Writing Mr. Right

by Wright, Michaela

“Reminds me of the first time she set foot in Scotland, wouldn’t you say, Sam?”

  Georgia and Sam both groaned. “Oh god, Dad. What kind of segue was that?”

  “Don’t. Don’t do it, Dad,” Sam said, shaking her head into her third glass of wine.

  Truman ignored them both and broke out into his favorite story to tell about a young Georgia Kilduff.

  We took the girls, Diana and I, to Edinburgh when they were very young. Georgia was eight, I believe, and Sam was four. We went in August, which is the time of year when they have their big celebrations – the fireworks and the tattoo. Men in kilts and full uniform, marching and piping away outside the castle. Well naturally, we had to see it. So we trudge our way up to the Castle, making our way through the crowds. Well, as we’re getting close, Diana turns around, and Georgia’s gone. Disappeared.

  “Great parenting, clearly,” Sam said, hushed so only Georgia could hear her.

  She naturally begins to panic, and the two of us cart poor Sam around, calling Georgia’s name over the crowd. Took us fifteen minutes to find her. Georgia here is tucked into a corner of a building on the Royal Mile, comforting this wailing little Scottish boy. So, I’m ready to scold her for running off, but Diana is just ecstatic to find her, so she runs over and starts giving hugs and kisses.

  Georgia took a deep breath, willing herself patient. This was the fortieth time she’d heard this story told.

  Turns out this little boy has lost his parents, and is absolutely beside himself, tears streaming down his face. And Georgia is comforting him, of course. Tells him she’ll wait with him until his Daddy comes, that everything is going to be ok. Now, I understand why she ran away, but before I can get to her to explain that running off wasn’t the best way to handle the situation, this friendly policeman arrives.

  Sam leaned it. “You can tell this is his favorite part.”

  He comes over to her and this little boy, offers to help him find his parents. The policeman tries to take the boy’s hand from Georgia, and the poor kid blows a gasket. Wailing in abject terror, clinging to Georgia for dear life. Of course, policeman is just trying to do his job, so he tries again to grab the kid. Georgia is trying to explain to this man, ‘He can’t leave. We have to stay in one place. He can’t leave,’ as this poor little boy is just screaming. Finally, the police officer loses his patience, grabs the kid by the wrist and starts pulling him off of Georgia. Well, Georgia hauled out and kicked that cop in the shin so hard, it nearly brought him to the ground.

  Georgia groaned. “I didn’t kick him.”

  No one was listening to her. Her father knew how to command a room, and he loved to do it with this very story.

  Now, the little boy’s father appear and a second later, he’s thanked us and carted his traumatized child down the Royal Mile and out of sight. I start trying to smooth things over with this poor policeman, but I swear - if she’d been any older, he might’ve carted her to Scottish jail. I do my best to smooth things over with the policeman, all while Georgia continues to glare at the poor bastard. I think he was afraid she’d come back for more.

  He paused to let the room laugh.

  Oddly enough, she’s been in love with Scotland ever since.

  The room gave their polite smiles, and chided her gently as she moved along the far wall, making her escape with Sam at her side. Truman would hold court for another fifteen minutes before he noticed they were gone.

  “Christ, do I get more evil every time he tells that story?”

  Sam gestured for the door and they snuck outside so she could smoke a cigarette. “Seriously. One of these days he’ll say you pulled out a shiv and shanked the poor fucker.”

  Georgia stood by the azaleas, scanning the driveway full of Beemers and Mercedes. “Jesus, when did he get like this?”

  Sam took a puff on her cigarette. “When mom died. Or more so, when Stephanie happened.”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  They stood in comfortable silence for a moment, Sam puffing her cigarette idly.

  “So you never heard from that Scottish guy?”

  Georgia frowned. “No. It’s ok, though.”

  “Is it? I thought you really liked him.”

  “Oh, I did. But I can’t torture myself over someone who isn’t going to show up. The right one will come along and everything will fall into place, as they say. Everything for a reason.”

  Sam chuckled, softly. “You sound like Nana.”

