Chapter Two
Elle
Central Park is a world of activity all year, but never more so than in the summertime.
There are people everywhere: going to the zoo, jogging, doing tai chi, eating ice-creams, visiting one of the outdoor theatres, relaxing on the grass, kissing on the grass, boating, kissing while boating…
Why do people get so horny in the summer?
I’d been counting on it being a great place to get some inspiration. I was fed up with staring at the four walls of my sweat-box of an apartment, going out of my tiny mind because of the edit letter my publisher sent me that morning, attached to a very brief cover email:
Noelle
Hope you’re well. Please find attached my edit letter.
Yours, Patti
It hadn’t boded well from the off. Use of the full name, plus Patti was usually way chattier than that.
I had been expecting a brutal critique, though. I wasn’t happy with the book when I sent it off to her two weeks ago. And there’s a difference between knowing it’s rough around the edges and needs development – which is how it always feels – and being certain in my gut that something was missing.
I’d dived straight into the letter because I don’t believe in delaying inevitable pain; best to get it over with.
It was five pages long. On the surface, that is not too bad at all but…
then I’d scrolled down and seen what the headings were.
Everything. Every integral component that makes up a genre novel, needed drastic work.
Particularly the conclusion of the love story.
So, here I was, sitting on a bench opposite the Alice in Wonderland statue, staring at all the passers-by trying to smile rather than squint as the sun laser-beamed off its bronze surface while they took their photos.
I had my latest sparkly notebook in front of me, ready for the epiphany to fix everything and… nothing. Just nothing.
Honestly, it was like I’d never written a book before. It was driving me crazy.
‘Christ on a cracker.’ I jumped as my phone pinged, interrupting my reverie. When had I turned it off of silent?
Daisy: Are you going to be here soon? I’m soooo bored. Dad and Uncle Joe are talking about how wrong CSI is. Again.
Shoot. My little sister Daisy. I checked the time; I was supposed to leave ten minutes ago to meet my family at the parking-lot-cum-outdoor-theatre where my twin brothers, Alfie and Teddy, were performing the final show of the semester for their college theatre class.
They were going to be the main players in a gender flipped version of A Streetcar Named Desire – Stella and Blanche respectively – and I was looking forward to it.
They were both great actors. They ought to be since they’d started their careers way back in kindergarten impersonating each other, driving us and their teachers mad.
I scooped my belongings into my tote and left the park, trying to jog along the sidewalk to catch the subway across town.
My progress was hampered both by the fact I’d not fastened my sandal tightly enough and by all of the people milling around like confused cattle.
The train was typically hellish in the heat too, but it was running on time and I didn’t have far to go, thankfully.
The entire ride I found myself watching all the couples, wondering what their deal was.
How did they get together? Why did it work?
I mean, I understood the basics of human biology – it was something like eighty per cent the right pheromones to suit their genetic code, but I couldn’t write a satisfying finale to my series with the heroine choosing her partner because she’d noticed he smelled right.
Could I?
My series was all about this private detective who travelled around solving mysteries in cosy, small-town communities – and, of course, there was a love interest, who’d been dangling in one of those yummy will-they-won’t-they relationships.
Only now I’d come to the last instalment, I had to say whether they would, or they wouldn’t…
As well as come up with a satisfying mystery that was not completely separate from the character development.
My heroine, Charmaine, was capable and self-sufficient, smart and able to make friends (and a few enemies) everywhere she went.
Kit – her love interest – had been there, helping out, basically being endlessly competent and making heart eyes at her because she was amazing.
What possible reason could there be for her to give in and settle down with him when she was so cynical about love after her parents’ bitter divorce?
I’d written her strong and independent and I’d be damned if I was going to change that, so…
I was stuck. I’d managed to write myself into a romantic subplot corner and I had no clue how to get out of it.
I supposed it didn’t help that I couldn’t draw any useful inspiration from my own experiences.
How was I meant to make that kind of relationship convincing in my book when my own love life had sputtered to a halt?
The last serious relationship I’d had (and I used the word “serious” in its loosest form), was a year ago.
Since then I’d been trawling the depths of online dating and barely got past a second date with anyone. Red flags haunted my dreams.
And was it any wonder? As the train rolled onwards, I noted that the behaviour of some of the couples was actually less than ideal at a second glance.
The guy who’d seemed infatuated with his girlfriend one moment ago was definitely making eyes at a barely-legal slip of a thing standing behind her, and why was the dad of that family unit carrying nothing, while the mother of his child had all the bags and the baby strapped to her chest? Red flag, red flag, red flag.
I knew true love and healthy relationships existed, but as a woman with a keen sense of observation, I was starting to believe it was the exception rather than the rule.
That kind of thinking wasn’t going to get me anywhere with my current issue, though. My parents had always taught me that the first step to fixing a problem was reaching out and asking for help, even if it was just to talk things through, and that method hadn’t failed me yet.
Normally, I might have scheduled a call with my agent, but she was recovering from a hysterectomy, so there was no way I would be disturbing her for the next six weeks minimum.
Hopefully, she wouldn’t be returning to the office to hear one of her clients had fluffed the landing of her big deal and made herself unpublishable; that would suck for her. And me.
Instead, I posted an SOS message in the Whatsapp group for my ride-or-die author friends.
We’d all debuted in the same year, and despite writing in a variety of genres and going in all sorts of different publishing directions, we were still always there for each other.
I crossed my fingers that someone would be available soon. The clock was ticking.