The Price Of Success (Fighting For Fireworks)

by Lee, Corri

  “Alright, Mr Alexander. You have me sold. Let me know when you have time for me.”

  “You’re already pencilled in for nine o‘clock on Monday morning, Miss Douglas. Bring your laptop and your sloth with you.” I frowned at my phone as he hung up. ‘Bring your sloth with you’? What was that supposed to mean? I took my confusion out to Bethany, who sat sprawled across one of our couches watching some sort of soap opera omnibus.

  “So,” she kept her gaze fixed on the television as she had with the Wii, “how did it go?” Her ability to multitask when she insisted on partaking in activities that killed so many brain cells was miraculous.

  I shoved her feet across the couch to make space for me to sit. “I have an appointment with him at nine on Monday.” She raised a hand with her palm flat as an invitation to give her a high-five.

  “I want an autographed copy of the hardback.”

  “You got it, sister.” I shuffled in my seat for a moment before knitting my fingers together. “Does he do this with everyone?”

  “Do what?” She tore herself away from the television and raised an eyebrow at me. “Oh. He’s never conferred with any of our authors in person, Cici. You’re a special case.” A deluge of flattery and fear swept over me. What had I done to deserve preferential treatment? He didn’t intimidate me as such, but he certainly set my nerves on a knives edge. I had no idea how to deal with somebody like him. There was just something about him that didn’t sit right. His interest in me was his main point of anxiety. Just why?

  “He told me to ‘bring my sloth’. What does that mean?”

  “Maybe he wants to see you in that underwear he’s given you.” Bethany caught the glimpse of contemplation in my eyes and laughed. “I was joking. But who could blame him if he did?” I shook my head in resignation and slumped back into my bedroom to vent my emotions into ‘sloth’.

  Bethany tapped on my bedroom door and roused me from my literary trance. I’d combed over that passage relentlessly for hours and somehow it was just still lacking something that I couldn’t place.

  “Cici, honey, we have work in half an hour.”

  “Oh.” My eyes tore away from the laptop and blinked at her for a moment. “I’ll be right out.” I scanned back over the passage again and again until the words began to meld into boring nonsensical drivel.

  Bethany stepped into my room and lifted the laptop up out of my grasp. “You’re withdrawing again, Cici. Mr Alexander will work you hard for this and he’ll make you see what’s missing, if anything. I’ve heard some of his conference calls with Eleanor- he’s thorough. Really thorough.”

  “Okay.” I pulled my staff t-shirt from the chest of drawers next to my bed and looked at Bethany deadpan. “A little privacy?”

  “Oh honestly,” she admonished, “I’ve caught you in some spectacular positions with men- you’d think you’d be a little more comfortable with my seeing you in your underwear by now.”

  “I’m not in the mood for a pep talk.” I waited until she’d closed the door before I changed out of the silk chemise and into my uniform. She had to understand why I felt inferior next to her, unless of course she was so wrapped up in her own aesthetic perfection that she was numb to it. I suspected that the latter was most likely the case.

  I spared a disdainful sneer for my laptop before I left my bedroom. It sat there, at the foot of my bed, goading and teasing me. I had been in a comfortable place where my novel was finally complete and I was happy. Now it was being pulled apart at the seams, and so was I. Whether it was intentional or not, Nathaniel Alexander was making me miserable.

  Chapter Five

  Saturday flew past in a flurry of bar brawls and broken glass. There were blue flashing lights, sirens and blood, but I barely noticed. I was completely absorbed in mentally rewriting my novel. I felt so helpless and stupid- staring blankly into space with the words spinning around me and mocking me for my ignorance.

  I didn’t sleep when we found our way home in the wee hours of the morning, having embarked on a lengthy mission to thoroughly clean and disinfect the bar lounge after closing. I crawled into my bed with my laptop and stared at my novel until the sun rose and beyond. I was, exhausted, empty and hindered by my own criticisms.

