January 9, 2023
10:11 a.m.
Int. Pantry—Day
Katie and Claudia enter through the door, approach the well-stocked shelves.
Katie
There’s got to be something decent to eat in here. Some wine, at the very least.
Claudia walks up to an oversize meat freezer.
Claudia
I swear my grandma had this exact model in her garage. I can practically smell the grape ice pops.
Slowly, Claudia lifts the lid—
A knock at the door, three quick raps. My shoulders jolted, and I looked up from my laptop, where I’d been toying with the freezer scene for the last hour, intent on getting some real words into Final Draft, while the Halloween soundtrack cranked out of my Bluetooth speaker.
See, I was writing, finally. And maybe it was slow going, and maybe it was imperfect. But I was doing it, wasn’t I? The freezer dead-body seemed the most inspiring, and so it was a place to start, no? Kerry had once told me that when she was really stuck in her fiction, she’d fast-forward to the most exciting scene.
The curtains were open, and in an instant, I could see it was him, his large, muscled frame practically filling the window. The man from the day before. Jeremy Gallo. How long he had been standing there before he knocked, while my eyes were locked on my screenplay, the window leaving me fully exposed? And why was he here anyway? He’d made it beyond clear he didn’t want to answer any of my questions yesterday.
Another knock. I shut off the music, opened the door, bracing myself for the confrontation.
To my surprise, Jeremy held a bottle of wine, cradled in his left arm like a newborn baby. His smile revealed clean white teeth, just a slight gap between the two front ones. “Peace offering? I was a total dick yesterday. It’s a great bottle. One of my favorite Cabs.” He held it out, and I hesitated slightly. “Oh shit,” he said. “Do you not drink?”
“I don’t not drink,” I said. “Just…not as much these days.”
“Dry January?” he asked.
I shrugged. “Something like that.”
“My bad,” he said, shifting his weight back and forth. “I shouldn’t have assumed.”
“No,” I said, taking the bottle from him. “It’s a lovely gesture. Thank you.”
“It wasn’t you, you know.”
I tilted my head. “Sorry?”
“I mean, it wasn’t you I was frustrated with. It’s just this property thing; it’s gotten a bit intense in the last couple of months.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I got that vibe from the other neighbor. She literally took a trash bag out of the dumpster and threw it on the motel lawn.”
Jeremy guffawed. “That sounds like Denise. It’s definitely got her on edge.”
“I don’t need to worry about her showing up here with a gun or something, do I?” A raised eyebrow. “Or you?”
“God, no,” he said. “I leave all the gun stuff to the locals. No, thank you. I’m as boring as they come; my greatest weapon is a contract full of legalese. And Denise does have a rifle or two, I’m sure, but she saves it for hunting season. And the woman gets very, very angry if people try to hunt outside the approved months of the year. You don’t have to worry about her. Besides, no one is angry at you, just Maisy.”
“Easy for you to say. I haven’t exactly gotten the warmest welcome.”
“I know,” he said. “We’re all mad here, it seems.” He laughed to himself. “And listen, if Dry January isn’t exactly set in stone, that bottle there goes great with my homemade chicken cacciatore.”
“You don’t have to do that,” I said.
“I don’t have to, but my grandma taught me better than to treat you the way I did yesterday. And my early evenings are pretty laid-back. I’m a lawyer, in the finance industry. The markets close by four p.m., and then I’m free as a bird. Come over, around six? I promise I won’t tell you to get off my lawn this time.”
I hesitated.
“You’re a writer, right? Maisy loves to get writers up here.”
“I make movies,” I clarified.
Jeremy laughed. “Wait, is that why this place sounds like the stuff of high school nightmares? That was from Halloween, wasn’t it? That music used to terrify me.”
I grinned. “It gets me in the mood. I’m writing a horror movie, actually.”
Jeremy wriggled his eyebrows. “Who’s the killer?”
A hand on my hip. “To be determined.”
