Burdened by her unusual name and wealthy Southern family, she struck out to make it in the literary world, but only made it as far as middle-management at Target. When she receives an invitation to an exclusive writing retreat in Upstate New York, hosted by a successful former lover, she leaves everything for this final chance at success.
Things aren’t entirely what they seem, however. Her ex-boyfriend, Oroitz Bidarte, has his own agenda, and soon Calliope finds herself caught in an elaborate performance she never anticipated. As tension builds between the young writers, their secluded retreat within the idyllic Chautauqua Institution becomes a virtual prison. When sudden tragedy strikes the group, Calliope is forced to choose between her ambitions and her conscience.
The Killing Jar (75,000 words) is a coming-of-age literary novel in the style of Donna Tartt’s The Secret History. Its focus on the thin line between friendship and competition will also appeal to fans of M.L. Rio’s If We Were Villains. Growing up near the Chautauqua Lake, I have experienced first-hand both its beauty and air of secrets only just submerged. It is the perfect setting for a story in which the characters must also consider that which lies beneath the surface.
The morning of the 4th of July dawned bright and dewy, but by eight in the morning, it was already so hot that I could feel the droplets of sweat between my shoulder blades. I was, as always, awake before the others, but they began trickling down the stairs shortly after nine. Aubrey came in to the kitchen, his red hair damp and tousled from the shower.
He smiled at me as I pointed to the full coffee pot. “Does drinking coffee when it’s already above seventy degrees count as an act of insanity?” he asked.
I shrugged. “Probably, but I drank mine iced.”
Aubrey paused for a moment, then returned the mug he was holding to the cupboard and grabbed a glass. “You’re a genius.” The ice made a popping sound as he poured the hot coffee over the cubes. “So, no changes to the grand plan, right? We’re still going to the parade in that town…”
“Warren.” I supplied.
“Right. Warren. But Ro said it’s in Pennsylvania. Isn’t that going to be kind of a long drive?”
I shook my head. I had checked a map earlier, wondering the same thing. “We’re not that far from the border. In fact, the lake is the main source of the Chadakoin River, which eventually drains into the Allegheny River, which then runs right through Warren.”
Aubrey grinned. “So, we could float there in our kayaks?”
“Except that you’d run smack into the dam, smart aleck.”
His grin grew even wider. “Damn.”
I shook my head. “Why don’t you make yourself useful and go dig some lawn chairs out of the shed? Ro said they’re on the left side.”
Aubrey slid open the door to the patio, laughing and still holding his coffee, and I went upstairs to round up the rest of our scatterbrained party. In half an hour, we had loaded the car and wedged Aubrey into the trunk beside the lawn chairs. He was a good sport about it, only grumbling a little as he leaned back on a folded-up quilt, holding his second iced coffee of the day. I rode shotgun while Ro drove, and when I glanced in the rearview mirror, I saw that James and Iris were holding hands in the back seat.
We hadn’t been driving for long when we rounded a corner and saw a small, blue sign welcoming us to Pennsylvania with white block letters. I turned towards the back seat and tapped Iris on the knee. “Welcome to Pennsylvania!”
She smiled. “I’ve never been to Pennsylvania before.”
James looked surprised. “Really? Never?”
“No. I’ve never really left the city.”
Cleo, her face obscured by a large pair of sunglasses and ears plugged with headphones, murmured, “What a shame it would’ve been to miss all these fascinating trees.”
In defense of our national forests, Aubrey silently plucked an ice cube from his coffee and dropped it down the back of Cleo’s tank top. The back seat erupted in shrieks.
We drove for nearly an hour, following the line of the Conewango Creek as it wound through forests and farmland, winking at us, all blue and silver, through the gaps in the trees. Finally, we rounded a bend and drove into the city of Warren.
We sat idly, stuck in the 4th of July traffic that was crowding streets clearly not designed to accommodate so many vehicles when James spoke. He was holding his phone. “Warren, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1795. Population 9, 710 at the last census. Notable figures…”
“None.” Cleo said. I remembered that she’d drunk rather heavily the night before.
James continued as if she hadn’t interrupted. “We have a U.S. Representative, an NFL player, and…huh.”
“What?” Iris asked.
James raised his eyebrows. “A founding member of a German terrorist group.”
