Badly Done, Emma Lee

by Leah Marie Brown

  I look out the window, at the blue directional signs bearing names to strange places, and feel a pang of homesickness, for Charleston, my daddy, my sisters. Knightley clears his throat, and I wonder if my candor has made him uncomfortable. I am about to say something flippant when he covers my hand with his, a compassionate gesture that surprises me as much as it excites me.

  “I know about your father’s boating accident,” he says, pulling his hand away. “I am sorry for your loss.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I was at university when my father died,” he says, pronouncing university as if it begins with ew instead of u. “Massive heart attack. Totally unexpected. I couldn’t concentrate on my studies, barely finished my exams. I thought I would go barking mad with grief.”

  “Grief is a kind of madness, isn’t it? An incomprehensible, all-consuming madness that makes you wail one minute and rage the next.”

  “Grief is a kind of madness.” His deep voice and British accent make the words sound more poetic. “Beautifully expressed, Emma Lee.”

  I don’t know what to do with his compliment, so I pretend I didn’t hear him and go right on talking.

  “It sure enough made me a lunatic, laying all up on my sister’s sofa, eating fried chicken and watching television twenty-four-seven.”

  An awkward silence fills the compartment. Sure enough. Laying all up. First, I dazzle him with my beautifully expressed thoughts on grief and then I go all Southern on him—and not the genteel, finishing-school Southern, but the stereotypical Southern, the kind that drives a rusted-out old Chevy, the kind that goes frog plinking in Stump-hole Swamp, the kind that says, I’m fixin’ to dig up some grub, lessen you wanna go to the Cracker Barrel.

  Knightley clears his throat.

  “Aren’t professional matchmakers usually . . .”

  “Toothless crones who live in remote villages and spend their time meddling and gossiping?”

  “Toothless?” He laughs. “I was going to say older.”

  He has a fantastic laugh. Supermodel Tyra Banks coined the neologism smize, which means to smile with your eyes. Well, Knightley laughs with his whole body.

  “The top matchmaking company in the United States is owned by four women under thirty-five. In biblical days, a matchmaker was usually the oldest woman in the tribe. The matchmaker, or shadchan, would watch the unmarried women as they gathered around the well and then suggest matches. Today’s matchmakers are savvy businesspeople who understand the importance of marketing, communication, and networking. Making a successful match is more than watching women water camels.”

  “Thank God,” he says, chuckling. “Northam-on-the-Water has an abundance of charm, but an appalling dearth of camels.”

  I laugh.

  “My aunt used to tell me wonderful stories about Northam-on-the-Water. The ivy-covered cottages, meandering footpaths, massive weeping willows dragging their limbs in the river, stone bridges. She said it is the Venice of England.” I sigh. “I can’t wait to see it.”

  “Northam is a village of outstanding beauty, but it’s hardly idyllic. The villagers are reserved, though in no way disagreeable. Most visitors find them to be aloof.”

  “Pshaw,” I say, waving my hand. “A stranger is just a friend you haven’t yet met.”

  “How very American of you,” he says, laughing.

  “Thank you,” I say, smiling. “Don’t you worry about me. Meeting new people and making friends is my thing, darlin’. It’s what I do best.”

  “What’s your secret?”

  I look at him, but he keeps his gaze fixed on the road.

  “You’re serious?”

  “I am.”

  “My daddy gave me a brilliant piece of advice on my first day of elementary school. He said, ‘Emma, darlin’, be somebody who makes everybody feel like somebody. ’” I shrug. “It’s that simple.”

  “Your father sounds like he was a wise man.”

  “He was.”

  A silence stretches between us as my thoughts drift back to that day, standing beneath a magnolia tree outside Rutledge Hall, clutching Daddy’s hand, listening to the melodic roll of his voice as he greeted the other parents by name. He had such a sweet, easy way about him. I remember thinking I wanted to be just like my daddy, sweet and easy, attracting friends like ants at a barbecue. I wanted people to say, That Emma Lee Maxwell, she’s more pleasing than a peach.

