Eliza Harel called me about an hour after Cal’s agent called him. We were in bed, where we had moved from the office. And, fortunately, we were finished. In the realm of Very Important Things, sex with Cal rated above a call from The New Yorker.
“Your turn,” he said presciently when my phone rang. We were lying side by side, aimlessly entwining our fingers and collecting our wits. The room smelled of sex, sweat, and cologne—and there were traces of firewood and oil paint in the air. To me, that combined scent was all Cal, and I loved it.
I snagged my phone and read the screen. “Yup. Wish me luck.”
“Luck.” He grazed his knuckles along my cheek. He would have kept doing so, I thought, if I hadn’t sat up and scooted to the edge of the bed. I wasn’t remotely urbane enough to lie in bed caressing my lover while chatting with a major magazine editor.
He chuckled and I glanced over my shoulder. The sunlight hit his eyes and I could see their mahogany hue, which so often appeared black. A healthy, honeyed tone was returning to his skin. He had looked like death when I had first met him. Without love, or sexual satisfaction at the very least, and with only horrific memories for company, he had been—I realized now—dying from the inside out. Despair is as deadly as cancer. It eats at the spirit, which generates our will to live.
But he loved me now. I spontaneously and clearly understood what that declaration had meant. Where God and art had failed him, I had become his raison d’etre. That great responsibility didn’t frighten me. I could actually save him—was saving him. It was happening right before my eyes: Life, offering me one rare and perfect miracle.
“Mr. Beck?” Eliza Harel said, maybe not for the first time. I smiled at Cal and turned back toward the window.
Never before, to Eliza Harel, had I been Mr. Beck.
So this was what professional success felt like.
“Hi, good afternoon,” I said.
“There you are. Well. I don’t know where to start. We are so thrilled. I just got off the phone with Mr. Bright’s agent. They’re both on board with the profile. I never”—she stopped short of saying something, then started again—“I knew you were the right choice for this piece. It’s ... incredible. Everyone here is so excited. We’re making this the focus for the whole issue.” Her gushing paused.
“Th-thank you,” I stammered. “I—”
“We’re thinking about a few photos—the author, his residence. The fact that he has a new book, and he gave it to you”—another dramatic pause—“and you’re letting us break this news. We are beyond thrilled. Now, we know you have a blog ...”
Several seconds passed before I processed her meaning.
“Oh. I won’t be writing about it there. It’s all yours.”
“Wonderful. Excellent. We will be in touch, Mr. Beck. You can expect to hear from me next month, okay? We have a lot of ideas for twenty-seventeen.”
I thanked her and said goodbye. My ears were ringing. Eliza Harel was a fast talker with a brassy voice, which got faster and brassier when she was beyond thrilled.
“Impressive pipes on that lady,” Cal said. He was still lying in bed, an arm behind his head and his eyes closed.
I laughed. “Yeah, no kidding.”
“She sounded happy.”
“For sure.” I scooted closer to him, a bright smile stuck to my mouth. “I think you, uh, single-handedly launched my journalism career.”
“It wasn’t all me. You wrote the profile.”
I gazed at his unperturbed features. “The book made the profile.”
“Let’s call it fifty-fifty,” he said.
One of the things I loved about Cal: He was a realist.
“Sixty-forty.” I nestled against his flank. He sighed contentedly and found my hand, folding our fingers against his chest. “They are ... crazy excited.”
“I’m sure they think I’ll go on to publish it.”
“I wish you could.”
His fingers tensed. “It’s fine.”
It wasn’t fine to me, though. One day, I wanted Cal’s life to be more than us—to contain everything he deserved: Faith, family, love, and professional success. It was unfair for my career to be going places because of a brilliant book that he couldn’t publish, because of a bigoted, psychotic shrew of a woman. Cal thought he had killed Jamie, but Coral had killed Jamie. She had as good as tied the noose.
I took a few deep breaths for composure.
No, that wasn’t right, either. Jamie had killed himself. Cal’s ex-wife wasn’t innocent, though. She was a monster from a fairytale, unbelievable in her horror.
“You can’t ... let her do this.” The words came out weak, but at least I spoke them. “Have you ever thought about using a pen name?”
He moved off the bed, dressing briskly. “No. That thought never crossed my mind. Not once in the last four years.”
I winced. He hadn’t slung cynicism at me in a long time and it hurt more than it had before. “Sorry. I just—”
“You know what’s at stake for me. You think I would take chances with that?”
“No. You’re right.”
“And I don’t want to start over, Michael. I’m Caleb Bright. I have some pride.”
“I get that.”
“Do you? I don’t want to publish. Not under my name or any name. I’m done with all that. There are consequences to things. You wouldn’t understand.”
“You’re right, I don’t understand.” I began to dress, too, my face hot with frustration and embarrassment. I was his lover now. He couldn’t keep treating me like the journalist, like the little nobody, second to him. “I will never understand. All that shit—it only makes sense to you. You have options. You could take her to court.”
He gave me a dark, frightening stare, and then he headed downstairs.
I went after him almost immediately.
He was smoking on the deck, looking knotted up and aloof, which I hadn’t seen in weeks. I waited a while before going out. The air was bitterly cold, the lake frozen and snowed over, and neither of us was wearing a jacket. I laid my forehead gently on his shoulder. He turned and embraced me fiercely with one arm.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
I hugged him around the middle, my face hidden against his neck. “Don’t be.”
“No, I am. I want to be that for you—the bestselling author. Whatever you want. I get so angry, Michael, I think about killing her. It’s like acid, getting that angry. I must be bleached inside. I feel that way.”
I had never seen Cal cry and I didn’t want to, and he sounded close.
“I don’t need you to be a bestselling author,” I said. “You already are. I just want you to do what you love and have success.”
“I need my family more.” Grief thinned his voice. “It’s like, if they don’t know, God doesn’t know. And I want to go to Heaven.” He sounded like a little boy, lost and scared, and he told me how terrified he was of being forgotten as an author, and he told me how he used to cut himself out of sheer frustration, for having ruined his own life.
“Okay,” I said, holding him tight and stroking his hair and back. “Okay.”