Seven Days in June by Tia Williams

Chapter 6

Witch Trumps Monster

“HE CAME BACK.”

Eva didn’t realize she’d said this out loud until Khalil and Belinda both whipped their heads in her direction.

“What?” asked Khalil.

“Came back where? Do you know him?” Belinda whispered, a hand covering her mic. The audience was all aflutter. And it was taking Shane forever to get to the stage, because there were hands to shake and things to sign (event programs, books, one flirty girl’s forearm…).

“I just meant I can’t believe he’s making a public appearance,” Eva sputtered. “You’ve met him, right?”

“Yeah, we both had Fulbrights in 2006. We spent a summer writing at the University of London,” whispered Belinda. “But I barely saw him. Put it this way: there’s a pub on every corner in East London.”

“Overrated,” pronounced Khalil. “I was supposed to interview him for Vibe once. He kept me waiting in a West Hollywood Starbucks for four hours, then showed up, rambled about a turtle for ten minutes, and ghosted. The story got killed, of course. Clown. This is why Negroes can’t have nice things.”

“The hate is strong in this one,” Belinda said with snark.

He glared at her. “I’ve grown weary of you.”

Eva was no longer listening. Because there was Shane. Onstage with them, swept up into Cece’s possessive embrace, to the tune of a thousand iPhone snaps. Then Cece let him go, and the panelists stood up (Eva unsteady in her skyscraper heels and agita). Shane gave Khalil a pound and Belinda a hug, and then it was just him and Eva.

She was shaking uncontrollably. There was no way she could hug him. Or even step an inch closer to him. Instead, she offered her hand—it jutted out from her arm, a strange appendage—and he shook it.

“I’m Shane,” he said, her hand still in his. “I love your work.”

“Th-thanks. I’m…Eva.” Eva sounded unsure of her own name. He squeezed her hand a little, a private gesture, telling her to relax. She immediately yanked it out of his grasp.

A New York Times intern sprinted out of the wings with an extra chair, scooted it between Cece and Belinda, and handed Shane a mic. Everyone sat down. Khalil was fuming.

“Well,” started Cece, “this person needs no introduction, I’m sure. Let’s give Shane Hall a warm welcome, shall we? Shane, you can join us for a couple minutes, can’t you?”

Cece graced him with a blinding proud-mama smile. Like the way Diana used to look at Michael: I’m fucking brilliant; I discovered this unicorn.

“I mean, do I have to?” said Shane, with an amused chuckle in his voice. He grew up in Southeast Washington, DC, and the inflections still lived in his vaguely Southern-sounding, slow accent. That Ah meeaaan took him ten years to get out.

“You have no choice. Payback for allowing that Random House editor to steal you from me.” Cece gestured toward Eva and company.

“But I…um…I’m not the best public speaker. I really just came to watch. This is awkward.” He looked out into the crowd apologetically. “But when Cece Sinclair tells you to do something, you do it. I ain’t crazy.”

“Unconfirmed,” mumbled Khalil.

Before Shane could address this shade, a young woman raised her hand. She was wearing a snapback that said MAKE AMERICA NEW YORK. Her face was beet red.

“Mr. H-Hall,” she stammered. “Not to be rude, but I love you.”

He smiled. “Rude would be ‘I hate you.’”

She laughed way too hard. “I can’t believe you’re here. Just had to tell you, Eight is the reason I write. Eight, the character, is me. You never see angsty, depressed Black girls in pop culture. There’s no Black Prozac Nation or Girl, Interrupted. I love that she narrates every book.”

“Thank you.” He shifted a little in his seat. “I like her, too.”

“Is Eight based on a real person? You describe her so intimately. It’s like I’m peeking in on something I shouldn’t see.”

“Do you think Eight’s real?”

“Definitely,” she said, nodding.

“Then she is.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“I know.” He grinned.

And then Eva had to do it. Finally, she had the nerve to look over at him—and regretted it instantly.

Age had made the skin around his eyes crinklier. Eva had forgotten about the scar snaking across his nose. He had scars everywhere. Once, while he was sleeping, she’d counted them all. Traced them with her mouth. And then named them, like constellations.

Perfect jeans; rugged boots; expensive watch; sinewy, lanky build; two-day stubble; simple white tee. Could’ve been Hanes or Helmut Lang. Fuck him—it was exactly what she wished she were wearing.

How am I gonna survive this?

A blond journalist Eva recognized from Publishers Weekly raised her hand. Cece nodded in her direction.

“Speaking of Eight,” started the blonde, “you’ve gotten some flak for writing exclusively from a female point of view. Is that fair? As a man, do you feel qualified to speak from a feminine place?”

At this point, Eva, Belinda, and Khalil were effectively back-burnered.

Shane chewed his bottom lip and stared into his mic, like it held the answers to every mystery. “I guess…I don’t think a lot about whether or not I’m qualified to do things. I just do them.”

