A Novel Seduction

by Gwyn Cready

  To his relief they both wanted one, and he jogged to the counter. “Three Greeks,” he said, “and please take as long as possible.”

  Jill appeared at his side. “El wants extra feta.”

  “Of course she does.” The counter attendant had heard and he nodded.

  “And a Sprite.” Axel turned to Jill. “You’re still a Sprite girl, aren’t you?”

  “You bet.”

  “And two Diet Cokes.” He turned to look at Ellery, who was scribbling furiously on a notepad. “Em, make that one Diet Coke and a really tall Beck’s.”

  The counter guy looked at the clock, which barely showed eleven, shrugged his shoulders and angled his head toward the cooler with drinks behind them.

  Jill lingered, gazing at the different offerings. “It’s really good to see you again.”

  “You too. I was just so surprised to see you.”

  “I came into town for Grandma Marion’s annual ‘Birthday with the Granddaughters’ luncheon.”

  “Oh, God.” Axel remembered the woman distinctly. “Did she go into her avocado tirade?”

  “Yes. Also, salt, the New York Lottery, gabardine and people who don’t read newspapers. Do you remember the time she asked you if photographers made enough money to earn a living, and you said you got paid by the inch which is why you always tried to volunteer for assignments about skyscrapers and giraffes? God, I laughed so hard I thought I was going to die.”

  “Yeah, well, you’re an easy laugh.”

  “No, I’m very particular.”

  She paused, tracing a finger on the display case, and he wondered if something was bothering her. Then he realized a question was coming.

  “So I hear you and Ellery are going to be working together again.”

  There was more there than the words would suggest. “You know your sister,” he said lightly. “Can’t stay away.”

  She smiled. She knew how angry Ellery had been with him. “And what exactly do you have planned?”

  “Nothing,” he said flatly. “I have nothing planned.”

  “Jumping her bones counts as nothing?”

  He winced. With all the Team Ynez and Jemmie stuff, he’d forgotten Jill had heard that. “To hear Ellery tell of it, yes.”

  She giggled, and Axel remembered with a rush of guilt how sad she’d been when he and Ellery split.

  “I don’t mind if you jump her bones,” Jill said with a glint far more knowing than he would have thought possible, “just don’t hurt her.”

  “Thank you for the clarification.” He felt distinctly off balance at having such a conversation with someone who’d been reading The Princess Diaries last time he looked. He wished he hadn’t told the attendant to take his time. “You may recall, hurt can be a two-way street.”

  Her eyes widened. Oh, God. She hadn’t known. He’d said too much.

  “Look, our salads are ready.” He took the tray out of the counter guy’s hand and headed toward the table. Pittsburgh was staring at him with the same X-ray gaze as her sister. He pressed his way forward, buffeted by the debilitating pulse of roentgens. Out of the frying pan into the real firepower.

  “And I have a tone for the piece,” Ellery said as he distributed the salads.

  “Excellent.” He slid the tomatoes off his plate and onto Jill’s. “Let’s hear it.”

  “Docu-style. Pulling no punches. The good, the bad, the ugly. You’ll do a Diane Arbus sort of thing with the shots.”

  Axel ran a hand across his stubble, groaning silently. Diane Arbus had photographed oddballs and outsiders—the circus folk of life. The piece sounded like it would be about as uplifting as a Centers for Disease Control report. He supposed he should be glad at least Ellery thought there might actually be a good to go along with the bad and the ugly.

  “I had a slightly different take,” he said.

  Ellery, who had been transferring the cucumbers from her plate to his, paused. “Oh?”

  “More… magical.” “

  ‘Magical’?”

  “I’m pretty sure that’s how women look at romances.” He slipped the books out of his bag and spread them across the table. Ellery looked at them as if he had just dissected a kitten and was offering her the remains.

  “The covers.” She moved a horrified finger closer, but not close enough to come into actual contact. “Look at them.”

