by Brea Brown
“Womack hasn’t written a new one in a while! But when he does, mark my words, Luke will buy it and read it.” She stands. “Can I get you more soup, Dear?”
I shake my head while staring into space. “You think he’ll read it in front of me?”
“I don’t see why not,” she replies, taking my empty bowl to the sink. “It’s not exactly shameful. Ever-so-slightly unmanly, but I think it’s sweet.”
This information makes me see my husband in a whole new light. I thought I knew everything about him. And it doesn’t make me think less of him (I don’t think), but it makes me think differently about him. He’s read every single Blake Redmond-Womack book? I have a vagina and can’t claim that. And how has this emotional education via Mr. Womack colored his perceptions of love and romance? Does he channel Womack’s protagonists when trying to think of ways to compliment me or when picking out the perfect Christmas or birthday gift? It’s too hilarious to even consider.
Luke Edwards, my Luke, Mr. Anti-Sentimentality, a Blake Redmond-Womack fan? How does he justify that? It’s like a dietician going home and eating ice cream for dinner.
Now, I say, “I can’t wait to give him shit for this.”
Paulette whirls and nearly gasps. “Oh, no. You can’t!”
“Why not? He’d be all over me if I admitted to reading…” I grasp in my mind for the female equivalent of Womack and land on, “…Jessica Creed!”
“She writes smutty romance novels, though.”
“So does Womack! But because he’s a man, they’re not perceived or marketed as such.”
“No, there’s a definite difference. Womack’s not smutty. He’s deep and emotional and—”
“Puh-lease!”
She purses her lips. “Promise me you won’t tease him about this.”
“No way. I don’t promise that at all.”
“I shouldn’t have said anything.” But she looks like she’s proud of herself, in spite of all her protestations.
“No, you shouldn’t have. You should have let me discover this dirty little secret all on my own. You should have waited until Womack released his next book and let me walk in on my husband sitting up in bed, reading it. You would have heard me laughing all the way down in your room.” I rise, anxious to get back to reading, but at the kitchen door, I pause, turn, and say, “Don’t worry, though. I’ll choose my moment wisely so he won’t know you told on him.”
“Oh, you!” she squawks and waves her towel at me, like she does to Luke when he’s teasing her. This simple gesture makes me feel like a member of a true family for the first time in more than a dozen years and almost knocks the wind out of me.
“What is it, Dear?” she asks, suddenly serious. “You look peaky.”
“I’m fine,” I mumble unreassuringly. I shake my head and try to smile the emotion away. When my attempt fails, I simply exit the room and return to the sitting room and the anonymous manuscript. But I stare off into space for a long time before reading any more.
Because, in addition to the obvious warm glow this familial sense of belonging brings, it also intensifies a fear in me that I’ve never been stupid enough to think would ever leave me, but I’ve done a decent job of keeping at bay with my nightly smoke detector and fire alarm and carbon monoxide detector checks.
Now that I have so much, I have so much to lose.
Chapter Thirty-One
Throughout the afternoon, as I’ve scribbled on the manuscript (which I came to find out was unfinished), I’ve shifted position several times on the couch in an effort to get comfortable or to facilitate long stretches of writing notes out by hand. Eventually, when I was finished writing and merely wanted to peruse critical sections, I ended up on my stomach, the manuscript on the floor below my head. That’s how I fell asleep, spinning through my mind numerous possible endings to the story, trying to remember the original story I read in college so that I could figure out a way to advise this author to write it and make it different.
I wake up to the sound of ruffling paper and the feel of a finger tracing a line down my spine and coming to rest slightly above the rise of my rump.
“Mmmph!” I protest the tickle and arch my back.
“Wake up,” Luke softly commands. “I believe I gave you some work to do, and you’re sleeping on the job.”
I roll onto my back and glare up at him. “I did your crap work, thank you very much. I finished it and then some. So I earned my nap.”
