Sarai Walker - Dietland

“Some of the editors at Austen have the book bag,” Julia said. “Now listen: I need to ask you for a favor.” She sat up and began searching through her bag again, which contained even more items. She pulled out a silver hard drive, which fit into the palm of her hand.

“What I’m about to say to you—actually, everything I’ve said to you today—is top secret. Do not breathe a word to anyone, okay?”

I nodded in agreement, but I was still stuck on the fact that Leeta had a copy of the spreadsheet. I had her red notebook and she had something of mine.

“You know about my exposé, so that saves me the trouble. This hard drive contains what I’ve been working on for years. At this point it’s mostly detailed notes and sketches. There are also audio files, scans of secret documents, surveillance photos, contact information for my sources, everything. Plum, are you listening? This is important.”

I looked up from the floorboards. “I’m listening.”

“I want you to write the book.”

“Me?”

“It is entirely possible that something might happen to me,” she said, pausing for a moment. “I’ve thought about it and talked it over with my sisters and we think it’s best if you write my exposé of Austen. You worked at Austen. You know what it’s like there. I think you’re the right person for the job. Besides, I hate writing.” She held out the silver hard drive, but I didn’t take it. “The book will have both of our names on it,” she said. “I already have an interested publisher.”

“Back up. Why do you think something might happen to you?”

“The police could discover that I lied to them. What if they think I’m lying about other things? If they arrest me, they’ll confiscate my computer, everything. Or maybe Jennifer will blow up the Austen Tower. Think of all those floors collapsing. I would be crushed to death in the Beauty Closet.”

I pictured the Austen Tower aflame like a birthday candle. “That’s a ridiculous thought,” I said, but maybe it wasn’t. “Julia, please tell me what’s happening.” She didn’t reply. I wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shake her and watch her ringlets flail around until she begged for mercy.

“I feel uneasy, that’s all. I wish you wouldn’t be so suspicious of me.” Her hand remained extended, the silver hard drive in the space between us, forbidden fruit. I looked from Julia to the hard drive, then reached over and plucked it from her palm.

“Thank goodness,” Julia said, reclining again. “I can relax knowing you’re on board. If I become incapacitated, those cocksuckers at Austen will still get what’s coming to them.”

She curled on her side, closing her eyes. I collected my laptop and moved quietly toward the door, eager to get away from her. I wanted time to sort out everything she’d said. As I crept past the daybed, her hand reached out and grasped my leg, her fingers warm on the inside of my thigh. “You know, I’ve always thought you were lovely,” she said, fading into sleep.

JULIA SLEPT IN MY ROOM ALL NIGHT. I opted for a guest room. When I went downstairs in the morning, she had already gone, though I didn’t know which version of her had walked out the door. While cooking breakfast, I could think of nothing but my conversation with her. She’d seemed truly afraid of something.

As the Calliope women arrived in the kitchen to fill their plates with scrambled eggs and smoked salmon, I longed to tell them about Julia’s visit, but everything we’d discussed was, in Julia’s words, top secret. Sharing secrets with Julia made me feel distanced from everyone else.

I was glad when breakfast was over and the kitchen cleared out, but the morning wasn’t peaceful. Huck was having a tantrum, his wailing filling the house from top to bottom. At the kitchen table, I plugged the silver hard drive into my laptop and peeked at the files it contained, but there were thousands of them. It was impossible to concentrate, given the noise, so I addressed envelopes and stuffed them instead. Girls across the country would soon open their mailboxes to copies of Fuckability Theory and Adventures in Dietland.

Huck’s crying did not abate and when the police knocked on the door, announcing a bomb threat, I was grateful for an excuse to go outside. I filled two shopping bags with the puffy brown envelopes, then grabbed my satchel and joined the others in the evacuation. We were cordoned off on the usual benches at the end of the block, but since it was the middle of the day rather than the middle of the night, the ice cream shop was open. We bought cones and passed them around. Huck’s face became a pastiche of vanilla ice cream and snot, but at least he was finally quiet. We licked our cones and watched the bomb squad do their work.

The beleaguered staff of the Bessie Cantor Foundation for Peace and Understanding stood in a circle nearby, trying to avoid the accusing stares of some of the neighbors. The owner of an Italian restaurant on our block was particularly incensed. It was the middle of the lunch rush when the evacuation order came, and so businessmen and women were sitting on the curb, plates balanced on their knees, trying to shovel penne and spaghetti into their mouths without spilling anything on their tailored white shirts.

Stopped at the light, a taxi driver shouted: “What’d Jennifer do now?”

“This ain’t nothing to do with her,” a cop shouted back.

Though it was only our block of Thirteenth Street and the one directly behind us on Twelfth that were closed, the chaos spread into the surrounding areas. The traffic on Sixth Avenue backed up, pedestrians and drivers stopped and gawked. It was New York street theater: the potential for disaster, which no one wanted to miss.

“The idea of a bomb threat is nonsensical, isn’t it?” I crunched the last of my cone.

“What do you mean, hon?” Verena was wearing jeans and a T-shirt bearing the name of the Baptist Shakes, an all-girl punk rock band from Georgia.

“If the big one ever comes, do you think they’re going to warn anyone in advance? Why would they want to blow up an empty building?”

“They’re just lunatics,” Marlowe said. “Making threats is the aim. The police take it seriously because they have to.”

“But aren’t you afraid that one day the house next door might actually blow up?” The women of Calliope House had lived with the bomb threats for so long that they seemed to forget there was the possibility of a real explosion, one that was likely to kill us all.

I stood up and paced in front of the bench. No one seemed interested in addressing my question, so I didn’t pursue it. I supposed that the threat was better left at the back of the mind, where it could be ignored. Living at Calliope House was a choice that each of us had made, and we knew the risks. No one was forcing us to stay there.

“Speaking of lunatics, why did Julia stay over last night?” Marlowe asked. She and the others looked at me. I wasn’t prepared with an excuse.

“She . . . wanted to ask for advice about her book, the Austen exposé. She’s writing a chapter about Kitty.” The lie came easily, but I hated telling it. I didn’t want to be on Julia’s side.

“Did she say anything about Leeta?” Marlowe asked. “I planned to talk to her, but had to leave early yesterday. I’d like to interview Julia for The Jennifer Effect. ”

“I asked her about Leeta, but she clams up as soon as her name is mentioned.”

A New York Daily truck rumbled past us, the message on its side enticing us to “Read the New York Daily for the latest on Jennifer.”

“Did you hear what happened this morning?” Marlowe said at the sight of the truck. Every morning there was something new, and I was glad to move on from the topic of Julia. Marlowe explained that video game companies had been warned to stop producing games that featured women as sex objects and victims of violence.