“You want to pretend we’re enjoying this?” I’m incredulous.
“Essentially, yes,” Katrina confirms.
I pause over my next swallow of coffee. It is its own reminder of the tense, efficient mornings we’ve spent lately, Katrina staring silently out the kitchen window while I slowly push the French press’s plunger. I take the next few seconds to imagine the coming weeks the way she’s describing them.
“We won’t argue or hurl accusations?” I venture finally. “We won’t dredge up the past?”
Katrina doesn’t drop her gaze. “It’ll make this process . . . easier,” she says delicately. It’s ironic how forced the word easier sounds passing her lips, which I now notice have light indentations in them, like she’s chewed them recently.
I say nothing. Considering the idea feels daring. Is it even possible for me and Katrina? What would it mean if it is?
I place my mug carefully on the nightstand, contemplating the answers to these questions. Either we’re skillful at living a lie, or deep down, we’re weary of the endless conflict between us. I feel it every time I look at her and remember I have to resent her. It isn’t natural. I don’t know what natural would look like for us, but fueling this hatred is exhausting. It’s feeding a fire out in a storm, fighting wind and rain to keep the embers from going out.
“I agree,” I hear myself say.
The first hint of surprise flashes in Katrina’s huge eyes. “You do?”
“On one condition.”
Her brows flatten.
“I’m tired of bagels. Let’s go out for breakfast.”
I watch it happen. Like I knew she had been—Katrina chews her lip. “You want to . . . get breakfast,” she repeats.
“Yes,” I confirm.
“And eat it together?”
“Yes, Katrina.” I raise an eyebrow. It’s obvious what my invitation really is. The first challenge. How much does she mean this truce?
She stands up, looking like every muscle in her body is sore. I’m ready to shake my head, finish the coffee I left on the nightstand, maybe head out on a run. Forget this conversation ever happened.
Then Katrina plasters on a smile, the first one she’s given me in four years.
“I’ll wait for you downstairs,” she says.
17
Nathan
I haven’t relaxed since Katrina barged into my bedroom this morning. It’s not easy to stay stressed on the patio of The Cottage, the restaurant where Katrina and I had brunch every weekend while writing Only Once. The place is idyllic, a white picket fence enclosing the tiled terrace, with pastel blue-and-white-striped umbrellas. Waiters dressed in navy sweep past with precarious platters of powdered French toast and colorful frittatas. Chatter and sunlight surround us.
“How is it?” Katrina nods to my eggs Benedict. She’s sitting across from me wearing gold-rimmed sunglasses, her sunhat flopping lazily over her hair. Delicately, she sips her grapefruit juice.
“Excellent,” I say. “And yours?”
She carves off a bite of her banana chocolate-chip pancakes. “Great,” she replies.
This is the problem. It’s how it’s been the whole morning. Incessant emptiness.
Like beachcombers scouring the sands with metal detectors, we’ve probed our surroundings for points of interest, finding nothing but the smallest of small talk. The weather, how the neighborhood has changed, the restaurant’s juice selection. They had guava, which got three complete sentences out of us.
For two people who make their livings writing dialogue, our conversation is painfully stilted. I’m not giving up, though. If we’re going to act like we don’t hate each other while writing, we should certainly be able to handle conversation over pancakes. It’s practice, the way we would rewrite our own work in the styles of different authors in a creative writing course I took in college. Practice.
Which is why I decide to push a little further. “I have to say,” I start, swallowing my swill of coffee, “I’m curious why you agreed to write with me again.” It’s a risky subject, one closely connected to others we don’t want to discuss yet. I’m dipping one careful foot into the water, feeling out the depths, deciding whether I’m ready for the plunge.
Katrina pauses, taking her time while she chews. Instantly, I’m desperate to know what’s going on in her head. I repress the fearsome conviction I’ve gone where I shouldn’t have. Practicing cordiality was Katrina’s idea. She’ll understand what I’m doing.
“I guess I was bored,” she says finally, her voice calmly neutral.
I frown. Katrina doesn’t get bored. It’s not how her mind works. She’s intensely curious and intently observant, capable of sweeping herself up in examining and understanding whatever catches her interest. It’s one of her greatest writerly gifts, the authenticity her prose has from the intuition-level understanding she’s developed of the world and of people in it.
I pick up my knife. “So it really had nothing to do with Chris?”
Katrina’s face hardens for a half second. She sips her drink, and when she sets it down, I can see she’s decided something. “No, it did,” she says. “I’m doing the book because Chris needs the money.” Her voice has shed the practiced nothingness it’s held this morning. The change is subtle—she’s not wry or emotional. She just sounds matter-of-fact.
I can tell there’s more she’s not saying, truths too fundamental to ignore. It’s not on Katrina to earn Chris money. The reality is, Chris is taking advantage of their personal relationship to better their professional one. She’s obviously uncomfortable with the position she’s in, and rightfully so.
I stomp out the flicker of pleasure the news of their discord lights in me. We’re pretending we’re friends, and people don’t gloat over proof their friends got engaged to manipulative, money-hungry assholes. Still, for every speculation I’d had—and I’d had many—I never imagined Katrina’s return to writing had sprung from so much selfishness on Chris’s part.
“Why did you agree?” She sounds like she’s fighting to keep the question cordial. I find myself grateful for her effort. Where our writing is combat, if productive combat, we’re collaborating for once. Collaborating on one respectful, normal conversation. We’re in the same lifeboat, our eyes fixed on the same horizon.
Her honesty inspires candor of my own. “My book sales without you are . . . not great,” I admit. “Publishers, and apparently readers, only want Nathan Van Huysen when he’s writing with you. I can’t blame them, either.”