  Through sheer desperation, I referred back to my research into the Seven Deadly Sins and was taken aback- sloth was characterised by a failure to develop spiritually as well as the act of physical laziness. Giving me the fuel for my fire but leaving my self-doubt to fester for two days had rendered me useless, unable to work with my usual gusto, and I was morose over the fact that my novel wasn’t perfect. Had Mr Alexander done this on purpose- did he know that I’d obsess?

  “Is it a man?” A voice from behind me jolted me back into reality as I wiped down the bar. My manager, Shona, stepped out from the cellar and clapped a nimble fingered hand down on my shoulder. “Every time I see that look on a woman’s face, it’s always a man.”

  “Oh,” I flashed an entirely unconvincing smile and moved my attention to the metal of the draught pumps, “no, not a man.”

  “Are you sure? I heard about your date with Cole.” Of course she had. There wasn’t a single person I knew who hadn’t heard about that Hollywood kiss. “Is he that bad a kisser?”

  “I’m sure if you asked him for a demonstration, he’d be more than willing to oblige.” My words hadn’t arrived as innocuously as I’d intended. My distaste for his lifestyle, which I presumed involved a little black book and a vast amount of promiscuity, was more than slightly apparent in my tone. I was not going to be a notch on his bed post. “I think he got the message from my speedy exit though.”

  “You think?” Shona nodded her head towards the doorway with a raised eyebrow and took the cloth from my hand. Cole approached me with visible caution, and rightly so. “Nothing to be lost by talking to him, Cici.”

  “I don’t know, he might stand to lose something vital.”

  She snickered and bumped shoulders with me. “I hear men are great for stress relief.” I retched with mock disgust as she slunk back into the cellar with a smirk, eyes twinkling with mischief.

  I crossed my arms moodily as Cole reached the bar and pushed an envelope towards me with marked over-confidence. His caution had quickly dissolved and I was none too pleased.

  My index finger brushed over my lips contemplatively as my eyes fixed on the envelope rather than his cock-sure smile. “What is it, Cole?”

  “Why don’t you open it and find out?”

  “I meant, what do you want?” He tilted his head at me and winked.

  “Why don’t you open it and find out?” I puffed my cheeks out as I exhaled in resignation. I would indulge him, again, for the very last time. I flipped the envelope over and observed a handwritten note across the flap.

  In the spirit of outrageous romantic gestures

  My forehead creased as I looked up at Cole from the cover of my lashes. “This is requisite. We never talked prerequisites.”

  “We did talk prerequisites. You need to be worn down.” His eyes twinkled at me and something in his audacity softened my resolve. I lifted the flap of the envelope and peered into its depths.

  “Tickets?” My eyes narrowed and I pulled the contents from the envelope. “Thames River Cruise tickets?” I couldn’t see how this was an outrageous romantic gesture. A small vessel surrounded by water with no safe escape- it sounded like my idea of Hell.

  He leaned over and tapped the writing on the ticket. “Lunchtime cruise, Cecelia- and it’s privately booked.” I scoffed in disbelief and crammed the tickets back into the envelope. Not a single brain cell of mine could fathom how a college lecturer could afford to reserve an entire boat on the Thames River Cruise.

  “You pissed me off with that kiss, Cole. My lips aren’t free to be taken on a whim.”

  “I know, Cecelia,” he made a bold move by taking my hand in his, “but I had my reasons.” Pissing contest, I thought. “My family saw that kiss and now they know that you’re
the object of my affections. I never take women to my family’s restaurant.” Ok, not a pissing contest.

  My lips pursed and I eyed our linked hands warily. “Did you give me my money back because our meals were free?”

  A surprisingly sexy smile spread across his face from cheek to cheek. “Yes,” well at least he’s not a thief, “but I paid for it with the proceeding interrogation, believe me. The cruise is booked for Tuesday lunch time, Cecelia. I know you have a meeting with Nathaniel Alexander tomorrow morning and I didn’t want to rush you.”

  “How do you-…”

  “Bethany, of course.” Ah, Judas. I pulled my hand from his as a customer approached the bar and clicked my tongue as I mulled over his grand gesture.

