She wasn’t wrong. We are not too far from the sixty-thousand-word mark, which means I am due another body. Not that the real world is beholden to my schematic for writing fiction, but it had, up until now, felt like it was sticking to my desires for this book a little too closely. I chalked it up to cosmic luck.
I turned over Simone’s words in my mind as I waved at Juliette. The box in my pocket rubbed against my leg. I couldn’t summon up another body—in fact, I’d much rather have prevented it—but romance I could do.
Simone had been surprisingly candid; I felt I’d learned a lot about McTavish. What I wouldn’t know until later was that she had just lied to me. Twice.
The Two Mistruths of Simone Morrison, if you will.
Chapter 19
Romance I can do.
I chanted it like a mantra in my head as I marched up to Juliette, until I realized I was so determined that I was literally marching. I tried to turn it into a more casual saunter but just ended up making myself wobbly enough to look saddle-sore.
“Had a few?” Juliette chuckled.
“I spy my husband actually,” Harriet said, in a way that meant she knew we’d argued recently. “Better stop him before he goes the same way.” It was a tactful exit, swiftly made.
That left Juliette and me alone. She’d taken the dress code seriously and looked beautiful in a knee-length orange dress. It was creaseless, carefully hung. We were under the clearest starlit sky I’d ever seen, partway through one of the world’s great rail journeys, in the middle of a natural wonder of a desert. It should have been perfect. Instead, the remnants of our argument hung over us, brighter than the stars. Despite our day at the ravine, I still had yet to actually say I was sorry. I wished I had some marshmallows to keep my hands busy.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hey.”
Fair enough. She wanted me to earn it.
“What were you talking about?” I nodded back to Harriet.
“Men.”
“Oh. Good things?”
As any shacked-up men reading this will know, sometimes your questions answer themselves.
“I’m sorry if I got carried away,” I said.
She took a deep breath. “If?”
I tried again. “I’m sorry. I got a little carried away.”
“That’ll do.” She smiled, took my hand. Tilted her head back. I followed her lead and we stood for a while, side by side, looking into the night. “And I didn’t mean to be so negative. I’m glad you’re excited. I’m glad you’ve got the potential for another book. But I also want you to be here with me. If you spend too much time looking for clues, you’ll miss the stars.”
“What if the stars are the clues?” I asked.
“You’re right. Sagittarius did it.”
I didn’t know which set of stars was Sagittarius, but I searched for a moment anyway. “I love you, you know that?”
“I do. I love you too.”
My hand felt for the box in my pocket, massaging it through the fabric. “I’m thinking we could spend more time together.”
“This is a nice start.” She thought I was still apologizing for running off and playing detective.
“I meant every day.”
“We’re stuck on a train together. I think we’ll get a lot of each other.”
“Well, we haven’t seen all that much of one another in the first half of the trip.”
“And whose fault is that?”
“I wasn’t talking about . . . Look, I’m trying to say something else. I’d do anything for you.”
“And I’d do anything for you, Ernest. Are you feeling okay?”
“You’re my blip.”
She looked down from the stars and sized me up. “What the hell are you talking about?”
I dropped to one knee. Whether that’s because I didn’t know what else to do or because it was going so badly my balance gave out is still with the jury.
“Oh my God,” she said.
“I know we haven’t really made the most of this trip. I’ve been distracted and we haven’t seen a lot of each other. I couldn’t join you on the gorge excursion, and then I stayed up while you went to bed early . . .” I paused. I’d had a thought.
“This is a pretty long prologue for a man who doesn’t like them,” Juliette said.
“Did you go straight to bed last night?”
Her mouth formed wordless circles for a few seconds. “Is that the question you got down on one knee to ask me?”
“No, spur of the moment. It’s just, when you say you’d do anything for me—”
“Oh my God.” This was a very different oh my God from her first. “Are you . . . interrogating me?”
“No. Sorry, I want to ask—”
“I don’t care about what you want to ask, I care about what you did ask. You’re checking my alibi?”
“It just popped into my head.”
“Did it.” It wasn’t a question.
People over at the dining tables had noticed I was down on one knee. I could tell they were starting to turn and watch; too far away to hear our words, it looked like it was going better than it was, and they clutched together in groups of excitement. Whispers carried on the wind, sounding like waves breaking on the shore.
Okay, look. I’m not proud of what’s about to happen. But I promised you the truth, stupidity and all, so I’ve resisted the urge to edit myself into a more, shall we say, debonair position.
“I’m not seriously a suspect?” Juliette said.
“I mean, everyone’s a suspect.”
“Are you?”
“Well . . . no.”
“Why not?”
“I’m the narrator.”
She went to throw her hands up but then realized too that everyone was watching us, and instead held them with quivering restraint by her sides as she pulled on a fake smile. She spoke behind her teeth. “That’s bullshit and you know it. Just because you’re writing it down doesn’t give you a special pass. This is real life: it doesn’t follow the rules of a detective novel. You waltz around like you’re invincible, and it’s going to get you killed. Royce is writing it down too, genius, I bet he’s not the villain in his book.”
“I’m just asking questions. This case is important.”
“Case? Case?! You’re not a detective, Ern.” She shook her head. “I knew I shouldn’t have come.” Tears splashed down her cheeks and she wiped them frantically with the back of her hand. Annoyingly, this got a cheer from one enthusiastic member of the crowd who mistook it for happiness. A camera flash went off.
“You didn’t want to come?” I asked, surprised by how much that hurt.
“I don’t know how to explain this to you. You’d been in a funk ever since the murders. I get it, I do. And you thought this book you wrote defined you, gave some kind of meaning to what happened. You defined yourself so much through it. I thought it would give you a bit of confidence back, coming here. And you don’t even take five seconds out of your day to appreciate it.”
“Appreciate what?”
“You weren’t invited on this festival, Ern. I was.”
It was as if the stars had been shut off. My vision started getting blurry, dark. My conversation with Majors flashed through my mind: the way she looked when I thanked her for the invite; I didn’t invite you. “But Majors—”
“Invited me. A bit of quid pro quo for the endorsement she wanted. I said no, and suggested you instead. I thought you needed it, I thought it would help you feel valued. And instead, I’ve been relegated to a bit part in the Ernest Cunningham Show, like I’m a side character in my own story. You keep saying I’m waiting on my next adventure, but when have I ever told you that? I might like to open up a new resort. I might like to write another book. But you’ve never asked, because we’re always talking about you. And I know that what you went through broke you, and I know it’s been hard to work through. But my home burned down last year. I lost my livelihood. And yet I still gave this invite to you. I’m not twiddling my thumbs ‘waiting on my next adventure,’ I’m waiting for you. But now I see that this might be all I am to you. Just a part of your story.” She took a breath. “That scares me.”