He sat back down and met Emma’s gaze, his eyebrow up again, this time like a challenge. “Magic tea?” he asked.
“Some of us work instead of fraternizing with groupies.”
“Another bite of thesaurus sandwich, huh? Your insults would be hurtful if you, you know, edited them down to something pithy.”
“Pithy? Who’s being pretentious now?” She leaned over the counter and called to Hailey, “I’ll take that tea to go.” Then she went back to her table and closed her laptop, packing it away and gathering up her notebook and pens.
“Leaving so soon?”
“No. Not soon enough. The minute you walked through the door should have been my cue to exit.”
He raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. “Hey, I’ve just been kidding. Running into you here was dumb luck—”
“Bad luck.”
He inclined his head slightly as if to acknowledge the point and rephrased. “Running into you here was a coincidence. Please don’t leave on my account. If this is your usual place, I don’t want to run you off. At all.”
Run her off? That stopped her cold. Why was she leaving? Didn’t he have a big fancy sun porch to write on, attached to his giant mansion built as a monument to American readers’ bad taste and the soulless publishers who pandered to them?
She straightened instead of sliding the notebook into her laptop bag. “You’re right. This is my scene. I shouldn’t have to leave. You should.”
“Will it make it easier for you to work?”
No. Nothing about writing was easy. “It’ll make it less irritating.”
Without another word, he shut his own laptop and shoved it into his tattered backpack. He rose, and with a mocking salute, left the coffee shop.
Hailey called her name for her tea. As she reclaimed her seat and eyed Aidan’s empty spot, she sipped her tea and couldn’t decide if the tea—or victory—tasted sweeter.
Thank goodness she was done with that man for good now.
She worked for another hour and had about a paragraph to show for it, one made of actual words for her novel, not a mantra about Aidan Maxwell.
It wasn’t a lot in terms of word count, but they were almost exactly the words she wanted to describe her main character Victoria’s feelings as she steps into her grandmother’s home. Hailey’s tea recommendation had been right on the money, as usual.
“Thanks, Hailey,” she called as she packed up to leave again. “I should trust you when you recommend something. You’ve never failed me yet.”
“No problem, Professor Lindsor. See you in class.”
Emma drove the short distance to her cottage, still mulling her completed paragraph. Maybe it wasn’t right after all? She’d used the scent of black currants to evoke sensory memories, but how many people knew what black currants smelled like? It wasn’t an effective image if no one could relate to it.
Then again, good literature didn’t spoon feed its readers. It asked them to stretch, and in the stretching, to grow.
She pulled into the driveway of her one-bedroom house, a relic of one of the old fishing camps that used to cover Whidbey until the waters were overfished. The owner before her had updated it twenty years before, but its bones were plain. She’d kept it simple when she moved in three years before, not able to afford much beyond Ikea furniture, but she liked the clean lines and muted gray-and-white color scheme of the pieces that met her each time she walked in. She called for Oates, her cat, who slunk out to brush against her leg and disappear again. Ah, well. She probably wouldn’t get much more attention until she filled Oates’s bowl, which she did, also filling a bowl of granola and dousing it with strawberry-flavored milk. It was a choice that would have horrified her mother, but that was the beauty of living alone in her “godforsaken backwater,” another thing Arianna Lindsor didn’t like. According to her mother, all true writers and artists lived in Manhattan with the occasional exception made for Brooklyn. So long as they’d won some sort of literary prize, Brooklyn was allowed.
Whidbey Island’s distance from her mother was one of Emma’s favorite things about it.
Her mind drifted toward her paragraph again, wondering once more if she should stick with the black currants when a chirp from her cell phone broke through her distraction.
She didn’t get many texts, mainly because everyone knew she loathed them, which meant that it was most likely Maggie. A glance at the screen confirmed it.
You owe me an email.
Emma sighed at the message. She’d sent Maggie TWO emails on the subject of the Muses retreat, a getaway sponsored by their mutual literary agency. What Maggie really meant was that she wanted an email from Emma saying she would go. Emma was over it.
She could do “pithy.” She tapped her response. No.
Her phone rang with Maggie’s name. She answered it. “I hate talking on the phone.”
“Good to talk to you too, Emma-girl,” Maggie said, refusing, as usual, to be drawn into Emma’s crankiness. “You need to go on the retreat.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“I hate people.”
“You do not. That’s why your students love you.”
“Those are barely-adult type people. I find them more tolerable.”
“This isn’t about hating crowds. It’s about your fear of failure. You live in your head too much. Besides, have you been paying attention to Valeria’s emails?”
Valeria Moreno, literary agent extraordinaire, represented both of them, although Maggie definitely kept her busier since she had the ability to finish a book more than once every five years. Unless the subject line had something to do with Emma’s non-existent royalties, Emma generally didn’t read Valeria’s emails as it got harder and harder to think of reasons why her book wasn’t ready yet.
“Never mind,” Maggie barreled ahead. “Of course you haven’t, so you don’t know that she just added a new keynote to the lineup. You’re not going to want to miss him.”
“Who is it?” Emma was curious in spite of herself.
“Luther Van Dijk.”
