“Wrong from start to finish.”
“Really?” He didn’t sound convinced.
“You must not have done your homework.”
Victim Of Romantic Circumstance
“If I’m wrong, then what are you doing in the middle of nowhere like some boogeyman witch?”
Is it boogeyman or witch? she wanted to ask.
“You should be living in a five star mansion in Hollywood or the Hamptons.”
Anna blinked. “But this is my five star mansion. Besides the Hamptons are so overrated.”
“Of course they are.”
“Yep, all those snooty rich people bitching about the ice in their expensive crystal glasses being square instead of round, and asking the staff if they can turn down the sun because it’s making their tablets glare… that’s nothing for me.”
Smiley chuckled.
She waved that side. “Anyway, your turn now.”
“For what?”
“For me to tell you who you are. And to show you how it’s done.”
Smiley shook his head, but didn’t argue.
“Are you married or otherwise committed to someone?”
“Shouldn’t you be telling me that?”
“Hey, you had ample opportunity to Google me. It’s not my fault that you didn’t. I, on the other hand just met you yesterday, so you will answer my one freaking question and not freaking question me about it, okay?”
“Okay, okay, calm down.”
“Married or committed?”
“Uh, no.”
Interesting. And the history he’d projected onto her told Anna more about him than herself. With all that going through her head, she made herself comfortable and coalesced an idea. “Okay, so let’s see. An above average handsome man.” Gorgeous, if one wanted to get technical about it but if he didn’t know it yet, she was not about to clue him in. “Single, in the business of advising largely female authors in writing. Hmm.” A picture began to form in her mind. “Freud would have a field day with you. But seeing as he’s not here… Your last long-term relationship was about two years ago, just when you started to get a hang of this consultant thing. You weren’t quite engaged yet but you both expected it to happen. What happened? Did she get jealous? Or maybe she just felt neglected each time you practically moved in with someone to”—she crooked her fingers in air quotes—“help them write.”
It was like she was reading his biography in her head. Following the why of things, she tapped her chin and mused aloud, “Since then you probably haven’t had any relationships last longer than a month and you’ve been disillusioned by it. Women love you but only until they learn they are not the only women in your life. It’s always been that way, though, hasn’t it? You have the good looks, you’re obviously smart, and well off—I don’t imagine you would be doing this for anything less than a six-figure sum.”
He shrugged modestly.
“But all that success makes you intimidating to women, which you can’t understand, since every woman you’ve ever met always wanted a sexy, successful husband.”
He crossed his arms. A defensive gesture. It told Anna she was on the right track.
So she kept picking her way into his past. “You didn’t get it from your parents, though. Ambition, success and at the same time humility don’t go together when taught by one person. I’m gonna guess your mom raised you on her own, working two jobs or more to make ends meet, so your only male role models were her family members and your teachers. They taught you how to go after what you want. You learned that manual labor was for people who didn’t have the brains or education for something better so you trained your brain to achieve more. You got the best jobs, the best grades, the prettiest girls, all because you knew how to charm the world into handing them over. But your mom’s situation taught you integrity so you didn’t take any of that for granted.”
Smiley was looked very uncomfortable.
“Am I close?”
He didn’t confirm or deny, but the way he scratched behind his ear, avoiding her gaze, told her she must have been spot on.
She gave him a small smile. “Characters are my life, Mr. Smiley.”
“Smiles,” he corrected. He stood, sat back down, shifted in his seat, then stood again and went to the window. “You’re pretty confident about this.”
“Am I wrong?”
When he returned to his seat and met her gaze, there was something new in his dark eyes. “So does that mean I’m one of your characters now?”
She shrugged. “Guess so.”
“Let me guess, the romantic hero?”
He didn’t look too thrilled at the prospect and she could understand why. A man like him, literally at the beck and call of scores of romance authors, at least some of them must have gotten ideas in their heads about him. She wondered how many he’d had to gently rebuff in his career. Had he ever been the one swept up in the romance of his own miscreation? “No,” she said. “You’re a victim of romantic circumstance.”
His mouth twitched in a suppressed smile. “Can’t say I’ve heard it called that before.”
“I don’t imagine we’re thinking of the same thing.”
“Oh?”
How to put this? “You’re the observer to someone else’s love story.”
Smiley raised an eyebrow, looking around, probably for some evidence of a boyfriend. He still didn’t understand.
“You meet the heroine and she sweeps you off your feet with her story. You watch her life and feel as if you’re part of it. You fall in love with that feeling and it becomes so real to you that you refuse to acknowledge it’s only in your head. And then your heroine meets her hero, and you still refuse to accept it. You’ve made yourself into a main character, but you’re in the wrong story and it keeps moving on, sweeping you in its wake. You fight to keep up, you leave everything behind, risk everything you are and have to keep going, but at some point, no matter how hard you try, it will leave you behind. Because no matter how strongly you feel about it, this love story is not meant for you.”
He opened his mouth to say something but she raised her hand to silence him. “And no, Mr. Smiles, I did not define you this way. You did. It’s why you do what you do.”
