Working Title

by Holley Trent

  Is she fucking joking?

  “I’m starting to wonder if you’re okay,” he said with a burst of manic laughter. “Seriously. Are you okay? Because you’re saying that out loud to the person who has the most to lose.” And the worst part was that she could be successful if she persisted. He didn’t have nearly enough conceit to think otherwise. She was strange and incredibly intelligent. She’d figured out how to make Lisa talk and to smile while she did it. Of course Lisa would find her interesting.

  “Oh, I’m not insensitive to your plight.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “I’m very aware of it. I’m simply choosing, for once, to put my needs ahead of someone else’s.”

  “And what are your needs, Finch, huh? What is it that you’ve suddenly decided that you need hours after arriving at my girlfriend’s place of business?”

  “Companionship is a real need. Maybe it’s easy for you to forget how necessary touch is or to be looked at or listened to because you can go anywhere and have people pay attention to you. You don’t even have to try. Your prospects are limitless. It’s not like that for me. On the rare occasion someone hits all the right buttons to make me sit up straight and pay attention, the personality fit isn’t always right. And I’ve become an expert at figuring that out quickly. I get hurt less that way. You don’t know how frustrating it is to finally be the object of someone’s focus only to learn that you’re not vibrating on the same frequency and that no matter how hard you try and no matter how lovely”—she made air quotes around the word “lovely”—“they think you are, it is never, ever going to work.”

  “Why do you say lovely like that? Why do you say it like it’s an insult?”

  “Not an insult, but it feels like a lie sometimes, as you can imagine.”

  He could imagine.

  Contrary to what she might think, he could imagine perfectly well what a lie couched in a compliment felt like. After all, he worked in publishing where egos were bought and sold just as often as books were, but no one ever talked about that. No one ever tallied up the human costs.

  He was unsure of why he even sympathized about her connection failures. She certainly didn’t deserve his pity, but he couldn’t help being curious. He had to understand what it was about her that had earned Lisa’s patience and gaze when what he was getting basically amounted to the door.

  “What is it about her that makes you so bold?” He had to ask because he didn’t think Finch was going to give him any slack in their detente. She’d laid her entire war plan out for him, and he didn’t doubt for one moment that she wouldn’t proceed as intended. It was what she’d said about frequencies. He certainly knew what finding that perfect connection was like in the wild and never wanting to move away from the person emitting it.

  That was why he was in that cabin—because Lisa was supposed to be there.

  “I’m certain I can’t make you understand.” Finch sidled to the door, stepped out of her shoes, draped her hand atop the doorknob, and gave Joey a sidelong look.

  He could take a hint.

  He left.

  Not that he thought he was done with her and her interfering.

  Not by a long shot.

  If she wanted a competition, he’d give her one, despite her long odds.

  She was late to the race. Meanwhile, he already knew the course.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Finch didn’t know where Lisa kept her dog. She only hoped that wherever the hound was, it wouldn’t peg her as an intruder and bark its head off.

  She just needed a little protein. Her stomach felt like it was trying to twist itself inside out. That gnawing sensation was an unwelcome side effect of a short-term medication she was taking.

  Closing the rec room door softly behind her, she said a silent prayer of thanks that the bells mounted at the entrance didn’t clatter too loudly.

  The snack bin and mini-refrigerator were situated on the opposite side of the vast room, next to the bookcase filled with board games and fiction paperbacks. If her memory of the resort offerings served her correctly, there were things like cheese sticks and boiled eggs in there.

  Toeing off her shoes, she plotted the most direct route to the appliance.

  Three steps into her plan, however, the overhead lights crackled, hummed, and then popped on with the ferocity of an overfilled balloon exploding.

  Instinctively, she covered her eyes and backed toward the door, forgetting she’d left her shoes there.

  “Damn it all to hell!” she shouted as her ass hit the hardwood floor hard.

  Lisa hurried out of the back office with a wrapping paper tube in one hand and a pair of scissors held in a weapon-like grip in the other. “What the—”

  Her gaze fell to Finch on the floor.

