Work Text:
Late Winter 1994
.
Pulling the door shut behind her, Bella leans heavily against the solid wood, her breath coming out in a trail of fog. The silver deer head of her cane rests against her hip as she takes her gloves out of her coat pocket and pulls them on. She’s never been able to get used to winter in New York.
Ten steps from the door, she can barely make out the civilized thrum of the bloodbath of a party she’s currently ditching in favor of whatever is down this path from the kitchen door she escaped from. She’s never been here before, and more and more, it seems like she won’t be returning.
Carlisle Hale was a name she’d only read in newspapers, buying and selling and absorbing everything in his path. She never thought Dwyer Publishing would light up on his radar. Not until a few weeks ago, anyway.
The path curves beneath a few stone archways with dormant brown climbing plants webbing the spaces between. Her leg aches from standing so long in that house, listening to the knife plunging in. An old pain she’s known longer than anything at this point. It settles into the background as always as the tunnel opens up into a larger garden, lifeless but not empty.
There’s a woman up ahead sitting on a wooden bench. The dim lamplight doesn’t give much away, but she’s young, probably not even thirty. She seems lost in thought, her eyes somewhere else. She doesn’t look dressed for the party, but her glass matches the one Bella had earlier at the bar, and she doesn’t have a jacket, just a white silky blouse and a delicate gold chain around her neck, the pendant a mystery clutched absently in her thin fingers.
Beside her, a wide whiskey glass rests on top of a colorful paperback book that Bella recognizes immediately. She has a signed copy or two back at home somewhere. Never a Soul to Heaven. About as good a coaster as anything.
“I take it you didn’t like it,” Bella says.
The woman looks startled for a moment before brief confusion passes her pretty face. Then she sees the wet mark on the book when she releases her necklace and lifts her glass again. She shrugs, her voice low. “I think it’s sloppy, soulless drivel. But it’s a romance novel, what was I expecting?”
“I agree.”
“You’ve read it?” She looks away, uncaring for an answer, uncrosses her legs, and starts to gather her things.
“Yeah. Once or twice.” Bella shifts her weight and rests both hands on top of her cane in front of her.
“Right. Everyone’s in publishing in there.”
“For now.”
That seems to catch her attention for a moment, but not enough to stop her from clutching her things and slipping by Bella.
“Whatever made you leave,” Bella says out into the garden instead of to the girl, “it hasn’t changed.”
“And you suppose I should stay out here in the freezing cold with you?”
“Yes.”
“Are you going to offer me your coat if I do?”
“No, it’s cold.”
Bella feels her walk up beside her more than she sees it. She’s taller by quite a few inches, a sharp profile softened only slightly by her long blond hair. She reminds Bella of someone, though she’s sure she’s never seen anyone quite so lovely. Maybe she just read about her in a book somewhere. Maybe in the one she’s holding.
The ice shivers in her glass as a cool wind drags across the garden. Bella makes a liar of herself and shrugs out of her long green coat, handing it over wordlessly and moving to sit on the freshly abandoned bench.
The woman drapes it over her shoulders instead of putting it on. “What are you doing out here?”
“I just got off the pentagram in there.” She lifts her chin and tugs at her scarf to bare her neck. “My throat still cut?”
The woman smiles slightly, understanding it seems. “Here.” She holds out her drink, eyes kind, an offering. When Bella takes it, she pulls the coat tighter around herself against the cold. “Vintage Dad, inviting you all here and making you laugh at his jokes and admire his empire, all the while he’s deciding who lives and dies.”
“You’re-”
“Rose Hale.”
“Bella Swan,” she says, cold now in just her thin sweater and blazer.
She nods toward the house. “He just fired you, didn’t he?”
“Practically.” Bella sips Rose’s drink, mindful of the faint lipstick prints around the rim. “But I have a choice. No job or a job no one would want.”
“So… cremation or burial?” Rose says. “What will you do?”
“I don’t know yet. Hard to imagine being jobless at my age.”
“Old girl, huh?”
“Yeah.” Bella smiles a little. “Old girl.”
The buzz of voices in the distance comes in on the wind. Behind them, people begin to trickle out of the main house. “I should get back. I came with some people.”
Rose extends a hand to help her up and falls silently in step beside her, unbothered by or maybe unaware of her slow pace up the slight incline out of the garden.
Up ahead, Bella can just make out Victoria and Riley among the small crowd chatting in the yard as people make their way toward their cars.
“You’ll be alright.” Rose says. “Show him you can’t be replaced.”
As if on cue, Victoria spots her over Riley’s shoulder and waves her over excitedly.
Bella leans in close to Rose’s side and catches a faint trace of her sweet perfume. Peach, maybe. “My replacement,” she murmurs. Rose stops walking then, cold blue eyes narrow and appraising as Bella tells her more. “I found her, trained her. Turned her into the viper she is today.” She finishes what’s left of Rose’s drink and tosses the ice off into the bushes. “She’s also my ex-wife.”
Victoria picks her way across the grass lawn in her heels to the stone path, then glides. On cloud nine, surely.
“Thanks for the drink,” Bella says to Rose who still hasn’t said anything. Except there’s something a bit odd in her eyes as Victoria comes closer to them, some strange spark that Bella cannot decipher until she closes the small distance between them and guides Bella’s face to hers with a hand soft on her cheek. She kisses her warmly, inexplicably.
“Good luck, old girl,” she says quietly before disappearing in the direction of the house. Bella watches her leave, puzzled. Until she sees the elation split and waver on Victoria’s face when she approaches. Then she almost laughs.
“Hey… I had Riley go bring the car up.”
“Great, let’s get out of here,” she says, reaching reflexively to pull closed the coat that someone else walked off with, “it’s freezing.”
…
…
“Do you hate me?” Victoria asks about an hour later, lingering on the stoop of the apartment building where she’s lived ever since the divorce. She’s wearing a dark blue dress Bella always liked on her. Her red hair wild as ever around her shoulders.
“No. You’re not my favorite right now, but I don’t hate you,” Bella says from the sidewalk at the foot of the steps, looking up at her.
“I swear I didn’t know he was going to do that before tonight. This morning, I heard one of his toadies in the lobby making ‘editor-in-chief’ noises. I told them that’s you.”
