Underwood, Scotch, and Cry

by Brian Meeks

  Arthur wasn't sure if using the "g" word in public was even allowed, but if it made her happy, then that's what mattered.

  At 7:52 pm on the fourteenth day since he had begun writing The Magellan Apocalypse: Map Runners, Arthur typed "The End." Then he wrote it again in a text to Kat.

  She replied, I'm so proud of you.

  Arthur hadn't been completely won over by texting and called her.

  Kat answered, "Hello there. How are you feeling?"

  "I would have never believed I could write a novel in a fortnight."

  "It's a bit of a rush, isn't it?"

  "It's almost better than sex."

  "Excuse me?"

  "I said almost."

  "You know the hard part starts now?"

  "You know that my parade has only been running for about three minutes, Ms. Rainy Pants?"

  "I'm sorry."

  "It's okay. So, what's next?"

  "Editing, cover art, beta readers, and then launch and marketing."

  "It sounds like you have a plan."

  "I do, and if you're good, I'll share it with you."

  "I'm sort of craving Chinese. Would some extra delicious Mongolian beef get you to share?"

  "I've always been a fan of the Mongols and their beef. Will there be crab rangoon?"

  "Yes, and wonton soup."

  "Throw in a post-dinner cuddle, and you've got a deal."

  "I'll make a call."

  Arthur was paying the delivery guy just as Kat arrived.

  She asked, "Did they include chopsticks?"

  The young man in the red shirt nodded and thanked Arthur for the tip.

  "Your timing is impeccable."

  "I'm extra speedy when crab rangoon is involved."

  Maltese greeted Kat, and she picked him up to give him chin scratches as Arthur went and got plates. He set the table and put treats in Maltese's bowl. Maltese lost interest in the humans.

  "Should I take notes?" Arthur asked as Kat sat down.

  "Nah, if you forget a step, I'll let you know with my patented, disappointed look and then brow beat you until you get it right."

  "As long as you have a plan," Arthur said as he scooped Mongolian beef onto his plate.

  Kat started with the soup. "The first thing you need to do is find a good cover artist for your novel."

  "I like art, but I have no idea what makes a good book cover or cover artist."

  "There are a lot of people out there who claim to be professional cover artists, but their work still has the stench of amateur oozing off the page."

  "I don't want a stinky or oozy cover."

  "No, you really don't."

  "Do you have a good cover artist that you use?"

  "Sure. I have two, and both of the ladies are brilliant graphic artists who specialize in romance. I'm not sure a busty woman in a bodice is what you need for The Magellan Apocalypse."

  "I stopped listening at busty. What were you saying?"

  "You better listen, buddy, or I'll busty you on the nose."

  "I'm not sure if that's a threat or an enticement."

  Kat deftly picked up a crab rangoon with her chopsticks and dipped it in the sauce. "The point is that different genres have covers that speak to that group's fans. You'll need to find something that speaks to the Star Wars and Star Trek crowd."

  "How exactly does one find a science fiction cover artist?"

  "Do you mind?" she said pointing at his laptop.

  "No, go ahead."

  Kat wiped off her hands and opened the computer. "There are two ways to go," she said and spun the computer back around to show him a site. This is a place where artists compete for your cover. You basically choose how much you want to spend, and then various graphic artists create mock-ups to try to win the contract. I know a bunch of people who have had great success with them."

  "That sounds like a good plan."

  "Well, it might be, but I'm wondering if you might want to think outside the box a little."

  "I only have one idea in my box right now, and you just put it there. What's available outside of that tiny little cover idea box?"

  Kat turned the computer back around and started typing away. "You see, there is this site called Deviant Art, and I've seen a ton of really talented people on there. Here, check this out." She turned the computer back to Arthur.

  "Okay, that's definitely science fiction. I love his suit."

  "I'm thinking you could find something that you like and then reach out to the artist and ask if you could buy the rights to use the image for your book."

  Arthur's mouth was full, so he didn't answer, but he did nod and start to flip though images.

  Kat helped herself to Mongolian beef while he searched.

  Arthur said, "There are quite a few impressive images that would make great covers, but none of them fit with my story."

  "The secret to great covers is to find art you like and then write the image into the book."

  "That's clever. It's much easier for me to describe these ships than to find an artist, tell him or her what I want the ships to look like, and then have them create it from scratch."

  "You're thinking like an indie author. Have a crab rangoon. They're delicious."

  Arthur did just that and continued to browse. "Check this one out," he said and nudged it a bit so Kat could see. "I could add that to the beginning of the novel."

  "Then why don't you send off a message to the artist? You'll need to join the site first, though."

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Winifred's life had lost its color and joy. Sunny days mocked her because she wasn't able to enjoy them. Food had become little more than a daily means to an existence she no longer wanted. The cabbie asked where she was going.

  It wasn't meant to be a philosophical inquiry, so she said, "Brooklyn" and continued to flip through the questions in her mind about where it had all gone wrong. She wasn't prone to depression. Winifred had spent less time feeling sorry for herself than most of her friends in college, but her newfound pessimism and constant fatigue hinted that she was knee deep in it now. Googling "depression symptoms" hadn't helped things.