“But it’s a ballsy move, as a man, to explore young female angst in such an intimate way.”

“I don’t think I’m exploring female angst. I’m just…writing a character? Who has angst.” He rubbed his hands on his jeans, looking deeply uncomfortable. “Novelists should stretch beyond their experience, right? If I can’t adequately manage a female voice, then I’m probably in the wrong profession and should revise my LinkedIn.”

“Oh! Do you have LinkedIn?”

“No,” he said, his eyes playful. To Cece, he whispered, “Told you I was bad at this.”

And in that moment, whatever was holding Eva together snapped. Suddenly she was volcanically offended by his existence. She’d worked herself into a frenzy prepping for this event, running lines with Audre, and squeezing into this dress, but Shane was allowed to be exactly himself. His whole career, he’d done whatever the hell he’d wanted—evading interviewers, dropping off the face of the planet, sleepwalking through events Eva would kill to be invited to—and generally been awarded for bad behavior in a way that, in the history of creative pursuits, no female artist had ever been indulged. Women didn’t get to be bad boys.

“I don’t think; I just do.”

Shane made it all look so easy. Everything Eva did was so effortful. And the worst part? This was supposed to be her moment to prove that she was a legitimate author, a force to be reckoned with. And it was shot to hell the second the One Who Mattered showed up. Was this even her real life, or a Mona Scott-Young production?

For all these reasons—as well as the older, darker ones—she had to say something.

“I hear what the reporter’s saying,” started Eva, slowly, to quell the tremble in her voice. “You’re co-opting an experience you know nothing about. Eight’s troubled. She self-harms. She’s suicidal. And you idealize it, making her this adorable, sad chick. Depression isn’t a ‘catastrophe of a girl’ weeping a single, pretty tear while gazing out of rain-streaked windows and dropping one-liners. Depression is tragic. Eight is tragic. And a male writer romanticizing female mental illness is inappropriate.”

“You’re right,” Shane said. He scratched his jaw slowly, thinking, and then dragged his eyes over to Eva. For the first time, she met his gaze. Which was a mistake.

The air had gotten thick. They both blinked. Once, twice, and then continued to stare at one another. Not stare. Gawk. With such single-minded focus that the crowd was forgotten. The event was forgotten.

Belinda and Khalil sat between them, looking back and forth like they were in the stands at Wimbledon. Cece’s eyes grew to anime proportions. What were they witnessing?

“It’s true. I’m not a woman,” started Shane.

“Exactly.”

“And you’re not a vampire. Or a man.”

“Bloop,” muttered Belinda.

“And yet Sebastian? He’s one of the most vivid, true portrayals of masculinity I’ve ever read. Especially in the third and fifth books. Sebastian literally and figuratively sucks the life out of everything around him. And he’ll drain Gia one day, too—he knows he will—but he can’t stop himself from loving her. Maybe it’s ’cause he knows that in the end, she’ll survive him. He knows Gia’s tougher than him. By virtue of being a woman, she’s stronger. Girls are given the weight of the world, but nowhere to put it down. The power and magic born in that struggle? It’s so terrifying to men that we invented reasons to burn y’all at the stake, just to keep our dicks hard.” He paused. “You made Gia’s magic broom ten times stronger than Sebastian’s fangs. Witch trumps monster. Tells me everything I need to know about why men are scared of women.”

Eva was too stunned to breathe. Against her better judgment, her eyes locked with Shane’s again. Whatever he saw there made him hesitate for a moment. But then he kept going.

“You’re not a man,” he continued, “but you write the fuck out of ambivalent masculinity. You’re not a man and it doesn’t matter, because you write with sharpened senses and notice the unnoticed, and your creative intuition’s so powerful you can rock any narrative to sleep. You see. And you write. With Eight, I do the same thing.” He eyed her with an unmistakable familiarity. “I’m just not as good as you.”

Belinda leaned over to Khalil and whispered, “You wanna reopen the fluff conversation, or you good?”

Eva’s jaw went a little slack. Light-headed, she nodded in slow motion. She would not let him see how thunderstruck she was. And she refused to let him have the last word.

“Well,” she managed. “That was quite the interpretation.”

“It was quite the read,” he said, his voice low.

“Yours…too.”

“Appreciate it.”

Then Eva finally tore her eyes away from Shane. And only then did he seem to remember that he was in public, and let out a small breath.

The audience was loud in its utter silence. No one spoke; everyone was transfixed. In over a decade of authordom, Shane Hall had barely spoken five (comprehensible) sentences to the public. And suddenly, he was here, in person, delivering a clear-eyed, feminist monologue. About Eva Mercy? It was so thrillingly random. And curiously, unmistakably charged. Hardly anyone in the audience had read the Cursed series before tonight, and now they couldn’t get on their Amazon apps fast enough.

Eva forgot about the audience. It was just her up there, trapped in the spaces between Shane’s words—the things he didn’t say.