“Whoa.” Luther Van Dijk was a legend in literary criticism. His podcast interviews were some of the most incisive examinations of contemporary literature, and the course he taught at NYU—Forensics of the Short Novel—had produced six major-award winners in recent years.
“You’ll come,” Maggie said, with certainty borne of knowing Emma far too well.
“I wish,” Emma said and meant it. “I can’t afford that though.”
“You really haven’t read any of Valeria’s emails, have you? It’s in Winthrop. No airfare, meals are provided, I booked myself a suite and you can have the extra room, so you have no excuses.”
“But my classes—”
“Will be over. I already checked. It’s next weekend, and you’ll be done three days before your new term starts.”
“I guess I’m out of excuses. But also, I really want to meet Luther Van Dijk.”
“Yay!” Maggie’s cheer was so loud that Emma had to jerk the phone away from her ear for a second. “Let’s carpool. I’ll text you details later.”
She hung up after a quick goodbye. It was one thing Emma appreciated about her—Maggie knew when she’d won and let it go before Emma felt backed into a corner and changed her mind on principle.
She opened her laptop and set to marking the final essays from her lit students. Grading could often be boring, but essays weren’t so bad, especially not final ones where she could see their growth over the semester. In fact, it made her proud knowing she’d been part of that growth.
The only downside was that grading essays from three sections of lower division literature students took days, even if she worked as fast as she could.
By the time she submitted her final grades the following week, she was looking forward to the retreat if only for the uninterrupted creative time it would offer. Three solid days to hole up in Maggie’s suite to do nothing but ponder words and shape sentences with
no other responsibilities?
Yes, please.
She packed mindfully, ignoring that idiot Aidan Maxwell’s mocking voice in the back of her mind as he snarked about tweed and turtlenecks. She owned more of each than she’d realized. Not that she left them out because she was dressing to please him. It just wasn’t tweed or turtleneck season. Instead, she chose some tailored poplin shirt dresses that were comfortable for the early summer weather but still professional enough for her to be taken seriously if she bumped into Luther Van Dijk.
By the time she pulled into the long driveway leading up to Maggie’s house, her skin practically buzzed with the gentle tingle that signaled impending adventure. She didn’t feel that often, and she admitted to herself what it meant: Luther Van Dijk’s presence at the retreat was a little nudge from destiny pushing her toward the answers she needed to finish her second novel. No one had a more incisive eye than he did, and while Emma hated trading on her mother’s name, she would absolutely do it if it would get the famously selective critic and teacher to look at her work and help her see what it was missing.
Because it was something. For such a slim volume, it should be so easy to see it for herself, but she couldn’t. There was just a slippery feeling inside that told her she hadn’t nailed down every piece of it yet. He would know. Then she could make it perfect and send it out into the world, no longer a one-book wonder.
She pulled up in front of Maggie’s house. It wasn’t a mansion, exactly, but at over 3000 square feet it was more than Maggie needed for herself. She didn’t even have a cat to keep her company, but she liked it that way. Maggie had written a series of high-profile novels all based on women braving the wilderness. In fact, compared to what Maggie could have bought, her million-dollar home was almost quaint.
Emma pulled her suitcase up to the front door and waved at the motion activated doorbell, not even bothering to knock. Maggie threw the door open a minute later and flung her arms around Emma before dragging her further into the house. “I need a few more minutes. I meant to pack last night, but I finally figured out what was driving a wedge between Sarah and her sister, and I chased that until two in the morning. I just woke up.”
Emma took a closer look at her, recognizing the bleary eyes and bedhead that came after a creative burst. “Congratulations.”
“Thanks,” Maggie said, beaming. “Seriously, I’ll be ready to go in fifteen minutes.”
She was as good as her word, chattering at Emma as she threw outfits one after another into a weekend bag.
“Are you even looking at what you’re packing?” Emma asked.
“It all fits. Does anything else really matter?”
It helped that Maggie shopped the same three designers. She could grab anything from her closet and look perfectly polished, including whatever she was currently wadding into a ball to fit in her bag. “Ready,” she announced. “Let’s hit the road.”
A few minutes later they were on Highway 2, heading toward the Wenatchee Forest on their way to Winthrop in Maggie’s Land Rover.
“I can’t wait,” Maggie said with a happy sigh as the suburbs fell behind them. “I totally need this retreat.”
“I thought your writing was going fine.”
“It is. I don’t need the writing time. I need the people time, time to be among other creative types who aren’t freaked out by my author tics.”
“That’s where you and I differ,” Emma said. “Half the writers I run into are pretty decent—”
“Like me,” Maggie interrupted.
“Like you,” Emma agreed. “But half are pretentious or neurotic, so worried about who’s on which list and which connections can get them farther. If you’re no use to them, they look through you like you’re vapor, and they’re off to find someone worthier of their time. Like—” But this time she broke off on her own. She’d given Aidan Maxwell more mental space than he deserved.
“Like?”
“Never mind. It doesn’t matter,” Emma said aloud. “I’m planning to stalk Luther Van Dijk in the most charming way possible, make myself irresistible in conversation so he’ll beg to see what I’m working on, then take his every suggestion and turn this book into a piece of creative genius.”
