“Where in Florida?” I asked.
“Jupiter Island.”
“Isn’t that where all the movie stars live?” Samantha asked.
“Some,” he said. “Burt Reynolds lives there. Tiger Woods lived there. I’m not sure if he still does.”
“You must be rich,” Samantha said.
I was now positive that Samantha had no filter.
“Not everyone who lives on Jupiter Island is rich,” Zeke said. “Someone’s got to mow the lawns and work the 7-Elevens, right?”
Samantha seemed vexed by the concept. “You mow lawns?”
“From time to time,” he said.
I moved to change the topic. “Have you been to many writers’ conferences?”
“A few,” he said. “But this is the first one I’ve been to in a while.”
“How long’s a while?”
“A few years. I let my writing go for a while.” He took a bite of lasagna.
“Life happens,” I said.
“Yes it does,” he said.
“What’s your last name?” Samantha asked.
I realized that I didn’t know what his last name was either.
He finished chewing, then said, “It’s Faulkner.”
“Faulkner,” I said. “Like the author William Faulkner.”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
“Why unfortunately?”
“Because sharing the same name of a famous author invites comparison, and trust me, I’m no Faulkner. Think of it this way: if your name was Streisand, people would ask you two things—if you’re related to Barbra and if you can sing.”
“I can see that,” I said.
“You could be like that David guy telling everyone he’s Grisham,” Samantha said.
“I don’t know who you’re talking about, but Faulkner is really my name.”
“It’s still a great name,” I said.
“What about you?” he asked. “Do you go to many of these things?”
“I’ve only been to two others. One in San Francisco, the other local, in Colorado.”
“You’re from Colorado?”
“Yes.”
“I’m from Montana,” Samantha said.
He glanced at her. “Montana’s beautiful. Big Sky Country.”
“That’s what they say. I mean, we’re not really a country, we’re a state. Just like the other fifty. But we have a lot of country.” She hesitated. “It’s kind of confusing.”
Zeke looked at her as if trying to figure out whether or not she was being serious. Then he turned back to me. “Where in Colorado are you from?”
“Denver. I used to live in Boulder, but I moved after I got divorced.”
“You’re divorced,” he said. He casually glanced at the diamond on my ring finger. “And the ring is . . .”
“Garlic.”
“Garlic?”
“It keeps vampires away.”
“Does it work?”
“We’ll see,” I said.
“So this is your first time at the Mistletoe Inn.”
“It’s my first time in Vermont.”
“Why did you choose this writers’ conference?”
“It sounded like a good one. But, honestly, mostly because H. T. Cowell is going to be here. I wanted to hear him speak.”
“That’s a lot of money to hear someone speak.”
“He’s worth it,” I said. “He’s the reason I decided to be a writer. I can’t believe that he’s really going to be here in person.”
“Isn’t he a bit of a recluse?” Samantha asked.
“That’s putting it mildly,” I said. “He makes J. D. Salinger look like an extrovert. The funny thing is, how do we really even know that the person who speaks is Cowell? I mean, who really knows what he looks like? They could bring in an imposter and no one would even know.”
“Maybe the whole Cowell thing was a fraud from the beginning,” Samantha said. “And the organizers are just betting that Cowell’s too reclusive to ever find out.”
Zeke looked amused by our ramblings. “So Cowell’s your inspiration?”
I nodded. “He’s amazing. I’ve read some of his books five or six times. How about you?”
“I’ve read his books,” Zeke said. “Not five or six times, but I mostly liked them.”
“I just want to know why he stopped writing,” I said. “His disappearance from the writing world is one of those great mysteries, like, whatever happened to the Mayans or who was Carly Simon really singing about in ‘You’re So Vain.’ ”
“Mick Jagger,” Samantha said. “Everyone knows it’s Jagger.” She looked at me. “It was Jagger, right?”
“I have no idea,” I said.