  Finch covered her face again. “God. This is humiliating.”

  “What happened? Are you all right?”

  Lisa’s footsteps were quick and efficient.

  The sweet smell of lotion or hair balms announced her close proximity to Finch.

  Finch sat there in her shame, inhaling deeply the aroma—trying to get her fill of it before her nose became desensitized to it.

  “I’m fine,” she said into her kneecaps. “Just frightened by the lights coming on.”

  Lisa’s laugh came out in a quick gust against the side of Finch’s face. “I just got that sensor installed a few weeks ago. Still trying to calibrate it. The rec room is theoretically open twenty-four hours, so I wanted there to be energy-efficient lighting. Sorry if it made you feel like a burglar.”

  “I definitely feel like a burglar.” In more than one way, actually. It was Finch’s turn to laugh as she let her hands fall from her face. She risked taking a look at Lisa.

  If Lisa had one of those patronizing, pitying looks on her face, Finch was going to crawl on her hands and knees straight to Outcastsville—no detours, no rest stops, no return trip.

  There was no pity on her face, though. Just what seemed to be curiosity.

  “I just wanted cheese,” Finch said in practically a whisper. She was still trying to make sense of the hash she was making of the Be the Better Option contest. “My medication gives me hunger pangs.”

  “Ah.” Lisa straightened up to her full height and tossed the paper roll toward the desk. She tucked the scissors beneath her waistband and extended her other hand to Finch. “I keep the good stuff in the office. Come on.”

  Finch scrambled to her feet with as much grace as she could manage. “This feels somewhat illicit now.”

  “Yeah, good cheese should always have that effect on people.”

  The office was much larger than Finch expected.

  Stunned, she lingered in the doorway and tried to take in the expanse of the room all at once.

  Her shock at the discovery must have been evident on her face because Lisa laughed and gave Finch’s dangling jaw a lifting caress.

  The office was nearly the size of her classroom back in fifth grade.

  “Yeah, I get that reaction from a lot of folks. You’d assume this space is smaller because of the way the greenhouse wraps around the side of this building. The footprint of the greenhouse is actually smaller than it looks. It’s tall, but this room bumps out into the back wall of it.”

  “I imagine a large staff area was necessary back when the place was still running as a camp. They needed to have more personnel to keep track of all those kids.”

  “You’re right.” Lisa crooked her thumb toward a big black-and-white, poster-sized portrait of the 1970s-era staff mounted over the water cooler.

  There had to be several dozen people standing on those bleachers.

  “If I ever end up with that many employees, I don’t know what I’ll do with myself,” Lisa said with a laugh. “I had no idea how much of my job description would entail human resources duties.”

  “I imagine that’s typical of young businesses,” Finch mused. “At least the ones that aren’t backed by venture capitalists.”

&nb
sp; In addition to the two desks with computers, there were also two mismatched sofas, four pine bookcases crowded with spare electronics, and a kitchenette. The room was large but somehow managed to be cozy and welcoming.

  Lisa made a beeline for the refrigerator and waved Finch over. “Help yourself. I’ve got a huge cheese medley in here that someone dropped off.”

  “For an event?”

  “No. Just a gift.”

  “Cheese makes an interesting gift.” Finch immediately spotted the tray on the middle shelf. It took up the entire rack and there appeared to be every color and texture of cheese known to man on top of it.

  Pondering which of the saints she should thank for that delectable collection of salt and fat, she clasped her hand over her heart.

  Heaps better than mozzarella sticks.

  Lisa snorted. “Yeah, well, the person who gave it to me is an interesting lady. I swear, courtship was much different when I was living in the city. No one ever one brought me dairy products there. Just bullshit.”

  Finch paused mid-lift with the tray, brain spinning a multitude of theories and liking none of them.

  Normally, Finch might have pulled away and changed course at the mere hint that something she wanted might be impossible to obtain.