  “Isabella said you work in publishing. I imagine you meet loads of fascinating people in your line of work. Writers, photographers, illustrators,” I say, breaking the silence. “How glam!”

  He quirks a brow. “Glam?”

  “Glamorous.”

  He chuckles.

  “Running a large publishing company is not glamorous, I assure you.”

  “Chatting up famous authors at book launches and swanky cocktail parties. That sounds very glamorous.”

  “Managing a team of publishing professionals can be more drudge than glamour, but helping authors bring their stories to a worldwide audience is vastly rewarding, and, occasionally, though not as often as I would like, a brilliant writer is discovered languishing at the bottom of the slush pile. Those undiscovered writers, the excitement and gratitude they feel when offered a publishing contract, before success has stripped them of their humility and passion for the craft”—he smiles and his eyes sparkle—“having the opportunity to discover those writers means more to me than attending glam cocktail parties.”

  “You help people realize their dreams.”

  He looks at me, smiling, and my throat goes dry. I haven’t been on a date in six months. I am a little thirsty and Knightley Nickerson is one tall drink of water, y’all.

  “I crush people’s dreams, too,” he says, looking back at the road. “We reject ninety-six percent of the manuscripts we receive.”

  “Let’s not focus on that part. Tell me about the last brilliant writer you discovered.”

  “What would you like to know?”

  “Was the writer a he or a she?”

  “He.”

  “Fiction or nonfiction?”

  “Fiction.”

  “What was the book about?”

  “It was set during the French Revolution—”

  “—Ooo, dark and morbid. Go on.”

  “A clairvoyant orphan girl living in a convent in Paris is able to communicate with the dead and uses her ability to save people from the guillotine.”

  “The Foundlings?” I look at him, eyes wide, mouth agape. “You discovered Griffin Hayes? Languishing in your slush puddle?”

  “Pile.” He laughs. “Would you believe he submitted The Foundlings to dozens of publishers before sending it to Nickerson Publishing? He said we were his stretch publisher.”

  “Stretch publisher?”

  “He said we were a long shot because he felt his manuscript wasn’t highbrow enough for our house.”

  “Are you publishing Tolstoy’s lost manuscripts?”

  “No.”

  “The Foundlings is a brilliant novel.”

  “You’ve read it, then?”

  “Are you kidding?” I don’t tell him I didn’t make it past the second chapter. “Everyone has read it. Manderley read it from cover to cover, twice.”

  “Manderley?”

  “My sister. She graduated from Columbia. She works in Hollywood, as an assistant to an award-winning screenwriter, even though we keep telling her she should be writing her own screenplays because she is crazy brilliant.” Knightley Nickerson discovered Griffin Hayes. The Griffin Hayes. “Wait until I tell her you fished The Foundlings out of your slush puddle. She’ll be pea green with envy!”

  He laughs again.

  “Tell your sister there will be more Foundlings books. Griffin sent us the second book in the series after we offered him a contract.”

  “I didn’t know it was a series.”

  “Nobody knows. We’ve kept news of the second book hush-hush, but we are sending out press releases tom
orrow.”

  “So, this is insider information?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ooo!” I rub my hands together. “I love insider information. Can I tell Manderley now?”

  He chuckles. “Yes.”

  “Yay!” I clap. “Thank you.”

  I pull my phone out of my purse and hurriedly type a text to Manderley, my nails tap-tap-tapping the screen. Her response is immediate.

  “She says she is pea green with envy.” I look at him and grin. “Told you.” My phone blings with another text. “She wants to know if there are more orphans at the convent who have special gifts, because she thinks Jacques might be clairvoyant, too.”

  “Sorry,” he says, shaking his head. “I can’t divulge details about characters or plot, but tell your sister her observation is rather astute.”

  I like the way he pronounces rather, replacing the flat A with an AW. Rawther. It’s so posh, so British.