  “I’m going to take that as a compliment.”

  “You do that.”

  They both stared at the bees buzzing in the rosebushes for a moment, Sam finishing her cigarette. “You know what she used to say about soul mates, yeah?”

  Georgia gave a half laugh. “Which one?”

  “That if you believe you have one, then you do.”

  “I do remember that one.”

  Sam crossed her arms. “And that the fates bring you together as many times as needed to make it stick.”

  Georgia’s eyebrows shot up. “What point are you trying to make, Minnie?”

  Sam smiled. “I think you’re gonna cross paths with this Scottish guy again.”

  Though not hearing from Garrett had left her heartbroken, Georgia suffered through a man like Walter Timlin. The grief and cruelty she’d known at that man’s hands seemed to make her stronger. She knew she could recover, knew that if a man fell short of his promises, it was the best for everyone that he disappear. Still, despite all that wisdom and the time that had passed, she’d still gone aflutter at the memory of him when Germaine Ross called to speak to over the past few months - and hearing Sam’s words made her heart skip.

  “Damn it, Sam. That wasn’t helpful. I don’t need to be pining for a dude who couldn’t even make a phone call.”

  “I’m just sayin – if he’s your soul mate, not even he can fuck it up.”

  Georgia felt her phone buzz in her clutch purse and glanced at it. Despite not hearing it ring, there was a voicemail notification from Sarah, her agent. “Hang on one second?”

  Sam nodded, and Georgia turned away, listening. The message was quick, almost excitedly so. Georgia stood there silent, chills running down her spine. She let the news settle before she turned back to Sam.

  Sam saw her shocked expression and glared at her. “So, what amazing thing can Dad brag about now? Did you win the Nobel Prize?”

  Georgia breathed in through her nose, pursing her lips. “They’re asking me to speak at the Edinburgh Literary Festival.”

  Sam started to laugh. “You’re fucking kidding? When is it?”

  “August.”

  “Oh man, the timing of that is out of control! You know you have to go to the tattoo, right? Go shank a cop for Dad!”

  “You had to say that, didn’t you Sam. You said it, and now I’m going back to Sco -”

  “Dude, I’m a fucking sorceress.”

  “Watch your language, please!” Stephanie called from the front doors of the house. Sam shot a double barreled flip off toward the house.

  “I can see you, Samantha!”

  Sam hid her hands behind her back. “Love you.”

  Georgia let Sam regale her a moment, lost in thought. She was going back to Scotland.

  Holy shit, she was going back to Scotland.

  Georgia turned for the front doors of the house and marched into her father’s office. She opened the top drawer of his desk, pulled out a piece of paper and pen.

  Samantha Emmeline Kilduff, Esq.

  She handed the paper to Samantha. Her sister looked down at the piece of paper and visibly relaxed.

  CHAPTER NINE

  “You ‘ave to tell me ‘ow you come up wif these stories!”

  The woman on the train was in her fifties, red haired and robust about the middle. She had a Birmingham accent, giving her a tendency of drawing out certain words. Georgia shrugged, forcing a smile. “Honestly, I just have a very randy imagin
ation, I guess.”

  The woman leaned in, her bust pressing against Georgia’s elbow. “’Ow many of the crazy things you write ‘ave you actually done? Go on then. You can say, your secret’s safe wi’ me!”

  The woman snorted then, chortling to herself as she searched Georgia’s face. Georgia offered only an eyebrow wiggle, and then excused herself from her seat, claiming to need the restroom.

  Georgia did use the restroom, but slipped out the back of the train car and found another seat. Normally, she’d have booked a first class ticket, but the train ticket kiosks of Scotland were still foreign to her. She found an empty seat with a table before it and watched the green landscape whizzing by outside, trying to clear her mind. The train was coming into Edinburgh shortly, she needed to be in good spirits for the day ahead.

  The train slowed, pulling into a new station – Inverkeithing. They were getting close.

  Georgia ordered a quick snack from the cart as it rolled through, but couldn’t get more than a bite or two down. Her stomach was turned. The moment the plane touched down in Scotland again, Georgia felt pulled by some strange gravity toward the little book shop in Inverness.