  The odds were stacked against her so much, but that never stopped mediocre men from getting what they wanted. For once in her life, she was going to keep pushing and try to shake something good out of a roadblock.

  “I…wouldn’t bring you cheese.” Finch pulled the tray the rest of the way out of the fridge and bumped the door closed with her hip. “I’d probably bring you a small plant of some sort. A succulent, maybe.”

  “Are you kidding? I would love a succulent. My grandma used to have a massive collection of them. Whenever any of the kids traveled, they’d find her a plant. A lot of the times, they’d bring cuttings in from Mexico in their suitcases and not declare them. Don’t tell TSA.”

  Certainly, Finch heard everything that came after “I would love…” but her joy over that long-shot effort of flirting getting her anywhere at all had her too giddy to process it all.

  “You should bring me a plant the next time you come.” Lisa climbed onto a stool and opened a cabinet high over the stand holding the laser printers. There was a tease in her smile, but it wasn’t the kind that said “Just kidding.” It was the kind that said “I dare you.”

  Finch was feeling unusually daring.

  “When should I come?” she asked.

  “Some weekend when the weather’s nice. The stargazing out here is amazing.” Lisa lifted a box of fancy crackers from the cache and hopped down.

  The two of them out in the elements on a blanket, staring up at the sky sounded like pure bliss to Finch. “I’ve never stargazed before, but I’ll try to sound intelligent.”

  “No need to,” Lisa said. “Just sitting with me is enough. But, you know, you can tell me I’m pretty and stuff, too. That always adds a certain enchantment to a visit.”

  Finch would since Joey obviously wasn’t. She would absolutely tell Lisa she was pretty and then just shut up and watch the stars track across the sky. She wanted Lisa to complain about not being able to see Finch’s face again and to sweep Finch’s hair back because she wanted to look.

  Lisa looked at her like she approved of what she saw.

  “It gets lonely as fuck out here sometimes,” Lisa said in a voice that was almost too quiet to hear. “Everley used to come up, but she’s tied down now. I’m not used to that.”

  “Being lonely?”

  “Is that weird?”

  Finch shrugged, but she did think it was a little strange that a woman Lisa’s age would be unfamiliar with solitude. Finch and solitude were bosom buddies.

  Lisa set the crackers down beside the massive cheese tray and fetched fruit from the refrigerator. “It was always go-go-go with me, from the time I was a little kid. There were always more things to do, things to learn, people to talk to. I guess until I moved out here and was forced to have to wait for things, I didn’t pay much attention to whether or not I was by myself.”

  “You have staff.”

  Lisa huffed and found them plates. “Yes, staff, but not really peers, you know? You can’t tell your hired help all your business.”

  “Tell me if you’d like.” Please, tell me. “I won’t tattle to the TSA or anyone else for that matter.”

  That slow grin Lisa put on when her attention was completely undivided, completely focused on someone, was something like a burning bush. In the back of Finch’s mind, she suspected she shouldn’t look directly at it for risk of searing her eyes or damning herself. But it seemed rude to look away from—like she’d be refusing a blessing of some sort.

  “Sweetheart, I want to, but if I start spilling the messy bits,” Lisa said, “five minutes in, you’d run screaming.”

  “I don’t believe that.” Finch helped herself to some soft white cheese and piled a few flaxseed crackers onto her plate. “How bad could it be if you didn’t scare Joey off? I can’t imagine he likes for his love interests to be the difficult sorts.”

  Finch could hardly believe those words had tumbled out of her mouth. Apparently, her tongue was running faster than her brain was at the moment, and there was no way she couldn’t pretend Lisa hadn’t heard.

  And this is why you let your siblings do all the talking for you. So stupid.

  “Yeah, you’d be surprised, I guess,” Lisa said softly. There was no anger in her tone, just resignation, and a little something else. It may have been a yearning to just get past whatever history had wrought, but Finch, in her newfound selfishness, may have merely been projecting.