Obligatory Contracts and Contractual Obligations
Anna cooked the next day. She had the radio playing dance music and shook her booty for all she was worth while she sautéed some vegetables. Smiley was in her writing nook, working on his computer. He’d been hiding there since their little talk. Anna left him to it. The next step was up to him.
When the meal was finished, she set two plates on the dining room table, opened a bottle of ginger ale and called him to lunch. They ate in silence for a while, until most of their plates were finished, and then Smiley finally spoke up. “I saw the blank Word file on your computer.”
She winced. “Yeah, it’s been like that for months. No matter how many times I open and close it, it’s always blank. I think there’s something wrong with my computer.”
“I don’t think lack of inspiration is your problem. You don’t seem the type who needs social stimulation to be creative. More like you thrive in solitude.”
“Is this round two of Tell Me Who I Am?”
He made a face. “Hell no. Never again.”
She chuckled.
Smiley smiled. “I can admit when I’m wrong. But this time I’m right, aren’t I? You didn’t come here to hide, you came to concentrate. And you have churned out a spectacularly popular bestseller already, which would suggest to me that this is the right place for you. But something else is holding you back.”
Anna played with the remainder of her meal. “I try, you know. I sit down at that computer every day and I put my fingers on the keyboard, but every time I look at that page all I see is two words. Contractually obligated.” Her utensils clanged as she dropped them and dabbed her mouth with her napkin. “I have dessert whenever you’re ready.” She took her own plate to the sink and washed it
off. It was better than leaving dishes to pile up. The more there were, the less she wanted to wash them. If they weren’t so bad for the environment, Anna would have switched to paper and plastic years ago.
“That’s it, then,” Smiley said. He followed her and when she relinquished her spot by the sink, washed his own dishes. “You can’t write because you don’t want to.”
She sighed. “That about sums it up.”
“Why did you agree to do it in the first place?”
“Josie made me do it.”
“Ah. So now if you wanted out of it…”
“I’d be in breach of my ten-book contract and liable for the seven-figure advance plus any punitive damages they decided to sprinkle on top. Not that I don’t have the money, it’s just really bad for my reputation to say I can’t write anymore, you know?”
“What about writing something else?”
Anna took the cake she’d bought a couple days ago out of the fridge. Since she lived here alone, she didn’t usually bother with things like plates and just dug in with a fork. By now the cake looked like a small animal had been munching on it. She took a knife and cut off a decent sized portion from the gnawed-on side, then cut a proper slice for Smiley. “I did,” she said, handing him the plate. “I have two and a half books sitting in my Cloud, all shiny and waiting for an editor to take a stab at them. Won’t do me any good. I owe my publisher four more books in this series, which was done one book ago, and they won’t touch anything else until they have them. And since I am under contract, I can neither publish myself, nor submit elsewhere.”
“What if you wrote a spin-off series from this one? Authors past their prime do it all the time.”
She gave him a look.
“Not that you’re past your prime. I’m just saying. You know. The series doesn’t have to die.”
“Yes, it does. It needs to go down in flames and be stomped to dust by the human-eating giants. It’s done. Period.”
“If you say so.”
“I don’t. They do.”
“Who?”
“The characters. It was their story to tell, they’re done telling it, and there won’t be anything else coming out of their mouths.”
“You’re the one who created them. Can’t you just tell them where to go? And yes, I realize how crazy that sounds.”
Not as crazy as he might think. “That would be the ideal solution. Unfortunately, my stories are character-driven. If I try to take them where they don’t want to go, I hit a wall. Trust me when I say they are finished talking to me on this topic.”
“You sure about that?”
How To Lose A Guy For One Night
Saturday night was a peak full moon. The reminder popped up on Anna’s computer the moment she turned it on and she gasped so loud Smiley came in from the living room to ask what the matter was.
Right. Like she could explain something like that without making herself look like a total loon (no pun intended). Grasping for some response, anything at all, Anna lighted on a brilliant idea. “Uh, I just realized I have this thing.”
“You have a thing?”
“Yeah, um, the church in town is having a charity bakeoff auction and I promised I would bake something for them. I totally forgot. Shoot.”
“That’s no problem,” he said. “I need to run into town anyway, I can pick up some stuff and help you out.”
“Oh, could you? That would be…just…awesome.”
He frowned. “Are you feeling okay?”
Her eyes felt really wide open. “Me? Yeah, fine. Why?”
“You just seem a little anxious.”
“Oh, yeah, well. I really feel bad, I mean, it’s for charity and I gave them my word and the auction is tomorrow.”
“Right. Say no more.”
In fifteen minutes he was leaving in a taxi.
As soon as he was gone, Anna stuffed her feet into shoes and raced outside. Her repurposed woodshed wasn’t far but it was far enough that you couldn’t see it from the house. The fire pit, on the other hand, was on a little hill clearing and she had a perfect view of it from the bedroom window. Which would be a problem if Smiley decided to stay up late and happened to look outside, since the guest bedroom had the same view.