He smiles crookedly down at me. “I’ll be the judge of that.” He gives the stack of papers in his hands a perfunctory flip-through. “My, my, my. This is quite the mark-up.”
I sit up, my excitement for the manuscript waking me up. “Yeah. I know. I think it’s a great idea. And well-executed. But…”
“What?” He sits next to me but keeps his eyes down on the pages as he skims my comments.
“It’s been done before.”
Dismissively, he declares, “Yeah, well, there’s no such thing as a new idea, right? Only variations on themes.”
I shake my head regretfully. “No. I mean… I’ve read this story before. If it’s published as-is, it’ll be plagiarism.”
His head snaps up at one of the most serious words in his line of work. Calmly, he asks, “Oh? And what work is it plagiarizing?”
Rubbing my eyes, I admit, “I don’t know. I can’t remember the name or the author, but I know I’ve read this before. How is this writer related to Arthur, anyway?”
His intense study of my face is obviously distracting him from our conversation, because he slurs, “Wha…?” and then after blinking and giving his head a tiny shake, he quickly says, “Oh. Arthur. Yeah. Uh… she’s not related to him. I never said that.”
I grab his note from the coffee table and re-read it. “‘I promised Arthur months ago that I’d take a look at this and give the author my thoughts.’ Okay, so not a relative of Arthur’s, but your read-through is something he requested on behalf of someone else?”
He slaps the manuscript onto the coffee table and snaps, “What does it matter, anyway?”
“I—I guess it doesn’t,” I concede, startled by his sudden irritation. “I was only wondering.”
“Maybe we should focus more on figuring out where you’ve read this before, that’s all.”
“Maybe you should relax and let me do some research on it tomorrow. I’ve put in enough unpaid hours in your little literary sweatshop today,” I snipe.
Hotly, he replies, “I wasn’t suggesting you had to figure it out right this second. I only meant that it was more important than the name of the writer.”
“It sounded to me like your typical whip-cracking.” I snatch the manuscript from the table and take it over to my desk, where I set it precisely in the center of the otherwise-empty surface.
“As usual, you’re putting words in my mouth and taking things the wrong way.”
“I’ve learned to anticipate your demands in order to keep the peace.”
“You haven’t learned very well, apparently. I’d hardly call this peaceful.”
“Screw you!” With that less-than-witty retort, I sweep from the room and run up the stairs to our bedroom, where I slam the door and then flop breathlessly onto the bed.
What an asshole! When I think the Luke I met in his office at Thornfield all those months ago doesn’t exist anymore, he acts like this, and I’m reminded of one of the few pearls of wisdom my mom ever bestowed on me regarding love: “You can’t change someone, so don’t ever go into a relationship with change in mind.”
And I didn’t, in this case. I thought Luke had already changed by himself. I thought his experiences with Caroline had changed him. I thought falling in love with me had changed him. But every once in a while, the old angry, mean editor I loathed reemerges and makes me want to scream. This instance is particularly disheartening, because I haven’t seen that douchebag in such a long time that I thought he was gone for good. Foolishly, I thought marriage had changed him.
/> Even though there’s no possible way it could be true, I pretend to be asleep when I hear him enter the room a few short minutes later. If nothing else, maybe he’ll get the hint that I don’t want to continue our conversation. The sound of fabric gliding against skin and the bounce of the mattress tell me he’s sitting on the bed and changing out of his work clothes—mercifully in silence. I hear the click of the closet light and the sound of hangers sliding on the metal rack. Something falls from the shelf, eliciting a muted “Ouch” before landing with a clunk on the wooden floor.
My closed eyes are like bouncers at an exclusive club. And Luke’s not on the list. As I’m thinking he doesn’t have the guts to even approach and ask for admittance, his side of the mattress sags again, and he says, “I’m glad you remember that story.”
This statement is confounding enough that it makes me open my eyes and wonder aloud, “Why? I’d think it would be a major complication.”
