by Brea Brown
He makes his bottom lip and chin wobble. “Oh?”
“No. And Jayne’s pickier than I am, so I’m not sure it would be to her liking, either. Where’d you get the recipe?”
Tearfully, he answers, “’Twas an old war-time favorite. We served it all the time at the inn. But if you don’t like it…” He breaks down “sobbing” in earnest now, covering his face and making his shoulders shake.
“She would not be crying at this point.”
He stops suddenly, uncovers his face, and looks up at me, blinking. “Oh, she’s very sensitive.”
“Then she must have been rending her clothing after what you said to her.”
“This is styoopid,” “Paulette” says, grabbing her sandwich and taking it to the breakfast bar.
“My point is, you don’t have to be so blunt all the time. You’d have more friends if you’d learn to use some tact.”
“I have plenty of friends.”
“Name two, and I don’t count.”
Shooting me a sympathetic look, he chews, swallows, and says, “Ah, Jayne. You count! Don’t sell yourself short.”
I plop down next to him and reply. “You know what I mean. You can’t count me as one of your friends.”
“But you’re my BFF,” he claims, examining his sandwich at close range.
“Name two others,” I demand, taking a big bite and watching him while I chew.
Smugly, he answers, “Blanche and Gus.”
“Gus is my friend!” I object before I’ve quite finished chewing and swallowing.
“So? He’s my friend, too, now.”
“He calls you Luke-Ass!”
“You started that, though, so it’s not his fault. He’s obsessed with asses, anyway, so I’m sure that’s why the name stuck.”
“The name stuck because of stunts like the one you pulled with Paulette.”
He considers this while eating his sandwich in silence. After his last bite, he says, “Anyway, I don’t need a lot of friends. Friends are work.”
“Spoken like a true sociopath.”
“Hey!”
“Okay, maybe that’s a bit harsh,” I concede, “but you do tend to get all dictatorial and insensitive and then hide behind honesty and efficient communication. As if, as long as something is honest or efficient, it’s okay.”
He pushes his plate away and crosses his arms over his bare chest. “Are we still talking about Paulette, here, or is this about something else?”
I avoid his eyes when I reply, “Still applies to what you said to Paulette, but it’s also something that applies to your social skills in general.”
His voice is rock-hard when he says, “And my social skills when dealing with you. Right?”
Pretending not to get what he’s driving at, I nod and say lightly, “Yeah. Of course. With everyone, including me.”
“Is this about the note on your laptop this morning?” He snatches my plate from me and stacks it on top of his before walking around the counter and taking them to the dishwasher. Nodding to the computer, which is still sitting on the counter in front of the same barstool as this morning, he snaps, “Excuse the fuck out of me for trying to help.”
My plan to deny this has anything to do with the note or the files collapses as I plead to be understood. “But you’re not helping. Can’t you see that? You’re bullying me. You’re making me feel lazy and defeatist and… and… ridiculous for not looking at those files. And guilty! Because you could have died trying to save that fucking flash drive. I wish you would have let it burn!”
“I don’t! There’s good stuff on there. It was worth the burns and the lung damage and the broken leg and the itchy cast and the agonizing physical therapy.”
“You’re crazy!”
“I’m not, Jayne! Your next book—books—are in that folder. Why don’t you trust me?”
I stand up so quickly that I knock over my barstool. “It’s not about trusting you, okay? It’s not about you at all!” When he simply glares at me across the counter, I choke, “Why don’t you trust me when I say that I’m fucked? I’ve lost it. I know. I know what it feels like to have it, and I don’t. I don’t have it anymore. It’s gone. So stop pressuring me to keep looking for it!” I adopt the very pose he struck when he was pretending to be the heartbroken Paulette, only I’m not acting. I weep into my hands, my hunched shoulders shaking violently.
I hear the dishwasher door slide open and the soft clank of china against the rubber-coated racks, followed by the soft whoosh and click of the appliance closing. Then the air around me shifts, and Luke’s warm arms wrap around my shoulders.