“Maybe the words just stopped coming,” Zeke said. “Or maybe he was just old. It’s like you said, no one knows much about him. For all we know he’s ninety years old.”
The idea of him being an old man made me a little sad. “Maybe.”
“I don’t think it’s such a mystery,” Samantha said. “I mean, why wouldn’t he quit? He sold tens of millions of books, which means he made tens of millions of dollars. If I had his money, I wouldn’t keep writing. I’d take the money and move to Bali or the south of France and enjoy life.” She looked at Zeke. “Or Florida.”
“Maybe it wasn’t the money,” I said, ignoring her flirtation, “but the pressure to keep succeeding. Like Margaret Mitchell. She hit the top, then just stopped. I mean, after Gone With the Wind, where do you go but down?”
“Actually,” Zeke said, “Margaret Mitchell claimed that she stopped writing because she was too busy answering fan mail. But it was probably more likely that she just hated the fame and was annoyed by all the people who wouldn’t leave her alone. Once she got so mad at a fan who came to her house that she swore that she’d never write another word.” Zeke frowned. “Then she was hit by a drunk driver.”
“Margaret Mitchell was hit by a drunk driver?” I said.
“That’s how she died,” Zeke said. “The drunk was a taxi driver with twenty-three previous traffic violations.”
“Wasn’t Stephen King also hit by a drunk driver?” Samantha asked.
“He was hit by a car, but the driver wasn’t drunk. But he did have a lot of traffic violations.”
“I heard that the guy who hit him died on Stephen King’s birthday,” Samantha said.
“That may be true,” Zeke said.
“That’s creepy,” Samantha replied. “Like his books.”
“I don’t know why Cowell stopped writing,” I said. “And maybe we’ll never really know. But what I do know is that he may be the only man on the planet who understands how a woman feels. I couldn’t believe that a man could write like that. For a while I wondered if his books were really written by a woman using a man’s name.”
“Wait,” Samantha said. “That would explain why he hides from the press—or should I say why she hides from the press. And why she uses her initials instead of a name that would reveal her true gender, the way Nora Roberts does when she writes her thrillers. H. T. could stand for Helen Taylor. Or maybe it’s not just one woman but a group of women.”
Zeke nodded. “I used to think that about R. L. Stine, the guy who wrote the Goosebumps books.”
“That he was a woman?” Samantha said.
“No, that he was really a group of writers. I mean, he was releasing a new book just about every month and his name is Stine, like Frankenstein. It sounds like a brand, right? Just like Betty Crocker.”
Samantha looked confused. “Betty Crocker’s not a real person?”
Zeke and I glanced at each other.
“No, Betty Crocker is a fabrication,” Zeke said. “Like the Easter bunny. Or the queen of England.”
I forced myself not to laugh. Zeke was clearly having fun with her now. Samantha just looked confused.
“And R. L. Stine isn’t a real person either,” she said.
“No, actually he is,” Zeke said. “I met him.”
“You met R. L. Stine?” I asked.
“Robert Lawrence Stine,” Zeke said. “He goes by Bob. He’s a great guy. He started writing humor books for kids under the pen name Jovial Bob Stine, then moved on to kids’ horror. He’s the man who got millions of boys to read.”
“None of this explains why Cowell is such a recluse,” Samantha said.
“Maybe he’s just so ugly that his publisher decided to hide him from the public so he didn’t ruin women’s romantic fantasies.”
I shook my head. “You’re brutal. And if he does end up coming, I hope you don’t meet him. You’ll probably just offend him.”
“What do you mean, if he ends up coming?”
“Last night these women were telling us that he has a habit of missing events he’s scheduled for.”
Zeke shook his head. “That’s the first I’ve heard of that. What a cad.”
I looked at him. “Did you just call him a cad?”
“No.”
“Yes you did.”
“Is that even a word?” Samantha asked.
“It’s a word,” Zeke said. “Archaic, but still wieldable.”
