Plain Jayne (37 page)

It’s chilly on the beach, so my walk is a short one today.
When I get back to the house, I enter through the back door and stand just
inside the kitchen as I take off my sandy shoes and leave them under the shoe
bench. Paulette turns with a cup of coffee in hand and holds it out to me.

“Mite blustery for a walk by the water, don’t you think?”
she asks. “Wouldn’t want you to fall sick, now.”

Lightly, I reply, “Why not? It’s not as if I have anything
to do or anywhere to be.”

“You still don’t want to be sick!” she counters.

“I guess not,” I concede with a mutter.

“Anyway,” she continues, “you
do
have something to
do. I noticed when I was dusting the office that Luke left something for you on
your desk.”

I shoot her a puzzled look over the rim of my coffee mug.
“Something for me to do? Like what?”

Casually, she answers, “It looks like a manuscript. But I
didn’t read the note stuck to it.”

Her preemptive denial makes me laugh. “I don’t care if you
did. I’m sure it’s nothing secret or important.”

“In that case,” she says eagerly, “he wants you to read
something he promised to read as a special favor for someone who knows someone
who knows someone who knows him, but he hasn’t had time, because he’s so busy
getting caught up from being gone on holiday.”

I groan. “Personal favors are the worst!”

He complains about them all the time. It’s so clever of him
to have figured out a way to pawn them off on his idle wife.

Paulette cringes sympathetically, “I’m afraid so. But,
anyway, at least you won’t be bored! I’ll make some bean soup for lunch and
come get you early, so you can take a break.”

I drain the rest of my coffee and harrumph like a surly
teenager. Paulette intercepts my cup on its way to the dishwasher and murmurs
something encouraging that I can’t quite make out.

“This is true love,” I gripe as I push against the door that
leads to the dining room. “Reading the trash that Arthur Thornfield’s
daughter’s friend’s ex-husband’s girlfriend wrote.”

When I get to the sitting room, I see the stack of paper on
my desk and breathe easier. It’s not an epic tome, thank goodness; it may not
take me long to read at all. And as I read the first page at arm’s length, like
I’m worried it’ll transmit a literary STD, I note that it doesn’t seem to be
the style of writing that lends itself to scene after graphic sex scene of
gag-inducing euphemisms for sexual organs.

As Paulette reported, the sticky note on the top page features
Luke’s chicken scratch and tells a sad tale about being buried at work and
forgetting all about this favor he’d promised Arthur (I knew it!!) months ago
and how much “you’ll be pulling my chestnuts out of the fire” and how much he
loves me.

The last part makes me smile while I roll my eyes. With a
big sigh, I say “Fine!” out loud and retreat to the sofa with a blanket, a pen,
and the sheaf of papers.

When Paulette pokes her head through the doorway later, I
blink up at her and say distractedly, “You need something?”

“Soup’s ready,” she tells me.

Confused, I ask, “Already? What time is it?”

“Nearly noon. I would have been in sooner, but—”

“Noon?!” I shift my position under the blanket and, sure
enough, notice that I’m stiff, as if I’ve been sitting for three hours without
moving, but it doesn’t seem possible that that much time has passed since I sat
down with this thing.

“Is it awful?” she asks, nodding toward the manuscript.

I shake my head. “No. It’s not. I mean, there are some rough
parts and some mixed metaphors and a few analogies that don’t work, but for the
most part, it’s good stuff.” I stand and stretch my arms over my head.
“Unfortunately, I read something very similar to this a long time ago. I think.
I can’t remember what it was, probably something in college that I had to read
for a class that I don’t remember. But I distinctly remember this plot. I know
what’s going to happen next. And that’s a bummer, because this is good writing.
In my opinion, which isn’t worth much.”

As I follow her into the kitchen, Paulette says, “You have
thousands of fans who would beg to differ, I’d think. You know the good from
the bad, surely.”

I shrug while she fills a bowl of bean soup for me. “I
guess. It’s bothering me, though, that I can’t place where I’ve read this
before. I’d like to read the original so I can see if it’s similar enough that
it would prevent this person—whoever she is—from being published.”

Disdainfully, she says, “Doesn’t stop Tom Ridgeworthy from
publishing the same book over and over again. Virtually.”