  “Can you have wine with whatever the med is you’re taking?” Lisa asked. “I’ve got an open bottle of red. Popped the cork a week ago. Wanted to finish it before it goes all foul.”

  Finch nodded and sliced off another hunk of cheese. If she were lucky, a bit of alcohol would let her get loose and breathe normally. No one could carry on a coherent conversation if their body was all tense in that Just Before the Rollercoaster Falls mode. “I hope I’m not keeping you up.”

  “I was up anyway, wrapping gifts I need to get into the mail in the next couple of days. I didn’t hear you open the outer door because I had my headphones on. Bruce sent me some snippets from the new show he’s writing for. He wanted a reality check from me before he let Everley or Raleigh hear, I guess.”

  “Bruce?” There was only one Bruce that Finch knew in her immediate network who had anything to do with Everley Shannon or Raleigh McKean. “You mean Bruce Engle?”

  The former rock star had transitioned from screaming dramatic ballads to writing musicals. He and his ex-band had their final tour’s exclusive companion book out through Athena. It sold pretty well, but Finch suspected that had to do with the fact that the female eighteen-to-forty demographic really appreciated that picture of the band, but notably Bruce, on the cover. He was dead center with his guitar slung over his shoulder and a very visible happy trail terminating beneath his tight jeans.

  Lisa dragged a hand down her face and then stared, seemingly unseeing, at the wine bottle she held. “Shit. Okay. Well. See, this is what happens when you haven’t had anyone around to tell all your business to. You forget the things that were supposed to be secrets.”

  “You’ve already told me your family smuggles plants into the country,” Finch proffered. “If it makes you feel better, I’ll give you some of my family’s dirt. When the collection plate goes around at Sunday service, my father makes change with the bills, but never actually puts anything in. He doesn’t agree with the causes the church supports.”

  “So why does he still go?”

  “My mother makes him. She’s not necessarily in agreement with the causes, either, but she’s more vocal. She says that if she’s going to put money into the basket, she’s buying the right to complain about how it’s spent. Sometimes, she’s gotten them to change their minds. She can be quite�
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  Finch chewed thoughtfully, pondering how best to explain her mother to an Alice family outsider. Tact was pointless. Eventually, everyone figured out the truth on their own. “My mother is a bulldozer who wears knitted cardigans and flat shoes with orthopedic inserts. She loves baby Jesus, but she’ll curse you out if she thinks that’s the medicine you need, and I’m fairly certain she’s stopped going to confession about it. She says she’s too old for remorse and will tell you in seventy words to go fuck yourself without losing track of how many spoons of sugar she’s put into her coffee.”

  Finch always rolled her eyes whenever one of her authors described a “litany of expressions flitting across” someone’s face because real people simply didn’t process the things that they’d heard that quickly. Apparently, she was going to have to eat crow because she saw it.

  Lisa’s expressions had absolutely skipped rapidly from active-listener, to shock, to confusion, to reserved appreciation.

  The fact that Lisa would appreciate Martha Alice’s Catholic brand of fuck-you was a clear enough sign, in Finch’s opinion, that they should marry immediately.

  “She sounds like my grandma,” Lisa said. “But my grandma was Baptist. All the little kids at church were afraid of her, but she always bought their damned raffle tickets whenever they came around for their fundraisers.”

  “My mother taught me to keep a secret,” Finch said quietly. She wanted all of Lisa’s words and none of her reservations.

  I’m safe. Can’t you see?

  Not like him.

  She took a long sip of her wine and met Lisa’s warm gaze over the top of her glass. She wanted to know all of Lisa’s secrets. Every single one of them, except perhaps the ones that had to do with a certain publicist. She’d heard enough about him.

  “You make spilling all my secrets seem so tempting, Finch.”

  “Do I?” Finch asked with genuine curiosity. Tempting and Finch were words she loved hearing in the same sentence, and certainly when delivered in such a slow and captivating lilt.

  Lisa’s lips quirked at one corner. “Oh, come on. I bet everyone curls up on your sofa and says way too much to you just to keep you in the room.”