by Kat Addams
Klara loved her time with visiting these neighborhoods. It was her little escape. Working with her hands in the soil and her headphones in her ears, she forgot the world around her. Her assignments went poof, her novel went poof, Miles went poof. She enjoyed getting to know the residents despite the fact that most of them were older and cranky. One resident, Ms. May, always made Klara smile even though she had the sassiest mouth on her. Ms. May wasn’t afraid to tell Klara if the azaleas she’d planted looked like shit. She also wasn’t afraid to ask all about Klara’s personal life. Why wasn’t she married? Why didn’t she have babies? What was she waiting for? She let Klara know that her biological clock was ticking every time she saw her, but that didn’t bother Klara. She was close to Ms. May. They had an odd love-hate relationship.
Klara took a quick detour to check on Ms. May’s flowerbeds. It would only take an extra few minutes, and she needed to make sure her project wasn’t dying in this heat. She parked her car in front of Ms. May’s house and walked up the stairs to the porch. The door quickly swung open.
“Hey there, flower girl! You mean to tell me you still ain’t knocked up yet? You know I have four grandbabies already from my daughter, and she’s about the same age as you. What’s wrong with you?”
“Ms. May! I’m not even married yet!”
“That’s why I’m askin’, what’s wrong with you?”
“I guess I’m just too good-looking. They can’t handle all this.” Klara acted innocent in her sass as she deadheaded the petunias.
Ms. May sucked in her breath and shook her head, trying not to laugh. “How old are you, darlin’? Men don’t wait forever. You’d better go out there and find him before he finds somebody else. The only ones gonna be left are gonna be packin’ baggage or gonna be packin’ something else if you know what I mean. They gonna like Kens, not Klaras.”
Klara laughed loud enough to echo through the front porch. She thought dating must have been easier back when Ms. May was young. When women didn’t have to worry about much more than finding a husband.
“Is that so?” Klara teased with her hands on her hips. “And you and Mr. May are happily ever after, if I may ask?”
She already knew he wasn’t in the picture. Ms. May had told Klara her life story several times before. She just knew she had to be sassy back to Ms. May because that was how she got the old lady to communicate.
“Lawd, child, no! You may not ask! But I’m gonna tell you anyway. I got rid of his old crusty butt years ago. I got my babies, and that’s all I need.”
Klara shook her head. Ms. May always made her day.
“That’s something! They still put up with you? You must make a mean Sunday supper,” Klara said, watching Ms. May faintly put her hand to her heart as she pretended to be taken aback. “I’ll be back next week to check on these. Be sure to water them daily, so they don’t shrivel up like you!”
Ms. May laughed loudly at that. She was a tough nut to crack, but banter seemed to be the only way to her heart.
“Child … child … what am I gonna do with you? Clock’s tickin’, baby. Your flower gonna shrivel up, too … and fall off if you don’t use it!”
Klara loved that old lady. She glanced down at her clock again. Ms. May was right; it was ticking. She had fifteen minutes to get on campus and have her butt in the seat. She pushed the gas pedal down and quickly made her way to school. She had never met a published author before, much less one who was so successful. Klara had been lucky to get into the workshop when she did. It had sold out within hours after it was posted.
She was excited to have the opportunity to pick Christopher Kaiser’s brain. Perhaps he could help her get where she needed to go. But that was the problem; she didn’t even know where her stories needed to go. She kept drawing a blank, uninspired and too stuck in her head to let herself in anyone else’s. She thought she knew what she wanted, but she was stumped on how to get there. It was so frustrating to be on the edge and not able to just spill over. She knew writers who had said they would suddenly have an idea and sit and write for hours and hours. They would forget the time and not even stop to eat. That never happened to Klara.
As she pulled into the parking lot, she wondered what kind of life Christopher must have to write about such erotic experiences. He must be a dirty old man. Who else wrote basically porno history? Old, sex-deprived men—that was who. Or maybe his wife actually was his inspiration in that department. Maybe they had wild, crazy sex in the old mansions and gardens he toured. Maybe she was his muse. Klara thought about that and how it must feel to have a husband whisper filthy things in her ear. How it must feel to be the object of someone’s desires. How, even after being married for so long and growing old, that spark for each other never died.
No way. He’s totally just a dirty old man.
Klara checked herself in the rearview mirror, grabbed her bag and laptop, and headed toward the classroom. She glanced at the time on her phone—8:44 a.m. Right on time. She yawned as she climbed the stairs, suddenly feeling the exhaustion from her early morning run. It wasn’t even lunch yet, and those seven extra minutes of sleep were proving her theory that the study was complete bullshit.
She looked around the hall, searching for the right classroom. She didn’t want to sit in the wrong classroom like she had that one time her sophomore year. She realized about two minutes in that she was not in Children’s Fiction, but instead, she was in Mandarin. She had been too humiliated to get up and make a walk of shame, so she’d sat and learned the Mandarin symbol for bean. It was cute, like a flowerpot.
She double-checked her schedule—room 342. Klara was in the right place. The room was quiet and empty. She flicked on the lights and made her way to a desk in one of the middle rows, close to a window. As if she needed any distractions. She tucked herself away so as not to appear too fangirl on the first day. She was just settling in and opening her laptop when she heard him.
