I unclenched my fingers. Surely he wasn’t telling me that I’d imagined the entire thing? “But what about genetic predisposition?”
“Sometimes bipolar disorder runs in families, that’s true, but the odds are small. Besides, your mother suffers from a very extreme form of the illness. Her condition has been so difficult to treat, I’m not even sure we should call it bipolar disorder. It’s one of those situations where the illness doesn’t quite fit into a category.” He pressed his fingertips together. “Clearly, Alice, you are under a great deal of stress worrying about your mother, and I know there are financial issues. But I can see from the look on your face that you are not convinced. Let’s knock this off the list of things to worry about, shall we?” He grabbed his pen and a pad of paper, then asked a series of questions. “Do you have times when you can’t slow down your body or your thoughts? Times when you can’t drag yourself out of bed to shower or eat? When it’s so dark that you can’t think any happy thoughts? When you can’t stop doing a task, even if you’re sleepy?”
On and on the questions went, and to each one I answered, “No.”
Dr. Diesel returned the pen and tablet to his desk. “I have just described your mother’s illness.”
“But the voice. That’s not normal.”
He walked over to the watercooler and filled a cup, then handed it to me. “Where does normal begin and where does it end?”
“You’re asking me? Aren’t you supposed to know the answer?”
He filled a cup for himself and took a long drink. “Where does imagination begin and end? What are its boundaries? One person is deemed creative, another is mad. Perfectly sane, perfectly healthy people see and hear things that can’t always be explained. I myself saw a ghost when I was about your age. I don’t believe in ghosts, but my mind conjured it one night and as sure as I see you sitting on that couch, I saw that ghost.” He threw the cup into the wastebasket. “Truth is, we’ve barely begun to understand the brain. It’s still mostly a guessing game.”
A clock ticked. A distant phone rang. I wiped my eyes again. “I don’t understand,” I mumbled. “I don’t understand why she’s like this … now. She was never this bad. She always managed to take care of things. Do you still think she’s going to get better? Do you think it will happen before they make her leave? Do you think she’ll be able to write again?”
“We must have realistic expectations. While I think this medication will bring her out of her depression and stabilize her mood swings, it may be some time before she feels like going back to work.”
“But she needs to write her next book,” I said.
Dr. Diesel smoothed his comb-over, then returned to the armchair. “This is not something she can control, Alice. You understand that, don’t you?”
I looked at my shoes.
“You understand that this has nothing to do with you. That she still loves you very much. You know that, don’t you? You know that she loves you?”
The room felt very small. I didn’t want to sit there anymore. Every sound, the clicking of someone’s heels in the hall, the whir of the overhead fan, the bubbling of a corner fish tank, became amplified. “I gotta go,” I said, heading for the door.
“Alice,” Dr. Diesel gently called. “Sometimes it helps to talk to people who know exactly what you’re going through. There’s a group that meets here on Monday nights—a support group for family members. Would you like to come?”
“I’ll think about it,” I lied. Not in a million years would I sit with a bunch of strangers and tell them what my life was really like. Talking wouldn’t erase the bad memories. An understanding nod wouldn’t soothe the loneliness. I couldn’t bring back the lost friends, or collect the hours of sleep I’d worried away, or gather the longed-for hugs into a bouquet.
“Yes, please think about it,” Dr. Diesel said. “You would be most welcome. And I’m here anytime you wish to talk.”
The lumber baron’s eyes followed me as I hurried across the lobby. Mary, the woman I’d met on Tuesday, sat hunched over her desk, working a calculator. I managed to slip past without being noticed. I checked my mother’s room but she was still napping. It was good to know that she hadn’t been tormented by voices. And that Dr. Diesel thought it was no big deal that I’d heard a voice. He was right about one thing—I was totally stressed out. I whispered good-bye to my mother, then called Mrs. Bobot to let her know that I was heading for the ferryboat and would be back in time for dinner.
