by Julie Wright
“A good conversation for starters.”
“And is Chloe good for conversation?”
“Yeah, actually. She really is.” He frowned at my cupboard, though I couldn’t be sure if it was because he didn’t like that I put away the bowl and spoon or if he didn’t like dissecting his feelings.
“Okay, she’s pretty and a good conversationalist. We’re back to why you’re not sure about her. She sounds like she’s worth taking home to meet Grandpa to me.” The grandfather lived in Sweden. Anders said he’d know if a woman was right for him if he actually wanted to take her home to meet his Swedish grandfather. Heckling Anders about his dating might be the only joy I received from the day.
“Let’s not jump to conclusions, here. I mean, sure, she’s great and everything, but taking her home for a visit with my grandfather? I don’t think we’re there. I just don’t feel that yet. I don’t know if that’s something wrong with me or something wrong with her. Regardless, something’s wrong.”
The door buzzer rang, signaling that someone downstairs wanted into the building. Likely the Thai delivery guy. I tucked the ice cream back into the freezer with a grunt and hurried to buzz the delivery person up. I talked to Anders over my shoulder once we were separated by the kitchen walls again. “Dude, it’s been like half a year. If you’re not serious about her, you should probably cut her loose. It’s not nice to hang on to something that you don’t see going anywhere. She’ll get the wrong idea.”
He followed me as far as the kitchen entryway and leaned against it. “You are such a fiction writer. It has not been half a year. It’s barely been two months. You just said so.”
“I also said two months was eternity in dating years.”
“And like you’re one to talk. How are things going with, what’s his name? Aaron? Edward?”
“His name was Ian. And I cut that one loose already. See? That’s what I mean about nice. If you don’t see it going anywhere, cut them loose.” I shrugged at him before reaching for the doorknob.
“I bet if you ask Ian, he won’t see you dumping him as a kindness. Why are you always so dead set against long-term relationships?”
I shuddered. “Because long-term relationships lead to things like commitment, marriage, mortgage, kids. Ask my parents how that all went down for them.”
He opened his mouth to likely remind me, again, that just because my parents had a crummy marriage didn’t mean that all people had such bad luck, but I’d stopped listening, since the door was open and the Thai delivery guy was standing there with my coconut curry and, if Anders was the friend I knew him to be, mango sticky rice. I reached to my right, where my purse usually sat on the antique stand, the only bit of inheritance I’d received when my grandmother died, in spite of the fact that she had no other grandchildren, but the purse wasn’t there. I frowned and spun to survey the room to see where I might have left it.
Anders hurried across the room to hand the kid with the earbuds still in his ears some cash for the food.
“You need to let me pay for that,” I said as I finally spied my purse sticking out from the side of the couch. I made more than Anders did. I always felt bad when he picked up the tab.
“I ordered it,” he said, which meant he wouldn’t be letting me pay him back. He tucked his wallet back into his front pocket. Anders was not a back-pocket guy. He deemed having a wallet in the back pocket unsafe for subway travel and declared it to be the ruination of proper spinal alignment. He had a phone in one front pocket and his wallet in the other. He called it balance. It made me glad I had a purse—a cross-body purse for proper spinal alignment or whatever.
He continued, eyeing the remote on the coffee table, likely wishing he’d hidden it out of view, “I can’t ask you to pay for something you didn’t order or even ask for.”
I looked in the bag and frowned. “There isn’t much in here. Did you not get any for you?”
He lifted his shoulder in a half shrug. “Date tonight, remember?”
“Oh. Right.”
We sat together on the couch as I opened up my food on the coffee table.
“So what was wrong with him?” At my questioning look, he said, “Ian. The guy you were so nice to.”
“Messy kisser.” I shuddered to drive home the issue.
He nodded as he grimaced at the plastic fork and knife I’d set out on the coffee table. “I did tell them to not include environmental waste.”
“I’ll just take it back when I return the stash I’ve been collecting in my kitchen drawer.” I got up again to fetch actual silverware and to dump the environmental waste in the collection drawer. I returned to the couch—the place where I’d determined to ride out the disgrace of another rejection.
Anders apparently decided that, since he’d preoccupied me with eating the food he’d bought me, he could act as my personal walking, talking, breathing motivational poster. “I hate it when you talk about putting out a white flag and walking away from writing.” This began his illustrious pep talk. He followed up his beginning with a joke. “A writer died. Let’s call her Charlotte.”
“Is this you telling me I should kill myself? Because that’s not very nice. It makes you a bad friend and a suspicious and creepy neighbor.”
“Lighten up, Lettie! This is a joke.”
“Killing me is not a joke.”
“Sh! I’m telling you a joke.”
I shushed and ate my coconut curry.
He continued. “Charlotte, the serious writer, was given the option of going to heaven or hell. Being a good writer, she decided to do her research and check out each place first. As Charlotte descended into the fiery pits, she saw row upon row of writers chained to their desks in a steaming sweatshop. As they worked, they were repeatedly whipped with thorny lashes. ‘Oh my, this is awful,’ said Charlotte. ‘Let me see heaven, now.’”
