Envy(116)

“Two different things entirely, Maris.”

His stirring voice caused her tummy to go weightless again.

The front door squeaked with a homey, comforting sound as Mike rejoined them and refilled their coffee cups, giving Parker a mug this time. When he sat down in the wicker rocking chair, it creaked dangerously and they all laughed.

“Hope that relic holds up,” Parker remarked.

“Are you referring to me or the chair?” Mike asked good-naturedly.

“I don’t dare sit in it,” Maris said, patting her stomach. “Too much dinner.”

“It was a good meal, Mike,” Parker said. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” He idly stirred a sugar cube into his coffee. “What we need to round out the evening is a good story.”

“Hmm. If only we knew a good storyteller.” Being deliberately coy, Maris looked at Parker from beneath her eyelashes.

He grimaced and groaned, but he was pleased by their curiosity. Clasping his hands, he turned them palms out and stretched them above his head until his knuckles popped. “Okay, okay, I can’t fight both of you. Where’d you leave off?”

“They’d gone to the beach and killed a bottle of whisky,” Maris said, the scene still fresh in her mind.

“I still don’t understand why their language must be so vulgar.”

Parker frowned at Mike’s comment and motioned for Maris to continue.

“Todd accused Roark of being less than straightforward about the critiques he had received from the professor.”

“Have you read the part where Roark got pissed?” Parker asked.

“Yes, and his anger was justified. He’s never given Todd any reason to mistrust him.”

“Conversely, he’s been burned by Todd on numerous occasions,” Mike noted.

“Most recently with Mary Catherine. I think I need to add another scene with her,” Parker said, almost to himself. “Maybe she tells Roark that the child she miscarried was Todd’s.”

“I thought you’d decided to let the reader draw his own conclusion.”

“I had. But I might change my mind. This would strengthen the animosity building between Roark and Todd. What if…” he thought it over for a moment before continuing. “What if Todd drops Mary Catherine flat? Avoids her. Even complains to Roark that she’s a pest, a clinging vine, something like that.

“Meanwhile, she pours her heart out to Roark. She admits that it was Todd’s baby she lost, and that she has fallen in love with him, and so forth. Roark likes her as a friend, and he was there that night to clean up Todd’s mess, literally, so he’s really bothered by the way Todd treats her.”

“Does Todd ever know about the baby?” Maris asked.

“No, I don’t think so. Mary Catherine doesn’t want him to know, and Roark won’t betray her confidence by telling him.”

“I told you this guy had honor.”

“Not so fast,” Parker said quietly. “Didn’t it strike you that he protested too much when Todd accused him of being less than honest about Hadley’s critiques?”

Slowly, she nodded. “Now that I think about it… Have they been more favorable than he let on?”

Parker withdrew several sheets of folded paper from the breast pocket of his shirt. “I dashed this off just before I quit for the day.”

She reached for the pages, but Mike suggested that Parker read them out loud.

“Want me to?” Parker asked, addressing Maris.

“By all means. Please.”





Chapter 27


Parker unfolded the sheets of manuscript and held them up to catch the light.

“ ‘Dear Mr. Slade,’ he read, ‘according to your last letter, you wish me to send future pieces of correspondence to your recently acquired post office box instead of to the street address. As it makes no difference to me, I can only assume that the request arises out of an unspecified desire to convenience yourself.’ ”

Parker cringed. “Good God. Verbose old bastard, isn’t he?”

“Well, he does teach creative writing,” Maris said. “One would expect him to be effusive.”

“Effusive is one thing, but that is obnoxious.”

Parker gave his outspoken valet a dirty look. “Thank you, Mike, for that unsolicited and tactless observation.”

“You criticized it first.”

“I’m allowed. I’m the author.”

Maris smothered a laugh. “You might consider trimming some of the fat, Parker. Just a little.”

“Okay. No problem. On the other hand, just for the sake of argument, Hadley’s verbosity is consistent with his character. Remember that he hails from an old and distinguished southern family. They had more stiff-necked pride than money and lived well beyond their means. Confederate sabers on display in the parlor. A matriarch whose ‘headache medicine’ was Tennessee sour mash. A batty maiden aunt—read ‘deflowered, then jilted’—who lived in the attic, smelled of gardenia, and wouldn’t eat uncooked fruit.”

“I remember reading those colorful details,” Maris said.

“My grandparents had friends like Hadley’s family is described,” Parker told her. “I remember their speech being flowery and overblown.”