Monsters (12 page)

“So you'll sit here,” Sandra says, pointing me to a black folding chair at one end of the table.

There is a second chair beside it and a tabletop lectern at the opposite end of the table—mic'ed, of course—and there's another mic between the chairs, its cord running dangerously close to the pitcher of water they've set out. I pour myself a glass, take a sip.

“So I'll introduce you and then I thought you could read a bit from the book, maybe ten minutes?”

“Sure,” I say. I can read. I can read all day. It's the answering I'm not looking forward to. I'm better with a script.

“And Mr. DeMarco is still . . .” She must be getting nervous. We've only got a few minutes left, and people bailing on panels and readings is pretty common. Sometimes it's last-minute travel problems, but often they're just assholes. Writers don't get invited to much, so when they do, they tend to overschedule.

“I'm sure he'll be here,” I say. I slip my phone out of my pocket, slide it to unlock to see if I have any messages.

Sandra says, “Oh,” next to me in this sort of surprised tone, and I look up and there's Tommy. He's in the doorway, shaking a woman's hand, talking, nodding. He leans in close like he's trying to hear her. She can't seem to stop talking. And then he nods toward the stage, stepping backwards, holding her hand a moment longer, letting it go. He turns toward me, and when he sees me he smiles. There are four steps. He takes them two at a time, and as he rises onto the stage, there's a hum of voices across the room. I feel conspicuously frozen,
but Tommy moves as naturally as ever, catches me in a hug, kisses my cheek. He leans back, still holding me by the waist.

“Good to see you.” He presses his thumbs against my stomach and lets his eyes roll over me. “You look great.”

“This is Sandra,” I say, turning toward her and away from his hands. “She's the moderator.”

“Oh, yes, so. Wow. It's so nice to meet you.”
Poor flustered Sandra.

Tommy must feel sorry for her too because he takes her hand in both of his. “Walk me through the plan,” he says because he seems to understand that she needs some direction, someone in charge of telling her what to do.

“Yes,” she says. “So, you'll sit here, and I'll introduce both of you, not that you really need an introduction.” She laughs a little stupidly. “And then Stacey will read for a few minutes, and then I have a few prepared questions, and then we'll open it up to the audience.” She rounds her eyes like she's asking a question. “Sound good?”

“Sounds great.” Tommy smiles again and lets go of her hand and turns back to me. “I've never heard you read,” he says as we sit down.

“Mmm,” I say. “I'm pretty amazing.” I'm just excited to be sitting, and for the fact that I can kick my shoes off under the table without anyone seeing.

Now that everyone is looking at Tommy, I feel like I can look out into the audience. Whatever the fire code is, we've broken it by a lot. Some of the girls are grinning, giggling, holding their hands over their mouths, bouncing in their seats, and Tommy doesn't look away. He waves to them like to someone he recognizes, mouths,
Hi
,
Hey,
over and over, the occasional
Thank you
. He holds his hand over his heart. It's ridiculous actually, but even I would probably fall for it. He is really, really good.

•   •   •

The girl at the microphone is adorable and very young. She's got one of the festival bags slung over her shoulder, and I can see from here that it's heavy. She must have picked up a ton of books.

“Hi,” she says. “I just want to say how much I loved your book. I read it in my first grad seminar, and it just totally changed my life as a writer.”

“Gosh, that's . . . Wow, thank you.” I hate this. I feel awkward. I know most of the people in this room are here because of Tommy, but it is a book festival after all, so most of the questions have been for me. I spread my fingers across the white tablecloth and touch the edge of the water ring seeping out around my glass.

“I'm really looking forward to seeing how this works as a film,” the girl says.

“Me too,” I say, and everyone sort of chuckles politely.

“So what I'm wondering is how you handle the vulnerability that comes with allowing all these other people, these other influences, into your work?”

Tommy's been sitting back in his chair, his arms folded across his chest, relaxed, just listening. Now he leans forward, up to the table mic positioned between us, and he says, “Well, she didn't fucking handle it well.” Everyone laughs.