“Perfecting that romance novel, I suppose? The one where you crash into Mr. Abs at the park, and you both run off into the sunset?”
Klara looked up, temperature rising. Chris from the park. Chris who had saved her. Chris with the sarcastic smirks and know-it-all attitude. Chris … topher. Christopher Kaiser.
two
Chris woke early to the city lights still flickering through his window. He lay awake in bed, trying to figure out why he was up before sunrise. He didn’t have to teach until nine, which was still too early for him. He preferred sleeping until mid-morning, as he usually spent all night writing, editing, and preparing for his classes. His best work came from the midnight hours, when everything and everyone around him shut down. Silence, peace, no distractions.
Back home, on Captiva, it became quiet and calm after ten p.m. The lazy island life had spoiled him. Memphis was different. He had been kept up all evening by the laughter and cheers from outside his hotel. The service desk at The Peabody had warned him that he would be booking during a very busy weekend of festivals. But Chris didn’t mind. Chris wanted to experience all Memphis had to offer. He hoped to soak it up and funnel it into his next masterpiece.
From the moment he’d heard about the history of Memphis, he knew he had to investigate. The books he read had advertised it as a cutthroat river town. Scandals had always riddled the city, then and now. The city was rich in brothels, saloons, corruption, murder, mayhem. The things that made his readers hungry for more. Something wicked yet sexy. He didn’t have a clue what he would write about yet, but he figured, with a little bit of research and digging, something would present itself. Something or someone needed a story told. That was how it always happened. He let his imagination take him wherever it wanted to go. His research led him around ancient cemeteries, old and dilapidated buildings, long-forgotten parks, and cold, sterile museums. If he was fortunate, his wanderings led him right to a local heroine of his own.
His muses, he called them. There was Nicole, the curator from Charleston. Her laugh was like that of a choking beaver
, but she’d devoured him in the hotel room and been eager to help fuel his erotica during his short stay. Lexi in Richmond, not his usual type, personality-wise. She had been obnoxiously loud and could do an impressive keg stand. But again, she’d kept his brain alight in the bedroom when he struggled with dirty details in that particular novel. Sarah from New Orleans had proven that fat-bottom girls really did make the rockin’ world go round. And, lastly, there was Cary. Cary had known the California coastline like the back of her hand. She was a bit older than Chris and much more experienced. The erotica he had written about in his latest novels, all personal experiences with her. She was a gold mine of history and lust.
Chris was lucky. His job gave him the opportunity to experience many different cities, cultures, and women. He was the envy of his male friends back home, who always asked him to elaborate on his escapades. They needed to live vicariously through him, thinking Chris’s bachelor life was every man’s fantasy. They longed to put themselves in his shoes, but Chris made them work for it. Never one to kiss and tell, he had them read his novels for details. He was, however, open to questions after they finished. Their wives often read his works, too. He knew which ones were fans when their hugs became a little tighter, their laughs at his jokes a little longer. Chris enjoyed the attention. He knew he had a good life, and although his muses kept his mind in erotic mode, he never let that cross over into something more.
He carefully chose the women he let into his life. He knew which ones were capable of not becoming attached and distracting him from his work. Those bawdy, carefree-type of women were also naturally attracted to him, too. They must have sensed his no-strings-attached and no-drama approach. His lifestyle couldn’t withstand a relationship anyway—or was it that a relationship couldn’t withstand his lifestyle? It wasn’t that he didn’t want someone to come home to, but that side of his brain he hadn’t opened up since his writing career took off. His time and energy had been spent establishing himself in a career he was passionate about. He wasn’t concerned with settling down or falling in love. Writing was his love. He had been writing and traveling since he was twenty-four, and now, he was thirty-six and in a secure and happy place—or at least, he thought he was. His last novel’s reviews were less than stellar.
That novel, based on the prostitutes of the Wild West era, was his least popular work to date. He had all of the usual elements that his readers devoured. Sex, suspense, more sex, historical facts, modern-day relations, more sex, tragedy, heartbreak, and more crazy, wild sex. It was, after all, based around prostitutes. He wasn’t sure what had gone wrong. However, just barely cracking the best-seller lists jarred him a little. It was as if the ride he was on—this big, fancy pie-in-the-sky hot-air balloon that was his life—was slowly coming back down.
He wondered if this was the end for him. Is my time to shine over? Have I hit that sweet spot in my career, and this is it? Is it all downhill from here?
He hadn’t had time to figure it all out, as the opportunity to branch out in his career arrived on his doorstep in the form of Marcy.
Marcy was like a big, squishy marshmallow that Chris had known his whole life. She had worked as his father’s assistant ever since he was a child. She was his entertainer, caretaker, and teacher during the long hours that Chris had to spend at his father’s office. His mother, also flourishing in her own career at the bank, had joked often about how Marcy was her sister-wife or Chris’s second mom. He thought, if Marcy didn’t have a family of her own, his parents would have seriously considered moving her in with them. She was family and maybe even more so family than his own. Chris’s parents had lived busy and fulfilling lives, tied around their careers. It wasn’t until two years ago that they decided to retire and enjoy what years they had left.
