The waitress returned and set down their plates with a flourish. His burger looked mammoth, with fries piled up so high they spilled onto the table when the plate landed. Purcell’s soup, despite the fact that it was billed as an appetizer, was also in a meal-sized bowl.

“They certainly know how to eat up here,” Jake observed when she’d gone.

“Have to survive the winters,” said Purcell, taking up his spoon.

For a moment, conversation took a back seat.

“It’s nice that you two kept up with each other. After Ripley, I mean. It’s pretty isolated.”

“Well, Vermont isn’t exactly the Yukon,” Purcell said, with a definite edge to his tone.

“No, I mean … for us as writers. We’re so alone in what we do. When you get a taste of that fellowship, it’s something you want to hold on to.”

Purcell nodded eagerly. “That was just what I was hoping to find at Ripley. Maybe even more than the teachers, just that connection to other people doing what I wanted to do. So yeah, I absolutely kept up with a few of the others, Evan included. Him and I sent each other stuff for a couple of months, until his passing.”

Inwardly, Jake winced at this, though whether it was due to the thought of that “stuff” passing back and forth between the two writers or to the “him and I” wasn’t immediately clear.

“We all need a reader. Every writer does.”

“Oh, I know. It’s why I’m so appreciative—”

But Jake didn’t want to go there. At least, not before he absolutely had to.

“So you sent him the same stories you sent me? And he sent you his work, too? I always wondered what happened to that novel he was working on.”

It was a risk, of course. He’d been pretty sure that if Purcell had actually read Evan Parker’s work in progress he’d have mentioned its commonality with Crib by now. But after all, this was what he’d come so far to find out.

“Well, I sent him mine, for sure. He had a couple of my stories when he passed, that he was going to send back edits on, but he kept his own stuff pretty close to the chest. I only ever saw a couple of pages. A woman who lived in an old house with her daughter and worked on a psychic hotline? That’s what I remember. You probably saw way more of that novel than I did.”

Jake nodded. “Very reticent in the workshop itself, when it came to his project. Those same pages you mentioned, that was all he ever turned in. It’s certainly all I ever saw,” he said pointedly.

Purcell was digging into the bottom of his bowl for the chicken.

“D’you think he had other friends in the program he might have been talking to?”

The teacher looked up. He held Jake’s gaze for a bit too long. “Do you mean, was he showing his work to anyone else?”

“Oh no, not specifically. I just thought, you know, it’s a shame he got so little out of the program. Because he’d have been helped by a good reader, and if he didn’t want my help, maybe he managed to connect with one of the other teachers. Bruce O’Reilly?”

“Ha! Every blade of grass has its own story!”

“Or the other fiction teacher. Frank Ricardo. He was new that year.”

“Oh, Ricardo. Evan thought that guy was pathetic. No way he went to either of those two.”

“Well, maybe one of the other students, then.”

“Look, no offense to you, because obviously I’m not arguing with your success, so if bonding with fellow writers helped you out, that’s great, and I’m all for it myself or I wouldn’t have wanted to go to Ripley and I wouldn’t have asked you to read my stuff. But Evan was never into the community of writers aspect. He was a great guy to go to a concert with, or out for a meal. But the touchy-feely things about, you know, writing? That stuff in the catalog about our unique voices and our stories only we could tell? That was so not him.”

“Okay.” Jake nodded. He was realizing, with a certain extreme discomfort, that he and Evan Parker had shared something else, above and beyond the plot of Crib.

“And all the stuff about the craft of writing, and the process of writing, and all that? Never talked about it. I’m telling you, Evan didn’t share, not pages and not feelings. Like the song says: He was a rock. He was an island.”

It was a massive relief to hear, but of course Jake couldn’t say that. What he said, instead, was: “Kind of sad.”

The teacher shrugged. “He didn’t strike me as sad. It’s just how he was.”

“But … didn’t you say his whole family was gone? His parents and his sister? And he was such a young guy. That’s awful.”

“Sure. The parents died a long time ago, and then the sister, I’m not sure when that happened. It’s tragic.”

