"Um, well." Beverly looked down at the index cards in her hands and shuffled them quickly. "Given how different all of your genres are, I'm wondering if we'd be surprised by the number of similarities in your author process. If it's not too presumptuous, I'd love to hear about your writing spaces. Let’s start with you, Emerson."
"There's a little coffee shop near my place. I love to write there," Emma said.
"Of course you do," Aidan interjected before she could explain why. "Are you even allowed to write literary fiction if you're not in a café?"
His tone was light, and his groupies awarded him with another laugh, but Emma sensed a bite in the words. What was his problem? He'd started this by assuming she was a coat girl, and then doubling down even when he'd realized she was a fellow author.
Well, not a fellow author, exactly. He was in a totally different class. A low one.
When Beverly began another nervous shuffle of her index cards, Emma decided to ignore his sarcasm. She didn't want to add to the librarian's stress. Emma smiled at Aidan Maxwell as if she found the café joke funny. "I sit at the most isolated table and drink pretentious coffee, black, because it's good for staring into the existential void. It's a sugar- and cream-free kind of void."
"That's exactly how I pictured it." Humor colored Aidan Maxwell's voice.
A hand in the audience shot up, a young woman who looked college-aged. "Why coffee shops? Or anywhere busy like that? You don't find it distracting?"
“My problem is that I'm in my head too much. Being in a coffee shop—or anywhere with some life to it—it's good for me. It keeps me connected to the rest of the world, and I love to people watch, figure out why they're doing what they're doing, imagine their stories. The more ordinary a person seems, the harder I tend to look, and the deeper the back story I give them."
"That sounds about right for a literary novelist," Aidan said. "In your work, I'm sure all the characters are living lives of quiet desperation."
It was true. Or at least it was for the one novel she'd managed to finish. But she didn't like the way he was painting her with broad strokes, so she dished it back. "It's more because the big personalities and bold details are usually the easiest people to figure out. Like macho guys who swagger around in leather jackets or fussy old ladies covered in rhinestones with little dogs in their purses. Those kinds of characters are cliches." Beverly darted a glance at the leather jacket hanging from the back of Aidan's chair, whose boyish smile turned slightly brittle. "I guess I like looking for the stuff beneath the surface," Emma finished, pleased she'd finally gotten to him.
"I understand what you mean about cliches," Aidan interjected. "Like college professors being stuffy tweed jacket and beret-wearing blowhards."
Had he seen her beret? She wanted to reach for it, make sure it was out of sight, but caught herself in time. He was acting like her cat when it got cornered, and Emma calmed as she sensed she was getting beneath his skin. "I don't know any professors like that, but to your broader point, I find walking cliches so . . . boring."
She expected him to snap back, but instead he tilted his head and narrowed his eyes as if he'd figured out something important. "Emerson Lindsor? Wait, is your mother Arianna Lindsor, the memoirist?"
Emma felt the same complicated wash of emotion every time someone made that connection. Her mother was a brilliant writer, and she was proud of her for that. But it was hard for Emma to always have her work judged against someone the notoriously picky New York Book Review had labeled "the most searing voice of her generation."
"Yes, she is."
"No wonder you like your fiction tortured."
Emma didn't even know what to say to that because she wasn't exactly sure whether she'd been insulted. Or had he just made a sly "your mama" crack? Or maybe there had been no judgment in his statement at all. Her mother's memoirs were definitely heavy reading.
Even more than not knowing whether she'd been insulted, Emma didn't like the tiny flicker of satisfaction she felt that someone had dared to do less than rave about Arianna Lindsor.
"So Aidan, why don't you tell us about your writing space?" Beverly asked. She sounded stressed, and guilt flooded Emma. She had to quit engaging with Aidan. She had nothing to prove to him, and landing blows wasn't worth making Beverly anxious.
"I like being outside on my deck with my view of the Sound. If it's raining—" and he paused to let the islanders laugh since rain was a fact of life on Whidbey Island "—I'll still work in my sunroom so I can at least look out at nature even when I can't sit in it with my laptop."
Beverly moved on to a question about how they came up with their ideas, and Emma stuck with her resolve not to upset Beverly again. It seemed like Aidan Maxwell went out of his way to goad her a couple of times, but she smiled and answered diplomatically, or deferred to the other two panelists.
She wouldn't say the next forty-five minutes flew by, exactly. The sparring with Aidan had distracted her from her own nerves, but now they flared again. Anytime she had the spotlight, it made time stretch and drag, but just as she was drifting toward the emotional exhaustion that always accompanied pretending to be an extrovert, Beverly opened it up for more audience questions.
Twenty hands shot into the air, and Emma fervently hoped Beverly didn't plan to take all of them. By the time eight in a row had gone to Aidan, Beverly asked if anyone had questions for the other panelists. After a pause, Jamal caught Emma's eye and mouthed, "Not our crowd." Emma answered with a tight smile of agreement.
They were almost free. . .
A book signing would follow, but there would be no need for her to stay for that. Outside of her students who bought her book from the college bookstore, she didn't even sell enough books in a year to get a royalty check. Not that sales were everything, she thought, eyeing Aidan Maxwell.
Finally, Beverly announced there would be no more questions, but that there would a limited number of books by the authors for sale and the audience should form a line while she got them ready for purchase. That caused an earthquake level of chair rumbling as ladies jockeyed for position at the front of the line.
Emma chatted with Jamal as she watched Beverly ring up the books. Just as she'd expected, the first ten customers all bought Aidan's books, although Jamal also got a sale. Her small stack sat untouched. She was so used to this by now that it didn't even disappoint her. In fact, it meant she was off the hook and could head home.
She caught Beverly's eye and waved a small goodbye, thanked Jamal for being a pleasant co-panelist, and rose to leave. She'd just slung her satchel strap over her shoulder when she felt it collide with something followed by the sound of a masculine "Oof."
She turned in horror to apologize to Jamal for nearly braining him but found Aidan Maxwell standing there instead. His hand holding his side, a startled look on his face.
"Sorry," she mumbled, not feeling quite as sorry as if it had been Jamal. "Are you okay?"
"Sure. You're leaving? I came over to say s—"
"Yeah, I’m leaving. I don't have any books to sign since you made it clear that your crowd isn't going to like the kind of stuff I write." It was an unfair thing to say since that was in no way his fault. She never had to worry much about signing books, but she was out of Beverly's earshot and didn't feel like faking anymore niceness toward him.
If the dig bothered him, he didn't show it. He glanced at the women queued to get his autograph. "Yeah, they're not much of a beret literature set."
"Oh, for pity's sake. I'm not either." That was it. She was well and truly done with him and ready to be on her way to her tiny little house. "See you around some time." She stepped around him, but the strap of her bag slipped from her shoulder and hit the ground before she could grab it. The beret fell out and landed on the floor.
It lay there between them, staring up at her. It was black, but it may as well have been a red flag.
Aidan started laughing.
She scooped it up, set it on her head without
breaking his gaze, gave it a jaunty tilt, and strode out without a backward glance, but it felt like that laugh followed her all the way to her car.
B is for Barista (The ABCs of Love Book 2) Page 18