“You don’t have to explain anything to me, V. You know I would’ve done the exact same thing in your place.”
Victoria smiles, catlike. Like she used to. “Only difference is, you wouldn’t be standing here apologizing, right?”
“I might have.”
“But you wouldn’t mean it.”
Bella laughs a little. “Maybe not.”
She thinks of them chiseling the title off her nameplate and grafting it onto Victoria’s later. It’s not the worst thing in the world, and it was going to happen eventually, with or without Hale buying them out.
“Well, I’m sorry. Really. He doesn’t know a thing about publishing, he just thinks younger is better. You’re the best there is.”
“You’ll be better.”
“Oh, don’t do that. The gracious defeat thing.”
“I’m too old for this.”
Victoria rolls her eyes and starts to dig through her purse for her keys. “You’re not that old, you just act like you’re a hundred and eight. Which is why it’s so bizarre there’s always some twenty-year-old weak-kneed in your arms.” She pulls out her keyring and glances at Bella sideways. “Who was that anyway?”
“Hale’s daughter.”
“Oh, you’re evil. Gracious defeat,” she mutters, grinning. “You had me for a minute.”
“It’s not what you think. I didn’t even know who she was.”
“Uh-huh,” Victoria says. She turns the key in the lock and steps inside. “Goodnight, killer.”
…
…
A few days later, her assistant, Angela, greets her outside her office with a coffee from the deli down the street and a ridiculous stack of phone slips. Bella thanks her and sidesteps a few precariously stacked piles of manuscripts that simply wouldn’t fit inside her own office, poor Angela. She’d love to blame the mess on the havoc of the looming takeover, but… she’s kind of a slob at work. It’s only paper.
“You’ve got a million messages, I mean- that doesn’t even begin to cover it,” she says, gesturing to the yellow slips covering her desk. “I know it’s not official yet, but word got out, clearly. Authors freaking out about their contracts, I don’t know how you deal with it.”
“Oh, I don’t, Ange. That’s what Riley’s for. Anything important?”
“Mr. Hale’s office called yesterday, after you left. He wants to see you up at his estate this afternoon.”
“Really, again? What time?”
She holds the note at arm's length and squints slightly. “Four, if that works for you.”
“It works. I needed to talk to him anyway.”
Angela frowns. They’ve been working together a long time now. “I can’t believe this is happening. And to you of all people. You deserve better. You’ve done more for this company than anyone else.”
“They’re just books, Ange.”
“Not to you. Not to a lot of people.”
Bella shrugs because there really isn’t anything more to it, she knows. They both know. She leans her shoulder against her office door to open it.
“Oh, and Bella,” Angela starts, “Edythe is-”
“Already in my office?”
“She wouldn’t take no for an answer.”
Bella nods. “Never does.”
If her outer office is a mess, the inside should escape comment. But amidst the mountains of hundreds of authors’ biggest dreams sits Edythe Masen, a severe and striking woman in her mid-seventies and one of the best damn writers Bella has ever had the pleasure of reading, alive or dead.
Edythe had saved her life twice even before Bella got the opportunity to meet her. The first time, during Bella’s third year at Dartmouth, when she read What About Us Grils? and realized she had to give up writing. If that was talent, she clearly had none. The second, a few years later, when she was going to follow an old girlfriend out to the West Coast. She caught Edythe on the radio on the way to the airport doing a reading of her ode to Los Angeles: Sprawled, insensate, stoned/a hustler flat on his back, getting blown
And that was the end of that.
Bluntly, and without greeting, Edythe says, “How different is it going to be around here? I will not write for a conglomerate.”
“I don’t really know. I’m not even sure I’m going to be here after the takeover. And Hale’s not a conglomerate. He’s an ordinary billionaire.”
“After all you’ve accomplished, it’s ghastly and unjust, to be left on tenterhooks, but you know that.”
“Edie, my last couple books have completely tanked,” Bella says, making a sweeping gesture with her hand full of phone messages. “Your stuff is the only thing keeping me relevant.”
Edythe rolls her eyes spectacularly. “If you go, I go. You’re the only one I trust with my work. I’ve got one book left on my contract here, and what’s to stop me from handing in an eighty-page reminiscence on all the restaurants I’ve loved?”
“And nothing to stop us from asking twenty-one ninety-five for it.”
“I’ll deliver it Friday morning,” Edythe says, pulling her bag onto her shoulder. She kisses Bella on the cheek and calls after her as she leaves, “Take a long lunch, you look pale.”
…
…
The winter sun is already beginning to dip in the sky by the time she reaches the Hale estate up north. It was thickly night the last time she was here, but all grand houses are alike, all billionaires the same. And when the front doors open for her as she approaches, oddly, it’s Hale’s daughter that flashes through her mind. Sullen and withdrawn in the garden until she recognized a victim of her father’s. And a victim she remains.
She wonders as she’s led deeper inside the house by an assistant if Rose might be around here somewhere. If she’ll ever see her again. She hasn’t quite forgotten that kiss, performative as it was, or that odd light in her eyes the moment before it happened.
The assistant knocks on a door, pulling her back to herself. “Go on in.”
Carlisle Hale’s home office is predictably cavernous, leather furnished, dark walls dotted with the mounted heads of several unlucky animals whose last reproving gazes are captured forever in haunting taxidermy.
“Good afternoon, Ms. Swan. Please, sit. This won’t take a moment.”
She sits across from him in an overstuffed armchair. He isn’t too much older than she is, yet the gap between them feels insurmountable. Probably because he has more money than god. And he wants her gone.
“I wanted to know what you thought about Europe- eastern Europe, particularly. A whole new market is opening up there. Now god and currency willing, the entire continent will eventually cohere, not just economically, but culturally. I want that to be your area…” Hale trails off, maybe catching on to the fact that Bella isn’t exactly listening to him.
He follows her eyes to an elk head the size of a car, practically. “Are you on the board of the ASPCA?”
“No.”
“Vegetarian?”
“Yeah, actually.”
He huffs a short laugh and sips his brandy. “Am I boring you?”
“No. You’re firing me.”
