The Writing Desk

by Rachel Hauck

  “Holt, I, I, wow . . .” She pressed her hands against his face, kissing him. “Can we talk about it later?” She laughed low. “My brain’s a bit muddled right now.”

  “Absolutely. The night is yours.”

  Outside the limo, a small crowd cheered, applauding. In the lobby, she was greeted by late-arriving guests as well as members of the media, along with the Oscar-winning actress Nicolette Carson.

  “I’m a big fan,” Nicolette said, stepping into the elevator as the doors slid open. “Ezra Elliot might be my favorite hero of all time.” She eyed Tenley’s red gown up and down with an approving nod and then, with a gasp, snatched up her hand. “What’s this? Oh my stars . . .” Nicolette mimed being blinded by Tenley’s diamond. “I think it is literally one of the stars. This is amazing.”

  “We’re engaged.” Holt leaned between them from the back of the elevator, beaming.

  “Engaged?” Wendall’s voice could be very loud.

  “Tenley, are you engaged?” The reporter from Channel 7 pressed against her. “Can we have details? How did he propose? When are the nuptials?”

  Tenley laughed, waving them off with her right hand, tucking her left close to her side. “You’ll just have to wait and see. Tonight is about the great Gordon Phipps Roth and the world of literature.”

  She could crown Holt for this. Just bonk him on the head. Twice. And for a moment, Tenley believed they rode the slowest elevator on the planet.

  Nicolette offered her hand to Holt. He all but drooled. “Holt Armstrong, if I’m not mistaken.”

  “Which you are not.” He laughed a bit loudly.

  “I recently read a screenplay by you,” Nicolette said. “It was hilarious. I loved it. We should talk. Tenley, do tell. He had to be the inspiration for your hero in Someone to Love?”

  Tenley smiled, the elevator quarters growing tighter, the weight of the diamond on her finger along with the mantle of expectation inspiring a cool sweat down her spine.

  “I suppose.” She squinted at her boyfriend of eleven months and eleven days, trying to see him through the starlet’s eyes. She’d forgotten his appeal, the cut of his jaw, the intellectual glint in his eye behind those dark-rimmed spectacles, and the full plump of his lips.

  If he wanted to believe he was Ezra, she’d not disappoint him. But her father was her inspiration. The book poured out of her in the months after his death. The writing, the process, the emotional mining of words proved to be her therapy, her way of commanding grief.

  She never imagined that showing the manuscript to her father’s literary agent, Charlie McGuire, would lead to a multi-book deal with Barclay Publishing.

  But now that grief and pain were in her rearview mirror, Tenley found writing a chore. A strain. Void of creativity and inspiration.

  For her July deadline, she’d written approximately zero words. Zero. The very notion washed over her with a suffocating panic.

  She inhaled, pushing out when the elevator doors opened, grateful for the pure April breeze rising up from the street.

  The Loft and Garden venue, aglow with romantic light, stood as an island among a river of city. Overhead, the stars sat as twinkling members of the audience.

  Fans, colleagues, fellow authors, and friends surrounded her, congratulating her.

  “So proud of you, Tenley.”

  “This is your night, girl.”

  “How do you feel about winning an award set up in your great-great-grandfather’s honor?”

  Finally the head of the Gordon Phipps Roth Foundation, a distant cousin, Elijah Phipps, rescued her. “We have a seat on the dais for you. Tenley, I can’t tell you how proud we are that the board selected you as this year’s winner. I know they regret never giving it to your father. We can’t wait for your next book. My wife raves about Someone to Love.”

  Tenley took her seat on the dais, her gaze drifting over the guests, esteemed and otherwise, and wondered how she got here.

  In her grief she’d stumbled upon this path, writing, as a way to figure out her life. So why, in this auspicious moment, did she feel so unbearably lost?

  TWO

  BIRDIE

  DECEMBER 30, 1902

  She wished to escape. So much so her legs twitched of their own volition. Each time, Mama glared at her in warning.

  Nevertheless, Birdie maintained decorum, perched on the edge of the red sitting room divan, sipping her tea and listening to Mrs. Opal Smith drone on about the season.

  “. . . they say she’s never recovered from her husband’s death. I daresay I believe them.”

