Chapter 10 SIOBHAN
Chapter 10
S IOBHAN
Marcel Black’s study, the impregnable fortress where the world’s most mysterious crime novelist hatched his sinister plans, was protected by a four-digit security code, like the vault of a Swiss bank. As Marcel made a point of telling her, no one had ever entered his private Cave of Wonders—not even Alex—which made Siobhan feel more privileged than Aladdin. Unlike the rest of the house, this room conveyed a sort of controlled disorder. There was a certain chaos in the arrangement of the books—so numerous that they lined the walls from floor to ceiling—although it was funny to see a copy of The Maltese Falcon competing with The Getaway , while The Talented Mr. Ripley pushed against The Given Day to maintain equilibrium. The desk was in the center, dominated by an impressive iMac and a chair that looked extremely comfortable. And expensive. There was also a retro couch next to a coffee table with an old typewriter sitting on it. Siobhan would have loved to take a photo of it to post on Twitter, but she could imagine what Marcel would say, in the hypothetical case that she asked permission.
Nothing good.
“Vinyl records in the living room and a typewriter in the study. You have kinda old-fashioned tastes, don’t you?” she joked. “And a couch in here?”
“What’s wrong with that? Sometimes I lie down, look at the ceiling, and think. That’s part of the writing process too.”
“If you say so . . .”
“I see you still have a lot to learn, princess,” he said. “Go on, sit down.”
“You want me to sit in your chair?”
“Would you rather work on the floor?”
Siobhan rolled her eyes but acquiesced. He installed himself on the other side of the desk, arms folded across his chest. From that position he seemed even more intimidating.
And insultingly sexy.
“Well, it’s very comfortable,” admitted Siobhan, spinning around.
“And expensive. So treat it as though it were the innocent heroine of one of those literary marvels you brought me today. The Chair and I: A Romantic and Ergonomic Adventure . What do you think?” He wiggled his eyebrows. “Don’t tell me that doesn’t have a ring to it.”
“Oh it does. You have an innate talent for titles.”
Marcel started laughing. Suddenly, his face lit up like a million watts, and his features mellowed. A laugh like that could work miracles.
Good thing he didn’t show it very often. Otherwise, she would become a gibbering wreck.
“Do you know the first virtue of a writer?” he asked, without seeming to want an answer. “Good buttocks.”
Siobhan couldn’t help snorting childishly.
“It all makes sense now,” she murmured.
Marcel adopted a surprised expression.
“Have you been looking at my ass, Miss Harris?”
“Me?” She raised her hand to her chest, feigning puzzlement. “Pah. You aren’t as irresistible as you think, Mr. Black.”
“But I’m sexy. You said so yourself.”
“If you’re going to remind me of that dark chapter in my life at every possible occasion, I’ll have no choice but to retract it. You are not sexy.”
“The color of your cheeks would disagree.”
“The color of my cheeks is perfectly normal given the heat at this time of year. Can we get back to your buttocks?” Shit . She blinked and tried to rectify the disaster: “I don’t mean your ... actual butt, but your metaphor.”
She could tell by the way he was looking at her that the bastard was enjoying this.
Thankfully, he soon regained his serious expression.
“Writing requires physical and mental discipline,” he explained. “You have to do it every day, without exception, so as not to break the narrative rhythm. Between four and six hours a day is ideal. Eight is even better.”
“Eight hours? You’re right about the buttocks.”
“A comfortable chair is important, but not crucial. You know what is crucial for a writer, Siobhan? Patience. Have you ever played poker?” She nodded. “Good. Well, this is a lot like it. When you don’t have a good hand, you withdraw. And when you’re sure you’re going to win the game, you raise the bet. But you never stop playing. What I’m trying to say is that you can’t fall apart at the first sign of difficulty. You have to try again. That’s how this works. You fall, you get up again, you brush yourself off, and you go back to square one. Failure is part of life. Success teaches you squat because it’s based on other people’s perceptions. Failure, on the other hand, helps you become stronger. More pragmatic. More ambitious.”
“I’m not the ambitious type.”
“Well, you should be. A good author is one who constantly challenges themselves.”
“Is that why you accepted Letitia Wright’s proposal? Because it was a challenge for you? Did you want to reinvent yourself as a writer or something?”
Marcel’s jaw tensed before he replied:
“Bingo.”
Something shifted inside Siobhan, as though she had detected an anomaly. He had said it so lightly that she didn’t quite believe him.