“Oh, God. We’re officially in the Twilight Zone.” Cleo groaned.
“She only attended high school here for a year in the 50s.” James added, his voice calm and reasonable.
“Thank you for that clarification, James. I feel ever so much better now.” Cleo replied. James looked confused and I could hear Aubrey’s muffled laughter coming from the back.
Ro parked on a back street lined with slightly weathered houses, their sagging front porches adorned with American flags and children’s toys. Loaded with lawn chairs, an old quilt, and a cooler, we joined the crowd flowing toward the parade route. We walked for what felt like miles before we found an open place to sit. All along the road—Pennsylvania Avenue—there were lines of lawn chairs, roped together like an especially social crime scene. The people sitting in them had the possessive look of someone prepared to fight to the death for their two square feet of sidewalk. We ended up on the grassy berm beside a CVS parking lot, and Iris soon kicked off her sandals and spread the quilt over the parched and crunchy grass.
Aubrey unfolded a lawn chair and gestured for me to sit. “Here.”
“Oh, I can get my own.”
“Callie, sit. Chill.” He pressed my shoulders lightly and I sat.
“What a gentleman we are this morning!”
Aubrey bowed theatrically and shook another chair open beside me. He plopped into it and the red canvas creaked in protest. “Hey, I don’t suppose you’ve got any snacks in that cooler of yours?”
I laughed and pushed the cooler toward him with my foot. “Snacks? You just ate breakfast an hour ago!”
Aubrey was already digging into the bag. “It’s a parade. You have to have snacks at a parade.”
Ro sank into his chair on my other side and brushed his hair, wild in the humidity, away from his sweaty forehead. “I never went to a parade until I came to the U.S. My college roommate invited me to visit his family over the summer, so they took me to a Fourth of July parade. It was the first I’d ever seen.” He paused, a half smile on his lips. “That’s also when I drank my first Bud Light.”
“Eugh.” Aubrey made a face. “On behalf of my county, I apologize.”
Ro laughed. “I survived. And it seemed like the patriotic thing to do.”
James, sitting stiffly on the blanket beside Iris, said, “I’m from Pittsburgh. If they catch you drinking Bud Light, they throw a Yuengling bottle at your head. Or Iron City, if they’re feeling fancy.”
Aubrey snorted. “Or PBR if they’re hipsters.”
“And what garbage are they swilling in Cleveland, pray tell?” James shot back.
Aubrey shrugged. “Whatever’s on sale.”
Ro was laughing, his smile white in the blindingly bright sun, and I thought that I had never seen him so at ease, so happy. He saw me watching him and his eyes crinkled in affection. Poking me, he asked, “And what do they drink in the mountains of Georgia, Callie? Bathtub gin?”
“I haven’t a clue. I don’t drink.”
Cleo raised her sunglasses to peer at me more closely. “But, like, what do they have at high school house parties?”
I shrugged. “Dunno.” They all were looking at me, dumbfounded, except Aubrey, who was smiling faintly, and Ro, who was struggling to crack open a pistachio. I felt my cheeks burning, but I hoped I could pass my embarrassment off as sunburn. “I didn’t go out a lot. But my town had a big parade like this, only ours was for Memorial Day. My mom never went, but my dad and Grandma Stella always took me. We’d pack tea and fried chicken, and sit on the curb and watch the whole thing. My dad always stood for every flag. So did Grandma Stella, but she did it to be patriotic. I think Dad did it because he was running for office and wanted people to see how patriotic he was.” I stopped abruptly, feeling like I’d said too much.
I was intensely grateful when Aubrey jumped in. “Oh man, my dad was a stickler about that. Stand up, hats off, full salute. And he’d whack me and my brothers with his Browns cap if he thought we were goofing around. He could do twenty minutes on flag etiquette. It was humiliating.”
“Hey, at least your parents didn’t buy Catholic saint votive candles at the grocery store and line them up on top of the TV. I felt like they were judging me, so I turned them toward the wall whenever I watched MTV.” Iris said.
Our laughter at Iris’ remarks faded into a companionable silence. Aubrey squinted thoughtfully and looked at me. “I think maybe that’s a parent’s job—to give you just enough quirks to make you interesting without completely screwing you up.”
Well,” I replied, “that’s a fine line.”