“No one says cad anymore,” I said.
“You’re wrong, because I just did.”
“So you admit it.”
“I admit it,” he said. “Anyone, no matter how famous, who commits to an important event, then, barring some major emergency, doesn’t show up, is a cad.”
“Yeah, you probably shouldn’t meet him,” Samantha said. “He probably won’t like being called a cad, whatever that is.”
“It would never happen,” Zeke said. ”Because if he does show up, he’s not a cad.”
“He has a point,” Samantha said.
“I think you’re just jealous,” I said.
Zeke thought for a moment, then said, “You’re right, of course. We always throw stones upward, don’t we?” He turned to me. “It’s easy to see why I wouldn’t like him; men are always jealous of the other rooster in the coop. But the real question is, why do you like him so much? You were a loyal reader and he deserted you, along with millions of others.”
“It’s his life,” I said. “It’s not like he owed me anything. And his books helped me during a difficult time of my life.” I nodded slowly. “I look forward to seeing him. I just hope I’m not too disappointed.”
“I hope not too,” Zeke said. “I’d hate to see you waste all that money.”
“That would stink,” Samantha said.
“I’m also hoping that I might get the chance of getting him to sign something for me.”
“What is that?” Zeke asked.
“A first-edition copy of The Tuscan Promise.”
“You have one of those?”
I nodded. “I was one of the early readers. There were only five thousand of the first editions printed. I bought it for, like, fifteen dollars at the bookstore, but I saw a copy on eBay going for around nine thousand.”
“Nine thousand!” he said. “That’s insane.”
“That’s what it was going for.”
“You should sell it,” he said.
“I’m not going to sell it. To me it’s worth more than the money.”
“You are a true fan,” Zeke said. “And for that reason alone I hope he shows.” He turned to Samantha. “What about you, Samantha? What brought you here?”
“A little of everything. Romance, Vermont in the winter, the energy of a writers’ conference. But, mostly, Walt was driving me crazy. Frankly I would have gone to a basket-weaving class in Chernobyl to get away from him.”
“Who’s Walt?” Zeke asked.
“No one,” she said, unconsciously leaning toward Zeke.
“He’s her fiancé,” I said.
Samantha frowned at me.
“How is a fiancé ‘no one’?” Zeke asked.
“It’s complicated,” Samantha said.
“Not really,” I said.
“No, not really,” she agreed.
Zeke smiled as he poked a fork into his lasagna, which I’m sure was cold by then. He took a bite, then asked me, “What’s the rest of your day like?”
“Right after lunch I need to turn in my papers for the agent sessions on Thursday. The sign-up sheet in our packet said our introduction forms and manuscripts are due before one if we want the agents to review them.”
“I already turned mine in,” Samantha said.
“Did you sign up for an agent?” I asked Zeke.
“No. Not this time,” he said. “After you sign up, are you going to any more sessions?”
“I’m going to the Living the Dream presentation.”
Samantha said, “Isn’t that the one by the guy who was calling himself John Grisham and hitting on us?”
“Yes, unfortunately.”
“Why are you going to that? He’s a creep.”
“Yes, but he’s a published creep,” I said. “So, as far as the afternoon sessions, it’s either Faux Grisham, Writing Paranormal Romance, or Exciting Punctuation, and I don’t want to spend an hour learning about periods.”
“I hate periods,” Samantha said.
Zeke squinted. “What?”
“That’s not what—” I stopped, too exasperated to explain. “Okay. Punctuation’s out. And I don’t care for the vampire-love-triangle stuff, so we’re back to creepy John Grisham wannabe.”
“Well, I better come with you,” Samantha said.
I looked at Zeke. “Do you want to come? I don’t think he’ll hit on you.”
“Thank you, but no. I’ve got some phone calls to catch up on. When should we talk about your book?”
“What about your book?” I said.