“Tell me, how does one stalk someone charmingly?”
“I was exaggerating. I brought a T-shirt that says, ‘Hi, Luther. I’m Arianna’s Daughter. Let’s Talk.’ I’ll wear it and go from there.”
“I don’t foresee any problems. Go right ahead. But for real, if you hide in our room too much, I’m going to drag you out every now and then to be with the humans.”
“No. I don’t want humans. My difficult word babies need me.”
“They need you to stop suffocating them. You’ll come to the social activities or else.”
“Or else what?”
“Or else . . . huh. There’s really nothing I can threaten you with, is there?”
Emma dropped her sunglasses down over her eyes and leaned back into the leather seat, smiling. “Nope.”
“Fine. But at least promise you’ll pop out for the keynotes. I love listening to other writers talk about writing. Pretty please? Or I won’t have anyone to sit with.”
“Is that the real reason I’m here? I feel so used.”
“But you’re going to do it anyway?”
“How many keynotes are we talking?”
“Three keynotes. One each afternoon. And they’ve brought in big names for it too.”
“So I go to three keynotes and you won’t drag me out for cocktails and small talk? Ever?”
“Not unless Luther Van Dijk is in the room.”
“Deal.”
They spent the remaining four hours of the drive plotting Maggie’s next novel then rehashing the current season of Eligible, their favorite reality dating show. This season’s contestant was a former pro baseball player who had narrowed his field of love interests down to five. They hate-watched it together every Wednesday night. Well, Emma pretended she hated it. Maggie loved it without apology, and Emma somehow couldn’t look away from it even though it drove her crazy. Sometimes the final couple got married after the show. That meant it couldn’t always be fake, and she couldn’t help cheering for at least one contestant every season who she believed was There For The Right Reasons. Not that Emma’s pick ever won. But still.
Maggie finally slowed for the turnoff to the resort, and they left the densely forested state highway to follow the private road into the property. It was still full of trees, but Emma spotted hiking trails winding through them, and as the large, rustic main lodge appeared before them, she caught a glimpse of the silver lake beyond it. Something in her unwound, and she grinned at Maggie.
Maggie pulled under the portico for valet parking and pulled her key from the ignition. “This place has an amazing vibe. I literally just figured out how to close a plot hole while we were coming up the driveway. I’m not sure you even need to worry about me trying to drag you out of our room. I’m so ready to sit down and write that I may not come up for air.”
“Stop bragging,” Emma grumbled, and Maggie laughed. She’d offered many times to help Emma noodle through her plot, but since Emma’s characters were the type who felt their way toward self-realization with no major story goal in mind, there wasn’t much Maggie could do as Emma had reassured her many times.
“You should ask Aidan Maxwell,” Maggie said. “He seems like he’s got this down to an art.”
“More like a stale formula.” Emma blinked. “Wait, I told you about Aidan?”
Maggie had been digging through her purse for something but now she stopped and looked at her, a lively curiosity on her face. “There’s a story to tell about Aidan?”
Now Emma was really confused. “Why did you bring up Aidan Maxwell?”
“Because he’s the first keynote speaker today. Why are you talking about Aidan Maxwell?”
But Emma’s only answer was to bury her face in her hands and groan.
Chapter Four<
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Aidan shut his laptop and stretched in his hotel room’s surprisingly comfortable armchair. It had been another slow work morning. Ironic, considering the president of Muses had asked him to keynote at a retreat designed to motivate writers to write more so that the agents could sell more books and make more money.
He shook his head as if to clear the thought. That wasn’t true. A big part of the reason he’d signed with the Muses Agency was because they really did try to nurture artists and grow careers, not just sell flashy books then move onto the next sizzle-then-fizzle market trend. But sometimes his old prosecutor instincts crept in, and he couldn’t keep his cynicism from flaring up. Job hazard, even though he’d left that job four years ago.
He glanced down at his watch. He was due in the main lodge in two hours to deliver the first keynote address of the retreat. He wasn’t at all sure he was ready. He’d spoken many times in front of huge ballrooms full of unpublished writers, and it was easy to figure out what to say to them. Feed your passion, hone your skills, you are worth the time you’re investing to learn this craft. But this would be a small roomful of professional authors who took their work seriously and didn’t need to be encouraged to keep at it every day. They already did the work. And because Muses represented both literary and genre fiction, it was a safe bet that none of the literary writers would be impressed by him. Not by his upcoming movie deal. Not by his wealth. If anything, his big publishing deals would be another mark against him for chasing the dollar instead of the critical acclaim.
He scrubbed his hands over his face, running through the points he planned to make in his mind, trying to figure out why it felt so flat.
He opened the folder he’d received at check-in with the schedule of events and list of attendees. Maybe he could tailor his message if he had a better sense of who was coming. He scanned the names, guessing there were about fifty. Some of them were heavy hitters, like himself, and others were names he didn’t recognize.
And then he saw it.
Always & Forever: A Sweet Romantic Comedy (ABCs of Love Collection, Books 1 - 4) Page 4