Hale leans back in his chair and laces his fingers together, not denying it. “It’s nothing personal, of course. I know you’ve done good work in the past. And you’re clearly an individual, which I prize: You’re practically the only one at Dwyer who isn’t trying to kiss my ass, and I get a kick out of that. But this is a time- not just in corporate America, but around the globe, taste and individuality are somewhat of a hindrance-”
Bella lifts her hand to stop another speech. “Really. I’m not upset, Mr. Hale, I imagine you have dozens of people who could’ve made the call. I admire the fact that you did it face to face.”
“That’s how business always should be.”
“Out of curiosity, on what basis did you choose my successor? Vulgarity and conformity?”
“Drive,” Hale says simply. “On the basis of hustle, drive, and fifty-two carat ambition. She nagged me day and night until I gave her your job. I know you know that.”
“Yeah, I do.” It’s almost funny now, thinking of all the wicked things she used to love about Victoria, and now she finds the crosshair on her own chest.
Bella stands to leave but hesitates a moment and holds out her hand. He takes it and shakes it once, firm and final. “Just…pay reasonable advances, never stint on review copies, and treat your authors like they’re human beings. Don’t hold them to deadlines, they’ll hand in rough drafts, and they’ll ruin your whole week.”
Hale nods. “Thank you, Ms. Swan. I’ll remember all that. You’re a nice person, thank god I replaced you.”
…
On the lawn in front of the house, Bella glimpses a familiar green plaid coat over by the small duck pond as she’s heading back to her car.
Rose is standing on the grass with her head bent toward the focus of the boxy TLR camera in her hands, a pair of shiny, regal looking dobermans circling her legs. Her hair is up in a ponytail that falls around her neck in a loose spiral.
She tosses a rope toy and snaps a few pictures of the family hounds as they tear across the faded green grass in the direction of the house, following them at a much slower pace. The dogs clearly have energy to burn, and Rose looks content to follow them all over the sprawling yards around the house and grounds.
In the dark, Bella had assessed her fairly well, but seeing her in the weakening winter sun feels like some kind of treat she hasn’t earned. She’s quite beautiful. Lithe and elegant, a bell chime of a laugh as the dogs tackle each other in a play fight. Just as she thought the night they met. Lovely.
She’s also a coat thief. Bella calls out to fix that just as Rose is crossing the path fifty feet ahead of her.
“Hey!” she shouts over the ever-present wind off the water, and Rose’s head snaps over, the chew toy still in her hand over her head, primed for a throw. One of the dogs eagerly leaps for it, knocking the camera from her other hand. It lands with a shatter on the hard cobblestone path.
“Shit.” Rose throws the toy back toward the pond to get the dogs out of the way and kneels in the grass beside the path, taking in the sorry state of her neat little camera.
When Bella gets closer, she can see that both lenses are cracked, and the case is dented. Rose huffs, reasonably bummed. “They’re just babies,” she explains. “Not exactly trained yet.”
Bella bends to help her with the broken pieces, ignoring the shaking protest of her right leg as her knee bends. “Hello again.”
“Hi.”
“I’m sorry about your camera. I distracted you.”
“You didn’t-”
Another voice cuts in from behind them.“Is everything al- Oh, here you still are,” Carlisle Hale says as both women turn to look up at him. “Did you get lost?”
“We were talking,” Rose says. She goes back to picking up slivers of glass.
“Just leave all that, don’t cut your hands. I’ll have it replaced, dear. Just talk to Felix, he’ll handle it. I came out to tell you Charlotte and Peter are coming by for lunch. Esme told them you’d make an appearance.”
Rose stands and brushes her hands on her light blue jeans.“Oh, but I’m having lunch with…”
“Bella,” Bella supplies under her breath as she pulls herself up with her cane and Rose’s wordless outstretched hand.
“With Bella,” Rose finishes with a radiant smile aimed at her father that feels like a bit of a mockery. She takes Bella’s arm and makes them into a united front.
Hale looks briefly amused, before he turns back to Bella with a strained, polite smile. “Ms. Swan, it doesn’t matter to Rosalie what your name is. What matters to her is that you’re unemployed and inappropriate, and I don’t approve of you.” Then to his daughter: “We’ll miss your company, my dear.”
Rose tugs Bella’s arm, leading her away from him and his house. “I’m sure. It’s such a shame. Maybe next time.”
…
A few minutes of walking the winding path through the winter-dormant trees puts them at the front steps of a small guest house. One of many on the estate, surely, but this one is tucked away in a tangle of woods near the river. The main house cannot even be glimpsed from here.
Once her father disappeared behind them, Rose released her arm like a rock dropped into water. And she’d moved out of Bella’s personal space as she lamented her camera. It had been her favorite. A gift from a relative for her college graduation a few years back.
Bella follows her up the steps and into the house. It’s nice inside, or at least she imagines it could be. The natural light that should stream in from the dozens of large windows is beaten back with heavy, layered curtains. What little light that does make it in reveals that nearly all visible surfaces in the kitchen and living room are cluttered with 16mm filmstrips, spools, and editing equipment.
It reminds her a bit of her office at Dwyer and her own living room, tables stacked high with manuscripts.
“I realized when we were walking up, I don’t actually have any food here. This is one of the guest houses. I stay here when I’m in town, I just have peanut butter and jelly and a carton of milk.”
Still taking in the house, Bella gives a distracted: “That’s alright.”
It isn’t until a few seconds later when Rose is staring at her, blue eyes narrowed, that Bella realizes the woman was trying to be subtle.
“Thank you for saving me from that lunch, now you don’t have to feel bad about the camera, but whatever you think might happen, it won’t. Just because I kissed you the other night-”
“I know why you did it, don’t worry. I don’t expect anything from you.” A smile tugs at her mouth when Rose visibly relents and tucks away the rest of her reprimand. “Except maybe some civility. You did drag me a half mile in these shoes.” She leans dramatically on her cane. “And I want my coat back.”
“Fine,” Rose says and then turns and walks straight up the three steps into the kitchen, stolen coat fanning out behind her.
Bella steps further into the living room. Upon closer glance, the film supplies aren’t completely disordered. Everything is labeled, and only a few long processed strips are lying loose between uncovered spools. The bulk of the clutter seemed to be loose notepaper. “Are you in the middle of something?”