He rests his chin on top of my head and says quietly, “Jayne, Jayne, Jayne. I’ve never seen someone take writer’s block so personally.”
“What am I going to do?” I despair into his chest.
“I thought you didn’t want me to tell you what to do.”
“I don’t!”
He sighs. “Okay. Uh… I don’t know. I guess you’ll either get past it or… not. We’ll figure out a way to appease Thornfield, though. Don’t worry about—”
“I’m not worried about my stupid contract!” I cry, frustrated that he’s not getting what the real problem is. “Fuck Thornfield. I’ve already made them fifty times what they paid me.”
“I don’t know about that…” he chuckles indulgently.
“Then I’ll use the money my dead parents left me. Whatever. I’m not being exact, okay?” I push away from him and wipe my face on the inside of my t-shirt collar. Dejectedly, I ask, “What am I going to do, Luke? If I can’t write… what can I do? My life is… yawning… in front of me, this huge, black space with endless empty hours and nothing to do to fill them. Since I finished my book and the tour, I… I’ve been lost. The movie is a slight diversion, but it’s not mine. It’s someone else’s project, and I stand on the sidelines and say, ‘Good job’ about every ten days or so. They don’t care what I want or what I think, but they have to pretend they do. And I don’t care what they do, but I’m expected to care. I’m supposed to play the part of the temperamental author who insists that not a single word of dialogue change, who throws a fit when a scene is cut or added or altered. But… I don’t care. It’s a completely separate animal to me. And I keep having to remind myself why I’m involved at all.”
“You’re exhausted.”
“I’m impotent.”
“Potato, potahto.”
“The point is…” I clench my fists at my sides, bordering on enraged that I have to continue to spell it out for him. “The point is… I don’t know how to do anything else but write. It’s been my answer to everything from PMS to boredom to insomnia to… everything… since I could hold a pencil and form the letters of the alphabet. It sounds stupid and dramatic, but I don’t feel like a person if I can’t write. And I can’t write.”
“Right now.”
I laugh bitterly. “What’s going to change, Luke? What’s going to make ten years from now different from right now?”
“Sleep, maturity, experiences, love, hate, marriage, children, grief, joy, life! I don’t know! Anything can happen. You’re no stranger to the creative process. It’s not logical. It’s not methodical, and it certainly doesn’t follow any rules or laws of a scientific nature.” He pulls me against him again. “Cut yourself some damn slack!” He kisses the top of my head. “I don’t mean that in a dictatorial way, either. It’s merely a suggestion.”
I give him a watery smile.
“There,” he practically croons. “Deep breath.”
I obey.
“We need a vacation,” he declares. “You and me, alone. Somewhere that neither of us associates with any form of work.” He kisses my nose. “A honeymoon.”
My eyes widen.
He’s too busy brainstorming to notice my reaction to that word, though. “I can probably get away from work in a week or two. We’ll go away for two weeks, and by the time we get back, the house on Marblehead will be ready for us to mov
e in. We’ll get reacquainted with it, take long walks on the beach, swim, play, relax, make love, and not worry about a damn thing. Then life won’t seem so daunting. You’ll see.” He looks down into my face. “What say you?”
His solution doesn’t solve anything, but it stops me from trying to solve everything, even if only temporarily.
“A honeymoon?” I ask, repeating the last word I truly heard and comprehended.
He smiles crookedly. “Yeah. Unless you think that’s too corny. Or too soon. I don’t want to rush you or—”
“Rush me? I thought you never wanted to get married again. And trust me, I don’t blame you. I understand.”
I’ve even told myself a few hundred thousand times that I’m okay with it. Lord knows I don’t want to be the next crazy Mrs. Edwards.
“You’ve made me eat my words on so many occasions, Jayne, that I don’t even keep track anymore. How about we forget everything I ever said before you woke up in my arms the morning after you fell asleep watching what you call ‘the blue people movie’?” He shakes his head ruefully. “Because I didn’t know anything before then. And I said some really stupid things.”
