Before You Knew My Name, Jacqueline Bublitz [best book club books for discussion txt] 📗

so that his whole body looks like fireflies as he walks toward her this warm June night.

They greet Noah as if he is a long-lost friend. Nobody minds the sticky floor and the uneven chairs and the distracted barman watching his game. These five members of Death Club—six if you count Franklin, lying at Noah’s feet—are simply glad to have found each other. Dotted around the table, they look like a constellation, and I trace the pattern they make, memorise it. Knowing, as hours pass, as they glow brighter, that something is changing this night. They are talking about me in different tones, mystery and urgency has been replaced by sadness, poignancy. If I had lived … but I did not. I was murdered down by a river while I was going about my life, loving the sky and the rain and Noah and this newfound feeling I might get to have a happy life, after all.

(If I can make it there. And I so very nearly did.)

I think I understand. That they no longer wonder who I am. Tonight, they get to remember me, instead.

So, what happens next? It is Noah who poses the question, as I knew he eventually would.

Where do the dead go? Are they lost to us, or are they still there—here—with us, now?

‘Can both be true?’ Sue asks in response, thinking of Lisa, and those rare, beautiful times she has returned to her mother in dreams. I am not the only one, it seems, who shows up in this way. As I consider this, I catch a glimpse of Lisa herself. Somewhere not too far from here. She is willowy, beautiful, and though I cannot be sure, it looks as though she is holding out her hand.

Something is changing this night.

‘Well, basic physics tells us that energy is constant,’ Noah responds in that familiar, easy way of his. ‘It can neither be created nor destroyed; it simply changes state, finds its expression elsewhere. Thinking about it that way, every atom of Alice has always existed. Always, in one form or another. This means she’s everywhere now, not just the one place, as we are.’

The idea that I don’t have to choose. That I can leave and still be here at the same time. I feel the tension of my existence start to slacken.

I look at Ruby, salt tears tracking down her cheeks as she considers Noah’s words. She has her own choice to make, I know. Whether to leave New York, or set down roots, stay. We arrived here the same night, we left the same things behind, and we have both spun past where we used to be. Perhaps, I want to say to her now, the decisions we make next won’t really matter. If you remember to look up, you’ll see the sky changes anyway, even when you think you’re standing still.

The world keeps turning. Go or stay, Ruby—we are both already somewhere new.

I should not be surprised at this next part. The feeling of my mother’s hands in my hair. The members of Death Club are discussing science, and heaven, and the times they are certain they have heard us—the dead—whispering to them.

‘I’ve so often felt she was here with me, just out of sight,’ Ruby says, and I feel as if I am dissolving, only this time I don’t fight it. It is like falling asleep after the longest, loveliest day.

It’s getting late. Drinks are scattered across the table, and the bartender has put on a playlist of soul classics, at just the right volume. Sam Cooke. Al Green. Marvin. Aretha. Otis—‘Try A Little Tenderness’—is next. Down by the river, water laps at a rainbow of brightly coloured roses, as gentle waves pick them up and carry them toward the open sea.

We do get wearied. Girls like me.

Josh reaches for Ruby’s hand, and the sky changes yet again.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

HERE WE ARE.

First and foremost, thank you to the amazing women who made this possible: my agent and ultimate HW, Cara Lee Simpson, and my publishers, Jane Palfreyman and Darcy Nicholson. You have changed my life. For good.

My gratitude to Thalia Proctor, Sophie Wilson and Christa Munns for the editorial guidance from afar, and to the team at ANA for helping Alice Lee travel the world. To her past, present, and future champions at Allen & Unwin, Sphere/Little, Brown, and beyond: Thank you for being our village.

So. Much. Love to my family: My mum, who gave me the gift of stories and grand obsessions. Karena, Tanya, Shane and Jodee, who helped grow me up. My in-laws for joining the dance. And my remarkable nieces and nephews. You are my pride, and my joy.

A special shout-out to my bookend, Karena, who is always right there with me in the arena, and Keith, whose generosity in all things wine and wisdom has kept me sane.

So many dear friends and workmates have helped shape this book. Know that I am deeply grateful to you all. With extra-special thanks to: Stef Bongiovanni, Laura Bracegirdle, Karen Lovell, Claire Amelia Graham and Vail Joy for reading this story when it was still just bones. Jessica Lewis for giving me my start. Susan Witten, who does the real work. Jacqueline Taylor for making Manhattan(s) feel like home. Simone Turkington for the magic. And my safest of havens every step of the way, Stacey Lemon, Paw Paw, Brock, Aaron Beckhouse, Lindsay ‘L.K.B’ Andrew, Chris Sullivan, Sonya Cole, Inez Carey, Michael ‘Beth’ Buttrey, Conrad Browne and Clinton Bermingham—I could not do this (life) without you.

Kisses to Nippy and Ruby, my constants through the toughest of times.

Biggest love to my Little One and very first reader, Sophie Allan.

And lastly, to Johnny B, who taught me to go hardest in the straight. I had to learn how to find you again, Dad. Turns out you were right here at the finish line, cheering me home. I love you.

Table of Contents

COVER PAGE

PRAISE

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

TITLE PAGE

COPYRIGHT PAGE

DEDICATION

CONTENTS

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

THIRTEEN

FOURTEEN

FIFTEEN

SIXTEEN

SEVENTEEN

EIGHTEEN

NINETEEN

TWENTY

TWENTY-ONE

TWENTY-TWO

TWENTY-THREE

TWENTY-FOUR

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS