by Tara Lain
David’s eyes widened. “Holy shit. He let you stay with Andy, like, by yourself?”
“Uh, yeah. Andy and I get along great.”
“So I heard.” He ran his fingers along his chin. “If I happen to find out anything about why Theodore’s so paranoid on the topic of his parental rights, shall I let you know? Or are you withdrawing from the field of battle?”
Snake managed a half smile. “Haven’t you heard? Snakes are patient.” He pulled a card from his pocket. “Tell me anything you find out.” As he walked out the door of the gallery, he heard David say, “Hey, Mary. It’s David Underwood.”
FRIDAY MORNING dawned to full May gray verging on June gloom all over Laguna. Perfect. No sleep. No sun. No hope.
Theodore set the plate of scrambled eggs in front of Andy, who stared at them like they could explode. “I want pancakes and bacon.”
“We don’t have any, and I haven’t got time anyway. Eat your eggs, Andy. You need to get to the bus.”
“Who’s gonna be here when I get home?” He dragged his fork across the table like a tractor.
“I’ve arranged for Jillian. I might be late. I have to meet with some people. Eat!”
He frowned vehemently. “Don’t want Jillian. Why can’t Snake come?”
“Snake works too, Andy. Plus there’s no need for us to be spending so much time with Snake. He’s a nice person, but he has his own life.” He grabbed his plate and carried it to the sink quickly so Andy couldn’t see how little he’d eaten.
Silence.
Theodore walked back to the table and found Andy staring at his plate with tears dripping onto the congealed eggs. Oh shit! He wrapped his arms around his son. “Hey, sweetheart, what’s the matter?”
“Y-you’re not going to let Snake c-come and s-see me anymore.” His silent tears turned to sobs.
“Oh Andy, I just made a bad mistake. I never wanted you to get so attached to Snake. He’s a friend, but we can’t take up all of his time. We need to make other friends.”
Andy leaped up from the chair, slamming Theodore in the chin with his head and knocking over his milk, which splashed across the table and ran onto the floor. “No! Snake is my friend. He loves me, and you saying he doesn’t want to come here is a big fat lie!” He raced to his bedroom and slammed the door as Theodore watched white liquid drip onto the brown loafers of a big fat liar.
Two miserable hours later, Theodore dragged himself down the hall toward the conference room where the committee was already waiting. Oh God, I wish I could have practiced some more with Snake. He stopped and stared at the floor. I wish I could have kissed some more with Snake and laughed some more with Snake and fucked some more with Snake.
He’d had a lucky life. It might not seem that way to an outsider—married at eighteen because a girl got pregnant, working his ass off to go to school and keep food on the table for his family, losing his wife to cancer. But he’d had so much laughter and love and joy. He sighed. Guess luck has to run out sometime.
He sucked in a breath. But not without a fucking fight.
After running a hand through his curls, he strode the rest of the way to the fateful door and opened it. Inside, a single straight-backed chair sat in front of a long table behind which his committee gathered. Dr. T. sat at the left end and Ashworth to the right, with the two other faculty members in between. Dr. T. smiled, but no one else did. “Sit down, please, Theodore.”
He did, setting his tote on the floor. He couldn’t open it. No notes, no references.
Dr. Ashworth said, “Shall we begin?”
Dr. Thurston held up a hand and glanced at Ashworth as if to say My meeting, thank you. “Mr. Walters, please explain the methodology of your research.”
And so it began. The words flowed across his tongue—the thousands of questionnaires and over a hundred personal interviews showing the education, expertise, and experience of romance writers, their use and extension of techniques pioneered by Austen and other major literary figures. He discussed tropes and their application in so-called “fine” literature as well as genre fiction. Quoting verbatim from scholars he’d interviewed, he showed how many academics dismissed romance fiction purely because of its association with female readers.
Dr. Willamette said, “How large is the romance market, Mr. Walters?” She actually seemed interested.
“It’s a moving target and difficult to pin down due to the vastness and fluidity of the ebook market, but well over a billion dollars, for sure. It’s the largest book market in the world by double over the next genre.”
