“Hey, Annabelle?” Elliot says, and when I turn back he’s not looking at me, he’s leaning down to grab his phone from under the dash. “Don’t worry about the sand. Trust me.” I am just about to turn away again, but the next thing he says stops me. “In those jeans, nobody’s looking at the sand.” He glances up, his eyes meeting mine, and holds it. Elliot has this way of smiling even when he’s not, giving the impression that he’s all mischief all the time. He uses it on female authority figures, on waitresses, on girls he’s hitting on . . . and on me right now.
I wrinkle my nose. Because he’s kidding, right? Elliot doesn’t compliment my jeans. Elliot grabs the apple off my tray at lunch and keeps walking without a thank-you. He borrows my books because he never buys a copy of his own, and won’t return them until I steal the keys to his car. But the longer we sit there, the longer I realize he’s not kidding. Then he breaks into a slow smirk, and I can’t sit here any longer.
“You’re gross,” I say, getting out and shutting the door behind me, taking deliberate steps. And I don’t look back.
3
Welcome!
SENIOR ARTS Elective is a requirement only a school as hippie-dippie as Cedar Spring would have. Before you graduate you have to pass three classes that challenge the creative mind specifically. I took pottery one year, and made a ton of mugs and plates. At least those were useful, utilitarian. Then I did an outdoor sculpture class taught by a visiting teacher where everyone got an easy A. And now I’m stuck with Fiction.
There is more irony in my hatred of creative writing beyond the fact that my father is a successful TV writer. It’s that I am actually not that bad at writing, either. I joined the school paper freshman year, and they made me editor in chief by my junior spring. Tell me you want one thousand words on potential bias on the school disciplinary committee, I’m your lady. I can have that for you in three hours. Or I can turn in a piece on what students really think about the new head of school. Or I can go more nuanced, on the pressure of getting in to the right college. I can do words when they are already there, waiting to be grabbed. I can’t do words when the story doesn’t already exist.
I tried, on the first assignment, to fake it. We were told to write one scene from four different perspectives, and I wrote about having breakfast with my family. But on the page, it was as if all the characters were just robots, staring at one another over their eggs, asking someone to pass the orange juice. I just couldn’t imagine the scene from so many angles. How could four people experience one thing that differently?
Miss Epstein suggested that I was hitting too close to home. “Nobody finds our lives more interesting than we do,” she said. “Next time, as an exercise, I want you to imagine a story that has nothing to do with your own life. A different character. A different age. A different part of the world. Try your hand at that.”
So I tried. And I still did not succeed.
Epstein plows into the classroom now, sheets of paper flying out of her arms, apologizing yet again for being late. A few students who have begun to bank on the extra ten minutes sneak in behind her, and Epstein doesn’t even see them. I clasp my hands tightly in my lap, bracing myself for what she’ll ask us to do today. A group assignment or, worse, an invitation to read aloud?
Instead, Epstein throws all her papers down on her desk, stabilizing her body with both arms as she leans across it, beaming at us.
“I know we usually spend this time creating, critiquing, editing,” she says, straightening up, her right wrist moving in a circular motion as though she’s painting her thoughts for us. “But I thought we’d take a little break from that so I could introduce a friend of mine. She’s a well-known author in the young adult genre and she’s come in today to talk about process, about publishing, and about making a career out of this temperamental beast we call writing. Class, please welcome my dear friend and MFA classmate, Lucy Keating.”
A woman appears in the doorway. She’s on the taller side, with long, wavy brown hair, red lipstick, and glasses with thick black frames. She’s in an immaculate white silk collared shirt tucked into some boyfriend jeans and chic black booties. Over her shoulder is a pale blue leather tote, and she drops it by the desk when she walks in, then turns to look at all of us with an easy smile.
“Hi.” Lucy gives a small wave. “I’ll keep my intro brief because usually people like to ask questions. I’m Lucy Keating, and I’ve written six contemporary young adult novels; all but one have been New York Times bestsellers. I majored in English at Brown before getting a job at a publisher in New York, writing at night, and eventually convincing them to publish my first novel, Maybe in Another Life. Then I did an MFA at Columbia where I met the incredible Ruth Epstein”—she pauses to smile at our teacher—“and I recently moved to LA from New York with a couple of scraggly dogs. I am loving the sunshine, but missing all the mean people.” Lucy gives a wry smile and I can see that beneath the charm there is a seriousness about her.
“Looks like we have a question already?” Lucy chuckles, then points to Maya Davis, whose hand is so high up in the air it’s like she’s trying to touch the ceiling.
“Do you plan on writing a sequel to Maybe in Another Life?” Maya asks. She’s blushing and stumbling over her words, and I realize: Maya is a fan. And now I remember from where I know Lucy’s name. Lucy is the one who writes all those sad, romantic books that always leave my best friend, Ava, in a puddle of tears. A girl and boy who fall hopelessly in love the summer before he’s deployed. A boy from the wrong side of the tracks who falls for an unattainable girl, even when her father gets in their way. More movies than I can count on one hand have been made from her books. The posters always show a couple in some kind of dramatic embrace, and usually someone is crying. I find them totally unrealistic and completely ridiculous.
“Maybe some day,” Lucy replies, and though her tone is upbeat, I detect a strain in her voice. “I did love those characters, but I got kind of tired of writing those stories. So much sadness.” Lucy looks off for a moment, distracted, then blinks. “Let’s just say I only want to write Happy Endings these days. I think my characters deserve that for a change.” She casts a glance my way, and a weird feeling takes over my body, but just like that it’s gone.
“Can you tell us what you’re working on now?” Maya says, leaning forward eagerly over her desk.
Lucy nods, and I start tuning out, staring out the window onto the quad, where Elliot is chatting up some girls during their free period. I would bet two hundred dollars that Elliot does not have a free period, though. My thoughts wander back to this morning and his weird comment about my jeans when I hear Lucy start to answer Maya’s question.
“I’ve actually become pretty inspired by my time in LA,” she says. “Right now I’m working on a story about a girl who lives in Venice Beach with her parents and older brother.”
I find myself turning back toward the room again. This gets my attention.
“Oh, and of course, their weird little dog, who is always causing trouble.” Lucy laughs.