Now with the family business sold and Marcy out of work, she had begun her own voyage of self-discovery. Much to her grandchildren’s dismay, she joined them at college, where she also learned that she loved to write. She was the celebrity of her creative writing classes when word got out that she personally knew a real celebrity—Christopher Kaiser. Of course, she had no idea how that had happened. It wasn’t like she’d mentioned his name. Not a lot anyway. Only every other class and a few in between.
“Well, my good friend Christopher Kaiser said …”
Even though his days were busy with writing, Chris couldn’t refuse her when she wanted him to speak on the topic of romance novels in her class. He didn’t even hesitate to accept her offer because he owed much of his love of writing to Marcy. She had introduced him to a vast array of books at a very young age and always encouraged him with his schoolwork and creativity. He graciously accepted her request, and in a matter of days, the university had sent him a formal invite and offered him a nice fee. He had taken the plunge down this new career path, and surprisingly, he actually enjoyed it.
After that first seminar, other schools had begun requesting him for more speaking engagements, workshops, classes, and even full-on teaching positions. He quickly dived into the flexible offers, as it allowed him to travel and do his research and write freely. Marcy was only too happy to help him with his bookings, attending events alongside him when she could. He’d hired her on as his part-time assistant when his schedule started to become too overwhelming. With a different city every month already booked out for the next year, he would be lost without her help now.
Chris groggily made his way to the shower, determined to make the most of his time since he was awake early. He remembered a corner coffee shop he’d spotted while checking in the day before and hoped they would be open at this ungodly hour. Though with the amount of traffic in and around town at all hours, he assumed places around here probably never even closed.
He quickly dressed and made his way downstairs. The mezzanine was eerily quiet. His footsteps on the marble floors echoed throughout the halls. Didn’t I read about a haunting here? Maybe he could work that into his story. He took a moment to take in his surroundings. It was truly a beautiful place. He imagined what it must have looked like about one hundred fifty years ago.
The stories these walls could tell.
Outside, the air was thick with humidity and the lingering scent of barbecue. He inhaled deeply and groaned in a primal-caveman sort of way. For a split second, he really craved a beer in his hand. He hungrily looked around. This city was already beginning to grow on him. He assumed this divine scent was coming from the festivals across the riverbanks. The smoke curled up and over to him, luring him to make his way to the river and check it out. He dipped into the corner store for a quick cup of coffee and headed down.
The riverfront was slowly waking up as the sun started to rise. The sky changing from purple dusk to cotton candy. Chris sat on a bench, sipping his coffee and looking out over the bluff. He observed the panhandlers, the yoga moms, the cyclers, and the runners.
He tried to imagine why anyone would be up so early. What dragged these people out of bed at this time? Why would they choose to come here in this hot, sticky mess instead of a cool air-conditioned gym? Is it the endorphin high? Adderall? Do people still use cocaine?
He couldn’t imagine waking up and running around with that much energy. His gym sessions were long after dinnertime, which was usually when he was the most alert.
Chris sat, watching the energetic characters unfold around him. One runner in particular caught his eye. He had seen her running when he first arrived. Her legs moving gracefully up and down the paths. Her face becoming pinker and pinker as she tuned the world out and raced down the river. He saw her fade from view and circle back around. Chris made his way toward the banks to get a closer look.
Oblivious to anyone around her and so deep into the music playing through her headphones, she started singing. Very loudly and very badly. She twirled around and collapsed on the grass right ahead of him. He wondered what she was listening to and what had made her smile like that. He could barely make out any words between her heavy breaths when, suddenly, she st
opped, her attention elsewhere. Her eyes were focused in the distance, not moving from her target. She hurriedly put her headphones away.
Chris noticed what, or who, had caught her attention. He looked to be all of six-eight, built like Superman, and was barreling toward her like The Flash. His eyes gazed out at the river, but his muscular legs took him straight ahead. Straight toward the woman. She was biting her lip, but her eyebrows were pinched in what Chris recognized as conflict. She was lusty and calculating. He saw her quickly rise up as the oblivious man came closer and closer.
Don’t do it.
Don’t do it.
Don’t do it.
She’s going to do it.
Chris, thinking quickly, sprang into action and made his way down the path. He was going to have to save this silly woman from a concussion. Although it was clear that her brain had already been zapped. He couldn’t blame her though; the dude did look like a superhero. Chris looked up to see the man running toward them both as he watched the woman turn her head away and step back into the line of fire. His feet practically skated toward her as he reached out and pulled her back into him for a brief second. Then, he let her go.
He nervously caught his breath and explained to the two confused strangers what had just happened. He mansplained. He didn’t know it at the time; he was just happy to have helped. But, as the woman turned to look at him, he was a bit terrified. He could feel the blood draining from his face as her eyes shot through him like darts. He wondered if he could just ask her to go back to singing sweetly, but he got the feeling that would be a very bad idea. He had two choices: he could play up his role as her hero and be astonished that she didn’t find him amusing or he could make her laugh. Chris did what came natural to him when he was uncomfortable. He made her laugh. And, to his surprise, she made him laugh, too.