“Of course,” the girl gushes. “Everyone’s read it. Well, Refraction is one of Nathan Van Huysen’s solo books. Like I said, it’s good, but I wish he and Katrina Freeling would go back to writing together. I’ve heard they haven’t spoken in years, though. Freeling doesn’t even write anymore.”
I don’t understand how this girl is interested enough in the writing duo to know the rumors without identifying one of them in her bookstore. It might be because I haven’t done many signings or festivals in the past three years. Following the very minimal promotional schedule for Nathan’s and my debut novel, Connecting Flights, and then the exhausting release tour for our second, Only Once—during which I made my only previous visit here, to Forewords—I more or less withdrew from writerly and promotional events. It was difficult because Chris’s and my social life in New York centered on the writing community, and it’s part of why I like living in LA, where our neighbors are screenwriters and studio executives. In LA, when people learn you’re a novelist, they treat you like a tenured Ivy League professor or a potted plant. Either is preferable to the combination of jealousy and judgment I endured spending time with former friends and competitors in New York.
If you’d told me four years ago I would leave New York for the California coast, I would’ve frowned, or likelier, laughed. New York was the epicenter for dreams like mine, and Nathan’s. But I didn’t know then the publication of Only Once would fracture me and leave me reassembling the pieces of myself into someone new. Someone for whom living in Los Angeles made sense.
While grateful the Forewords bookseller hasn’t identified me—I would’ve had one of those politely excited conversations, signed some copies of Only Once, then left without buying a book—I don’t know how to navigate hearing my own professional life story secondhand. “Oh well,” I fumble. “That’s too bad.” No more browsing for me. I decide I just want out of this conversation.
“I know.” The girl’s grin catches a little mischievousness. “I wonder what happened between them. I mean, why would such a successful partnership just split up right when they were really popular?”
The collar of my coat feels itchy, my pulse beginning to pound. This is my least favorite topic, like, ever. Why did you split up? I’ve heard the rumors. I’ve heard them from graceless interviewers, from comments I’ve happened to notice under online reviews. I’ve heard them from Chris.
If they’re to be believed, we grew jealous of each other, or Nathan thought he was better than me, or I was difficult to work with. Or we had an affair. There’d been speculation before our split. Two young writers, working together on retreats to Florida, Italy, the Hamptons. Photos of us with our arms around each other from the Connecting Flights launch event—the only launch we ever did together. The fact Only Once centered on marital infidelity didn’t help. Nor did the very non-fictional demise of Nathan’s own very non-fictional marriage.
This is why I don’t like being recognized. I like the excited introductions. I love interacting with readers. What I don’t like is the endless repetition of this one question. Why did Katrina Freeling and Nathan Van Huysen quit writing together?
“Who knows?” I say hastily. “Thanks for your recommendation. I’ll . . . take it.” I reach for the copy of Refraction, which the girl hands over, glowing.
* * *
? ? ?
Five minutes later, I walk out of the bookstore holding the one book I didn’t want.
2
Nathan
I’m on my third iced tea. I would order coffee, except it’s gauche to order iced coffee from the bartender. Fuck, though, I’m exhausted. I feel sleeplessness singeing my corneas, the small revolt they’re staging for the post-midnight hours I spent in front of my new manuscript. It’s this thriller I’m working on, where the wife of a federal agent stumbles onto the possibly criminal secret he’s hiding.
I look like hell, the product of being on a plane yesterday, then writing into the night, then getting shitty sleep in my non–Four Seasons hotel. It leaves me undeniably out of place in O’Neill’s, the trendy bar where I haven’t set foot in years. When I lived in New York, I’d come here to meet other writers. With gold-rimmed mirrors, marble tabletops, and cocktails named after playwrights, O’Neill’s was the place to be seen. Which I liked. But it’s been two years since I left the city I could feel turning on me, needing a fresh start following my divorce.