“No, I’m at the end of something,” Rose says as she sweeps envelopes and film canisters off the kitchen table. She flips on the light and opens the fridge.
“What is it?”
Rose lifts her head and meets Bella’s eyes over the fridge door. A wry smile on her pretty face. “My rope.” She gestures to the spliced film. “Meet my celluloid tar baby.”
“Home movies?”
“Not quite.” She doesn’t elaborate for a bit, just gets to work on the sandwiches. Bella sits in a heavy wooden dining chair at the kitchen table and takes in the warm little house with the lights on this time. It’s fairly open, aside from the stone fireplace serving as a divide between the slightly elevated kitchen and lower living room. Bookcases line most of the walls and are all filled, somewhat messily, with stacks and rows of books and low-maintenance houseplants. Pictures of Rose throughout childhood line the place. Maybe some private joke of her father’s considering their frosty exchange and apparent complicated relationship.
Rose hands her a messy peanut butter and jelly sandwich on too soft wheat bread wrapped in a paper towel and turns to make another for herself. Bella takes a bite. It’s smooth peanut butter, a brand she wouldn’t buy herself. And strawberry jelly. Bread like spongy sawdust.
“What is it that you do exactly?”
“Nothing at the moment.”
“So, what's all this?”
Rose pauses with a jelly-covered butter knife in her hand. She looks at her quizzically, as if deciding whether it’s worth it “You probably never saw it, but about five years ago I produced this little documentary about a massacre in a town called El Mozote, in El Salvador. About eight hundred civilians were killed, mutilated... Everyone knew it was their army that did it, but no one here would admit it because we trained them. The victims were mostly children.”
“Jesus.” Though she barely knows this woman at all, Bella can picture her quite easily in the rugged aftermath of an atrocity, looking for the truth and far too late.
“I could never get it to air on TV- for obvious reasons, but the people who did see it or heard about it- they started sending me their own footage. Other people too, all over the world. All this misery that nobody wants to watch, but I just keep cutting it together. Like anyone will listen.” She trails off bitterly, looking annoyed or perhaps embarrassed for her lapse of passion. She sighs and settles into the chair beside Bella at the corner of the table. “Anyway, I take it he fired you this time.”
“Yeah.”
“Do you want me to talk to him? He tends to give me what I want to avoid my talking to him.”
“No, I don’t really care that much. There’s more to life than books.”
“Right. That reminds me.” She reaches for something on the counter behind her. The familiar red letters and tortured lovers catch Bella’s eye. Mass market paperback. Torn newspaper bookmark three quarters of the way through. Rings of water damage distorting the cover. Never a Soul to Heaven.
Amused and only just interested, Bella tilts her head. “You’re still reading it?”
“You could’ve told me.” She turns the book in her hands and flashes the author portrait on the back. A heart-achingly young and bright-eyed Bella Swan.
“I wanted the color of your opinion. Honestly.”
“I only called it soulless drivel to get you to back off, you know. It’s just that- that’s what it’s like. My father’s parties, his friends. I thought you were one of them.”
“And now?”
Rose glances over her shoulder at the snapshots of hell scattered on strips throughout her living room, then down at the book in her hands, dog-eared within an inch of its life. “I’m not a very romantic person, Bella.”
“So why do you keep it? Why read it at all?”
Her blue gaze rises, something strangely playful simmering there. “Because you are.”
Rose stands again and tosses the book back onto the kitchen counter, her sandwich left untouched on the table on a folded napkin. She heads for the glass doors on the far side of the living room. “Let’s go for a walk by the water.”
“We just sat down.”
She holds out her hand and gives a sparkling smile. One that probably always gets her what she wants, and Bella is, frankly, not equipped to change that.
“Come on, old girl.” Her hand is warm around Bella’s, and the little spark in her eyes is only slightly mocking when she says, “You can tell me about perfumed nights and the still waters of my mouth.”
…
The sky above takes on a light purple hue, a faint crescent moon just barely visible in the early evening clouds. It was a fair walk from Rose’s guest house to this secluded gap in the woods that leads right down to the water. The stone path is overgrown and the benches half-swallowed by the dormant berry bushes. All the same, it’s pretty out, even in the brown shades of winter. Bella tells her just that.
“Isn’t it?” She’s standing at the water’s edge, her hand shielding her eyes from the lowering golden sun. She’s still wearing Bella’s coat. “This is where I used to come to bury my pets.”
More death, Bella wonders if she even notices at this point. Half the words out of her mouth are an obituary. Rose returns to her side on the stone steps leading to the water’s edge. “Standing right here on this spot. I realized that one day I would be over. Forever.”
Okay, three quarters of the words out of her mouth.
“Miss Morbid from birth, I see,” Bella teases. “And here I always thought I was gloomy around the edges. You stare at wartime filmstrips all day and gaze longingly over your patch of the Hudson-turned-pet-cemetery.”
Rose bumps her shoulder with her own good-naturedly. “You caught me on a bad day. Month. Whatever.”
“Yeah, me too.” Bella looks over her shoulder for the landmark of the main house, but of course any secret place of Rose’s would be blind to it. “You said you stay in that house when you’re in town. Where do you live?”
“I lived in Johannesburg for a while. I was working on a project there with a small crew, but we had to leave suddenly. Fire isn’t good for film, you know. So I’m back here. Reanimating my backlog. Before that, I was in El Salvador. I haven’t been in New York in…years, I guess. Since school.”
“Where’d you go?”
“Columbia. Business, unfortunately.”
“Ah, and one day this will all be yours?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have any brothers or sisters?”
“Just me, I’m afraid. That’s why shooting documentaries across the world for years on end doesn’t make me a black sheep. I’m all he’s got. Well, me and wife number…four?”
They continue along the path in relative quiet. Rose sticks her hands into the pockets of her borrowed coat. Bella imagines the old deli receipts and her extremely well-loved travel-size copy of Wuthering Heights greeting Rose’s fingertips. The coat looks a little silly on her. But then, Bella’s entire wardrobe could be called clownish. She can’t help her love for obnoxious colors and patterns.
“Your cane,” Rose says, bringing her from her thoughts, “it’s unique.”