“Yes,” Jake agreed.

“And that niece, the one mentioned in the obituary, I don’t think she even showed up at the memorial service. I didn’t meet anyone there who said they were related. The only ones who got up and spoke were his employees and his customers. And me.”

“That’s a shame,” said Jake, pushing the uneaten half of his burger away.

“Well, they couldn’t have been close. He never even mentioned her to me. And the dead sister, man, that one he hated.”

Jake looked at him. “Hate’s a pretty strong word.”

“He said she’d do anything. I don’t think he meant it in a good way.”

“Oh? What way did he mean it?”

But now the guy was looking at him with frank suspicion. It was one thing to spend a bit of time on a mutual acquaintance, maybe especially a mutual acquaintance who had died fairly recently and fairly close by. But this? Could it possibly be that Jake Bonner, The New York Times bestselling novelist, had not come to Rutland for the sole purpose of discussing a complete stranger’s short stories? Because what other reason could there be?

“I have no idea,” Purcell said finally.

“Oh. Sure. Hey, sorry about all the questions. He’s just been on my mind today, like I said.”

“Right.”

And Jake thought he’d better leave it there.

“So anyway, I want to talk about your stories. They’re very strong, and I have a couple of ideas about how to move them forward. I mean, if it’s all right for me to share them with you.”

Purcell, naturally, seemed delighted with this change of direction. Jake spent the next seventy-five minutes paying the piper. He also made a point of picking up the check.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Boo-hoo, So Sad

After they said good-bye in the parking lot he watched Martin Purcell get in his car and head north, back toward Burlington, then he waited in his own car for a few minutes, just to be on the safe side.

The Parker Tavern was just off Route 4, midway between Rutland and West Rutland, its neon PARKER TAVERN FOOD AND LIQUOR visible from far down the street. As Jake pulled into the lot, he saw the other sign he remembered from the Rutland Herald story, that hand-painted Happy Hour 3–6. The lot was very full and it took him a few minutes to find a spot.

Jake wasn’t much of a tavern guy, but he had a basic idea of how to behave under the circumstances. He went inside and took a seat at the bar and asked for a Coors, then he took out his phone and scrolled a bit, so as not to seem overly eager. He’d chosen a stool without anyone on either side, but it didn’t take long for a guy to move in beside him. He nodded at Jake.

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

“You want anything to eat?” the bartender asked the next time he came by.

“No, thanks. Maybe another Coors, though.”

“You got it.”

A group of four women entered, all in their thirties, he guessed. The guy on Jake’s left had swiveled away from him, and was definitely keeping an eye on the women at their table. A different woman took the seat to his right. He heard her order. A moment later, he heard her curse.

“Sorry.”

Jake turned. She was around his own age, and big.

“Beg your pardon?”

“I said sorry. ’Cause I cursed.”

“Oh. That’s okay.” It was more than okay. It relieved him of having to start the conversation. “Why’d you curse?”

The woman held up her phone. The photo on the screen showed two cherubic girls, cheeks together, both grinning, but the acid green bar of a text message cut off the tops of their heads. Fuck you, it said.

“Adorable,” he said, pretending not to have seen.

“Well, they were, back when the picture was taken. Now they’re in high school. I guess I ought to be grateful about that, anyway. Their older brother wouldn’t go back after tenth grade. He’s over in Troy doing god knows what.”

Jake had no idea how to respond to that, but he wasn’t about to decline the clear overture of such an unrestrained neighbor.

Her drink arrived, though Jake hadn’t heard her actually order. It was something overtly tropical, with a slice of pineapple and a little paper umbrella.

“Thanks, doll,” the woman said to the bartender. Then she put away half of it in a single long swallow. Jake didn’t imagine it was doing her any good. Thus fortified, she turned back to Jake and introduced herself. “I’m Sally.”

“Jake. What kind of drink is that?”

“Oh, something they put together for me, special. It’s my brother-in-law’s place.”

Score, thought Jake. He’d done nothing to deserve it, but he’d take it.