“You went to Duke?” Roza’s sudden question, honeyed with her light accent, was like a hitch in the script. Asha and Jett both glanced at her. “Good school.”
“Yep.” He nodded. “I was blessed by the good Lord above to get a full ride.”
Roza’s eyebrows shot up. “Ahh. So you began this beautiful novel at Duke.”
“Thank you for calling it that.” He grinned, flirting. “Some thought I was a little young to consider myself a novelist.”
“Oh, no, Jett.” Now her brows knit. “When I started writing Devil’s Tongue, I was sixteen years old. Don’t let anyone ever tell you you’re too young.”
“Thank you.” He crossed his arms, enjoying the attention.
“How did you support yourself there?” Roza cocked her head. “Apart from the full ride, how did you pay for food, rent?”
Jett glanced at Asha, who looked slightly perturbed but seemed to be letting Roza take over.
“Odd jobs, mostly.” Jett shrugged. “Things that would tire my body but not my brain.”
“Odd jobs.” Roza beamed like a parent viewing her child’s straight As. “Wonderful. And after school, you moved to New York?”
“I stuck around Raleigh for a while first.”
“Girlfriend?” she asked knowingly.
He chuckled. “Well, yes. I was with someone. But I also didn’t have the money to move at that point.”
“Who was this girlfriend?” Roza asked.
“Whoa,” he laughed, turning to Asha. “This is getting personal.”
“Jett,” Roza said before Asha could answer, “these lovely people all trooped here in the scorching heat because they wanted to learn about us. Isn’t that the whole point of author events? To get a glimpse into the life and mind of the person who’s been whispering into your brain for the last ten hours?” Roza turned to the crowd. “You would all like to hear about Jett’s college girlfriend, right?”
We cheered. The tenor of the hot room had shifted. A new eagerness swelled, a sharpening of the senses, like we were a crowd at a coliseum watching a brave but ultimately doomed gladiator stride out into the ring. Somehow we knew even then she was out for blood.
“Sooo.” Roza’s intonation rose and fell. “What was she like? What was her name?”
Jett glanced at Asha with pleading eyes. Catching his gaze, she cleared her throat. “Roza, I have a lot of questions for us to get to today—”
“June.” Jett said it suddenly, almost involuntarily, stopping Asha short.
“June and Jett.” Roza pressed a hand to her chest. “My god, that is adorable. What was her major?”
“She was—is—a writer, too. We met in freshman seminar.” He’d resigned himself; he was going along with it, confused but regaining his cockiness. “She’s a fantastic writer,” he added generously.
“Is she published?”
“Not yet. She will be.”
“Was she on scholarship too?”
“Oh, yes.” Jett liked his women self-made, just like him. “And she waitressed.”
“June the writer-waitress. How long were you together?”
“Uh… about four years, I guess. Most of college and then a bit after.” His brows furrowed with a new thought. “Why, is she here? Do you know her?”
“I don’t. I just find writer relationships fascinating.” Roza leaned forward. “I was with a writer, once. We were always butting heads, each of us convinced that we were the real genius. Did you ever feel that way?”
“Not at all.” He said it vehemently. “She was always better than me.”
“And yet you’re published and she’s not.”
“Yeah.” He scratched his chin thoughtfully. “I’m not sure what happened. We lost touch after we broke up. I don’t know where she’s at with her work.”
“That must be hard for her.” Roza steepled her fingers. “Her ex getting a big fancy book deal, moving on to bigger and better things.”
“As much as I’m enjoying this stroll down memory lane, should we actually get to the book?” Jett grinned wryly at Asha.
“Good idea. Let’s get to the book, Jett.” Roza’s voice went down an octave. “Let’s talk about the book that June wrote.”
Jett’s eyes widened, then narrowed. His thin lips stretched into a humorless smile. “What?”
“Maybe that’s an overstatement. You worked on it too. But it was her idea, her story.”
Roza was half smiling, as if to soften the blow of her words.
Now a stunned Asha asked: “What?”
“I know you had to pay her off to keep her mouth shut, but it was so little compared to the advance; she just didn’t know.” Roza wrinkled her nose. “And the book was so much of her. Because she’s a car mechanic, Jett, not a waitress. Right? But that would raise some questions if you made that known, wouldn’t it?”
“That’s not true.” Jett waved his arms. “I don’t like speaking badly of anyone, but June was—is—I mean, she’s a little crazy—”
“Oh, yes?” Roza whipped out her phone and scrolled through it. “She contacted me last week. I wasn’t going to bring it up like this—it’s really none of my business—but when you told us that sob story, Jett, how you worked so, so hard, I guess it was just a little too much for me.”
“It’s not true. Can you stop this?” Jett beseeched Asha. “She’s making this up. I don’t know where she’s getting this—”
“She has a recording of you both talking about it.” Roza held up her phone. “The deal you made. She needed that money at the time. Her shop doesn’t pay a lot, you know. But she didn’t think it was fair, you making all that money and getting so much acclaim. Did you know, Jett, that most people have only one good story in them? And you took hers.”
Jett jumped up. “Stop. Just stop.” A knot pulsed in his neck.
Roza bit her lip, eyes on the screen. “And she tried and tried to get in touch with you but you just didn’t want to talk to her, did you? You blocked her, in fact. And so she had to turn to alternative plans. None of the reporters believed her. Your editor and agent ignored her. I guess you could say I was her last chance. That she was grasping at straws.” Roza looked up at Jett. “She’s still working in that shitty garage in Raleigh. And she’s too depressed to write.”
The crowd murmured, shock and glee and horror pulsing like little eddies of current. At some point Wren had grabbed my arm, her nails digging into my flesh.
Even from this far back I could see Jett’s hands shake. “Okay, you are actually fucking crazy.” He turned to the moderator. “What the hell, Asha? How could you let her do this to me in front of…？” He gestured to us and turned. His foot connected with his water bottle, which skittered over the side of the stage. He collected himself and strode off.
Asha appeared to be frozen in her chair, staring after Jett. Finally she turned and mouthed something to someone offstage.