But now, when I open the app, I see there’s a new comment. Matt’s profile picture （updated from the shot of us walking down the aisle at our wedding to him gazing off toward a sunset, aviators shading his eyes） appears next to the words: “Hope you and your ‘bestie’ enjoy yourselves.”
It’s the first time he’s commented on any post of mine in over a year. Honestly, even before the separation, Matt wasn’t big on providing social media validation. Not that this is all that validating. I don’t know if those quotation marks are meant to be sarcastic or if he’s just making sure no one would ever think he’d use the word “bestie” unironically.
I delete the comment, but decide to answer his text.
I did.
He’s not getting a “thanks!” from me or even an emoji.
My phone pings again almost immediately, and I glance down.
Guess you must have finally turned in the next Petal book.
Ah. Of course. This isn’t about checking in on me, this is about checking in on my money.
My throat goes tight, angry tears stinging my eyes, and I can’t believe that I’ve only been here twenty-four hours, and he’s already ruining this for me.
Chess is paying, I type, and then delete it. Why the fuck should I give any kind of answer, any kind of excuse?
As I stand there, wondering if I should reply at all, another text pops up.
I’m not being an asshole. I’m just glad you’re working.
Right, because if I’m working, he’s getting paid.
Except you ARE an asshole, I type back.
An asshole who left his sick wife saying, “This whole thing is just more than I bargained for, Emily.” An asshole who posts pictures of yourself shirtless at the beach in your new town, just in case people weren’t getting the message that you’d finally ditched me and were officially single while also trying to own something I spent years making. You. Are. An. Asshole. TRUST ME.
I stare at the wall of text I’ve typed, and my heartbeat speeds up at the thought of pressing Send. I imagine those words zinging their way across the ocean, punching him right in his smug face as he lies in his bed in Myrtle Beach.
It would feel good, I know. Really good. Fucking great actually.
But no. I’m in Italy. Matt’s not.
And Matt doesn’t get to be in Italy, not even if he’s only in my head.
I delete everything I typed, and, after a pause, I go ahead and delete his messages.
There.
But I still feel unsettled.
Suddenly, I remember that when Chess was giving her big tour, she’d nodded to one of the bedrooms. “They’re using that as kind of a library, I think. Tons of books in there.”
That’s what I’ll do. I’ll find something to read, then change into my swimsuit and spend the rest of the day lounging by the pool, while Matt has to go to his stupid office and do boring accountant shit.
The thought immediately makes me more cheerful, and I practically bound up the stairs until I reach the door Chess pointed out.
It’s still technically a bedroom—there’s a narrow twin bed, shoved up against one wall, with a lace bedspread that’s not quite as nice as the other bedding in the house.
Bookshelves haphazardly line the other long wall. They look like an assortment of flea market finds or estate sale treasures, and while the effect might be disordered and sloppy elsewhere, like most things at Villa Aestas, it somehow comes across as homey and comfortable.
I’ve never been able to resist a bookcase in a rental house—I used to tell Matt that you could always tell who were the real readers, and who were the people who just thought of books as another form of décor, filling the shelves of their beach house or their mountain cabin with curated hardcovers.
And then there are bookcases like this, stuffed with paperbacks left behind by various travelers over the years.
I crouch down, my eyes scanning the titles. There are several books in Italian, some I’ve never heard of, some translations of big English language best sellers, at least half a dozen guidebooks, one with brightly colored Post-it Notes sticking out from half the pages. I spot a couple of thicker books about art history, and then a whole row of Henry James novels.
I’m just reaching for The Portrait of a Lady when something else catches my eye.
The spine is so warped, I can barely make out the title, white creases scarring the dark purple, the shiny foil letters dulled with age and use, but the curlicue “L” is unmissable.
Lilith Rising.
I pull the book out from the shelf, surprised at just how thin it is, and study the cover.
It’s your typical seventies trash, all that deep purple, the silver foil, the haunted and overly large eyes of the girl with the long, straight blond hair, one bloody hand raised like she’s reaching out to the reader.
The pages are yellowed and curling slightly around the edges, and I imagine how many times this book has been read in this house. Maybe out by the pool, the spine cracked and folded around so that the reader can hold it in one hand, chlorine and rosé eventually dotting the pages.
I turn the book over, my eyes drifting over the cover copy, every bit as purple as the cover itself, zeroing in on the tiny little bio of Mari Godwick at the bottom.
Born in England, Mari Godwick lives in Edinburgh, Scotland. Lilith Rising is her first novel.
That’s it.
No mention of her famous parents or her famous stepsister or her famously dead boyfriend.
No picture, either, and I reach for my phone.
There aren’t that many photos of her online, and the most prevalent one seems to have accompanied her obituary, a simple and serious shot of a delicate-looking woman in her late forties with reddish hair pulled back from her face, her eyes dark, her lips pressed together in something that isn’t quite a smile.
Scrolling down further, I finally find what I’m looking for, a picture of Mari when she was nineteen. The summer she stayed here.
The photograph is black and white. She’s standing outside what looks to be an Italian courthouse, her small, pale face set off by a high-necked black dress and a huge pair of Jackie O–style sunglasses. Her head is down, one arm raised toward the camera, a desperate attempt to block the flash. It’s a surprisingly eerie echo of the cover of Lilith Rising, that hand reaching out, covered in blood.
“Ooh, are we snooping?”
I look up, startled, to see Chess in the doorway. She’s wearing leggings and a sports bra, her hair pulled back from her face in a sweaty ponytail. She must’ve gotten a run in around her errands. Chess does love to multitask.
“Finding something to read,” I tell her, holding up the book.
She looks not even the slightest bit worse for wear from last night, and takes the book from me, eyebrows raised.
“Well, this is a whole lot,” she says. “I’m going to send a picture of this to my editor, tell her it’s what I want the paperback of Swipe Right on Life! to look like.”
“You’d look good with the seventies hair,” I reply and she winks at me.
“The bloody hand might be harder to sell my publisher on.”
“Tell them it’s the blood of the patriarchy,” I reply, and she breaks into a high, giddy laugh that I used to assume was fake but now I know is the real thing.