“Well, it looks like you’re hard at work now,” he said, nodding to my laptop. “And I don’t want to interrupt, but maybe the promise of dinner will give you a little motivation to get through your next few scenes?”
The thought was tempting. And true. Even without all the weird shit that had been happening, it was hard to be alone all the time. Constant music and chatting to Spikey the succulent could only get me so far.
“How about this?” Jeremy said, seeming to make the decision for me. “I’m going to walk away before you get a chance to say no.”
True to his word, he backed away, a smile on his face.
“See you at six, Siobhan.”
It was dark by the time I left the motel, right on time. I walked up the road, hiking along the edge of the woods, careful not to walk too close to the asphalt as the occasional car flashed by, brights illuminating me, catching me in the headlights like a deer in a state of shock.
Hell, I could practically hear the eerie music playing as I walked, almost felt like Jamie Lee Curtis doing her best to evade Michael Myers.
I passed Jeremy Gallo’s mailbox, nearly missing the turn it was so dark, wound down the curving driveway. The home in all its glory. Its angles and windows. Harsh yet harmonious lines. It gleamed like a diamond against the black night.
Before I could even knock on the door, it opened.
I jolted. “Hi.”
“I realized that I invited you over in the pitch-black,” Jeremy said, concern on his face. “I’ve been waiting at the window to make sure you got here okay.”
“How paternalistic,” I said.
“Hey, it’s scary out in the woods alone. Well, maybe not for a horror aficionado like you. Besides, I don’t want someone tripping and breaking a leg on my watch. A lawyer to a fault.”
He ushered me into the warmth of the home, flames blazing brilliantly from a wide, cavernous fireplace on the left wall, etched perfectly into what looked like a block of marble, as if Michelangelo himself had come over to create it for this guy. I smelled tomatoes and garlic, basil and meat. Yum.
“Can I take your coat?” Jeremy asked.
“Please.”
Turning my back to him, I faced a swath of windows that looked out on a wide expanse of darkness. We were in a shadow box. From the outside, you could see in, but from the inside, you could see so little, no farther than the patio lights illuminated. I thought, suddenly, of Drew Barrymore, answering the phone in that house while the killer watches her in Scream. The classic terror of being on display. Only with Jeremy here, it felt less frightening—more exciting.
Jeremy’s fingers brushed the back of my shoulder as he took off my coat. He popped it onto a velvet hanger, tucked it away in the closet.
He turned back to me then, and yes, by George, he was taking me in. His eyes weren’t exactly sweeping my every curve, but I could feel it anyway.
My dress was simple, black wool, nipped in at the waist and down at the chest. One of Charlie’s favorites. I slipped off my leather boots, placed them on a mat, where a large pair of Sorels already sat. My feet in only stockings, the night already felt strangely intimate. Jeremy’s were covered in the same camel loafers from the day before.
“Holy shit,” I said, feeling the warmth on my toes. “Are your floors heated?”
Jeremy laughed. “Indeed they are.”
“I thought that was something that only really happened on TV.”
“The equivalent of a real estate unicorn?” he asked.
“Exactly,” I said.
Jeremy beamed. “When you build your dream home, you know, you get to include a few unicorns. Anyway, the chicken’s still simmering, but can I get you started on a drink? I make a mean old-fashioned. And if you want, I can do a mocktail version, no problem.”
“Regular is okay,” I said, full-up with date-or-not-date jitters. “We’ll make an exception.”
“Perfect.” He led the way to an enormous kitchen island and pulled up a chrome stool, indicating for me to sit. A white Le Creuset Dutch oven was steaming on one of those stoves that blends seamlessly into the countertop.
Jeremy went to work. Whiskey, check. Bitters, check. Orange and maraschino. Check. Drinking for the first time since alcohol destroyed my relationship. Check check check.