  “You sure you want to do this? You said yourself, you’d never again waste your time on a man who isn’t going to show up,” Cass had said, but Georgia was as helpless to the pull of Inverness as she was to her heart beating. She’d just wanted to see him, lay eyes on him, praying that maybe doing so would break the spell he’d had on her for so long.

  “I can’t explain it,” she’d said. “I just have to go.”

  Georgia left the Edinburgh Book Festival behind, trudged all the way to Inverness with butterflies and lightning in her heels. She remembered the sensation of a cannonball dropping in her stomach as she’d turned the corner around Costas and saw the Burns Book Shop closed, a travel agent nestled in its place.

  “There you are! I wondered where you’d run off to!” The red headed woman plopped down next to Georgia, her breasts pouring onto the table, sheathed in a dragon T-shirt.

  Only a little ways more, Georgia, she thought. Hang in there.

  ‘Ms. Mason,’ the sign read.

  Georgia smiled at the man. “Hey there.”

  The driver raised an eyebrow at her. “Victoria Mason?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He hustled to snatch up her carry on before Georgia could protest. She’d grown accustomed to that name - Victoria Mason. Pen name or no, it was the moniker much of the world referred to her as, and responding to it had become compulsive. Georgia was beginning to relish that quiet power – the notion that she’d told the world to call her something new, and they’d agreed without question. Samantha often asked why she hadn’t picked something legendary, like Helvetica or Medusa. Georgia would always respond by taking Sam’s wine glass away.

  The driver led her to his black sedan and opened the door for her. She was weary from the five hour ride from Inverness, but she was enjoying this side of her recent life – the side where men in clean suits carried her things and opened doors for her. She climbed into the car and leaned back in her seat, taking a deep breath.

  “How was the ride, then?”

  Georgia glanced up at the back of the man’s head as they pulled away from Waverly Station. “It was fine. Long.”

  It was terrible, she thought. I’m fucking heartbroken.

  “I bet. Where were you coming from again?”

  “Inverness.”

  “Oh, aye! Very long one. How’d ye like it? Inverness.”

  Georgia stared out the window. “I like Inverness a lot, but it wasn’t what I had hoped.”

  He turned, glancing up into the rear view mirror at her. “Why’s that?”

  “The person I went to visit wasn’t there.”

  Moved away, they’d said. Sold the shop at the end of February and moved away. Georgia had been half ready to go knock on the door of his apartment, however brazen and forward – and American – that might have been.

  She’d asked three different people in the travel agency before the owner spoke of the man who sold him the shop nearly six months earlier.

  As Cass reminded her before she boarded her train to Inverness the day before, and as Georgia often reminded herself when thoughts of Garrett came to mind – he’d never called. He’d promised he would, and he didn’t. It wasn’t the first time a man had left her disappointed, but even after Walter’s crimes, somehow this one felt more tragic. This one felt as though the Gods were to blame. Georgia took the news of his relocation poorly, questioning the man at length. She was gutted. Even if she was going to have her heart broken when Garrett glared at her in disdain and disinterest when she showed up at his shop or on his door, at least she’d see him. At least she’d know.

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” the driver said, hitting the brakes at a traffic light with a little too much gusto. She swallowed, searching for something solid to stare at out the window.

  “Perhaps ye can try again this weekend, ae? Might have better luck. Supposed to have nice weather for it.”

  “Naw. I leave tomorrow morning. And he’s apparently moved away, anyway.”

  The driver glanced at her again, waiting for traffic to break. “Don’t fret then, lass. If he’s the one, he’ll turn up. God knows you’re not a hard creature to track down.”

  She smiled and for a moment, heard his words in her grandmother’s voice. She took a deep breath, catching a flash of her reflection in the window as they pulled up outside her hotel.

  You don’t have to make anything happen, Georgia. What’s meant to be will always be.

  Whatever you say, Nan, she thought.

  Then she heard Cass’ excited voice following up with her favorite mantra. “You marry your Douglas MacCready. And if he were it, he’d have shown up.”