“You’ve said some really stupid things since then, too,” I point out, making a face and poking at his lower lip with my index finger. “But I don’t want to forget anything.”
“That’s your choice.”
“And I would love to be your wife.”
“Do you have good health insurance? Because you’re going to need it, if you’re shackled to me as I stumble through life.”
“I’ll take my chances. Now, take me to bed… after we check the detectors.”
He lets me go, bends down to right the barstool I upended, and says, “I’d like nothing better.”
Chapter Thirty
Three weeks away from everything—first in Key West and then in Marblehead—helped put things into perspective for me. I didn’t even take my laptop with me on our honeymoon; yet, I survived. It was liberating. I had no access to email or social networking sites, and I would have left my cell phone in the apartment if I thought I could get away with it, but Tullah and Jules would have had my head. They were nice about leaving me alone the first week, but there was no dodging our daily status calls longer than that. After all, it’s so important for me to know that nothing new is happening, which I already know, because I’d have to be writing something new for new stuff to be happening.
In spite of that, though, I feel more serene (a.k.a., “resigned”) about things than I did before we took a break. Before my daily walk on the beach this morning, I even sent an email to Miles, asking him how he’s doing and getting caught up. I hope there’s an answer waiting for me when I get back. I want us to be friends. I want him to see that I’m happy now, but I’d be happier if we were on good terms. I’d be even happier still if I knew I was welcome back at Fairfax or he’d be willing to give me a reference to another school when I decide sitting around the house all day while Luke goes to work isn’t my thing.
I’ve already decided that, actually. I’ve made up my mind that teaching at the university level (maybe even furthering my own education; after all, it’s not fair that Luke gets to be the only Ph.D. in the house) is where my future lies; I simply haven’t informed anyone else yet. Putting out feelers to Miles is my first step. It’s a baby step. But it’s a step, at least. I guess I could do charitable work or pop out some kids, but… that doesn’t appeal, either. I want to work. I want to use my brain and challenge myself. I want to challenge others. I want to help someone else learn the best way—for them—to express to readers what they’re thinking and feeling.
It’s chilly on the beach, so my walk is a short one today. When I get back to the house, I enter through the back door and stand just inside the kitchen as I take off my sandy shoes and leave them under the shoe bench. Paulette turns with a cup of coffee in hand and holds it out to me.
“Mite blustery for a walk by the water, don’t you think?” she asks. “Wouldn’t want you to fall sick, now.”
Lightly, I reply, “Why not? It’s not as if I have anything to do or anywhere to be.”
“You still don’t want to be sick!” she counters.
“I guess not,” I concede with a mutter.
“Anyway,” she continues, “you do have something to do. I noticed when I was dusting the office that Luke left something for you on your desk.”
I shoot her a puzzled look over the rim of my coffee mug. “Something for me to do? Like what?”
Casually, she answers, “It looks like a manuscript. But I didn’t read the note stuck to it.”
Her preemptive denial makes me laugh. “I don’t care if you did. I’m sure it’s nothing secret or important.”
“In that case,” she says eagerly, “he wants you to read something he promised to read as a special favor for someone who knows someone who knows someone who knows him, but he hasn’t had time, because he’s so busy getting caught up from being gone on holiday.”
I groan. “Personal favors are the worst!”
He complains about them all the time. It’s so clever of him to have figured out a way to pawn them off on his idle wife.
Paulette cringes sympathetically, “I’m afraid so. But, anyway, at least you won’t be bored! I’ll make some bean soup for lunch and come get you early, so you can take a break.”
I drain the rest of my coffee and harrumph like a surly teenager. Paulette intercepts my cup on its way to the dishwasher and murmurs something encouraging that I can’t quite make out.
