I fish under my mattress for Mari’s pages, and when I bring them downstairs, I hand them to Chess without a word.
It only takes her a second to realize what I’ve given her, and her whole face glows as she reads.
We sit there in the drawing room, Chess reading, me watching her, until she gets to the end.
（Well, almost the end. There’s actually still one more section that Mari wrote, but I’ve kept that for myself. I have to keep some part of this just for me.）
When Chess reaches the final page—Mari calmly writing the end of Lilith Rising as Noel screams downstairs—she looks up at me.
I wanted to see if she’d understand what needs to happen next, or if I’d have to tell her.
But she’s my best friend.
She’s always been able to read my mind.
ONE WEEK LATER
Chess hears the car pull up before I do.
We’re at either end of the dining room table, each of us typing Mari’s handwritten pages from 1974 into our computers, and I have my earbuds in, so Chess has to wave to get my attention.
“He’s here,” she says, and I smile, saving the document and standing up from the table.
You can see the drive from the window, and Chess and I both stand there now, looking at the little blue rental car, watching the man who gets out of the driver’s seat.
He’s still handsome, still achingly familiar in his uniquely Matt way, and for a moment, I remember what it felt like to be in love with him. Like Chess, Matt had a bright light, and when it was shining on you, it was beautiful.
So long as he was getting what he wanted.
He turns, sees us there in the window, and lifts one hand in a hesitant wave.
“What exactly did you tell him to make him come?” I ask, and Chess reaches down, taking my hand and squeezing it.
“That I figured out that we had to tell you together. That you’d be so devastated and upset, and I didn’t want to deal with that on my own, and since he was equally responsible for how miserable you’d be, he had to actually see the consequences of our actions.”
Gleeful, Chess had said. That’s how he’d sounded when he talked to her about how unhappy I seemed. Because I deserved that, right?
Sometimes we don’t really know we’ve won until we see the reflection of that win in the loser’s eyes.
（From chapter two of Things My Mama Never Taught Me.）
Chess takes a breath now and looks at me, her eyes full of compassion. “He said he’d be on the next flight.”
It hurts to hear.
But that’s good.
That makes it easier.
TRAGEDY IN ITALY
Author and wellness guru Chess Chandler was struck by tragedy this week while vacationing outside of Orvieto, Italy. The frequent Oprah guest and self-help star had been renting a villa just outside the city with two guests when one of them, Matthew Sheridan of Asheville, North Carolina, drowned while swimming in a pond on the property. Both Chandler and Sheridan’s wife, Emily, were away from the house at the time. Sheridan, thirty-five, was apparently a strong swimmer, but, early reports say, may have been drunk or otherwise incapacitated at the time.
Of course, the villa was also the scene of an infamous murder in 1974 when up-and-coming musician Pierce Sheldon was bludgeoned to death by Johnnie Dorchester, a drug dealer and wannabe writer also staying at the property.
Chandler and Sheridan are already understood to be back in the United States, with Chandler’s lawyer issuing the following statement:
“Ms. Chandler is deeply distressed at this tragic accident, and requests privacy at this time. She and Mrs. Sheridan have no further comments.”
“The house is just cursed,” a local resident who wished to remain anonymous told us. “It’s a bad place, and I don’t know why anyone would rent it.”
Others scoff at such superstitious ideas. “It’s a house like any other,” another local said. “The only thing this has in common with what happened all those years ago is that both times, people got stupid on vacation. It happens here. It happens everywhere.”
—People, July 29, 2023
MARI, 1980—NEW YORK CITY
He’s changed, but then haven’t they all?
Mari stands outside the tiny restaurant he’d suggested, stamping her feet against the cold as she watches Noel walk toward her, hands in the pockets of a greatcoat, that same rolling gait she remembers so well.
But she can see even before he reaches her that he’s different.
The changes are small in Noel, subtle. He was already completely himself when they first met, had probably been completely himself from the day he was born, and yet—he isn’t the same man he was in Italy six years ago.
There’s something more haggard about that beautiful face, as a lifetime of excesses has finally caught up with him, and he’s thinner, his body seeming less solid than she remembered as she hugs him.
“So kind of you to make time for me in your busy schedule,” Noel says, opening the door for her.
Heads turn when they enter, and they’re all for Noel. Authors, even ones as successful as Mari, are not nearly as recognizable as rock stars.
Noel hasn’t put out an album since 1973, but he still commands a room, and they’re ushered to a large booth by a window. Outside, it’s begun to snow, the streets slick and wet under the orange lights, but inside the restaurant, it’s almost too warm, thick scents of garlic and roasting meat hanging in the air.
“When was the last time we saw each other?” she asks, and he leans back. He’s still wearing his coat despite the heat, and she thinks again how pale he looks, how drawn.
But the smirk is classic Noel. “I think it was your book signing in London three years ago.”
Mari snorts, picking up the menu. “You nearly caused a riot coming to that.”
“That’s precisely why I came,” he tells her, and she laughs.
She’s missed Noel, she realizes. More than she’d thought. Sometimes he feels like the last person standing from her past, like she became a completely new person after that summer in Italy with completely new friends, a completely new life.
Cut yourself free, he’d told her on that sunny day by the pond. And she had.
She just hadn’t known how lonely that would turn out to be.
The waiter comes then, depositing a bucket on the table, a wine bottle inside, and Noel gestures to it. “I took the liberty of calling ahead to make sure they had this,” he says, and when the waiter lifts the bottle, Mari sees the familiar word curling across the label.
Orvieto.
Mari doesn’t say anything, doesn’t rise to the obvious bait as the waiter fills their glasses, and when she lifts the wine to her lips, her hand doesn’t even tremble.
She’s proud of that.
“A toast.”
Noel lifts his glass, still smiling that odd little smile.
“I’m not going to toast to myself, Noel,” Mari replies, her fingers wrapped around the stem of her own glass. “That’s your bag, not mine.”
His smile widens.
Curdles.
“To lost friends, then,” he says. “Pierce and Johnnie, the poor sods.”
Mari doesn’t lift her glass to that, either.
Her pulse seems to slow, heart beating heavily in her chest.
She’s always wondered if Noel knew. If he suspected the truth of what unfolded that night. In the six years since, she’s only seen him a handful of times, exchanged a few phone calls, maybe a dozen letters, but he’s never so much as hinted at anything.