The Muse Read online

  He smiles but it’s distant and cool, not reflecting in his eyes. “I’m a pragmatist, pet. And perhaps a bit of a masochist. You handed me my bleeding heart on a platter three years ago. I’m not offering it to you again. But I have very fond, very vivid memories of that sweet, tight little body.”

  “Stop! Just stop. Is this revenge? A way to get back at me for a stupid lie I told out of fear?”

  James blinks in surprise; belatedly, I realize my error.

  “You lied,” he growls. “You weren’t seeing anyone.”

  With a soft cry of frustration, I snap, “Of course not. With everything I was dealing with at the time, did you really think I’d found some random guy to date? My delayed PTSD from the night of the accident was so bad I barely left my apartment.”

  Agonized, angry green eyes find mine.

  “Damn you, Iris.”

  He brushes past me and disappears around a corner. I hear the bell of the front door, and moments later see him stalk past the window, head uncovered and bent into the light rain.

  He was right—the truth isn’t always black and white. But whatever color it manifests as, sometimes it just hurts.

  24. hyperbole

  My first reading and signing on campus was shortly after A Poet’s Daughter was released. It was held in a classroom with all of thirty people in attendance, most of them friends and former teachers. James hadn’t shown, but I couldn’t blame him. By that time we hadn’t spoken in close to a year, not since my graduation ceremony.

  This event is different on all counts.

  The lecture hall is massive and filled wall to wall. A giant video camera is set up to record the evening, and sitting in the front row are top university benefactors and faculty. The audience is also not limited to students and teachers, but filled with people of all ages and walks of life.

  And seated beside me onstage is James, waiting for the go-ahead to introduce me at the nearby lectern.

  He’s barely looked at me since I arrived. As the silent, tense minutes tick by, I feel so alone, so lost and anxious, that I find myself reaching out to the girl I was when I fell in love with him.

  “I think I’m going to puke.”

  James finally looks at me, brows raised. “You’ve done events like this, haven’t you?”

  “Yes, but not on my home turf, and not with you sitting next to me projecting enough animosity to frizz my hair.”

  His lips quirk, humor softening the severe green of his eyes. “Your hair is perfect,” he murmurs, “but you really need to stop fidgeting.”

  I clench my hands in my lap and press down to halt the nervous tapping of my foot. The stillness only magnifies the sour rolling of my stomach.

  “Distract me,” I whisper pleadingly.

  His eyes narrow. “I’m not sure I want to.”

  “Please, James.”

  He sighs, sprawling back in his chair with his legs crossed at the ankles. He didn’t bother to dress up for the event, opting to wear a casual sweater, worn jeans, and his favorite scuffed boots. If he wasn’t so famous and didn’t bring such renown to the university, he’d be fired for being a disrespectful slob.

  “Distracted you,” he says with a wink.

  My cheeks go hot. “You couldn’t bother with a suit?”

  His eyes drag across my mouth. “Now why would I do that when you love me dressed down?”

  Swallowing, I look away. One of the event organizers catches my eye from beside the video camera and holds up five fingers.

  Five minutes.

  I hope I last that long.

  “Tell me a story,” I beg James.

  “Hmm, let me think.” He pauses. “All right, here you go. Once upon a time, there was a young woodland nymph with the face of an angel but the eyes of a devil, so dark that to look into them was to see the unplumbed depths of one’s own soul. There was pain in those eyes, and loneliness, but in her long, immortal life, she’d never met anyone who understood her pain and thus became a cold and calculating creature.

  “Our nymph spent her days frolicking in the forests of her native Scotland and her nights dancing naked beneath the moon and mist. Ageless and beguiling, she trapped young men for sport, toying with them until she tired of them, then tossing them out of her glade with no memory of the time spent in her arms.”

  In my peripheral vision, I see the event coordinator hold up three fingers. I barely comprehend the gesture, all of me focused on the voice of the man beside me.