“This is true love,” I gripe as I push against the door that leads to the dining room. “Reading the trash that Arthur Thornfield’s daughter’s friend’s ex-husband’s girlfriend wrote.”
When I get to the sitting room, I see the stack of paper on my desk and breathe easier. It’s not an epic tome, thank goodness; it may not take me long to read at all. And as I read the first page at arm’s length, like I’m worried it’ll transmit a literary STD, I note that it doesn’t seem to be the style of writing that lends itself to scene after graphic sex scene of gag-inducing euphemisms for sexual organs.
As Paulette reported, the sticky note on the top page features Luke’s chicken scratch and tells a sad tale about being buried at work and forgetting all about this favor he’d promised Arthur (I knew it!!) months ago and how much “you’ll be pulling my chestnuts out of the fire” and how much he loves me.
The last part makes me smile while I roll my eyes. With a big sigh, I say “Fine!” out loud and retreat to the sofa with a blanket, a pen, and the sheaf of papers.
When Paulette pokes her head through the doorway later, I blink up at her and say distractedly, “You need something?”
“Soup’s ready,” she tells me.
Confused, I ask, “Already? What time is it?”
“Nearly noon. I would have been in sooner, but—”
“Noon?!” I shift my position under the blanket and, sure enough, notice that I’m stiff, as if I’ve been sitting for three hours without moving, but it doesn’t seem possible that that much time has passed since I sat down with this thing.
“Is it awful?” she asks, nodding toward the manuscript.
I shake my head. “No. It’s not. I mean, there are some rough parts and some mixed metaphors and a few analogies that don’t work, but for the most part, it’s good stuff.” I stand and stretch my arms over my head. “Unfortunately, I read something very similar to this a long time ago. I think. I can’t remember what it was, probably something in college that I had to read for a class that I don’t remember. But I distinctly remember this plot. I know what’s going to happen next. And that’s a bummer, because this is good writing. In my opinion, which isn’t worth much.”
As I follow her into the kitchen, Paulette says, “You have thousands of fans who would beg to differ, I’d think. You know the good from the bad, surely.”
I shrug while she fills a bowl of bean soup for me. “I guess. It’s bothering me,
though, that I can’t place where I’ve read this before. I’d like to read the original so I can see if it’s similar enough that it would prevent this person—whoever she is—from being published.”
Disdainfully, she says, “Doesn’t stop Tom Ridgeworthy from publishing the same book over and over again. Virtually.”
We snicker about that over our steaming bowls.
After a few bites, Paulette says, “You said, ‘she.’ What’s this writer’s name?”
I swallow and shake my head. “Dunno. There’s no name on it. Dumb. This person obviously doesn’t know her way around the publishing industry, or she’d guard her intellectual property with her life. All it takes is this thing falling into the wrong hands, with no name on it, and someone else gets to write their ticket on her hard work. But I can tell by the way it’s written that it’s a woman. I’m making some sexist assumptions, I guess.”
She nods pensively. “I find that it’s usually easy to tell if the author’s a man or woman. Except in the case of that Blake Redmond-Womack. Although I have a theory that his wife writes his books, while the novelty of a man writing so romantically is what sells them.”
I grin at her. “I like that theory. There’s something not right about him.”
“I agree,” she states unequivocally. Then she admits sheepishly, “I’ve read every single one of his books, though. They’re like drugs, they are!”
Grudgingly, I concur. “Yeah, yeah. I know. I find, though, that as long as I don’t open his books, I can’t get sucked in. So, I avoid them.”
With a mischievous glint in her eyes, she reveals, “Luke reads them.”
Assuming she’s referring to the time he brought one home for me to read the passage that illustrated the emotion he was looking for in my manuscript, I say, “I know. That one time…”
“No. All the time. Every time.”
I snort. “Whatever.”
She widens her eyes at me. “I’m serious. He gives them to me when he’s through with them.”
Still not sure whether to believe her but also equally unsure of her motives for lying about such a thing, I point out, “I’ve never seen him reading one.”