  “I’m quite sure I’d faint dead away should anything happen to my Geoffrey.” Mama sipped her tea. She must. It would be the only way to hide her exaggeration.

  Birdie suspected Mama would never expire or wilt away should Papa pass on to the other side. Though she should weep and wail over losing a man as kind and loving as Papa.

  “But she’s holding her annual ball.” Mrs. Smith peeked at Birdie. “I suppose you’ll be at the Astors’. Shouldn’t a girl of your advanced age be betrothed by now?”

  Mama’s teacup rattled against the saucer. “Mrs. Smith, is that what everyone is saying?”

  She shrugged. “I’ve no idea. I ask of my own inquisitiveness.” She raised her tea cup, as she’d most likely done in every society drawing room across the city, musing over the same curiosities.

  “Mr. Shehorn and I agreed Birdie’s education superseded marriage. Rather opposite of common practice for young women, but she is a bright girl. We did not want to frustrate her. She is forever reading books and scribbling stories, talking of mathematics and sciences.” Mama spoke as if an expert on the matter, but Birdie’s intellectual interests frustrated her. It was Papa who had insisted their daughter spend four years at Wellesley.

  Mama had pitched a fit. Hidden away in her room for nearly a week, having her meals brought to her upon her “sickbed.”

  She wanted Birdie in a marriage match. One that would advance her up the social ladder. Seeing Mrs. Astor fade with ill health and heartbreak left an opening for another woman to lead New York, and thus American, society.

  Mama aimed to be that woman. The new queen of the elite. Then pass the crown to her daughter.

  “How did you find Wellesley, Birdie?” Mrs. Smith said. “Haven’t you just graduated?”

  “I found Wellesley a splendid place of knowledge, friendship, and spiritual challenge. I’d not trade my years there for all of Mr. Vanderbilt’s gold.”

  Mrs. Smith gaped at her. Mama gasped. Then the two chortled together.

  “She is so droll, Mrs. Shehorn. How do you manage?”

  Mama eyed Birdie with a dark glint. “We find a way.”

  “Now that you’re home, surely you mean to find a husband. You’re twenty-two unless I miss my guess. My Aimee and Ruthann married at seventeen and eighteen respectively.” Mrs. Smith leaned toward Mama and Birdie with a proud smile. “A duke and an earl.”

  “Yes, I recall their weddings,” Mama said. “I do hope they are faring well in their positions.”

  “Yes, quite well. Though I’m anxious for grandchildren. So, Birdie, do you have your eye on a young heir? A duke of your own perhaps.”

  Birdie lowered her gaze, hiding the blush on her cheeks. Must Mrs. Smith remain so determined to ascertain her marital aspirations?

  “No, I do not. I don’t see marriage as a necessary requirement to live a fulfilling life.”

  “Birdie!” Mama’s rebuke was clear.

  Mrs. Smith laughed. “Then what on earth do you plan to do with yourself? Do you not want children? Don’t tell me you’ll be like the godless progressives, having affairs without marriage, spawning unwanted illegitimates.”

  “Mrs. Smith, I’ll have you curb your coarseness in my drawing room!”

  “I beg your pardon, but what am I to make of your daughter’s assertion?”

  “Not that she’ll live in sin, certainly.” Mama shuffled in her chair, clattering her cup agains
t the saucer, a slight mist glittering across her forehead. “We have Christian values in this family.”

  “Well, of course you do.” Mrs. Smith offered a conciliatory smile. Upsetting Mrs. Shehorn would not serve her reputation. “I didn’t mean—”

  “Of course I want to marry,” Birdie said, smoothing the discourse. “I’ve just no one in mind as of yet. Didn’t Edith Minturn Stokes not marry until twenty-eight? See how happy she and Isaac are now? Don’t you think love is a factor?”

  “Yes, but not as grand a factor as the young people make of it today,” Mama said, dabbing her forehead with her handkerchief.

  “Yes, I quite agree. Love must win the day but it is not a requirement for marriage. Position and advantage must determine the suitable mate.” Mrs. Smith spoke with the utmost authority.

  Birdie burned at her words. Such an arrangement might have suited Mama, Mrs. Smith, and their mothers, but it would not suit Birdie, a woman coming of age in the twentieth century.

