Chapter 35
James thought he would never see Nelle’s face again, but there it is.
Plastered on the front cover of a magazine’s Valentine’s Day issue: Big City, Young Love.
The photograph is of the two of them in profile, zoomed in and so clear that James can see individual follicles on his chin, gilded in low gold lamplight.
Each freckle on Nelle’s cheek, looking up at him as he grins, her tiny finger touching his nose.
In the moment, the boop felt playful, but here it comes off as sensual.
He buys a copy, then takes the L across the river.
Jessie’s new Williamsburg apartment is, temporarily, his home address as well.
Notes from class ring through his head on the five-minute walk down Berry Street.
Talia’s comment about his style being too flowery for serious prose.
He countered with, What if I don’t want to write serious prose?
which broke the number-one rule of Professor Gadley’s workshop: unless prompted, don’t speak while being critiqued.
Gadley, to James’s relief, didn’t take issue with his writing style, but she did feel disconnected from his main character.
James punches in the door code and takes the stairs to apartment 4C. Hot sugar swirls from the kitchen to the foyer as he drops his key in the ceramic bowl by the door.
“Did you rob a bakery again?” He careens into the kitchen, which overlooks the living room, which overlooks Third Street.
“No, just your pantry.” A voice floats down from the terraced second floor, footsteps ringing on the iron spiral staircase. Lucy’s fuzzy socks and soft smile. “Your cinnamon’s out, by the way.”
James frowns. “I bought a new container last week.”
“Huh.” She peeks into the oven. “Not sure what happened there.”
Lucy wears a thin cotton tank top and no bra. James averts his eyes before his innocent once-over becomes a stare. He hopes she wore a jacket. He forgot to bring a scarf to class, and the bottom half of his face is still numb.
“Jessie’s in the shower,” Lucy says.
“And Lena?”
“Also in the shower.”
“Right.” James laughs softly and shakes his head. “Interested in a brief trauma dump?”
She pulls up a stool. “Hit me.”
The rolled-up magazine slaps the table, unfurling.
Lucy flattens it and gasps. “It’s you! What the hell, James? I didn’t know you were a model.”
“Flattered,” he says. “But no, this was a fluke candid the photographer caught. And the person I’m with is—”
“Nelle.”
“Yeah.” James studies the photograph. “The photographer told us he was working for a publication, but I didn’t think much of it.”
She sighs. “Yeah, that’s depressing.”
“Thanks.”
“You just look so happy. She’s beautiful. Damn.”
“Yeah.” James is there, drunk under rustling trees, holding Nelle for the first time, discovering that electric current between them. His heart breaks a little, all over again.
“All right, enough.” Lucy sweeps up the magazine and leaves the room with it. When she returns, she takes a tray of cookies out of the oven, all twenty-four powdered in cinnamon.
“Did you throw it away?” he asks, unsure what answer he wants.
“No, it’s too cool to toss out.” Lucy washes her hands at the sink. “I put it somewhere safe, so you can appreciate it later, have a story to tell your kids.”
“I won’t tell my kids about Nelle,” James says. “She’s like my first novel. For my memory only.”
The Summer Curse is an arrow to the heart.
It’s not the fact that he will never publish it that hurts him.
Given how much more he intends to grow as a writer, he will be grateful in retrospect.
What hurts is the manuscript he lost a month ago.
A piece of him died alongside those typewritten pages. The fire devoured them both.
James has to ride this train of thought multiple times a day to remind himself why he needs Nelle out of his life.
Why, even though he is eternally grateful that she is alive, he is equally grateful that she chose to distance herself.
Living in constant fear of everything he loves disappearing wouldn’t be living at all.
That said, if she showed up on his doorstep tomorrow, he would take her back in a heartbeat.
“Oh, come here.” Lucy scoots beside him, lets him rest his head on her chest. Her hand soothes his hair, down the nape of his neck. He cries into her tank top.
“Sorry.” He pulls back. “Sorry for crying on you.”
“You can always cry on me.” Lucy slides the platter of cookies toward him. “As long as I can cry on you, too.”
“Right now?” He sniffles.
She crosses her ankles. “No, but when I need to.”
“From here on out, my chest is reserved for your tears only.”
“Thank you.” Lucy napkins a cookie and holds it out to him. “Now eat this and tell me if you think there’s too much cinnamon.”
Nelle knows the world.
She knows heartbreak. Joy. Guilt.
And she knows she shouldn’t watch, but sometimes—like tonight, Valentine’s Day, when the moon is pale and the city is alive and James is cozied up on the couch next to some woman, passing popcorn with their friends, bathed in the blue-and-white light of whatever movie they are watching—part of Nelle feels like she should be there with him.
But she knows that she can’t. Not yet.
For now, she stays on the rooftop across the street, bathed in artificial light.
Tomorrow Nelle will go back to Montana, to Penelope, where she can see the stars, both in the sky and on the screen. They bought a ranch out there, miles from anyone else, a self-imposed isolation. When Nelle isn’t riding her palomino or painting in the forest, she and Penelope binge-watch films.
But this viewing is the most addictive film she has found. She shouldn’t watch, but she can’t resist. A Valentine’s Day present to herself: An Illegal Glimpse into My Ex-Lover’s Window. This is only the second time she has seen it, though it has only been a month since she left.
She doesn’t feel bad for her voyeurism. It’s almost natural, given that James and Jessie got a fourth-floor walk-up with a fishbowl window. Given that he still has a pen with her ink, and she is scared he will use it one day. Given that she still loves him.
But James is safe if she’s in Montana, where she is only a danger to Penelope, her horse, and her cats. That is why she looks through his window. Not to torture herself over the life she can’t have, but to reaffirm herself of the life she requires.
Peace. Quiet. Time to breathe, to sort her thoughts, to ride at breakneck speed in a saddle.
Striding down the sidewalk, Nelle feels beneath her scarf for the engraved rose on that gold locket. Cold reminder of all she has abandoned here. She clicks the locket open, dreaming of the day when two taunting black ovals don’t stare back at her.