He mistakes my verbal response as permission to touch me. Sliding across the bed, he rests his chin against my hip and says, “It’s not a complication; it’s a blessing.”
“Then why are you being such a dickhead about it?”
He doesn’t have a quick answer for that one. I don’t rush him. Finally, he answers, “I didn’t realize I was being one. Your preoccupation with the name of the writer seemed irrelevant and a waste of time.”
I bristle anew. “‘Preoccupation’? I asked one time. I’d hardly call that preoccupied. But you bit my head off.”
“Sorry.” He sounds anything but. “I’m also glad you like the story and had a lot of ideas about the direction in which to take it.”
Sullenly, I mutter, “So glad you approve.”
He chuckles at my sarcasm.
“It’s not funny.” I flop onto my back. He braces himself on his elbow and looks down at me while I continue, “I know it seems like I’m an idle waste of space and that since I don’t have any ideas of my own, I should be grateful to you for allowing me to help other people with their ideas—”
“Now, wait a minute—”
“—but I’m not an editing robot. I should be allowed to ask questions and give feedback without worrying about being shouted at or treated like a nuisance. You asked for my help. If you don’t want me to bother you with the things I have questions about, then don’t ask for my help. Frankly, I’d rather watch British cartoons and eat Magnum bars all day.”
“No, you wouldn’t.”
“Yes, I would.” I’m gathering steam now. Looking straight into his green eyes, I say, “Anyway, Miles Brooks emailed me back today—”
“Why’d you email him?”
“—about my interest in getting back into teaching at the collegiate level, and he seemed pleased to hear from me—”
“I’m sure he was…”
“—and said he’d be glad to give me a reference or even find a place for me on the faculty at Fairfax, so—”
“Hang on a minute!” He doesn’t look the least bit amused anymore. Nor does he seem to be willing to let me talk over him. “Hang on! Teaching? I don’t think so.”
“Excuse me? It’s not your call.”
“Well… I mean… Of course, it’s not, but… What I mean is… Well, for one thing, Fairfax is in Maryland! In case you didn’t know, we live in a completely different state.”
“We can move.”
He doesn’t even dignify that with a response.
“And I know you’re fond of pretending it’s not true, but you still have contractual obligations with Thornfield. I’d suggest you focus on those before you commit yourself to a mind-numbing life in academia!” His jaw hardens and his nostrils flare.
“My contract with your employer is the least of my worries, in the grand scheme of—”
“I beg to differ!”
“Beg all you want, but it’s true. All I have to do is write a check and—”
“All you have to do is give up, you mean? Writing becomes a little bit of work for you, and suddenly, it’s not worth it? Is that how you want to approach life? What about when marriage gets difficult, Jayne? You gonna throw in the towel and write me a fucking check? Is that what I have to look forward to?”
I push him away from me and cross to the window. Looking down on the gray, wet beach, I say, “Stop being so self-righteous and dramatic. They’re totally different things.”
When he doesn’t argue—for once—I take advantage of his silence and continue, “Listen. It’s my career, and I know you work for Thornfield, so that puts you in an awkward position when it comes to my decision to break my contract with them, but—”
Sitting up on the bed, he explodes, “I don’t give a damn about them or what any of them thinks of me or you!”
“Then why are you so intent on my fulfilling my contract?”
“You owe it to yourself not to give up on something you love to do, Jayne! You love writing. You’re good at it. Just because it’s not coming easy right now doesn’t mean it’s not worth it.” He stands and, despite my protests, joins me at the window, pressing his chest against my back and cupping my shoulders in his hands. “Didn’t it feel good to read through that manuscript and have it reawaken your imagination? Don’t you remember the thrill of getting a sentence exactly right?”
I blink at my tears. “Yeah. It felt great to read someone else’s work and say, ‘I used to be able to do this,’ and ‘If this were me, I’d say it this way.’ It felt awful, actually. It felt like looking through an old photo album full of dead people I dearly loved and miss so much that it physically hurts. It made me feel nostalgic and jealous and… and… horrible!”