  I send the text, slip my phone back into my purse, and look out the window. At some point during our conversation, Knightley pulled off the congested motorway and onto a narrow rural road lined on one side by thick, gnarly hedges. We are surrounded by rolling farmland, great patches of green stitched together like a quilt and spread as far as the eye can see. A thinning fog has settled at the bottom of the hills, and through it, I notice the ghostly silhouettes of spindly trees and the occasional thatched cottage, looking lost and forlorn in the vast landscape. Charleston is hardly the big city, but this is straight-up country, y’all. Cow-milking, chicken-feeding, in-bed-by-sundown country. I am so glad I packed extra lip liner because I won’t be popping into Sephora for refills. I’ll bet the closest mall is two hours to the east, in London. Mall. Theater. Sit-down restaurant. No wonder more than 50 percent of Cotswoldians (Cotswoldites?) are single! There’s nowhere for them to hook up. They need a matchmaker. They need me!

  We come to a crossroads. I notice a wooden post with half a dozen signs pointing in all directions and read the strange names printed on them. “Lower Slaughter.” “Little Rissington.” “Clapton-on-the-Hill.”

  “‘Nether Westcote,’” I say, reading a sign pointing in the opposite direction. “Doesn’t that sound like the name of a character in a children’s book? ‘Nether Westcote’s remarkable adventure began on the road to Little Slaughter. ’”

  “Hold on,” he says, looking at me through narrowed eyes. “I thought you said your sister was the writer? It sounds to me as if you have literary leanings as well. Are you the Charlotte to her Emily?”

  “Charlotte?”

  “Brontë.”

  “Brontë. Right.” Heat flushes my cheeks. “I am definitely not a Brontë.”

  “More of a reader than a writer?”

  What do I say, y’all? Mr. Oxford, in his bespoke Savile Row suit, is looking at me with those soulful brown-green eyes, asking me if I like to read . . . books! Do I tell him the truth? That I haven’t read a book since college because I have the attention span of a golden retriever in a yard full of squirrels? Do I admit I’ve never read a Brontë?

  I don’t do phony. Never have.

  “Honestly? I don’t read as much as I should.”

  Unless InStyle and Cosmo count as literature.

  “What’s the last thing you read?”

  “ ‘The Perfect Date.’ ”

  “Mass-market fiction?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Is The Perfect Date a paperback novel?”

  “No,” I say, laughing. “It’s an article on PopSugar Love.”

  He glances over at me, his brows knit together.

  “The website?”

  “Yep.”

  I am suddenly and painfully ashamed of my literary ignorance. I should have read The Foundlings instead of using it as a coaster for my sweet tea.

  “I meant book.”

  “Oh,” I say, fanning my cheeks with my hand.

  “Do you have a favorite genre?”

  Nineteenth-century feminist poetry? Narrative nonfiction?

  “Chick lit.”

  “Chick lit? Really?”

  “What can I say?” I shrug my shoulders. “I like happy endings.”

  Knightley clears his throat, and I suddenly realize my inadvertent double entendre. I might not have had many boyfriends, but I hung around enough frat boys in college to know what happy endings means in street slang. Then again, Knightley Nickerson seems far too mature, too educated, to snicker at sophomoric street slang.

  “Charlotte Brontë is, perhaps, a trifle too maudlin for you, then. I suspect you’re more of an Austenite.”

  Heat flushes my cheeks again. I might be the only woman on the planet not to have read a Jane Austen novel. I look out the window before Knightley, the big-time publisher, reads the shame written all over my face.

  “My mother is a rabid Austenite, hence my name.”

  Knightley? I don’t remember a character named Knightley in Pride and Prejudice. Lexi downloaded a pirated version our sophomore year at Clemson because we had to write a two-thousand-word essay for lit class and had put it off until the day before it was due. I spent the whole seventy minutes focusing on Keira’s bushy brows and unruly split ends. Why, sweet Jesus, why didn’t someone on set think to spray an anti-frizz product in her hair?

  “Knightley is her favorite Austen hero?”

  Please God, don’t let Knightley be the name of some fictitious village in one of Jane Austen’s novels. Let it be a character. If you let it be a hero, I swear I’ll read every night before bed—a book, not pop-culture blogs or fashion mags.

  “George Knightley is, indeed, her favorite Austen hero.”

  Thank you, God!

  “Why is he her favorite?”