“I’m not sure it can be saved,” he said. “How about we meet for dinner in the dining room at . . . seven.”
“Seven is perfect,” I said.
He turned to Samantha. “Should I make reservations for three?”
“No,” Samantha said, looking disappointed. “I promised my freaky writing buddy that I’d have dinner with her.”
“Then it’s dinner for two at seven,” Zeke said to me. “Don’t forget your manuscript. I’ll meet you in the lobby.”
“I’ll see you then.”
He got up and left. After he was gone, Samantha said, “Wow, you’re totally into him.”
“What makes you think that?”
Samantha shook her head. “Because if your smile was any bigger, the top of your head would fall off.”
“Okay, I think he’s gorgeous and very nice.” I frowned. “I hope I’m not that obvious.”
“You are,” she said. “It’s a good thing he likes you too.”
“Why do you say that?”
“He was here, right? And he just asked you to dinner? Really, do you need a weatherman to tell you which way the wind blows?”
“Bob Dylan,” I said. “You really think he’s interested in me?”
Samantha shook her head. “You think? How can a romance writer be so blind to romance?”
“I don’t know. I do better in fiction than in real life.” I sighed. “All right, let’s go. We don’t want to keep John Grisham waiting.”
CHAPTER
Sixteen
Some people thrill ride on the road of others’ failed journeys.
Kimberly Rossi’s Diary
Bready’s talk should have been titled: Narcissism: How So Little Success Can Swell a Head.
Like everyone else at the retreat, I was hoping to hear an inspirational talk about how someone like me could break into the publishing world. Instead Bready basically made it sound like I’d be better off buying a lottery ticket and praying for success. Actually, he almost used those exact words. He said, “To keep your expectations in perspective, submit your manuscript to a publisher, then buy a lottery ticket. Your chances of winning the lottery are better.”
He then went on to attribute his own immeasurable success not to luck but to perseverance, hard work, and remarkable talent. (Surprisingly he lef
t off charm and humility.) Seriously, it was like he was using the same message he had used flirting with me, except this time with a room of eighty people, many of whom were growing visibly annoyed with his hubris. A few walked out before he was done.
A useful, but discouraging, thing I learned from his presentation was that finding a publisher was only the beginning of the process. “Getting published is like qualifying for the Olympics,” he said. “You still need to compete, and only a handful of the competitors bring home medals.”
Halfway through his speech he rediscovered Samantha and me in the audience and began focusing his remarks almost exclusively on us. It was agonizing. I’ve never been happier to see an hour pass, and as soon as he finished we hurried out of the session before he could trap us.
After we were outside the room, Samantha said, “If ego were money, that guy could pay off third-world debt.”
I laughed. “I’m sorry I dragged you to that. We should have gone to the punctuation class.”
“I’m not,” she said. “It was informative. I learned a lot.”
I looked at her doubtfully. “Really? What did you learn?”
“How some people live to sap the hope out of dreamers. It’s like once they reach the top, they cut the rope.”
“You may be right,” I said. “Though I wouldn’t say he’s reached the top.”
“As high as he’s going to get,” Samantha said. “So where to now?”
“You choose the next session,” I said. I took out my conference schedule. “We have three choices. E-lectric: How to Heat Up the Internet with Your e-Book.”
“That sounds important.”
“Making a Six-Figure Salary on Four-Figure Book Sales: How to Make a Lucrative Living as a Midlist Author.”
“That sounds boring.”
“And Chopping the Writer’s Block: How to Keep Writing When the Words Stop Coming.”
“That sounds like something I need,” Samantha said.
“I was thinking the same thing. Let’s go learn how to chop some writer’s block.”
CHAPTER
Seventeen
Zeke and I had dinner tonight. I swear I know him from somewhere.
Kimberly Rossi’s Diary
The main message of the writer’s block lecture was that there is no universal cure for writer’s block and you have to figure out for yourself what works for you—which made me think there was no reason to go to the class.
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