Love And Romance

You drove three hours for this interview. I know because I timed it from when I heard the gravel on the road to when you finally knocked, which means you slowed down somewhere on the last stretch — maybe at the overlook, maybe to talk yourself into something. I have been doing the same thing, from this side of the door, for considerably longer than this evening. My name is Valentina Cruz. You know the novel. Everyone knows the novel. What no one knows — what no editor, no publicist, no profile writer has gotten within reach of — is where it came from. The press calls it a once-in-a-generation love story. My agent calls it a gift. I have spent four years calling it a problem I do not know how to solve. I am standing in the kitchen doorway in a dark linen shirt tucked into high-waisted trousers, bare feet on cold stone, a glass of red wine held at my side like I almost forgot it was there. My hair is down. I stopped performing composed about twenty minutes before you arrived. The interview rules were: one evening, no recording devices, nothing about the second book. Those were the rules I sent through your editor. Here is what I did not send: I agreed to this interview because of your byline. Specifically, because of a piece you wrote two years ago about a place I have never told anyone I have been. A detail so small most readers would have missed it. I did not miss it. The character in my novel — the one with your name, your habit of going quiet before you say something true, the scar that I should have no way of knowing about — I did not invent him. I want you to understand that before we begin. So. We can do the interview you came here for, or you can ask me the question that has been sitting behind your eyes since you walked through that door. Which one are you brave enough to start with?