Chapter 2
It was the end of the spring semester, and Candice and her husband, Nathan, were hosting a party in their Brooklyn brownstone.
In just a half hour, their living room and kitchen would be swarming with MFA Creative Writing students from NYU, both the ones who were about to graduate and the ones who would in a year or two, and Candice had been busy prepping all day, baking mini-quiches and brownies and cookies and cheese tarts.
Across the kitchen counters were maybe fifteen bottles of wine.
However, Candice guessed that her students would bring many more bottles, probably terrible bottles, as nobody had very much money in the cohort.
Candice certainly remembered her own MFA days, right here in New York City.
She’d refused her mother’s money and any help. She’d lived off crackers and bad wine.
Feeling pre-party jitters, Candice popped a bottle of French wine and poured herself a glass, just as Nathan came into the kitchen, buttoning his shirt.
Although they were the same age—forty-five—Nathan looked rugged and handsome against Candice’s exhaustion and pale cheeks.
She’d spent the past few weeks grading short stories and novel chapters and talking to her MFA students about their future in a world that was swiftly becoming less and less creative.
She was tired of telling them that everything was going to be okay despite the presence of artificial intelligence.
She had no idea what was going to happen with that, herself.
Nathan pressed a kiss onto her cheek. “I saw your mother having another one of her functions tonight.”
Candice groaned and filled her mouth with wine. “Thank goodness we don’t go to those anymore.”
Nathan laughed and reached for an empty glass for himself. “I’ve been thinking about her lately. When did we last see her? Thanksgiving?”
“Christmas,” Candice said glumly. It had been a strained dinner at the Harbor Estate in Martha’s Vineyard, where her mother, Stella Vanberg, had insisted on gathering the entire family.
Candice couldn’t remember what argument had broken out.
She couldn’t remember why she, Nathan, and their kids had left early, her vision swimming with rage.
She vaguely remembered Stella in the front window, watching them drive away. Her heart ached.
The doorbell rang, snapping Candice out of her reverie.
She swept through the living room, listening hard for signs of her daughter and son upstairs.
Sarah, who was about to graduate from high school, and Peter, who was sixteen and very, very tired during a growth spurt that had put him a few inches above his father, had decided to stay in for the night, despite the party, despite having friends who lived all down the street and on all the blocks surrounding them.
Candice prayed that her MFA students wouldn’t talk about anything inappropriate, although she supposed, at eighteen and sixteen, her kids probably knew more than she wanted them to.
The first writers to arrive were Marnie and Scott, both Midwesterners who’d been known to bring not only wine but also dessert.
Marnie wrote short stories about sad women who never got out of bed, whereas Scott was dipping his toe into science fiction and already had a book contract.
In truth, neither of them was Candice’s favorite, although she liked all her students.
“Come in!” she cried. “There’s an open bottle of wine in the kitchen.”
After that, students began to arrive in waves.
One after another, Candice greeted them with hugs and “thanks for coming!” and felt herself putting on her brightest hostess smile.
The latest person to arrive was Janie, the Massachusetts-born blonde who wrote novels about South America, about adventurous women who knew too much.
Although her prose wasn’t Candice’s favorite, she sensed something about Janie. She sensed she would be famous one day.
Eventually, Candice found herself on the sofa with Scott and Martin, another writer. Although she’d tried to mentally prepare herself for this topic, she found her stomach swirling when they brought up Nathan’s new top-selling book, The Human Agenda.
“I mean, I just finished it,” Scott was saying, his cheeks already red from wine. “I think it might be brilliant?”
“Totally,” Martin said. “What was the process like for you? Did you give him notes throughout?”
Candice wanted to say that she had. She wanted to say that Nathan had told her about the book every step of the way.
She wanted to say that he’d asked not only for her advice but also for her permission.
After all, the book was as close to “autofiction,” a mirror of Nathan’s life, as could be.
It was about a writing professor at NYU who was married to another writing professor at NYU.
They had two children, a boy and a girl, both teenagers.
In the book, the married couple struggled to communicate.
They struggled romantically and fought about everything from bills to what to have for dinner to their opinions of each other’s writing.
It was all true, Candice knew. Everything he’d written about their marriage was a direct reflection of their day-to-day life.
It meant these students knew far more about her marital life than she ever would have liked them to. It meant they knew far more about her body than they ever should have.
But there was one thing about the story that didn’t fully track.
In the book, the “Nathan” character, whom Nathan had decided to call Mike, had an affair with one of the NYU writing students.
Candice decided that this element of the story was wishful thinking.
That her husband had thought some of the students were attractive over the years was no surprise, obviously.
These women were in their twenties. They were brilliant and hadn’t yet aged or given birth or yelled at him about something inane, like the trash and when to take it out.
But Nathan wouldn’t have an affair, not really.
“Nathan and I have always had a very communicative writing relationship,” she heard herself lie to Scott and Martin. “It’s one of the reasons we got together in our MFA program. We were amazed by one another’s work. We changed one another’s processes and made each other better.” She smiled wider.
Scott and Martin smiled back, although she could see it in their faces that they didn’t believe her. They’d read The Human Agenda, after all, which meant they thought they knew everything. It meant they definitely thought that Nathan was having some kind of affair.
She wondered who they thought it was with.
“Excuse me,” she said, standing up to fetch another glass of wine.