Bella lifts it to give her a closer look at the ornament, the shining silver doe. “A friend of mine I work with, Riley, had it made for me after we broke a thousand books between the two of us. Probably, only a couple dozen or so worth reading, but it was exciting.”
“And what happened to your leg? If you don’t mind me asking.”
“No, it’s okay.” She lowers the cane with a solid tap. “I broke it pretty badly in a car accident when I was a teenager. I was always clumsy, but this was- hopeless. Anyway, it was shattered so bad, it couldn’t heal right. I had all these surgeries for years until I finally couldn’t take it anymore. It’s not the worst thing. It brings children out of the woodwork, though. Some great cause for curiosity.”
Rose smiles at that. “I can imagine. Does it hurt?”
“All the time.”
The smile drops from her face like rotten fruit. “Oh, I’m such an asshole, I’m dragging you all over. Let’s sit down.”
Bella laughs. “You are kind of an asshole.”
“Shut up,” Rose says, leading her off the path to a stone wall low enough to sit on. “I was trying to be charming.”
“Why?”
Rose leans back on her hands and looks out over the water again for a moment before answering. “The women in your book always are. They get away with obsession and murder because they’re full of pretty words and live on a whim.”
“I guess you haven’t finished it yet, it doesn’t end- Well, I won’t spoil it. But you should know that I wrote that book when I was twenty. I wouldn’t live by anything in there.”
They sit for a few minutes as the sun quickly descends in the sky and the last dying rays just barely touch them. It was a sunny day, but too cold. Always too cold up here, forty-five minutes north of the city and pressed right up against the water.
Beside her, Rose looks thoughtful. Just as she did when Bella first saw her in the garden, head bent, hair moving in the cold wind.
“Would you like to stay for dinner?” she asks, then adds quickly: “If it’s not peanut butter and jelly, and I don’t tell my father?”
“Yes, I would.”
…
“How come you only put out one book?” Rose asks her later as they’re opening up takeout boxes from a nearby Indian place at the kitchen table. Apparently, all it takes to get anything around here is a call to Felix in the security booth. Rose barely had to say two sentences to him, and the food was at their door within half an hour.
“I got a job in publishing.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means, I read a hundred books a month, at least. I don’t think there’s an original idea left up here.” She gestures to her head with the handle of her fork. The biryani smells amazing. She was happy to find that the menu Rose kept in a kitchen drawer had several vegetarian options.
“When I was first getting published, I spent a lot of time with one of the old editors at Dwyer. He let me see into that world, and I guess I never wanted to go back. I loved writing when I was young, and maybe I still do, but I love the search more.”
“And have you found it?”
Bella looks at her intently. She’s sitting cross-legged in the clunky dining chair. Since coming inside, she relinquished Bella’s coat and is now wearing a thin-strapped white tank top, her arms bare and toned, a wineglass cradled in her hand. The wind had pulled more than a few short strands from her ponytail. She brushes them out of her eyes every few minutes. The most comfortable Bella has ever seen her.
“It?” she prompts.
“Whatever it is you’re searching for.”
“Yes, a few times. I can’t really explain it, it’s just a feeling. Twenty pages into a manuscript and I always know. Well, I used to know. My instincts are gone lately.” She shakes her head. “That’s why I was first on the chopping block.”
“You were first because my father wants robots and yes-men.”
“Yeah, well. I still haven’t been on the best streak these past few years. That’s why I keep thinking that maybe this is all for the best.”
“But it’s your life’s work, isn’t it? What you love doing.”
“They’re just books, Rose.”
Displeased, Rose glares at her over her glass. “You said that before, but I don't believe you. My father’s world is cutthroat, and maybe you had to have some of that impassivity in you to stay at the top and to make a name for yourself, but I'm looking at you and you just look heartbroken. It was important to you, you don’t have to downplay it.”
“It’s about to end. Nothing I say really matters.”
“You don't have to give it up. There are other firms.”
“Yes, and it’s not exactly like me to give up. On anything. But I’ve just been thinking it’s time.” Bella pauses a moment, then gives her a sideways glance. “You got all that just from looking at me, really?”
Rose shrugs one shoulder. “You look sad every time I see you. And normally, I wouldn’t care. Yours is probably the tenth life my father has ruined in the last hour, but I like your book, and… I didn’t mind spending some time with you today.” She brushes her thin fingers across Bella’s knuckles resting on her cane, the nose of the deer ornament gleaming slightly between the gaps of her fingers. “The strangest thing since I met you… I keep dreaming of deer, and then I go into his office, and it’s just full of corpses.”
Bella laughs, thrown. “You’re very odd, Rose Hale.”
“But not charming.” She smiles almost ruefully, and certainly she cannot help who she is.
“I didn’t say that.”
…
…
A few days later, Riley and Angela round on her as she walks into the office a half hour later than usual. “You both look caffeinated,” Bella says, eyeing them carefully as they push her into her office and shut the door.
Riley looks like he hasn’t slept in days. His wiry graying hair sticks out at odd angles, but his eyes are clear and wide. “Alice. Brandon.”
“What about her?”
“She’s been trying to poach you for years. You’ve just been too comfortable here- now you’re not. This is our next move!”
“I don’t follow.”
“Come on, Bella!”
They’ve met several times over the years. Alice owns Brandon Publishing, a small but respectable and polished firm. The woman herself is quite the force of nature, not even five feet tall yet titan stage presence she’s got in spades. “Edie would probably love her.”
“Not just Edythe,” Angela says with conviction. “Your authors are loyal. I’d get fried if Phil knew I was making calls, but I’ve got dozens of names. Here.” She hands over a sheet of paper with several columns stacked with names.
“All these people,” Riley says, jabbing a finger into the paper, his voice rising until Angela shushes him, “they’d follow you anywhere. It’s not a done deal with Hale yet, he doesn’t own a single dust jacket. We could march right into Mr. Dwyer’s office and offer our own deal.”
“Nothing to lose but our chains, huh?” Bella looks at the list. It’s startling to see so many names. Many of her favorites, and some of her biggest successes, with certainly enough money to kick around by now. But also several smaller authors she took a chance on, regardless of how she thought it might pan out.