We snicker about that over our steaming bowls.

After a few bites, Paulette says, “You said, ‘she.’ What’s
this writer’s name?”

I swallow and shake my head. “Dunno. There’s no name on it.
Dumb. This person obviously doesn’t know her way around the publishing industry,
or she’d guard her intellectual property with her life. All it takes is this
thing falling into the wrong hands, with no name on it, and someone else gets
to write their ticket on her hard work. But I can tell by the way it’s written
that it’s a woman. I’m making some sexist assumptions, I guess.”

She nods pensively. “I find that it’s usually easy to tell
if the author’s a man or woman. Except in the case of that Blake
Redmond-Womack. Although I have a theory that his wife writes his books, while
the novelty of a man writing so romantically is what sells them.”

I grin at her. “I like that theory. There’s something not
right about him.”

“I agree,” she states unequivocally. Then she admits
sheepishly, “I’ve read every single one of his books, though. They’re like
drugs, they are!”

Grudgingly, I concur. “Yeah, yeah. I know. I find, though,
that as long as I don’t open his books, I can’t get sucked in. So, I avoid
them.”

With a mischievous glint in her eyes, she reveals, “Luke
reads them.”

Assuming she’s referring to the time he brought one home for
me to read the passage that illustrated the emotion he was looking for in my
manuscript, I say, “I know. That one time…”

“No. All the time. Every time.”

I snort. “Whatever.”

She widens her eyes at me. “I’m serious. He gives them to me
when he’s through with them.”

Still not sure whether to believe her but also equally
unsure of her motives for lying about such a thing, I point out, “I’ve never
seen him reading one.”

“Womack hasn’t written a new one in a while! But when he
does, mark my words, Luke will buy it and read it.” She stands. “Can I get you
more soup, Dear?”

I shake my head while staring into space. “You think he’ll
read it in front of
me
?”

“I don’t see why not,” she replies, taking my empty bowl to
the sink. “It’s not exactly
shameful
. Ever-so-slightly unmanly, but I
think it’s sweet.”

This information makes me see my husband in a whole new
light. I thought I knew everything about him. And it doesn’t make me think less
of him (I don’t think), but it makes me think differently about him. He’s read
every single Blake Redmond-Womack book? I have a vagina and can’t claim that.
And how has this emotional education via Mr. Womack colored his perceptions of
love and romance? Does he channel Womack’s protagonists when trying to think of
ways to compliment me or when picking out the perfect Christmas or birthday
gift? It’s too hilarious to even consider.

Luke Edwards,
my
Luke, Mr. Anti-Sentimentality, a
Blake Redmond-Womack fan? How does he justify that? It’s like a dietician going
home and eating ice cream for dinner.

Now, I say, “I can’t wait to give him shit for this.”

Paulette whirls and nearly gasps. “Oh, no. You can’t!”

“Why not? He’d be all over me if I admitted to reading…” I
grasp in my mind for the female equivalent of Womack and land on, “…Jessica Creed!”

“She writes smutty romance novels, though.”

“So does Womack! But because he’s a man, they’re not
perceived or marketed as such.”

“No, there’s a definite difference. Womack’s not smutty.
He’s deep and emotional and—”

“Puh-lease!”

She purses her lips. “Promise me you won’t tease him about
this.”

“No way. I don’t promise that at all.”

“I shouldn’t have said anything.” But she looks like she’s
proud of herself, in spite of all her protestations.

“No, you shouldn’t have. You should have let me discover
this dirty little secret all on my own. You should have waited until Womack
released his next book and let me walk in on my husband sitting up in bed,
reading it. You would have heard me laughing all the way down in your room.” I
rise, anxious to get back to reading, but at the kitchen door, I pause, turn,
and say, “Don’t worry, though. I’ll choose my moment wisely so he won’t know
you told on him.”

“Oh, you!” she squawks and waves her towel at me, like she
does to Luke when he’s teasing her. This simple gesture makes me feel like a
member of a true family for the first time in more than a dozen years and
almost knocks the wind out of me.

“What is it, Dear?” she asks, suddenly serious. “You look
peaky.”