“I don't know if it's so much about vulnerability,” I say, giving him a sideways glance, “and actually, I'm going to argue with you on that word.” I smile. “I've spent a lot of time thinking about the interplay of vulnerability and power.” It's true. This is basically what my first book is about. “And we tend to think of vulnerability as weakness, or a willing weakness maybe, but it's an illusion, isn't it? I
mean, the more power you have, the more vulnerable you can allow yourself to be, but you're never really giving up that power, are you?” I shake my head. I think I'm getting off track. “And in this scenario, I definitely didn't have any power. I don't know if you know this, but poets don't generally have agents, so when they were drawing up the contract, I didn't really have anyone negotiating this for me, and the end result was that I found myself in a position where Tommy was saying, ‘You're lucky I'm so cool with you, because I own this shit now,' so, yeah, I really don't think ‘vulnerable' is the word.”

Tommy laughs. Loudly. And he leans forward and says, “I definitely never said that.”

“Maybe not word for word.”

The next girl, they're mostly girls, wants to know what Tommy saw in the book. “Do you read a lot of poetry?” she says. “And what made you fall in love with this book?”

“I don't. I don't read a lot of poetry necessarily. Well, I guess sometimes I do. I read a lot. I read whatever people give me.” He pauses. “And why this book? I mean, it's beautiful, isn't it?” He says it like he assumes everyone in the room has read it. I'm betting it's more like three. “I mean, it's full of rage and grief and loss and all of the mess and ugliness of human experience, but it's beautiful too, you know, and there's that conflict, that tension, and I just saw a lot of power in it. It just seemed true.”

His hair has fallen forward into his eyes, and he lifts his hand to push it back. He looks serious and a little tired. Then he notices me looking, and he pulls his mouth into a smile, and he's just delicious Tommy again. He could be on a fucking poster.

•   •   •

“You were fantastic,” Tommy says. “That reading was gorgeous. We could just film that.”

We push through the doors into the service hall, and while it's not totally empty, compared to the room we're coming from, we're practically alone.

“Sure, yeah, you'd make a ton of money on that.”

“I don't know, Stace, I think people would pay to watch you.” And he raises his eyebrows, changes the tone of his voice. “I mean, I would.”

I just roll my eyes.

“What now?” he says. “You have to stay? You want to get a drink?”

“I do want to get a drink. I want that very much.” I slow down, look around, trying to get my bearings. “You know, I left my bag at my publisher's booth in the book fair. I can just run back. You want to meet me at the car?”

He shrugs. “I'll just come with you.”

“Are you kidding me? It's already a madhouse in there, and then to throw you into it? Jesus. That's like my worst nightmare.” I can already feel my jaw tensing up.

“Aw, honey, stop with the sweet talk already. You're gonna make me blush.” His mouth curls up on one side. “I mean, it's nice to hear how much you enjoy spending time with me.”

“It's not you. It's just, you know, all of this and them, and, just, all of it.” I shake my head, press my fingers to my temples.

“You know what?” He takes my hand and starts pulling me toward the door that leads out into the main hallway. “It's like that therapy
where they make you hang out in a room with spiders or whatever shit you're afraid of. It'll be good for you.”

“No, come on. I really don't want to.”

“We'll probably see friends of yours, and you can introduce me.” His hand is on the door now. He's starting to push it open. “We can make out a little. People will take pictures.”

“Seriously, Tommy.” I try not to step forward, but he tightens his grip.

“Seriously? You're gonna want to stay very close. Don't look up. Don't make eye contact. Keep talking.”

Then we're through the door and into a crowd of people. So far, no one seems to have noticed, but it's only been maybe two seconds, and now a woman ten feet away does a double take.
Great.

•   •   •

The booth is being staffed only by interns, and they are absolutely losing their shit over Tommy, but I introduce them, and he's super gracious and friendly. He looks through the books, asks them which are their favorites, and he buys a few. My bag is tucked in the corner under one of the side tables next to some boxes. I throw it over my shoulder, but when I step out of the booth and we start moving away, Tommy pulls the strap off my arm and takes it from me.

