up by eating and listening to a nineties playlist Sherri made. She’s learned how to make playlists (everything was CDs when she went to prison) and she texts them to me constantly. Sherri has a peanut butter milkshake and I’m eating onion rings because… why not? No one’s going to kiss me on the mouth.

It’s strange getting to know her when she’s in her midfifties. My childhood memories of her are vague. As she pops the lid off her shake and stirs, trying to soften it, then gives up and pulls the straw free and licks the ice cream off, I’m struck by the fact that she seems simultaneously as awkward and unfinished as a kid and has an “old veteran with a thousand-yard stare” look in her eyes that only decades in prison can bestow.

My view of her is always snapping back and forth between recognizing her young essential nature and seeing the fine lines around her eyes, the threads of silver in her hair, and the way she’s baffled by things like streaming services and hashtags.

She scoops out more ice cream and maneuvers it into hermouth, dripping some on her chin and wiping it off with a self-conscious hum of laughter. “I’m a disaster.” She wads up a napkin and swipes at a drop on her shirt. “Food is so awesome—I’m making up for lost time. Probably gained fifteen pounds this year. This milkshake must be six hundred calories.”

I crunch my last onion ring and drop the packet into the bag. “Here’s the good news about another way the world has changed since the mid-nineties: body positivity. It’s a whole thing now. Counting calories is neurotic.”

She snorts. “Okay, tell that to the jeans I bought in August and can’t zip.” She pokes at the stereo to change the song or maybe turn the volume up, and scowls when she can’t make it work.

I pluck my phone from the center console and hand it to her. “You do it here.”

“I’ll never get used to this shit.”

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