  From the hallway, the grandfather clock chimed the hour. Three o’clock. Birdie set her tea aside and brushed her hands over her gown. Surely Mrs. Smith would take her leave. She’d been visiting for more than thirty minutes.

  Birdie must make her way to Barclay Publishing’s Broadway office within an hour. She needed time to slip upstairs, retrieve her hat and coat, run up to her writing room under the attic eaves to gather her new manuscript from her desk, and then sneak away, hoping the private brougham she asked Percival to order waited for her on the corner of Fifth and Fifty-Seventh.

  “. . . surely as an heiress, you’ve a selection of suitable mates.”

  “We are discussing now—”

  “What?” Birdie didn’t care about her interruption. “I’ve been in no such discussions.”

  “Birdie. Don’t make Mrs. Smith uncomfortable. Tell me, what are your New Year’s plans? We’re heading to the Berkshires. The Van Cliffs built a cottage there and we are looking forward to seeing it.”

  “The Van Cliffs. How wonderful. We are planning our annual grand ball here . . .”

  Birdie faded from the conversation. What was Mama up to now? With whom was she talking about marriage? Oh, why must she constantly control, dictate, and demand her way? Even while at Wellesley, Birdie felt her taut reins.

  From the fireplace, the flames crackled. Beyond the frosty window, the day faded from sun to the promise of snow.

  Birdie’s leg twitched. She must be away or she’d miss Mr. Barclay. She’d tried to set an appointment with him but he refused to see her, so she was going to impose the element of surprise. Either way, she must retrieve her first manuscript and present him with another.

  Because the idea of A View from Her Carriage being read by thousands . . . well, it made her blood run cold.

  Percival stepped through the drawing-room door. “Mrs. Astor has come to call.”

  Mrs. Smith jumped up, smoothing her hand over her hair. “Caroline Astor? Here?”

  “Do escort her in, Percival.” Mama beamed, rising to her feet.

  Birdie exchanged a glance with the Shehorns’ trusted butler. Do not let my brougham go. Please.

  “This is quite an honor, Mrs. Shehorn.” Mrs. Smith nodded her respect. “Mrs. Astor has not been making personal calls as of late.”

  “Indeed not.”

  After her husband’s death and her own failing health, the Mrs. Astor did not call in person. She sent her card and nothing more. This rare visit all but crowned Mama the new head of society.

  Yet, as Mama sought her lot in life, Birdie must seek hers.

  “Mama, if you’ll excuse—”

  “Shhh, I do not excuse you. Stay put.”

  “Yes, Mama.” Birdie felt instantly a child again, ruled by a demanding if not harsh mama whose approval she desperately sought.

  The grand dame of New York society graced the doorway. Mama moved to welcome her.

  “Mrs. Astor, do come in. To what do I owe this honor?”

  And so Birdie sat with her elders, listening to the idle conversation, a sound so dull in her ears she imagined she could hear the coming snowflakes forming.

  The grandfather clock struck the half hour. She must be away. Glancing from Mama to Mrs. Smith to Mrs. Astor, she did the only polite thing she could do.

  She rolled her eyes back in her head, exhaled a loud gasp, and swooned out of her chair.

  TENLEY

  She stood in her loft workspace, staring at the bronze and gold Gordon Phipps Roth Award sitting on the edge of her desk.

  Inspire me!

  But instead the scene, the setting, and everything about the space intimidated her.

  The desk was a family heirloom passed down from her great-great-grandfather. He wrote his first novel, When Hearts Are in Love, at that desk. And his third, the one that defined and launched his career, The Girl in the Carriage.

  Dad wrote his first novel at the desk. Blanche had recently abandoned them, and Grandpa moved the desk and accompanying chair from his apartment to theirs.

  “Your heart’s broken, Conrad. Time to write that novel you’ve been promising to write,” he said.

  The Roth family writing gene had skipped Tenley’s great-grandpa and grandpa. Great-Grandpa became an accountant, working in a downtown Manhattan office for forty-five years. Grandpa became a reverend and stood in a midtown pulpit for thirty-two years.

  Yeah, Tenley didn’t see her path in either of their lives. She’d followed Dad happily down the author trail until she realized, lost in the woods of sudden success, she had no idea what she was doing.

