Past her wire-frame glasses, Harriet’s eyes widen. “Wow, this is even worse than I thought.” She moves to the barstools, where she sits to spectate, helping herself to the tortilla chips Katrina left out from her lunch.
I watch the familiar flush rise from Katrina’s collarbone, up her neck, into her cheeks. She’s furious. I hold her gaze, positive she could light paper on fire with the vicious heat in her eyes. Conflicting impulses have collided in her, I realize. She hates when I make decisions without our having agreed on them. But she can’t refuse me without explaining herself—something Katrina’s been loath to do for over four years.
Right now, I’m making her choose.
Harriet crunches a chip.
Still looking at me, Katrina grinds out her next words. “Harriet, would you like to stay for dinner?”
Harriet doesn’t hesitate. “Oh, fuck yes.”
12
Katrina
The first half hour of the dinner is really hard. Despite Nathan’s glib comment—We’re not a couple, I keep hearing in his Connecticut voice—I know he knows courtesy would have dictated mentioning he’d invited Harriet over, and I’m frustrated he didn’t. I wonder what game he’s playing. I don’t even entertain the idea there’s no stratagem here, no subversion. Every one of our interactions is layers on layers on layers of subtext and hidden conflict.
It’s not just Nathan I’m angry with, either. While we fall into old roles and old routines in the kitchen, Harriet dumping pasta in the pot on the stove while Nathan and I work on the garlic bread, I find Harriet’s easy humor grating. There’s a reason we haven’t spoken in years. Harriet crossed some lines in our friendship, and I still haven’t forgiven her for it. Having her here, acting like nothing happened, is irritating.
The minutes drag. I start to imagine how the night will go. It’s one of the curses of writing for a living, my mind’s irrepressible instinct to write the scene of whatever’s happening in my real life. And there’s one thing every writer knows—nothing is as stressful as dinner scenes. Ours would play out in painful fashion, me glaring silently while Nathan rubs in his coziness with Harriet, knowing how it frustrates me. Maybe, if the powers that be were feeling provocative, we’d have it out. Yell, slam doors. It sounds difficult and depressing, and lately, my days haven’t been much else.
So while Nathan’s putting the pan of garlic bread into the oven, I make a decision. Writing every minute is hard, and doing it with Nathan Van Huysen is exhausting. I’ll unravel if I have to stay mad at these two people the entire night. I have to let my resentment for one of them go.
I pick Harriet.
The night flows easier from there. The sun has set by the time we’re ladling pasta onto plates, and the whole house smells like warmth and herbs. We sit down, and Harriet catches us up on the seminar she taught last year. One of her students was Ted Chapman, who was a co-resident from the New York Resident Writers’ Program where we met, and whom we all hated. I let myself laugh, let Nathan pour me more wine. And if while we enjoy one another’s company it feels like nothing has changed, I know it’s just a fiction maintained in the moment.
Without my noticing, hours pass. While I’m loading the dishwasher and Nathan’s taking out the trash, Harriet sits at the table, finishing the end of the pinot. I face her, prepared to say I’m glad she’s in the neighborhood. It’s not exactly an invitation but not a closed door, either.
My words vanish when I find she’s pulled over my laptop and is reading from the open screen. “Don’t read that,” I say, the sentence flying out of me sharply.
Harriet ignores me. My resolve snaps, every ounce of the equanimity I counseled myself into gone in a flash. Furious, I rush over to her and slam the screen shut, my heart rate jumpy.
Harriet looks up in undisguised surprise. “It’s just—” I stammer, realizing my reaction was disproportionate. “It’s such a rough draft.”
Harriet stares, scrutinizing my expression. “I’ve read half-assed ideas you scrawled in your Notes app at four in the morning. I think I can handle a rough draft.”
I hear the kitchen door crack open. Nathan comes inside. He surveys the scene in front of him, me standing over Harriet. I know the tension is obvious. “She was reading our pages,” I say, hearing how childish I sound.
Nathan shrugs. “How were they?” he addresses Harriet.
The question feels like betrayal. I recognize it’s unfounded—I’ve always known Nathan loves having his work read, which is his right. Besides, why would I expect him to have my back on anything these days? Once, he would have. I’ve heard him defend creative choices I’ve made in pitches and interviews when privately I knew he disagreed with them.