Perfect Strangers

After the shower, James towels us both off and leads me back to bed. He rolls me to my side and pulls me tight against his warm body, drawing his legs up behind mine and curving protectively around my spine. His chest is broad and solid against my back. His lips softly brush the nape of my neck.

He whispers, “Go back to sleep.”

Exhausted, I promptly do.

I dream of war.

I’m running through a bombed-out city at night, past the silent, hulking ruins of buildings, their shattered windows staring at me like thousands of dead eyes. The sky billows with thick black smoke that burns and chokes my lungs. Erratic bursts of automatic gunfire echo far off in the distance. The road I’m on is an endless stretch of cracked black asphalt littered with rubble and bodies. I stumble over them as I run, sobbing, the soles of my bare feet bloodied and raw.

I pass a band of soldiers headed in the opposite direction. Their uniforms are torn. Their faces are smudged with dirt and caked with blood. All are injured in various degrees, limping or bleeding from horrible wounds, faces twisted in pain or blank with exhaustion. They ignore me, all but one, who speaks to me as he stumbles past.

“Turn back,” he rasps, glancing over his shoulder at the direction I’m headed. “You’ll die if you keep going that way.”

He staggers on.

I ignore his warning because I’m headed toward the light.

It’s safety, the softly glowing white light just beyond a rise in the road ahead. It’s a sanctuary. I can feel it.

So I keep running, lungs burning, the wails of crying children and church bells ringing in my ears.

At the top of the rise, I jerk to a stop. Weak and panting, I stare at the man standing in the middle of the road. He’s surrounded by a glowing orb of white light. It seems to be emanating from him, suffusing his skin and shining out from the depths of his beautiful blue eyes.

“Hello, sweetheart,” says James, smiling. “I’m so glad you found me. You’re safe now. You’re home.”

I sob in relief and fall to my knees…which is when I notice the gun in his hand.

Lifting his arm, he points the gun directly at me.

He’s still smiling when he pulls the trigger.

I jolt upright in bed, blind with terror, my heart thundering. Judging by the light, it’s midday.

I’m alone.

Shaking, I press a hand over my pounding heart. The dream felt so real. I can still smell the smoke and see the dead bodies. Though it’s been years since I believed in God, I make the sign of the cross over my chest.

Then I flop onto my back and lie there until I can breathe again. Until the deafening crack of a gunshot fades to silence in my ears.

The windows are open. A breeze whispers through the curtains, filling their folds in gentle waves. The lazy breeze ruffles the edges of the piece of yellow lined paper held down by a fountain pen on the nightstand next to the bed.

I reach over, pick the paper up, and read.

Write down what you feel. Everything you feel—about Paris, about life, about me—from now until September. Then leave it when you go, so I’m not alone with my memories. Leave me your memories, too, so I’ll know it all really happened once you’re gone. So I’ll know you weren’t just a beautiful dream.

The paper trembles in my hands, but the tremor isn’t caused by my nightmare or the breeze from the windows.

I press James’s letter against my chest and close my eyes, then simply sit for a moment in silence, allowing the emotions to pass through me like a sudden quall at sea, a frothy rage you fear might capsize you but that eventually calms to sunny skies and tranquil waters.

One of the few therapists I had who helped me in any real way once told me that people make the mistake of thinking that experiencing an emotion means you have to do something about it. In fact, you don’t have to do anything with your emotions at all. You can simply acknowledge them as they arrive—oh, look, that old bitch Envy is back again—then go about your business.

It’s the clinging to emotion that causes suffering, she said. A wiser choice is to let it go and breathe.

“Just feel me. Just feel me and breathe.”

Remembering James’s words to me when I fled in a panic into the bathroom at the restaurant, I feel better. His note has made me feel better, too, though constricted through the chest.

At least the hangover has had the good manners to vanish.

I rise, dress, and head into the library, the urge to write as strong as any addiction. I pick up the pen, take up where I left off on the yellow pad, and write until that pad is filled. Then I start on a new one.