Aubrey nodded sagely and popped the tab on a Dr. Pepper. “A fine line indeed.”
Even after I saw where Ro had laid her body—on a tarp in the garage, wrapped in a sheet--I still wasn’t able to comprehend the magnitude of the change that had overtaken us. It was simple math. Six minus one equals five. But I still couldn’t make sense of it. She was gone, and we…we remained.
I found Ro standing in the kitchen. All the lights were on and they gleamed coldly against the veined granite countertop. I couldn’t help staring at his hands, searching for some sign of what we’d been through, but they were clean and soft against the unforgiving stone. Flecks of mica glittered between Ro’s fingers, winking on and off like microscopic strobe lights.
I stood in the doorway for a long time before he spoke. “Are you going to come in or not?”
Walking into the kitchen, I leaned against the opposite side of the island and tried to think of something to say. The lines were sunken deep on Ro’s forehead, etched in sunburnt craters. My fingers had traced those lines, not so long ago, when they were feathery inclusions in the soft skin, before they crumbled into fissures. Ro’s dark hair was disheveled, and the white strands in it seemed to multiply under the stark light.
His voice was hoarse. “Say something, for God’s sake.”
“I don’t know what to say.” I murmured. For the first time, he looked up at me, and his face was expressionless except for a tightness around the eyes. I had to clear my throat. “I didn’t know she had a gun.”
“I did.”
“You…you did.”
Ro pushed his hands through his hair. “Well, I didn’t know she had it. But it was mine.”
“I don’t understand.” I started to shake, clenching my teeth together to keep them from chattering. My jaw began to hurt, a tight ache pulsing into my temples.
Ro shrugged one shoulder and put his hands back on the counter. His fingertips were white, and left condensation against the dark stone. Beside him, a pile of envelopes lay neglected. Electric bill. Subscription renewal notice for Argia. We at NPR need your support. Ro said, “For protection. I never used it.”
Protection. And what exactly was supposed to protect us from this?
I took a deep breath and asked, “How did she find it?”
“I don’t know. And I don’t see how it matters. She’s dead, and it’s my gun. The blood’s on my floor. And it’s my damn mess.” I flinched and Ro sneered. “You can quit flinching every time someone swears, Callie. We have a dead body in the garage. I hardly think strong language is a pressing concern.”
My cheeks felt hot, contrasting sharply with the numbness spreading from my fingers upward. I wondered, in some serene corner of my mind, what would happen if it continued to spread. Snaked its way past my elbows, twined across my shoulders, and nestled in my chest. Maybe it would numb the queasy ache I felt there every time I remembered…
…talking with Aubrey on the deck and then the crack, like fireworks, and running down the endless hallway then someone screaming and realizing, realizing it was me…
Ro wrapped his arms around me, my chin pressed uncomfortably into his shoulder. His body smelled like sharp and sour. “This is not how things were supposed to go,” he whispered into my neck. I was seized with the sudden, inexplicable urge to laugh and had to bite down on my lip until I tasted blood. Ro continued, “I wanted us to make a difference, to show the world that literature matters—that stories matter—even if they’re not a part of this pre-packaged, instant-gratification, McDonalds society we’re living in. And we could’ve done it, changed things. Maybe…maybe we still can.”
I drew back. “How do you mean?”
Ro’s eyes had the wild, zealous look I recognized from old preachers I’d grown up with in Georgia. Blue lightning, crackling, grounding itself in sweat-gnarled pews. It’s a dangerous thing, passion.
Ro gripped my arms. “We can still do this. No one has to know.”
“Ro, how…?”
He had a faraway look in his eyes that made the bottom drop out of my stomach. “Did you know Chautauqua is a glacial lake? Carved out by the glaciers retreating after the last ice age. It’s been here long before us, and will be here long after.” A twisted smile distorted his features. “I think Iris would’ve liked that.”
“Ro, don’t.” I clutched the front of his shirt and, for the first time, felt tears burning behind my eyes. “I can’t do this. Don’t make me do this. Please.”
He kissed my forehead and pulled my hands away from his chest. “Just go get the others. We need to talk.”
“Ro…” His eyes blazed as he stared, unseeing, past me. I bit my lip and left the kitchen, my blind, bare feet scuffing across the darkened hallway floor.
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