  However much the words pained her to hear, she knew them to be true.

  The driver hustled her things into the lobby and bid his farewell. Cassie appeared, like a jaguar waiting to pounce.

  “Good trip?” Cassie asked. She’d given her blonde bob a pin curl at her temple. She looked adorable. She watched Georgia’s face, beaming in wait of good news. Cass quickly sensed otherwise. “Not so good trip? That dick.”

  Georgia shook her head. “It’s all right. It was lovely. He just wasn’t there.”

  It wasn’t lovely, actually. She hadn’t even left her hotel room for dinner while in Inverness. She simply sulked, staring out the third story window.

  “Well, the talk is going to be brilliant tonight. Tons of intellectuals, book lovers - other writers! Maybe you’ll meet some tall, dark, and handsome Highlander and fall madly in love.”

  Georgia laughed, letting Cassie lead her into the elevator. “Honestly, I’m not worried about it. I’ve been single long enough not to care. He just -”

  She stopped, trying to find a way to explain his impact; the way his touch made the marrow in her bones sing, or how his smile made her chest feel like it might crack open. They’d spent one night together, but he’d settled into her like the roots of a tree.

  “He just what?”

  Georgia shrugged. “He felt right. He felt worth going after.”

  Cassie frowned, hustling down the hotel hallway toward Georgia’s room. She was four inches shorter than Georgia, but she moved with the speed of a gazelle. “I’m sorry, honey. You know I am, but sadly you have exactly enough time to shower and what have you. The stylist will be here in an hour.”

  Georgia took her room key from her spritely assistant and offered a smile. Then she slipped into her room and shut the door behind her.

  ***

  “Well, don’t you clean up nice?”

  Garrett spun around to find Jenny standing in the doorway, her hip cocked out to the side. Garrett glanced down at himself and his face flushed.

  “Bah, ‘tisn’t that impressive.”

  “Oh, ye know there’s nothing so lovely as the sight of a
man in a kilt,” Jenny said, slipping into the office to sit on his desk.

  He chuckled. “So I’ve been told.”

  Garrett turned back to his desk, shuffling papers. This was the universal sign of ‘I’m rather busy, will ye feck off?’ Sadly, Jenny didn’t catch his drift.

  “What are ye all dolled up for?”

  Garrett glanced down at his kilt, the MacCauley colors of bright red and green. His sporran was sinking between his thighs, horsehair tails bristled from years of wear. “An old friend is in town. Thought I’d try to pop in to see her.”

  “Her? Who is this mysterious friend, then?”

  Garrett swallowed. Jennifer Gilly was a brunette, with straight hair, long legs, and her front teeth were just slightly crooked. She was seven years younger than Garrett, but she behaved even younger than that, and she made him somewhat uncomfortable. She’d worked in Royal Mile Booksellers before he became the new proprietor, renaming the place and hanging his old sign over the door. Despite revamping the tired shop, he hadn’t thought to hire new staff. Over the course of the first week with Jenny, the heat she threw his way made him feel almost cornered in the cozy shop. In an effort to still her flirtation, he’d lied, telling her he was married. This seemed to only further amplify her attraction. Jennifer Gilly wasn’t unattractive, by any means. She was drop dead gorgeous by most men’s standards. Still, she worked in a book shop, and she didn’t read. That wouldn’t do.

  She simply wasn’t his cup of tea. As it turned out, his cup of tea would be standing in front of a room of avid readers, reading pages from her novel less than a mile from his shop that evening. He’d worn the kilt for her.

  “Just a friend,” Garrett said.

  “Well, why didn’t ye have her in the shop? Had a great turn out, we had!”

  It was true. Adding Burns Book Shop to the list of venues for this year’s festival had been one of the best business ventures of his career. He laughed at the thought of Georgia tucked into the corners of the shop in Inverness. She’d been genuinely startled at the thought of people lining up to meet her. Now, she was booked into the biggest venue of the festival, and they still sold out. Garrett mindlessly patted his sporran, relieved in the knowledge that he’d managed to get a ticket.