  “Then one day, a strapping young man set out to find the nymph. He, unlike the others, didn’t seek her for pleasure or to win a wager, but because he, too, was alone in his pain. He searched for months, growing ever more tired and ragged, before finally stumbling one evening into the nymph’s glade. She looked at him and he at her, and they knew one another. At their first touch, the young man felt a peace unlike any he’d known before. He instantly fell madly and deeply in love.

  “But alas, the nymph wasn’t a human woman, and she didn’t know how to give the man love in return. In time, she rejected him as she’d done all the others. Only when he was gone did she regret her choice and feel again the loneliness he had assuaged. To this day, she waits alone, dancing in the moonlight and mist, for a man long dead to return.”

  As the vibrations of his voice fade from my ears, the world rushes to the fill the vacuum. Hundreds of faces engaging in chatter and laughter and sneezes and coughs.

  The coordinator holds up one finger and waves urgently at James, but he doesn’t see her. He’s watching me. Watching me blink back tears. Watching me struggle to get my breathing under control.

  “Iris,” he breathes.

  “Mr. Beckett!” shouts the coordinator.

  He finally looks away from me and sees the now-frantically waving woman. Without another word, he stands and approaches the lectern. I watch him visibly regain composure, his spine straightening while his overall posture relaxes.

  “Good evening,” he says in his usual cultured, faintly amused tone. “I had a fancy speech prepared but my dog ate it.”

  The audience laughs; I smile sadly, thinking of Rufus and how entirely feasible his statement is.

  “So instead of blathering on about how proud I am of the woman sitting to my left, how many bestseller lists she’s dominated, and how many stodgy critics she’s romanced with her pen, I’ll tell you something different. Something that we tend to regrettably forget in our worship of the Next Young Talent.

  “I assume most of you have read A Poet’s Daughter, but I wonder how many of you understand that the woman whose tale you so greedily consumed is real. Living and breathing despite all that has happened to her.

  “Do you know that 33% of women who are victims of assault have suicidal thoughts? That a startling 13% attempt suicide? Here’s another one for you: one in six women in this country have been sexually assaulted.” His eyes flow over the sea of faces. “I’d guess roughly two-thirds of you are women. This hall holds around seven hundred. That means nearly eighty women in this room have been victimized.”

  James pauses; the silence is deafening. I can hear the hum of voices in a neighboring hall. I can hear my own pounding heart.

  “Do you know that Iris Eliot receives hate-mail blaming her for her own assault? I want you to think about that tonight. Think about the courage necessary to stand up here and be prodded, and criticized, and judged by your peers. Then imagine yourself in her shoes. I guarantee none of you can scratch the surface of this woman’s bravery, intelligence, or depth with a question. I dare you to try.”

  He stands still for another moment, then looks my way.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, let me present to you the unmatched Iris Eliot.”

  Somehow, I get my legs under me and stand. One step at a time, one breath at a time, I make it to the lectern.

  The crowd is applauding, cheering, but all I see is James. His white knuckles gripping the side of the podium. The erratic rise and fall of his chest. His eyes, vivid with the
same emotion that colored his voice. Anger. Frustration. Appeal.

  I think he’s going to grab me. Kiss me in front of all these people. But he doesn’t. He gives me a quick, impersonal peck on the cheek and strides past me to his chair.

  My head spinning and body trembling, I face the microphone. The applause fades away.

  “Thank you, Professor Beckett.” I clear my throat. “Does anyone have any whiskey?”

  James’ laughter rings loudest in my ears.

  25. imagery

  When the final book is signed, the final hand shaken, and final platitudes exchanged, I walk wearily to the first row and sink into a padded seat. I stare at the shadowed stage and for the hundredth time, regret my odd quirk of always wanting to be the last to leave a signing.

  Besides Kim, who’s gathering our belongings, the videographer is the only one left in the now-cavernous space. As I watch, he finishes packing the tools of his trade, gives me a nod and wave, and departs.

  Kim sinks down beside me, our purses at her feet. “Holy shit that was draining. I need a drink.”