“Oh my. Wouldn’t it be nice to bring those people more actively into the field of literature? More teachers and more students?” She smiled.
“My point exactly.”
Ashworth sputtered, “You want to bring these illiterate, uncultured old maids and housewives into the literary tent? You must be joking.”
Dr. Willamette’s face fell, and Theodore worked to ungrit his teeth.
Dr. T. tried to keep the tone upbeat, but every time Mr. Karl or Dr. Willamette asked a good question or seemed to show interest in his research, Ashworth would find a way to belittle their opinions. They practically shrank in their seats. The chances they’d stand up to the chairman? Zilch.
Theodore kept fighting, but he felt like a salmon on a dammed-up stream.
Dr. T. said, “Why did you undertake this research, Mr. Walters? What do you feel it contributes to the future of literature?”
Theodore gazed at the carpet for a minute. “When my wife was dying, I would read to her. Classics and current literary fiction felt so cold and helpless in the face of death. Only love prevailed. So I bought a romance novel, just for diversion. I was amazed at the true literary value the book possessed. I tried another and another. Yes, I found bad ones, but then that can be said of any type of literature. Gradually I came to realize that what I’d been taught about romance fiction was bull. Here were truly gifted writers, more of them than in any other type of fiction, toiling away with not only no recognition, but also actual denigration, and still producing exceptional work. I decided to find out why.”
He looked up at each member of the panel, even the sneering Ashworth. “I think if I can encourage or inspire even one of these excellent authors to persevere and have some of their work recognized, my research will have succeeded.”
Dr. T. said, “Thank you, Theodore. I wish to add that the dissertation reader agrees with Mr. Walters. She states that the paper has done more to legitimize one of the most popular forms of world fiction than anything she’s seen. She highly recommends the paper for publication.” He looked down the panel. “If there are no more questions, Mr. Walters can go and we can determine the time for our deliberation.”
Ashworth said, “I have one more. Walters, do you really expect us to take this dissertation seriously?”
Theodore stood. “Yes, sir, I do.” He looked down the table. “Thank you all for your consideration.” He turned and walked from the room with a straight spine.
Chapter Fifteen
OUTSIDE THE door, Theodore sagged a little. Shit, what a mess. At least I couldn’t have done better, so no regrets. All I regret is having Ashworth as a department chair.
“Hey, Ted.”
Oh great. He really needed Rance right now. “Hi, Sean.”
Sean stepped out from the side hall and looked in both directions like he didn’t want to be caught associating with the enemy, then stepped toward Theodore. “How’d it go?”
“Okay. Why? Are you going in next?”
“Oh, uh, no. I told Dr. A. I’m not quite ready, so he postponed my orals for two weeks.”
Well shit, of course he did. Sean had started his dissertation nearly a year before Theodore. “Great. Good luck.” He started to walk, and Sean touched his arm.
“Any advice?”
“Keep doing what you’re doing, Sean. It’s obviously working.”
Sean frowned for a second, then plastered on his phony smile. “I
will, buddy. Thanks.”
Theodore started down the stairs toward his office.
“Theodore!”
Dr. T. waved as he walked toward Theodore. “Excellent job, excellent. I’m very proud of you.”
He tried to smile. “Thanks, Dr. T. Glad I did you proud. For all the good it did me.”
“Don’t be too discouraged, son. He’s not the only one on the committee.”
“I doubt the others will have the guts to go against him, no matter how much they liked the dissertation.”
“We’ll see. Dr. Willamette was mightily impressed, and so was the reader.”
“Who was the reader? Can you tell me now? She said some nice things.”
Dr. T. lowered his voice. “I happened to know that one of our accredited readers is also a romance writer, which seemed completely appropriate to me.” He chuckled. “I tracked her down, and she was delighted to read it.”
“So she’s a PhD in literature?”
Dr. T. winked. “And that’s the only part of her credentials my colleagues are aware of.”
“I’m not surprised. You’d be amazed at all the education among romance authors.”
“She was really impressed. Of course, it totally supports her life’s work, which I counted on.”