  The Brooklyn Bridge was her favorite place in all of the world. She had taken a walking tour shortly after starting work for James, back before he'd decided that every waking moment of hers was his to command. She remembered it had been a Saturday, warm, much like it was right now, and the view of the city had made her stomach lurch like a first kiss.

  All she could recall of the tour was that in May of 1887, P.T. Barnum had marched his 21 elephants across the bridge to demonstrate that it was sound and travel worthy. Winifred loved elephants. Normally, that memory was enough to make her smile, but not this time.

  She almost didn't notice it at first, but then the song of the taxi tires on the bridge broke through the fog of her cluttered mind. It hummed and thumped with a rhythm that was pure New York. The cab dropped her off at a little shop not too far from the bridge. She needed a walk, and after mindless window-shopping she planned to walk back across her favorite place in the world. Hopefully it would give her a moment of happiness.

  A city block of window-shopping ended with a sandwich shop that had four cute little tables on the sidewalk. Only one of the tables had people nibbling on their lunch, so Winifred sat down at the one farthest from the couple, who might have been in love. She couldn't decide if they were cute or disgusting. Her own mood wavered from horrible to slightly less so, and she went with cute. The guy, wearing wire-rimmed glasses, had made his love an origami rose. The woman, in her yellow sundress, took it with delight and then held his hand.

  Winifred's mood returned to sour, so she got up and left.

  Not looking at the shop windows much anymore, Winifred walked down the street, seeing only as far as the blue Manolo Blahnik pumps in front of her. The woman with the high-priced footwear was talking on her phone to someone who seemed to be nagging her. By focusing on the sidewalk and the shoes, it seemed to Winifred
less like she was eavesdropping, though she totally was.

  Blue Shoes said, "He just wasn't my type."

  There was a long pause during which Blue Shoes kept shaking her head. "Yes, I know. I hear it ticking too, but I don't want to screw up my life just to get you off my back. I've got to go. Give my love to Dad."

  The last bit had been spoken with a pureness of exasperation that Winifred could appreciate. She had a mother who wanted grandchildren, too. The shoes stopped to hail a cab, and so Winifred turned to see what was in the shop window. At first, she just watched the woman's reflection through the glass, but once the Yellow Checker Cab had pulled away, Winifred noticed the window belonged to a lovely little stationery shop. There was something about paper and pens in all sorts of fancy designs that never failed to make her smile. A blank notebook always seemed to sing of possibilities. She went inside.

  The first table had a display of thank you cards with themes from birthdays to weddings. Winifred couldn't think of anyone or anything she wanted to thank.

  As that last thought lingered, she noticed a handcrafted leather journal on a table with a lace covering. A sign hanging from a string above the table spun gently around to reveal "50% off."

  Growing up she had been given a diary on her thirteenth birthday by her aunt. Her mother had three sisters, and they all competed to see who could spoil her the most. Aunt Teri had won by a mile because she seemed to understand Winifred more than the others did. Winifred wasn't stupid, though; she made them all think they had won, which made for lucrative birthdays and holidays.

  This journal had a mountain scene on the cover, and she ran her hand over it to see if there was the crackle of magic. It almost seemed there was, or maybe it was just the half-off sale, but she bought it. There certainly was a crack in her cloudy mood as she walked out the door. All she could think about was writing on that first page.

  The sunny day was the same, but to her it seemed brighter. The people no longer wore heavy expressions; there were even a few with smiles. The thought of the happy couple didn't seem so terrible anymore, and Winifred decided she needed lunch.

  In less than two blocks, she found a place with about six people waiting to get in to eat. She figured that if they were waiting it must be good, so she put her name on the list and stood at the back, behind a couple of well-dressed men who might have been bankers or lawyers. They were discussing a pending deal. Winifred didn't care; her thoughts were on the mountain and what secrets it held.

  A bright-eyed woman with caramel skin and cornrows in her hair apologized for the wait, which Winifred hadn't noticed at all, and led her to a small table. A waiter poured her water and asked if she needed a minute. She did. For a moment, panic almost ensued. Her first pass through the pocket inside her purse that she was sure held a pen had turned up nothing. The Uni-ball turned up in a different pocket.

  Her childhood diary had had a cheap gold lock. She pulled the new journal open, and the cover had a weight to it that gave the book a sense of reverence. The first line would have to be good. Her focus on the task at hand was a little blurry. It was nothing like when she used to write every day back in college. If she wasn't working on a story, she would do writing exercises. Anything could trigger an idea, and almost immediately an opening line would pop into her head. Most of the time those first lines were gold, even if the rest of the story needed reworking. Winifred had often thought that beginning stories just might be her super power. Now, she had what were akin to rusty gears trying to start moving after years of sitting idle.