“The most difficult thing about this profession,” continued Marcel, “is overcoming the barrier separating reality and fiction. Writing involves facing up to all kinds of emotions, pinpointing them, and letting them flow, which isn’t always pleasant. It’s not a case of just spewing them all out; instead you channel them through the right words. Your style will give the prose its own voice and make it more personal. But you have to find that style. And then, polish it, brush all the soil off. That takes time, Siobhan. Maturity.”
“You don’t think I’m ready.”
“It doesn’t matter what I think but what you think.”
Siobhan shot him an incredulous look.
“You’ve become very generous all of a sudden.”
“Not at all,” he replied, with a disturbing indifference. “Bombastic slogans are for Adidas or L’Oréal, not for me. I only said it to encourage you.”
“Okay, okay. I’ll do what I can.”
“Don’t do what you can. Do it, period.”
“Wow. And you say slogans aren’t your thing. Are you sure you aren’t in advertising? Perhaps you were, in another life.”
“You never know. In any case, try not to divulge any of this when they interview you, or I’ll hire a couple of hitmen to come after you. Come on, to work.”
“We’re going to write?”
“Not me, you.” Marcel came around the desk and turned on the computer. He was so close Siobhan noticed her heart rate soaring. He smelled so good ... He opened a blank document and said: “Write the first chapter. And stick to the plan, okay? Don’t try to impress me, just be yourself. Or rather, be Felicity. I’ll read it when you’ve finished.”
“And what will you do in the meantime?”
“Make sure you don’t get distracted tweeting nonsense.”
Her skin blazed with shame.
“What? You aren’t going to stand over me like I was in high school, are you?”
“You reap what you sow.”
“Well, I’m sorry, but I won’t be able to write with you standing here.”
“Why not?”
Because she wouldn’t be able to concentrate. His proximity set her on edge.
“Because ... you breathe too loudly.”
Marcel looked annoyed.
“Would you rather I didn’t breathe?”
“That would be problematic and incompatible with staying alive; unless you were a vampire, and you don’t look much like Edward Cullen, to be honest. I could do with a little bit of privacy. Please? I promise I won’t go rummaging in your files. Anyway, I’m sure you have protected them with some extremely complex and indecipherable password.”
He seemed to think about it for a moment.
“Okay. You win,” he finally agreed. “I’ll be in the living room.”
And he disappeared.
Siobhan breathed a sigh of relief. She found it hard to believe she was in Marcel Black’s study, sitting in his chair, about to use his personal computer. It was crazy. It was crazy that she had turned up at his house looking for help. It was crazy that he had churned out that motivational speech worthy of a Hallmark card. And it was crazy that she had agreed she could do this thing. For a while she sat there frozen, looking at the screen and wondering whether she would be able to give shape to everything that was in her head. Each blink of the cursor was a painful reminder of her status as an apprentice. But she hated disappointing people more than anything. Even if Marcel was a complete moron, Siobhan didn’t want to let him down. She wanted to show him, and above all herself, that she had the makings of a writer. So, she closed her eyes and tried to focus on visualizing Felicity, the obstinate journalist from the Post . She thought about where she would be at that precise moment, what she would be wearing, what her voice would sound like, whether she preferred bagels or corned beef. And she thought how extraordinary it was to be in New York in real life and in fiction at the same time.
Abracadabra.
She began to type.
A fine rain was falling on Manhattan that February night.
The dull thud of the keys reminded her of a stream flowing toward an unknown destination; where it would lead her was a mystery that she could only solve by following her inner compass. She wrote and wrote, spurred on by the feeling of being on the right path. Perhaps she had finally found the fuel she needed to tell the story. When she typed the last period of the chapter, more than three hours had gone by. Five thousand words in total. Her back was stiff, her mouth was dry, and there was a hole the size of Lake Michigan in her stomach, but she was happy with the result. She stretched as she waited for the document to print and then made for the living room.
Marcel was on the sofa, with his sexy professor glasses and a book in his hand. And not just any book: The Duke and I , no less.
I can’t believe it. He’s finally succumbed to the pleasure of reading a romance novel.
Siobhan cleared her throat.
“I’m sorry to interrupt this historic moment, but I’ve finished.”
“One second,” he replied, without looking at her. “I’m in the middle of something important.”
“Simon and Daphne’s first kiss?” she asked mischievously.
“Even better: an overelaborate and poorly formulated syntactic construction. I wonder what the others you brought will be like,” he mused. He closed the book and deposited it on the coffee table with his fingertips, as though it were a container of biological waste. “Of course, this has every chance of becoming my new paperweight.”
“Ha ha. Carry on like that, and you’ll get your own spot on Comedy Central.”
Marcel gestured at the pages.
“All right, hand them over.”