“Thanks so much for all your support, Dr. T. Unfortunately, if I have to go back to square one on the dissertation, I’ll probably have to leave the university and get a job.”
“Don’t go there yet. We still have a chance.”
“Thanks.” He turned to go back down the stairs. Wait. “I forgot to ask. What’s my reader’s name?”
Dr. T. glanced over his shoulder, then back at Theodore. “Crystal Streams. Have you heard of her?”
Theodore’s foot slipped and he slid down a step. Whoa. He grabbed the railing.
“Theodore, are you okay?”
“Uh, yes. I think so. Have you met her? Crystal Streams?”
“No. But I’ve communicated with her by email. She’s very charming and, of course, smart.”
What in the bloody living hell?
INCHING HIS way down the Coast Highway, Theodore itched to call someone. Who? Hunter—to pour his heart out about the miserable unfairness of his fucking committee? No. He wanted to call Snake to ask him why in the hell he had the same name as a romance writer. Had he appropriated the name? Maybe he saw it on a bookstand at the grocery store and when Theodore asked, he blurted it out—along with the story of how he got it. But why? Nothing about Snake added up. Did he own the Bay Bar? If so, why did he pretend otherwise? Did he lie about his name? But why? And what fucking alpha male would choose that stupid name? Maybe he thought it was cute and I’d be captivated. Well, one more point for you, Mr. Erasmo.
As he crept toward the light at Main Beach, he grabbed his phone and googled the name. Sure enough, the name Crystal Streams came up all over Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iBooks, the NYT, and USA Today bestseller lists. A honk behind him made him look up long enough to crawl another ten feet and then stop when the traffic jam hit the light. He scrolled through the data and found a bio.
Best-selling author Crystal Streams lives out her passion for true love and happy ever after with her soul mate husband, her son, and cat in southern California.
It went on about her many awards, which suggested she’d been writing for more than five years. Her PhD went unmentioned. Why the fuck did Snake choose her name? It couldn’t be a coincidence, but what could he gain by lying? Obviously he didn’t trust Theodore or Theodore’s friends with his real name or story. And I trusted him with my son.
His hand fell away from the phone. No calling Snake. That would be suggesting that Snake’s lying to him mattered. That he wanted to continue some kind of relationship. That chest that had felt so warm and glowing for weeks, even while he was afraid, filled with ice.
Not being able to tell anyone everything about himself always made him seem kind of isolated, but not until this moment did he feel totally alone.
Finally he got through the light and passed the busy beach on his way home. The cell buzzed and he glanced. Oh yeah, the shitty cherry on the top of the shitty day.
“Hello, Hanson.”
“Theodore. Grace and I would like to take Andy tomorrow.”
Theodore’s face hurt from the intensity of the frown. “I think we need to discuss some ground rules before you see him again.”
“All we want is to take him to lunch and to the movies or to a park.”
“Under no circumstances is he to go to church or be associated with any of your friends or your friends’ children. I’m sorry, Hanson. I know it’s your life, and I want you to be a part of Andy’s”—that was kind of true—“but he despises those children, and I can assure you, if he’s forced to see them again, he’ll never come back.”
“He’s a child.”
“I won’t demand that my son do something he hates.”
“Of course. Of course. We just want to spend time with him.”
“I respect that.” He wanted so badly to say no. “I’ll bring him over in the morning.”
“Uh, no. I’ll stop by to get him, and we’ll go straight on to breakfast.”
“All right.” He took a deep breath. “I also want to mention that your rudeness to my friend who was kind enough to babysit Andy was uncalled for.”
Stony silence. “I was surprised to find him there.”
“I understand that you want the best for Andy”—yeah, as long as it fit his fucking pictures of best—“but Andy is fond of my friend, and I trust him. That’s really all you have to know.”
“Of course. We’ll pick up Andy at nine thirty.” He hung up.
Oh crap. Andy’s gonna hate this. He sighed and crept farther up the hill. I told Hanson I trusted Snake. Sad since Snake doesn’t appear to trust me. Yeah, sad but true.