  He was supposed to have lived another twenty-five years, mentoring her, teaching her, perhaps walking her down the aisle and bouncing her children on his knee.

  After which she’d write her great American novel. Instead, he died at sixty-two, and Tenley wrote a simple romance.

  The light falling through the high dormer windows shifted, draping a stream of gold across the desk, picking up the shine of her trophy.

  Oh, how she longed to feel the acceptance, love, and honor exemplified by the sculpture of a hand holding a book.

  Instead, she trembled at her own failings. She’d only be as good as her last book. Her only book.

  Pacing over to the desk, Tenley knotted her hair into a loose bun, inhaled long and deep, and sat down.

  Opening her laptop, she stared at the blank screen, shifting around, slouching, then sitting tall. She resituated her chair, pulling it close, then shoving it back.

  Nothing felt comfortable. The chair and desk didn’t work for her. But she couldn’t see herself chucking them away after Great-Great-Grandpa and Dad had written so many great novels right here.

  She’d written Someone to Love at Starbucks in the midnight hours because sleeping alone in the apartment without Dad haunted her.

  “Okay, wisdom of Great-Great-Grandpa Gordon and of my father, I’m on deadline. You’ve been there, done that. Help me!” She rubbed her hands together with expectation, then propped them on her keyboard. “Ready? Go!”

  Nothing.

  Large sticky pages stuck around the attic wall held her ideas and outlines, character-journey notes, and possible epiphanies.

  But nothing struck a chord. The moment she sat down to write, she went blank. As if she was, well, not meant to do this anymore.

  Slumping down in her chair, she pressed her hands to her face. “I don’t want to be a one-hit wonder!”

  Growing up with Dad in Murray Hill, she had watched her father hover over his typewriter night after night, muttering to himself, often yanking a fully typed page from the roller and wadding it up for the trash.

  It was one of her chores to pick up his pile of discarded pages and toss them in the trash can. Oh, if she had half of those pages now she’d be well on her way to a story.

  One of Dad’s stories, but a story nonetheless.

  Staring at the ceiling, she counted the exposed beams down the length of the room. Hmm, fifteen.

  After Da
d’s death, she needed change. She rented out their apartment and bought a renovated space on Fifth Avenue. By then she was dating Holt, and somehow, without any discussion, their two dwellings became one.

  Tenley raised her left hand, staring at her bare ring finger. Since his proposal two nights ago, she’d tucked the ring in its esteemed box and left it there. You know, for safekeeping. It was almost too beautiful to wear. To dunk in dishwater or get clogged with cold hamburger meat.

  Back to work. Tenley sat forward, facing her computer.

  Give me a story.

  She’d heard that plea boosted from Dad’s gut many, many times. “God! Give me a story.”

  God must have answered, because Dad produced book after book, but Tenley was not privy to his faith formula. He kept his faith quiet and simple, not shoving it at Tenley like he felt Grandpa had done to him.

  Tenley admired Dad’s faith. Felt it at times. Heard his prayers. Listened to his testimonies of small miracles. It was just that Dad never told her how to get some of that wonder-working power for herself.

  How do I believe?

  “Tenley?”

  She snapped around at Holt’s call, posing her fingers on her laptop keyboard, the front door clapping shut behind him. “I’m up here.”

  Waiting for his footsteps in the attic stairwell, Tenley left her blank story page to check e-mail. Nothing important other than fan e-mails she’d read later.

  While hearing from fans was the pinnacle of being a writer, their gushing praise over Someone to Love would only feed her desire to write an even better book while reminding her she had no idea what she was doing.

  Below, she heard Holt moving about the apartment. It was his ritual to leave for a coffee shop every morning at ten, write until three, and return home.

  When his footsteps faded into their bedroom, Tenley stood. She might as well call it a day too. Staring at a blank screen and playing umpteen hands of online euchre counted as a workday, right?

  As she reached for her phone, a new text from Blanche pinged onto the screen.

  Are you busy?

  Tenley slowly sat. She’d meant to call her back the other night but never got around to it. After the ceremony, Wendall gathered a large crowd for drinks, including Nicolette Carson and Oscar-winning director Jeremiah Gonda. Swept up into the pageantry of the evening and the assurance of Jeremiah that he was pursuing the film rights to her story, Tenley forgot all about Blanche.