“I’m fine,” I mumble unreassuringly. I shake my head and try
to smile the emotion away. When my attempt fails, I simply exit the room and return
to the sitting room and the anonymous manuscript. But I stare off into space
for a long time before reading any more.

Because, in addition to the obvious warm glow this familial
sense of belonging brings, it also intensifies a fear in me that I’ve never been
stupid enough to think would ever leave me, but I’ve done a decent job of
keeping at bay with my nightly smoke detector and fire alarm and carbon
monoxide detector checks.

Now that I have so much, I have so much to lose.

Chapter Thirty-One

Throughout the afternoon, as I’ve scribbled on the
manuscript (which I came to find out was unfinished), I’ve shifted position
several times on the couch in an effort to get comfortable or to facilitate
long stretches of writing notes out by hand. Eventually, when I was finished
writing and merely wanted to peruse critical sections, I ended up on my
stomach, the manuscript on the floor below my head. That’s how I fell asleep,
spinning through my mind numerous possible endings to the story, trying to
remember the original story I read in college so that I could figure out a way
to advise this author to write it and make it different.

I wake up to the sound of ruffling paper and the feel of a
finger tracing a line down my spine and coming to rest slightly above the rise
of my rump.

“Mmmph!” I protest the tickle and arch my back.

“Wake up,” Luke softly commands. “I believe I gave you some
work to do, and you’re sleeping on the job.”

I roll onto my back and glare up at him. “I did your crap
work, thank you very much. I finished it and then some. So I earned my nap.”

He smiles crookedly down at me. “I’ll be the judge of that.”
He gives the stack of papers in his hands a perfunctory flip-through. “My, my,
my. This is quite the mark-up.”

I sit up, my excitement for the manuscript waking me up.
“Yeah. I know. I think it’s a great idea. And well-executed. But…”

“What?” He sits next to me but keeps his eyes down on the
pages as he skims my comments.

“It’s been done before.”

Dismissively, he declares, “Yeah, well, there’s no such
thing as a new idea, right? Only variations on themes.”

I shake my head regretfully. “No. I mean… I’ve read
this
story
before. If it’s published as-is, it’ll be plagiarism.”

His head snaps up at one of the most serious words in his
line of work. Calmly, he asks, “Oh? And what work is it plagiarizing?”

Rubbing my eyes, I admit, “I don’t know. I can’t remember
the name or the author, but I
know
I’ve read this before. How is this
writer related to Arthur, anyway?”

His intense study of my face is obviously distracting him
from our conversation, because he slurs, “Wha…?” and then after blinking and
giving his head a tiny shake, he quickly says, “Oh. Arthur. Yeah. Uh… she’s not
related to him. I never said that.”

I grab his note from the coffee table and re-read it. “‘I
promised Arthur months ago that I’d take a look at this and give the author my
thoughts.’ Okay, so not a relative of Arthur’s, but your read-through is
something he requested on behalf of someone else?”

He slaps the manuscript onto the coffee table and snaps,
“What does it matter, anyway?”

“I—I guess it doesn’t,” I concede, startled by his sudden
irritation. “I was only wondering.”

“Maybe we should focus more on figuring out where you’ve
read this before, that’s all.”

“Maybe you should relax and let me do some research on it
tomorrow. I’ve put in enough unpaid hours in your little literary sweatshop
today,” I snipe.

Hotly, he replies, “I wasn’t suggesting you had to figure it
out right this second. I only meant that it was more important than the name of
the writer.”

“It sounded to me like your typical whip-cracking.” I snatch
the manuscript from the table and take it over to my desk, where I set it
precisely in the center of the otherwise-empty surface.

“As usual, you’re putting words in my mouth and taking
things the wrong way.”

“I’ve learned to anticipate your demands in order to keep
the peace.”

“You haven’t learned very well, apparently. I’d hardly call
this peaceful.”

“Screw you!” With that less-than-witty retort, I sweep from
the room and run up the stairs to our bedroom, where I slam the door and then
flop breathlessly onto the bed.

What an asshole! When I think the Luke I met in his office
at Thornfield all those months ago doesn’t exist anymore, he acts like this,
and I’m reminded of one of the few pearls of wisdom my mom ever bestowed on me
regarding love:  “You can’t change someone, so don’t ever go into a
relationship with change in mind.”