Trust? Suddenly, he pulled into the left-turn lane and powered over to Glenneyere, then raced as fast as the lesser traffic would let him back into downtown Laguna. Five minutes later, he pulled into the parking lot at Verizon.
THEODORE KNELT next to Andy, who stood with his arms crossed and a fierce crease between his eyebrows. Theodore held out the simple phone he’d bought and had connected the day before. No, he couldn’t afford it. No, he didn’t care. He wasn’t leaving Andy at the mercy of those people. “All you have to do is call me if you’re not having fun, okay? You know how to do that. I’ve programmed my number right here. You just push—”
“Da-ad.” Two syllables. “I know how to use a phone.” He took it and ostentatiously pulled the scrap of now very wrinkled paper Snake had given him from his pocket. He carefully programmed that number into his phone beside Theodore’s. “I could call Snake.”
Theodore inhaled slowly. “Andy, if you’re upset with where you are, you call anyone you want.”
That got a tiny smile. “Thanks, Dad.”
“But I want you to give your grandparents a chance, okay? Who knows? You might have fun.”
“Okay.” He stuck the phone in his pants pocket.
“Be careful. It falls out easily.”
“I know.” Grumpy again.
The doorbell rang, and Theodore answered it with as pleasant a face as he could muster.
Hanson looked past Theodore at Andy and pulled on a big and wildly phony smile. “There’s my brilliant grandson. Ready for some breakfast? Maybe a waffle or some pancakes?”
Andy nodded but didn’t return the smile.
Theodore tried to fill the enthusiasm gap. “Add some bacon to that and you’ll have the magic combination.”
“Bacon it is. Come on, your grandmother is waiting in the car.”
Andy looked up at Hanson with slightly narrowed eyes. “Funny how she never comes to the door.”
Hanson’s big smile faded as Andy walked past him. He glanced at Theodore, almost like he needed reassurance. Man, had he come to the wrong place.
Hanson turned and walked down the steps as Theodore closed th
e door with a slight slam.
SNAKE LEFT the bike on the edge of the parking lot and walked across Ocean Avenue to Copper, the most popular restaurant for breakfast in Laguna. At this hour on a Saturday, Laguna residents gathered with bags from the farmer’s market down the street, drank tons of coffee, read the papers, and caught up on gossip. A few tourists made it in, but mostly it was a locals’ place, and they guarded it jealously.
Rod waved from a table in the corner on the outdoor patio where he sat with several other men. Snake recognized Hunter and David, but the third man, handsome and dark-haired, was a stranger. These guys seemed to have an endless cast of gorgeous friends.
As Snake walked up, Hunter motioned to the empty chair in the corner between Rod and David. “Good to see you, man. This is our friend, Adam James. Adam’s a lawyer.”
Adam half stood and extended his hand. “That sounds a lot more useful than it is. I specialize in real estate development, but I still know the law and can find help if and when we need it.”
These guys hadn’t wasted any time. Good. “I’m really glad to meet you.” Snake shook Adam’s firm hand, then sat. A large cup of steaming coffee and a glass of grapefruit juice sat in front of his place.
Rod said, “We ordered for you, dear, to keep you out of that line.” He pointed to the people stretching from the order desk all the way to the sidewalk. “Hope you like scrambled eggs with feta and chives.”
“Sounds divine. Thank you.”
Never shy to take the lead, Rod leaned forward and said, “So we all think our Teddy Bear is in trouble.”
Snake nodded. “He’s got multiple stresses going on right now. For one thing, he had to defend his dissertation Friday. I don’t know how it went, but he says the chairman of his department is really against his topic, and he’s scared that he’s going to get sent back to the drawing board on the research.”
David looked at Hunter. “That happens a lot, doesn’t it?”
“Yes, it’s pretty common.”
Snake shook his head. “I’ve seen his dissertation. It’s good. Damned good. I can imagine someone asking for changes—they always do that. But scrapping it and starting over? No way.” He glanced up to see Hunter’s gaze on him. “Anyway, the thing he’s most worried about is that Andy’s grandparents are going to be upset if he doesn’t get his PhD and some fancy tenured position right away.”