I snorted at his interpretation of my voice.
He rolled his eyes but continued. “A few moments later, as she ascended into heaven, she saw rows of writers, chained to their desks in a steaming sweatshop. As they worked, they, too, were whipped with thorny lashes. ‘Wait a minute,’ she said. ‘This is just as bad as hell!’ But her tour guide replied, ‘Oh no, it’s not. Here, your work gets published!’”
He grinned wide at this and waited for me to respond. I only blinked at him.
He grunted. “The point is that it’s always work and effort, but the rewards do come.”
“Unless, maybe I actually belong in hell and this is my punishment for not sharing my leftovers with the neighbor’s cat or something.” I looked in the bag, expecting the extra weight I’d felt there to be the mango sticky rice but instead found an intensely huge stack of napkins. It was like whoever packed my meal wanted to wipe out an entire tree in one go. “No mango sticky rice?” I asked.
“Steve doesn’t have a cat, and you do not belong in hell. You’re a nice, heaven-bound person, Lettie. And you have three tubs of ice cream. You clearly have dessert already covered.”
I nudged the empty tub on the coffee table with my foot. “Wrong. I only have two tubs because I already ate one. So it clearly doesn’t count.” I stood and took the long walk back to my freezer.
“Is that all you have to say?” Anders, who had apparently gotten up to follow me some more, said.
“All what?”
“You’ve turned almost every conversation into a discussion about food. Why are you not willing to discuss your writing?”
I whirled around, the tears in my eyes sudden like a surprise rainstorm in the tropics. “Do you have any idea how many rejection letters I have?”
He fell back a step, clearly not expecting me to turn on him. “I don’t see what the number has—”
“One hundred and eighty-seven,” I interrupted him. “On eight different books. Do you know why?” I jabbed my finger into his chest. “I have
eight books because I bought into that whole work on another book while you have one on submission so the rejections won’t feel so personal crap. But you know what?” I jabbed him again. “That’s the biggest lie ever. They all feel personal. They all cut a piece of creative soul out of me and burn it where I have to watch. Even the completely impersonal ones that don’t have the decency to use my name, the ones that say ‘Dear Author’ are incredibly demoralizing, as they incinerate my hopes and dreams and belief in myself again and again and again.”
I poked his chest at every again. Anders didn’t give up any more ground though. He stood there and let me rant and vent and cry. “So if I want to call it quits, if I want to say I’m over being the abused spouse in this profession I’ve been chasing, I don’t think anyone has the right to tell me I’m wrong. If I had a boyfriend who left me black and blue every time we went out, you would step in and drag me away and help me escape the cycle because you’re a good friend. What I need right now is for you to be a good friend regarding my relationship with writing and support me when I say I want to break up with it because I. Am. Done. Being. Abused!”
Anders became a blurry kaleidoscope through my tears. I took a deep, shuddering breath and turned back to the comfort of my freezer. I pulled out the tub of ice cream, tugged off the lid, and tossed it in the garbage can.
“You might need that lid,” Anders said quietly.
I swept past him to settle on the couch. I didn’t even wait to sit before I tucked the scoop into the ice cream that was still soft because it hadn’t had enough time in the freezer after being delivered. “I have no intention of needing that lid.”
He rolled his eyes at me. “Look, I get that you’re sad and frustrated. But you can’t sad your way through three tubs of ice cream and still fit in any of the clothing in your closet later.”
My head jerked up. “Is that a comment on my weight? Are you trying to tell me that I’m fat?”
Flustered, Anders put his hands on his hips, which always made him look like a little schoolgirl. Teasing him about it usually entertained me, but not today. Nothing felt funny about today. “No!” he insisted, raising his voice. “Of course I’m not.”
“Good!” I said, raising my voice to match his. “Because I might have to live with a lot of things in my life, Anders Nilsson. I might have to live as a failed writer and a quitter, but I will not live the life of a cover model, especially now that I’m certain no fairy godmother will be bringing me a ball gown to worry about fitting into anyway. I am not buying into the Cinderella fiction anymore!”
I pointed the scoop at him, flicking ice cream on my carpet and on my wall, only just missing him. And then I blinked and repeated my last sentence to myself. I repeated it softly but out loud, tasting the words on my tongue. “The Cinderella fiction . . .”
I stabbed the scoop in the ice cream and then dropped the tub to the coffee table before jumping to my feet and shoving Anders toward the door. “You have a date. You should get going. Thanks for dinner.”
“Lettie? What’s going on? What are you doing? Why do you look like you’re about to do something crazy?”
“Have fun on your date! I’ll text you later!” I opened my door, handed him his camera, pushed him through the door, and shut it again, locking it so he couldn’t come back in.
I spun to face my apartment. Anders was right. I was about to do something crazy. MIA fairy godmother or not . . . rejection or not . . . abusive relationship or not . . . I was about to write another book.
Chapter Two
“On occasion, the princess deserves a broken heart. On occasion, the Evil Queen deserves love. Because all of us are both and experience both at some point in our lives.”
