Envy(44)

“Panacea?”

“Are you listening?”

“I’ll look it up later.”

“You know what it means,” she snapped.

He smiled again. “Yes. I do.” From the corner of his eye, he noticed Mike leaving the room and pulling the door closed behind him.

Maris was still in high gear. “Life in the fraternity house—”

“There’s more of that in the next chapter.”

“There’s a next chapter?”

“I worked on it this morning.”

“Great. I liked that part. Very much. It’s vivid. As I read, I could smell the gym socks.” She shuddered delicately. “And the bit with the toothbrush…”

“Yeah?”

“It’s almost too outrageous to be fiction. Personal experience?”

“What else needs work?” he asked.

“Ah. I get it. Personal questions are disallowed.”

“If you washed out your undies last night, what did you sleep in?”

She sucked in a quick breath, opened her mouth to speak, then thought better of it. Her teeth clicked softly when she closed her mouth.

Tilting his head, he squinted his eyes as though to bring her into sharper focus. “Nothing, right?”

She lowered her eyes to her lap. Or maybe to his lap. He was tempted to say, Yeah, it works, but if you’re curious, why not touch it and find out? But he didn’t because she just might summon that boat to the mainland after all.

“You’ve made your point,” she said gruffly. “No personal questions.”

Picking up the manuscript pages again, she thumbed through them to refresh her memory on the notes she had jotted in the margins. “I’d like to see you expand, well, just about all of it.” She glanced up at him to gauge his reaction, and when he declined to respond, she sat back with a sigh. “You expected this, didn’t you? You knew what I was going to say.”

He nodded. “I skimmed the surface, just as you said.”

“To test my competence.”

“Hmm.”

“You auditioned me.”

“Something like that.”

Her smile was self-deprecating. She was being a good sport and letting him off more lightly than he deserved. Actually he would prefer that she rant and rave, lambast him with foul language, haul off and let him have it right in the kisser. What he had to do would be easier to do if she were as much of a bitch as he was a bastard. They were unequally matched opponents. She was out of her league and didn’t even know it.

He said, “You had every right to tell Mike and me to go f*ck ourselves.”

“My father would never have tolerated that kind of language from me.”

“So you are a daddy’s girl?”

“Big time. Because he’s such a good daddy. He’s a gentleman and a scholar. He would like you.”

He laughed harshly. “Not if he’s a gentleman, he wouldn’t.”

“You’re wrong. He would admire your audacity. He’d probably even call it ‘balls.’ ”

Parker smiled. “A man after my own heart.”

“He read your prologue and liked it. He encouraged me to pursue this project.”

He gestured toward the manuscript pages. “So pursue it.”

Consulting her notes again, she resumed. “Take your time, Parker. There’s no page limit. Leave the trimming and editing to me. That’s my job. You don’t need to reveal all the background information in the first few chapters. It can be scattered throughout, but learn what the lives of these characters were like prior to the time they met.”

“I already know.” He tapped his temple. “Up here.”

“Excellent. But the reader can’t read your mind.”

“I understand.”

“That’s it, for now.”

She evened up the edges of the sheets, then laid them in her lap. “I’m glad I passed that silly test of yours,” she said candidly. “I’ve missed being involved in this stage of the process. I didn’t realize how much I’d missed it until I began making these notes last night. I love molding the story, brainstorming with the writer, especially a talented writer.”

He pointed to himself. “And that would be me?”

“That would be you. Definitely.”

Her gaze, so candid and earnest, made him uncomfortable. He looked out toward the ocean so he wouldn’t have to see her sincerity, wouldn’t have to feel… so he wouldn’t have to feel, period.

Maybe he was the one playing out of his league.

Leaning toward him, she nudged his knee and lowered her voice to a near whisper. “I don’t suppose you’ve changed your mind about letting me know which character—”

“Beat it, will ya?” He spun his chair away from her and pushed it toward his worktable. “I’ve got a bitch of an editor and she’s piled a shitload of work on me.”



“Envy” Ch. 4

1985

That Tuesday morning two days before Thanksgiving dawned cloudy and cold. As though on cue, as though roasted turkey and pumpkin pie would be incompatible with mild weather, a cold front lowered the temperature just in time for the holiday.