  “Pretty, isn’t it?” Jill said, picking up Vamp. “Don’t you like the apple? Very Garden of Eden. You know, of course, this is set in Pittsburgh.”

  Axel’s head snapped around. “It is?”

  “Oh, yeah. Metaphor for hell. The old steel town image. The vampires hang out at the Monkey Bar on Carson Street. It’s supposed to be at the gates to their underworld.”

  Axel gazed down, chagrined. The Monkey Bar had been a sticking point with him and Ellery. He’d hung out there frequently, enjoying the wide selection of European beers, watching hockey and closing the place down as often as he could. Since Ellery devoted evenings to writing, he’d felt justified giving her the quiet she needed. Of course, he thought with a kick from his conscience, it probably wouldn’t have mattered whether he’d felt justified or not.

  He ran a finger down the moisture that had condensed on the side of the Beck’s. When he looked up, Ellery looked away.

  “I, em, have to hit the head.” He dug a small leather case out of his bag and headed to the back, feeling Ellery’s eyes on him the whole way.

  Ellery felt the familiar icicles of anger form in her gut.

  “Why are you looking at him that way?” Jill demanded.

  Reluctant to expose Jill to the sort of man Axel had been and apparently still was, Ellery shook off the feeling. “It’s nothing.”

  Jill looked from her sister’s face to the men’s room to Axel’s bag. “You think he’s taking drugs.”

  “It’s not out of the question,” Ellery said after weighing the options. “I’ve seen him do it before.”

  “So have I.”

  Ellery’s jaw fell, but she pulled it up quickly. She hadn’t realized how much her young sister had seen and understood. “Then you can see why I’d be suspicious.”

  “Axel never hid what he did. Why would he hide it now?”

  “Maybe it’s worse.”

  “Maybe you’re paranoid. Weed and some uppers do not exactly enshrine him in the John Belushi Hall of Fame.”

  “He may have done coke too.”

  “May have. Hmm. You know, your little sister may have done coke too.”

  Ellery’s heart seized. “Have you?”

  “Can’t remember. The lacrosse team left before the roofies wore off.” She flashed a bright smile.

  Ellery forked a large hunk of feta. “I hate you.”

  “No you don’t. You just hate that I’m right. Speaking of that, are you going to go to the Monkey Bar for this story?”

  “Er…” Ellery gazed at the shot of a shirtless vampire holding a bloody apple on the cover and growled. Pittsburgh, of all places? She had loved the town growing up, but now it represented all the things that had gone wrong for her. Spending a day reliving any of it, especially with Axel at her side, would be like ripping open a scar. “I doubt it.”

  “You should. I want a picture. Is it really like, well, like what they say?”

  Ellery frowned. “I don’t know. What do they say?”

  Jill leaned forward and lowered her voice. “In the book, Ynez owns the place. Her vampires are almost all women. The way they earn her trust is by crossing the bars.”

  “The bars?”

  “The monkey bars.”

  Ellery almost snorted a kalamata olive up her nose. She hadn’t thought about monkey bars since the third grade. She had been the girls’ champion at Howe Elementary School. “You’re telling me that vampires earn their stripes in this hell-with-the-lid-off vampire headquarters by crossing a set of monkey bars?”

  “It’s not just that. The bars are high and they lead to a platform. If the vamps wa
nt to wear Ynez’s coat of arms, they have to take off their outer skins and throw them in the fire there.”

  “There’s a fire at the end of the monkey bars, like a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow?”

  “A fire pit,” Jill said. “It symbolizes the casting off of their old life.”

  “Uh-huh. And then what? Navigate a corn maze to find their new one? Or is it a game of hide-and-seek to the death?”

  “You’re making fun.”

  “Damn right I am.”

  “It’s pretty cool when you read about it. Very feminist. Very empowering. Makes you want to join Ynez’s army yourself.”

  Feminist? Empowering? Ellery looked at her sister. “I thought you were majoring in economics?”

  Jill grinned proudly. “Ynez is an economist. She works for the State Department.”