  I smirk tiredly. “Preaching to the choir.”

  She fixes bloodshot blue eyes on my face. “How do you do it, Iris? How do you stand up there and talk about that night over and over again?”

  This isn’t the first time she’s asked me, but tonight’s Q&A was especially difficult. An unintended side-effect of James’ challenge was that every question was more probing and personal than the last.

  I shrug, closing my tired eyes. “Honestly, speaking about it has been more cathartic than the writing was. Not that it ever becomes rote, but the repetition helps me see it for what it is—something that happened, not something that defines me.”

  She’s silent for a few moments, mulling over my words. “Yeah, well, you’re way more spiritually advanced than me. I almost killed that bitch who accused you of reinforcing rape culture because you never pressed charges.”

  I wince, remembering what happened right after the woman asked the—yes, blatantly accusatory—question.

  Kim continues, “Although it was pretty awesome watching James Beckett go to town on her.”

  And he had, yanking the microphone away from my stunned face and scathingly educating the woman on evidence versus hearsay, statute of limitations, the emotional cost of a public trial, and the statistics of a favorable verdict.

  “You know,” Kim muses through a yawn, “you guys looked super hot up there together. And he’s not your professor anymore…”

  I snort. “Been there done that.”

  Kim bolts upright and grabs my arm, enlivened by the possibility of gossip. I crack open an eye and chuckle at her rapt, open-mouthed expression.

  “Oh my God, you’ve boned James Beckett? The James Beckett? Why did I not know this?”

  I laugh again to cover the squeeze of pain in my chest. “It’s water under the bridge.”

  “Is it, little muse?”

  Kim gasps, I choke on breath, and we swivel in our chairs to see James sitting several rows behind us. In the dim lighting, his hair in disarray and his feet propped on the row before him, he looks even more rakish than usual.

  More accustomed to his blinding sex appeal than Kim, I recover first. “You were eavesdropping, really? How old are you?”

  He grins and I swear I can feel Kim swoon. A second later she’s on her feet and grabbing her purse.

  “I have to, um, go,” she stammers, ruining the lie with a giggle.

  Resigned, I watch her hasten from the hall. The heavy door squeals as it opens and clanks as it closes behind her.

  James doesn’t bother with the stairs at the end of the row, easily traversing the space between us by virtue of balance and long legs.

  When he plops into Kim’s recent seat, I drop my head back and once again close my eyes, this time to savor his presence. To allow myself to imagine a different past and a new future for us. But my fantasy is short-lived, collapsing under the weight of his fable’s final words.

  To this day, she waits alone, dancing in the moonlight and mist, for a man long dead to return. He couldn’t have been more clear. The man I loved and threw away is gone.

  Facing the emotional consequences of my actions, I square my shoulders and open my eyes. He’s watching me, one brow quirked in question. Or challenge.

  I clear my throat. “Though you didn’t have to, thank you for coming to my defense tonight.”

  “You’re welcome,” he says, glancing at the shadowed lectern. “But you’re right, I didn’t have to. You would have wiped the floor with her all on your own.”

  “Maybe.” A grin steals my lips. “But I wouldn’t have done it so creatively. Imbecilic minger? I had to Google what that meant.”

  He chuckles. “Despite the inevitable reprimand in my future, I don’t regret it. And she was ugly, at least on the inside.”

  I nod, my smile fading as I take a deep breath and pray for the courage to speak the truth. “Thank you, James, for everything—your mentoring during my final year, for the beautiful biography of my father, for the support of my book…” My words trail off, squeezed back by fear.

  For your belief in me.

  For your belief in us.

  For showing me that my scars are beautiful.

  Green eyes spear mine; as always, I feel transparent beneath his gaze. “Like I told you from the beginning, your talent absolutely floors me. And in case that doubtful mind of yours ever wonders, falling for you had nothing to do with my academic or professional decisions.”

