Introduction

"Can a novel be cozy and corrosive at the same time? . . . Friendships and courtships grow, dissolve and explode, sometimes in the same day, but Merle uncorks her most powerful surprises in the seams of conflict."—Ben Neihart, author of Hey, Joe and Rough Amusements

With dark humor, this women’s fiction novel is about obsessive friendship, secrets, and a life-changing summer in the wild 1980s of New York City.

In 1980s New York City, aspiring writers Tina and Spike bond in a complex, all-consuming friendship that will change their lives forever.

Desperate to redefine herself after a failed marriage, twenty-nine-year-old Tina embarks on a thrill-seeking journey to feel alive again. When she meets thirty-five-year-old Spike, a beautiful, seductive, seemingly invulnerable woman, she becomes enthralled by the older woman’s stories of NYC power brokers, sex, wealthy men, and her past. Tina latches on to Spike as someone who can save her from mediocrity and show her how to be the kind of woman who can have power over men—both in romance and in life.

Chasing adventure and the writing life, Tina and Spike rent a cabin together for the summer in the rural backwoods. There, they go on a wild, manic, darkly humorous journey involving dive bars, drugs, men, and all-night dancing, becoming increasingly psychologically entangled in each other’s lives along the way. But eventually Tina realizes just how dangerous Spike is, and is forced to act to save herself.

Filled with New York wit and fast-paced dialogue, this is a story of loss, betrayal, survival, and blurring the line between attraction and peril.

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Excerpt

CHAPTER TWENTY

“IS SHE VERY DIFFERENT FROM YOU?” my mother asked as she hovered around the kitchen counter, watching me prepare a marinade for the chicken I planned to barbecue. Her eyes scurried to Spike’s things.

“No,” I said. “Yes. I don’t know.”

I watched her examine some elaborately wrapped chocolates Spike had bought for us, then she noticed the bottle of VSOP cognac, and finally she stared at the black shawl Spike had hung over the entrance to her room.

“How old is she?”

“Thirty-five.” I was chopping onions with one of the blunt knives Pullet had left in the utensil drawer. My mother had already asked twice if she could help, not being used to me doing the cooking, and twice I had refused.

Now she said, “What are you fussing for? Come outside with us. You don’t have to be so fancy.”

“Mom, it’s a simple marinade. I just have to do it now so the chicken can sit in it for a while.”

“Well, what can I do?” “Relax.”

She stepped back from the counter and turned around, and around again, until she’d completed a circle. I understood the cabin probably seemed quite rough to her compared to her condominium.



“No, no,” she protested. “This is fine.” Then, “What does she look like?”

I sighed. “You mean Spike?” She nodded vigorously.

“Well, she has long red hair.” I stopped. Reducing Spike to a picture wasn’t my choice. “You’ll see.”

“Is she pretty?” “Ma!”

“All right, all right.” She threw up her hands. “I’m just curious, that’s all. You’re obviously taken with this woman and I’m just . . . curious.”

“Okay. Let’s go outside. You take the wine. That should help.” “I think so,” my mother said, and fretfully made her way out

the door, holding the bottle like a guiding light, her curly hair bouncing as she moved along.

Phil was sitting in a lawn chair he’d brought with him. He smoked a cigarette and sipped on a beer, enjoying the peaceful- ness of the pond. My mother plopped into her chaise and poured herself a glass of rosé. “She’s thirty-five,” she announced to Phil.

“Who?”

“Spike, her roommate.”

“What do I care? She’s not my roommate.”

My mother shrugged and pouted. “Nobody wants to talk to me about her.”

“Oh for Christ’s sake.” Phil never really got angry at my mother, but he liked to carry on as if she were testing the limits of his patience. And when she wasn’t being “silly,” when she was being as sharp as she really was, he stepped back and let her be. She also let him be, the times when he drank too much and would rant. Sometimes I thought this way of relating to one another was commendable and sometimes I didn’t.

Phil told my mother to drink her wine and not worry about Pike, Mike, Spike, whoever.

Then he asked me about the fish in the pond. My mother carried out a table from the living room and set it on the lawn.



She steamed the corn inside on the stove while I tended to the chicken on the grill. We drank more wine; I lit two or three cit- ronella candles and brought out sweaters, though it was so warm no one needed them.

My mother sat on the end of her chaise lounge, balancing her dish in her lap and looking drunkenly out on the water. “I knew I should have brought my easel. I could’ve set it up right here in the morning and sketched.”

“Why didn’t you?” Phil asked. “You always say you should’ve brought your easel and you never do.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she said. “It just seemed like too much trouble. But it’s so beautiful here.”

“You see,” I piped up. “That’s what I’m doing here. This is what I wanted. And Spike got me here.”

“What do you mean she got you here?” My mother sounded insulted.

“I couldn’t have found this myself. I wanted to, but it took Spike to really get me moving.”

“Why? Does she know so much more than you?” “Well, she’s moved a lot.”

“So what?”

“They run her out of town?” Phil said, amused with himself. My mother laughed loudly. “I wouldn’t be surprised.”

“All right. Enough,” I said. “Help me carry this stuff inside.”

My mother rose languidly from the chaise. “Oh, Phil,” she said, “I think I’m drunk.”

“No, you’re not,” he assured her.

She batted her eyes and looked around her in the dark, trying, it seemed, to understand what she was doing here. “Maybe I’m not,” she said softly. “But I’ve sure drunk a lot already.”

“I’ll make some coffee,” I offered. “Tea for Phil,” my mother said.

She followed me into the house. “I think Phil likes it here. I think he’s enjoying himself.”

“Good.”