  Which no doubt explained why Ellery’s passport had taken so long to arrive.

  “Try it,” Jill said, pushing the book toward her. “And definitely go to the Monkey Bar.”

  Ellery didn’t know what she would do. Once she’d determined her preferred strategy of running wasn’t going to work out, she had figured out a way to get her arms around the topic. But she was perfectly aware that the way she’d chosen was not in keeping with the way Black wanted it to be written. Every assignment had an ebb and flow, and as one did research and interviewed sources and responded to changing internal or external requirements, the whole nature of a piece could change. Ellery prayed this was going to be one of those times. She knew she couldn’t write the article the way Black wanted. She was too close to another job—the job of her dreams—to have even the hint of romance novels wafting through her résumé.

  Axel ambled back, looking pleased with himself. It was profoundly irritating to Ellery that his tattered insouciance still made her breath catch. Why, when she had her pick of grown-up men with custom-made suits, investment portfolios and nicely creased trousers, did the sight of those muscular forearms extending from their rolled-up sleeves and the perennially scuffed Nikes make her shift in her seat like a college coed?

  She speared a wedge of tomato and growled into her salad.

  Axel settled back into his chair. He swore he could feel the liquid coursing through his veins, settling into the tips of his fingers and toes.

  “Feeling better?” Ellery said.

  “Much.” He slipped the case into his bag. “Where were we? Oh, right. The books. These are the ones I think you might want to…” He considered “read” and settled on “… examine. I have it on good authority that these are, em, highly representational.” As long as he kept the discussion in graduate seminar territory, he figured he was on safe ground.

  The word seemed to disarm her. “Of course. You’re right. They’re artifacts, after all—an indication of how women in certain socioeconomic circumstances interact with the world.”

  Axel rubbed his chin, flicking his gaze for an instant to Jill, who gave him an amused look. Not what Black had in mind, but far better than the dreadful outcasts-of-society angle she had proposed earlier. Baby steps, he reminded himself. Baby steps that would lead right to a lovely little microbrewery, if he was lucky.

  “Yes,” he said. “Absolutely. And do you think it makes sense to cover some of the key locations in the books: Pittsburgh, and, em”—he picked up Kiltlander and gazed at the kilted man on the cover—“someplace in Scotland, I presume, and, well”—he picked up the last book, the one with the woman in a shimmering pink gown, flipped through the pages until the words “Covent Garden” popped off the page—“London?”

  He held his breath, waiting for her response.

  Ellery’s knife and fork hovered over the plate. “I guess.”

  Axel tipped the Beck’s and drank. Step number one.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “How’s that John Irving thing going?” Carlton Purdy, Ellery’s potential new employer asked.

  Ellery banged the phone’s headset against her head like a mallet. Why did she insist on answering outside calls?

  “Great. Just great. How are things at Lark & Ives?”

  “Super-duper. You know, we’re getting to the final paces in our search process.”

  She could just see him, vibrating with Carlton Purdy pleasure in his seersucker suit and Dartmouth “Big Green” bow tie. She prayed he was about to offer her the job so she could quit the one she had and put this horrible day behind her. “Glad to hear it.”

  “And things are looking quite good for you, missy.”

  “Also good to hear.”

  “Listen, the board is eating up—I mean, just devouring—everything you’ve written. Your criticism is great, and you really know how to get the big guns to open up to you.”

  He probably meant the interview she’d done with Don DeLillo, which had graced the front of Vanity Place’s December issue. She sighed, thinking of that happy accomplishment, then noticed the copy of Vamp sitting on her desk and coughed. “I have to admit,” she said, turning the book over, “I’ve gotten a few coups.”

  “With Irving in your sights.”

  Technically true, though some vampire named Harold, not John Irving, appeared to qualify for the slot marked NEXT.

  “Tell me, what’s he like?”

  “John Irving? Fantastic.”

  “Oh, I bet it’s going to be a killer profile.”

  Well, the topic of John Irving had certainly achieved a lethalness around here. “I hope so.”