  I crack a smile. “I know. If anything, you graded me ten times harder than anyone else.”

  He swallows hard, gaze dropping to my lips. My breath catches and I sway toward him, my body overtaken by a powerful, unconscious drive to consume him and be consumed.

  “James?” I whisper. “What are we doing?”

  “No clue. As I said, I’m a masochist.” He licks his lips. “But if you keep looking at me like that, I might think you’ll let me bend you over these chairs.”

  “Is this punishment for not bending over for you?”

  “Interesting choice of words, Ms. Eliot, but with you I’d prefer face to face.”

  Our long-ago conversation ripples through my mind, confirming what I already know. It doesn’t make the knowledge any less painful. Nor does it relieve the ache I feel when, for brief moments, the man I loved resurfaces.

  A man long dead.

  A man I slew with my cowardice.

  A man I’m still too much of a coward to tell how I feel—that I loved him three years ago and still do, that I dream about Sunday breakfasts with him, rolling on the floor with Rufus, and rainy nights of chess and cuddling on the couch.

  The lecture hall’s doors open with a screech.

  “James? Have you said your goodbyes yet? I’m starving!”

  The petulant female voice resonates thanks to the lecture hall’s acoustics. Sharp heels clack toward us. A woman appears at the mouth of the small corridor, highlighted by the recessed lighting above her. As I take her in, a knot of dread builds in my stomach.

  She’s a beautiful brunette, tall and willowy. Beneath her fashionable black trench coat is a tight emerald dress that accentuates her smooth, creamy skin and tiny waist. Her lips are carmine, her eyes boldly lined, and her features both sensuous and exotic.

  James stands, waving her forward. She walks toward us, a wet dream on stilettos. When she’s close enough, he gives her a soft kiss near her ear. And when they face me, they’re holding hands.

  “Jessica, meet Iris Eliot. Iris, this is Jessica Buchanan. She’s an architect at a firm downtown.”

  I can’t move. Can’t speak. Can’t summon even the barest modicum of civility. And neither can she, apparently.

  “I haven’t read your book but I’m sure it’s interesting.” She turns to James. “Can we go?”

  My mouth falls open in shock. I look at James, expecting to see annoyance or hear his defense of me, but he merely shakes his hea
d chidingly at Jessica. His smile is tolerant and amused, reminding me once again of the truth I haven’t fully accepted.

  He’s not the same person.

  Not mine.

  “Of course, Jessica,” he says, then smiles at me. His eyes are distant, unfamiliar. “Congratulations again on the impressive turnout tonight. Take care, Iris.”

  He slips an arm around Jessica’s waist. She smiles coyly at me as they turn and walk toward the exit. They move gracefully, their bodies in tune, two tall and slim silhouettes.

  Before they leave my line of sight, I see Jessica’s hand skate down his broad back, tuck into a pocket of his jeans, and squeeze. I hear his soft, answering chuckle.

  Dry-eyed and numb, I sit in the empty hall until an overnight janitor enters with a vacuum. Then I gather my purse from the floor and make the long, limping walk to my car.

  By the time I arrive home, I’ve considered and discarded a hundred different plans for my future.

  Moving to Canada.

  Following Claire and Griffen to Houston.

  Buying a farm in Santa Cruz.

  Joining a commune, preferably overseas.

  Pursuing my PhD at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland.

  Although the last holds some appeal and is considered the longest, I eventually discard it, too. I’ve run away so many times in my life, a self-made victim of my emotions. I’ve run from my father, from memory, from pain, and out of fear, doubt, and self-loathing.

  For a girl with a bum knee, I’ve been running a long time.

  Maybe it’s time to stop.

  26. irony

  I spend Christmas in Palo Alto. With a newfound conviction to be present and invested in my life, I finally claim the family that has been waiting for me for years.

  Phillip, Victoria, and Allison are as overjoyed as always to have me, only this time I embrace the gift. I participate wholeheartedly in every silly tradition they have, and enjoy myself more than I ever imagined I would.