I don’t stop until I hear birds chirping. When I look around, I realize with astonishment that I’ve written straight through the death of one day and into the golden, sweet-scented birth of another.

After a break for a sandwich and a nap, I’m back at the desk, oblivious to the world. When the light begins to turn from yellow to violet and my hand cramps so badly my handwriting is illegible, I set down the pen and push up from my chair, mentally worn out but with an eagle soaring inside my chest.

There’s nothing like the high I get from disappearing into my imagination.

Without bothering with edits or clean up of any kind, I scan all the pages I’ve written into the computer and email them to Estelle.

When she emails back with no other comment than a question mark, I check what I’ve sent. Then I scan all the pages again—this time the right side up.

I pour myself a bourbon and fall asleep face down on the kitchen table.

A minute or a year later, the house phone rings. It rings and rings until I can lift my big fat head, which somehow has gained a thousand pounds since I closed my eyes.

“Hello?”

“Doll. It’s Estelle.”

“You read the pages?”

“I read the pages.”

Her tone is oddly neutral. When she says nothing else, I eyeball my glass of bourbon, sitting where I left it on the table. There’s an inch of amber liquid left. I glance at the windows, noting it’s now night. What the hell. At least I won’t be day drinking. I down the rest of the bourbon in the glass, then cross to the liquor cabinet because I have a feeling that by the end of this conversation, I’ll need the bottle.

“I’m not getting any younger over here. Just tell me what you think.”

“I would, except I can’t find the right words.”

She’s not being sarcastic, that much I know. Her voice is thoughtful and more than a little surprised.

“Let me help you out: the manuscript is incredible.”

Her tone turns dry. “Don’t break your arm patting yourself on the back, Miss Thing.”

“Except I’m right. Aren’t I?” I don’t have to ask. I already know this book is the best thing I’ve ever written.

Instead of agreeing with me, Estelle makes a sound of annoyance. “I can’t sell this, Olivia.”

Twisting the cap off the bourbon, I pour myself a healthy measure. “Seems strange, considering that’s your job, and you’re the best in the business.”

“You know what I’m saying, doll.”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to spell it out for me. I’ve been writing non-stop for a bazillion years. My brain is ground beef at the moment.”

Estelle sighs. Over the line comes the sound of rustling paper. I know she’s got my printed manuscript in front of her, and I imagine her at her desk in her big corner office with its view of Central Park, a lipstick-stained Virginia Slims cigarette smoldering in an ashtray at her elbow though smoking in the building has been outlawed for years.

“Olivia, you went to Columbia. You have a master’s degree in English literature.”

“English and comparative literature,” I correct, annoyed by her unnecessary emphasis on every other word. “With a minor in creative writing.”

She ignores me. “You’ve won many, many prestigious literary awards.”

“Not the Pulitzer. Or the Nobel.”

She ignores me again, because now I’m being ridiculous. “Your peers are the most highly regarded contemporary American writers.”

“What about Hemingway? How would you say I compare to him?”

I’m not sure if her silence is because I’ve stumped her, or if she’s trying to decide if I’m drunk.

“Do you really want an answer to that?”

“Yes. I’m in a masochistic sort of mood.”

“All right, then.” Her chair squeaks. I hear her draw on her cigarette, then exhale. “You’re much more verbose than Hemingway.”

I remember James telling me how Hemingway wouldn’t approve of how I talked in such long sentences and make a face.

“And your style is much more feminine than his.”

“Feminine? So my vagina is showing, is that what you’re saying?”

She sounds cross. “Oh, stop it, you know very well what I’m saying. A brick wall is more feminine than Hemingway, for God’s sake. May I continue, or would you prefer to sit there and feel sorry for yourself?”

I grumble something about going ahead and swallow another swig of bourbon.

“The thing you have most in common with Papa Hemingway is the themes in your work.”

My ears perk, and I sit straighter in my chair. This is something no one’s ever told me before. “Such as?”

“The futility of war. The beauty of love. The sacredness of life. The struggle we all share to find meaning in a violent, hostile world that wants to kill us.”

