Chapter 11 #2
Freddy walked into the room and smiled when he spotted her. “Hey, kid. You’re back.” The smile faded as he saw her cast. “Did
you break your leg?”
“I have an incomplete fracture of the fibula.”
He grinned as he took the desk next to hers. “So you couldn’t even break your leg right? You got an incomplete?”
She laughed. “Something like that. You should have seen me a couple of weeks ago. I had two black eyes.”
“Sweet. Any pictures?”
“No. Sorry.”
“Next time.”
“Absolutely.”
She didn’t bother pointing out the incongruity of a man pushing sixty saying things like sweet or referring to his wife of nearly forty years as his bae, but Freddy was his own man. He’d retired from years of driving a big rig and had set his mind on selling a rom-com to Netflix.
He’d surprised everyone in their critique group with his gift for funny and charming dialogue, but his plotting skills were
shaky at best. Still, he was getting better, and that was the whole point of showing up.
Their biweekly sessions were run by Ella, a former schoolteacher who simply couldn’t let go of the whole student–teacher thing.
She’d sold a couple of screenplays to Netflix, several to the Hallmark Channel and few more to Hulu. Even though she had to
be busy with her own career, she’d started this critique group about three years ago. Victoria had heard about it from a friend
of a friend and had applied. In addition to a writing sample, she’d had to interview for the spot and then had been on probation
for two months.
To stay in the group, she had to pay the biweekly dues of forty-five dollars, ten of which went to the rental of the classroom
in the community center. She had to read and critique the material sent out before every meeting, returning it to the author
by the deadline, as well as being physically present for at least one of the meetings each month. She’d gotten a pass on the
last session, what with being thrown out of a truck and all.
Now as she looked around at her friends and colleagues, she realized that even though she hadn’t sent pages of her own, she
was glad to be back with other writers. She needed a couple of hours of conversation about character development and pacing
to get herself out of her head.
Ella arrived right on time. She swept into the room with the authority of someone used to facing a slightly hostile crowd—her
former teaching gig had been as a middle school math teacher. She was tall, gaunt and dressed in oversize, boxy Eileen Fisher
separates. Bright red reading glasses hung from a chain around her neck. Her gaze settled on Victoria and her normally stern
expression softened.
“You made it. Welcome back. How are you doing with all that’s going on?”
Victoria stared at her, unsure how her writing teacher knew about the clusterfuck that was her life. One beat later, she realized
Ella was talking about her injuries from the accident, not the fact that had the Shannon adoption gone through, her biological
mother would have probably abandoned her at the closest fire station and walked away without looking back.
“I’m good,” Victoria said cheerfully. “Better every day.”
“I’m glad.” She took one of the remaining empty desks and began to pull printed pages out of her tote. “All right, everyone.
Excellent work this week.”
She handed the stack of pages to the person on her left. They searched for their submission and passed on the rest. As the
critiques were distributed, laptops were booted. Victoria opened that week’s file with all her critiques listed by classmate’s
name.
“Who wants to go first?” Ella asked, slipping on her reading glasses as she sorted through her copy of her critiques.
Freddy raised his hand. “I will.”
Victoria scrolled down to his pages and scanned her notes. “You nailed the dialogue,” she said. “The scene was funny and emotional
at the same time.” She hesitated, then added, “But your scenes always are. Did you ever do the plotting exercises? I have
no sense of story arc. Meagan still doesn’t have a conflict, and I wish she was a little less happy all the time.”
“I agree,” another student said. “All that happiness is sus, if you ask me.”
“Sus as in suspicious?” Freddy confirmed happily, making a note on his computer.
“Uh-oh,” Ollie whispered to Victoria. “Now Freddy has more slang to use on us.”
Ella slipped off her glasses and looked at him. “I have to agree with Victoria. Every scene is charming, Freddy, but there is a sameness to them. Characters have to start in one place and end up somewhere else. Your story needs turning points.”
“And conflict,” Ollie said, pointing at him. “You don’t like conflict in your life, so you don’t put in your work.”
Freddy shifted in his seat. “I can deal with conflict.”
