Black Sheep - A Novel Excerpt

That afternoon was special.

When things were falling apart, there were miraculous days between us of exquisite and suffering beauty.

On those afternoons, we were better than the best and I felt like nothing had changed. I believed that the chaos had made us stronger; that he loved me more than anything. These days were bright spots in the darkness that descended upon us. They were moments of hope that I clung to, proof that everything was okay.

The harder he made it, the more determined I was to need him.

Black Sheep - A Novel Excerpt

Fifteen minutes later, he brings us gin.

By this point, we have gone over that although Andrew and I are going to break up, we haven’t yet. Or more, this is how I have lied to him. I lie to people not by omission or by statements, but by varying degrees of confidence. I have acted like I am certain we will break up but I am not.

I have never been certain of anything in my life.


“He thinks I shouldn’t go and talk to people about my Dad. That it will fuck me up and that I need to get out of Toronto. That I have to think about my career.”

The gin and tonic hit the glass together and it’s all I care about.

“You always wished I was more supportive of your career.”

I’ve aged a hundred years since being with him. A thousand years. Roles shift through us. I feel like a fifty year old man, drunk, who waked shoeless to his high school football field that is still around the corner from his house, propelled by nostalgia. Pathetic. Sad, how did it go so wrong?

I want to be anywhere but here.

“I know.”

“You two didn’t break up, did you?”

“I don’t know.”

He puts on Cosmic Dancer by T-Rex. He holds me close to him and we sway, naked.

“We were dancing when we were twelve,” I say and he laughs.

We spend the rest of the night getting drunk and laughing until we cry about the summer I was sixteen and my Dad trapped raccoons. He caught thirty-two, released them into the wild, a ravine around the corner, convinced they wouldn't return. I’d never seen him happier.

“You know I see him, right? That I have visions like he did?”

Mike doesn’t move.

“Do you think I’m crazy?” I ask.

“No. I think this is hard.” He loves me.

“They’re becoming more real.”

“How does that make you feel?”

“Reckless.”

He takes my hand and places it on his stomach and then he puts his hand on my stomach. This scene is familiar and it fills me with dread.

“Do you think I should go talk to everyone I want to?”

“You should do what you want to. You need to do what you have to,” he tells me.

“What if I don’t like what I find out?”

“That’s a risk you take, I guess. Are you happy with him?”
 He asks like they are not two separate statements.

“I don’t trust myself to assess anything right now.”

“Is he happy with you?”


I don’t make him happy. I’ve ruined every man I’ve ever loved. What's haunting is that they are so convinced I am the cure.

“He wants to be,” I tell Mike.

“I heard a quote the other day. You’re only smart if you know how to make yourself happy.”

“I’m pretty fucking stupid, then, aren’t I?”

He shakes his head, and pulls me closer against him. He is so tall that I can feel my ribs digging into his lower abdomen. He is mine completely.

“Do you think it’s possible to love more than one person at once?” I ask him.

“No.”

He is so certain. I have a never felt worse.

“The thing about performance, even if it’s only an illusion, is that it is a celebration of the fact that we do contain within ourselves infinite possibilities.”

Daniel Day Lewis

You Are Talking To God Now

"I always base everyone I write on a real person."

He had asked me to meet him for lunch. "When you're back in Toronto, come by the office so I can give you a squeeze." He always says that, give you a squeeze.

I met him after an audition and I walked quickly against the cold I didn't like.

"It's May! Why is it so cold?"

"You got me, doll." He always calls me doll.

"How are things?"

"Good. Great. It's getting busy in Toronto."

We sat in the corner of a cafe, on the second floor and overlooked Yonge Street. The waiter hovered and his eyes liked my dress, but we sat laughing.

Laughing exhausted him, I could tell.

"All he needs, right now, is Advil for the pain," is what our friend told me over the phone yesterday.

I ordered a Greek salad with chicken because I like routines. My life has no order so I ask for the same item at every restaurant, my vague and desperate attempt at sameness, predictability.

"And for you, sir?" the waiter asked him as he looked at me.

He didn't respond.

"Do you know what you want?" I asked him as I touched his hand.

He looked up at me and then, the menu, confused, like he didn't recognize anything being offered, like he didn't know my face, like he couldn't read the letters beneath him.

"I'll have the same."

He was sick. I should have known.

Looking back, there are always signs. They get heavy with the atmosphere of knowledge, they slip away and slide before you, teasing. They whisper, outlined with permanent marker, "You knew I was here all along."

"The discovery that heartbreak is indeed heartbreaking consoles us about our humanity."

We ate, fast or slow, I can't remember. We talked about my career.

"She said you go so deep into everything, like it was a bad thing. It's not a bad thing."

I felt a giant relief, like maybe everything would be okay. I felt so happy to be sitting with him. I think he was happy to be sitting with me, too.

"I woke up this morning, Katie, and I had the most beautiful feeling that you are going to get that movie. You are going to be shooting that movie next week."

"From your lips to God's ears."

Apparently, that day, his lips did have God's ears. If only my lips could have God's ears now.

This was the last time everything was still the same and somewhere, looking back, we both knew that, while not knowing it at all. The strangeness, beauty, tragedy of the world is that you both never know a thing and have always known everything. All along.

"Everything's going to be okay, doll. I just know it."

I hugged him goodbye outside the office and he hugged me back. I told him I loved him. I don't know that he heard me.

Meet Me In Montauk

"I thought maybe you were a nut, but you were exciting."

Come back and make up a goodbye, at least. Let's pretend we had one.