That flattens me, but Estelle is still talking.

“Which is why you can appreciate my complete shock when I found, on the first page of your new manuscript, a voyeuristic account of a couple engaging in cunnilingus.”

I smile. “Oh. That.”

“Yes, that. Since when do you write erotica?”

“It’s not erotica. It’s a story about two strangers falling in love.”

She snorts. “Falling in love and screwing like rabbits. Have you counted the number of sex scenes in what you’ve sent me so far? By the end of the book, the poor hero’s penis will be worn down to a nub!”

I deadpan, “That’s actually how he dies. The heroine fucks his dick off and he bleeds to death. The end.”

Her sigh is loud, but I can tell she’s not angry or even particularly frustrated with me. Otherwise, she’d be shouting. “Maybe—and I’m only saying maybe—I can send it around and see if we get any bites.”

“Yes!” I shout, jumping from my chair and pumping a fist in the air. “Estelle, you’re the best!”

“I wasn’t finished.”

The flat tone of her voice deflates me like a popped balloon. “Why does that sound bad?”

“Because I’ll only do it under the condition that you use a pen name for this book.”

I scrunch up my nose. “Why do I need a pen name? Even if it is erotica, it’s literary erotica. Many highly regarded novelists have written erotica. Collette, John Updike, Phillip Roth—”

“No need to provide me with a list,” Estelle crisply interrupts. “I’m well aware of the history of the genre. My point is that your readership consists primarily of educated, married women of higher-than-average intelligence who expect a certain type of novel from you…one that doesn’t include sixty-seven instances of the word ‘pussy’ in the first half.”

I muse, “Gee, I wonder who all those one hundred fifty million people are who devoured Fifty Shades of Grey and its sequels?”

After a moment, Estelle says, “I don’t know, doll, but if we’re lucky, we’ll find out.”

My smile stretches my face so wide it hurts. “Estelle, you’re the best.”

She mutters, “Either that or nuts.” Then, in a normal tone: “Think of a pseudonym you want to use and I’ll send it off to make the rounds. Do you have a working title yet?”

I haven’t until this moment, but it comes to me in a flash. “Until September.”

She makes a sound of approval. “Perfect. I’ll get back to you as soon as I have any feedback. And Olivia?”

“Yeah?”

Her tone is warm. “You’re right. The manuscript is incredible.”

Without another word, she hangs up.

I decide this calls for a celebration. Only I haven’t forgotten my recent hangover, and I’m in no mood to create another, so I can’t just sit around the house and drink bourbon all night.

I should go out. Into the world.

Where people are.

When that thought frightens me, I decide to call James to see if he’s available.

His line rings and rings, but he doesn’t pick up. He doesn’t have voicemail, either, which I try not to think is strange, but low-key do. Who doesn’t have voicemail?

My mind instantly provides me with a list:

• Prisoners
• The Amish
• Dogs (though cats probably do)
• House plants
• Anarchists
• The six native stone age tribes of the Andaman and Nicobar islands

“Enough!” I say loudly to the empty kitchen. “Go out and buy yourself dinner.” I’m in Paris, after all. One doesn’t have the opportunity to dine in Paris every day.

Except if you live here, but you know what I mean.

I shower, get dressed, and head out to wander the streets and decide on one of the charming sidewalk cafés inhabiting every corner of the city. Within a block of the apartment building, I’ve discovered a gem of a place with blue awnings and a pair of white miniature poodles dozing in a wicker basket outside the front door.

Feeling adventurous, I order champagne with my escargot and detest both. I have roasted lamb shanks with rosemary and potatoes daphinois for my main course, accompanied by an old fashioned and a side order of guilt about the baby lamb. Dessert is something so sweet it almost puts me into a coma. Then, stuffed and satisfied, I head back to the apartment with the idea of getting a few more pages down before bed.

That plan is shot when I open the front door and find James and my ex-husband standing in my living room, glaring at each other in bristling silence as if they’re about to draw their guns.