He kisses my ear. I bring my shoulder up to nudge him away, but he’s not deterred. Goosebumps raise my hair follicles as he murmurs next to my ear, “Jayne, don’t be a dumbass. You are the author of that manuscript. Or a younger facsimile of you. You wrote that your freshman year in college.”
“You’re the dumbass, thank you very much. I think I would have remembered that.”
“That manuscript was an assignment for a class. A class taught by a Dr. Wallace Nichols. Creative Writing 101. The assignment was to write a 5,000-word novel start. You wrote 30,000 before you ran out of time and had to turn it in. You always turned in your assignments, after all, no matter what was going on or how you were feeling. You got things done. Gus told me that much.”
I spin around to face him. “Gus gave it to you?” I can’t imagine how he got hold of it, but it at least lends some credibility to the claim that it’s truly my writing. I want so much to believe it is.
Luke shakes his head and rolls his eyes. “No. It’s one of the files you refuse to look at on the flash drive . But Gus gave me the background on the assignment. You two met in that class.”
I suddenly get a very vivid picture of Dr. Nichols. He looked like a goat, with his sculpted beard and his jutting chin. I remember how Gus used to swear the professor’s pupils were vertical obelisks, if you could ever get close enough to see them.
“He was annoyed that I didn’t follow the assignment parameters,” I say spacily. “Dr. Nichols. I got a C on this assignment, mostly because I overachieved.”
“Sounds right.”
“Why don’t I remember writing it? Why does it feel like the work of a stranger?
Luke smiles down at me. “You do remember it. A little. You said it’s familiar to you. Your logical brain is trying so hard to make you recognize it, but your emotional brain won’t allow it. You wrote it at a time when life was too hard to experience, too hard to undertake, when it was easier to walk through life on auto-pilot.”
I relax at the truth of that assessment and choke, “How do you know that?”
“I know you, Jayne. And…” His smile has a guilty tint to it. “…you told me that yourself once. Something you said in Key West reminded me of it and gave me the idea to test the theory by showing you one of your old files and seeing if you recognized it.”
“By tricking me, in
other words?”
He closes one eye and thinks about it. “Not really. I didn’t lie. And I didn’t say it wasn’t your writing.”
“‘A favor for Arthur’? How do you explain that red herring?”
Ultra-seriously, he insists, “Arthur has been on my case for months about getting you to produce something. I wasn’t exaggerating about my chestnuts being held firmly in the fire. They’re roasting.”
I smile sadly. “We can’t have that. I’ll march into his office and kick his old, wrinkly ass.”
“It’d probably be better if you just finish that manuscript.”
“Not as exciting, but… okay. I might be able to do that.”
“I know you can.”
I gulp and try to temper the hope in my chest when I say, “I believe I can, too.”
*****
“I respect your space and your ‘process,’ but I haven’t seen you—or been invited to the house on Marblehead—in months, and I’m starting to feel neglected and unloved. Not that I don’t have other friends, Babushka; I do. I don’t want you to get the wrong idea there. But they’re not you, and they don’t have houses on Marblehead, if you get my drift. Especially with summer getting into full swing, I want to sit on the beach and drink Mai Tai’s and hang out in town, checking out all the gay married men who are trying so valiantly to be straight with their blue blood wives and their broods of bratty kids. All the openly-gay men anymore are in committed relationships—or worse, married to other openly-gay men!—so I’ve resigned myself to being someone’s mistress. I think I can handle it.”
I un-mute my phone long enough to say, “I wouldn’t recommend that.”
“You never were, so what would you know? Anyway, what do you say? How much longer am I going to have to wait for an invitation? I know I’m not a low-key houseguest, so I understand why you want to be finished with your work before I come out there for a visit, but seriously! How much longer is it going to take you? Glaciers move faster, honey!”
“Soon,” I answer vaguely. “Hey, it was great catching up, but I have to get back to it.”
