Miss South

by Kay Williams

  “Good night.” Heronsgate ignored my smile and my thanks, choosing instead aloof disdain for what he felt was his slighted compliment and walked down the corridor.

  I waited until my door was shut and I was sure he had reached the elevator before I let myself start to laugh.

  # # #

  After a mile in the hotel pool and a hot shower I felt ready to face my day.

  It was going to be a long one, with the threat of a signing hanging over my head I was going to try and tackle the whole of New York's tourist attractions in one day. I had my shoulder bag containing the postcards and marker, a map and a plan and was waiting for my breakfast to arrive so I could jump straight into my day.

  I tried to check my author board but the site had crashed at some point during the night and was still down now.

  I checked my sales page, I was on one hundred and twenty-two thousand and sixty-three.

  That should please Heronsgate; our selfie post had crashed the message board and scored me over fifty thousand sales.

  He had once asked what made a good advertising campaign; I should have just told him that anything with his face on it would do.

  My phone started buzzing; I picked it up and answered it wondering what kind of mood the person on the other end was going to be in.

  “Hello?”

  “You crashed our shopping site, now you've broken the message board. I'd be really grateful if you could not damage any more of our services, they are a nightmare to fix!”

  Rosemary complained good-naturedly instead of a good morning, then again it couldn't possibly be a good morning in England, it was more like good lunchtime.

  “What are you eating?”

  “Ham and egg salad. What's for breakfast?”

  “Pancakes and bacon. And as to the message board I have a friend who does freelance IT, I'll get her to call you.”

  “Make sure she knows that's a favour,” Rosemary chuckled as if I was joking but I was being serious.

  “I am sorry,” I apologised. “I didn't know it was going to happen.”

  “You didn't know that a picture of you and Henry Heronsgate acting all cosy was going to cause a huge stir?” Rosemary scoffed.

  “He posted it,” I lied.

  “He posted it?” Rosemary giggled.

  “Yeah. I'm really that childish.”

  I looked up searching for the waiter and my breakfast, only to clash with a hesitant looking Heronsgate, I pointed to the chair opposite me and he came over to take it and a menu from the waiter.

  “So what's the news on the signing?”

  “It is at your hotel in the ground floor conference room. It has its own side entrance so the other guests shouldn't be bothered by us. We are flying out tonight with everything we'll need, we set up tomorrow morning and we open the doors at lunchtime.”

  “So I'll see you for dinner?”

  “Sounds good, we'll be at the hotel by seven your time unless we hit a delay.”

  “You want me to do anything?”

  “Go out today. Meet lots of people and pass the word, if we aren't back up and running no one is going to know about it!”

  I laughed and we rung off allowing me to turn my attention to the patient Heronsgate.

  “Good morning. How are you feeling?”

  “Shamed. Fine, but shamed.”

  “I took no offence and there is no shame,” I smiled. “I get grumpy when people don’t believe what I say when I am drunk too.”

  “I wish I could protest that I wasn’t that drunk, but the fact I acted the way I did would prove me wrong.”

  “You should have had my usual cocktail.”

  “I will in future,” Heronsgate smiled. “You are up early.”

  “Today I am doing the tourist thing so I needed an early start.”

  “What happened to your author board? I tried to log on this morning and got an error page.”

  “We broke it with a selfie.”

  Heronsgate just grinned as if he thought that was the case, I turned back to my phone as the waiter came to take his breakfast order and typed up a plea to Lucy asking her to call Rosemary and fix their website for free in exchange for the presents she had asked me to buy for her.

  “Were they angry?” He asked.

  “Amused, but coupled with breaking their sales page I feel that might be short lived,” I smiled. “So the signing is going to be here, tomorrow afternoon, and please let everyone know because the site is broken and no one else knows about it but you.”

  “That was faster than I thought it would be.”

  “Me too, but it’s the best way I think. I get today to do the tourist thing, the signing tomorrow and then I still have two days to relax.”

  “And then home.”

  “And to finding a job, investing in a new coffee maker so I can offer you proper beans instead of instant granules, and an iron in case you get an unsightly crease in your shirt.”

  “You don't own an iron?”

  Without thinking I grabbed my phone and took a picture of his horrified expression. I was still giggling over that when breakfast arrived and Lucy texted me to say she had spoken with Rosemary and she was on it.

  “Tell me you have a message board I can crash with this?” I asked, showing him the photo.

  “Don't even think about,” he chuckled.

  “I need to accept Simon's apology, maybe this would work?”

  “I'd rather you put it on my message board,” Heronsgate shuddered. “He would never let me forget that expression.”

  “Or maybe just Ferris?”

  “He would be just as shocked.”

  “And Ignis?”

  “Would probably faint,” Heronsgate laughed.

  “So what are you doing today?” I asked. “The colour of the décor maybe? Or the shape the napkins will be folded into?”

  “Today it’s the walk-through of the event ballroom and a meeting with the management staff, plus all my usual work. This evening I am having dinner with people I would like to attend the fund-raiser but who haven’t signed up yet. Hopefully I will be able to persuade them to come.”