When I got back to Seattle I stopped at the post office. The monthly newsletter from the International Romance Writers’ Guild had arrived. I stared at its pink cover. Then I crumpled it into a ball. Not a gentle sort of crumpling as one might do with a gum wrapper or a grocery receipt. My face turned crimson. I threw my entire body into that crumpling as if my life depended upon rearranging the pink paper’s molecular structure. Then I threw the wad of paper on top of the garbage can. As I stomped out of the post office, the newsletter began to uncrinkle until its headline could be read by any curious soul who might pass by.
“Make Way, Belinda Amorous. A New Queen of Romance Has Been Crowned.”
Cal Anderson Park was crowded with people searching for ways to escape the heat. I headed straight for the nearest cart and bought an orange Popsicle. An oak tree offered its shade so I sat on a bench beneath the green canopy. Because I hadn’t read past the International Romance Writers’ Guild’s headline, I didn’t know who had taken my mother’s place as the Queen of Romance. Even though it wasn’t the new queen’s fault, I despised her. They’d throw her a huge party with champagne and a bubbling chocolate fountain and everyone would congratulate her. “Whatever happened to Belinda Amorous?” they’d ask.
“She hasn’t published a thing in three years.”
“She didn’t come to the last two conferences.”
“She’s overseas.”
“Well, we can’t have that kind of person as our queen. Off with her head.”
Orange syrup dripped down my wrist, the Popsicle’s life span cut short by the heat wave.
“Where’ve you been?” Errol sat next to me, his hood drawn over his head. “I’ve been looking for you. We don’t have a lot of time and chapter one’s not going to write itself.” His bossy tone was like sandpaper grating across my nerves.
I turned away. “Leave me alone, Errol.”
“What’s your problem?” he asked.
My jaw clenched. “I think the question should be, what’s your problem?” The rest of my Popsicle fell onto the ground where a pigeon started pecking at it. “That’s just great.” I held up the empty stick as if it were some sort of symbol for my life.
Errol reached into his hoodie pocket and pulled out a pill bottle, which he opened, then popped a pill into his mouth. I watched from the corner of my eye, hoping to read the label. After returning the bottle to his pocket, he slumped against the back of the bench. “Are you going to tell me what your problem is?” he asked.
“Why would I?”
“Because I care. I care about you.” He sounded serious and for a moment I believed him. But then I remembered Velvet’s comment about girls falling in love with Errol all the time. He’d probably told every one of them that “he cared.”
“Right. You don’t even know me.”
“How can you say I don’t even know you? We kissed, didn’t we?”
Even in the shade, my face got all hot. A kid ran by, chased by another kid with a squirt gun. A trio of pigeons competed for the last drops of my Popsicle. “You want to know what my problem is?” I threw the stick on the grass and looked right into Errol’s dark eyes. “I’ll tell you what my problem is. My problem is that, according to a guy with a whole mess of diplomas, I’ve got an overactive imagination and I worry too much. I need to join a support group for people like me who imagine and worry too much. And then we can all sit around and talk about how worried and imaginative we are.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Is that it? You call that a pr
oblem?”
Was this some sort of challenge? Oh, it was on. I narrowed my eyes. “My problem is that my mom used to be the Queen of Romance but she hasn’t written anything in a really long time so she’s been dethroned and I don’t know when she’s coming home. And because she’s gone, I had to leave school to take care of all her stuff, and the apartment building, which means I have no life.” I took a quick breath. “My problem is that if my mother doesn’t write a book by the end of summer, she’ll have to return one hundred thousand dollars to her publisher. She doesn’t have one hundred thousand dollars. We can barely pay the bills. She’d have to sell the building and then where would we live?” As I kicked a pebble, the pigeons flew off. “My problem is that because I’m the daughter of a writer, people like you and Realm want me to help you get your books published, but I don’t have time to deal with your books. Don’t you get that? I’m trying to write my own book. I’m trying to write it so my life won’t totally fall apart, and I can’t even come up with a stupid title!”