“Thanks,” I say.

He smiles. “I'm just trying to get you into bed.”

“You're really sweeping me off my feet.”

“I think we both know it's easy to get you into bed. It's just hard to get you to stay.”

We're talking quietly, but there are people everywhere, and of
course everyone's paying attention to Tommy. “Would you shut up? Jesus, people can hear you.”

He laughs and pulls my arm under his again. “No one can hear me.” He holds up the books he bought. “These any good?”

I've only read one of them, and it was pretty dull. I guess it was well done, but it's just these long contemplative essays on place. I shrug. “I've read that one. It's eco-lit, which I think is pretty boring. I mean, the language is nice, but I don't know, maybe you'll like it. It wasn't really my thing.”

“Really?” He looks disappointed. “Find me a book I'll want to read.”

“I have no idea what you like to read,” I say, but I think I know exactly the book. I spent almost an hour talking with the author this morning. “Fine. We need to go this way.”

The crowds are getting thicker, which is good on the one hand because only the people right around us can see Tommy, but bad because it's hard to make our way through. I pull my arm from Tommy so I can walk ahead of him, weave my way in and out and around. The table I'm looking for is just a few rows away.

“Oh my god!” I hear a voice behind me squeal. “Oh my god!”

Sure enough, when I turn around, this woman is on him. Her fingers are curled around his biceps, which honestly is just insane, like she has some innate right to touch him. He's being cool about it, of course. I hear him say, “Oh yeah? That's so sweet. Really, so kind of you,” but he keeps glancing in my direction. Then more people start milling closer to him, and some guy says, “Hey, Tommy, loved you in
Destructions
, man,” and Tommy nods and waves. When he looks back at me, I give him this look like,
I knew it,
but still he can't seem to pull himself away.

“Excuse me, sorry.” I push my way through and grab his wrist. “I'm so sorry,” I say to the people around him. “We're on a schedule.”

Tommy makes an apologetic face. “Handlers,” he says, so they're all annoyed with me, but at least they let us through.

“I told you to stay close,” he says. “That was not my fault.”

I still have my fingers around his wrist, and I might be digging them in a little. He pulls away, takes my hand in both of his, and pats it in this patronizing way. “Have we talked about the possibility of getting you on some Xanax?”

By now we're at the row with the table I'm looking for, but I can't remember exactly where it is. I'm scanning the banners in the front. I know it's on the left side. “There,” I say, and I point.

“Hey,” I say to the guy working the table. He's too busy checking me out to notice Tommy, who's sort of half turned away anyway. “I'm looking for Ben Merriman's new collection of essays. Tell me you haven't sold out.”

“We have.” He gives me a little frown. “I know he's around here though with more copies. If you can find him.”

“Uh, yeah, I'm on my way out. Shit.” I turn to Tommy. He's on his phone, looking busy. “They don't have it.”

The guy at the table looks up and says, “Oh shit. Are you . . . ?”

“Yeah,” I say to him, but I think I roll my eyes. “Look,” I say to Tommy, “I'll order a copy for you later.”

“You know, I actually have a copy myself,” the guy says. “I mean, I could sell you that one, and I'll just grab another from Ben.”

I don't know why he didn't offer this when he thought it was for me. It's kind of insulting.

“That would be awesome, man. I really appreciate it,” Tommy says.

“Don't enable him. He can wait,” I say, but the guy's already digging it out of his bag.

“I mean, it's signed to me, but, if you don't mind . . .”

“Jesus, don't give him your signed copy.”

“No, it's cool. I mean, I know Ben, so he'll sign another one. It's fine.”

Tommy's got the book in his hands now, and he flips it open to the inscription, which is actually really personal and lovely, and I look at the guy like,
You can't give him this,
but Tommy just laughs. He says, “This is awesome, man. I love it.”