The last guest in my office was Simon. Some days, during the winter, when the heat rattles on and there has been no fresh air for days, I can smell his scent. It invades this space, my hand clawing at my neck, the fan useless against it. On those days, I open the window and let in the freezing burst of fresh air. I huddle in a blanket, my space heater on, and work. The cold is worth the erase of him, and when summer comes, it’s like he never existed at all.
Mark takes the couch and I sit down at my desk, powering on my laptop, his email one of several. My first attempt to print is unsuccessful, and I groan as I lean over the printer, unplugging the back and then resetting it. There should be a rule in the universe, one that states that mortal problems will fade with a terminal diagnosis. I’m dying. I shouldn’t have to deal with petty shit on my way out.
Once the pages print out, I take a seat next to him on the couch. We both read, him going through my notes and me marking up his new content. His writing is only getting stronger—falling into the rhythm of the story, staying vulnerable while visually stimulating—and it’s a giant level above his normal novels. When I look up, he’s settled against the cushion, his eyes closed. “Can I ask you something?”
“This should be interesting,” he replies, without opening his eyes.
“If you can write like this…” I lift the pages, “why don’t you? Why write the… stuff that you publish?”
One eye opens and he manages a glare. “God, you’re offensive even when handing out compliments.” He exhales, sitting up and rolling his neck. “And the stuff you refer to is the only thing that I can manage to sell. I’ve written other stuff, good stuff.” He nods to the pages in my hand. “Better than that. Self-published it. But no one bought it.”
“So you reduced your quality for sales?” It is a stupid concept, even to my drug-muddled brain.
“Without sales, this is all a hobby.” He gestures to my office. “When I was first published, I couldn’t afford a hobby. Romance was flying off the shelves, and no one cared about contemporary fiction with heart.” There is a sharp edge to his words, and I glance at him, trying to understand the irritation in the vowels. Does he hate smut? I can’t imagine hating the novels I write, spending months in a story that I don’t respect.
“So you sold your soul and invaded my world,” I muse, looking back down at the paper.
“Readers seem to like my stuff.”
I twist my mouth, swallowing the things that I want to say. Marka captured a lot of the lower end market—their tastes not exactly literary nor picky.
“Your notes…” he lifts the papers in his hands. “They’re kind.” He sounds so surprised that I smile. “I’ve been expecting a lot more red.”
“So was I.” I shift in the seat and feel the first wave of sleepiness, the nausea pill working its magic. “But your characters are good, and the tone is right.”
“It’s not hard to imagine a happier version of you.”
I smile, but it is forced, my cheeks tight when I stretch them apart. I barely remember my happier days. Sometimes I think that my memory is inventing them, filling in blank slots of time with Hallmark-movie clips. “I’m not certain that version of me ever existed.” I sit at my desk, grabbing at a pen, desperate for a task. “Let’s do a few more scenes.”
I had never been a girl to think about marriage. The institution of it all had bored me and the romance had intimidated me, the fate reserved for prettier girls, ones who kissed more and slouched less. When Simon first brings up the notion, I laugh. When I watch the strong flex of his hands as he carefully opens the ring box, when I see the intense mix of vulnerability and hope as he asks the question… I almost cry.
In the beginning, it was wonderful. Simon seemed oblivious to the flaws that society loved to point out in me. He didn’t care about my lack of friends, or curves, or sex skills. He gave me space, yet chased me down. He brought me flowers, and impressed my mother. And his proposal, ten months after we met, hadn’t seemed too quick, but just right.
“How?”
I look over at Mark, irritated by the interruption. “What?”
“Tell me the story. The proposal.” He shuffles through the pages. “You’re skimming over it here.”
“Oh.” I lean back in the chair and cross my arms over my head, stretching. “It was at a restaurant. You know. Wine. Candles. One knee.” The ring had been tiny, but that hadn’t been the problem.
“You said no?” He is guessing, and my flat tone must have given something away.
“I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t prepared.” I made a list that night, though I never gave it to Simon. Five Rules for a Proper Proposal. Don’t put the woman on the spot. Don’t have an audience. Don’t eat garlic before the act. Don’t check out the waitress’s ass mid-proposal. Don’t ask unless you are certain that the answer is yes.
I drop my hands and sit up. “I went home and thought about it. I wrote down some pros and cons.” I still have that list. If I reach right and open up the bottom drawer, it’ll be there, filed under his name, the tab marked HISTORY. My pro and con list on Simon Parks.
Pros: He has nice teeth.
Cons: Sometimes, I don’t trust him.
That first con, I should have listened to. There were seven more, underneath it, but that one right there… it was the only thing I needed. And I ignored it, like the stupid lovesick girl I had been.
I swallow. “He had several good qualities, which I listed. Those, coupled with the probability of anyone else ever wanting to pair with me… followed by an analysis of whether I wanted to be single or married…” I shrug. “I decided to go for it.”
“That’s the most unromantic story I have ever heard.” He looks dismayed, so much so that I laugh.
“Disappointed in the Queen of Romance?” I tease. The Queen of Romance. Such a joke, the title handed down by my publisher, a New York powerhouse that doesn’t have the foggiest idea of my innermost thoughts.
“Heartbroken.” He sighs, and leans forward over the page. “Do you want to tell the proposal like that? It’s a little awkward.”
“I suppose you did it better.”
He rubs a thick finger over his forehead, and I’ll be damned if the man isn’t blushing. “I did okay.”
“Tell me.” I scratch an itchy spot on my nose.
“It wasn’t anything major. We were at her parents’ house—a tiny crackerbox of a place in Mississippi. I asked her father, then asked her to go on a walk. Did it there.” He blinks, and I can see the vacant stare of a memory in his eyes, one edge of his mouth lifting up.
“It was getting dark, and the mosquitos were so bad, you could barely pause without waving one off. She hadn’t wanted to go for a walk—and was complaining up a storm… about the heat, about the bugs. I finally stopped her under this big old tree and told her to shut her mouth long enough for me to propose.”
He looks at me, and his mouth fully breaks into a grin. “She missed the proposal entirely. She just kept smacking at bugs and looking up into the tree like she might scale it. I had to hold her arms still and get her to look in my eyes. Then, I asked her again.” He shrugs. “And she said yes.”
“That’s sweet.” And it is, in a redneck sort of way. “What kind of girl was she?”
He surprises me, laughing. “Reckless. You ever met a Cajun woman?”
“No.”
“They’re hell. I thought women from Texas had backbone. Half our relationship, I was terrified of her. The other half I spent trying my best to protect her from herself.”
“Meaning what?”