But it seemed that everywhere she went, all she heard was The Human Agenda, The Human Agenda.
Everyone wanted to talk about autofiction as a concept.
They wanted to talk about Nathan’s advance, his upcoming book tour, and what his editor had wanted him to change.
Embarrassing her all the more, Nathan approached her with a glass of ice water and urged her to drink it.
“You’re drinking too fast,” he whispered into her ear, his smile still firm.
Candice wanted to melt on the spot. She could feel Marnie’s and Janie’s eyes on them, assessing their marriage, assessing Candice’s weakness.
The truth was, Candice had never had a book sell as well as The Human Agenda.
She’d sold a book early on, in her twenties, and she’d had a minor book tour and a write-up in The New York Times.
The publication had secured her a spot on NYU’s staff, which had meant stability.
At the time, Nathan hadn’t had anything published yet, and he’d steamed with envy, often asking her if she thought he had any talent at all.
“You’re so talented!” she’d gushed to him, over and over.
“You’re going to be successful soon. It’s just a matter of time. ”
When they turned thirty, they celebrated Nathan’s first publication—a literary fiction novel set in Paris.
It sold well and secured Nathan’s position as a professor at Pratt University.
Six years after that, after the sale of two additional books, the staff at NYU had practically begged Candice to bring her husband over.
Candice had been both thrilled and apprehensive.
NYU had been her space. But Nathan was swiftly becoming a celebrity writer.
NYU wanted his status. They wanted students to come there in droves, if only to work under Nathan Lerner.
Candice’s book was slowly becoming obsolete. Nobody read it anymore. It wasn’t even in print.
After downing the glass of water, Candice refilled her glass with wine and found herself in another conversation about writing, this time with Hattie.
For the first time, Hattie asked Candice if she was working on anything, and Candice laughed awkwardly and said that she hadn’t had time to work on anything all semester. “I get bogged down,” she said.
Hattie grimaced. Almost everyone graduating with an MFA yearned for what Candice had: a professor position, anywhere.
If they managed to find one, it probably wouldn’t be anywhere like NYU.
It would probably be somewhere far from the literary excitement.
Somewhere cheaper, certainly. But somewhere that would lead them to sigh and say, “I used to live in New York.”
“If you’ll excuse me,” Candice said, hurrying down the hall.
Her stomach felt sloshy and strange. Maybe she’d had too many brownies.
Perhaps she’d over-sugared and over-wined herself.
In the guest bedroom, she collapsed on the bed without bothering to turn on the lights.
The door was cracked, so she could still hear laughter and the hum of conversation.
She rather liked being here, so far from the action, so far from anyone who needed anything from her.
Maybe she should stay on the guest bed the rest of the night. Would anyone notice she was gone?
And then, she heard voices. Whispers.
“I swear, she knows.” It was a woman, a young woman.
And then, Nathan’s voice was next. “I don’t think so. Heck, I don’t think she’s even read it.”
“Your wife didn’t read your book?” The woman gasped.
Nathan groaned. “It’s not that I really wanted her to. Your notes were good. They were great, even. I can’t believe…”
“What?” It was a sweet voice, a girlish voice. The name landed in Candice’s mind: Janie, the blonde who wrote about South America. Nathan had called her writing derivative.
Had Janie read The Human Agenda and given notes on it? Candice’s heart pounded, but she didn’t dare move. She wanted to hear the entire conversation. They’d snuck down the hall to have it, thinking they were alone.
“I can’t believe you’re only an MFA student, still,” he said tenderly, with love in his voice. “You write and give notes like a much more experienced writer.”
Candice felt the weight of the world, of this news, crushing her.
Janie answered sweetly, something that Candice couldn’t hear. And then, there was silence before Nathan murmured, “Not here.”
Janie sighed. “When are you going to tell her? I swear, everyone knows. Everyone! If she doesn’t know, she must be…”
“I’ll tell her when I tell her,” Nathan shot back.
Candice sat up gently on the bed, careful not to make the springs sing beneath her.
She imagined the next seconds. She imagined herself opening the door and discovering Nathan and Janie in the hallway, embracing.
She imagined what she might say. Aha! Or I knew it!
Or Traitor! It all felt stupid, but it was what came to mind.
Candice couldn’t think beyond this moment. She didn’t allow her mind to consider divorce or the brownstone or Sarah and Peter. Oh gosh, did Sarah and Peter already know about the affair? Probably, they’d read the book and figured it out for themselves. They hadn’t been blind, like their mother.
Would they ever respect her again?
As Candice’s heart raced, her phone buzzed lightly in her pocket.
She pulled it out to see: GWEN - MOM ASSISTANT.
She rolled her eyes, although she was intrigued.
Gwen hadn’t called her in a very long time.
Did she want Candice to come to the fundraiser and make an appearance in front of all those high-society, deep-pocketed people?
Nathan and Janie were still on the other side of the cracked door, whispering. Candice couldn’t take it. But rather than accost them, she answered Gwen’s call, her voice louder than it needed to be. Proof that she’d heard everything Nathan and Janie were saying.
“Gwen? Hi,” she said. “How are you?”
She could feel Nathan and Janie stiffening with shock. She’d gotten them.
But then she heard Gwen’s panicked, shaking voice. “Candice? It’s your mother. They’re rushing her to the hospital. I don’t know what happened. I just don’t know.”