Chapter Ten
Elle
The heat of the day was baking the walls of my apartment. I was spread like a starfish on top of my bed sheets staring at the ceiling. All it needed was a fan going around like helicopter blades and I was basically in a seventies’ movie having a breakdown.
Beth replied to me an hour ago and woke me up, but I hadn’t read the message yet. I couldn’t remember what I’d texted her last night when I was drunk and I was a little worried to check, since it was highly probable it’d been about Stephen.
Every ten minutes after that my phone pinged with notifications from Daisy requesting video chats and I had about six invites from my brother Sam to play Animal Crossing.
Why didn’t they entertain each other? They lived in the same house, for goodness’ sake.
Actually, that was exactly why they didn’t want to spend time together: they were sick of each other.
I got on infinitely better with my siblings once I didn’t live with them anymore.
However much I did genuinely like them though, I had work to do.
After our fourth cocktail Keisha and I had started scribbling ridiculous ideas in my notebook about what to do with the love triangle and how it might fit the plot I already had with some tweaks.
Newsflash – it didn’t. But if I came up with a better plot – one that might just be within touching distance if I could get my head to stop pounding – it could work.
It was either that or rewrite the whole thing and I didn’t have the time for that.
Unless…I asked for an extension of my deadline.
I was not the greatest at hitting deadlines. My editor was used to me requesting a couple extra weeks, but I didn’t mind that because I always delivered soon enough, and the extra time was for tweaking and polishing each draft. It was hard to stop fiddling sometimes.
This, however, was totally different. If I asked for an extension, how long did I ask for?
Two weeks, a month, two months? I hadn’t even reworked my plot yet so how did I know which scenes would need the most work?
Or how many new scenes I needed to write that didn’t even exist yet.
It was a mystery. A mystery locked away in the depths of my own mind, and I needed to go at it with a chisel and brush like an archaeologist, scrape and scrape away until I found something real.
To do that though, I needed to move. I needed to get food, get dressed and sit at my laptop and work.
Why did this feel like an enormous ordeal?
Why was I terrified of getting this wrong?
Hadn’t I always worked on the ‘you can’t fix a blank page’ method?
What else was keeping me flat on my back on the bed, sweaty and pathetic?
The image of a dark-haired man with a wide, devilish smile filled my mind.
Stephen. He’d gotten the last word the evening before and it was driving me to distraction. Literally.
I blamed the alcohol for inhibiting my ability to give him a snappy comeback.
Of course I’d expected him to be disappointed – he’d actually wanted me to go over to his apartment for sexy times, whereas I’d only been engaging in innuendo via text to trick him.
I had no desire to be another notch on his bedpost – the thing was probably whittled to matchsticks by now.
I was so done with men who drained my time and energy and gave me nothing in return. And he…he…
Well, he was perfectly infuriating.
I rolled myself out of bed and stumbled through my bedroom door, around the couch into the kitchenette, where I fumbled a pop tart out of the packet and into my toaster oven.
Next I went to open the window by my desk to let in some fresh air.
My A/C was on its last legs and until my next royalty payment arrived, maintenance on it had to wait.
I wasn’t broke but cash flow for authors was a well-known issue given the sporadic way publishing liked to distribute funds.
If things got too unbearable, it would be a job for my credit card.
‘Morning, darlin’,’ a husky voice called across to me as I pushed the swollen window up, the wood screeching.
‘Morning, Mr Biggins,’ I said automatically, not needing to check to see who it was.
Mr Biggins lived with his wife in the next building, which backed onto mine. He was always sitting by his open window, smoking cigarettes. Watching the alleyway, he said. Waiting to cop an eyeful of me in my underwear more like.
Once the window was open, I twiddled the blind so that he couldn’t see inside and went back to force my burnt pop tart down my throat.
I should’ve gone out to source some better sustenance, my stomach was roiling at the thought of more sweet things after all those cocktails, but I couldn’t face the glare of the sun yet.
Even with my blinds down, I was tempted to put on my sunglasses.
Blowing on my pop tart and still managing to burn my mouth, I collected my cell phone and notebook.
Beth: What happened?
OK, I scrolled back, blinking – I really needed to check what I’d written to her first.
Me: Hey, just bumped into Cartwright, Stephen Cartwright. He’s still an arrogant asshole, isn’t he?
Oh. Yeah. Now I remembered. I went to reply to her message:
Me: Any chance you’re free to Zoom?
She pinged me back almost immediately.
Beth: Gimme ten minutes and I’m there.
I forced myself into the shower quickly – it’s not like she could smell me, but it seemed only polite – and I’d just plugged my laptop in and sat down in front of it with a massive mug of coffee when she sent over the link.
‘Hello,’ Beth chimed once her image came into view on the screen, all big hazel eyes and shiny chestnut hair. I avoided looking in the top corner at myself. ‘How’s it going?’
