Awash in Talent (29 page)

I saw our entire marriage swirling through his thoughts, with the movie and the leaky wall and the Easter basket, but his brow was so furrowed with skepticism, it was as if he didn’t even know who I was. He didn’t say a word.

He’s not doing badly. He’s been working on the computers at a biotech firm in Waltham and dating a systems analyst, as his parents suggested. We’re in the ninety-day waiting period now. In twenty more days, we’ll be divorced. It will be as if we never met, except that I will officially own this dream home of mine.

I’ve remodeled it (again). I have the top floor, I rent the separate second floor, complete with kitchen, to three grad students so I can afford the mortgage and property tax, and the first floor, with the same deluxe kitchen it had before, is home to Emily.

She’s not a bad housemate, actually. I closed off the dining room and one of the parlors so they could be used as bedrooms, and both years so far, I’ve found a psychology student who’s willing to live down there with Emily and help me keep a twenty-four-hour watch on her in return for the sweet housing. I hope to keep the one I have now, Diane, for next year, because she’s a junior and will still need a place to stay for her senior year.

Emily’s parents signed her over to me for safekeeping while they moved to Boston to be with Beth. They felt guilty about making a move that so obviously showed who their favorite daughter is, but I kept playing on what their eyes told me they really preferred to do. With a family like that, it’s no wonder Emily’s so desperate for love.

The more difficult one to convince was Emily herself. A week or two after my husband’s disappearance, I stopped by her house under the pretext that she hadn’t shown up for her session that week. She opened the door and her entire thought composition exploded with surprise. She thought she’d gotten rid of me. Throughout the uncomfortable cup of coffee with her parents in their parlor, she regarded me with such fear that I didn’t even bring up the idea of her coming to live with me until we were back here in the session room. Although her face was a studied deadpan, she became interested when I started explaining that I had a way for her to get rid of her parents. Over the course of several weeks of sessions, I finally hit upon the right argument: by doing this, she would remain close to Carlos and maybe one day I could arrange a meeting. I don’t usually lie to my clients, but this girl brings out the desperation in me every time. She didn’t have it in her to resist.

I’ve never left the pool of suspect people in her life, but we’ve come to a resting place in our relationship in which I am her benevolent, if untrustworthy, caretaker. She gets a little of the attention she’s starved for and I get an assurance that she isn’t going to rat me out or (this I’m less sure about) go out and disturb other people’s lives. It’s a huge responsibility, not only in the eyes of the law, but morally. Can I help her enough so that the world can be a safe place with her in it?

Emily has learned a lot about psychology as she helps her roommates read and do experiments for their courses. Every once in a while, when they’re doing case studies for an abnormal psych class, I’ll see a little bridge form in her mind. She’s ever so slowly putting the evidence together for herself that her fixation on Carlos is at least unhealthy. But the frequency and graphic nature of her thoughts about him haven’t abated in the least. I have to look away from her to avoid getting dizzy during our daily sessions in the office. My diagnosis of erotomania was correct. Except for Carlos not really being socially superior to Emily, it’s a case that’s all too straightforward.

Carlos obtained his doctorate last year, and moved with his growing family to Nebraska. I’m considering letting Emily attend classes in the fall so that she can finish her degree. I’m not sure, though. Just yesterday, we were making cookies downstairs and, casual as you please, Emily brought out a roll of aluminum foil to line the baking sheet.

“Emily,” I said, trying to hide my panic, “is that some kind of new foil that contains no aluminum?”

She looked at me with a devilish smile, her wide eyes transmitting no thought, only static.

I marched her by the shoulders into the parlor, where I hoped we would be far enough away from my kryptonite. I made her face me. “Diane knows not to buy aluminum. How did you get that foil past her?” I pulled her chin up, but she closed her eyes.

She’s figured out that I need to maintain eye contact.

She squeezed her lids shut until I relented in frustration. I let her finish the cookies with Diane, then I went through the entire kitchen. The foil was the only offensive substance, so I threw it in the dumpster out back and washed my hands thoroughly to relieve the lingering tension in my head.

Torture devices that force the eyes open with metal prongs keep passing through my mind. Are those only a fantasy from the movies? I wonder if I could give Emily a sedative and ease her eyes open once her resistance was down. Would she be able to answer a question in that state, or would I see only dreams full of Carlos?

Otherwise, Diane can apparently get distracted in a shopping environment, so I’ll have to keep Emily home from those outings.

About this notebook and its incriminating evidence: I could wait until winter, light a fire and use it for tinder, but that would fail to honor the journey I, Emily, and even my ex have taken.