  “When can I see it?”

  She jerked. “Um, well, it’s sort of in process.”

  “Next issue?”

  “Actually—” She stopped. If she told him it had been tabled for a future issue, he’d want to know what she was working on for the upcoming one. “Probably.”

  “Excellent. I’d love to read your take. The board would love to read it. Send over what you have. I wanna love me some of that John Irving.”

  “You know I will. As soon as it’s ready.”

  “Super-duper-ola.”

  Ellery hung up and looked at the books, disconsolate. John Irving would be so much easier to write, she thought.

  “Irving’s fantastic, huh?” Kate had maneuvered herself into Ellery’s office. “You must be something of a telepath, since I know you haven’t sat down with him yet.”

  “Gimme a break. I’m doing an examination of romance novels, for God’s sake.”

  “An ‘examination.’ My goodness, the issues are going to be flying off the shelves.”

  “Hey, it’s the best way to approach a difficult subject. Strip it to the bones and make it beg for mercy.”

  “Which difficult subject are we talking about?”

  Ellery gave her a piercing look.

  “So, exactly what sort of relationship did you and our Mr. Mackenzie share? Holiday party gone awry? Deadline fever? I checked the database: You haven’t worked with him in the last five years.”

  “You should have checked back a little further. We worked on a number of pieces together. In Pittsburgh,” she added quickly, as if the mere setting made the notion of it being anything more than a regrettable fling unimaginable. “Before he came here to do his thing and I came to do mine.”

  “Ah. And when you two were doing your mutual things,” she paused, giving the last two words as lascivious a sound as possible, “what was that like? I mean, is he the sexiest guy who ever coaxed his zoom into close-up mode or what?”

  Ellery shook her head. “The zoom work was fine. I told you, it was the depth of field that was lacking.”

  Kate considered this. “Yeah, I guess it sort of makes a difference if you’re in it for more than a few shots.”

  “Yeah, it does.”

  “But here you are, working together again?”

  “Yep.”

  “And you say the zoom work was fine?”

  Ellery gave her a haughty hm.

  “What?” Kate lifted up her palms. “It’s not like you’re slapping away the offers. I’m just saying a l
ittle tight-in stuff can do wonders for a girl’s portfolio.”

  “Who’s working on their portfolio?” Axel draped his forearms over the cubicle wall and smiled amiably.

  “Ellery,” Kate said. “I told her she needs to tighten her prose—you know, focus on the really big stuff.”

  “You’ve already started writing?” he said to Ellery, surprise on his face.

  “No, not yet.” Why did the copper hairs dusting his forearms have to sparkle like a daytime meteor shower?

  “Well, perhaps you’ll have some time on the plane. I’ve looked into flights. We kind of have to hightail it around, given the Monday deadline. I thought we’d head to Pittsburgh tomorrow. According to Jill, the Monkey Bar’s the best place to connect with Vamp fans.”

  “I have an interview to do in London.”

  “And I have a friend at a hotel with a connection to a romance readers’ group there. So we’ll head to London the day after tomorrow. Will a day there be enough? I figured we could catch the train to Edinburgh for the sociologist you found, and if there’s anywhere else we need to go for Kiltlander, we can head out from there with a rental car. By the way, Kate,” he said, gazing at the novel on Ellery’s desk, “are all vampires cut like a Spartan in 300?”

  “All the ones worthy of my notice.”

  “Makes a man feel rather humble.”

  Kate smiled. “Probably a novel feeling for you.”

  Ellery arched her brows in agreement, though she had seen Axel’s abs and he had no reason to hang his head. “I think for efficiency’s sake we’d be better off splitting up. You go to Pittsburgh, get the shots you need of the Monkey Bar and whatever else.” She growled internally, thinking of the stupid Monkey Bar. “I’ll head off to London tonight, which would give me an extra day there. We can meet up once you arrive and go on to Scotland from there.”

  A flicker of something crossed his face, enough like disappointment to make her heart contract for a second.