As he read, Siobhan scrutinized his facial expressions, trying to glean his reaction. Did he like it or not? She hoped so because she had put a lot of effort into gaining Marcel’s acceptance. Then he picked up a pencil and started to mark the pages here and there.
He crossed something out.
Something else.
And something else.
The utter ... He was being truly merciless.
“You don’t like it.”
“Have you ever heard of economy of language, Siobhan? You use too many words. Why say fine rain when you could say drizzle ? Ration the information, or you’ll overwhelm the reader. And all these adjectives to describe Felicity’s appearance are too much. Limit yourself to highlighting a couple of features. The rest is just distraction.”
“Well, that’s your opinion. And opinions are subjective.”
“Sure. What do I know, I’ve only written fifteen books, right?”
Siobhan sighed inwardly. Having to put up with this isn’t worth the $25,000 advance .
“There is a principle in literature called Chekhov’s gun. If a gun appears, you’d better make sure someone is going to fire it. Otherwise it’s pointless. A gun or any other element. Chekhov is—”
“I know who Chekhov is, thank you.”
“I’m glad because comrade Anton is going to be your best friend from now on. You’ve written literally three times in two paragraphs. Can you explain what the frickin’ deal is with millennials and the word literally ? God, I feel like starting a petition on change.org for it to be used properly. And this ending doesn’t invite you to keep reading. Have another look, will you?”
Siobhan felt a nervous tic emerge in her eyebrow.
“Anything else?”
“No, just that.”
“‘Just’? I feel much better. Hashtag irony.”
Marcel shot her a scornful look over the top of his glasses.
“Are you too proud to accept the constructive comments of an experienced writer? Hashtag mature and come back when you have something a bit more solid than this high school composition.”
Her face burned with rage and frustration. Fine. Marcel was probably right, though he could have been a tad more lenient with her, given that she was a debut writer facing imposter syndrome. Somehow she had to free herself of that, and, since falling to pieces wasn’t a viable option, she decided to be pragmatic.
“If you’re going to keep me locked away in here all day, the least you could do is offer me something to eat. Writing on an empty stomach isn’t good for creativity. And your hashtag is ridiculous, and too long,” she added.
“You know what? That’s true. How rude of me,” he agreed. “Come with me.”
What’s up with him? Is he sick?
They returned to the kitchen. Siobhan couldn’t believe her eyes when Marcel took her Lady M Mille Crêpes cake out of the refrigerator.
Untouched.
“It can’t be true. Are you from another planet or something? I mean ... you haven’t even tried it?”
“It might be poisoned. The truth is I was going to ... It doesn’t matter.” He cut a small slice and pushed it across the island to her. “Bon appétit.”
Siobhan stared at the plate and then at him with a serious expression.
“You’ve got to be kidding. Do you want me to die of starvation in your kitchen?”
“The first step to beating an addiction is admitting you have one. Hi, my name’s Siobhan, and I’m a sugar junkie. Say it with me; you’ll feel better.”
“Screw you, Dupont.”
After the first mouthful, an involuntary murmur of pleasure emerged from her throat.
“God, I’m going to go into a diabetic coma just looking at you.”
“You don’t know what you’re missing,” she countered, before lifting a second piece to her mouth. “Mmmm.”
“Well, since I’m not a sugar junkie, I suppose it won’t do any harm to try.”
Marcel picked up a clean spoon and without warning plunged it into Siobhan’s cake.
“Hey! That’s mine!” she protested.
“Not anymore.”
She watched as Marcel raised the spoon to his lips and licked it clean with pleasure, oblivious to Siobhan’s fascination. The glint of his tongue gliding over the metal dazzled her; she couldn’t tear her eyes away. It was such a sensual moment that she thought she was the one going into a coma.
Is there a doctor in the house?
He raised his eyes and caught her watching him as though he was the last goddamn chocolate in the box.
“Is something the matter?”
Oh nothing.
Except that a man like you, a man who assures me he doesn’t like sweets, has no right to lick a spoon in that way. It’s indecent. And far too erotic.
Please, tell me you don’t lick everything with that ... dedication.
Siobhan tried to compose herself.
“I was thinking ... We need a title. What do you think of Two Ways to Solve a Murder in Manhattan ?”
“ Two Ways to Solve a Murder in Manhattan ,” he repeated. “I like it. It’s catchy. Why do you look so surprised?”
“I suppose I was expecting you to mock me the way you always do.”
Marcel tutted.
“So that’s what I always do, is it? For your information, I can be very considerate if I want to be,” he replied. Then, picking up a napkin, he stretched out his arm and carefully wiped the corner of her mouth. “See, princess?”
It was like a caress.
A caress that set her insides ablaze.