It’s pretty clear what this is, isn’t it? I thought as I pressed my hands against the counter, stared at my chipped polish. Me, in a little black dress. Him, jumping straight to the cocktails. I half wanted to announce it, say it out loud. This is a date, right? I haven’t been with anyone since Charlie. He broke my heart. I owe him money. It’s complicated.
“So how was the rest of your day?” I asked instead, leaning forward slightly. “Advise a bunch of rich guys how to plump up their already fat pockets?”
Jeremy stirred the concoction with an elongated spoon. “Hey, whatever pays the bills, right?” He gestured around. “I didn’t come from this, had to make it on my own.”
“Well, you’re a good-looking white man,” I said. “Cis-het, too, if I had to guess.”
His eyes caught mine. “Guilty as charged.”
“So it’s not like you didn’t have a leg up.”
“Fair enough,” he said. “But like I said—” He grabbed what looked like an impossibly sharp knife and sliced through the edge of the orange peel, sending a fine mist of oil through the air. An instant tang. “I do legal compliance. So, you know, how not to break the law.”
“Or how to skirt as close to the line as possible without alerting the SEC.”
He smirked. “You know all our tricks, don’t you?”
“I dated my share of finance guys in my twenties. Any straight girl in New York City did—a rite of passage.”
“But now you stick with artists?” he asked, taunting me, just a bit as he poured the drinks.
The irony about the city was that the people who worked in creative fields often needed money the least. Charlie worked in the art world, but he came from money. Men like Jeremy surrounded themselves with it, sure, but it was the ones like Charlie who used it so casually.
“Now”—I grabbed my glass, lifted it into the air—“I stick with myself.”
We ate at an expansive black wooden table, my ass on a sculptural chair draped in sheepskin. The hide tickled my shoulder, like a series of tiny kisses.
My return to drinking wasn’t a toe in the water but a full-on splash. After cocktails, we’d moved onto wine, Jeremy spouting words I’d heard, of course, but knew very little about—vegetal! tannins! oxidation! It tasted like a good red wine, nothing more, nothing less.
The food was incredible. Tomatoes on our tongues. Red sauce on our lips. We might as well have been vampires, sitting down to dinner.
Jeremy shared his backstory. That he’d bought the land here and started building years ago, that it had originally been intended as a weekend place, but after the pandemic, like so many, he’d moved to fully remote work and decided to live up here full-time. He inquired dutifully about my work, too, and I’d told him all about the festival. About Allison and her connections. How this was my chance. And I didn’t know if he really cared, but he acted like it anyway. Made all the right faces. Asked all the right questions. It made me miss Charlie. Miss having someone to do this with, every night. Realize just how hard it was to be on my own.
Finally, the plates were put into the deep sink. The wines topped off. The fire was dying down, and Jeremy hadn’t added another log.
Maybe the chemistry I thought I’d felt was just in my imagination, a result of finally having someone to talk to besides that poor succulent?
“I guess I should get going,” I said, taking a last sip.
Jeremy looked at me a moment, and this was the chance. To do anything to change course. I wanted it, not just because being up here was lonely and occasionally scary. I wanted it because I wanted to be wanted by someone who wasn’t Charlie. Who hadn’t hurt me yet.
“I’ll walk you, then,” Jeremy said, pushing back his chair.
Here we were, once again, at the door. Him opening the coat closet. His hands holding out my wool coat, my arms slipping inside.
And then. Then.
His fingers, they lingered. Not forever, but enough to be a signal. Enough to create a little space, the tiniest opening I could fit my body through…
A quick turn on my heel, and there he was. His tall frame. His kind eyes and crooked smile. Before anything could change—before either of us could lose our nerve—I leaned in.
Damn if he didn’t meet my challenge, closing the space between us.
And then, it was like we were hungry all over again. Our lips parting. His tongue in my mouth. His hands pushed my coat right back off, then landed right above my ass.
A second later, I felt his teeth on the edge of my bottom lip.
Biting enough to hurt, but not enough to bleed.