Eva nervously twisted her cameo ring around her finger.

He’s read my entire series, she thought, frantically fidgeting with her ring. Every word.

Just then, the single Cursed fan in the audience burst into applause, his purple witch hat wiggling. Then he exclaimed, “You’re a fellow fangirl! Do you have Sebastian’s S pin?”

“Nah, it’s been sold out every time I’ve logged on to EvaMercyMercyMe.com.”

Eva’s face was on fire. He’s tried to buy the pin? He knows my website?

“One more question, then we’ll let Mr. Hall go,” said Cece, breaking the spell with a dainty cough. She had to do this because Khalil was so upset about losing the audience’s attention he was practically spurting cartoon steam out of his ears.

A twenty-something ginger stood up. He looked like Prince Harry, if Prince Harry lived in Red Hook.

“Hi, I’m Rich from Slate. Brenda, Khalil, and Shane, your work is powerful. Eva, I wasn’t familiar with you before this evening, but that was quite a testimony from Shane.”

Eva smiled weakly, like a woman on her deathbed trying to be brave for her loved ones.

“Can you detail some of the explicit racism you face as Black authors? Shane?”

“Me? Uh…no.”

“No?”

Shane repeated, “No.”

“Is that not why we’re here?” said Khalil.

“It’s why you’re here,” said Shane.

Okay, but why are YOU here?Eva’s brain screamed. Temples throbbing, she unconsciously snapped her trusty rubber band against the flesh of her right wrist.

As if hearing her thoughts telepathically, Shane shot her a quick glance. When he saw the rubber band, his expression went cloudy, concerned. He paused, as if forgetting what to say next. It was a look she remembered vividly. Eva dropped her hand to her side.

“You want the truth, Rich?” asked Shane.

“Please,” said Rich, his eyes lighting up in the way that so many liberal white people’s had since the election. Like they were aching to be told how bad it was, how bad they were, their guilt turning them into masochists. Rich’s thumb hovered over the voice-recorder app on his phone. “In this climate, it’s important to share testimonies. Let’s hold America accountable. Let’s take her crimes seriously.”

Shane thumbed his bottom lip, thinking.

“I don’t take America seriously, though,” he said with the blithe ease of a person who’d never needed to care about political correctness. Or correctness in general. (The Random House publicity department would have an apologetic press release drafted by 8:00 a.m. the next morning.)

On the surface, he looked at ease. No one but Eva noticed that since their exchange, his hand had been gripping his mic so tightly, his fingertips were turning white. It was the only thing that gave him away.

That, and his mic was shaking.

“Look, this quote-unquote current sociopolitical climate? It’s always been my climate. I’ve been up against Trumps and Pences and Lindsey Grahams since forever. The first one was the guard I was trapped alone in a cell with at eight years old. No laws, no cameras, no mercy. What happened in that hour made me the kind of person who doesn’t feel obligated to workshop racism with white people.” He shrugged. “The burden isn’t on me to explain it, Rich. The burden’s on y’all to fix it. Good luck.”

Shane spoke with such blandness, it wasn’t clear whether he cared in the extreme or not at all. Whatever the case, he’d delivered one hell of a sound bite. After refusing to shed light on The Struggle, he did exactly that, and his one brief personal anecdote resonated more than an hour of Khalil’s dick-first rants.

“Understood,” said Rich.

Squinting a little, Shane peered at the name tag on Rich’s shirt. An impish look spread across his face, and he smoothly changed the subject. “I do, however, feel like discussing carrot tagliatelle.”

Rich gasped. “You…you read my…”

“You’re Rich Morgan, right? You cover food on Slate sometimes? That piece was revelatory. I didn’t know you could make noodles out of vegetables.”

“I suggest the five-blade spiralizer from Amazon Prime,” enthused Belinda.

“I got mine at a lovely kitchen-and-home shop in Lake Como,” said Cece.

Eva shut her eyes, wondering if someone had slipped acid in her seltzer. This conversation was ridiculous. Shane had single-handedly changed the mood in a room, in milliseconds. When had he become so unguarded? So chatty? She’d never heard him say more than a grunt to anyone but her.

“I’m ordering that shit,” said Shane. “I’m new to eating healthy. Like, I’m still on avocado toast. Rich, thanks for your service.”

Rich beamed and floated down to his seat.

Khalil was disgusted. “Help me understand this. You won’t talk about racism, but you will open a discourse on hipster pasta?”

Shane shrugged. “Health is wealth.”

Cece waved her arm across the stage with a flourish. “Shane Hall, ladies and gentlemen!”

And then Shane handed Cece his mic, wiped his damp palms on his jeans, did not look in Eva’s direction, and returned to the wildly applauding audience.

There was twenty minutes left of the discussion, but the panel was effectively over. Shane had stolen it out from under them.

And Eva was a wreck.