  Winifred imagined what her brain might look like if it were made of gears. There had been a period in her life, sophomore year in college if she remembered, when everything she read was steampunk. A professor, Dr. Marilyn Goss, had encouraged the class to read speculative fiction. She chose Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson, which her professor had described as post-cyberpunk with delicious cyberpunk sauce. Dr. Goss had a dramatic flair when it came to books. Winifred remembered chuckling at the idea of cyberpunk sauce and thought that made the book seem silly, but since The Diamond Age had won both the Hugo and Locus awards, she figured it must be worth a read. She loved it.

  The moment Winifred realized she had let her mind wander, she pulled it back to the task at hand. Her mind was a blank. The problem was she didn't have a single idea about the story. At present all she had was a beautiful blank journal. Was the story to be steampunk?

  Her sophomore year had been one of her favorites and not just because of that book. There had been a boy. A lovely, brooding, skateboarding theoretical physicist who railed against capitalism while he cruised around town in a spectacular black 1950 Porsche 356 coupé he'd been given for his birthday by his father the venture capitalist. Roderick had had little concern for hypocrisy. Winifred loved that car almost as much as him. Plus, he had great cheekbones and was tall. She liked tall. There was something about college love with all its unbridled optimism and unrealistic romanticism that preserved the memories like precious artifacts at the Louvre. For a moment, her stomach fluttered like it had back in college.

  Her subconscious seemed to be yelling Focus! and she tried to obey. If the story is to be steampunk, then who's the main character? She got as far as the gender—female—before a litany of other thoughts was knocking on the backdoor of her mind for attention. Will you ever have a boyfriend again? Do you even remember how to flirt? Did you ever really know how?

  "Are you ready to order?"

  Winifred almost didn't hear the question. She hadn't even opened the menu. "A salad would be nice, which one do you recommend?"

  "I like the Caesar salad with grilled shrimp."

  "Could I get fat-free ranch dressing instead..."

  "Absolutely. Would you like a cup of soup with that?"

  "No, the salad will be fine, thanks."

  The waiter hustled away.

  The din of the restaurant returned, and the multiple metaphorical mental browser windows that had been distracting Winifred all seemed to minimize. All that remained was her journal. She wrote, “Alex knew she was good and so did management. She'd been the number two trader at Maxwell and Stern since 2267, her first year out of college, and for the last five years had dominated every other stock jockey except one, Robert Wool. What she didn't know was that she wasn't human.”

  Winifred reread what she'd written. It was in ink and couldn't be changed. The die had been cast, and like Alex, she knew it was good. Professor Goss would have liked it too, she thought. It establishes the gender of the protagonist with the gender-neutral name, her age, the year the story takes place (2272) and a hint at the antagonist, Robert Wool. You also did a fine job of creating a hook, she told herself.

  Ideas began to swim about as she reread what she'd written. Taking notes seemed like a good idea because there were too many thoughts to be sure she'd remember them all. The first solution was to use some of the pages in the back of the journal for character bios, but she didn't want to write anything but her story on the cream pages. Winifred took out her phone and used the notes app. As her thumbs were banging away, the salad arrived.

  James Walcott lay under a single silk sheet with two pillows behind his head. He checked a few emails on his phone but paused to watch while his afternoon guest put on her pink lace bra. She was a groupie who could always be counted on to drop everything and rush to his place with a simple text message, Feeling stressed. It was code for "come over now and wear something sexy." Her job as a spin class instructor was flexible, as was she.

  Now that his stress had been relieved, he could get back to working on his next masterpiece. It was a literary work he was sure would be the novel by which all great pieces of writing would be judged for the next two hundred years. He really thought it would be a thousand years, but he was nothing if not modest.

  The days since making his bet with Arthur Byrne had taken their toll on his creative genius. Keeping the monkeys in line drained the life out of him and created more stress than his girlfri
end, the heiress Penelope Trundlestrom, could deal with on her own. She ran a high-end gallery on the Lower East Side and during the day couldn't be bothered with James. Even when she was available, he always needed to take her to a restaurant, fancy club, or, occasionally, the opera. He hated it, but she was rich and connected; he didn't have a choice.

  Even though she was approaching half his age, Penelope still kept herself fit as she had been in her early twenties. It didn't matter, though. He knew the clock was ticking, and if he didn't start shopping around for a newer model (possibly an actual model) he might find himself spending his evenings with a thirty year old. He shuddered.

  He put the thought of his aging girlfriend out of his mind and returned to his mental writing. His spin instructor waved, and he gave her a perfunctory nod. Once she was gone, he closed his eyes and thought about the protagonist for a moment before the maddening silence made him think he might like a bath and then a bite to eat. Plus, he always got great ideas while soaking.

  A deep breath filled his lungs with enough capacity to yell for Winifred to run his bath, but then he remembered he'd given her the day off. She had had a day off just a few weeks ago, or was it a few months? Well, it didn't matter. She was gone doing something frivolous, and his level of annoyance rose.

  He threw the covers off and went to take a shower; running a bath was beneath him. His mind began to compile a list of all the things he hated about Winifred and how he wished she'd suffer greatly for her selfishness. One time, three years ago, she had forgotten to order tomatoes on his sandwich. It had thrown off his whole day and sent him into a creative slump that lasted a week.

  Showered and sartorially renewed, James was about to get a bite to eat when his publisher called.