Page 57 of Bad Words

Selina Chan paid you $5.00. “Eggnog for one.”

For the first time since I’d woken up, my travel plans jarred from my mind. I reread the message several times.

Why was Selina Chan sending me a sarcastic Venmo, unprovoked, on Christmas Eve?

I wondered where she was right now. In her apartment? She’d mentioned living in Bed-Stuy. What did her apartment actually look like? Sometime between seeing her reading alone at a bar for two hours straight and watching her pluck at her sleeve as she’d met Juliette for the first time, the image of the supervillain in her mansion had dissolved, but I wasn’t sure how to replace it.

I tapped through to her Venmo profile to find that here, in this remote backwater of her online presence, she’d foregone the intimidating headshot. The profile showed some sunny photo of Selina with her hair down, standing on a pier, wearing a T-shirt. She was smiling, with teeth. I felt like I was seeing a turtle without its shell.

I hit Pay and sent her back five dollars: “MTA fare to ice skate alone.”

Five seconds passed. A notification dropped down from the top of my screen.

Selina Chan left a comment on your payment: “ha.”

I lurked by the window, snow glaring brilliantly into the corner of my vision. What was she doing? Was that it?

Then another notification peeked down at me.

Site alert: New Message

I tapped it, and my email opened.

Your site, Parker Navarro: Author, has received one new message:

Contact: [email protected]

Subject: That article I mentioned at the diner.

Message: [LINK: Revisiting the Work of the Underread Master, Anna Kavan]

I dropped onto the sofa and drank the piece in one long go. My thoughts felt clean and hard, like I was studying for an exam.

The instant I finished, I returned to my email, but I’d only typed a few words into my phone when I got frustrated—something about the smallness of the screen, the slowness of my thumbs—and grabbed my laptop from the coffee table.

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Sent: Dec 24, 3:01 pm

Subject: Kavan Retrospective

Good piece. Makes you wonder if most writers could reinvent themselves this completely.

Why are you messaging me, by the way?

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Sent: Dec 24, 3:02 PM

Re: Kavan Retrospective

Because nobody else I know has read Asylum Piece, and New York is covered in twenty inches of snow. Sometimes a person has to take drastic action to stay sane.

To: [email protected]