I hadn’t planned on sharing all that information with Errol, but the confession, like a burp, had brought some relief. “I’m sorry,” I said, though it seemed weird apologizing to the guy who’d thrown something at me. “My problem is that it’s really, really hot and I’m having a really, really bad day.”
Errol pulled a pair of sunglasses from his pocket and slid them on. Then he pulled the hood farther over his forehead. He looked like he was about to rob a gas station. “I’m sorry you’re having a bad day,” he said. “Really, I am. But are you always so dense?”
“Huh?”
“You need a love story and I’ve got a love story. The greatest love story ever.”
Here we go again. “Well, good for you,” I said. “But your story isn’t going to help me. The publishing contract doesn’t have your name on it. They want a Belinda Amorous story.”
“Look, I’m giving you my story. You can write it and put your mother’s name on it and then you’ve got your book. I told you it was your destiny to write my story, remember?”
Mist from a nearby squirt gun war drifted over my shoulders. I sat up straight. “What do you mean you’re giving me the story?”
“I don’t need my name on the cover. And I don’t care about making money. All I want is for the real story to be told. As long as you stick to my notes and write it the way it happened, you can have it.”
“What do you mean you don’t care about money? That girl who came by, Velvet, she said she’s paying for the apartment because you’re broke.”
“Yeah, I’m broke. So what? I used to have money. Lots of it. But I don’t need it anymore.” He eyed my lemonade. I handed it over and he took a long drink. “The only thing I care about is that my story gets told.”
I sat even straighter. “It’s a love story?” He nodded. “And you know the entire story? From beginning to end? And all the other parts?”
“Know it? I lived it. Haven’t you been listening to me?” He tipped some ice into his mouth.
“And it’s never been published? You’re not plagiarizing or something like that?”
“It’s my story.”
So there I sat, the backs of my legs sticky, my brow furrowed, considering making a deal with the devil. Okay, so maybe he wasn’t the devil but let’s look at the facts. He thought he was Cupid. He’d been stalking me. He’d moved into my apartment building so he could continue to stalk me. And he’d thrown something at me.
“What do you really want?” I asked. “Because I’m not going to have sex with you, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
He crunched the ice, then smiled. “If I’d wanted to have sex with you, we would have had it by now. You were pretty lovesick, remember?”
No comment.
He stretched an arm along the top of the bench, confidence settling around him. He had what I needed. He knew that. And I was listening. “You don’t have to worry, Alice. The only thing I want is for the world to know my story. Nothing is more important to me than that.”
I didn’t even know if his story was any good. What if it was about a killer cat?
People covered every square foot of the park, sunbathing, listening to music, reading, walking, wading in the rectangular pools, but not a single person, other than Errol, was offering to give me a story. I pulled my notebook and pen from my backpack purse. “Okay, tell me what you’ve got and then I’ll decide whether or not it’s right for me.”
“Of course it’s right for you. It’s why we’ve been brought together.”
I tapped the pen on the bench seat. “Just tell me the story.”
“My pleasure.” He folded his hands in his lap. “The year was 535 and I was—”
“Uh, 535?” I interrupted.
“Yes. BC. They call it something else now, don’t they? BCE?”
My shoulders fell. “Five hundred and thirty-five years before Christ. Are you kidding? No one wants to read about 535 BC. That’s way too long ago. No one’s going to care about a story like that.”
He slid his sunglasses to the end of his nose and focused his dark eyes on me. “Are you saying that no one cares about Helen and Paris of Troy, the second greatest love story ever told? Because their story is even older.”
He had a point. “Fine. Go on.”
“Thank you.” He slid his glasses back in place, then continued. “The year was 535 BC and I was waiting for my next orders. That’s the way it worked in those days, all because of that little contract with the gods that I’d signed. One life of pure bliss in exchange for servitude. In 535 BC, the gods were very busy complicating and manipulating people’s lives. It’s how they amused themselves. So I didn’t get much rest.”