“So, what do you think?” Angela presses. They’re both still staring at her, looking about ready to reach out and grab her at any moment.
“I think the two of you are suffering from vitamin deficiencies. ‘Ax Hale or we and every author the two of us have ever published will defect to Brandon, and we’re taking the secretary, too!’ You think that will work?”
“It’s worth a shot.”
“I have a meeting.” Bella folds the list and tucks it away in one of her desk drawers. It’s a bold plan, but they’ll need a few more heavy-hitters. “Get Carine Cullen or J. Jenks on board, and I’ll think about it.”
…
In the middle of a meeting with half the editorial staff and the production team- more specifically, in the middle of her sentence detailing the specifics for the September releases, Bella spots Rose through the glass of the conference room door and never finishes her thought.
“Bella?” Riley mumbles.
“Yeah…sure,” she says dumbly before she remembers she is actually leading a meeting right now. “Riley, why don’t you go over the rest, I’ll just be- Yeah. Thanks.”
Beautiful woman outside or not, flubbing a staff meeting like that requires an immediate exit and at least three hours of hiding in some remote place in the office until her little bees forget all about it.
“Hey,” Bella says over her shoulder as she pulls the conference room door shut. “Your father was here about twenty minutes ago. You must’ve just missed him.”
Behind her, Rose looks a bit struck and faintly red in the face. Bella is about to ask her if she’s okay when she seems to snap out of it. “As if I would ever go looking for my-” She sighs, catching on. “Very funny,” she says as Bella beams at her sourly narrowed eyes. “I’m actually here to see you, senior editor.”
Through the glass, Bella can see Riley and half the production team inside watching them curiously. Across the office, she spots Angela peering around her file cabinets. Interns buzz around, either recognizing or balking at Rose. And that’s not even the half of it.
“Let’s talk in my office,” Bella says, leading the way with a hand light on the small of her back.
“Is everything alright?” Rose asks, allowing herself to be led.
“Yes.” Feeling oddly electric at seeing her again and in this drab place, Bella knows she’s smiling unshakably. Like an idiot. “Everything’s daisies.”
Rose looks around her office that’s seen neater days. She’s wearing brown cotton trousers and a simple soft pink shirt with a loose collar and only a few buttons done. Golden R initial on her necklace winking in the half burned-out ceiling lights. No jacket, as ever.
“They were staring.” She nods toward the door.
“Yes, that’s what book nerds tend to do when a beautiful woman walks in.”
“Mm, is that why you’re always looking at me?” she asks archly. Bella feels a short flare of attraction at the teasing lilt in her voice. The moment passes too quickly, though. Rose gets back to the matter at hand. “I wanted to ask you if you’d like to see a rough cut of my film. Extremely rough.”
“If you want me to come over, all you have to do is ask.”
“See, I don’t know if that’s what I want.”
“You don’t?”
“I’ve never… Well, you’ve been on my mind lately. That doesn’t usually happen to me. I don’t really know what to do about it, so…” she trails off briefly before her expression sharpens. “Watch my film. Tell me everything that’s wrong with it. And we’ll see.”
Bella leans against the edge of her desk. “You could just ask me on a date like a normal person.”
Rose crosses her arms. “I’m not interested in dating you.”
“But you want to see a movie with me?”
“A documentary,” she corrects, stepping closer, now deliberately standing in the space between Bella’s knees.
“My mistake.”
“A film-” Rose says, placing her hands on the cluttered desk on either side of Bella’s hips. She leans in close, her faintly sweet peach perfume bleeds across the smell of old paper. “-exclusively about war and death and unimaginable suffering.”
Her heavy blue eyes stick to Bella’s, sparking contradictorily to the ugly words out of her pretty mouth. She waits.
“You’re very odd, Rose Hale,” Bella says, somewhat bewildered. “But alright. I’m curious now.”
Rose brightens marginally but doesn’t move an inch. “How’s your stamina?”
“Why?”
“It’s three hundred minutes. With no intermission, and no convenient place to stop.”
…
…
Foolish of her to think that watch my film meant that they would watch it together. After setting up the projector, Rose sat her on the couch and went back to the table in the kitchen to spend the rest of her Saturday afternoon squinting at cellulose.
Bella hadn’t known what to expect beyond war and death and unimaginable suffering, but the film follows several groups- families and military officers, mostly- as they navigate the remains of El Mozote after the massacre. Far from organized, it’s a supercut of everything that was within and without Rose’s finished documentary from a few years ago.
It is full of death and suffering as promised, but there’s a note of hope in it too. Of rebuilding, reuniting, and rallying for justice.
At about the halfway mark, Rose comes in to check on her. She hands her a drink over the back of the couch and lingers there, bent close to her ear, her hands resting on Bella’s shoulders.
“Hanging in there?” she asks.
Bella doesn’t answer right away, just throws back the drink and hands Rose the empty glass.
A little while later, Rose joins her on the couch during a particularly gutting stroke of filmmaking. Bella tilts her head upward slightly and tries to wipe at her eyes with some discretion, but of course Rose sees.
She reaches a hand out and threads her fingers through Bella’s hair at the nape of her neck, a wordless reassurance that shouldn’t scatter electricity throughout her body at a time like this, and yet… Bella turns her head to look at her. A tear falls from the corner of her eye as she does, and something in that seems to tighten Rose’s fingers.
There’s that light in her avid eyes again, borrowed from the cold night they met, betraying nothing until she sways forward and kisses Bella in the flickering light.
Rose grabs at the collar of Bella’s shirt and hauls herself closer, the warmth of her spilling across Bella’s legs and torso as she climbs into her lap, kissing her hungrily. She tastes of the whiskey they were drinking, faint cloves and peppers.
Bella opens her eyes briefly to a sobering nature shot of the village projected onto Rose’s face in front of her. Leaves across her eyes. “Rose,” she starts with a hand on the front of her shoulder to ease her away, “people are dying behind you.”
“Oh, sorry,” she murmurs. She reaches over the back of the couch and slaps at the off switch on the projector, her ribs bumping Bella’s chin. “I've been staring at it for weeks, I'm desensitized at this point.” She sinks back into Bella’s lap, a hand resting on the side of her neck. “What did you think?”