There’s a house, not unlike this one, on Atwells Ave. that’s been scheduled for demolition. I had a pretty bad date on Federal Hill last night—he launched into an explanation of a five-tiered program to eradicate people with Talents when I asked him my “filter” question. I was walking back to my car afterward when I saw a pretty teenage firestarter (she wore her Talent on her sleeve) jumping down from this house’s front door. The wooden stairs, which must have had ten or twelve steps, have already rotted away. The firestarter landed on her feet, whipped her hair back, and looked at me as though she was afraid I was going to turn her in. Through the brief eye contact, I saw her experience inside the house: the ancient parlor with the grand fireplace, the flaking paint, and the reams of paper stacked anonymously near a door that leads into the basement. She had left her journal, full of teenage angst and embarrassment, with the knowledge that it would be crushed, bulldozed, raked over, and probably asphalted in a few days’ time. Many of her friends had already sacrificed something similar to the doomed house. They, in turn, had found out about the opportunity to exorcise their demons from a kind teacher at their academy.

So I won’t totally obliterate this notebook, as would happen with incineration (which the firestarter could have supplied more easily than I could). But I will gain anonymity and the security of being buried underground with hundreds if not thousands of other papers like it. No one will ever read these pages again, even though I won’t have erased them or what I’ve learned from them.

It seems a fitting end.

Born and raised in Northern California, Jessica Knauss has wandered all over the United States, Spain, and England. She has worked as a librarian and a Spanish teacher and earned a PhD in medieval Spanish literature before entering the publishing world as an editor. She has published fiction, poetry, and nonfiction in numerous venues.

Her acclaimed novella,
Tree/House
, and short story collection,
Unpredictable Worlds
, are currently available. Her epic of medieval Spain,
Seven Noble Knights
, will be published by Bagwyn Books in December 2016.

Find her on social media and get updates on the sequels to
Awash in Talent
and
Seven Noble Knights
and her other writing at her website:
JessicaKnauss.com
. Feel free to
sign up for her mailing list
for castles, stories, and magic.

Thank you for letting me tell you the story of Emily, Beth, Kelly, and Patricia. I hope you loved (or loved to hate) them as much as I do. If you loved the book and have a moment to spare, I would appreciate a short review on Amazon or Goodreads. Reviews from readers like you make a huge difference in helping new readers find stories like
Awash in Talent
. Your help in spreading the word is vital and I sincerely thank you for it.

Author Jessica Knauss is happy to visit your book club in person or via Skype. Please check out her website, JessicaKnauss.com, to arrange it!

Awash in Talent
has a large cast of characters. Which ones were your favorites? Which were the most sympathetic? Which ones did you love to hate?

Which character do you think is the most Talented? Which is the best human being?

Could you sympathize with each narrator as she shared her story? Did any scenes or characters take you outside your comfort zone?

Which Talent would you choose to have if you could? Which Talent would you never want to have?

Love is an important theme in
Awash in Talent
. Do you think Emily loves her family deep down? Does she really love Carlos? If you were Emily, how would you have approached your one true love?

How would you describe Kelly and Brian’s romance? Can a person fall in love when they’re fourteen years old?

Should it be easier or more difficult for a psychic to fall in love? Do you think Patricia will find someone she can confide in?

What other themes does
Awash in Talent
explore? How are these themes reflected in each novella?

Did you have any preconceived ideas about Providence or Rhode Island before you read
Awash in Talent
? Did the novel change your mind?

What role does the setting play in each character’s life?

In your version of Providence, how would telekinetics, pyrokinetics, and psychics be treated?

If you were trying to avoid your annoying sister, would you invite her to come from 3,000 miles away to live with you? What do you think Emily was trying to accomplish with that move? How did it work out for her?

How do you think Beth feels about being a super rare Other-Talented Healer?

Why do you think Beth reacted so strongly to Carlos living next door?

Why doesn’t Emily want Beth to register and attend the telekinesis school?

Do you think Emily deserves to be where she ended up?

If you were a firestarter, do you think your powers would be strongest when you felt happy, stressed, or angry? How does Kelly’s mental state help or hinder her powers?

How does Kelly’s loyalty to Jill reflect on her feelings toward Raúl?

What is your opinion of Brian? Do you think Kelly should give him another chance?

What do you think Kelly did for the rest of her high school years?

Why do the psychics in this world avoid registering with the government?

Have you ever felt as if friendship is a one-way street?

Given her interactions with Emily, do you think Patricia is a good therapist?

Does Patricia deserve to be happy?

What did the title mean to you by the end of the novel?

Were you satisfied with
Awash in Talent
’s ending?

Did the novel leave any questions open-ended that you would have liked to have known the answer to?

Had you read reviews before reading
Awash in Talent
? If so, did you agree with the reviewers?

If you could ask the author a question, what would it be?