At Ninth Street, I descended into the bowels of the subway. It was much hotter in the station than outside, and I unbuttoned my coat and tugged down my scarf to keep myself cool as I took the steps down two at a time to the platform.
The train pulled up to the platform and the doors dinged. I elbowed my way into the packed car, shoved myself up against the far door, and hunkered down for the long ride. The train began to move again, rocking gently back and forth, and I stared out of the door window as light after light passed.
I didn’t pay attention to the shimmering transparent woman standing a few people away, somehow inhabiting a free space. She kept looking at me, intently, until the train pulled up to the nextstation, and I sat down in a newly empty seat and pulled out one of the books I’d bought.
My dad would’ve hated what I just did. He would’ve told me to give her a chance. To sit down, to listen to her story.
All they wanted, usually, was for someone to listen.
But I ignored the ghost, as I had done for almost a decade in the city. It was easier when you were surrounded by people. You could just pretend like they were another faceless person in the crowd. So I pretended, and as the PATH train crossed under the Hudson River to Jersey, the ghost flickered—and was gone.
3
Dead Romance
I DRAINED MYglass of wine and poured myself another one.
I used to be good at romance.
Every one of Ann Nichols’s new novels had been praised by fans and critics alike. “A dazzling display of passion and heart,” theNew York Times Book ReviewcalledMidnight Matinee, andKirkus ReviewssaidA Rake’s Guidewas “a surprisingly enjoyable romp”—which, hey, I’ll take as positive. “A sensational novel from a well-loved storyteller,”Booklistwrote, and never mind all of the blurbs fromVogueandEntertainment Weeklyand a million other media outlets. I had them all posted on my dream board in my room, cut out from magazines and email chains over this last year, hoping that seeing them all together could inspire me to write one last book.
Just one more.
I wasgoodat romance. Great at it, even. But I couldn’t for the life of me write this one. Every time I tried, it felt wrong.
Like I was missing something.
It should’ve been easy—a grand romantic gesture, a beautiful proposal, a happily ever after. The kind my parents had, and I’d spent my entire life looking for one just as grand. I wrote them into novels while I looked for my real-life equivalent in men at bars wearing sloppy ties or wrinkled T-shirts, and strangers who stole glances at me on the train, bad idea after bad idea.
I just wanted what my parents had. I wanted to walk into a ballroom dancing club and meet the love of my life. Mom and Dad weren’t evenassignedto each other as dance partners until their respective partners both came down with the flu, and the rest, they say, was history. They’d been married for thirty-five years, and it was the kind of romance that I’d only ever found again in fiction. They fought and disagreed, of course, but they always came back together like a binary star, dancing with each other through life. It was the small moments that tied them together—the way Dad touched the small of her back whenever he passed her, the way Mom kissed his bald spot on the top of his head, the way they held hands like kids whenever we went out to dinner, the way they defended each other when they knew the other was right, and talked patiently when they were wrong.
Even after all of their kids moved out, I heard they still cranked up the stereo in the parlor and danced across the ancient cherrywood floors to Bruce Springsteen and Van Morrison.
I wanted that. Isearchedfor that.
And then I realized, standing in the rain that April evening, almost a year ago exactly—I’d never have that.
I took another gulp of wine, glaring at my screen. I had to do this. I didn’t have a choice. Whether it was good or not—I had to turn insomething.
“Maybe...”
The evening was soggy, and the cold rain struck through her like a deathly chill. Amelia stood in the rain, wet and shivering. She should’ve taken her umbrella, but she wasn’t thinking. “Why are you here?”
Jackson, for his part, was equally as wet and cold. “I don’t know.”
“Then leave.”
“That’s not very romantic,” I muttered, deleting the scene, and drained the rest of my glass. Again.
Nighttime on the Isle was supposed to be magical, but tonight’s rain was especially cold and heavy. Amelia’s clothes clung to her like a second skin. She wrapped her jacket around herself tighter, to shield against the biting cold.
Jackson said, his breath coming in a puff of frost, “I didn’t think the ice queen could get cold.”
She punched him.
“Yeah, great job.” I sighed, and deleted that one, too. Amelia and Jackson were supposed to be reconciling, coming back from the dark night of the soul, and stepping into the lighttogether.This was thegrand romanceat the end, the big finale that every Ann Nichols book had, and every reader expected.
And I couldn’t write this fucking scene.