Anna picked up her mug and gazed into it, as if the answer resided within. “Not a poetry person,” she said. “Love reading memoirs, but not interested in digging around in my own dirt so I can share it with the rest of the world. I’ve always liked novels, though.” She looked up at him, suddenly shy.
“Oh? Tell me a few of your favorites.” It occurred to him that she might think he was asking for praise. “Present company excepted,” he added, trying to make a joke of it.
“Well … Dickens, of course. Willa Cather. Fitzgerald. I love Marilynne Robinson. I mean, it would be a dream to write one, but there’s absolutely nothing in my life that suggests I could do it. Where would I get an idea? Where do you get yours?”
He nearly groaned. Back in the cerebral file of acceptable answers he found the most obvious one, the one Stephen King had given them all. “Utica.”
Anna stared. “I’m sorry?”
“Utica. It’s in upstate New York. Someone asked Stephen King where he gets his ideas, and he said Utica. If it’s good enough for Stephen King, it’s certainly good enough for me.”
“Right. That’s funny,” she said, looking as if she thought it was anything but. “Why didn’t you use that line last night?”
For a moment he didn’t reply. “You were there last night.”
She shrugged. “Of course I was there. I’m a fan, obviously.”
And he thought how astonishing it was that this very pretty woman was calling herself his
“No, thanks. I’ll need to go soon. Otis was giving me the side eye, back at the radio station. You probably noticed.”
“He doesn’t want you to miss your next gig. Totally understandable.”
“Yes, though I’d love to have a little more time. I wonder … do you ever come east?”
She smiled. She had an odd smile: lips pressed together so hard it looked almost uncomfortable for her to hold the expression.
“I haven’t yet,” she said.
When they went outside he considered, thought better of, then reconsidered a kiss, and while he vacillated she actually reached out for him. Her silver hair was soft against his cheek. Her body was surprisingly warm, or was that his own? He had, in that moment, such a powerful idea of what could come next.
But then, a few minutes later in the car, he found the first of the messages. It had been forwarded from the contact form on his own author website (
You are a thief.
She found out she was pregnant by throwing up on her desk in calculus. Samantha had been finishing up some notes on the problem set, making sure she had the right assignment as everyone left. (She had a theory that Mr. Fortis, who was generally a moron, didn’t actually look through the equations themselves; he just checked to make sure the problems were the ones he’d actually given out.) Then she’d gotten to her feet, swooned like somebody in a soap opera, put out her arms to brace herself above the desk, and hurled all over her own notebook. Her very next cogent thought was: Fuck.
She was fifteen years old and not an idiot, thanks very much. Or maybe she was, but this wasn’t happening because she’d been ignorant or naïve, or because she’d thought nothing bad (this was bad) could ever happen to
The vomit was slimy and kind of yellow and the sight of it made her want to throw up again. Her head was aching because that’s what happened when you threw up, but the main thing concerning her now was the way her skin had kind of jumped to life all over her body in a really unpleasant way. That was probably also a sign of pregnancy, it occurred to her. Or just rage. It was clear to her that she had both.
She picked up her notebook, carried it to the metal trash bin in the corner of the room, and shook the thing over it; a gob of slime slid off, then she dried it the rest of the way with her shirtsleeve, because honestly she was past caring. In the last thirty seconds of her life, years of goals had simply disappeared. She was pregnant. She was pregnant. That complete fuck.