“I'm kind of speechless. Not entirely due to the-”
Rose is on her again before she can finish. Her pretty mouth is every bit as soft and full as it looks. And the noise she makes into Bella’s as she grips her waist has her mind running away from her at a dizzying speed.
Bella pulls away an inch before she’s completely lost. “All that just to turn it off with an hour left?”
Rose takes her face in her hands and strokes her cheeks with her thumbs, lovingly mockish, she leans in close. “I just wanted the color of your opinion. Honestly.”
“Shut up,” Bella says, but she can’t help her smile.
Rose presses her lips to the column of Bella’s throat. “Gladly.”
…
…
In her office a few days later, Bella sets aside Edythe Masen’s latest book. She hadn’t been kidding about the restaurants. Clocking in at just under ninety pages, she delivers a surly and colorful trek through a whole slew of Manhattan restaurants ranging from the world-famous to the speakeasily-hidden. Surprise, surprise, it’s a joy to read even the scraps she’s throwing to sever her sole allegiance to Dwyer. Leave it to Edie. The woman could make VCR manuals worth a reread.
Bella checks her watch and leans back in her chair, beat. It’s late. The building is probably close to empty at this hour. She should be getting home if she wants to be ready in time to meet Rose later.
She turns in her chair to leave when a bloodred spine in her crammed bookshelf catches her eye. One she’s seen quite a lot of lately, not here but peeking out of the back pocket of Rose’s jeans or clutched in her hands like a talisman. She takes it from the shelf and flips it over to the outdated blurb.
She’d been a student at Dartmouth at the time of its publication. The faded white letters beneath her young portrait spell out her studies and up-until-then accomplishments. Back then, she dreamed of having dozens of books under her name. Maybe she achieved that dream, in a way, here at Dwyer.
Opening to a random page, she scans the prose, remembering most of it even all these years later. It’s equal parts awful and wonderful to have a piece of her young self like this. She’ll always be proud she wrote it in the first place, doubly so for getting it published.
A knock on the door interrupts her reflection. Victoria pokes her head in. “I saw the light. What are you still doing here?” she asks. She spots Edythe’s book on the desk and shakes her head. Clearly, she’s skimmed it too. “God, Edie… What are we going to do with her?”
“Nothing if she can help it.”
“And what’ve you got there,” she says, reaching across the desk to bend the title toward herself. Recognition passes her face as she lets go. “Light reading?”
“Very.”
“I could never get to the end.”
“I remember. You tried a dozen times.” They both smile faintly. And it is true, when they first started seeing each other years ago, Victoria kept swiping it off her shelf and then putting it back, swearing up and down she just didn’t get it. But then she’d always try again. Though, Bella’s short stint as an author hardly interested her half as much as the Bella Swan who was set on climbing the ladder at Dwyer. As Hale put it: Hustle, drive, and fifty-two carat ambition. When that faded, so did their marriage.
“It’s not bad,” Victoria tries, “the characters… they’re just- obsessed with each other. I got lost in their glittery neuroses. I guess that’s the point.”
“Yes, that tends to be a thing in gothic pulp fiction,” Bella says with a light chuckle as she reshelves her little red book.
Victoria exhales a laugh and fiddles with the little bowl of paper clips at the edge of Bella’s desk, lingering. Which is so unlike her. After a moment, she clears her throat. “So…that was Hale’s daughter in here the other day, right?”
“Yes.”
“What’s that about?”
“We get along, is all.”
“So…it’s not some final fuck you to Hale?” she jokes, and then ventures, “...or to me?”
“Of course, not. I know you feel guilty, but not everything in my life is about you. Or Hale. Or my job.”
She considers that. “She’s just… young. Then again, so was I.”
Victoria had been fresh out of college when they met, Bella in her late thirties. They’d only been married for a few short years but continued to work together for well over a decade at this point.
Victoria’s eyes flick up to Bella’s. “Will you ever forgive me?”
“For what? Wanting better for yourself?”
“For taking better for myself. For what I’ve done to you.”
“If it wasn’t you, then it’d be someone else,” Bella says as she stands and pulls her cane from the rack beside her desk. “You know, in a way, it almost makes up for all the ways I failed you back then. But if you need it: I forgive you.”
Victoria nods, the color returning to her as she reaches for the doorknob. “Good luck with whatever it is you’re doing with your little people, by the way. I hope you don’t succeed, but part of me is always rooting for you. That won’t change.”
“Thanks, V.”
…
…
“I thought you weren’t interested in dating me.”
“I’m not.”
Last week, when Bella was leaving her little guest cottage after (almost) finishing her film, she’d asked if Rose might want to get dinner with her sometime. Rose had agreed, but only if she could make the arrangements herself. Putting them tonight in a private dining room in a glass tower with a frost-encrusted view of Manhattan.
“And we’re not on a date right now?” she asks as the waiter comes by with fresh drinks.
“No. We’re having dinner.”
“Do you bring that dress out for all your dinners?” Bella asks, nearly just as dazed now as she was when she picked her up at the gates of the Hale Estate. She’d stepped out of a shadow in a silver dress that spilled over the soft lines of her body like liquid mercury.
Not a piece of jewelry on her, the shiny fabric and deep neckline speak for themselves. Rose smiles knowingly, a faint, wicked thing. She sips her drink and gives no answer.
Bella twirls her fork in the beautiful mushroom pappardelle. She only drooled over her date the entire car ride to the restaurant. And Rose’s ego certainly doesn’t need any more stroking. At least for the moment.
“What were you working on in Johannesburg?”
“The riots,” Rose says, glass in hand, “the schoolchildren protesting the forced implementation of Afrikaans in their instruction. And the police- well, I’m sure you read the news at the time. We were interviewing emergency services and clinic doctors, mostly. They were trying to protect the wounded children from police persecution by recording bullet wounds as abscesses instead.”
“I remember hearing about that,” Bella says. “You said you had to leave suddenly.”
“The city is… it’s a dangerous time there. The police are out of control. There were fires everywhere. The studio we were using, I’m sure it’s just a hollowed out shell now.”
“Are you going back?”
“I’m not sure. We have hours and hours of footage to work with, but I don’t know if any of it is enough to…”
“Make people care?”