Anna cleared out the pit and checked the shed for supplies. Luckily she was well stocked on rough fire wood and sticks so she wouldn’t have to be running around last minute. She couldn’t believe she’d forgotten about the full moon!
Blankets, check. S’mores ingredients, check. Non-flammable hand and foot warmers, check.
All set. Now she just had to figure out a way to distract Smiley for the rest of the day and night. Oh, man.
Sounds carried pretty well out here. She heard the taxi returning from a fair distance and raced back home just in time to greet Smiley at the door. He grinned, carrying in bags of groceries. “So check me out. Got tons of loot from the corner store. All the makings for my signature chocolate chip brownies.”
He was going to bake? Shaking off the shock, Anna looked through the grocery bags, making approving noises at his selection. He got the good stuff, none of the cheap artificial nonsense. “Oh.” She clucked her tongue. “Aw man, you didn’t get any food coloring.”
“What do you need food coloring for?”
“See, I promised them red velvet cheesecake cupcakes. They’re my specialty. The kids at the church look forward to them every year.”
Smiley sighed, checked his wrist watch, and said, “Okay, I can go again and be back in time to do this. Anything else you need?”
“Just the food coloring. And cream cheese. The smooth kind.”
He was nodding on his way out the door.
“Oh! And some gold and silver sprinkles! Hey, do you mind picking up some paper towels and feminine products too?”
He stopped, swiveled around and glared at her. “Don’t push it.”
Anna held up her hands. “Okay, got it. Baking supplies only. I can always just make a grocery run of my own for the rest of it.” She put on her sweetest smile and blinked.
“Yeah, that might be a good idea,” he said warily.
“Of course it might take a while. I mean, you know. Me being a girl and all. I heard they just opened a couple new fashion stores on Main Street.” She clapped her hands and bounced on her feet. “Dress up time!”
Smiley shuddered. “I just had a horrible thought.”
“What’s that?”
“This is what being married to you would be like.”
“Hey!”
He ducked her swinging fists and escaped out of the house, laughing all the way.
By the time he got back from his second trip, she had three dough bases ready to pop into the oven. She sent him out a third time to exchange the cream cheese for another brand and to look harder for the sprinkles he said he couldn’t find.
Then a fourth time when he came back with only silver, saying they didn’t have gold and it would have looked tacky anyway.
It was past sunset and most stores’ closing times when he came back with everything else, looking exhausted and less than friendly. He brought her a box of Pamprin, and expensive European chocolates, the bastard. Just for the chocolates, though, Anna decided to give him a break and let him do his thing in the kitchen. Her stuff was already done and packed up anyway, which freed up her evening to get ready for midnight. Too bad the church bakeoff wasn’t scheduled until four months from now.
Smiley was so into his precise-to-the-milligram measurements (yes, he used a metric scale) he didn’t even notice when Anna slipped away upstairs. She changed in her room and then ran out of the house, shouting back a quick, “Going for a walk, be back later!” so he wouldn’t think she’d been abducted by aliens. Although by that point, he would probably have welcomed them.
With an electric lantern to light her way, she raced back to the shed and dragged the wood cart closer to the fire pit. With her handy dandy lighter, she had the kindling burning in no time an
d added more sticks to build up the flame. Once it was a decent size, she pushed the cart back into the shed and retrieved her boom box and s’mores kit. She layered three blankets on the ground, plopped herself down, turned on her drums and whistles tribal playlist and set to work on her s’mores.
The sky was completely clear tonight and the moon was so bright if she was a vampire she’d be moonbathing in its glow. For a while all she did was stargaze, relax and lick melted marshmallows and chocolate off her fingers. When she was finally stuffed, Anna sighed happily. Nothing better than a summer night filled with stars and the smell of camp fire smoke.
Close to midnight, the music automatically switched over to another playlist. Like clockwork. Anna grinned and got up, adding more wood to the fire, stoking it so high she was starting to feel a little too toasty in her robe. As the flames grew, the music changed again, becoming faster and louder.
She swayed to its rhythm, raiser her arms and twirled, letting the music guide her into a dance she’d be mortified to have anyone else witness. That was why she did it in the middle of nowhere, far away from prying eyes. ‘Round and ‘round the bonfire she danced, then at exactly midnight, she dropped the robe and howled to the moon.
Somewhere in the forest the local pack of wolves answered her.
Anna laughed and howled again, spinning and dancing naked around the fire like some heathen druid thousands of years ago. She didn’t do it for witchy reasons; she didn’t worship nature or believe she was a werewolf, or anything crazy like that. She did it to feel the freedom of it. Freedom from judgment, opinions, and all the restrictions society imposed on people. She did it to be able to say she had. It was an affirmation of who and what she was. And Anna loved it.
Right until the moment a prickle of awareness made her look back toward the cottage where the second story drapes closed in a hurry.
Damn.
The Awkwardness Of Morning Afters
Anna came back just as the sky was turning from black to gray, feeling like a wayward teenager who got caught out past her curfew. Wow, it was a sucky feeling to have. This was why she never had house guests if she could avoid it.