“Good,” she repeated, setting the dishes down on the counter. She walked up to Spike’s room and fingered the shawl that was hanging over the doorway. “Isn’t she coming up this weekend?”

Spike had called earlier to say that at last she had a date with Cody and would try to make it up that night, but probably it would be very late. She also said she might not stay the entire weekend because she had work to do. Things kept coming up, and if she made it at all, it would be for the day.

I answered my mother, who was now seated at the table, her fingers drumming on the oilcloth. “She’ll be here late. She has a date tonight.”

“And she’s driving up after the date? So late?” “I guess so.”

I turned around and she was staring at the geese in the dark mural above the couch. “It reminds me of something. Something awful.”

“Ho, ho, ho.” It was Phil, walking into the room as if his joints hadn’t been oiled in years. He blinked his eyes. “It’s very bright in here.” He joined my mother at the table. “So where’re we sleeping, in the basement?”

“On the deck,” I said.

“Oh, wonderful. I haven’t slept on the porch since I was twelve.

Does this place have a latrine or do I go outside?” “Funny.”

“Spike has a date,” my mother said. He blinked at her. “Drink your wine.”

I brought them fresh glasses and sank into the nubby couch just as I heard a car scraping over the pebbles of the driveway.

My mother was wide-eyed. “Is that her?” I tried to remain calm. “I guess so.”

Phil gestured to the ceiling. “The queen has arrived. Off with your head!” He laughed merrily. “You”—he pointed to me—“off with your head!”

“Try to be normal,” I said.

“Me? Why should I try to be anything? I’m the elder here. You have to behave for me.”



My mother put her hand on his arm, as she does whenever he steps on that particular soapbox, and Spike flew into the living room. “Hi!” She was breathless. She was cradling a lamp in one arm

and lugging her two bags with her other hand. Her hair was pinned up, and she wore a black, clingy ballerina dress that made her look stunning to me.

I was so glad to see her in the wake of my mother’s endless, tiny questions that I couldn’t take my eyes off her. You see, you see! I wanted to shout. You see how magnetic she is. You see how illuminated. And I almost laughed at the irony of the lamp cradled in her arms like an infant. You see what she is, don’t you!

I smiled uncontrollably, enamored of Spike’s cheekiness, her boldness, her hair, her body, her laugh as she talked nonstop about her evening with Cody, first only to me, then to my mother and me, but never to Phil, who smoked his cigarette quietly at the table. “I finally had my first date with this gorgeous guy,” she was saying. “Tina knows him, and I’m telling you he’s the kind of guy you see in Playgirl. You know, where you wish you could pour water

on the pictures, and they’d grow to life-size in your living room.” My mother’s laugh sounded tinkly and weak.

“He’s crazy,” Spike went on. “Why do the ones who look like that have to be crazy? But he’s fuckin’ nuts.”

A guttural sound from Phil.

“He met me at the car rental place, and get this, he was wear- ing a big straw hat and carrying a hoe. That’s right, a hoe. And he came in and in front of everyone he said, ‘Okay, darlin’, you ready to harvest?’ I nearly blew lunch. We rented a Jaguar convertible and we drove out to Long Island where his friend has a boat.”

“Another boat?” I interrupted.

She looked at me quickly. “Yeah, all these guys have boats or friends who have boats. Just my luck.” She laughed. “He said he knew I liked fishing, so he took me out to fish. It was incredible! I’d never been fishing at night off a boat. He had a bottle of cham- pagne and some corned beef sandwiches from the deli, which I despise, since that’s all we used to eat at the PR firm, working



sixteen-hour days, so I went into the galley, found some ham- burger meat in the refrigerator, a few onions, and made us a meal that he seemed ridiculously thankful for, and then he read to me, he read to me, of all things Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘The Raven.’”

“Quoth the Raven, ‘Nevermore,’” said my mother.

Spike laughed coldly. “You think it was a message or what? Shit, I’m telling you.” She looked at me. “Where do I find them?” She turned in a flash and picked up the phone. “I promised

I’d call,” she said, and disappeared into her room.

“Well,” Phil said, rising slowly, “I’m going to bed.” My mother looked deflated, her lips closed tightly together as if she were bracing herself. I smiled placidly, careful to avoid her eyes, and helped them with towels and gave them instructions about the bedding.

They had washed their faces, brushed their teeth, burrowed under the covers, and switched off the light before Spike emerged again from the bedroom. I sat slightly loaded on the couch, the wine glass resting in my hands, the geese in the mural above me eternally landing in the mucky marsh.

Spike appeared like a ghost, her figure outlined by the light from her bedroom lamp. She put down the phone reverently. Her eyes in the dismal light looked calm and misted over, and when she saw me sitting there, she smiled and asked innocently into the darkness, “Have they gone to sleep already?” When I nodded that they had, a sweet, insincere pain crept into her voice. “I didn’t get to say good night.” view abbreviated excerpt only...

Discussion Questions

From the author:

1. What causes the dynamic between Tina and Spike to shift from admiration to obsession? What were the warning signs each character missed or ignored? Have you had female friendships that were co-dependent?

2. What does each woman seek in the other, and how do these needs deepen or distort their friendship? Have you had a friendship that others have questioned or one you've struggled to explain?

3. How does the author use humor to cut the psychological tension in the novel? Did you find yourself laughing while still feeling on edge?

4. How do the pressures and expectations of women in the 1980s, when the story takes place, influence Tina's and Spike's efforts to define themselves as strong and independent?

5. How does the author portray parents and families throughout the novel--from Tina's and Spike's families to the Peels--and the complicated, invisible ties that hold families together?

Weblinks

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»	Literary Titan book review
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