  “You will have to ask her. Be warned, though, if you show the slightest interest in Emma she will force you to join her All Austen Book Club.”

  Emma! So, Knightley is the hero in Emma. I make a mental note to download Emma to my Kindle. It might give me some insight into Mr. Oxford and his Austen-loving momma. And if I am going to successfully match Knightley with his perfect mate, I am going to need all the insight I can get!

  Chapter Eight

  Emma Lee Maxwell’s Facebook Update:

  Finding your soul mate is like shopping for a pair of jeans. Sometimes, it takes several tries before you find the right fit.

  Northam-on-the-Water is as picturesque as I imagined it would be. It reminds me of the village in Grantchester, the PBS show about the sexy, jazz-loving vicar who solves murders. I caught pneumonia my senior year at Clemson. Manderley flew in and played momma hen. We sat around her hotel room in our jammies, eating cartons of Panera chicken noodle soup and watching Grantchester. Cozy mysteries aren’t my thing—because I thought they were for people who knit potholders in their free time, eat at four in the afternoon, and fall asleep on the davenport watching their programs, but I’ll admit Grantchester hooked me. The charming setting, the sexy crime-solving vicar—or maybe it was the NyQuil. Whatever, it brought out my inner senior citizen for a weekend and inspired a newfound respect for cozies.

  We are driving down Northam-on-the-Water’s main street, confusingly named High Street. Confusing because it is not the highest street in the village. Northam-on-the-Water is situated in a narrow valley nestled between two hills. High Street straddles the river that divides the village into two sections. Most of the village appears to be clinging to the hillsides, making High Street the low street.

  Although I would hardly call it a bustling metropolis, Northam is larger than I expected, with dozens of shops and businesses situated in honey-colored stone buildings lining both sides of the river. Stone footbridges allow shoppers to cross from one side to the other. There is a tea room, Call Me Darjeeling, with a striped awning and lacy white curtains hanging in the windows, a small supermarket, a bakery, and a woolen mill. The pharmacy has an old-time wooden sign hanging over its door, “Curtis and Sons Apothecary” painted in loopy script. There is a restaurant called
the Millhouse, with a working waterwheel, and an inn named Midsummer’s Dream. Knightley stops at a traffic light outside a shop with an old-time glass storefront and a painted wooden sign affixed over the door. A silhouette of Queen Victoria’s profile is painted on the sign.

  “‘Victoria’s Candy Emporium,’” I say, reading the sign. “ ‘First in Candy and Colonialism.’ ”

  “Irreverent, isn’t it?”

  I giggle. “A bit.”

  “Deidre Waites can be rather irreverent, particularly when it comes to her love/hate relationship with Queen Victoria. She inherited the shop after her father died and her mum began losing her vision. She changed the name a year ago. She’s quite brilliant, actually, and extremely unusual. She belongs to my mum’s book club.”

  “I like irreverent and unusual people.”

  “She will be at the dinner party.”

  “Dinner party?”

  “Didn’t my mother tell you?” He chuckles and shakes his head. “She organized a small gathering tonight to introduce you to the villagers.”

  “Ooo! That sounds like fun.”

  He looks at me, eyebrow raised.

  “Does it?”

  “I love parties,” I say, smiling. “Don’t you?”

  “As long as they’re not too big or boisterous.”

  “Can a party ever be too big?” I look at him, wrinkling my nose. “I don’t think so.”

  He laughs. “Now I see why my mother loves you. You’re kindred spirits.”

  “Thank you,” I say sincerely. “That’s the kindest thing you’ve said to me.”

  My relationship with Isabella Nickerson began at a polo match and has grown through numerous phone calls and emails. Besides being warm, witty, and worldly, she is incredibly empowering, encouraging me to pursue my dreams. I understand why my momma and my Aunt Patricia chose her as their friend—I would have chosen her as a friend if we had gone to school together.

  I look through the picture window, into the store, hoping to catch a glimpse of the irreverent and unusual Miss Waites but see only shelves of glass jars filled with colorful jawbreakers, glossy black licorice wheels, and candy-cane-striped peppermint balls.