“Yeah. I guess that’s all I’m ever trying to do. Trying and failing, I should say.”
“That’s the fight, isn’t it? You could have a full confession on film, but does anyone care about anything beyond their driveway?”
“No…” Rose sighs. “I understand why you’re thinking about letting go of your work. Probably better than most people.”
Bella sits up a little straighter. “I didn’t tell you before, but lately, some of my colleagues and I have been scheming a way to keep the dream alive. It’s crazy, but…it’s actually giving me hope. Do you want me to tell you not to give up?”
“Go ahead. Maybe it’ll give me a second wind coming from you.”
“Alright,” Bella says brightly. “Don’t give up. You’re getting through to people.”
Rose smiles and sets down her glass as she leans forward. “Well, I didn’t ask you to lie.”
“I couldn’t help it. You’re very passionate for someone so…morose. I don’t like to see you down.”
She raises an eyebrow. “Is that your kind, bookish way of telling me I’m a freak?”
“No, it’s actually one of the things I like most about you.”
“Really? What are the others?” she asks, playful now. She rests her chin on her laced fingers, waiting. A woman like Rose Hale is surely holding aces, but does she know the game?
Bella decides to find out.
“Your bookshelf is full of Dwyer. You have a nice laugh. You turn all prickly when I get you to blush. And you carry my book around like an accessory. More than any character in any book, that is charming.”
“I…” Rose starts. She flushes red up her neck, looking unfairly gorgeous in that dress, but her eyes are soft and molten-touched.
“I know,” Bella says kindly.
…
Spring is just beginning in the city, but that doesn’t make the short walk back to Bella’s house from the restaurant any less metallic-stinging cold. Bella, down a coat as usual, shivers in her jacket and favorite brown scarf. In a few weeks, the city will be so beautiful, she’ll forget all about the bite in the wind, the marrow-deep ache in her leg.
At her stoop, she turns to Rose who has been on the quiet side since they left the restaurant arm-in-arm. “I had a nice time.”
“Me too,” Rose says, playing with the rings on Bella’s fingers.
Unable to get a solid read on her, Bella takes a chance. It would be a shame to watch her vanish into the night. “Do you want to come up?”
“Yes,” Rose says so quickly it’s almost funny. Then she hesitates for a moment. “It’s just- I’ve been…”
“Burned before?”
“Immolated.”
You and me and the whole city, Bella thinks, the walking wounded. “I won’t bite.”
“Yes, I know. You’re the last civilized person in New York, I’m learning. But you’re not the one I’m worried about.”
“I’m not?”
“I like you a lot, it’s…embarrassing, honestly. I feel slightly deranged half the time. When I went to see you at your office, I nearly fainted because you looked so good in pinstripes. And that coat I took, plaid! It looked like the inside of a raincoat. None of your jewelry makes sense, either. This ring you’re wearing with the lizard on it. Ridiculous, but I adore it. And it’s not just an accessory, I’ve read your book ten times at this point.” She grasps Bella’s arm. “How could you end it like that?”
“You’re-”
“‘-very odd, Rose Hale.’ I know. I feel like I’m losing my mind. But my film, it affected you. You have no idea how little that happens to me… That’s why I jumped you the other day. You must think I’m so…strange.”
Touched, Bella squeezes her hand. “You’re sweet, is what I was going to say.”
“Sweet?”
“Yeah.” Bella kisses the slight doubt from her face. “Come on up, I’ll call you a cab.”
She turns her key in the lock and smiles to herself as she feels Rose lean against her suddenly, a cheek on the back of her shoulder. Her long arms wrap around Bella’s middle in a tight hug.
“Thank you,” she whispers.
…
…
Standing outside Mr. Dwyer’s office the following Monday, Angela takes the styrofoam coffee cup from Bella’s hands and gives her the manila folder with their deal inside. They’ve done their work, she only hopes there’s a chance.
Beside her, Riley is bouncing on his toes like a fighter about to walk into a cage match. He rolls his shoulders and looks her way. “You know, Victoria told me Hale knows all about our offer for the house.”
“Gee, I wonder how,” Angela mutters.
“He might be willing to cross Vicky’s name off the contract and ink in yours… And you know she asked for nothing less than the moon.”
“I like our deal,” Bella says simply. “So do our authors.”
“That’s what I like to hear.” Riley squares his shoulders and straightens his tie. “You ready?”
Bella nods and opens the door.
…
…
Late Spring 1996
.
O’Hare is hell with runways. Rosalie weaves her way through the anxious crowd under the fritzing strip lighting from the vindictive electrical storm swallowing the whole city.
She drags her small carry-on suitcase behind her into an old phone booth with gummed-up windows and sets the loose-bound manuscript of Fog Hides the Fury on the small writing ledge as she dials. The title page sags loose from the binding rings.
The line rings twice before Bella picks up, her voice nearly lost between the fishbowl airport sounds and the commotion going on in her part of the world.
“I finished it!” Rose practically shouts into the receiver.
“So, what did you think? Any good?”
“I was in tears across the North Atlantic, it was humiliating. Again, I find myself asking you: How could you end it like that?” She flips back to the beginning. “And the dedication. You’re insufferable.”
“I missed your kind heart.”
Through the cracked door of the booth, she can just make out the voice over the PA droning something about her gate. “Listen, I’ve got to run. I just wanted to check in. I’ll be in New York in two weeks, no later, I promise this time. Tell Alice I said hello.”
“Where are you going, I’ve lost track. I thought you were in London.”
“I was. Now they’re saying Auckland. Next, it’ll be, I don’t know, Los Angeles.”
Predictably, Bella scoffs. It’s makes Rose smile a bit. “Be careful out there.”
“We’re following a peaceful protest, Bella.”
“Somehow I don’t believe it will stay that way if it caught your interest.”
“Very funny, old girl,” she says, turning her wrist to check her watch. “Okay, I really have to go now, I love you. Goodbye!”
…
On the plane thirty thousand feet in the blue, Rose drums her fingers on the manuscript- to be published by Brandon later this winter. The title paper is torn just enough to glimpse the small print of the dedication on the following page.
For (Mo)Rose Hale, my heart.