“We’re not talking about Freddy,” Ella said, her voice hinting at stern. “This is about his work.” She smiled at him. “Next
time, let’s see a scene with some tension. We all know you’re brilliant at the engaging, falling-in-love parts of the story,
along with the meet-cute. But you need more if you want to sell this project.”
They moved on to the next person. Everyone who had submitted and was attending that day would get an in-person critique from
Ella and anyone else who wanted to comment, in addition to the written responses. Sometimes the sessions could feel brutal,
but Victoria always learned something—especially when her own work wasn’t up to par. Sometimes it was tough not to get defensive
because the writing was so personal. But while she’d been comfortable getting her first stunt job through her father’s connections,
she wanted her screenwriting career to be different. If she was going to sell, she wanted to do it on her own—because she
had talent and had come up with a great project, and not because of who her father was and how much he loved her.
“This breaks my heart,” Shannon said as she carefully dug out the roots of a peony plant. They were flourishing in their current
location, much to the chagrin of the unsuspecting homeowner.
“Try not to think about it as plant death,” Aaron told her as he moved the wheelbarrow closer to where she was kneeling on
the ground. “We’re helping out a customer. They were going crazy with the ants.” He flinched. “I hate that she was crying
when she called me.”
“I know, but the tears had nothing to do with you. We’re fixing the problem. That will make her feel better.”
Aaron had texted, asking for help digging out a long bed of the peonies, planted right next to the house. Unfortunately, the
plant attracted ants. Lots of ants. The insects had found their way into the house and, once there, refused to leave. The
newly divorced, single mom had already been overwhelmed by everything that was happening in her life, and the ants had been
the last straw. When the exterminator had told her what was drawing the ants to her house, she’d called Aaron and begged for
help.
He dropped to the ground next to Shannon and went to work digging out the next plant. The sun was warm but not too hot, the
air still. Although she wasn’t happy to be destroying healthy plants, she would soon be replacing them with something that
wouldn’t cause problems for Aaron’s client. Plus being outside and digging in the dirt was going a long way toward restoring
her good mood.
“Thanks for getting me out of the office,” she said.
“I like the company as much as the help,” he told her. “Your company, specifically.”
She smiled at him. “Thank you. I feel the same way.” Her smile faded. “My mom’s still a mess. She’s not crying as much, but
I can tell she’s upset.”
Cindy had returned from her visit to Ava in tears and had spent the afternoon locked in her office. Shannon had wanted to
tell her she might feel better at home, but her mother had refused to speak to her or anyone. The next day hadn’t been much
better. While there hadn’t been any crying, her mom had been quiet and uncommunicative.
“I can’t imagine what they talked about that would upset her so much,” Shannon continued. “I’m sure she feels guilty about
what she did, but it was a long time ago. Everyone needs to move on.”
She paused, replaying her words in her head, then sighed. “Okay, that sounds a little harsh. I know for my mom, seeing Ava brought all the emotions back to the surface.”
“Makes sense. What they both went through was traumatic. Like a car accident or something. They got triggered, and now it’s
like it just happened.”
She tossed another peony into the wheelbarrow. “I feel bad for my mom. I’ve never seen her this upset before. She’s always
so calm and full of suggestions, but not about this.”
“She didn’t give you any hints about her conversation with Ava?” he asked.
“No. Just that she’d apologized, and that was it. I don’t know Ava at all, but I can’t see her going off on my mom.”
“Maybe the problem is your mom wants to make things right and she can’t. There’s no way to make the past up to Ava.”
She glanced at him. “That’s a good point. She can say she’s sorry for not letting Ava know she was having second thoughts,
but as to the rest of it, they both have to live with the decision. She knows she hurt Ava, and that can’t be undone.”
She thought about the evening spent with the other couple. “They were nice.”
“Milton and Ava?” Aaron started on another peony. “They were. Rich.” He flashed her a grin. “That could have been you.”
Something she’d thought about herself. “I wouldn’t have been comfortable in that house.”
“You would have if you’d grown up there. It would have been all you knew.”
Something she couldn’t fully grasp—the concept of being her but also being someone else. A different version of herself. How
would that work exactly? How much of her personality was because of DNA, and how much of it was circumstances and experiences?
She supposed she would never know.