  I glanced over my shoulder at him as I collected a measure of gin from the optics. “I’ll think about it, Cole. I’m a little distracted with my novel again.”

  “Say no more. Bethany has my number. Call me.” With that, he winked and left my bar for the evening.

  Bethany held a pizza out for me as I blew at the steam on a cup of tea. I took it from her hand with narrowed eyes and set my mug down on the coffee table. “Ah, Iscariot. You have returned.” She grabbed my face in both hands and laid a large smacking kiss on my mouth to simulate the Kiss of Judas. “Yuck.”

  “Don’t be silly, Cici, Cole isn’t Jewish.”

  “He isn’t? Hmm. To be confirmed.” I raised an eyebrow suggestively and opened the pizza box with a triumphant grin. An Italian and a Hawaiian in my mouth over a course of two days, wasn’t I the lucky one?

  “You know you’ll thank me for this. What did he get you?”

  “Thames River Cruise.”

  Bethany’s jaw dropped open slightly, but then she shook her head. “I thought he could do better than that.”

  “Private cruise. He’s booked out the boat.”

  “Oh,” she opened the lid of her own pizza box looking pleasantly surprised, “well that changes everything.”

  “It changes nothing. He still doesn’t make me go ‘ooh’.”

  “Yet.” I wrinkled my nose at her but I couldn’t help but laugh. Bethany was a woman obsessed with being an object of desire, and I was more than happy to live vicariously through her indiscretions. The concept of a role reversal, however, was hilarious. “I have a date with Adam on Wednesday night.” Ah, no role reversal necessary.

  “I’ll be sure to buy ear plugs.” She gave me a smile that confirmed that my plans to take precautions to be saved from the sound of her exploits were appropriate and bit into a slice of pizza.

  Bethany pored over my redrafted novel with a furrowed brow while I nursed the cheap bottle of red wine she’d brought home with our pizzas. I was still tormenting myself trying to find those magical missing words and she was doing me no favours by trying to appease me with compliments. I needed her criticism.

  “Cici, honestly, there is not a damn thing I can fault this on.”

  “You said that about the first draft.”

  “Yes, because I thought it was perfect as it was.” She snapped my laptop shut and passed it back to me with a snarl. “You’re over-thinking it. You’re your own worst critic.”

  I snatched my laptop from her proffered hand and glared at her with unmeasured resentment. “No, Nathaniel Alexander is my worst critic and I’m not going to make myself look stupid by walking in with something he can pick to pieces.”

  “Seriously?” Bethany grabbed the bottle of wine and refilled my glass. “Nobody expects you to get it right straight away, least of all Mr Alexander. Sometimes there are months of back and forth correspondence between him and an author before a novel is fit to print.”

  I hooked my arms over the back of the couch and scowled bitterly. I didn’t want months of Nathaniel Alexander in my life- I didn’t want to prolong the experience of working closely with him. He was both too intense and too complacent- something had shifted between us when our eyes met and he knew it. He had too much control. He could turn around at any time and dismiss me, and the thought of being back at square one made me ill. I had to be published at whatever cost, but rejection was fatal to me. It would take time for me to recover if he dropped me halfway through and I’d spend months rehashing my novel to try and figure out what flaws he’d discovered. I was dependant on his guidance and I couldn’t risk annoying him through flaky efforts. The revision of ‘sloth’ had to be perfect by the next morning.

  Silently, I parted from Bethany and confined myself to my bedroom. My empathy with my protagonist had passed, and I was merely an observer to her tragic love story. This was where my problem clearly laid. I was bored by my own words, having read them repeatedly over a period of three years, and I was no longer interested in the tragic love story I knew so well.

  I was doomed to fail at the hands of my own apathy.

  I swore at my alarm clock when it woke me up at seven o’clock on Monday morning. I seriously considered calling Mr Alexander to rearrange our appointment- my novel was still far from perfect and I had my doubts that there was a caffeine source potent enough to compensate for three hours sleep over forty-eight hours.

