It was the ladder that did it. The day had been frustrating enough, now all she wanted was for the damned ladder to go back up. It had been complicated to get the baggage into the crawlspace – James took care of things like that before – and she was exhausted. She jerked the ladder again, it started to retract and then stopped halfway, hanging unhelpfully in the middle of the small hall. Zee limbo’d under it and wiped her hands on her jeans before making a fresh pot of coffee.
James had complained his Ethiopia Sidamo tasted acrid. It was one of many new first-world problems that had plagued him since getting his advance. He couldn’t taste the promised cardamom in the fair trade organic blend, the Skaga eyeglass frames wouldn’t be ready in time for his author photo, and so much else Zee “wouldn’t possibly understand” since she hadn’t yet landed an agent. Well, screw him.
The residency couldn’t have come at a better time. There had been more than 16,000 applicants and only a handful of winning writers. There was no cash prize, just a much-needed all-expenses-paid retreat to work on the project of her choosing, free from the distractions of everyday life. There was to be cocktail receptions on the first and last nights. The rest of the time was hers to decide: write alone holed up in her room, collaborate with someone new, or sit at the edge of the infinity pool and simply think about the next story.
The hotel was impossibly hip. Touted as a refurbished mid-century modern oasis, it was difficult to determine what within was ironic and what authentic. The rooftop terrace was home to an artisan cocktail bar, a DJ spinning vinyl, and edible gardens the James Beard-winning house restaurant below. Paper lanterns cast an ethereal glow on the event. It was the only time the term friskilating dusklight could be used outside of a Wes Anderson flick.
Zee recognized the Jamaican writer with the distinctive hairstyle from the 30 Under 30 New Yorker issue. On the other side of the leather banquette was a novelist from Red Hook with pre-industrial bushy beard in an (ironic?) plaid shirt and raw denim. She’d read he only worked on a 1934 Underwood, but had assumed it to be an affectation. And there was a severe-looking blond with boldly geometric eyewear who had received a major grant for disruptive poetry.
Zee felt out of her depth. She did not model for Urban Outfitters or establish a youth literacy 501(c)(3). College kids did not have tattoos inspired by her text. She was a writer who just wrote. They were small, intricate stories with beginnings, middles, and ends. They were largely underappreciated and unpublished. But, she must have known at least how to write a good application, because here she was.
She clinked mason jars of whiskey smash with the blond Berkeley poet and had resigned to spending a few more minutes of sociability before returning to her room. She was not shy by nature, really, just misanthropic and insecure in a way that necessitated a life in storytelling. She needed the freedom to craft her own happy endings.
Then she saw him. In that Tyler Durden jacket and a sly, terrible smile, it was James. He’d looked much better than when she’d left him. She was annoyed at first, then angry. This was her retreat, after all, the one fucking literary thing she had done without him. Then she was scared. She’d already felt awkward in the esteemed company; she didn’t need anyone else to know how badly it had gone between them.
“What are you doing here?” she whispered.
He grinned and patted her shoulder. He was cold to the touch and too calm. Too damn patronizing without having to say anything at all.
He didn’t have a drink in his hand and he wasn’t paying attention to the more interesting guests – both firsts. But he still was telling her the same things that he always did… that she had potential. It was her least favorite word and she resented the insinuation that her potential was totally unfulfilled. A nice hobby she had, writing sweet stories, small stories. How nice it must be to have a creative outlet and not worry if the stories would actually sell.
Well, she’d been invited here for her own merit, hadn’t she? Hadn’t she? Now she wasn’t sure. Would she still have been chosen if it weren’t for her relationship with James? What was he doing here, anyway?
“Just go.” She closed her eyes wishing it so. “Let me have this,” she sighed. “Don’t make a scene…”
The DJ put on an 80’s rock anthem and the guests cheered in nostalgic, lightly drunken happiness. No one seemed to notice her and James at all.
Zee looked up. She could see right through him. There, where should have been the cordovan-colored jacket that she used to love to smell, the chest she used to love to lay her head upon, there was only sky. From the rooftop, the desert night was all around. She could see right through him to countless stars.
His body was still in the crawlspace. His leftover coffee was curdling in the cup in the sink.
But he would be here on the roof and wherever else she might go, smiling so smugly and making her doubt.
Listen to A Roof of One's Own on The Story Coterie podcast.