  “When is it exactly?”

  “Four weeks away, we have it at the end of April after the Pause Remembrance festivities.”

  “I promise I will watch the red carpet entrances on television. You better be wearing the tie from last night.”

  “Absolutely not,” Heronsgate chuckled.

  We finished our breakfast and parted ways on the street as we had before, though this time there was a little gang of reporters watching us and snapping photos, but he climbed in his car and it peeled off into traffic and I grabbed one of the cabs waiting at the stand.

  I told the cabbie where I wanted to go and as we got stuck in traffic I texted Ferris and Ignis with my number and a short 'it was nice to meet you' message.

  I buzzed with a return message almost instantly but this was from Lucy not the two rich men I had had dinner with the night before.

  ‘Your board is back up and running. Rosemary loves me. She even wanted quotes to overhaul the message board and ordering pages.’

  ‘Remember to give her a suitable discount.’

  ‘I might be tempted to give her a 100% one if she will let me have my logo and web address against it.’

  ‘Good luck negotiating that.’

  My cab arrived at the natural history museum and I paid my fare.

  I managed to get halfway around before I was stopped by a couple who wanted a photo, others peeked at me out of the corner of their eye but didn’t come over, on my way out I took a selfie in front of the building's iconic front facing and sent it to Jonathan. It was the same everywhere I went, though in the more touristy spots there were more people who wanted a photo or a postcard and I was glad I didn’t have to let any of them down.

  Thankfully the United Earth Alliance’s Space Center was almost completely devoid of people. As I had explained to Heronsgate, space travel was almost a taboo subj
ect on the two worlds with very little attention paid to the UEA’s efforts to adapt the Fusion Drive to launch a shuttle into space, or even to use their combustible power to clear some of the of thousands of satellites that were currently orbiting the Earth.

  I wasn’t sure who had told him I was there, but my slow wander through the museum caught the attention Major Shaun Calligan; I really wasn’t worthy to meet the UEA’s current public face of its space program. A man who was desperate to be in the first shuttle up and dealt with hard facts and detailed explorations of a very real galaxy, rather than my make-believe one. I felt more like the starry-eyed fan in his presence, but forgave myself when he admitted to reading my book and was a huge fan of science-fiction in general, and we spent more time discussing our favourite reads than we did examining the exhibits.

  We each took selfies, exchanged numbers and shook hands.

  It was cruel of me, but if I had a bucket list of celebrities and public figures I was in awe of and wanted to meet Calligan would have been higher on the list than Heronsgate.

  I sent that photo off for Jonathan’s approval on the author board as well with a suitable ‘I am not worthy’ message.

  I visited the Apalidion and read about Favlian magic users over the centuries before the Pause, and about the odd Abstracts that had come long since. Magic in a general sense wasn’t genetic, though there were branches of it that were exception to the rule.

  It was accepted that during the Pause when the Nexus broke free of the confines the Waking Night had kept it under, that Earth and Earthlings has been subject to an extreme kind of magical radiation. A tiny fragment of Earth’s population had developed strange powers in the days after the Pause. Those strange powers had been dubbed Abstracts by the magical community.

  Abstracts weren’t magic users who used Essence to Cast Spell. Abstracts were people who had access to a fragment of a Spell were able to manipulate it at will. Abstracts were genetic with children inheriting the Spell traits and sometimes were able to use them to an even stronger capacity than their parents.

  Only a few Abstracts were known and proven, though it was assumed that there were many more out there. Quite understandably those who had inherited an Abstract weren’t really interested in allowing themselves to be poked and tested on by magic users curious about their condition.

  With time in hand I visited the shops on Lucy’s list and bought what she and her brothers had asked for, standing in line to pay for a couple of candy bars that we didn't get in England there was a rack of glossy gossip tabloids. One in particular caught my attention, it was called 'Everyone' and one copy was opened to the centre fold to an article called 'Everyone Knows' and was full of speech bubbles and blurry pictures with what the magazine promised were shocking revelations. In one bubble was the declaration that 'Everyone Knows Sci-fi writer Harriet South has already made over a million pounds.' Another was a picture of Heronsgate and Harper stood side by side at some party or other and read 'Everyone Knows they are celebrating eight blissful months of relationship perfection'.

  I had thought that Harper was perfectly level headed but if she had a habit of selling what she knew was accurate information and titbits to gossip magazines as Heronsgate had warned me she did, then maybe she had come to think that everything printed in them was true. I had heard of believing in one’s own publicity before but had never thought that it could actually happen.

  I grabbed a copy and was grateful when I wasn't recognised doing so.

  Wandering the back streets and little boutiques in the direction of the hotel I found a pretty place with watches in the window. Completely helpless not to I stopped to look over my weakness and found one that was irresistible. It was a pocket watch edged silver and with a silver cover plate engraved with an ink well and a feather quill, but it had a glass back and clock face so all the inner workings of the wind-up device could be seen.