A few tiny beads of sweat appeared on his upper lip. Though the oak tree still offered its shade, the air was hot and heavy. My tank top clung to my lower back. I was about to suggest we go into Neighborhood Bagels, where the air was sure to be chilled, but he continued.
“Each year during harvest season, you couldn’t walk very far without finding a festival to Bacchus, the god of wine. One of the highlights of these festivals was the crowning of the Wine Princess. Think of it as a Miss America beauty pageant but without the talent and swimsuit competition. The cities had the biggest festivals, of course, but even small towns crowned their own Wine Princesses. Anyway, I was on a hillside trying to get some sleep, having spent the night shooting arrows at a bunch of virgin priestesses that Jupiter had his eye on, when the order came in. A rumor had reached the gods’ ears that one of the new Wine Princesses was more beautiful than Venus, the goddess of love.” He curled his upper lip. “That didn’t go over well.”
I was intrigued. A beauty pageant was a great place to start a romance novel. “Go on,” I said.
“Shouldn’t you be taking notes?” he asked.
“Not yet. Just go on.”
He swirled the lemonade cup and drank the last drops. Then he crumpled the cup and tossed it into a garbage can. “The gods didn’t like to walk among people. They could, but they preferred not to. That’s why they needed servants like me. They told me to go and check out the Wine Princess, to see if she was as beautiful as people said. So I stole a horse and set out.” He suddenly winced, the way he’d done in his bedroom. Then he took a long breath and his face relaxed. “Where was I?”
“You went to find the Wine Princess.”
“Right. By the time I reached the town, night had fallen and most of the festivalgoers were lying around in drunken stupors. No one knew the Wine Princess’s name or where she’d gone. I’d be in big trouble if I didn’t find her. A few families were camping just outside the town’s gates and an old man invited me to join him by the fire. He gave me some bread. I asked him if he’d enjoyed the festival and he smiled. ‘My daughter was crowned today. Who would have thought that the daughter of a lowly farmer could become the Wine Princess?’
“What luck. ‘I hear she’s very beautiful,’ I said. ‘More beautiful than Venus, but I don’
t believe it.’
“ ‘It’s true,’ he said, and he led me to a little tent. Holding a candle, he pulled back the tent’s flap and I saw her for the first time. She was asleep, the candlelight dancing across her face.
“ ‘What’s her name?’ I asked.
“ ‘Psyche,’ the father replied.”
Errol stopped talking.
I waited, but he didn’t continue the story. Even though the sunglass lenses hid his eyes, I could feel his gaze on me, searching every inch of my face. “So?” I asked. “Was it true? Was she prettier than Venus?”
He kept staring.
“Errol? Was it true?”
He sat up straight, then turned away. “Yes, it was true. So there’s your first chapter.”
It was the perfect first chapter. It couldn’t have been more perfect. The most beautiful girl in the world meets a servant boy who falls in love with her. Except …
“What’s the catch?” I asked. “There has to be a catch. The chapter should end with a cliff-hanger so the reader will want to go on to the next chapter.”
“The catch was that I was ordered to tell the gods the truth, but if I told them the truth, they would surely kill her. And if I lied to them, they would surely kill me.”
“Oh, that’s good,” I said, scribbling as fast as I could. “Truth meant the gods would kill her, a lie meant the gods would kill you. That’s very good.” Excitement bubbled inside of me. Despite the heat, I felt practically effervescent.
“All the details you need are in the envelope. What the horse looked like, what the weather was like, everything I can remember about the night we met.” Then he looked past me, his eyebrows raised in a silent question. I turned to see what had caught his attention.
“Hi,” Tony said, walking up to the bench, a bouquet of flowers in his hand. “I heard you were in the hospital. You’re okay?”
“I’m fine,” I said, smiling guiltily, as if I’d been caught doing something wrong. Which was ridiculous. Errol was giving me the story.
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