‘Painfully.’ I couldn’t help but smile back at her as I rubbed my temples. ‘Don’t be offended but I’m gonna turn the volume down on you – I was drinking cocktails last night.’
‘Oh, don’t show off. I was serving the alcohol, rather than indulging in it. Pimm’s on the terrace for the Wimbledon festivities.’
‘Strawberries and cream, too?’
‘Strawberries and cream. Strawberries on Victoria sponge, strawberries in the Pimm’s. So many strawberries. I was slicing them for hours.’ She sniffed her fingers. ‘I don’t think that smell is ever going to go.’
‘There are worse things to smell of.’
‘True.’ She laughed. ‘So, you saw Stephen when you were out drinking these cocktails? Did he join you? What happened?’
‘Not much really. My text was probably a little over the top.’
‘You? Over the top? Never.’ She feigned a scandalised look and I poked my tongue out.
‘Yeah, yeah. We just said “hi” and I asked him if there were any hard feelings and he brushed it off like I was the one who should’ve been disappointed that we never hooked up.’
‘I see. He does have this way of bantering that leaves you wondering whether he really means it or not.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘I take it you’re not going to meet up for more reminiscing?’
‘That would be a no.’ I laughed and lifted my hair from the back of my neck. I’d left it wet after my shower, but it was already half dry and sticking to my skin.
‘That’s a shame. Nick should be doing some transatlantic flights next month. He was thinking of staying with Stephen for his stopover days.’
‘He should bring you. Surely you’d get discounted tickets as the pilot’s girlfriend?
And if you stay with Stephen it’d be free accommodation.
I could stomach his company if you all wanted to meet up.
’ I was dying for Beth to come over on vacation so we could go out for cocktails. Actually, maybe not cocktails.
She smiled, but it was dimmer than usual, and she shook her head. ‘I mentioned it a couple of times, but he didn’t seem keen.’
I tilted my head. ‘How come?’
‘He didn’t really say. Just sort of changed the subject. Maybe he wants to spend some quality time with Stephen – brotherly bonding or something.’ She pulled one foot up to rest on her chair, so she was hugging her knee.
‘He’s missing his brother that much? I didn’t think they were close. Especially after what went down with you all.’
‘They were just going through a hard time when you saw them at Christmas. But…is it weird? Shouldn’t he want me to come with him on a romantic city break or am I being completely self-absorbed and jealous to think that?’
‘No. You’re never those things, honey. Is everything good with you and Nick generally?’
‘Yeah, they’re good,’ she said automatically and then her eyes went all misty as she drifted off into a daydream. ‘They’re really good.’
‘Excuse me, ugh, can’t deal with the lovey-dovey nausea.’ I grabbed my wastebasket and brought it into view, pretending to be sick into it.
‘Elle.’ She glared at me, but I could tell a laugh was threatening.
‘I’m kidding. You know I love you guys. I take credit for you getting together.
’ I dropped the wire basket to the floor again.
‘So, you’re all happy and he just wants to spend some time with his brother.
I guess it’s not that weird – it’s just hard for me to imagine needing to schedule in more time with one of my brothers or sisters.
I can’t go to the grocery store without tripping over a sibling, y’know? ’
She laughed. ‘And to be fair, Nick did say that Stephen is trying to find someone while he’s on this secondment. Nick wanted to see if he could help him while he was staying with him.’
‘What, find someone, like, “the one”?’ I raised my eyebrows.
‘Oh God, no. Stephen? Are you kidding?’ She waved a hand as though swiping the crazy idea away. ‘Someone their mum left money to in her will.’
‘Don’t the lawyers usually deal with that sort of thing?’
‘I don’t know.’ She pressed her lips together for a second and I sensed she wasn’t telling me everything. ‘Stephen decided he wanted to deal with it, but he hasn’t found the guy yet.’
‘What details do they have for him, then? Just a name? How do they know he lives in New York?’
She pointed at me. ‘Ha, look at you – your eyes just lit up, Nancy Drew. One whiff of a mystery and you want to get straight on it.’
‘No. Not me. I have a book to write.’ I groaned as the realisation swam over me again. I’d forgotten it for ten minutes while we were chatting.
‘You get on with that book, then. I have to go set up the dining room for dinner service.’
‘OK, sweet cheeks. Let’s do this again soon.’
‘Definitely.’
We blew kisses to each other and exited the call. My apartment was quiet apart from the conspicuous humming of my refrigerator as it struggled to keep my food cool.
I knew what I needed to do. I had to go fetch my notebook and open my edit letter file and my outlining file and start thinking.
But when I did all that, the thoughts, they did not come. I drummed my fingers on the edge of my keyboard, then rifled through my drawers for my sticky notes. Maybe if I broke the problems down and dealt with them one by one…