  At half past, I felt two hands on my ankles yanking me from the comfort of my bed. “Get up, Cici. You have a pressing literary issue with a billionaire.”

  I made a grab for a pillow and clamped it down over my head. “Cecelia Douglas is not available right now- please call back in business hours.”

  “Hah. These are business hours in Alexanderland. The building opens at seven.” I whimpered disgracefully and rolled out of bed with a heaving great yawn. “Breakfast in ten, I’ve laid out clothes in the lounge.” She marched out, and I looked up just in time to catch the back of her perfectly decorated hourglass figure crossing the threshold onto the landing. I was baffled and sickened by how capably she prepared herself for work after a long night of merciless alcohol abuse.

  A shower and an espresso did little for my drowsiness, the heat from both made me lethargic and eager for sleep. The physical signs of fatigue were barely masked by the full arsenal of Bethany’s makeup collection, and even dressed in one of her pencil skirts and royal blue satin shirts, I still looked like a mess.

  I felt slightly more human after a full English breakfast prepared by Bethany, yet another of her enviable traits, and made a hasty dash back to my bedroom to print my abomination of a revision of ‘sloth’. Something caught my eye while I packed my laptop into its bag and Mr Alexander’s words rang clear in my mind: ‘Bring your sloth with you’. My teeth grazed my bottom lip as I pulled the silk chemise set from the slightly ajar draw of my armoire.

  “Don’t be stupid, Cecelia.” I whispered to myself, but some inexplicable force drove me to stuff the silk underwear into the pocket of the laptop bag and zip it shut. My mind tingled with impish glee and embarrassment. The chances of Mr Alexander intending to exploit me sexually to seek repayment for his efforts was less than minute, but part of me dared to think ‘what if?’. What was happening to me?

  Alexander Publishing House looked as magnificent as ever, if a little more imposing for its hushed morning atmosphere. We arrived fifteen minutes early as per Bethany’s usual routine, and I watched with fascination as she launched into work mode- sorting through Eleanor’s messages and checking the email accounts.

  She froze in her seat for a moment and stared at her computer. “What the fuck?” Her voice was a hushed whisper and rife with confusion. She glanced at me and frowned. “Mr Alexander has emailed me the details for spa reservations on Wednesday morning and given me the morning off at no penalty to my annual leave allowance.”

  I leaned back in my seat and raised an eyebrow. “Lucky girl. You might snag yourself a billionaire after all.” And with no effort. Ulterior motive discovered- he was after Bethany and making me successful would definitely tip the scales in his favour.

  “Idiot,” she leaned over the desk and slapped my hand before turning her monitor to face me, “the booking is for us.”

 
“What?” I sat up bolt upright in my seat and craned my neck to look at the email. The booking number and address of the Alexander Health Spa came with a message, which I read aloud. “ ‘All inclusive in the spirit of sloth. Make sure Miss Douglas enjoys the experience, she doesn’t strike me as the type of woman to take relaxation seriously’. Cheeky bastard!”

  “He has a point, Cici. Your idea of relaxation is clearing out the loft.”

  “Tidy house, tidy mind” I retorted and crossed my arms in annoyance. Health spas were Bethany’s idea of fun, not mine. I wasn’t shallow. I couldn’t see the benefit of lying in mud and having my pubic hair ripped out by large masculine looking women. “Can’t you email him back and tell him to cancel?”

  Bethany laughed at me and patted my hand. “I could, but I won’t. This is what you agreed to Cici- you agreed to make yourself available to discuss the novel and for him to enhance your image.”

  “But I-…”

  “Shut up. Stop talking.” My lips pressed into a flat line at her command. I don’t know what I was expecting of Mr Alexander when he said I wasn’t ready for the red carpet, but I certainly wasn’t expecting to be pampered. It was too much- too friendly and too extravagant. I made an inward promise to address the issue with the man himself and state my terms. After all, I didn’t compromise.

  Eleanor snuck up behind me and whispered ‘boo’ in my ear. I turned around and batted at her arm playfully as she pushed me aside and examined the email as closely as I had.