  I was in the shop and asking to see it before I could line up a lot of intelligent arguments about why I didn't need it. While the girl was fetching it I looked over the display of cufflinks lined up in a glass box next to the till. Seeing a pair that were large, square and a patchwork of mismatching colours that was so similar to Heronsgate's tie I knew I wouldn't be able to resist those either.

  I hailed a cab to take me the rest of the way back to the hotel to save my bank balance any more punishment. I might have saved a large lump of cash and I was on course to making just as much this week but I couldn't keep impulse buying.

  I arrived in time for afternoon tea and as it was already paid for and I wouldn't be eating dinner until much later after Rosemary and Jonathan arrived I indulged in more sandwiches, cake and tea than I really needed to eat as I texted Heronsgate.

  'I know that you are very busy but can you spare a few minutes before you go out tonight?'

  I knew that Heronsgate had his phone on him all the time and always checked it the moment he got a message but I still didn't expect him to answer straight away.

  'So long as it is only a few minutes.'

  'No more than ten.'

  'I should be back in a couple of hours.'

  'Thank you.'

  I finished my cake and instead of the nap I wanted after my long day I booted up my computer and turned my attention to something more productive, only rousing from my words when I was disturbed by a knock at the door. Heronsgate was still in the suit he had worn this morning at breakfast so I guessed that he had come straight to my room. I was going to have to be quick to give him a chance to shower, change and get in the right frame of mine for his dinner, which wasn't anything other than just more work really.

  “Hey,” he smiled, coming in when I held the door open for him.

  “I think I have found the answer to your question on what has suddenly flipped Harper's perspective.”

  “Interesting,” Heronsgate admitted and took the magazine I offered, I watched realisation kick in almost as fast for him as it had for me. “Oh, she has got to be joking.”

  “I might be completely off-base here, but it is the same phrase and the same accusations. Seems too much to be coincidence.”

  “You are a genius,” Heronsgate complimented me.

  “A genius would know what to do with the information,” I argued. “If she is deluded enough to believe in it then I doubt that waving the magazine at her and saying 'it’s all lies' is going to do you any good.”

  “True. But it is more than I had to go on before.”

  “You've never seen this?”

  “Harriet, if I read every magazine cover to cover that featured my photo I wouldn't get any work done.”

  “That's what your publicity department is for?”

  “Exactly. This is a gossip article so unless it's using my picture and saying I'm breaking the law it’s very unlikely that I will be able to sue and win. So there isn’t much point in pressing for a retraction for a lie about who I'm dating. This is the kind of thing that publicity are paid to skip over in favour of more damning or damaging reports.”

  “Gossip journalists assume the readers already know that it’s subjective 'news' because if it was real it would be all over the front page.”

  “Now you're getting it.”

  “Here,” I held out the cufflink box. “I got this for you as well.”

  Heronsgate hesitated before taking it. From the look on his face the only reason he did finally accept it was before he knew the size and shape of the box and would have a fair idea of its contents. His reaction surprised me, I would have thought that he was used to people buying him gifts trying to garner his favour, and though I wasn't trying to do that I had guessed that he would have known how to pull a politely indifferent expression, rather than one of reluctance.

  Heronsgate opened the box and tipped the ugly, brightly coloured cufflinks into his palm. His reluctance to accept the gift vanished into a heartfelt chuckle the moment he saw them.

  “Thank you,” he grinned. “Now I can be twice as wince-worth
y.”

  “I agree that I doubt very much that they will make your tie look any better, but they might help make it look more deliberate,” I teased him.

  “That is actually a good point,” he conceded.

  Heronsgate moved with such swift confidence that I froze when he gently cupped one cheek to place a light kiss of thanks on the other. If I had accepted the kiss and told him he was welcome it probably wouldn't have led to anything. But my overreaction charged the atmosphere and I knew it had reminded him of yesterday evening just as it had me.

  “Drunk or sober,” he whispered, softly running his thumb across my cheek. “In the morning or the evening, tired or wide awake. You are beautiful.”

  I had to believe such a soft, earnest compliment. I thought he was blind, but I did believe it, and that made it easy to give him back the kiss against his lips that he had brushed across mine last night. Though this one wasn't as innocent and caught quickly, becoming deep and greedy. I blamed it on his aftershave. It was the one he had worn the afternoon at The Pavilion and it smelt just as addictive as I remembered.

  Eventually, but still far too quickly for my liking, Heronsgate broke the kiss.

  “I'm sorry, I can't be late for this meeting. I wish I could be. But I need to be there.”

  “That's okay. I understand. My publishers are flying in this evening and we are having dinner when they arrive. Good luck tonight.”

  “I probably won't see you in the morning so good luck for your signing tomorrow.”

  Heronsgate placed another soft lingering kiss to my lips and gently eased away, I followed him to the door and saw him out.

  I leant on the door to shut it, I could still taste him on my lips and it made me smile and let out a breathless little laugh. What in the name of the One True Voice was I playing at?

  I needed to get my head straight. As Lucy had pointed out, I didn’t write romantic clichés and my life certainly wasn’t one.