“I liked Milton,” she said, hearing the wistfulness in her tone. “He seemed kind. He and Victoria are close.” She sighed.
“It would have been nice to have a dad around.”
“You have Luis.”
“It’s not the same. I’m talking about when I was younger. I had friends whose parents were divorced, but they all still had
fathers. I was the only one who didn’t.” She looked at him. “They talked about their dads so casually, but every time, I would
think about how I didn’t have one in my life.”
He bumped her shoulder with hers. “I’m sorry you had to go through that.”
“Me, too. But it’s like growing up rich, or rather not growing up rich. It’s all I know.”
Which was the mature thing to say, but in her heart, she couldn’t help wishing there had been a father around. Her grandfather
had done his best to step in and be there for her, but by the time she’d started school, his health was failing to the point
that he was bedridden.
Not that she wanted anyone else to be her mom. She was sure Ava was great, but she couldn’t imagine someone else loving her
as much as her mother did, nor did she want to. And she couldn’t have a father without having a different mom because Cindy
hadn’t been interested in having a man in her life.
She started in on the last peony plant. “Do you think my mom didn’t date because she felt guilty about what she’d done?”
“I doubt there’s any one reason. She was raising you, taking care of her dad, trying to hold it all together. It was a lot.”
“I agree, but she didn’t start going out with Luis until what, a year ago? She spent all her twenties and thirties not dating?
That has to be a conscious choice.”
“Or an unconscious one.”
The only way to get answers was to talk to her mom about the past, and based on the past couple of days Shannon had no plans
to start that conversation.
She tossed the last plant into the wheelbarrow, then stood. “I need to take pictures and get some measurements,” she said. “Is it all right if I go look at the backyard? I want to see what the landscaping looks like so I don’t duplicate what they have already.”
“Sure. The gate’s open. But there’s not much to see. It’s basic plants and a couple of camphor trees.” He picked up a rake
and started smoothing the loose soil. “We also don’t have much of a budget.”
“That’s okay. I can be creative.”
She went into the small backyard. As Aaron had mentioned, there were the two large trees, one in each corner, grass and some
scraggly hedges. She returned to the front yard and quickly measured the bed, recording the numbers on her phone.
“I’ll swing by the nursery and see what they’ve got available,” she told him. “I can put together a plan tonight, with both
the design and the cost, and email it to you so you can talk to her tomorrow.”
“Sounds good.” He kissed her. “Thank you for your help on this. We’re a good team.”
“We are.” She smiled at him. “So it’s kind of a good thing we’re going to be getting married, huh?”
Instead of smiling back, he pressed his lips together.
“I want to talk about that.”
Instantly fear gripped her. “Us getting married?” What did he mean? That he’d changed his mind? That he didn’t love her? But
they were in love. He’d just said they were a team and—
“I want to start telling people we’re engaged.”
The simple statement short-circuited her emotional meltdown. So not breaking up with her. And why had she even gone there? Aaron was very clear about his feelings. She knew where she stood
with him, and she trusted him. Assuming the worst made no sense.
“Shannon?”
“Sorry. I thought you were going to say you were mad or something.”
“I’m not, but I want to tell my folks we’re engaged. I know you’re worried about Cindy and her wedding, but it’s been a few weeks. How long do you plan to keep the secret?”
Her first instinct was to say Until her wedding, but that wasn’t rational. At some point they had to make the announcement. That was what people did.
“I don’t know how long.” She looked at him. “I really am afraid of what my mom’s going to say. She’s in a bad place right
now, and if she starts talking about a double wedding, I don’t know if I can hurt her by saying no. Can I have a little more
time? Just a couple of weeks. Then we’ll make the announcement.”
He hesitated, then nodded slowly. “As long as it isn’t too long. I want the world to know you said yes.”
She stepped close. “I’ll always say yes to you.”
After they’d collected the tools and loaded them in his truck, they left the house. Shannon drove to the nursery while Aaron
headed for his next job. As she sat in traffic, she thought about his request that they tell people they were engaged. Of
course he wanted his family to know—she did, too. Just not yet. But even as she promised herself soon, a voice in her head whispered the longer she waited the worse it was going to be. Especially if her mom found out from someone
other than her.