—Charlotte Kingsley, The Cinderella Fiction
(The “Know Yourself” Chapter)
I didn’t leave my apartment for nearly three weeks. I took my paid time off at work and stayed home in my pajamas ordering Thai takeout and various grocery necessities from Bob’s Grocery. I had to use the derelict phone in the basement office to get the Thai takeout, since the restaurant didn’t have a reliable computer app, which meant I had to be sticky-sweet nice to Shannon the building manager, who probably lived in the woods in a cottage made out of candy and who probably spent her nights shoving kids into ovens. But until my new phone came—the one I bought used off eBay, since I didn’t want to dip into my savings—kindness to my resident witch was the price I had to pay to stay fed.
The nice thing about having broken my phone was that no one could disturb me. I received no phone calls from my mother asking me if I was dating anyone; I wasn’t. Or phone calls from my stepfather asking me to please return my mother’s calls; I wouldn’t. Or calls from Ian because he was under the impression that we should get back together; we shouldn’t. After spending so long with the freedom of no phone, I wondered why society had ever become servants to that digital baggage.
Then I remembered how much I didn’t love asking to use Shannon’s office phone.
Anders popped in every now and again to take candid photos of me, which I’m sure he thought was hilarious, and to check on me to verify that I had eaten. Each time, I assured him that of course I had and could show him the take-out boxes in a garbage bag off to the side of the couch to prove it. He complained that he wished there was a garbage bag full of empty soap dispensers and shampoo bottles as well to prove that I’d been showering, but there was no such evidence because I hadn’t been showering.
Though Anders was pretty much my best friend, his interruptions were entirely unwelcome. Especially when he started complaining about my hygiene. After his fifth intrusion of my intense creative burst, I decided it was time to lock the door.
On his sixth visit, he stood in the open doorway and held up the key. “I know where you keep this,” he said. “And don’t pretend you’re locking the door for your own personal safety. We both know you never lock up properly because you think the lock on the outside door leading to the street is safe enough in spite of the fact that I tell you that Steve down the hall is kind of creepy, and you should be looking out for yourself.”
He was proud of himself for knowing about my key.
To be honest, I was proud of him, too. I’d forgotten having put the key behind the framed print of the fish in the birdcage that Shannon had convinced the building owner to buy because she said it made the building seem trendy and cool when really it felt like a freaky metaphor of how we were trapped in our lives. I’d have moved a long time ago to a cheaper apartment if it weren’t for my dear friend who couldn’t seem to comprehend my locked door. “Anders, you know I love you, but I really need to be working. I’m onto something here. This has never happened before. I’ve never had words just fly out of my head and onto the screen, and I need to keep it while I’ve got it.”
Anders shook his Asgardian blond head from side to side and gave me his I-am-definitely-not-listening-to-you look, and then he said, “That’s ridiculous. Creative energy can’t be sustained if it isn’t fed. What you need is a break. What you need is sunshine. You’re starting to look like a member of the undead. I’m about to call a doctor to check for fang growth.”
With a frown, I ran my tongue over my definitely-not-fangy teeth. They were more troll-like in that they felt like they were covered in moss.
“Besides all that, you’re a human hazmat crisis. I mean this as a friend when I say you smell awful and need a shower.”
I pinned my arms to my sides, determined not to give in to the impulse to lift one and take a whiff to verify the truth of his declaration. I probably bore the sour stink of unwashed human, and why would I want to smell that? I glared at him. “You weren’t actually invited in for sniff-testing, so feel free to leave.” With the intent of physically throwing him out, I moved off the couch for the first time in days and actually did catch a whiff of myself. It wasn’t pretty.
“I’m just a
sking for a short walk,” he said, putting his hands up as if to defend himself from getting kicked out. Or maybe it was to defend himself against the smell. “Just a walk. I’m not even going to make you run this time. We’re just going to move slowly along a premade path. When was the last time you moved farther than twenty steps to the fridge or thirty steps to the bathroom?”
He actually made a good point there. My muscles were starting to atrophy. And the truth was that I happened to be stuck at that exact moment on a particular chapter that had me in a bit of a . . . well, not really a writer’s block . . . more like a writer’s stumble. The current chapter needed some thinking and walking. But would that thinking be better off done alone?
“Please, Lettie? Please, please, please? I really need you.”
I blinked. Anders needed me? Only a monster could say no to that. We were friends. That meant we dropped things—or did things we normally wouldn’t—when one of us needed the other. Like the time Anders had needed a date to accompany him to his work Halloween party the year before but wasn’t dating anyone. I hated wearing the kind of costume that made people stare as they figured out what, exactly, it was supposed to be, but I went to his party because it mattered to him. We went as lightning and thunder. He was dressed as a black rain cloud with tufts of cotton stuffed in his ears, and I was dressed as a lightning strike victim, complete with the charred remains of an umbrella in my hand.
Everyone looked at us because the costumes were, indeed, very funny. And it’s true that if anyone else had been dressed up that way, I would have loved it. But this was me, and being the center of attention was at the bottom of my list of things to do. Still, when your true friends need you . . .
“Fine,” I said. “But not for very long. I really do have work to do.”